Why not basketball in summer?

Kelsey Plum

Summer is supposed to belong to baseball. Is it still that way? I could not name one Minnesota Twins player for you. 

Big-time sports can be fluid. Baseball had such high undisputed stature in this country until entertainment media tech started changing things. The greatly increased quality of the color TV picture caused football to rapidly grow in popularity. This happened in the mid-1960s. Quite rapidly football became the really big deal. 

Minnesotans had their hearts broken - shattered - by four losses in the Super Bowl. Sad as we were, we had to admit that football had us hooked, mesmerized. TV exposure of the sport grew. College football developed greater parity to where the top-level schools could not count on thumping so many opponents. Appalachian State? Well, welcome to the club of heavy-hitters. And to NDSU too in a big way as they could challenge or beat the Gophers! Former powerhouses like Nebraska fell into the ranks of the pedestrian squads. 

Sports is fluid with how much money pours in. Baseball has more than survived. But I still could not name a single Minnesota Twins player for you. 

You know what I have become knowledgeable about? Women's basketball! To the extent that women's basketball has struggled in the past, I think a lot of it had to do with how it is played in summer. We'd have to adjust old habits and patterns. For me, no problem, because I'll state for the third time that I cannot name one Twins player. If I scratch my head I suppose I can come up with one: Byron Buxton. OK but definitely no others. 

I should note that I do not have a TV contract. And I don't care at all: I have a laptop with WiFi access to YouTube. Is there anything that YouTube cannot provide? I guess it cannot provide live Twins baseball. I remember a discussion on Fargo radio 2-3 years ago about how a lot of people there had signed up for "YouTube TV" in order to watch Twins baseball. And then you know what happened in these fluid times: the Twins left YouTube TV! 

I try to avoid such disruptions. I'll take what I can get from regular YouTube. You can tune in to play-by-play descriptions or "watch parties" for WNBA basketball. Sometimes the game is on the screen but with an obstruction in middle of screen. I do not consider that arrangement to be hopeless. I'll sometimes call that up and watch for a fairly long time. You can listen for play descriptions and analysis of course. 

And a "watch party" will involve one or two pretty entertaining people describing it all for you. Having fun in the process. And this keeps my attention! I am certain there are others like me. And this is basketball in summer. Women's pro basketball. I'm enjoying it. 

And my interest has passed a huge test with the frequent absence of Caitlin Clark thus far in the season. She is now quite brittle. There should be no surprise here. She really is pretty slightly built, and look what she has put her body through over the last few years. A hint of the seriousness came when she missed the pre-season opener. Who misses the pre-season opener? 

Then she had a "quad" injury. And then she had a second quad injury which the team said was different from her first. What? Hey Caitlin, get a second opinion on some of this. It did not end there. Now it's a groin injury. Very sad of course but I cannot  be too surprised. I don't think the fans fully realize the punishment that gets administered to these pro athletes' bodies. 

People my age will remember when so many major league baseball pitchers flamed out with sore arms. Finally, once the teams started investing more $ in their players, greater care was taken of the players' health. You might say the players were expendable before that. The great New York Yankees dynasty during my youth (and well before that) really crashed and burned after '64 because three players were not properly cared for: Roger Maris, Tom Tresh and Jim Bouton. No wonder Bouton ended up bitter and wrote "Ball Four." 

Our society's worship of baseball in past times led to little league baseball being a summer staple for our kids. Today, we learn that many large cities are removing "ball diamonds" from their parks because ballfield sports are not as popular. In fact, why do summer sports have to be played outside? A better question would be, why do spring high school sports have to be played outside? 

The early-spring weather is never ready for the kids. And so we hear about postponements all over the place. Basketball indoors is set up perfect under perfect conditions through the end of winter and into early spring. Zero influence of weather. Everyone can plan and enjoy the activity. 

The spring season becomes so anticlimactic. I wondered about this over the many years when I wrote about sports in the Morris newspaper. To be blunt, I found spring sports to be a "downer" much of the time, sorry. 

You-know-who

The pro women's basketball league is easily demonstrating that basketball is fully practicable for summer. Caitlin Clark was the catalyst. But the growth has gone well beyond her. I can name players from around the WNBA now. I enjoy Kelsey Plum and Sabrina Ionescu to name two. 

And look at Lexie Hull and Sophie Cunningham of the "Fever," Caitlin's teammates. Not only are they good, they are glamorous by the standards of heterosexual males. If you are not heterosexual, then you are entitled to your own tastes. "To each their own." 

I will state emphatically that the WNBA will shoot itself in the foot if it permits players with the "butch" look. I wonder if they actually have a policy to discourage that. They might say to players "we do not care about your sexual orientation, but we want you to have the standard look of a 'woman' with reasonably long hair."

I did not like how Janelle McCarville had her hair so short. Just grow it out and be more appealing as a female. McCarville and Lindsay Whalen were quite the pair on behalf of our state of Minnesota. However, they did not really come across as endearing with their images or personalities. And Whalen flamed out as coach of the Gophers, left ignominiously  So she's now assistant with the Lynx? She can't do any harm there. Ms. Reeve is quite in charge. Whalen helps sell the team with her name. 

So let's get over this notion that summer belongs to baseball! Make way for more basketball! I'm loving it. I'm hoping that "CC" comes out of her injury funk. At the same time, I think her injury handicap is more serious than we might think. Career-ending? I would not even rule that out. The girl might be in denial about this. "Invulnerability of youth." 

Let's pray she can put the woes behind her. I guess I'm more of a Fever fan than a Lynx fan. And don't you think the WNBA would love to get Caitlin Clark in New York City or Los Angeles?

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com