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Meaning this … Many thanks to videographer David Albright for the great footage. Here’s the same play (as seen on TV), which I love for Dick Fain’s jubilant play-by-play. He’s seen Sue Bird do this so many times. Clearly, it never gets old. Click for high-res photo

Meaning this …

Many thanks to videographer David Albright for the great footage.

Here’s the same play (as seen on TV), which I love for Dick Fain’s jubilant play-by-play. He’s seen Sue Bird do this so many times. Clearly, it never gets old.

Seattle Times sportswriter Jayda Evans swats the idea of lowering the rim in women's basketball

I posted a comment about this on seattletimes.com. The comment should have been a blog post. So here it is …

A KUOW host asked Sue Bird and Swin Cash about this over the summer. They politely explained why they wouldn’t want a lower rim. Here’s how Sue put it:

“I watch the NBA just as much as the next person and it is exciting, the way they play and what they do. But that’s what makes us different: We’re not the NBA. The way we play, the style that we play, kind of using our fundamentals because we have to, that’s what makes fans who enjoy the WNBA enjoy it. We’re not trying to be like the men. We are who we are and we play the way we play …”

Thinking about all this after that interview and reflecting on where the game of basketball started and where it’s ended up, it hit me that raising the rim for men makes more sense than lowering it for women. I say this as a guy who grew up wanting to “Be Like Mike,” as a guy who used to show up at playgrounds with high-school friends and commandeer the little-kid hoops just to get a taste of what it would feel like to juke a defender, drive the lane, and throw down a dunk.

The same week I heard KUOW’s Bird/Cash interview, I came across a sentence that seemed to absolutely nail what increased size and athleticism have done to the NBA. It’s from Hemingway. He was writing about Spanish bullfight crowds that had come to prize showboating over well-rounded skill. He mourned “the decay of a complete art through a magnification of certain of its aspects.” That’s kind of a mouthful of a phrase, but I see women’s basketball as “a complete art” that would “decay” if a Sue Bird buzzer-beater from the elbow got replaced by a Lauren Jackson double-clutch dunk on a little-kid hoop.

Let’s hope FIBA sobers up and that the WNBA never goes anywhere near this lousy idea.

While not the best I shot during the Friday night parade and rally to celebrate the Seattle Storm’s WNBA championship, this photo is nonetheless my favorite. A great photo should speak for itself; this one doesn’t. The photo can’t speak up and say that the redhead in the center was the 2010 league MVP and the MVP of the finals and very arguably better than any woman who plays basketball anywhere on the planet. The photo can’t say that she is shy or that the answers she gives in post-game interviews tend to be so sly and concise as to constitute acts of sabotage against the rituals of televised sports entertainment or that despite that sabotage she is often the player who ends up with cameras aimed her way and microphones in her face. So the photo is mute on the matter of why there is something rare and relaxed and right and real about getting to see Lauren Jackson as just another face in the crowd, looking up at the arena screen to watch live video from the cameras gathered around a less-heralded teammate. Some of the too-many photos I shot are here and (hopefully) embedded below. Click here and scroll down for my handful of other posts about the Storm. The earliest one — posted on 8/30/09 — came after a game in which Sue Bird knocked down a three-pointer with 19.3 seconds left and sent the Jackson-less Storm to the first of the two overtimes they would need to overcome the Atlanta Dream. In that post, I suggested ever so gently that more people should come out and watch the Storm play. Judging by the screaming thousands at Friday’s rally, fewer people need persuading these days. That’s terrific. Click for high-res photo

While not the best I shot during the Friday night parade and rally to celebrate the Seattle Storm’s WNBA championship, this photo is nonetheless my favorite.

A great photo should speak for itself; this one doesn’t. The photo can’t speak up and say that the redhead in the center was the 2010 league MVP and the MVP of the finals and very arguably better than any woman who plays basketball anywhere on the planet. The photo can’t say that she is shy or that the answers she gives in post-game interviews tend to be so sly and concise as to constitute acts of sabotage against the rituals of televised sports entertainment or that despite that sabotage she is often the player who ends up with cameras aimed her way and microphones in her face.

So the photo is mute on the matter of why there is something rare and relaxed and right and real about getting to see Lauren Jackson as just another face in the crowd, looking up at the arena screen to watch live video from the cameras gathered around a less-heralded teammate.

Some of the too-many photos I shot are here and (hopefully) embedded below.

Click here and scroll down for my handful of other posts about the Storm. The earliest one — posted on 8/30/09 — came after a game in which Sue Bird knocked down a three-pointer with 19.3 seconds left and sent the Jackson-less Storm to the first of the two overtimes they would need to overcome the Atlanta Dream. In that post, I suggested ever so gently that more people should come out and watch the Storm play. Judging by the screaming thousands at Friday’s rally, fewer people need persuading these days. That’s terrific.

The cellphone camera I pointed at a bar’s TV screen somehow yielded the sort of photo I would have shot with my real camera if I’d been there in Phoenix on Sunday to trail Sue Bird as she strode past a blur of fans whose afternoon she’d spoiled with her game-winning three. Clearly, the time has come to abandon my Nikon and real-life experience in favor of a cell and a TV. Click for high-res photo

The cellphone camera I pointed at a bar’s TV screen somehow yielded the sort of photo I would have shot with my real camera if I’d been there in Phoenix on Sunday to trail Sue Bird as she strode past a blur of fans whose afternoon she’d spoiled with her game-winning three. Clearly, the time has come to abandon my Nikon and real-life experience in favor of a cell and a TV.

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Congratulations to our Seattle Storm for Sunday’s stunning comeback to sweep Phoenix and earn a spot in the WNBA finals. After trailing by as much as 19, they closed the game with a 15-0 run and sealed it thanks to Sue Bird’s three-pointer with 2.8 seconds left. The woman is so clutch. As good as it was to watch on TV, I wish I’d been listening to the radio. There was a definite The-Giants-win-the-pennant! jubilation to Dick Fain’s play-by-play of the game’s last crucial possessions. I love listening to him.

Screw the Seattle Times. Honestly. I’ve written and rewritten this first paragraph several times, typing tediously on a phone. No version, prior to this, has used the word “screw” or anything like it. I’ve tried instead to stress positives: that the WNBA’s Seattle Storm locked down a perfect 17-0 home record last night, that I got to see them do it, that 9,685 others got to see them do it too, that we yelled our faces off and left happy. The link between all that goodness and “Screw the Seattle Times” is that the Storm and their home perfection are on page 3 of the Times’ Sunday sports section, bumped from the first page by a story on “Why Seattle’s three major sports teams fell apart” and an NFL pre-season story that literally begins with the words “The Seahawks lost a meaningless game Saturday night at Qwest Field.” The phrase clanking around my head just now is spoken by an aggrieved character in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest: “a distinct flavor of minor-sport prejudice about this whole thing.” Click for high-res photo

Screw the Seattle Times. Honestly. I’ve written and rewritten this first paragraph several times, typing tediously on a phone. No version, prior to this, has used the word “screw” or anything like it. I’ve tried instead to stress positives: that the WNBA’s Seattle Storm locked down a perfect 17-0 home record last night, that I got to see them do it, that 9,685 others got to see them do it too, that we yelled our faces off and left happy. The link between all that goodness and “Screw the Seattle Times” is that the Storm and their home perfection are on page 3 of the Times’ Sunday sports section, bumped from the first page by a story on “Why Seattle’s three major sports teams fell apart” and an NFL pre-season story that literally begins with the words “The Seahawks lost a meaningless game Saturday night at Qwest Field.”

The phrase clanking around my head just now is spoken by an aggrieved character in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest: “a distinct flavor of minor-sport prejudice about this whole thing.”

From Tuesday night’s Seattle Storm victory, athletes in motion.

3 more motion-blurred photos from last Sunday’s Seattle Storm game

A full week after I shot this, I finally hooked up my camera to my computer. It shows Ashley Walker (44) and Aja Parham (21) of the Seattle Storm streaking down the court during a preseason game against the Phoenix Mercury. I love using slow shutter speeds and panning my camera to photograph athletes in motion. Maybe it constitutes some kind of a rut. I don’t care. The Storm open their regular season May 16 at Key Arena. These games can be extraordinarily intense. Try going. Or don’t. I don’t want to be pushy, but here’s a link for tickets. Click for high-res photo

A full week after I shot this, I finally hooked up my camera to my computer. It shows Ashley Walker (44) and Aja Parham (21) of the Seattle Storm streaking down the court during a preseason game against the Phoenix Mercury.

I love using slow shutter speeds and panning my camera to photograph athletes in motion. Maybe it constitutes some kind of a rut. I don’t care.

The Storm open their regular season May 16 at Key Arena. These games can be extraordinarily intense. Try going. Or don’t. I don’t want to be pushy, but here’s a link for tickets.

There’s a special strain of obnoxiousness that springs from a mistaken belief that goes something like this: What I love is what everyone will love. I’m mindful of that. So I will not be telling you that everyone within driving distance of Seattle should have canceled their Saturday night plans, filled the empty seats inside Key Arena, and shared in the shrieking jubilation that surged through us when Sue Bird knocked down a three-pointer with 19.3 seconds left, sending the Seattle Storm to the first of two overtimes they would need to overcome the Atlanta Dream. No, I specifically will not be telling you that everyone should have been there with us. Because people like different things, and Seattle is a fine place to explore those different things. Maybe, by skipping the Storm’s 91-84 win, you got to see the Maldives play the last of their three sold-out shows at the Tractor. If so, I bet that was great. Or maybe tonight was a night that your steadfastness was rewarded and you got to be at Safeco Field to see the third-place Seattle Mariners win 8 to 4 against a Kansas City team that has now lost 80 of its 129 games this season. If so, that may have been exactly the right way to spend your Saturday night. Because when your beloved Mariners are nine games out of first place in the AL West, there’s probably a certain satisfaction that comes from watching them score as many runs during the first inning as the other team will score all night. If that’s your thing, if that’s exactly what you needed, I hope you were at Safeco. But maybe you had a different kind of night here in Seattle. Maybe, as a friend of mine did a couple of weeks ago, you went out to a bar in Fremont with a friend, hoping to unwind and talk the evening away. And maybe instead, as my friend did, you spent your time fending off horny guys — sincerely horny guys, who may possibly have meant well, but were ultimately so relentless that you and your friend experimented with impersonating lesbians in a happy, committed, staid relationship. And maybe, as happened with my friend, the undaunted guys then asked you and your ersatz lesbian partner if you “ever bring boy toys home.” If that was your evening, I humbly submit that maybe you and your friend should have skipped the bar, stayed the hell out of Fremont on a Saturday night, and sipped your beers inside Key Arena with all 9,089 of us who got to see the Storm — minus injured superstar forward Lauren Jackson — persevere through two overtimes and find a way to win. I say all this not as a diehard Storm fan, not as some politically correct martyr who’s willing to sit through a lackluster sporting event so that the WNBA can survive and my daughter and all the daughters of America can have a league of their own to play in when they grow up. No. I go to these games because I like them, because my wife likes them, because our kids like them, because two of our best friends like them. I also go to these games because whatever gender hangups might have prevented me from enjoying a WNBA game disappeared on a basketball court at UC Berkeley in the 1990s when I played in a pickup game against some players from the Cal women’s basketball team. Few — and possibly none — of those players went on to play pro ball. But they destroyed me out there that day. They were quicker than me. They were stronger than me. Vastly so. So while I realize that I’m not watching the literal second coming of my childhood idol Michael Jordan out there on the Key Arena hardwood, I am clear on the fact that I am seeing world-class athletes compel their bodies to do amazing things. It’s a joy — even on nights that aren’t as suspenseful as this one. And this joy is a surprise to me. Because after a childhood and early adulthood of rabid, sputtering fandom, I’d given up on spectator sports, decided — basically in disgust after taking Prof. Harry Edwards’course on the sociology of sports — that I didn’t want to be a fan anymore, didn’t want to be that guy hyperventilating his way through the player introductions at Chicago Stadium, didn’t want to be that guy swearing at Dennis Rodman and Bill Laimbeer through a TV screen. Rodman and Laimbeer bring us to an interesting linkup here, a possible connection between hatred and tonight’s empty seats at Key Arena. My hatred for Rodman and Laimbeer — actual malevolent, wish-you-would-just-shut-up-and-die hatred — so animated my experience of being a Chicago Bulls fan at a particular moment that I am inclined to actually put some stock in a possibly crackpot assertion that writer Jason Zengerle disseminates in the September issue of The Atlantic. Zengerle’s piece — “The Bad Girl of Women’s Soccer” — is about goalie Hope Solo and the prospects for the latest attempt to sustain a professional women’s soccer league in America. Here’s the passage I marked in our copy of the magazine: But Solo’s polarizing persona is what makes her so crucial to the new league’s fortunes. The last professional women’s soccer league in the U.S., the Women’s United Soccer Association, lasted only three seasons—largely because it lacked edge. “The WUSA sort of had a focus on preteen, ponytailed girls who aspired to play soccer someday, and so their messaging was around ‘cause marketing’: ‘This league is something girls deserve to have, and as a fan you ought to support this,’” says Tonya Antonucci, a former Yahoo executive and the new league’s commissioner. “We’re presenting an environment that’s not about babysitting kids but is an opportunity to watch the best and be entertained by the best.” In most professional sports, a large measure of that entertainment typically comes from booing, or at least rooting against, a villainous athlete. That last sentence just grates on me: “In most professional sports, a large measure of that entertainment typically comes from booing, or at least rooting against, a villainous athlete.” It probably grates on me because I can’t refute it. Not with any certainty. So I find myself sitting here hating the idea that a shortage of hatred may one day doom the Storm as a financially viable sports franchise, hating the idea that double the number of people might have seen tonight’s truly great game if only Storm fans could be more like I used to be, if only we could show our love of the game by hating more of the people who play it. The last home game before the playoffs is Thursday, September 10, at 7 p.m. when the Storm will face the scary-good Diana Taurasi of the Phoenix Mercury. I don’t pretend to know what you like, but you should at least think about being there. For tickets through Ticketmaster, click here. Or visit the Seattle Storm web site by clicking here. UPDATE (8/30/09): If you’re willing to sit through a 30-second ad first, the WNBA has posted this highlight video of the game, including clips of the many strong plays that added up to Tanisha Wright’s 25-point performance. Wright (pictured dribbling in my photo at the top of this post) just rocked last night. Click for high-res photo

There’s a special strain of obnoxiousness that springs from a mistaken belief that goes something like this: What I love is what everyone will love.

I’m mindful of that. So I will not be telling you that everyone within driving distance of Seattle should have canceled their Saturday night plans, filled the empty seats inside Key Arena, and shared in the shrieking jubilation that surged through us when Sue Bird knocked down a three-pointer with 19.3 seconds left, sending the Seattle Storm to the first of two overtimes they would need to overcome the Atlanta Dream.

No, I specifically will not be telling you that everyone should have been there with us. Because people like different things, and Seattle is a fine place to explore those different things.

Maybe, by skipping the Storm’s 91-84 win, you got to see the Maldives play the last of their three sold-out shows at the Tractor. If so, I bet that was great.

Or maybe tonight was a night that your steadfastness was rewarded and you got to be at Safeco Field to see the third-place Seattle Mariners win 8 to 4 against a Kansas City team that has now lost 80 of its 129 games this season. If so, that may have been exactly the right way to spend your Saturday night. Because when your beloved Mariners are nine games out of first place in the AL West, there’s probably a certain satisfaction that comes from watching them score as many runs during the first inning as the other team will score all night. If that’s your thing, if that’s exactly what you needed, I hope you were at Safeco.

But maybe you had a different kind of night here in Seattle. Maybe, as a friend of mine did a couple of weeks ago, you went out to a bar in Fremont with a friend, hoping to unwind and talk the evening away. And maybe instead, as my friend did, you spent your time fending off horny guys — sincerely horny guys, who may possibly have meant well, but were ultimately so relentless that you and your friend experimented with impersonating lesbians in a happy, committed, staid relationship. And maybe, as happened with my friend, the undaunted guys then asked you and your ersatz lesbian partner if you “ever bring boy toys home.”

If that was your evening, I humbly submit that maybe you and your friend should have skipped the bar, stayed the hell out of Fremont on a Saturday night, and sipped your beers inside Key Arena with all 9,089 of us who got to see the Storm — minus injured superstar forward Lauren Jackson — persevere through two overtimes and find a way to win.

I say all this not as a diehard Storm fan, not as some politically correct martyr who’s willing to sit through a lackluster sporting event so that the WNBA can survive and my daughter and all the daughters of America can have a league of their own to play in when they grow up. No. I go to these games because I like them, because my wife likes them, because our kids like them, because two of our best friends like them. I also go to these games because whatever gender hangups might have prevented me from enjoying a WNBA game disappeared on a basketball court at UC Berkeley in the 1990s when I played in a pickup game against some players from the Cal women’s basketball team. Few — and possibly none — of those players went on to play pro ball. But they destroyed me out there that day. They were quicker than me. They were stronger than me. Vastly so.

So while I realize that I’m not watching the literal second coming of my childhood idol Michael Jordan out there on the Key Arena hardwood, I am clear on the fact that I am seeing world-class athletes compel their bodies to do amazing things. It’s a joy — even on nights that aren’t as suspenseful as this one. And this joy is a surprise to me. Because after a childhood and early adulthood of rabid, sputtering fandom, I’d given up on spectator sports, decided — basically in disgust after taking Prof. Harry Edwards’course on the sociology of sports — that I didn’t want to be a fan anymore, didn’t want to be that guy hyperventilating his way through the player introductions at Chicago Stadium, didn’t want to be that guy swearing at Dennis Rodman and Bill Laimbeer through a TV screen.

Rodman and Laimbeer bring us to an interesting linkup here, a possible connection between hatred and tonight’s empty seats at Key Arena. My hatred for Rodman and Laimbeer — actual malevolent, wish-you-would-just-shut-up-and-die hatred — so animated my experience of being a Chicago Bulls fan at a particular moment that I am inclined to actually put some stock in a possibly crackpot assertion that writer Jason Zengerle disseminates in the September issue of The Atlantic. Zengerle’s piece — “The Bad Girl of Women’s Soccer” — is about goalie Hope Solo and the prospects for the latest attempt to sustain a professional women’s soccer league in America. Here’s the passage I marked in our copy of the magazine:

But Solo’s polarizing persona is what makes her so crucial to the new league’s fortunes. The last professional women’s soccer league in the U.S., the Women’s United Soccer Association, lasted only three seasons—largely because it lacked edge. “The WUSA sort of had a focus on preteen, ponytailed girls who aspired to play soccer someday, and so their messaging was around ‘cause marketing’: ‘This league is something girls deserve to have, and as a fan you ought to support this,’” says Tonya Antonucci, a former Yahoo executive and the new league’s commissioner. “We’re presenting an environment that’s not about babysitting kids but is an opportunity to watch the best and be entertained by the best.”

In most professional sports, a large measure of that entertainment typically comes from booing, or at least rooting against, a villainous athlete.

That last sentence just grates on me: “In most professional sports, a large measure of that entertainment typically comes from booing, or at least rooting against, a villainous athlete.” It probably grates on me because I can’t refute it. Not with any certainty.

So I find myself sitting here hating the idea that a shortage of hatred may one day doom the Storm as a financially viable sports franchise, hating the idea that double the number of people might have seen tonight’s truly great game if only Storm fans could be more like I used to be, if only we could show our love of the game by hating more of the people who play it.

The last home game before the playoffs is Thursday, September 10, at 7 p.m. when the Storm will face the scary-good Diana Taurasi of the Phoenix Mercury. I don’t pretend to know what you like, but you should at least think about being there. For tickets through Ticketmaster, click here. Or visit the Seattle Storm web site by clicking here.

UPDATE (8/30/09): If you’re willing to sit through a 30-second ad first, the WNBA has posted this highlight video of the game, including clips of the many strong plays that added up to Tanisha Wright’s 25-point performance. Wright (pictured dribbling in my photo at the top of this post) just rocked last night.