YUCAIPA, CA – I admit it – I’m a basketball junkie. So this is my favorite time of year when high school and college hoops begins its fast break of pre-season games and holiday tournaments.
Every morning I check the TV listing in the sports page to see what’s playing on the boob tube. But even I was shocked when I saw today’s college basketball schedule.
Starting at 5 a.m. until the final game at 8:30 p.m., ESPN will televise 22 games.
And if that’s not enough for husbands who have hijacked the remote from their wives, ESPN’s basketball schedule also includes three games on Wednesday, nine Thursday, and one on Friday.
GAMES GALORE
That’s a total of 35 televised games in four days. Wow, great. Awesome. Spectacular. Especially if you have a 42-inch, high definition TV – as I do. Along with a comfortable recliner and a lightning fast remote.
But I remember much leaner times. When I was a kid back in the late 1950s and ‘60s, I lived, breathed, sweated, and worshipped basketball. It was my religion. I was an addicted gym rat. And if there was a game on TV, I was watching.
But there were few basketball games to watch on television back then. Occasionally, a Big 10 game played on a weeknight. And on Saturday’s the Big 10 game of the week was offered, and on Sunday’s an NBA game was showcased.
(Usually with Red Auerbach of the Boston Celtics chomping on his post-game victory cigar after the Celtics won.)
THE OLD BLACK & WHITE
But that was it. Two, maybe three games at the most. And the TV’s of today, aren’t what we had back then. Our first TV was a black and white RCA – or maybe it was a Philco, or Admiral – with about a 21-inch screen. You could hardly see for all the snow. But I didn’t mind.
I pulled my chair up close on Saturday’s and watched as Minnesota Golden Gophers, Lou Hudson, Mel Northway, and Archie Clark battled the likes of Michigan Wolverines Cazzie Russell and Bill Buntin – or Ohio State – for Big Ten championships in the mid-‘60s.
Then I’d wait six days for another televised game.
But that won’t happen today. I’m going to gorge myself on basketball.
Why? Because that’s what us basketball junkies do.
botto3@verizon.net