Ballers

Brent and I try to take advantage of the multitude of cultural offerings around us. We don't want to leave Boston someday and look back at how we stayed home a lot watching movies from our Netflix queue. Luckily for me, Brent is willing to go along with pretty much anything I want to try. Yesterday I convinced him to go to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA where the game was invented. Not that it took a lot of convincing :). They had two exhibits: one on Michael Jordan (recently inducted) and one on Andrew Bernstein who is a sports photographer.

The pleasant surprise of the day was how much fun Liesel had. All of the artifacts were safely protected behind thick glass so she was free to run around. We'd dressed her in a pink and brown track suit with her little pink Nikes and everyone (and I do mean EVERYONE) stopped to admire her. We went early enough in the day so there were no crowds or lines. One section was like an arcade with a hoop shooting game, virtual basketball game and rebound game among others. There were booths where you could listen to the announcers make calls and then try doing it on your own and listen to it played back to you. It's MUCH harder than you'd think! They covered the players, teams, coaches, even referees and different play strategies. I liked the display that illustrates how the game has evolved from radio to television to internet (think brackets). Even if you're not all that into basketball, it draws you in!

Growing up in Iowa City during Michael Jordan's reign really soured me to "Bulls" fans because 1- I prefer college to professional and 2- I found Bulls fans to be the quintessential fair-weather Johnsons. I never liked Dennis Rodman and once heard Scottie Pippin was seen charging kids for his autograph at a mall in Chicago. No offense to all you Bulls fans out there... I'm absolutely sure none of you all were fair-weather Johnsons and loved the Bulls no matter what and not just because they always won and Jordan had the best record in the NBA. I'm sure you were all fans before everyone else :). In fact, I'm sure you're all STILL fans and never miss a game, right? For the record, Brent out and out admits he was never a Bulls fan, he was always simply a Michael Jordan fan. Big difference!

Anyway, cynical as I was, I found the exhibit on Michael Jordan was really well done. Brent devoured the plaques of information while I admired the bling of his championship rings (his third is my favorite). Apparently Nike wasn't what it is today when he signed with them and even he said he didn't know how good he would be. That's definitely what I'd call a symbiotic relationship! They displayed all the iterations of his Air Jordans including the first ones which were outlawed by the NBA because they were red and black.

The photographs by Bernstein were indeed amazing. They displayed not only the athleticism of the game, but the emotion as well. My favorite was one of Bird and Johnson. It says to me that even for them, in the end it was just a game they both loved to play. I didn't know they'd played against each other in college and between the two of them they took the sport to a whole new level in the 80's.

On the lowest level of the museum is (of course) a basketball court. Brent grabbed a ball and showed me a spectacular layup and dunk. Then he admitted the hoop wasn't regulation height. To make up for my disappointment, he did a backwards dunk as well. Every Tuesday night Brent goes over to the ward to play basketball but for some reason in our 3 years of marriage I have NEVER seen him play. Weird? I also learned Brent can "palm" a ball which I guess never quite came up in conversation. Just in case you're wondering, neither Liesel nor I can. On the court there was a replica of the peach basket used in the original game and Brent made an easy shot into that as well. Personally I think a lot of the essence of the game is lost when there's no swish.

The only drawback is that we forgot to charge our camera so all the photos are from my phone. I think as sports museums go, this one really got it right. It was kid-friendly and incredibly interactive which made it all the more fun. The exhibits were designed to give you as much or as little information as you wanted. Hopefully we can do this one again! We missed our in-laws Matthew and Lisa who we know would have really appreciated it. Maybe next time?