We put out the text message Thursday evening to 10 male friends with a healthy interest in sports: Who wants to a ticket to Friday’s Wolves/Spurs game with us? First one to chime in gets the extra ticket. MC Creme Fraiche, fresh off going Tuesday, responded immediately: “I don’t want it.” Local Quipster responded in the negative. And then, a whole string of silence. Getting desperate, we updated our Facebook profile, hinting that we might be looking for someone to attend the game. Finally, at 4 p.m. Friday, our pal whom we’ll call Clifton responded. He’d love to go. Now, Clifton enjoys sports. But Clifton is a professional photographer (a very good one at that) who comes at these sporting events with a different eye and a different interest level. So we knew it would, at the least, be a delightful adventure.

We arrived around 10 minutes before tip-off, and Clifton was adamant that he was both 1) starving and 2) not going to miss tip-off. So we wandered around the lower level, scouted out the concession stand we wanted to hit, and walked into a lower level section to stand for a couple of minutes to catch tip-off. Remember: our seats are in Section 203, Row X. By standing in a much better section for a few minutes, we started to look like we belonged. Clifton chatted up the usher and we decided that, after getting our concessions (a frustratingly long process that must have been something like a Cold War-era Russian bread line), we would attempt to claim some of the many, many vacant seats in the section. We returned, the usher didn’t ask for our tickets, and we were set. The above picture is from our vantage point (and from Clifton’s snapshot photo blog, which is comprised exclusively of iPhone pictures that he takes and uploads to the blog in seconds. It’s freakishly efficient).

In any event, the game begins: it’s competitive for a while, but we note that it appears that the Spurs are just toying with the home team. Clifton agrees. He later asks whatever happened to Kevin Garnett. We tell him he was traded to Boston. He asks if Boston has been any good with Garnett. We tell him they won the NBA title last year. And it occurs to us that Clifton has a head so uncluttered by useless sports information that we cannot fathom it. What a strange and different place his brain must be than our brain.

Another friend, Li’l Dice, comes and sits with us for the second half. The Spurs slowly and methodically pull away. Most fans are either leaving early, moving to better seats or yelling at Rashad McCants. The outcome, really, is never in doubt.

Later, we head to a local pub where we meet more friends for a birthday party. At the table next to us are three representatives from the Insight Bowl. They are in town for a press conference. They give us stickers promoting the big game between the Gophers and Kansas. We forget to tell them that we visited the Insight Bowl Hall of Fame in Scottsdale shortly after the Gophers lost to Texas Tech. We send a Facebook update via Blackberry and the world collapses into a deep, dark, black hole.

Question: Do you have fun at sporting events with people who don’t know sports like you do? Discuss.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 3:02 pm and is filed under Main, Section 203. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.