Sunday Hoops: A New Chance for Court Glory

I respect them and even feel affection for them. We share something that is unadulterated joy. For the last 10 months, I have seen them more regularly than anyone other than my wife, colleagues and best friend.

Yet, beyond their first names, I know little about them. They, in turn, haven’t an inkling about me. No one asks.

They are my basketball buddies. We are ineffably linked by our weekly participation in a Los Angeles institution: a self-perpetuating school yard game of hoops that has been going strong for more than five years.

Each Sunday morning, at 9:30 or so, we gather for a rite of passing--and shooting, rebounding and defending. There, for two hours, nothing matters except your ability to dribble with your left hand or shoot a jump shot or haul down rebounds.

Unlike so much of Los Angeles life--where others tend to judge you by your resume, who you know and where you live--esteem here is measured strictly by what you do between the sidelines. How you drive to the basket is more important than what you drive to the game.

This is a sweat-sock meritocracy. Anyone can play. But persuading teammates to trust you with the ball with the game on the line must be earned with offensive skills and teamwork.

For me, this is part of a rekindled commitment to a sport I loved years ago, a coveted second chance at adolescent pleasure. I became a born-again ballplayer after moving here from New York two years ago. The prospect of year-round outdoor play was incentive enough; the weekly game sealed my devotion.

The difference from half-a-lifetime ago--aside from a

little foot speed and jumping ability, of course--is that I no longer take the game for granted. Each deft move, each turnaround jump shot, is savored, a week’s worth of mental instant replays.

Gordon, who introduced me to the Sunday contest, epitomizes this court zealotry.

“When I am physically no longer able to play,” he once told me, “I want to know that I took full advantage of it when I could.”

Until an ankle injury and his son’s birth, Gordon played daily. He is 38.

The game itself was started by some entertainment types in their late 30s and 40s. Few of those aging weekend warriors remain; most of today’s crew are in their 20s and two are 18-year-old Beverly Hills High seniors. This includes the 6-foot, 5-inch star of the school’s team, against whom I sometimes find myself reluctantly matched.

By all accounts it is a faster, tougher, better game: upwardly mobile male bonding.

I am among the 30-something contingent who consider it an accomplishment merely to run the court. Rarely, however, is the age issue invoked as an excuse. Most of us have too much pride to put down a teen-ager for taking advantage of someone twice his age for whom even a receding hairline is a fond memory.

What elevates the game to championship status is its civility. There are few arguments, no fights and little of the excessively physical play that often mars playground basketball.

The rules are not written but everyone knows them. Under this hoop honor system, you call your own fouls. When a dispute arises, a player from one team shoots from the top of the key. If he makes it, his team gets the ball; if he misses, it goes to the other side.

Still, every garden has its snake. Ours is an aggressive hothead. He claims he is fouled when he misses but avers that he never commits a violation. He is like a Celtic crashing a Lakers party. Fortunately, he hasn’t been in the lineup for months.

There’s good reason to abhor such an intrusion. When we climb that 10-foot metal fence, we are catapulting from the day-to-day world of disorder, distraction and dissidence to a tar-covered sanctuary where the rules are clear, the objectives simple and a good bounce pass is its own reward.

The occasional injuries, inevitable cramps and the lost leisure of Sunday mornings are small price to pay for this transcendent school yard glory.

At a crucial moment in a hard-fought contest, another Sunday veteran once turned to Gordon and said: “God, I wait all week for this.”

Don’t we all.