Progressive Revelations 1/26/10

A Basketball Orange

May 11, 2010

..............................................................................................................

A couple of months ago, I Tweeted that I wanted to play basketball with an orange, meaning that I wanted an orange as my teammate, not that I wanted to throw an orange into a hoop. Obviously, now that much time has elapsed, I have still been thinking about this potential basketball clash: me and four oranges versus five oranges...

"But wait," you may be thinking. "Wouldn't there be a height advantage?"

"No," I will think back to you. "There would not be a height advantage."

Now that it has been clarified that no advantage exists, it is time to figure out a jersey color -- I'm thinking orange. Our opponents will also wear orange, but it will be a lighter shade. My team, One Guy and Some Oranges, will take on the Orange Grove, aka the Grove Thing, aka Future Orange Juice of America. As a ball we will use a grape because using an orange would cause a lot of turmoil among those watching this event. Both of the viewers would agree...

The first difficulty would arise immediately at tip-off. Despite no height advantage existing, I anticipate grabbing the opening tip-off and then passing it to whatever teammate is closest, and then I anticipate this teammate not catching my pass due to the fact that this teammate is an orange. Surely I should have thought about the lack of arms earlier, but let's face it: this whole column is based on a Tweet that took one second to think about and six to type...

To compensate for the lack of arms, all oranges will have glue attached to them, allowing the grape to stick to them when it is thrown to them. However, this would allow for only one pass because no orange would be able to throw the grape after that. Again, the lack of arms stand in our way, so maybe it is time to re-think this plan and flee this column in the meantime. On a more idealistic level, however, I still think that a game of basketball played with oranges is an amazingly practical idea that should be played by realists all around the world. Since the idea has no flaws whatsoever, the game can be cherished by all who come across it. And when the game is over, I cannot wait to pour orange Gatorade on the winning coach's head -- and just as the oranges gape in terror, I will yell out, "Don't worry, it's only Gatorade" and then we'll get ready for our next set of opponents...

But I digress.