Basketball is Best Shared

As I lay writing this with my newborn sitting and squirming a couple of feet over, I am wrapping up The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz on one of the most emotional days of the show. The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz is a show about sports, kind of. It’s a lot of hijinx, very Miami focused, and does as good a job of balancing the laughter and the gravity of the news from the world around us. If you’ve never seen it, it’s hosted by former Miami Herald writer Dan Le Batard, usually his teammate John “Stugotz” Weiner, and a handful of producers/personalities that rotate in “the shipping container.”

Without telling much (if any) of the six other people on the show that day, Dan Le Batard opened the show at 9:00 AM by telling the world his brother, whom he called his best friend of fifty years, had passed away at 2 AM. After seven hours that had to feel like a jaw-dropping roller coaster, Dan spoke through tears for an emotional few minutes about the year-long battle his brother fought before wiping them away to make fun of Stugotz’s cigarettes, New York sports radio, and Damian Lillard.

Dan stayed in the studio for the first couple of hours of the three-hour show. He spoke with his buddy Greg Cote about poor underwear habits, talked with “Dragonfly” Jones and Zookeeper Ron Magill about theoretical fights between animals in a bracket-style format, and how to rock a baby to sleep.*

But those first few minutes were just a gut punch**. I have watched or listened to them five times at this point, and the moment Dan’s voice trembles talking about his father and his brother talking has me in full tears each time if I hadn’t already gotten there before. 

– 

I had watched Dan on a handful of ESPN shows and thought he was funny, but my brother introduced me to The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz in December of 2017. I remember the drive, from Austin to Houston to watch a Rockets game***. On the drive to and from, a total of six or more hours in the car, listening to a full show, some best-of-kind content, and other nonsense… I got the bug. If I’ve missed any episode of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz since that day, it is less than I could count on one hand. I saw them live and in person in Austin and went two days in a row. I watched them on YouTube for the majority of their 24-hour marathon (and caught up on the hours I missed in the days that followed). 

Much like sports, we connect to the lives of entertainers because of the connections they build with us. We laugh with them at their jokes, we ponder their questions, and we engage in their conversations. When Dan asks a patented poll question, we answer it in our own head if not out loud. So of course, when they go through pain, we do too. That’s part of sharing. 

It’s a weird two-way street. In the time since I became a fanatic of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz, our family has had our own handful of funerals to attend as well. There’s been a global pandemic, an insurrection in the Capitol, and other general reasons to be stressed, worried, or anxious. I know everyone has their own The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz, but through all of that, The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz has been a staple of my day. Dan Le Batard, and Stugotz, Mike, Billy, Chris, Roy, Jessica, Greg, Tony (who the hell is-), Amin, Luis, Jeremy, Lucy, Witty… everyone on the show was involved in my getting through anything I’ve had to get through. I can flip them on for a laugh, for a perspective, to think (or not to think)… Or just to make this trip around Trader Joe’s go by faster.

It’s weird to see your “staple” like that in pain. We lean on them in our lows, without them knowing it… They have to know, to some degree, we’re returning the favor, but is that the same?

That’s where this ties into sports. Sports offer the same outlet, with different emotional stakes. 

I mentioned my brother and I were heading to a Rockets game, from Austin, and to some people that may feel kind of silly. But, to be fair, we are both a little silly about the Rockets. I have been since Steve Francis, my brother probably would say since Tracy McGrady. We had childhood pictures taken in contrasting Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley jerseys (remember the 90s pin stripes?). When the Rockets officially traded for James Harden I was away at college, I remember going back and forth with my brother about trading and going all in on a guy that couldn’t start for his old team. I remember being on vacation in New York when Dwight Howard signed and having a similar conversation… same for Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, and so much of the fallout since. We’ve broken down every draft option along the rebuild. It all lives in the nonsensical text thread. Basketball is not the only connection he and I have by any stretch, but it’s certainly one of the most frequently discussed ones. It’s not always a “necessary” escape from reality or anything, but it’s not always a feel-good conversation about the ‘kets either. 

Basketball is best when it’s shared. The whole point is to have this thing in common with other people, hopefully, people you’re close to. That “thing” is a never-ending soap opera that adds new characters every year, has surprise twist endings, and has as many rabbit holes as you can hop down. 

Similarly to how I share basketball with my brother, I have made a point to see that my newborn son**** “watched” summer league with me. We’ve “watched” many an Astros game for that matter (he slept through the end of Framber Valdez’s no-hitter…), and we’ll “watch” the Houston Cougars a lot this year I’m sure.***** And while at this point in his life, this experience is infinitely more about me and how I want to watch these things with my son, I hope they’re someday about him and how he uses sports, entertainment, or even The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz as an escape as well. 

It is not lost on me that this connection I have with The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz was started by my younger brother, and Dan lost him in the first hours of Tuesday morning. It’s weird how those things happen like that. I can’t begin to imagine the flooding of emotions Dan is feeling, but I can imagine the same connection. I think that adds a layer to the pain. 

David “Lebo” Le Batard was a street-artist with cartoonish drawings that covered Miami, as seen behind him here.

I didn’t know David “Lebo” Le Batard outside of following his art online (through The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz) and his occasional guest appearance on the show. And for what it’s worth, while I got to shake his hand and talk to him in Austin one time I don’t actually know Dan either… even if I hear him talk for what averages out to a couple of hours a day. But through this weird sports thing, and their weird sports show, it feels nearly like it’s an extension of my family too. 

SLiC cleaned up their servers and I guess that means the piece I wrote for them is gone forever, but I wrote about a similar feeling when Cedric Benson passed away several years ago. It’s weird how invested sports can make you in people you don’t even know. We share the pain of folks like Dan, Cedric, or the starting point guard on our favorite basketball team, because we also share in their joy. Their accomplishments feel like our own, and we celebrate them as if they were. Thus their pain feels like our own, and we take them to the stomach as if they were. It’s not explicitly stated in any way, but it’s part of sharing that thing.

At somepoint we’ll talk about literally sharing the basketball on the floor, I’m sure. The frequency of passes, the schematics behind sharing the ball in motion, knowing when to attack and when it’s not your turn… but that all feels pale today. Sharing basketball, and entertaining conversations “about” basketball, feels a lot more like the stuff off the floor than the stuff on it.

Here’s a Cool Dunk Video to Lighten the Mood:

– 

*See, I have a sleeping baby next to me with a headphone in, they’re talking about rocking babies to sleep… full circle!

** I promise basketball is coming soon

*** Basketball! The Rockets lost to the Clippers. James Harden was ejected in the early fourth quarter with 51 points. That part sucked. 

For what it’s worth, this was the season the Rockets won over 60 games and Harden won the MVP… so if anything, our ticket was to the RARE loss.

****see, full circle!

***** I should probably stress here that I am not planning on forcing him into liking or watching or participating in anything… If he wants to join the one-act, then we’ll practice lines together. If he wants to mountain bike, we’ll map out rides. But until he can express his interests… we’re probably going to end up doing things that are in mine.

Thanks for reading P.Ainstaking Basketball! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.