some time for reflection and projection.
My Lib are limping through the last of a disheartening and humiliating season. No idea what the WNBA/NBA heads were smoking, but their ill-informed comments just poured salt in our wounds. Losing the Comets was a body blow. Watching the league lose the Liberty has been a slow bleed-out. Perhaps a Basketball Angel will appear, wipe the smudge off their uniforms and whisk the team back to the Garden. Or to the Barclays Center. But I’m not holding my breath.
All I can do is thank Katie Smith and random twitter-fortune for the two court side seats that allowed me to take my roller-derby crazed friend to her first WNBA game. In Madison Square Garden.
Her delight. Her… awed-ness? Her willingness to ignore the overwhelming sound of thousands of squealing youngsters and revel in the athleticism on display in front of her was heart-filling. And, because I know too much, heartbreaking.
You may already know this story, but this is what happened at the conclusion of the August 6th game: A little one, draped shoulder to ankles in a Breanna Stewart jersey was standing mid-court with Stewart, getting her picture taken.
Not sure why or how she got out there, but there was a clump of photographers around the pair. I noticed a woman to my right, camera in hand, trying to get onto the court – to take a picture of Stewie, I presumed. No surprise, MSG security prevented it.
And then, Stewie started guiding the young girl…towards us?
No. Towards the woman with the camera. Breanna in her socked feet, the little one clutching two sneakers that, put end to end, were almost as big as she was.
The woman, who I realize is little one’s aunt, is kvelling. If she could have been beside herself with joy and amazement and delight, she would have. “OMG. All Little One has been saying since she came to visit is that she wanted to see Stewie and she wanted her sneakers. Of course, I couldn’t say that there was no way that was happening. But look! Look!”
Stewie comes closer.
Again, security is preventing Auntie from joining them. Auntie could care less, as she’s desperately trying to breathe so she can take pictures. She’s got a running commentary that sounds something like “omg, omg, omg…”
“Do you want to take a picture?” says Stewie. She beckons, and photos are taken.
Stewie exits. Auntie is still kvelling.
“Look! Sneakers. And she signed your shirt. We need to call your mom. She’ll never believe this!”
My friend and I are kvelling. There is much kvelling around us from the fans who’ve witnessed all this.
We walk off the sidelines and through the exit, and I’m thinking, “This is it. My last time in the Garden with the Liberty.”
And I stop.
Because there’s the two of them, phone plugged in, talking to mom about “Little One and Auntie’s Most Excellent Adventure at Madison Square Garden where the New York Liberty Played the Seattle Storm.”
And my heart swells. And, no surprise, I flash back to 1997, when my friend Heather dragged me to the Garden to go to this thing I knew nothing about. And how I got chills walking into the arena, seeing thousands of people cheering on a women’s basketball team.
Thousands.
Cheering.
A WOMEN’S PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL TEAM.
IN MADISON SQUARE GARDEN.
So, fuck you, James Dolan. Fuck you for taking this away from us. From all the Little Ones.
Fuck.
You.
Oh, and everyone is playing today. Watch the games. Purchase tickets. Tweet about it. Write about it. Talk about it. Argue about it. Celebrate it.
“We Got Next” only if “You Step Up.”