The crowd outside the stadium in TO is wild! Can you hear the cheering?
I could not hear it, but I could hear the occasional whoop coming through the open window as people made their way up or down the street.
Sitting in the dark, listening, it felt like a blackout had washed the city free. Everyone was experiencing the same thing. Everyone was happily displaced, vibrant.
In the wake of the victory some of the broadcasters have been anointing the Raptors Canada’s team, but I’m not sure that’s the case. The Raptors are Toronto’s team, reflecting a sensibility in league, sport and composition that is unique to the city. The players in the NBA, much more partners than faceless subordinates, are a revolution unto themselves. And in Toronto where the culture wars seems to burn so much brighter and hotter that the ROC, the Raptors embodied not just the demographic of the city they worked in, but the aspirations of the people who lived there, too.
For awhile now, particularly amongst people younger than me, the Raptors have served as connective tissue, the casual language spoken at parties and bars. This is not your father’s corporate sports team. This is something else. It’s youth, it’s velocity, it’s progress. The Leafs and Jays were institutional legacies passed on from bygone eras, but the Raptors were not, they were the living present of the city.
And last night there was such joy and hope. People were experiencing things they would never experience again. Their lives were being written, histories formed. They were young and beautiful and united, and the world was changing not just before them, but from within them, and everything was cresting, limitless and glowing.
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Venerable Brother Silver,
It is with great joy that I write to you, as it is as if our prayers have been answered!
Los Angeles Clipper’s owner Donald Sterling’s ill-publicized remarks about the black race and other similar minority groups, and the subsequent public outcry in opposition to those remarks, have created a golden opportunity for the Vatican!
Clearly, as the appearance of good public relations is essential to managing a business, it is incumbent on the NBA to force the Jew owner to sell the team, and long has the Vatican wished to own an NBA franchise, for truly basketball is God’s game!
Dominus autem benedixit repercussu.
As you know, we have unlimited, eternal wealth and could easily afford the purchase and maintenance of the franchise. We think that the marriage of La Sante Sede and the NBA would be a blessed one, offering the league an international presence and a vast, unblinking and docile audience of Christians (superior demographic), and in return the Vatican would receive multiple revenue streams and an opportunity to further promote, and make cool, our message of hope, abstinence and tithing.
Mulieres ordinatur inferius.
We would change the team name to: The Los Angeles Exorcism.
Woe to those who face The Los Angeles Exorcism!
Our logo will be of the image of Christ on the Shroud of Turin, only with basketballs where his eyes would have been. Road trips will be known as Crusades, our cheerleaders (known as The Rapture) will be dressed as provocative nuns, a slam dunk will be called an In-Your-Face-Apocalypse and to successfully shoot a three-point shot will be referred to as “Raining Hellfire.”
We are convinced that this truly great work of awarding the Vatican with a basketball franchise will bring blessings on the world, the NBA and on the Church. For man cannot attain that true happiness for which he yearns with all the strength of his spirit, unless he owns a major sport’s franchise. On this great work, we implore from the God of all holiness an abundance of heavenly grace as we pledge to be a great part of the NBA family!
Our lawyers will be in touch.
Blessings and great light into your life!
Personae homosexuales, vel non pulchra domina, et in sæculum sæculi super eam exorcismo in Los Angeles!
Federico Lombardi
