When I was 10 years old, my Old Man built a 60 foot two-hooped basketball court in our back yard. My parents had a feeling I might be difficult to handle—I can’t imagine what gave them that idea—and this was their ingenious way of keeping me close to home.

The strategy worked. For much of the next 6-7 years, many school nights and countless summer days were spent at Porp’s house playing a pick-up game of basketball. Everybody thought my dad was god and all were secretly happy my mother would have fewer opportunities to make them shudder when she called me in for dinner….

“Garyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.”

It was a unique screech that reverberated throughout the neighborhood. (Rumor has it one of her ear-shattering bellows woke a dying neighbor from a coma one October evening—but that’s another column.)

The stage was set for a memorable phase of my childhood. All the neighborhood kids thought I was cool. Even the older or bigger ones treated me with respect because if they couldn’t play at my house they had to trek a half-mile to the junior high and shoot baskets into bent, net-less hoops.

There were a few drawbacks. The cement was unforgiving if a player took a tumble. Someone’s parents, too often my mom, were always nearby. The typical prepubescent cursing and gesturing was prohibited. One side of the court was bordered by a steep hill fraught with “jaggers”, poison ivy, and wasp nests, and it was agreed the suckiest player had to retrieve any wayward ball.

As Fate would have it, that suckiest player was damn near always your humble columnist.

It took about two weeks for the rest of the neighborhood to realize just how horrible I was at the game. Before the phrase “tossin’ bricks” clanked its way into the American lexicon, my nickname was “The Mason.” I stunk so bad, the moniker evolved into “The Cinder Block.”

You have no clue how humiliating it was to be picked last on, literally, your home court, sometimes by the girl I had my first crush on, Maureen Pulaski. Even my best friends negotiated me off their teams, “I’ll give you two Mickey Mantle rookie cards if you take Porp tonight.” I can still hear the moans of agony when I took my infamous running, turn around, jump-hook shot that usually clunked off the rim like a millstone. One of my wittier friends likened my movement to that of an arthritic Manatee having muscle spasms.

Smart-ass.

Basketball, like most popular sports attains its genius from the utter simplicity of its basic act: Toss a round ball thru a ring with a circumference just wide enough to allow the ball to fit easily through.

Like any other athletic endeavor, the game creates its own dynamic, its own matrix of motion, energy, and physicality. Put me on a baseball or football field and the angles, the strategy, and the execution are instinctual. On a deck hockey rink or soccer field, I played a gutsy two-way game and was a natural playmaker

Yours truly had no intrinsic, spatial understanding of basketball’s geometry. If a quicker kid, and there seemed to be an endless supply of them, frustrated me on defense, I might throw him to the ground. I would argue foul calls even after inadvertently slapping the secretly admired Maureen Pulaski in the head.

What made things worse was the social politics stacked against me.

My father deluded himself into thinking I could be like Pete Maravich. (The man worked 70 hours a week; he was entitled to his delusions.) Some of my more enterprising friends—graduates of the Eddie Haskell School of Ass Kissing—endlessly thanked him for building the court and told him how great I was.

Meanwhile, more devious little bastards manipulated my mother into being the “Rules Lady.”

They had all witnessed my many public floggings via her multi-sized wooden spoons and knew full well she wouldn’t let me get away with any infraction on her watch.

Their theory was proven one night when a couple of shots I threw up managed to fight their way through the net. The collective murmur of disbelief was almost deafening. This was huge. Next time the ball went over the hill, Porp would not have to fetch it and he could stand on top and ridicule the dick-head who sucked more than he did.

My goal immediately became to make sure that ball went over the hill.

Then, I imagined, Maureen Pulaski would see me triumphantly standing on top of the hill mocking a mutual friend and smile. I had to plan it so it looked like an accident; make it like there was nothing but an honest attempt to steal the ball. And I had to hurry. Mom was on the porch and already gave me the ‘dinner in 20 minutes’ look.

Fate stepped in like a ballet dancer. Teddy Weaver’s mother called his name from next door: “Theodore, time to eat honey.” When he looked up the ball tipped off his hand, hit the side of the hill and bounded way down into the woods. It was dusk. The wasps were bedding down for the evening. You had to look hard to see the jaggers on the bushes. Poison Ivy lurked

I watched the ball disappear into thick brush, turned around and Weaver was gone.

After a few seconds, I noticed everybody staring at me.

Fat Ronnie Stringer chimed in: “Sorry Porp, Weave scored two points; everyone else has more than you.”

“No way, Fat Boy.”

“GARY!”…(My Mother)…”Ronald is not fat. He has a thyroid problem.”

“Yeah, he ate it.”

Maureen Pulaski covered her mouth, laughing. She stopped almost immediately.

“GARY ANTHONY PORPORA! You get that ball and you get your smart mouth to your room! Now, mister!”

As I took the trudge of shame to the edge of the hill, Maureen Pulaski wouldn’t even look at me. Mom had gone into the house and was frantically rummaging through the utensil drawer presumably in search of a wooden spoon.

Fat Ronnie seized the chance to throw me down the hill.

That night, after a couple shots of epinephrine we left the emergency room with calamine lotion and Benadryl. My mother reminded me God had punished me for defying her, told me she loved me and if I ever smart-mouthed her again, I wouldn’t escape a beating no matter how badly I was hurt.

I remember thinking—while fighting the urge to scratch, with a face swollen from thorn pricks and wasp stings—how much I really hated basketball.

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