The Lone Bobblehead

Me and G Wiz: Both with the organization 15 years. Coincidence? Totally.

I've done plenty of complaining in this blog recently (see here and here) about the lack of Wizards bobbleheads being made available from the team this season for hardcore Wizards fans and bobblehead collectors. I'm still not quite cool with the complete absence of in game bobble giveaways but I figure it's time to stop complaining and start celebrating. Why celebrating? Because I finally got my hands on a team issued bobblehead this year. It wasn't exactly free and it isn't one of our players, but it's on my bobblehead shelf just the same and I know it's all I'm getting this year so I'm coping.

Last year for the first time ever, the Wizards decided to make an exclusive Martell Webster  (my favorite player) bobblehead available through membership in the G Wiz Kids' Club. Now in past years, I would have been upset about this since the G Wiz Kids' Club is technically only for kids 14 years and younger and I would likely have resorted to making up a child so I could get my hands one of the only two bobbleheads the team decided to issue last year. But last year was different than past years and so instead of inventing a son or daughter for myself, I did the only thing any doting uncle and godfather should do for his niece. I signed her up for the G Wiz Kids' Club so WE could add Martell to OUR growing collection of Wizards bobbleheads. Makes sense, right?

This year, the Wizards did it to us again and made an exclusive G Wiz bobblehead available to Kids' Club members. This year, however, instead of showering fans with free bobbleheads, this is the only one the team is issuing. Since I can't very well deny my niece a critical piece in her future bobblehead collection and we are not getting any others this year, she is once again back as a member of the Kids' Club, courtesy of my hard earned $20. How excited can I get about a G Wiz bobble vs. a player bobble? Well, let's just table that discussion.

This year's G Wiz bobblehead is not the first G Wiz bobble the team has ever released. A few years ago, the team gave away a G Wiz bobble belly, so named because his entire upper torso is on the bobble spring, imitating the signature G Wiz jiggling the stomach motion that whoever is inside the costume performs for the entertainment of kids and adults alike. But this is the first G Wiz bobble issued since the 2011 team's red, white and blue rebrand, so it's good to get an updated mascot bobblehead to "support" the bobble team of John Wall, Bradley Beal, Martell Webster and Nenê I have on my shelf while bobblehead Phil Chenier and Steve Buckhantz call the game. Yes, I know I only have four current players, which is precisely why the Wizards should have scheduled Marcin Gortat bobblehead day sometime this year. I believe I have made this point before.

This G Wiz bobblehead is significantly more athletic looking than the G Wiz bobble belly I have. He's dribbling a basketball in the same sort of pose that John Wall was depicted in free bobble form when he was a rookie. His fur is about as realistic looking as you can make fur look in hard plastic form and he's wearing the absolutely completely up to date jersey, complete with the NBA logo moved to the back of the jersey just below the neckline and the gold championship patch the NBA introduced this year right above that. The shorts are missing the monument ball logo on the waistband but other than that, it looks like they made a decent attempt to make the uniform as accurate as possible.

I predicted last month that the quality of this bobblehead would be pretty much the same kind of quality as the free in game giveaways we have received in past years and I'm almost right here. The paintwork looks pretty good, maybe even a bit more than a touch above average, but there are some telltale signs of imperfection which makes these free bobbleheads so endearing. I'm missing some paint on the G on the base of the item and the gold championship patch (below) is more of a darkish gray rather than a gold. Not sure how they got that wrong. Maybe it was the end of the shift or something.

I'm taking this bobblehead for what it is. I'd rather have a Marcin Gortat, Paul Pierce, Drew Gooden or even Randy Wittman bobblehead (please, please, Wizards!) but I clearly am not going to have one of those this year. I'll have to make do with this one until next season. You can bet I'll start campaigning early next year, rather than waiting to see what the team decides. Overall, I'm as happy as I really could be to add Wizards bobblehead number 31 to my growing collection. Considering the beatdown we put on the Clippers last night, nothing can really upset me today.

Manual Labor

Every year the Washington Wizards send me a minimum of one survey to gauge how I view the fan experience and how engaged I am as a season ticket holder. A long long time ago (maybe five or six years?), one of the questions was about volunteering and whether I would be willing to participate in charitable events featuring Wizards players or staff if the opportunity was afforded. In a moment of unbridled enthusiasm and with visions of me and Gilbert Arenas serving food at a community kitchen or something like that, I responded "yes". Then I pretty much forgot all about it.

Then about a month ago, there was a call for volunteers in the Wizards' weekly season ticket holder e-mail to assist in building a playground at a school in southeast Washington D.C. I remembered my reaction to the opportunity for this sort of event during the Arenas years, thought about it for a few days and then finally decided to take the plunge and sign up. I said I would do it five or six years ago; I better live up to my word now. 

Now, this is a bit of an unusual gesture for me. I generally think of myself as a fairly selfish person. When I engage in charitable activities (which I do pretty regularly), it is usually by donating money or other things I have purchased with money. I have a standard list of organizations I donate to each year and I love going toy shopping every holiday season before dumping my entire haul into a Toys For Tots bin at Toys 'R Us.

But volunteering is a different story. I gave my time for a day once to renovate a house in D.C. when the company where I worked was celebrating its 60th anniversary and I've donated other time professionally but this represents a step forward toward selflessness for me. I feel awkward just admitting my lack of sweat equity in my community. I swear I'm not a bad person. I just need some coaching is all. 

So today instead of getting up and walking a mile or so to my office for another dose of the same daily grind, I hopped on the Orange line to L'Enfant Plaza then transferred to the Green line for a quick ride over to Congress Heights Metro station on the other side of the Anacostia River. I don't usually come this way. This was definitely a different day for me.

9 a.m. No playground.

My destination this morning was the Eagle Academy Public Charter School, a charter school in the District of Columbia Public Schools system located on Wheeler Avenue SE about a quarter mile south of St. Elizabeth's Hospital. The school was founded about ten years ago with an initial enrollment around 110 students; today the school has 762 students covering pre-Kindergarten through third grade. The school seemed to have a pretty good sized campus from our initial walk around the site and there is an addition (including an indoor swimming pool) under construction adjacent to the school's main building. The one thing the Academy didn't have prior to today was a playground for the children. The nearest playground for the students was down a hill and across busy Mississippi Avenue to the south. We fixed all that today.

Before I arrived at Eagle Academy today, I imagined the construction of a playground to be a fairly simple task involving a few dedicated teams of volunteers. The initial correspondence we received after we signed up seemed contrary to my intuition. The directions we were sent earlier this week suggested there was little parking for volunteers while also pointing out about 60 available parking spaces. How many people were going to be involved in this thing? There can't possibly be more than 60 people involved, can there??? I now know that I didn't have any idea what I was in for.

Me and G Wiz on a break. Actually I was on a break. G Wiz wasn't really doing any work.

After signing in at the registration table, I received a blank name tag with a pictogram (skull and crossbones; how cool is that?) which I promptly wrote my name on and then stood around looking at all the other people on the site. And there were a lot of people. And they were all standing around doing pretty much nothing. I started to have no confidence in the ability of the organizers to utilize this many people and expected a lot of standing around for the rest of the day. The build effort actually turned out to be the exact opposite. The company organizing the build, a national non-profit organization named Kaboom!, really knew what they were doing and split all the volunteers into highly effective teams doing very specific tasks. Apparently, this was their 2,355th playground build nation-wide.

Little did we know, but the name tags we picked up at registration determined what we would do for the rest of our day on site. I soon found out the incredibly cool skull and crossbones name tags (way better than fruit or Hello Kitty or words of encouragement or horses or anything else) destined me for about six hours of shoveling and moving mulch (allegedly 160 cubic yards although I had a lot of help) from an enormous pile to the playground surface. As a volunteer assignment, I'm actually OK with this job. The last thing I want on a construction site is to be assigned a task that requires construction skills. I have difficulty knocking a nail in straight but I know for sure that I can move stuff from one location to another. I can lift and carry no problem.

Having said all that, this was a tough day. I'm not as young as I once was and I have very little experience with manual labor in my last 20 years. Call me a baby but it's really difficult to move mulch for hours on end. And I'm talking about moving it by hand. Like a shovelful at a time from the seemingly endless enormous pile on to tarps and carrying it alone or in pairs over to a very large unbuilt playground. We had a few wheelbarrows but the majority of the mulch without doubt got moved with brute manual labor. Shovel. Lift. Carry. Dump. Repeat. That was my day today.

12:30 p.m. Looking good. Finishing is going to be no problem, right?

The entire exercise was supposed to take from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. At first it seemed like we would finish a few hours ahead of time. The mulch crew (which I would estimate occupied about a third of the volunteers) was actually told to stand down for a bit to let the playground equipment folks catch up. There were only a few areas we could move our enormous pile a tarp-ful at a time to without other equipment being in place.

But later on in the day, it seemed like there was no way we would finish. Concrete finally got poured around some of the in-ground posts for the swings and slides around noon, which allowed the mulch move to proceed. But some concrete pours lagged to within a half hour of the finish time, meaning there were entire ground areas still not covered with mulch 30 minutes before the ribbon cutting. Incredibly, I guess doing this sort of thing 2,354 times before breeds some sort of success because we managed to finish everything on time. Barely, but on time.

Bradley Beal and Glen Rice, Jr. hard at work.

Of course, this recollection of my day wouldn't belong in this blog without some sort of tangible Wizards connection. Late in the day, we did get some help from Wizards players Bradley Beal and Glen Rice, Jr. After breaking a serious sweat twice and feeling like my knees wouldn't stand moving mulch much longer, those two finally showed up at about 2:30 p.m. They were enlisted to put together something resembling some basketball hoops and put in place the Wizards logo on the playground but other than that didn't engage in much heavy lifting. And I'm totally cool with all that. It was a boost for me that they showed up and the last thing I need is Bradley Beal hurting himself moving a part of our enormous pile of mulch two days before training camp begins.

As I write this post, I know I'm going to be sore tomorrow. I know the sleep that I am craving right now is going to cause me some sort of pain in the morning. And I'm OK with that. The stories that the school's principal told us just before the ribbon cutting about some of the kids crying because they couldn't use the playground right away and the fact that these students no longer have to cross a busy road to play makes me feel like my day was spent well. Better in fact than sitting at my desk at work making sure everyone did what they were supposed to do. I guess being a little bit selfless once in a while isn't that bad for me. I'm not saying I'm running out next week and doing this again, but I think today was worth it.

3:45 p.m. Playground installed. Time to go home.

NBA Mascot Rank, Part 5

So after a month's worth of weekly blogging about NBA mascots, it has come to this: the fifth and final part culminating in the crowning of a mascot champion. At this point, all the mascots left score really really high on the appearance and relevance scales. This last six is without doubt a good looking group and they are clearly representing their franchise name or location. The separation between sixth and first will be subtle but I'll do my best to explain my choices. Hopefully it will make sense. We'll start down south.

6: Harry The Hawk, Atlanta Hawks

In contrast to Major League Baseball and the National Football League which abound in bird nicknamed teams (three in MLB; five in the NFL), the NBA boasts a single franchise with a bird mascot and the Hawks are it. The National Hockey League, by the way, has zero ever since the Thrashers left Atlanta and headed north to become the second incarnation of the Winnipeg Jets. What is it with Atlanta and birds? A couple of years ago they had the Hawks, Thrashers and Falcons. Doesn't matter I guess. 

As a mascot, I think Harry does the birds of the world and the city of Atlanta proud. He's clearly a bird (I'm not sure I'm qualified to comment on subtleties of bird of prey mascot costumes but I believe he's a hawk) and he has the Hawks' color scheme down to a tee. Other than being alliterative, his name is nothing special but it's better than some of his colleagues'. For me, Harry's a top six mascot because of all mascots, I'm believing there's some ferocity in his appearance. I think it's the eyebrows.

5: Rocky The Mountain Lion, Denver Nuggets

Whoever runs (or ran) the virtual Mascot Hall of Fame doesn't agree with me on much when it comes to NBA mascots' excellence. I am placing four of the Hall's five NBA inductees at numbers seven, 14, 16 and 21 in this countdown. But when it comes to the Nuggets' mascot Rocky, we are in agreement. This is a top five mascot for sure.

The great thing for me about Rocky is his all pervasive relevance. He's clearly not a nugget (however you would represent the actual nickname of Denver's franchise I don't know) but the concept of a mountain lion named Rocky in a city deep in the Rocky Mountains is awesome. He's also a great looking mascot and I love the shoes.

4: Bango, Milwaukee Bucks

I have to say the Milwaukee Bucks don't have a whole lot going for themselves lately. They lost their two marquee free agents in the offseason, they have won one division title since the 1985-1986 season and they haven't won an NBA championship since 1971. Admittedly they had a pretty good run before in the 1970s and 1980s, winning 12 division championships in a 16 year span but the last 16 or so years have been less than fruitful (no comments about my Wizards here please).

But if there's a bright spot in Milwaukee, it's Bango. Just like Rocky at the five spot, Bango looks great and represents his franchise superbly, this time through actually being what the franchise mascot is (a buck) while managing to avoid the Santa's reindeer look that could have conceivably tripped him up. Besides scoring high on relevance and appearance, Bango's strongest asset is his name which comes from longtime Bucks play by play announcer Eddie Doucette who used the phrase on air whenever a Bucks player connected on a long range basket. I love that the Bucks honor someone who called games for 16 years for the franchise. The name puts Bango ahead of Rocky and into the number four slot.

3: Benny The Bull, Chicago Bulls

For years when I was a New York Knicks fan, I hated the Chicago Bulls and everything associated with their franchise. It would have been unthinkable at that time for me to have ranked anything associated with this team as high as third. I would have tried to mock their logo (which is actually really pretty good) or their stupid alternate pinstripe uniforms (which are worthy of mocking) or found some other way to tear them down. Heck, I would have probably brought up Benny's rap sheet as a way of ranking him lower in a mascot rank.

But times have changed, I root for the Bulls in the playoffs and the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat have settled in to the Bulls' old spot in my life so Benny gets the bronze medal here. Except for the alliteration, the name's not awesome but he's clearly a bull and he's very red, which I think is perfect for that animal. But let's face it here, Benny's appearance is the reason he's so high. Rocky and Bango both have better names. Benny just looks better.

2: Stuff The Magic Dragon, Orlando Magic

If you had asked me a year ago who I thought was the second best mascot in the NBA, no way would I have picked Stuff. But looking at all 30 mascots in a comprehensive fashion this summer really revealed Stuff to be an outstanding choice at the two spot. It is admittedly difficult to make a mascot that represents magic (or heat or thunder for that matter) but I think whoever designed this thing pulled it off.

While the Magic website's story of the franchise name doesn't point the origin of the name at nearby Walt Disney World, I'm pretty confident that place was a pretty strong influence. And Stuff looks like he'd be right at home there. There's no question he looks magical and unlike any dragon I have seen before, sort of an updated Phillie Fanatic for central Florida (I know there are folks in Philadelphia shuddering at this statement).

But as good as Stuff looks, there's no question in my mind that the name puts him here at the overall runner up spot. Notwithstanding Ben Stiller's likely true accusation in Meet The Parents, Puff The Magic Dragon is still a kids' song to me and applying that name to the Magic mascot with the small alteration in his name to relate to basketball works perfectly.

1: G Wiz, Washington Wizards

Just so you understand, this is not a TOTAL homer pick. I really do think G Wiz is one of the best mascots in the NBA. Maybe I'm too close like I am with most things Wizards but I think he represents our franchise nickname perfectly, even though he's obviously more muppet wizard than human wizard. I can admit he looked a lot more like a wizard in the early days of me being a season ticket holder when he still sported his beard and cape but he doesn't lack anything by losing them. Maybe he would lose his wizardly look if he lost his hat but I don't think that will ever happen.

I also think despite being covered in blue fur (thank God they didn't switch the fur to red when they rebranded the franchise in 2011) and being utterly unrecognizable as any sort of animal or creature of myth that G Wiz is a handsome mascot. The new uniforms and change to red gloves and shoes improve his look immensely but then again, changing from the Wizards' 1997-2011 uniforms would help anyone or anything look better. And finally there's the name, which is pretty much perfect. It rolls off the tongue like the antiquated saying it is but works really well. Much more mellifluous than Stuff The Magic Dragon. Congratulations, G Wiz! Number one in my book of mascots every day.

So that's it. This countdown has lasted five Fridays and now we are now only 29 days from the opening of training camp. This at least kept my mind occupied in August. Can't wait until September 28!

NBA Mascot Rank, Part 1

August and September are boring months for the committed NBA fan. Summer League is over, all the in demand free agents are under contract and training camp has yet to begin so we're stuck in limbo for a couple of months with little to occupy our time. Last year we were fortunate to have the Olympics to tide us over for the month of August. This year, there's only the WNBA. And let's face it, nobody watches those games.

So in an effort to keep myself occupied and to make myself feel good about keeping my blog going, I thought I'd take a look at the mascots in the NBA and see if any of them can measure up to the Wizards' excellent-in-every-way mascot, G Wiz. And if that's not blatant foreshadowing, I don't know what is. That curiosity has resulted in what will end up being a five post mascot-fest where I rank all the NBA mascots (and more) from 30 to 1. This first post deals with the concept of mascots and tallies those that don't exist or never have. Read on!

I have to confess I used to hate mascots. I saw them as unnecessary distractions for fans that were less committed than me. I cheered the University of Michigan when I was enrolled there for banning the student-created "Willy the Wolverine" mascot from Michigan Stadium. But as I've grown older, I've come to view them as part of the game experience and have actually started to have positive views of some of them. There are mascots who are genuine icons (think of baseball's Philly Phanatic or the San Diego Chicken here) but others are just downright uninspired, goofy or a complete waste of time.

Some NBA teams don't have mascots and some do. Some teams have multiple mascots or inflatable versions of their primary mascot and some teams keep switching their mascot because they can't decide what they really want. All of that makes ranking them somewhat complicated but I've managed to do it. I can tell you are already impressed. Here's how my rankings work.

When evaluating mascots, I've considered three criteria: name, relevance (either geographical or franchise nickname relevance) and appearance. Some mascots have creative names, are really relevant to their teams and look awesome. Others just don't. In my studies, I've typically only considered a team's primary mascot in my rankings with two exceptions: the Cleveland Cavaliers, because I can't figure out who their primary mascot is, and the Washington Wizards, because, well, this is a blog about my life and the Wizards. So let's get right to it. We'll start with number 30, after some honorable mentions.

Honorable Mention: Hugo T. Hornet, Charlotte Hornets

Yes, that's right...CHARLOTTE Hornets. If there's one wrong that has to be righted in the NBA's mascot world, it's that Hugo has to be restored in Carolina where he started out (this is going to occur in 2014 by the way). If the Hornets name (and consequently Hugo) still existed in the NBA, he would surely challenge for the top spot in this ranking on appearance alone, especially if he were in Charlotte where the Hornets nickname is relevant. Good thing for G Wiz this isn't being done a year later.

Hugo scores so high on relevance and appearance and those two factors more than compensate for his average name. There's no question he looks like a mascot, is clearly what he's supposed to be (a hornet) and represents the team perfectly. He's cartoony without being overly simple. There's a richness in the details here. Can't wait to see Hugo back on the court next October.

Honorable Mention: Squatch, Seattle SuperSonics

If there's a tragedy in the NBA, it's that the city of Seattle does not have an NBA team. That situation could have been righted a few months ago with the sale of the Sacramento Kings to a Seattle based investment group although that would have just transferred the NBA-less tragedy from the Emerald City down to California's capital. When the team that would become the Oklahoma City Thunder left Seattle in 2008, they left the SuperSonics name, the uniforms and the 1979 NBA Championship trophy behind for the city of Seattle. 

They also left behind the Sonics excellent mascot, Squatch, who like Hugo above, would surely be a top 10 mascot in this ranking. Squatch (short for Sasquatch, duh...) has an awesome name and he really couldn't exist anywhere else except for the Pacific northwest (I'll refrain from going into my account of how I think I saw one once in Pennsylvania; that's a story for a totally different time). He also looks just like most of us convince ourselves bigfoot looks like so he scores high in my book on name, relevance and appearance. We will likely have to wait a few more years for Squatch to re-appear. Maybe if the Bobcats/Hornets keep performing poorly enough.

Honorable Mention: Clipper Darrell, Los Angeles Clippers 

I first became aware of Clipper Darrell (real name Darrell Bailey) at NBA Summer League in probably 2008 or 2009. I was watching the Clippers play some other team (I don't remember who although I don't think it was the Wizards) and the Clips were playing miserably, just like they did pretty much every year before they drafted Blake Griffin and the NBA gifted Chris Paul for them. Between chants like "U-G-L-Y you ain't got no alibi" I heard this guy in blue and red yell out something to the effect of "Come on, show them how we play Clipper basketball." Based on the laughter which followed a muffled rejoinder from someone on the other side of Cox Pavilion, I believe it was pointed out to Darrell that the Clippers were actually playing Clipper basketball at the time. 

Among NBA super fans, Clipper Darrell (shown above with his now deceased Clippers car) is my hero. He's the epitome of the loyal-no-matter-how-the-team-performs fan. Five years ago, if there was a team that needed a change of fortune from their entire history, it was the Clippers and Darrell was the symbol of a fan base clinging to absolutely no hope whatsoever. And now thanks to Griffin and Paul, the Clips actually stand somewhat of a chance. They won their first division title ever last year and despite the Clippers organization trying to disassociate themselves with Darrell last season, he's stuck with it. Good for Darrell. I hope one day the fortunes of the Wizards will turn the way they have in Los Angeles. 

Now...enough honorable mentions. On to my rankings. 

30-26 (Tie): No Mascot, Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers, New Orleans Pelicans, New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers

No mascot means one of two things to me, either the franchise is too iconic to stoop to having a mascot or there is just no willingness to be the least bit imaginative and create one. The Lakers and Knicks clearly fit into the former category whereas the Clippers and 76ers fall into the latter. The 76ers actually have experimented with mascots, last in the form of Hip Hop, a rabbit with absolutely no value whatsoever. Hip Hop was retired or killed or whatever about two years ago and mercifully hasn't been seen since.

Now, one could clearly take the position that having no mascot in some cases is actually better than having a terrible mascot. Maybe so, and I'd totally entertain that argument but since this is my blog, that argument doesn't work this month. Well OK, it works for one team. On to number 25...

25 (Tie): No Mascot, Golden State Warriors, and G Man, Washington Wizards

In 1997, both the Golden State Warriors and Washington Wizards rebranded themselves with new uniforms, new mascots and, in the case of the Washington franchise, a new nickname. I am totally convinced that the two organizations cheaped out on their rebrand and split the cost of the re-design because both franchises emerged with the exact same product. Their new jerseys looked remarkably similar, from the offset numbers on the front under their nickname tapering from a large W to a small S to the numbers on the back of the uniform which were the exact same custom designed font.

They also emerged from the rebrand effort with the same ugly mascot, a blue muscled dude wearing the terrible uniforms that the franchises likely split the cost of. The Warriors' mascot was named Thunder; the Wizards' mascot was named G Man. Since 1997, both franchises have rebranded themselves again, both adopting uniform designs similar to the uniforms the two franchises wore in the 1970s, when each won a title. When the Warriors rebranded themselves in 2010, they dumped Thunder. When the Wizards rebranded themselves in 2011, they unfortunately kept G Man.

The two franchises are tied for 25th best (or sixth worst if you prefer) in my rankings because for me on a mascot level, they are inextricably linked and nobody is going to be able to convince me the two franchises didn't collude and get a two for one deal on mascot design. You get what you pay for and these mascots honestly stink. I could have stuck the Warriors tied with the Clippers, Lakers, Knicks, Pelicans and Sixers but quite honestly, I think they deserve some credit for dumping a terrible mascot and so they sit above the other five franchises currently without mascots. The Wizards should follow the Warriors' lead and dump G Man.