Kobe Bryant: 1HN Clipper Nemesis

During my college days in the 1990s, I was a Los Angeles Clippers fan. No, this was before Blake Griffin, Chris Paul, and Lob City. No, this was even before Elton Brand, Corey Maggette, Sam Cassell, Cutino Mobley, and divisional playoff exits against the Phoenix Suns. Yes, it was the lean years of Loy Vaught, Rodney Rogers, Brent Barry, and lots of losing. They were a team that barely got on Channel 13 in Los Angeles with Ralph Waller doing his level best to provide expert play-by-play announcing and a semi-apathetic Bill Walton commentating. The Clippers were still owned by a penny-pinching owner and played in a desperately outdated L.A. Sports Arena. The mid-90s were not the salad days for this team.

Meanwhile, across town, the Lakers were also a middling team. I enjoyed that team with Cedric Ceballos scoring off garbage rebounds, Elden Campbell showing frustrating flashes of brilliance with long stretches of mediocrity, and a vibrant, young duo of Nick Van Exel and Eddie Jones playing consistently well. Then, in 1996, the Lakers acquired a high school phenomenon named Kobe Bryant in a post-draft day trade with the then-Charlotte Hornets for center Vlade Divac. Oh, and then they acquired Shaquille O'Neal... These were DEFINITELY not the salad days for the Clippers.

During my last year at UCLA, Kobe came off the bench and showed his own flashes of brilliance. I must have watched several Lakers games on NBC with my roommates during that year, and played as him in NBA Live 97. Recently, I played that game again, and discovered (again) that Kobe's attributes were not good enough for him to pull off crossovers. Indeed, his attributes in that weren't what they would end up being in future iterations of the classic EA Sports game, but they were certainly better than a lot of benchwarmers. In real life, sure, he had the Utah airballs and the Lakers crashed out of the playoffs, but he had that astounding combination of youth, athleticism, skill even at a young age, and audacity that indicated he would be something special in basketball.

In 1997, I left for Japan. In 1998, I returned, only to leave again in 1999. During my five continuous years in Japan, I followed the NBA and the exploits of the Lakers. I was able to watch the first game of the Finals against the Sixers, during which Allen Iverson and friends defeated the Shaq-and-Kobe Lakers only to lose the next four games. The Lakers would go on to win three championships in a row. I returned to the U.S. for the last time in 2004... and rooted for the superstar-less Pistons to beat the Lakers, which they did after Karl Malone went down with an injury. From 1996 to 2016, Kobe Bryant was ever-present for me as a Clippers basketball fan. I have to admit that I wasn't a rabid fan of Kobe Bryant, but he was difficult to avoid in Southern California. I would hear all about his exploits on drive-time AM radio as I inched my way home in the midst of traffic, and I'm rather convinced that he played particularly hard against the Clippers, who continued to be the also-rans of Los Angeles, even into the early days of the aforementioned Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. Three years ago, Kobe would end up retiring, but not before scoring 60 points in his last game as a professional basketball player. From the five NBA championships to the two gold medals (and eventually even an Oscar), Kobe served as one of the premier players of basketball, both globally and in the United States. He was also trilingual (English, Italian, and Spanish), which earned my linguistic respect. In any case, I didn't know Kobe Bryant personally, but whenever I chose to reinsert myself with basketball fandom, he seemed to be there.

Yesterday, as I left a movie theater with my family, my oldest son told me that Kobe Bryant had died. I found this news so incredible that I had to check the Internet myself. He, his daughter, and seven others died in a horrific helicopter crash earlier that day. I was shocked not only because nine people died in a tragic fashion, but also because a part of my past had passed away. After the previous seven days during which my family and I mourned the passing of three far-too-young men because of a senseless act of road rage, the deaths of nine souls caused me to revisit that sadness. Kobe Bryant wasn't any more or less important than the other eight people who lost their lives, but he has been etched in my memory as one of those sports figures that was a constant from my college days to my child-rearing adult days.

I lift up the families of the people who lost their lives in that helicopter crash. I pray that these families find comfort and solace in God.

NBA Jam: 2HN Basketball Buffoonery

During my UCLA days in the early to mid-1990s, the video game console wars were in full effect with Sega and Nintendo jockeying for the top spot in the marketplace, specifically the media war between the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo. At the time, people either owned one or the other and rarely owned both, as if either company loyalty was that important or consoles and games were just too expensive to invest in two separate systems. As consoles became closer to arcade quality in their presentation of graphics and sound, video game cabinet manufacturers seemed to up the ante, having already introduced laserdisc-based games like Dragon's Lair and Firefox (based on the Clint Eastwood movie) and rolling out games with superior graphics, sound, and two-player gameplay like the once-ubiquitous Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, and NBA Jam. Initially, Sega and Nintendo, though capable of (then) superlative home-based video games, struggled to convert arcade-based games like Street Fighter II and NBA Jam to their consoles... but they eventually succeeded with differing results. While Nintendo (and, to some extent, Sega) did well to port Street Fighter II to the Super Nintendo, NBA Jam was not nearly the game it was in the arcade.

For anyone who wasn't born before 1990, let me introduce you to the concept of NBA Jam: it's essentially two-on-two basketball with 1990s NBA basketball stars. Do you like the Lakers? Well, you can play with James Worthy and Vlade Divac. Do you like the Golden State Warriors and long for the days of Run-TMC (Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond, and Chris Mullin)? Cool, because you could play with Hardaway and Mullin. Oh, you say that you love the Bulls? Of course, you can play with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen... or NOT! Instead, you got Pippen and Horace Grant. How about Orlando Magic? Okay, you got Shaquille O'Neal, but you only got Penny Hardaway depending on which console you played the game. Much of who appeared in NBA Jam was dependent on licensing issues and the issues individual players had with royalties and such monetary concerns.

When it came to gameplay, it didn't matter with whom one played because NBA Jam was all about two things: thunderous dunks and fiery three-pointers. The fun of this game was in its uncomplicated, yet undeniably cheesy gameplay which often went like this: with one of your players (it really didn't matter who), you dribble the ball up the floor and either pass to your other player and dunk with heart-pumping authority or you loft a three-pointer from "way downtown." The first dunk of a streak of dunks was rather perfunctory, but the more a particular player dunked, the more acrobatic and gravity-defying the animations became. Likewise, the more a player drained three-pointers, the more the ball would burst into flame and the console or arcade cabinet's speakers would declare that he was "ON FIRE!" or "En fuego!"

The graphics of NBA Jam in the arcade were bright, garish, and eye-popping with each player looking like bobbleheads that are handed out at baseball stadiums as promotional items. Besides that, the uniforms of the players were shadowy reflections of the real-life uniforms, though the home floor of each team was emblazoned with that team's logos and colors to remind us that this WAS the NBA. What was even more indelible in my memory, however, was the sounds of the game: the crowd cheering, the realistic screech of sneakers on hardwood, and the play-by-play announcers' exclamatory remarks all created a hyper-realistic feel that went beyond anything one would watch during an NBA game on television.

In the 1990s, NBA Jam was ever-present in arcades on UCLA's campus and in local arcades and amusement centers I used to visit. I may have played the arcade version of the game once or twice on a lark, but I don't remember doing so. Yet, I'll always recall the NBA Jam announcer blurting, "Rony Seikaly... for three... He's on fire!" even though Rony Seikaly was not known for his three-point shooting. People used to line up their quarters to challenge the reigning player in the arcade; those battles were certainly fun to watch, at least for a few minutes. I never really developed an interest in NBA Jam, but I appreciated its presence in the arcades, at least because the game only added to the animated, noisy buffoonery that was, and still is, inherent to the video arcade lifestyle and motif.

Just last weekend, my wife and I happened upon a garage sale in one of the older homes in our area. Being a semi-avid video game cartridge collector, I reasoned (and hoped) that this older home would have a treasure trove of older games and consoles because the older homes were where peoples lived long enough to accumulate junk from the 1990s and before. Sure enough, I rummaged through a box of discarded and dusty game consoles to find a filthy Super Nintendo console and two cartridges: NBA Jam and Super Mario World 2 (about which I will write later). Both cartridges set me back a few bucks, which I handed to the homeowner with a thin veneer of calm hiding the unrepentant joy and enthusiasm that welled up from within me. Those cartridges were an uncommon find, especially now when savvy sellers are well-aware of the value of retro game cartridges on eBay. I gleefully took both cartridges home, gingerly yet aggressively cleaned the copper pins with Windex and Q-Tips, and washed the outsides of both cartridges with some Greased Lightning and a microfiber cloth. Thankfully, I got both cartridges working in my trusty Retro Duo.

I discovered two things that day: one was that Super Mario World 2 was as awesome as what I had read in a couple of reviews; the other was the NBA Jam on the Super Nintendo was a poor imitation of the arcade version. I played NBA Jam on the SNES for a few minutes to "test" the game's functions and playability and, sadly, found it dull compared to EA Sports' NBA Live series of games. It was just pass-pass-dunk, pass-pass-three, pass-pass-have ball stolen-watch as the computer dunks on my flailing sprites. Oh well... At least the cartridge was cheap and buying it triggered enough of those nostalgic feelings about the arcades of my youth to offset how mediocre NBA  Jam for the SNES was, and still is.

Baseball: 1HN Normalizer

For much of my elementary schools years and the first of my junior high school years, I often felt like an outsider, different from most kids. I don't think it was my affinity for Dungeons & Dragons or for video games that set me apart, or my taste in music (Def Leppard!), or my love of school and learning. Deeper than those things, I didn't talk or act like "normal" kids, whatever "normal" means. Maybe it was my vocabulary or maybe it was my eccentric interests after all... I couldn't put my finger on it. I'm sure some of you can relate, but there was always that notion that would emerge from deep within my psyche whenever I was around people: "Why don't I fit in?"

Interestingly, this seemed to change sometime in eighth grade: I started collecting baseball cards. At first, it was something to do with my cousin Mark, who was a collector himself; we would go to Price Club (now Costco) and buy a box of Topps cards... 1987 Topps cards, to be exact. I remember opening the packs with a petrified stick of pink that left an oily residue on the unfortunate piece of cardboard that happened to be placed next to it. I often ignored the gum. I would then organize the cards by teams and look at the Team Leaders card -- the one that listed the home run, RBI, and batting average leaders of each team on it. Then, I would trade for those players with my cousin. At the time, I didn't really think I was swindling him, but I was. Around that time, my interest in baseball cards caught the interest of my friend Ed, who was himself becoming a collector. We used to trade with each other, go to baseball card conventions, and laugh about the Walt Terrell rookie card that we almost acquired (I don't know why, but it was funny at the time to want to labor so hard to buy the rookie card of an OK player).

Inevitably, collecting baseball cards led to an interest in watching baseball, which led to a more profound interest in playing baseball. Throughout my eighth-grade year, I played baseball almost every day in the street in front of my house with two kids much younger than I was, a tennis ball, and a street reflector serving as home plate. We used to practice switch-hitting; to this day, I still marvel at the fact that I was able to hit the ball over a distant lightpole left-handed. Sure, it was against an 11-year-old pitcher, but it was still awesome to a 14-year-old.

Honing my skills on the mean streets of my hometown compelled me to try my hand at organizing baseball; Little League, that is, or at least "little" for 15-year-olds. I played one season of baseball with the A's and played first base, second base, third base, and all three outfield positions during that season. I was a decent hitter (I hit over .300, I think), I could steal bases (which was a surprise because before ninth grade I was officially slow), and I had a cannon for an arm, but I was also hot-headed and hated to make mistakes. Nobody was harder on me than me, and that was my greatest obstacle in baseball: I had a hard time overcoming my own mistakes. Sadly, though that baseball season wasn't a bad one and my team placed second in its league, the luster of the game was lost on me because I was not happy with myself. I'll come back to this point later.

After that baseball season, I turned my back on baseball. In high school, I ran cross country and swam on the swim team. In college, my favorite sport was basketball, mostly because I was good at fighting for rebounds and I could always make up for a mistake on one end of the floor with a key play at the other end of the floor. I did play intramural softball, though, and I even felt the buzz of baseball enough to play a few practice sessions a couple of co-workers at a local park. Besides lofting pitches over the Little League fence of that field at which we played, I still remember making a nice diving catch of a line drive over second base, which earned the applause of my buddies. I know it was just practice, but it felt good to know that I could pull out a spectacular play once in a while. After college, I rarely, if ever, played softball or baseball. Basketball, and then running, became my favorite sports and I enjoyed playing them.

However, recently, I've been watching (for the third time) Ken Burns' superlative documentary series, Baseball, which was originally released in 1994. As I watch that series, I am not only reminded of how much I liked baseball and how fascinating the figures of yore are, but I also remember the greatest impact baseball had on me: it normalized me in so many ways. First, I have come to realize that that some skill in a sport can earn the respect of other boys and men much more than intellectual or social talent can do. As a socially-awkward seventh-grader, I had few friends, and the friends that I did have were just as fringe as I was. Yet, as I made it to ninth-grade, I began to earn the respect of other boys because I could play baseball. In fact, one of my Little League teammates once vouch for my skills in front of some popular boys; of course, those popular guys didn't heed his endorsements, but I could certainly hit as far as, if not farther than, they could hit. Secondly, I had something "normal" to discuss with other boys; it was definitely more accepted to talk about Kirk Gibson's dramatic home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series than it was to talk about Armor Class or saving throws (D&D references here). However, beyond the physical skill and the ability to discuss a "normal" subject, baseball not only gave me access to guys who were not so academically-inclined, but it made me more accessible. To this day, I can talk baseball with some of my running friends and I actually have something to discuss; without baseball (or sports knowledge, in general), many guys (Americans, at least) are inaccessible. By this, I contend that the most noteworthy power of sports is that it allows us to reach others, hopefully with the hope of Christ and as an encourager.

There is one more aspect of myself that baseball normalized: the epiphany that mistakes are a part of the game and of life. As a ninth-grader on a Little League team, my love of baseball was diminished because of my inability to recover emotionally from my own mistakes. For much of my life, I had trouble overcoming the fact that I had deficiencies and that I would lose games. That was why I often avoided playing board games, video games, or even sports against people; I didn't like losing. Sadly, it took years of experience to comprehend that I cannot be afraid to lose or make mistakes, and that I learn best from mistakes. I try to instill this in my sons, hoping that they would not be paralyzed by the fear of failure. Every sport presents experiences of failure, particularly baseball because if you make a defensive error early in a baseball game, that error may be the reason your team loses despite your best efforts.

Yet, instead of backing away from failure, I tell my boys to rise to any challenge, and that it is okay to fail or lose because you can learn from it and be better in the future. To most of us, this is sententious and trite because we hear it in so many ways from so many inconsequential people, but one thing I rarely heard as a child was that failure was okay only if I learned a lesson from it and strove to not replicate the error. In this sense, baseball normalized me because it made me confront failure, embrace its lessons, and be diligent about moving past it instead of dwelling on it or, even worse, giving up altogether. I pray that my sons will step forward willingly to meet every challenge, every ground ball, every line drive, and catch that ball or make that play. Win or lose, we can grow from the moment and revel in the idea that we never backed down. To me, that is "normal."

Double Dribble: 1HN Wacky Cheese Shots

(First of all, shout out to Rich for suggesting this game. I hadn't considered writing about it, but I do have some fond memories to share about it, so here goes...)

Double Dribble was a basketball game that was produced by Konami and released in 1987 in the United States. One year later, I got Double Dribble as a gift (I think). At the time, Double Dribble was the most realistic basketball simulation you could get for the NES with 5-on-5 action that at least resembled pro basketball. There were four teams named after cities (Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York), with each city differentiated by colors and mascots. When selecting your team, an on-screen character shot a ball through a hoop corresponding with that team and play began.

Double Dribble plays like any basketball game: you pass, you shoot, you rebound, and you steal the ball... again and again and again. Like many NES games, much of what happens in the game is laden with cheese as steals become rampant, opponents block each other's dunks, and fast breaks happen with alarming regularity because there are no energy meters for players. Oh, and there are those crazy shots that you can make almost 90% of the time...

I remember it well. I flew to Indiana in 1990 to visit my relatives. At the time, I was in high school and had mostly set aside video games in favor of role-playing games, but that's a previous post... Anyway, I went to my cousin's house and she had an NES console and Double Dribble. Apparently, her boyfriend, Eric, was an NES player; he declared to me that he was "pretty good" at Double Dribble. Thinking that I was "pretty good" too, I accepted his challenge to play against each other. After one 5-minute quarter, it was, like, 40 to 2 and Eric was wiping the floor with me.

How? Well, he taught me a shot that almost always worked: basically, you run your player, who is in possession of the ball, into the upper corner of the court, press down the shoot button, and then release while you are well out of bounds (but before you land). As I witnessed his Double Dribble prowess with this magic shot, I was neither embarrassed nor angry, but in sheer awe of Eric. I still hold him in high regard because of that shot. I would go on to incorporate Eric's shot into my game and began recording my scores for games with 5-minute quarters: 197-4 (with a few 2-pointers mixed in), 196-2. I even think I had a couple of shutouts... all because I could steal the ball and immediately make that wacky cheese shot.

Double Dribble is still a part of my family's NES collection, though it doesn't see much play these days. I did try to play it recently and replicate that cheese shot, but I was unable to do so. Wikipedia corroborates my recollection of that shot by explaining how to do it (as well as about other "hot spots" in the game). So, if you're looking to fascinate your friends and thoroughly trounce them with an NES game, practice the money shots and then challenge them to Double Dribble and watch them behold you with a gaze of reverent admiration.