November 13, 2006
BALLSY
While many cities fall all over themselves to get a major sports league franchise, Seattle is currently proactively shrugging its shoulders and telling the Sonics to get the hell out if they don't like it there.
Empowered by a wave of venture capital, a hiring boom and pride in its homegrown billionaires, this city has decided it no longer needs a mediocre professional basketball team to feel good about itself.
Chris Van Dyk of Seattle campaigned against giving public money to sports teams.
On Election Day, residents rebuffed their once-beloved Seattle SuperSonics, voting overwhelmingly for a ballot measure ending public subsidies for professional sports teams.
The owners, who bought the Sonics in October for $350 million from Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, had warned that the team would leave unless the city provided a new arena.
The vote delighted Citizens for More Important Things, a group that, with the help of a statewide health care union, spent $60,000 to sponsor the initiative. Other cities “may be so desperate to lure tourists there that they have to overpay for an N.B.A. team,” said Chris Van Dyk, a founder of the group. “Seattle doesn’t have to lure anybody.”
Wow! That is some civic pride. I think residents of Boston or NYC would rather sell their first-born children than see the Sox or Yankees leave town. Although, NY would probably sell the Knicks for a nickel at this date and time.
When I was very very young, I used to play in a BoysClub b-ball league. One of the members of an opposing team was John Johnson's son and the former would show up for games. John Johnson was part of the Sonics' 1979 championship team that I didn't even have recollection of, but I did get him to sign a poster and hung it on my wall for several years.
Above is a picture of Xavier McDaniels, who was, if not the original, the one that made him popular for it, bad boy of the NBA. Funnily, I imagine him most for a bizarre cameo in Cameron Crowe's Singles. In mid-coitus, he appears in a dream to one of the main characters; interrupting a locker room press conference to advice "Oh yeah, Steve; Don't cum yet".
One probably had to be there, but the X-Man's public persona at the time and the abrubtness of the interlude made it one of the funniest things ever.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at November 13, 2006 4:04 PM
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