Shirts and skins, anyone? Basketball returns to playgrounds

It was three hours before tipoff of the Final Four.

Some 1,830 miles from the iconic Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis — you’ve seen the aerial shots before they switch to Lily hawking cellphone service during TV timeouts — a discarded COVID mask symbolically fluttered across the basketball courts at Las Vegas’ Sunset Park.

An empty plastic water bottle rolled in an arc amid other bits of trash. Most of what remained of the landscaping gravel on the fringes of the fissured blacktop had blown onto it, causing pivot feet to slide.

But at least the rims were back up.

Most of ’em anyway.

One of the rims and backboards on Court 3 was missing.

Despite warm weather bordering on hot, there were ballers on only three of the eight courts. Not enough to even choose up sides for three-on-three.

But it still was early.

Last Monday, Gov. Steve Sisolak said COVID numbers had fallen to where it was OK to play pickup sports in close contact with one another again. The rims that had been taken down months ago went back up Tuesday.

Most of ’em anyway.

Holding court

There were more Frisbee golfers at Sunset Park than pickup basketball players Saturday. That seemed as sad as the condition of the courts, although one man shooting hoops with two young boys and a baby said being outside with them was much preferred to being cooped up watching them play video games.

“This is everything to a father, bro,” said Mason Coit, who was wearing an Oakland A’s cap backward and said he moved to Las Vegas from the East Bay a year before the Raiders did to set up a handyman business. He nodded to his 15-year-old twins, Tobias and Tyson, while year-old Titus waddled toward the court lacking rim and backboard.

“These boys need to grow up,” Coit said. “They need physical activity, and they need to interact with others. You meet people here from all walks of life.”

And sometimes you meet people from the same walk of life. Or at least the same distant area code.

When I arrived at the park, only one guy was shooting baskets. He was wearing a headband and headphones and, despite muscular biceps, showed a nice shooting touch. He said his name was Daniel Johnson, that he was 40, that he grew up on the Indiana side of Chicago — i.e., the grimy side.

Me, too, I said.

Key to the future

Johnson had played ball in the old Hammond Civic Center, where smoke would rise to the rafters like in the old boxing movies. I had witnessed my first pro wrestling match there and seen Sly and the Family Stone there (when a different kind of smoke rose to the rafters). I also mentioned how soft the Civic Center rims were when we played our sectional basketball tournament there.

He said the rims still were soft but that they had put in a new floor about eight years ago. The old Hammond Civic Center that opened in 1938 apparently is looking spiffy again.

And so we agreed there still was hope for Sunset Park, even if it is now looking like a long-haul COVID carrier.

As I walked to my car, a young man bouncing a basketball gestured to me. I would learn his name was Jake and that he was from one of the northern states. He asked if we could leave it at that. I sensed he was running from something or somebody. (When he told me his story, it seemed far from nefarious.)

He said he had played ball in high school. He had driven to Sunset Park from Seven Hills, because he had heard it was the best place in Las Vegas to hoop it up shirts and skins style.

Jake of the North said that when he arrived, his ball was bright orange. Within 10 minutes, it had turned an almost pewter shade from all the grime on the blacktop. But the real reason he had flagged me down was that he noticed my notebook and pasty legs and thought I might work for the city.

He wanted to know if I had the key to the men’s room.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.