The Ride Home
It is 7:15. Two hours before tip off. Game 5 is looming. Correction. Critical Game 5 is looming. If the Piston's can continue their home court domination, if they can follow up game three and four's total humiliation, they will be on the cusp of repeating as champions.
We are leaving Marky's, in Toronto. We are four hours away from home. And if you can add, it means we won't be home until after 11. Which would put us late in the third quarter. Then again, if you factor in driving with kids, and stopping and the "Marky's Need To Stop a Few Extra Times on the Way Home" factor, we may not get home until after midnight. After the game ends.
My oldest has been watching as much as he can from these playoffs. He spends time shooting baskets and dreaming of Chauncey and Tayshaun and the Wallaces and of course, Rip. He fires shots from all over the court, and of course, in his mind, always hits the big shot. I can see him shooting, and when I watch him, I am also watching myself as Isaiah and Joe and Bill and Vinnie and the rest of the Bad Boys. It is so identical, it is scary sometimes. Or maybe not idnetical, but parallel.
He is distraught about the drive home. Maybe we can stop in a bar or hotel or something at nine and watch the game, he suggests. He is ten years too young to do this, and I am ten years too old. But what if it was just the two of us in the car. What if my wife and younger two children did not come with us to Toronto. Would we pull over in London or Chatham or one of those towns that dot the 401 and watch the end of the game? It is purely hypothetical, because his mother and siblings are in the car.
Does he know I asked the same question twenty years earlier, when we had a flight from Miami to Detroit that took off at the same time the Super Bowl kicked off.
We drive and it gets dark and soon everyone is sleeping. Even my oldest. Sitting through a game on a hot day and walking through Downtown and taking off shoes and runnign through the fountain near the stadium is draining.
I listen to the game us I watch the Kilometers pass, frequently searching through the channels to find a good feed of the game. Reception is terrible, and there are long stetches of the game that I cannot hear.
The drive is as long as I fear, and finally, a little after midnight, we get to Windsor. The game is in overtime now, and my oldest has woken up and is listening attentively to the game. Every shot, every possession matters; it can mean a season of heroics, or one that will soon be forgotten. Billups is playinig out of his mind, but Robert Horry can't miss a shot either, and as we get to the tunnel that connects Canada to the United States, Horry has just hit the shot to put the Spurs up by one with 5.8 seconds left on the clock.
Pistons Ball.
The season may come down to this moment.
And there is no reception underneath the Detroit River.
Should I speed through the tunnel, and risk missing the play, or pull off to the side and listen to the play. In the NBA, 5.8 seconds is an eternity.
And I am exhausted. I do not want this day to go on for one extra minute. I pass the utrnoff to the duty free shop, and speed through the tunnel. Reception fades, and my oldest asks me to turn the volume up. We can't I tell him. We can't listen to the game inside the tunnel.
He is horrified, and as we exit the tunnel, there is a commercial on. The game is over we think, but what happened.
George Blaha's booming voice comes back on the air. There are still 5.8 seconds left. We didn't miss anything.
This is a sign, I think, a sign that we were not meant to miss the Pistons take a giant step forward in their quest for a championship.
The play starts. Rip gets the ball. He puts up a shot. The game winner on the games biggest stage, a shot he has fantasized about his entire life.
And it misses.
We are leaving Marky's, in Toronto. We are four hours away from home. And if you can add, it means we won't be home until after 11. Which would put us late in the third quarter. Then again, if you factor in driving with kids, and stopping and the "Marky's Need To Stop a Few Extra Times on the Way Home" factor, we may not get home until after midnight. After the game ends.
My oldest has been watching as much as he can from these playoffs. He spends time shooting baskets and dreaming of Chauncey and Tayshaun and the Wallaces and of course, Rip. He fires shots from all over the court, and of course, in his mind, always hits the big shot. I can see him shooting, and when I watch him, I am also watching myself as Isaiah and Joe and Bill and Vinnie and the rest of the Bad Boys. It is so identical, it is scary sometimes. Or maybe not idnetical, but parallel.
He is distraught about the drive home. Maybe we can stop in a bar or hotel or something at nine and watch the game, he suggests. He is ten years too young to do this, and I am ten years too old. But what if it was just the two of us in the car. What if my wife and younger two children did not come with us to Toronto. Would we pull over in London or Chatham or one of those towns that dot the 401 and watch the end of the game? It is purely hypothetical, because his mother and siblings are in the car.
Does he know I asked the same question twenty years earlier, when we had a flight from Miami to Detroit that took off at the same time the Super Bowl kicked off.
We drive and it gets dark and soon everyone is sleeping. Even my oldest. Sitting through a game on a hot day and walking through Downtown and taking off shoes and runnign through the fountain near the stadium is draining.
I listen to the game us I watch the Kilometers pass, frequently searching through the channels to find a good feed of the game. Reception is terrible, and there are long stetches of the game that I cannot hear.
The drive is as long as I fear, and finally, a little after midnight, we get to Windsor. The game is in overtime now, and my oldest has woken up and is listening attentively to the game. Every shot, every possession matters; it can mean a season of heroics, or one that will soon be forgotten. Billups is playinig out of his mind, but Robert Horry can't miss a shot either, and as we get to the tunnel that connects Canada to the United States, Horry has just hit the shot to put the Spurs up by one with 5.8 seconds left on the clock.
Pistons Ball.
The season may come down to this moment.
And there is no reception underneath the Detroit River.
Should I speed through the tunnel, and risk missing the play, or pull off to the side and listen to the play. In the NBA, 5.8 seconds is an eternity.
And I am exhausted. I do not want this day to go on for one extra minute. I pass the utrnoff to the duty free shop, and speed through the tunnel. Reception fades, and my oldest asks me to turn the volume up. We can't I tell him. We can't listen to the game inside the tunnel.
He is horrified, and as we exit the tunnel, there is a commercial on. The game is over we think, but what happened.
George Blaha's booming voice comes back on the air. There are still 5.8 seconds left. We didn't miss anything.
This is a sign, I think, a sign that we were not meant to miss the Pistons take a giant step forward in their quest for a championship.
The play starts. Rip gets the ball. He puts up a shot. The game winner on the games biggest stage, a shot he has fantasized about his entire life.
And it misses.
posted by Air Time at 11:50 AM
8 Comments:
I miss the Norris division. And the old AL East
Hon, you are seriously in the wrong profession. But, I would have missed you last night while you were scrambling to put the story together and have it ready for a 4AM printing.
Maybe Rick Reilly is approaching retirement
This is a classic example of why satellite radio kicks butt. My wife (a/k/a #164) bought me Sirius for Hanukkah. You never have to worry about missing big games no matter where you are. For the Super Bowl, you could have listened to three different feeds, Boston, Philadelphia and national.
AT-you would probably prefer XM since its regular season baseball coverage is so much better. Of course, with you leaving the country in a year, I assume you will not want to make any such investment anyway.
I am not in the car enough to make it worthwhile. But you're right, I would probably go with the one that I can listen to Vin Scully call Dodger games on.
He has the greatest baseball voice ever.
there's no joy in mudville :(
Game 7 tonight... Another chance at history.
-OC
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