Last Home Game of the Season : 2002 style

I decided to drive down to Houston to enjoy Rockets Fan Appreciation Night,
more commonly referred to on this board as The
ClutchCity.Net Last Home Game of the Year Get-together
(or something like that). I've now made the last home
game of the year for the Rockets a tradition for
myself. I must attend it no matter how badly we do,
what our position in the standings may be, who we're
playing, etc. I'm starting to look forward to this
time of the year. I always manage to have a
weird/interesting experience at these games... this
year it was the Messianic Pimp, the Disciple and
never-before-seen CC.net members (read on). What follows is some extensive rambling -- you've been forewarned. Forgive the formatting... some of it was done at work and emailed via yahoo... stupid html formatting.


The Tickets

I always thought that to really appreciate the game,
you had to either be about mid-court on the lower
levels or upper levels. I have no idea what people
that pay $100+ to sit behind the goals get other than
their faces on tv, but maybe that's what they want.
Well, this year I lucked out and got seats behind the
Rockets bench and just to the left of Calvin and Bill
(Section 121 Row B). R0ckets03 had said he
could get me some tickets, but quite frankly I was
afraid I'd be sitting next to him, and the thought of
sitting next to a deranged lunatic didn't conjure up
any warm and fuzzies with me. Ok, so I'm just
kidding... *ahem*... right. So anyway I had great
seats.

One thing I have to tell the Rockets people is to
please get your ticket sellin'/will call people to get
their acts together. I go to one side of the entrance
to a group of windows thinking that's the will call
window and they say, no, it's on the other side. I go
over there and people are coming back saying, no it's
over on the other side. Well, hell. So I walk back
and get in line... singular. There was only one
window open and it said "A-L". I guess those of us
unlucky enough to be "M-Z" people are screwed. I wait
in line anyway. Another window opens up about 3 or 4
minutes later with a lady waving people over to that
line. So what? Is this for the "M-Z" people or can
just anybody get over there? I don't know, but I know
I'm not an "A-L", so I move on over. I get my tickets
and make my way up the stairs.

The Doc Arrives...

So I'm at the turnstile waiting to go in
("turnstile"...strange word) and I remember they're
handing out free t-shirts. Woo. I get my t-shirt and
proceed in, only to be met immediately by a cute lady
handing out mints. I don't get that. What marketing
genius in the Rockets organization said "hey, you know
what the fans would really love as they enter the
building? MINTS!". What's the correlation there : we
stink, but your breath shouldn't? I never
have understood marketing people, but I hear they're a
needed asset. I dunno.

Pre-game rituals...

I knew I was screwed from the moment I sat in my seat.
It was 6:05pm (yes, I get to these things early) and
I see Jason Collier and Terence Morris taking practice
shots. Either Collier had been out there for a long
time or his practice usually lasts 3-5 minutes,
because he was done a few minutes after I had sat
down.

You know how people say that "he hits shots
consistently in practice and warm-up, but can't get it
going during the game"? Well, TMo was bricking them
early and often in practice, too. The thunderous
echoes ricocheting from empty seat to empty seat made
me feel bad for the guy early on as he practiced his
arsenal of 20-22 footers. Later during warm-ups he
did begin hitting, though, so that was a relief (well,
not really, considering what I had to fork over for
those seats... but more to come on that).

Then came the man I will refer to as The Machine Gun.
He's better known to those on the BBS as "Oz", "OT",
"Cuttino, Jr.", or "Why the hell did he shoot that!?"
This guy came out for at least 30 minutes and did
nothing but absolutely GUN. An assistant coach (I'm
guessing) kept feeding the guy the ball and he just
kept gunning. The stroke was smooth, the shots were
falling at about a 75% clip, and it was just about
always nothing-but-net. Whereas Terence seemed
lackadaisical about his shooting, Oscar seemed focused
and wanted nothing better than to gun the goal into
submission. I've never seen anybody so focused during
practice before (but then I've never really seen too
many pracitices, but hey...).

Then came the guy that had me laughing : Moochie "The Little Dribbler" Norris. Woo yeah. Moochie can't take a shot EVEN IN PRACTICE without dribbling the ball to death. He was practicing shooting jumpers, but before the shot, he would dribble between his legs, in front of him, etc. I swear sometimes I think he believes his head would implode unless he dribbled the ball before shooting.

Fan appreciation... where are the players?!

After watching the player introductions, I found out that Francis, Mobley, and just about anybody I drove 4.5 hours in the effin' dark of night to watch play weren't going to play. I was pissed. But I figured maybe that's the way I was "being appreciated" : by solidifying and/or improving our lottery position. I was happy again. As far as fan appreciation goes, I specifically have to give props to 2 guys. During the pre-game shootarounds, dozens of people were trying to get Calvin and Bill to sign their shirts and whatever else. Even while setting up, they obliged several, if not all, of them. A few times they had to say "hold on" while they performed some setup for the broadcast, but even then they did it in a polite way that was just cool to see. I saw Calvin get ribbed by a couple of fans for his outfit, but he just laughed along and chatted back to them. I hope Les never gets rid of these 2... they're awesome.

Game analysis...

b****, moan, whine, blah blah... I'll leave that to other threads. It was a fun game to watch in which we were in it till the very end. The result was awesome as well. LOTTA REE BAY BEE! Tierre Brown looked good. As a matter of fact, he looked better to me than Moochie. I saw Tierre run a break in which Rudy just exploded laughing and was all smiles as he turned to look at the bench. Kind of like "did you see that kid?!" It's nice to get those coach's facial expressions, especially in person.

I also finally saw what Rudy writes on his little whiteboard during the game. Looks like a bunch of scribbling. But then he's talking all the way through it and he's doing it pretty fast, so you can't expect to be too neat, I guess. Rudy is frantic in the huddle - the guy is absolutely into the game. You could tell he loves doing this stuff.

How we stayed this close to a team and nearly beat them (regardless of their suckitude) without any starters playing is impressive. To put it in perspective, I often say in chat that we're among the few teams in the league that can't say "put the bench players in". Hell, most of them already start for us! Rudy did an admirable job this year considering Rice, Williams, Taylor, Mobley, and Francis missed a ton of games combined. Add to that the fact that Kenny Thomas seems to get a mystery wound every week and that Griff and Torres are basically rookies, and I really couldn't expect much of this team.

The Messianic Pimp

I really don't know how to describe this. Like I said earlier, I wish I had a camera. We all know how wild and flashy Calvin Murphy's attire is, right? Well, Murph was styling in his suit which was black with some faint stripes or something on them. It actually looked decent albeit still a bit flashy. During the game, while action was still playing, two guys tap Murph on the shoulder as if to say "hi". I have no idea who these two were, but the leader will be referred to as The Messianic Pimp and his sidekick, The Disciple. No words can do justice to what this man was wearing. Anything I say to describe his outfit would be like someone saying a nuclear explosion is a "loud popping sound", but.... here we go. The Messianic Pimp was wearing some kind of black and gold striped (?) sequin outfit and on the back was about a 2 foot high picture of Jesus. Now I respect people's religions, but I'm sorry... when you step outside of your abode looking like a cross between Liberace, Elvis, and the Pope, you need to be jackslapped. The Disciple was wearing something tie-died.... I don't remember mostly because I was blinded by the Messianic Pimp. All I could say was "Father forgive him, for he know not what he do". I completely lost track of the game due to this dude. I'm wondering if any of you guys noticed this during the TV broadcast because Murph just seemed flustered and shocked that anyone other than he could outshine the sun.

The CC.net members...

I had only met 2 people off the bbs to this point (crispee and jamcracker) and that was at last year's "final game". I was sitting in my cool seats when, just like last year, I hear my voice being called out of the blue... but unfortunately it was my bbs name (that's so embarassing)... I turned and looked and there was crispee again. It took a couple of seconds to register who this was, though. He then told me R0ckets03 was coming down the stairs. I thought to myself "I'm going to beat the livin' **** out of this sorry ass punk beyotch that annoys me on the bbs", but somehow that came out as "oh... cool". I saw R0ckets03 and still wanted to beat him senseless, but I just said "hi" since there was no sense in getting kicked out of those great seats. Apparently we were going to try to get into the locker room after the game, so they wanted to let me know if that was possible. The only way to do that was via a cell-phone. Of course, I had just gotten my number changed on my cell-phone and also gotten a new phone. I had no clue what my number was or how I could look it up. So I told him to give me his number, and I'd call him towards the end. I got his number and they went back. Well, towards the end of the game, I turned my phone on and noticed that my batteries were dying (lovely), so I thought I'd just walk on over to their seats on the opposite side of the stadium. That's where it happened...

I met up with a row of hoodlums and lost souls sitting in Row X of Section 110. I mean Row X probably signified something like X-Files because these clowns were making noise as soon as I opened the door to enter the walkway to the section. I was asking the usher if I was in the right section/row and that I was only there to wait for these knuckleheads wherever they were and she said it was cool (props to the usher for not being a total pain in the ass about that and not booting me out, especially with only about 1 minute left in the game). While I'm talking to her, I hear my name (yes, again, the damn bbs name) being called out. I think it was rockHEAD or Jeff. They were right there on the last row.

As I moved in to greet them, I could only think : "they really do exist... damn, what am I going to say now?" As I stepped forward, they were already acting like dorks. The fans were chanting "DE - FENSE!". Our resident BBS whackos, in the meantime, were chanting "YAO MING!" I immediately thought I should just go home at that point, but I just stood there and said "YAO STUPID". I began chanting "YAO STUPID". By the way, that's a Dr of Dunk trademark now. This guy's name is built for a Texas locale... think of the marketing angle... "YAO come back now, ya heeya?" or "YAO ready for some basketball?!"... I think you get my point.

You know how people are never really like what you expect them to be? Well, that was the case with this bunch.

rockHEAD - I thought this dude would be followed by a plume of smoke and look like he had just gotten out of rehab. Boy was I wrong. There was no plume of smoke! He's just as nice as he is on the bbs... real cool guy. Was a really polite guy.

Jeff - I think he's still talking. Just kidding. lol. Jeff had already told me he was known as "rattle trap", so I was ready for that. While we were saying goodbye outside after the game, I thought my legs were going to go numb waiting for Jeff to finish talking. I wanted to say "dude, just email me with the rest..." Haha. I'm kidding. Jeff wasn't that bad. Absolutely great personality and great guy to talk to, and no, he didn't really talk that much.

CriscoKidd - I thought Lard Boy would be the "talk trash all the time" type. He was just about the exact opposite. He seemed pretty quiet and reserved most of the time only speaking when necessary. Again, another really nice guy that I'm going to feel bad making fun of on the bbs... not that it's going to stop me from doing it, but hey, I'll feel bad, so that's what matters, right?

R0ckets03 - Holy mackeral. I expected a complete loudmouth idiot with the IQ of a brick. He wasn't a loudmouth at all! He was actually pretty composed and calm most of the time - the only exception being when he started screaming for Yao Ming. At that point I said "yup, that's him". He had offered tickets to most, if not all, of us, and for that I thank him. I got my own tickets because I hadn't heard back from him and saw these great tickets become available. Next year, we'll hook up in the same section, man.

Mango - Oh man. I can't really describe Mango. I wish Jeff hadn't posted his pic, because what makes Mango Mango is the mystery about him. Till I actually met him, I thought he was a computer program or a script that Clutch ran. I swear I never thought this person could exist despite the emails I'd get from him. I would say more, but to say it would destroy the mystery that is.... Mango. I'll leave it at that. As we all walked out of the stadium, he said something like "well? was it what you expected?" I was like "**** man, I didn't even think you were real until today!"

One thing I noticed everyone do after the game while we were all outside listening to Jeff's Soliloquy (Hamlet ain't got nothin' on Jeff) was notice how everybody wanted to help Clutch out in whatever way possible and how everyone appreciated how much effort he put into this site. This is even more amazing considering he's also got family and "real life" to worry about. It was cool to see people just speak up and say, with all honesty, that they respected Clutch for what he did. I've run out of ways to thank the man myself, so I guess by saying "others say good things about you even when you aren't around to see or hear it" is another way for me to say "Thanks Clutch!".

Next Year...

I'll go out to eat with you guys, and I'll buy the food (you guys get the drinks). I'd like to try out this Kinneally's place since I've never been. It was a pleasure meeting you guys, and to know your bbs personalities are well, not too real... actually it was probably a relief to know they're not too real. The last few minutes of the game standing behind you guys and observing how truly lame you all could be had me laughing on the drive back to Dallas that night. But first... umm... we really have to ditch the whole bbs moniker stuff in public, mmkay? Kewl.

Can't wait till next year... GO ROCKETS! GO CC.NET!

 

Oh my God. I completely forgot about Griff. YES! I was watching the shootarounds and EVERYBODY was shooting 20+ footers. I never saw anyone shoot anything less. I was laughing hysterically thinking to myself "damn, do these guys practice anything but 22 foot bombs?"

What really irritated me the most was the fact that we repeatedly shoot these shots that are just inside the 3 point line during the game, and here I am seeing Oscar, Moochie, and Griff shooting nothing but 20-22 footers. Hell if you're going to practice those, then step back a foot or so and you may as well practice 3's!

@#$!$