Sports news you probably missed: the CBA just wrapped up its season six weeks early. The two teams with winning records happened to be in the same city, so the league improvised a best-of-three championship to cut down on travel costs. When your league only has four teams, and they are in Albany, New York; Minot, North Dakota; Lawton, Oklahoma; and Pikeville, Kentucky, this is an extremely valid concern. Imagine what it’s like traveling by bus between any pair of those cities, and in the winter, no less.
I took my son to one Patroons game, a few years ago. It was an exhibition against a Harlem Globetrotters-style barnstorming team. It turned out that comic antics were beneath the dignity of the Albany coaches and players, so they just played a regular game. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until halftime that this became clear. And a long half it was: the scoreboard clock wasn’t working, so they just let them play and play and play. It was something like 80-72 when we left.
This past year the Patroons played most of their games in front of about 200 people, not quite equalling the average suburban high school junior varsity contest. The official attendance was always given as at least 1,000. It’s questionable whether the league will survive, but every owner has pledged to recruit one additional owner, and team entry fees have been deeply discounted.
Jack Silbert, curator