Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Basketball



As part of my "Get fit before I die" plan I joined the men's pick up basketball league at the Laconia community center. If I had use of my fingers I would take a picture of the three injuries I sustained in my first 3 hours.

The first happened in pregame warm ups. A bad finger jam on my right ring finger. The next was when I battled with a guy who outweighed me by 50 pounds. We both dove for the ball and I got the worst of the collision and rolled head over heels on my shoulder. But, as is normally the case, I think I broke a rib somehow. It's all connected.
Lastly, someone just rolled the ball near me and as I went to get it I tripped over my own waterlogged legs and fell to the ground on my knees. This wouldn't have been so bad if I had managed to keep my fingers from ending up between my knees and the floor. My pinky took the whole weight of my body and the tip now looks like the tip of a mercury thermometer.
I was trying to rebound and my entire back seized in a spasm to my neck.
I think I made 3 shots and missed 4. 6 points. 0 blocked shots. 2 assists.

I told a 20 year old, "I haven't played this game in 22 years."
His expression was like, "That recently?"
Then I said, "I played baseball." and immediately regretted it because that's just a glory days line. I might as well say I played whiffle ball or frisbee football in Junior High School. I was a great lawn darts player in 1983. Scott had a set and we played in his backyard. You toss the dart way up in the air so it comes down in a hoop.

I took some pictures before I mangled both my hands beyond repair. I'm typing this with my toes.

I spent some time at the employment agency and finally landed a real job interview...assembly stuff...anything to get some money. But now I've got a broken rib and mashed pinky and swollen ring finger. I can barely put the lid back on the aspirin bottle. So will I be able to fake it at the interview? We find out.

The coordinator gave me an ice pack to put on the finger. I'm too tired to stay awake. Probably broke a blood vessel in my heart and am slowly bleeding out.

Except for the injuries it felt good to be running and sweating and boxing people out. Full court to 11 points. Lots of long jump shots and missed passes. The average weight was like 250 so when they push me around I move willingly. My back is killing me right now. If I'm able I will go back tomorrow after the assembly job falls through.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I playeb baseball..." Hahaha....you should have worn the PHS championship jacket.

Oggy Bleacher said...

I was only trying to justify why I was so bad but it came out like a hopelessly nostalgic comment. But really I wasn't a horrible Basketball player at the mill pond courts 85-89. So I have no excuse except age and desire. To bring baseball into it is just awful. I played some baseball in Mexico and was equally as bad.

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Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.