For a guy who grew up in the hills of southeast Missouri where we just didn't play much basketball, I sure get a good dose of it each year when I photograph games at our local high schools. And I must say that trying to take pictures of the fast action with a digital camera in less-than-ideal lighting demands a little bit of creative ingenuity to get enough light on the subject and to hit the shutter button at just the right fraction of a second to catch the action.
I remember when I first started shooting basketball photos with a digital camera which had a delay of a half second or more between what was happening in real life and what a fellow was seeing in a view finder. Though I've never tried it, I reckoned it might be like trying to shoot rabbits on the run with an old black powder rifle. By the time a fellow pulls the trigger and all the powder finally ignites, the rabbit is almost in the next county.
Though we played plenty of softball and baseball all year round where I grew up -- sometimes even in the snow -- we didn't have a gymnasium and basketball court, so I never really learned to play the game. When my folks moved to a place where it was popular and I went out for the team, I found out how little I knew. The coach told me to screen somebody out, but I couldn't figure out how bringing in a screen door would help the game much. And when the coach picked me up by the back of the neck because I didn't do what he said, I figured the game just wasn't for me.
Well, anyway, seeing all the games and taking lots of pictures of some of the action has given me ample opportunity to study and try and figure out the object of the game, and maybe even the root source of the whole thing.
I figure that the whole game must have originated from trying to see which bunch of guys (or gals) could get the most pumpkins in their bushel baskets at the opposite ends of the patch, though I don't think pumpkins could ever take all the abuse of bouncing them on the ground while running and then tossing them into the baskets from so far away.
After the game was played for some time, I figure somebody must have thought that it would be more of a challenge to mount his team's basket up in a tree. Of course, it could be that it was intended to keep the other team from stealing the pumpkins out of the basket, which would also explain why somebody got the wise idea of cutting the bottoms out of the baskets so the pumpkins would just fall right through and let them be grabbed back up and bounced down to the other team's basket at the other end of the field and be tossed in there.
What I have been wondering about is why they have those convicts out there in the striped shirts, waving their hands around and blowing whistles. Could it be that basketball ended up being a popular prison sport since the whole point of the game seems to involve stealing pumpkins? Well, anyway, with all the pushin' and shovin' and grabbin' going on out there, someone needs to set a few rules, even if it is a few escaped convicts!
I haven't quite figured out the scoring yet either, especially since the pumpkins fall right out of the bottom of those baskets. It's my guess this must be the reason folks have to keep track of it up on those big, lit-up boards on the wall. As far as the reckoning of each pumpkin making it into the basket as two, what can a fellow expect from a game which involves trickery and stealing! And, I suppose, if you can toss that pumpkin into the basket from way back behind a line on the floor without smashing it, there isn't much harm in counting it for three.
Randy Moll is the managing editor of the Westside Eagle Observer. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 01/06/2016