The Rubber Basketball, and Other Problems
By Jeff Gamble

In the United States, young kids are given the rubber basketball in the same vein that they are first given a crappy $85 bicycle with a banana seat rather than the $400 BMX Diamondback. It’s understood that they are going to do everything in their power to destroy it or have it stolen, so why create the grief? Nicer things are reserved for people who understand the words “worth” and “value”, and who are willing to take care of them. Nowhere surrounding the aura of a rubber ball will you find the words “worth” or “value”. You may however, among knowledgeable people of society, hear the words “you gotta be kidding,” or “I’m going home.”

Despite these truths, it seems that the Spanish basketball player prefers the rubber ball. The team I play on here in Madrid practices with a rubber ball as a half a dozen perfectly good leather balls sit on the sidelines, destitute and forlorn. It’s as if, while picking teams they say, “Yeah, Jordan’s good, but hey look - Bowie’s still available!”

The problem with the rubber ball is kind of hard to describe. To a sports outsider, rubber and leather both seem to function the same way, so what’s the big hub-bub? I suppose the best way to explain is to look at the face of a person who’s used to flying first class when he’s told that his sixteen-hour flight to Australia only has coach seats. That face should more or less explain the rubber ball in a way that words cannot.

My team had its first league game last week and of course we warmed up with a bright orange rubber ball and the ever-popular multi-colored red, white and blue rubber ball. It was still disturbing, but after a couple of practices with this team, I wasn’t surprised. Naturally I assumed that, come game time, we’d make the proper switch. Funny word that ‘assumed’.

At tip-off the referee presented the rubber sphere for jump ball. Nobody on either team showed any level of concern. I silently cursed to myself, but what was I going to do? Even if I wanted to protest, it would have been next to impossible. With my rudimentary Spanish being what it is, explaining the virtues of leather over rubber to nine other players as the game was about to start would have been a disaster. "Hey, men! This ball bad! Other ball is much more good! Let’s no play with bad ball!"

I suppose it’s worth mentioning how, which my inability to communicate, I wound up on my team to begin with. After Marta and I arrived in Spain last month, and as we continued waiting for my working papers to clear, I was getting bored and needed to figure out if anyone was playing ball. With her help, I went to the local recreation office to see what was up. By luck, a new season with the league was about to start. Unfortunately, the groups were made up of people who formed their own teams. Individuals have a harder time finding spots. But some guy there named Manuel – noticing that I was taller and speaking English – must have done some math and figured I might be able to play. Through Marta, he told me that there was an open spot on his squad. And just like that, without either he or I knowing anything about the other, we agreed to join forces. Practice started the following week.

After having played with them a few times now, I can say that the guys on my team aren’t bad athletes. They more or less understand basketball, and most of them are bigger fans of the NBA than any of their American counterparts. They seem to study stats religiously, and before each practice they compare and argue numbers of their favorite teams and players. A few guys have asked me what I think about the prospects of some lesser-known players, rookies and new guys who don’t get much time. I tell them the truth - that I don’t know much about them. The resulting stare I get is like the one people give me when they find out I’m from Oregon and have never been skiing; a stew of bewilderment, sadness and resentment, all twisted into a single facial contortion.

Unfortunately, most of the guys on my team have learned to play basketball by exclusively watching NBA games on TV (which they often do at three or four in the morning here in Spain), and therefore lack a lot of basketball fundamentals. Passing is messy, recognizing mismatches doesn’t exist, players subscribe to the “shoot first, ask questions later” theory, and there is a general attitude that, no matter how desperate or pathetic your shot is, if it goes in, all is forgiven. For me, the only thing more horrific than having sub-par members on your team who will take any shot in any situation – literal prayers - is the thought that somewhere out there, there are guys making millions of dollars doing exactly the same thing.

Adjusting to both my team and the rubber ball during our first game proved to be difficult for me. A rubber ball is “grippy-er” than the leather one, and so it seems to stick to things. A rubber ball grips your hand as you shoot it, altering the shot. It grips to the floor when you dribble it, altering its maneuverability. It grips the rim, and grips the backboard. And worse than anything, if your hands aren’t in exactly the right position to catch a pass from a rubber ball, it is guaranteed to jam one or more of your fingers inside of ten minutes. The other guys were comfortable using with it, but I felt like I was playing an entirely different game.

And in a way, I really was.

There doesn’t seem to be a traveling call waiting for you in Spanish basketball if you finish your move with three, four or sometimes even five steps. I wish I was making this up, but alas, I am not. I can now say I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. With the ball firmly in hand, guys more or less run from the three-point line to finish a lay-up. In Spain, traveling only exists if you start your move with a step, which by nature of Murphy’s Law, has always been my bread and butter. Without my first step, I am less than one-dimensional. I am in fact…anti-dimensional. And after having traveling called on me multiple times because of my first step – a first step that I must tell you has carried me through more than twenty five years of basketball - anti-dimensional is what I became in our first game. It was like I was a spectator with an exclusive ticket, one allowing me to run around on the floor with the players.

When I figured out I couldn’t play from the perimeter, I moved closer to the basket, where I had “three second” violations called on me at least three times. They play under FIFA rules in Europe, and the key is bigger. Watching the Olympics on TV, it doesn’t look like it’s much of a big deal, but it is. The key here is like the surface of an aircraft carrier, and if you’re swimming in the middle of it while your guys are out on the perimeter, dicking around with the ball (as the guys on my team tend to do), then you’re doomed. And doomed I was, friends. Doomed I was.

By halftime I was so upset with myself and the team, I didn’t know what to do. It was the kind of misery I have only before experienced during “relationship” arguments, the ones where you realize that no matter what you say, it’s only going to make things worse. So you just don’t say anything and remain furious. Sure, I was playing bad in the game, but the rest of my squad was awful. They were rushing shots, not finding - or even looking for - the open man, and they were turning the ball over as if somebody had told them before the game that we would get extra points for doing it.

It’s one thing if you or your team is playing poorly and you have a way to vent your frustration. It’s something else entirely if you have suddenly reverted to infancy, able only to use the imperative tense when speaking to people: "Run faster! Pass more! Do it good!" (For the record, “do it good” doesn’t mean much in basketball, regardless of what language your speaking. Try it sometime and you’ll likely see.)

We lost the game by 19 points (against a team that was far from even decent, which is another thing altogether), but what stood out for me was how long the game seemed to last. It was a forty-minute game, but with the way it went, it felt more like a three-day Cricket test. You know that dream where you’re trying to run but it’s like you’re underwater and you’re not getting anywhere? Wait, better yet – you know that dream where you’re eating raw fish and as soon as you think you’re done, some Irish guys wearing mustard yellow shirts come in dancing like it’s a River Dance/Gap commercial and take you to another room where they show you giant piles of all the other fish you have to eat? Well, that’s what my basketball game was like - a never-ending string of Irish guys dancing like it was a River Dance/Gap commercial. You know the one I’m talking about.

This week we had a couple of other practice sessions, and of course the rubber ball was right there. There was a point at which one brave player named Javier tried to protest. He actually had the nerve to suggest that the leather ball is better, which I eagerly attempted to support him on. Leather ball good! Naturally we were scoffed at, and in the end the rubber ball wound up being used and everybody except me seemed to have a good laugh. So now I have to wonder if the whole thing – much like my feelings toward Spanish basketball thus far – was perhaps a cruel, unnecessary joke that everybody was in on but me.

- November 17, 2005