To the Novice Viewer, ABL Is an Eye-Opener

Southern California took a big step Sunday toward its first professional sports championship since, well, maybe Waterfield and the Rams. OK, so it hasn’t been that long. Just seems like it.

The Lakers? Big Dodger trade? Clippers acquired Michael Jordan for all the ocean-front property from Santa Barbara to Laguna Beach, plus 30% of Michael Milken’s pocket change on any Thursday afternoon?

Nope. Women’s basketball. The Long Beach StingRays. First game of the best-of-five championship series to the home team, a 65-62 victory over the defending champion Columbus Quest.

This is the American Basketball League, in its second year of existence and one of two female pro basketball leagues in this country. That in itself is as silly as, say, a bunch of auto race drivers breaking away from the Indy 500 to form their own group. Never would happen.

The StingRays are only two victories away from being able to hoist that ABL title pennant to the roof (point?) of their home court, the Long Beach Pyramid, where a sellout crowd of 4,005 made about twice as much noise as any Dodger crowd after any seventh inning in the last 40 years.

Game 2 is back in the Pointy Palace tonight at 7, followed by a final one, two or three games in Ohio Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, as necessary.

As the public address announcer reminded all here Sunday, perhaps 50 times, tickets for tonight’s game are still available. Average cost for a playoff ticket is $13.60, about $1.50 higher than the average regular-season ticket price when the StingRays occasionally played in front of Earl Gustkey of The Times and five janitors.

Lest you sense a less-than-enthusiastic tone here, it should quickly be pointed out that that might be the best ticket bargain in pro sports at the moment, outside of any bleacher seat at Wrigley Field on the dozen or so day games in the summer when the sun shines in Chicago.

Sunday’s game was entertaining, mildly dramatic and an amazing reminder of how gratifying it can be to watch pro athletes actually playing hard all the time. Nobody coasted, nobody sulked, nobody tried to choke their coach.

And talk about physical basketball. . . .

Sugar and spice and everything nice has long been lost on these females. Almost without exception, somebody hit the deck every time down the floor. This wasn’t defense, this was Christy Martin without the gloves. Drives to the basket were seldom around somebody, more often right through them. Screens were not so much screens as cross-body blocks and forearm shivers. The only thing left was the flying wedge, something StingRay Coach Maura McHugh is probably saving for tonight.

One Quest player, Katie Smith, took a hard shot to the lip early in the game. Instead of slowing down or coming out, she stuffed the neckline of her jersey in her mouth to stop the blood and played on. Later, her lip looked like one of Evander Holyfield’s ears.

If this rough and rugged play made for frequent chaos, it also made for an appealing show. And emerging from the flying elbows and banging kneecaps were a couple of superstars in Yolanda Griffith of the StingRays and Valerie Still of the Quest.

Griffith is getting increasingly frequent ratings by experts as the best player in the women’s game. Anywhere.

And at 6-foot-4, with mobility that allows her to play well both inside and outside and long arms that made her the defensive player of the year in the league, she clearly is worth $13.60.

As is Still, who, at 6-1 and age 36, has a poise and presence that showed Sunday in a 15-point, six-rebound performance that she achieved despite the need to spend an inordinate amount of time on the bench in foul trouble. Still was last year’s MVP in the ABL title series, and it was quickly evident why.

Anyway, for those deciding to saddle up the camel and head for the Pyramid tonight, it should be a worthwhile trip. Think of it as a refreshing oasis in a sports world of Dennis Rodman watering holes.