One of the reasons that I still run the Tucson Basketball League after all these years (other than the fact that I'm just so darned nice) is that every now and then I get to see something amazing (like all of my scorekeepers actually showing up on time). The other night, I was reffing the game between Peloteros and Heat Check. Good game, fast paced, a minimum of sh-t being talked. The lead changed hands multiple times in the second half, but the Peloteros scratched out a three-point lead with two seconds left. Heat Check called a time out and got the ball at halfcourt. They throw it in to a player streaking across the court. He catches it and, flying out of bounds in the absolute corner, lets fly and hits dead bottom. It was one of the most-amazing shots I've seen in 37 years. However, the Peloteros would go on to win in overtime. (In all the excitement, I forgot which player made the shot. I texted his team captain to find out but he never got back to me. Sorry.)
We had some other close games, but I'm going to tell you about one without identifying the teams. Team A has a three-point lead with 20 seconds left. Team B works for a good shot and scores with just a few seconds left to cut the margin to one. Team B then calls a timeout that it doesn't have. Technical foul, Team A drains both free throws and wins by one. What's sad is that every single human being over a certain age automatically thinks of Chris Webber, who did that in the 1993 NCAA Championship game.
On a decidedly negative note, we had a couple (I don't want to call them fans) come out of the bleachers and approach the scorer's table in one of the games to complain about something. THAT WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. If you think the score is wrong, tell one of the refs. They will stop the game and check the scoresheets. LEAVE THE SCOREKEEPERS ALONE. They're high-school kids and they're doing their best. If anything like this happens again, I will instruct the refs to stop the game and ask the offenders to leave the building. Ninety-nine percent of the games go off without a hitch. But we want 100 percent. Everybody--players, refs, fans--needs to remember why they're there.
--We bid a fond farewell to Collin McCauley, former captain of the Gila Monsters and one of the TBL's more-energetic players in recent year. He's leaving Tucson (and America) to go teach Computer Science in Mexico City. Born and raised in Philadelphia, he came to Arizona to work at Raytheon, but then altruism prompted him to quit the high-paying gig to become a teacher at a South Side school. Now, he has accepted a new career challenge and will be able to wait out the Trump years from a fresh and distant locale.
Oddly enough, however, on the weekend of his last appearance in the TBL, protests broke out all over Mexico City against the gentrification of the city by foreigners who are moving there for a variety of reasons. It started with the Pandemic, where remote workers found that they could live anywhere and still have a career. Mexico City is a metropolitan area with a relatively low cost of living and is therefore attractive to tourists and people looking to relocate. But the Regions of Roma and now (La) Condesa have had a large influx of people from elsewhere and it's causing tensions to rise as locals are getting priced out of their own neighborhoods. I asked Collin about it and he said that he told the person who is helping him find a place to live that he does NOT want to live in Roma or Condesa. He wants to live near the school where he'll be teaching. He has promised to send a photo of himself in a TBL Championship T-shirt from the Bellas Artes area. He's an interesting guy and we wish him the best.