Blazers — Rockets Game One ReCap.
In October of 1995, walking with my brother and my mother in Seattle. I bring up a lawsuit brought against (depressingly enough) Disney for Jim Henson Productions from Hormel Foods, as my oft-worn shirt at the time would tell you were the producers of Spam. At issue was a Muppet character for the up-coming ABC show, Spam. Interestingly enough with regards to the copyright issue at hand, within its legal documents Hormel accused Disney of defaming its fine project — something I imagine would pale against what would come a couple years’ down the road when the word Spam would come to be synonomous with Penis Pumps, scams centraled around deposed African governments, and computer viruses. The felt character for the Muppet equivalent of “Here’s Lucy” is the least of Hormel’s concerns.
And so I say, “But appeals are expected.” And so my brother responds, “Ah. So It’s Not over yet.”
To which, a stranger overhears and says the lop-sided score for the Mariners — Indians game, which would push them out of the playoffs. It was, indeed, Over Now. And the Stranger wanted us all to push aside the silly notion that it wasn’t.
Saturday, after a great build-up for the Portland Trailblazers team — a tad overdone, I’d say — the Houston Rockets hammered the Trailblazers. This brought a couple of thoughts to mind. #1: I am reminded why the Rockets were the last team the Blazers would have wanted to face. #2: After every loss to a good team through the season, I would mutter to disappointed Blazer fan “The team’s not there yet.” There weren’t too many surprises through the season — the team won what I’d become accustomed for them to win, and they lost what I’d become accustomed for them to lose. #3: I may just be forced to contract expectations back to what I’d thought through the season: win a couple games in the playoff, come back next season. I”d wish the Hornets would have made a free throw in their final game of the season so the Blazers might have a better match-up, but watching grown men throw balls in hoops and rooting for them to do it better than another assortment of grown men throwing balls into hoops doesn’t always bring the desired conclusions.