jueves, 24 de mayo de 2018

Anécdotas y divagaciones baloncestísticas: Shooting in the night

Recientemente he desempolvado algunos documentos que me hace bastante gracia compartir con todos vosotros antes de que baje el telón. Hay uno muy curioso que lo dejaré para el último Anécdotas y divagaciones de la historia del blog, pero hoy quiero presentaros una curiosidad que tal vez os resultará de poco interés, pero que a mi me trae recuerdos de otra época, de una época repleta de sueños y de horas y horas pasadas en los playgrounds sin otra preocupación en la vida que jugar a baloncesto... y precisamente parte de este sentimiento queda bien patente en el trasfondo de este curioso relato de misterio y baloncesto, en lo que podría considerarse una extraña mezcla entre el baloncesto de playground y la legendaria serie de televisión The Twlight Zone (La Dimensión Desconocida). En realidad se trata de un trabajo que realicé para un curso de inglés que hice a mediados de los 90 y en el cual volqué, de forma más o menos directa, mi pasión por el baloncesto. A día de hoy probablemente hubiera cambiado cosas, detalles, pero creo que la gracia, la magia, de esto trata de exponerlo tal y como fue concebido en su momento y contexto. Espero que os guste.


SHOOTING  IN  THE  NIGHT
Miquel Pérez Ramellat, circa 1996


It was a hot summer night in Kersey, a little city lost in the most least part of Ohio state, 120 Km. far from Cleveland. Two kids were walking in the most dangerous neigbourhood of the city. Their names are Tyrone and Isiah and they were thinking about the reproof that their mothers will give them when they arrive home, because it was too late.

When the kids were passing beside the abandoned rests of Jackson University, they heard a sound of a ball bouncing on the old cement of the university's playgrounds. The kids were as basketball mad as all the black boys in all the difficult neigbourhoods in USA, and immediately they ran to look through the oxidated fences and far from them they saw the figure of a black man shooting on the old baskets. They couldn't see more details, but they could see that the man was tall, strong and very quick with the ball, and many minutes later, the kids realized that the man didn't fail one shot.

Isiah said: It's incredible!
Tyrone said: He doesn't fail any!
Ten minutes later, when the kids were returning home, Isiah said: Hey, Tyrone! Have you heard about the legend of a lonely man who is always shooting in the middle of the night?
Tyrone: What?
Isiah: Yes, in this abandoned university, but only in the middle of the night. Once, a guy from the hood, jumped the fences and went to the place where the man was shooting. He couldn't see anybody there. The man disappeared.
Tyrone: Oh, Isiah! That guy was stupid, today nobody believes in ghosts. If we jump the fences, we will meet the man playing the ball and I will say to him: Hey, man, one shot please!
Isiah: I know Tyrone, but this story doesn't make me laugh.
Tyrone: Come on! Come with me and I will prove to you that this story is foolish and that man is as normal as you and I.

The kids returned to the old campus and jumped the fences. When they arrived at the playgrounds, there was the man cherishing the ball with his strong hands. He was a young man, probably between eighteen and twenty years old, and he said: What are you doing here, guys? This area is very dangerous at night and you are very young ¿How old are you?
Isiah: I'm thirteen years old and he's fourteen.
Tyrone: Yes, we heard the ball and come here to see who was playing at this time. What's your name?
The young man answered: Jamaal.
Tyrone: Could we make some shots Mr. Jamaal?
Jamaal: Yes guy, but quickly, it's too late and your mother is probably worried about you at this time.
The kids made some shots and said goodbye to Jamaal.
Tyrone: Thank you, Mr. Jamaal.
Jamaal: You are welcome, guys.
Isiah: Do you always come here to play basketball?
Jamaal: Sometimes guy, some nights.
Isiah: Why always at night?
Jamaal: Because the night is beautiful, quiet and full of peace and sometimes, in the night, someone can be all that during the day can't be.
After these words, the kids went away and, on the road, Tyrone said to Isiah: I don't see any ghost, Isiah, but I see a very good basketball player. His shots are incredible, he is very quick and probably in two or three years, we will see Jamaal on television, playing in the NBA.

The time passed and in the next months, sometimes, Tyrone and Isiah passed beside the old university, but never more the kids could see Jamaal shooting in the playground.

Three years later, Tyrone was in the library of his high-school, looking for the files of the disappeared university of his city, to do a school work about the greatest students and personalities gone out of the classrooms of Jackson University. And booking through the files, he found one of a boy who arrived at the university to play in his basketball team. Before, he was one of the greatest promises of high-school basketball in all the country, but seven years ago, one day before his university debut basketball game, he died in a terrible car crash... His name was Jamaal Harrison.

2 comentarios:

Jorge (alerotirador) dijo...

Bonita historia de baloncesto y con muy buen inglés (aunque mi incompetencia reste valor a mi juicio en este sentido).

Saludos Mo.

Mo Sweat dijo...

Gracias, Jorge.

Tu inglés es tan "incompetente" como el mío. La verdad es que esto es a lo máximo que llegué. Como por cuestiones de horarios de trabajo y otras cosas de aquellos tiempos no continué con los cursos de inglés y me quedé ahí, pues eso, que me quede con esto y poco más; me defiendo, más o menos, leyendo inglés, si no son cosas muy complejas, pero soy incapaz de entender una película o una serie en versión original... o de mantener una conversación fluida.

Saludos.