Before the ADL and JIDF put a hit out on me, I am Jewish.  I know for a fact that I can’t play basketball.  You could make good money by wagering that I could not hold a dribble from one end of the court to the other completely unguarded.   If I told any team that I was not going to play on the Sabbath, the laughing wouldn’t stop until sundown of that next Friday.  Is this the Jewish curse?  If there were basketball courts in the time of Moses would we have been doomed to play hoops for 40 years rather than wander through the desert?  Would Rameses have said “not only will I not let your people go but you can’t drive to the hoop?”

There are many of the Jewish faith who play basketball.  Local Jewish Community Center and and B’nai Brith leagues are full of great “J Hopes”.  While I know we are certainly represented in European basketball the pickings are slim here in the USA.  Are there any Jews even currently playing in the NBA? (David Stern and Mark Cuban don’t count). I did some research and I was able to find the following Jews currently playing in the NBA:

Jordan Farmer of the Los Angeles Lakers.  Jordon played just over 20 minutes a game last year averaging 9.1 ppg.  Not to bad for a tribal representative.  He however will not be getting any  simchas for his 3 point shot or lackluster free throw percentage.  A little Kabbalah string serenity may help on the line or in the alternative an affair with Madonna. In fairness to the Jordan and the other chosen, there are noteworthy  Jewish NBA ballers going back through history.  It appears however that we are much more adept at owning sports franchises than playing for them.

You are not going to see too many conservative or orthodox Jews playing in professional sports.  If the guy sucks it’s no big deal but if he is any good and observant, he is not going to be that amenable to helping the team out from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday.  Moral of story.  If you are going to recruit a Jew, be sure he/she is a reform or have your designated gentile for play those big Sabbath games.

It is actually not all that uncommon to read about Jews missing big weekend games due to observance of the Sabbath.  Now and then there is controversy. You have the competing interests of the schools, fans, teammates all of which put an enormous amount of pressure on those with strong religious convictions.   There was a recent controversy involving a Jewish high school basketball team who refused to play  a championship game on the Sabbath. The Herzl/Rocky Mountain Hebrew Academy team ultimately never had to face the religous dilemma. They fell one win short of qualifying for the championship game. The governing body had however already ruled against them so they would have forfeited the game had they advanced.

I actually found just this subject discussed on the website ABOUT.COM. The question was whether Conservative Jews can participate in sports on the Sabbath. Here was the answer give by Rabbi Barry Dove Lerner:

“Thanks for writing. First, I encourage you to speak with your Rabbi about this matter and other matters of Jewish law.

Please understand that I share your own sense of the importance of sports. In high school and college I participated in sports and I am still - to the best of my knowledge - the only Rabbi ordained in North America to have held a national championship and record in a NCAA sport - archery! And I taught archery at Camps Ramah for seven years to literally hundreds of campers of all ages. I encourage the children to both get involved with their school teams AND to respect Jewish holidays and Shabbat. So I share your enthusiasm for the self-discipline, the physical fitness, etc. that sports participation can bring one..

However, please understand that Conservative Judaism as such will not invalidate Shabbat and Jewish law simply to facilitate our wants and desires. Family activities are wonderful, but I would start now to begin to offer alternatives before the real confrontation between parents and children might arise. Lastly, once again, turn to your Rabbi for advice and guidance on what is and what is not appropriate for your children within the community programs.”

Ah yes, that is the ticket to the future for all Jewish athletes. ARCHERY!  There is your answer.  Excel in archery and the Sabbath is yours!  You can pretty much put an arrow in something any day of the week so why sweat the weekend.  He talks about offering alternatives to your children. The next Jewish Pele? 

As The Good Book Says… ” Tis better to own to than to dribble”

I think I need to pull out my Fiddler On The Roof DVD to get some guidance from Tevye on this.

SO LET IT BE WRITTEN, SO LET IT BE DONE!

The NBA season is upon us.  I attended the Dallas Mavericks first exhibition game.  I then took an unusual step for me.  I roamed the  streets of Dallas checking out various nightclubs contemplating the  hope filled start of the Dallas Mavericks season.  I wandered aimlessly from bar to bar contemplating what I hoped was the start of a very successful season ending in a championship.  It struck me that there were many similarities between the social interactions I witnessed out on the singles scene and the great game of hoops. It made me realize that while life imitates art, basketball can imitate life.  If you don’t believe me put on your high-tops any weekend and step onto the hardwood court of Dallas or any big city nightlife where an entire basketball season is played out on any given night. There are no points for second place. The winners hit nothing but net while the losers head home alone and whine the next morning about how they gave their best.  The only way you can only get a “clear path” to the basket” view of all this is if you are living outside the three point line. I stared in awe as a baseline spectator of the same game all over again on a different court.  There different players, different rules and the winners and loser some times much more subtle than the fourth quarter sore or determining the defensive or offensive set. To watch this game I had to re-learn all I knew about basketball and how it applied to the nightlife scene. Once I had finished learning the rules and different offensive (sometimes very offensive!) and defensive sets, a night out in Dallas became more entertaining than watching the NBA Finals.

In order to see what I saw and know what I know you have to have a basic understanding of basketball “terminology” as it applies to  both the NBA and the nightclub scene.  Once you have this understanding you will never look at a bar or nightclub in the same light. Here are some of the terms you need to understand.  You can find the actual NBA definitions for many of these terms here.   These  are in no particular order:

“Palming“  The act of adjusting your crotch in a nightclub right in front of your buddy/wingman and the hot girl you are talking to.  This is a change in possession foul and you must now transfer possession of the hot girl to your buddy.

“Slam-dunk“  The last drunk girl in the bar at 2 am

“Full Court Press “  Within fifteen minutes of meeting a girl in a bar you have given her your phone number, certified financial statement, recent HIV test, two round trip tickets to Vegas for the next day. You even have flowers sent to the girl while still in the bar.

“Flagrant Foul“  At the very moment the hottest girl in the bar is handing you her telephone number, your best buddy picks his nose.  This is a two shot foul. You keep the ball. Your buddy must buy two shots of any drink you choose for you and any girl you want the rest of the night.

“Double-Double“  You figure it out…

“Triple Double“   U DA MAN!

Clear Path Foul:   You picked up the hottest girl in the club.  She has told you how much she wants you.  You are on your way back to your place.  She pukes all over your car.

“Fast Break“  You have not even valeted the car yet and your buddy is coming out of the nightclub, hot girl in hand.

“Traveling”    You live in Dallas. She lives in Fort Worth.  This is a change in possession foul if your buddy doesn’t care where she lives.

24 Second Violation:    You meet a hot girl.  You spend the first 25 seconds talking about your millions in the bank,  new  Maserati, listing on the Forbes 400 and your Gulfstream while your 3 roommates look on. The is also known as a “30k Millionaire Violation”   It is a change in possession violation to any guy in the bar that actually owns a Maserati or Gulfstream.

“Double Dribble“  You forget to tie your shoes.  Just as you are about to hand your girl her drink, you trip and spill both drinks on her. This is a change in possession foul as your buddy calls you a clumsy idiot stating that he would never be so stupid.  She agrees and goes home with him.

“Back Court Violation“  Your posse is in the club. You have drink in hand when you realize your driver was denied entrance because he wore tennis shoes.

“Alley Oop“   Your buddy hands off to you that last drunk girl in the bar at 2 am.  You are hoping to convert to a “slam dunk”.

“Moving Screen“  Your buddy is not getting near that girl.  She is going home with you!

“Blocking Foul“ Right when the hottest girl in the club is handing you’re her phone number and your buddy comes up and says he found your wedding ring on the floor.

“Offensive Foul“   You had Italian for dinner. Your about to kiss your girl good night on the cheek (because you’re a gentlemen) when you burp and a piece of spaghetti lands on her cheek.  This is a change of possession foul.  She does not care who gets the ball as along as its not you.

“Loose Ball Foul“   No clean underwear and an unknown hole tear in your pants.

“Technical Foul”   She told you she was 21 when you bought her a drink.  This is a ejection from game foul and a minimum one game suspension to be spent in a 4 by 6 with bars.

“Offensive Rebound“   It is not your fault your buddy cant close.

“Tip Off”     You spy something suspiciously looking like an Adam’s Apple on the hot “girl” you are talking to.

“Two Minute Warning”   Its last call. You struck out.  Your driver has left and you have no cab fare.

You now have the rules you need to step into the hoops arena of Dallas Nightlife  or any big city club scee where unlike the NBA, every weekend brings a new season..

The game of Data Pinball is the hottest game in the world.  Hundreds of millions internet users are playing at any given moment.  It is a high-risk game. Millions of dollars are made and lost at the touch of a key.  Information flipped into cyberspace being batted back and forth sometimes coming right back to the person who initially started the game.  Sometimes looking nothing like what was sent.  Sometimes with unwanted consequences.

A piece of data put into play will at first flow on its own inertia to its closest intended point.  After that watch out!   It enters the “data pinball zone”.  When it is “pinball flippered” the sender intends it to reach a certain target but just like in real pinball, it often does not get there or hits several bumbers before it does. Each bumper sending it off in an unexpected direction.  When data is “bumpered”  the sender has no idea where it is going or where it will end up.  Each time data hits a “bumper” it is sent off in a new direction with new force and inertia.  Theoretically this will go on as long as a data recipient bumpers or flips it again in a whole different direction. The data pinball is sent off to hit other bumpers, setting off all new bells and whistles, racking up new data pinball points for its new owner.

You see it every day on just about every mainstream and tabloid news site.  Nothing stays a secret.  Whether it is emails, photos, text messages etc.  People receive unwanted attention as a direct result of not thinking before they hit send on their email, text message or voicemail rant.   Just ask  Alec Baldwin.  His data was transmitted through the good old old telephone and ended up pinballing all over the world. His voicemail visitation rant to his daughter will be on YouTube until YouTube is no more or hell freezes over.  Embarrassment is the least of the damage.  Careers and marriages are ended.   What is ironic is that the data itself never changes form but what finally makes it into the mainstream depending on where it ‘bounces” rarely conveys the original message.

The latest version of the game has ensnared Dallas Mavericks star forward Josh Howard as well the racists, bigots and hate mongers who decided to chime in on the controversy.   Josh joined Alec in the data pinball ranks with his impromptu cell phone video commentary on the National Anthem appeared on YouTube.  Like Alec’s voicemail rant,  Josh’s video will unfortunately be preserved there and other social sites for time  immemorial.  After Mark  Cuban made a public statement about how he had handled the situation every racist and hate filled idiot with a computer pulled back the data pinball plunger and let the data fly in the form opinionated hate and racist email tirades sent to Mark.  Little did they know that Mark would jump in on the game. He hit those pinball flippers for all they were worth and posted many of the emails on his blog, email addresses included.  He fired those same emails right back out into the bumper filled blogosphere to be batted around all over the world by anyone else who wanted to jump into the game.  Who knows where those emails containing admissions of closet racism and other forms of hatred will end up.  Maybe with the sender’s neighbors.  Maybe at his or her place of employment.  Maybe with his or her African-American next door neighbor whose children play with theirs.  Mark later removed the post and explained why he removed it and had decided to expose the people behind them.  He stated:

“I also knew that because of the email addresses being included, they would be receiving the same level of hate, ignorance and judgment that Josh and I had. They would get the same type of ignorant email threats of “I wont do business with your company again”, from people who have never done business with their company. The “I’m going to email your boss and all your sponsors” threats, because that’s the way people try to shout down other people these days.”

No explanation was  necessary.  Mark did the right thing in posting them. I would have left them up  What I found  amazing in exploring various blogs commenting on the subject is that many people actually think that when they send an unsolicited email to someone with whom they have no legal relationship or even know at all, they have some legal or other god given right to privacy in what they sent.  No wonder people make email idiots of themselves.

Good for Mark in exposing hate, racist idiocy and hypocrisy when given the opportunity.  It is my hope that everyone of those emails is “pinballed” to an ultimate destination where it will end up having a  profound effect on the original sender.

Ah yes.  The game of data pinball.  Where’s my quarter?

I attended my niece’s 2nd party party yesterday.  When I went over to my brother’s  home and they had the Olympics on.  Other than newscasts this was the first live Olympics coverage I had seen since the games began.  I was on a self imposed boycott of Olympics coverage.  I had begun to lose interest in the Olympics every since the “Dream Team” won their  basketball gold in the 1992 games.   The problem is that I am stuck in the 80’s.  I remember sitting in the television room of my dormitory at Penn. State University in 1980. I was cheering wildly as the undermanned, unknown and all amateur United States Hockey Team convinced me that miracles do happen.  At the time I did not realize that at least from a United States standpoint, the age of Olympic miracles would soon be coming to an end.  In 1989 the Olympic committee voted to allow professionals to compete.  Interestingly the United States voted against it.  That was the day at least for me that the Olympics stood still.

I have no idea whether the Winter Olympics were all about money and ratings in 1980.  I was to young and naive to care. I know they became a slave to politics later that same year.  I was even younger and more innocent in 1972 when the  world was riveted to their televisions watching the United States men’s basketball team take on the more experienced Soviet team. They took the Soviets to the wire in a wild controversial loss that almost caused the breakout of war.   What I do know is that after 1989  I began to  see professional athletes playing for countries they have not lived in for years. I began to watch athletes who make millions playing for pay turning the Olympics into the NBA/Europe summer league or the NHL/Europe Winter League while the “miracle makers” of the future sit at home and watch along with me.  I now put in my dvd of the 1980 Olympic Hockey team and reassure myself that at one time I was young enough to be deluded that it was about miracles and the hope that we could stick it to the Russians and other countries who had been using their professionals all along. I never cared that they were doing that because it meant so much more when we beat them. Do those rivalries even exist anymore?   Most people old enough to have watched the Winter Games in 1980 can recite the coach and many of the players on the 1980 hockey team.  How many people can name the coach and players on the last mens basketball  gold medal team in 1996?  Probably not as many who can name the Olympic Bomber.

There is no question that stories such as Michael Phelps are great Olympic feel good stories that makes us all feel patriotic although it is a different type of patriotic feel than the battle against the evil Soviet empire in 1980. Never underestimate the power of a good “cold war” to bring the masses together.  There are still sports in the Olympics that have not been distorted by million dollar mansions and Mazarattis. I hear Donald Trump has purchased the naming rights to the next Summer Olympics.