400 Level Signage Ranked, Part I

If you've been reading this blog at all in the last couple of months, you'll know that there was a significant renovation of Capital One Arena this summer. Heck, you might even accuse me of being a little obsessed with this building renovation and I wouldn't dispute it. A couple of months ago, I posted my ranking of the best new signage installed over the summer at the entrances to the 100 level seating sections. At that time, I figured the lower level of the building would have been the only spot in the building that management (or Capital One, depending on your perspective) would have sprung for some new signage.

Turns out I was wrong. About a week after I published that November post, I made my way upstairs in the building (to pour my own beer, if you must know) and found a whole new set of signage up on the 400 level. So now I have to rank the upper deck signage also of course. The same disclaimers apply: generally basketball beats hockey, events in the building beat events not in the building and concerts and shows usually take a back seat to sports. I'm not making any effort here to provide a consolidated ranking of all signs in the building. Honestly, I don't see the point. I mean, after all, this blog is mostly pointless anyway.

There are 34 signs on the 400 level. I'll be counting down from 34 to 18 in this post and then doing the top 17 in another post. It would be just too long to do all 34 in a single sitting.

34. Keith Urban (426/427)

Keith Urban? Really? There were 56 picture signs installed around Capital One Arena last summer including 12 related to concerts (3 downstairs and 9 upstairs) and they picked Keith Urban as one of those 12? I've seen Bob Dylan in the building twice and he's not one of them but Keith Urban is? And no Madonna either? Although the last omission is likely due to Madge going on stage 2-1/2 hours late for one show which did not make Ted happy. This sign is the worst. 

33. Arena Construction (418/419)

As I mentioned during my first post, posts about the building are not events that happened in the building. Sure the construction was important because without the construction there wouldn't be a building at all but this does not qualify for a sign. They should remove this one immediately. Well, after they take the Keith Urban one down that is. :)

32. International Horse Show (414/415)

31. Disney On Ice (424/425)

Every year it seems the Wizards go on the road for about a week or maybe a little more and either the horse show or Disney on Ice moves in. I've never been to either of these events but they rank this low on this list because they are not in any way unique to the building. Disney gets the nod over horses because horses kind of freak me out. 

30. ArenaBowl Champions (401/402)

I guess I feel happy for these guys who won the ArenaBowl. Most people will never win a professional sports championship even if it was in a four team league and the team's regular season record was 2-6. I also in theory genuinely root for these players in life. This is their shot at glory and some may actually make it out and make it big a la Kurt Warner. But this signs sits at 30th on this list because it's just not a relevant sport. Sorry for being petty but that's how I feel.

29. Harlem Globetrotters (429/430)

The Globetrotters might have been easily ranked with the horse show and Disney On Ice. I elected to put them here because I think Arena Football is more pointless than watching the 'Trotters beat the Washington Generals every night. They can't rank too hight though because it's totally non-competitive basketball. Then again, there have been seasons that you could easily say that about the Wizards. 

28. Foo Fighters (407/408)

27. Andrea Bocelli (420/421)

26. Justin Timberlake (415/416)

25. Bruno Mars (411/412)

I mentioned under the Keith Urban entry above that there are nine signs featuring concerts on the 400 level. I'm electing to group seven of the other eight in the next seven spots, starting with artists that I have not seen at MCI Center/Verizon Center/Capital One Arena. Foo Fighters, Andrea Bocelli, Justin Timberlake and Bruno Mars are ranked in the order I would probably go see them. There is one more artist I haven't seen in the building on a sign but they are just head and shoulders above these four (and the next three). Go ahead and mock me for putting Foo Fighters last. 

24. Christina Aguilera (422/423)

23. Bon Jovi (432/433)

22. Lady Gaga (419/420)

And then there are the artists I have seen at MCI Center/Verizon Center/Capital One Arena. Yes, I have actually seen Christina Aguilera and Lady Gaga there (I've also seen Britney Spears there but they chose to not give Brit her own sign). These three are listed in the order that I would probably go see them again. I debated about this list a good bit but ultimately Gaga would win out over Bon Jovi.

21. Gus Johnson Number Retired (425/426)

20. Elvin Hayes Number Retired (409/410)

19. Wes Unseld Number Retired (421/422)

When MCI Center opened in 1997, there were three retired numbers from the Washington Bullets hanging from the rafters (there are now five; Earl Monroe and Phil Chenier have been retired since the building opened). The retired numbers of Gus Johnson, Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld are all celebrated in the 400 level signs. If the retirement happened at MCI Center or Verizon Center or Capital One Arena, they would surely be higher on this list. However, they didn't; so they aren't. I've ranked these three based on my perception of their value to the franchise and its history. Debate away. I'm sure if anyone wanted to, they'd have to get through their disgust at my musical artist rankings right before these three. Except for the Keith Urban thing, that is.

18. All-Star (Bradley Beal) (413/414)

More stuff that didn't happen in the building. Sort of; I mean obviously Beal spent half (give or take) of his audition for the All-Star game at 601 F Street NW. In a spoiler alert, there's another one of these for John Wall elsewhere on the 400 level; Wall just gets ranked higher than Beal because I like Wall more than Beal. Although this season is certainly changing my opinion of Brad in a big way.

So at this point in my ranking of signage on this level, there are three retired Bullets players (don't worry - Phil's coming too) and recognition of All-Start appearances by Beal and Wall. There is nothing about the teams in between the Bullets and Ted's 2010-and-after version of the Wizards. And I think this completely sucks. There are a ton of fans including me who watched Arenas, Butler and Jamison play in the building and they get nothing. Not a single sign. No mention. For a team that at one point in 2007 led the Eastern Conference at the All-Star break. Eddie Jordan coached the All-Star team that year. Couldn't that get a mention even? Over Keith Urban maybe? Guess not. The revisionist history here is annoying to me. Those guys deserve better.

End of Part I. Part II next week.

The Hoop Hall

The Washington Wizards 2104 postseason starts today at 7 pm. So before my attention gets totally swayed in the direction of our first playoff run since 2008, I thought I should wrap up my thoughts on my recent trip to New England. I've talked about watching hoops in Springfield and finding what I hoped to find in the D-League in Maine in past posts. I've also covered an important side trip in Portland on my mini-brewery tour up there. But one of the most important reasons I visited New England this year was to make a pilgrimage to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame while I was in Springfield. After becoming a true certifiable hoops junkie, I figured it was time to go.

This was not my first trip to the Basketball Hall of Fame. I'd visited once before when my dad and I were both Knicks fans and my folks lived about 35 miles from the Hall in Connecticut. But it feels like a long basketball journey for me since that visit. I've now been a Wizards season ticket holder for 14 years and schedule my life around the NBA season, something I couldn't say the last time I was in Springfield, Massachusetts. I've become engrossed in the history of my own team and basketball in general with a focus on the pro game through reading books and watching movies in the last dozen plus years so I figured this time around I'd get a lot more out of a visit to the Hall.

After flying to Boston Friday morning, driving straight down to Springfield and making a cautionary, but as it turned out unnecessary, couple of hours long stop in the Mercy Hospital emergency room, I arrived at the museum that celebrates the birth and history of the greatest game ever invented. To be clear, the museum is not the NBA Hall of Fame (there's no such thing…yet) but instead covers basketball in all its incarnations both foreign and domestic and focuses as much on the amateur and collegiate game (yes, I'm deliberately separating those two) as it does on pro ball.

My first impression of the place was that I didn't remember the Hall of Fame this way from my previous visit. The museum is buried in a strip mall with a Subway, Cold Stone Creamery, a couple of bars and some retail stores I'd never heard of. I totally didn't recall all this. And for good reason based on some Googling when I got home. As it turns out, this is the third iteration of the Hoop Hall which opened in 2002 and in fact, I had never been here before. The Hall of Fame I visited with my dad is about a football field's length north of the current location, now converted into an L.A. Fitness gym. I was shocked to learn that the current facility was designed by respected architects Gwathmey Siegel. To me, it looked like a commodity strip mall and until I actually got all the way into the museum, I remained unimpressed.

After entering the museum property, we grabbed some tickets and then looked for the entrance to the Hall, something that required the assistance of a guide after asking for directions; the sequence of arrival is that confusing. Our visit started with an elevator ride, which is never a good way to start the journey through a building to me. It works in the Guggenheim Museum in New York; this is not the Guggenheim. The elevator let us out in the Honors Ring, which occupies the giant silver ball component of the building in the photograph above.

The Honors Ring contains photographs and career details of all the Hall's inductees and while to me this should be at the end of the museum sequence, it at least provides an instant immersion into the history of the game. Eventually, most visitors are going to recognize someone in this room unless they just started watching basketball in the last few years and have managed to remain blissfully ignorant of any and all of the game's pioneers.

For me, the Honors Ring meant seeking out Bullets and Wizards legends from the past. There are a total of 11 former Bullets and Wizards players currently inducted into the Hall of Fame, with a 12th (Mitch Richmond) on the way this fall. Only one of those 11 (Michael Jordan) played for the Wizards and most of the soon to be 12 played their best ball somewhere else. In the interest of time, I concentrated on finding the four who have had their number retired by the franchise, meaning Gus Johnson (class of 2010), Earl Monroe (class of 1990), Elvin Hayes (also class of 1990) and Wes Unseld (class of 1988).

Gus Johnson was selected by the Chicago Zephyrs (soon to be the Baltimore Bullets) in the 1963 draft and played nine years with the Zephyrs and Bullets before being traded to the Phoenix Suns in 1972. Johnson was released by the Suns but went on to win an ABA championship with the Indiana Pacers in 1973. Earl Monroe was drafted by the Bullets in 1967 and spent four years with the team before being traded to the New York Knicks in 1971 and helping the Knicks to their 1973 NBA Championship. Monroe, to me, is more a Knick than a Bullet, although he arguably had a greater impact on the game in Baltimore.

Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld both played on the Washington Bullets' 1978 championship team. Hayes spent the first four years of his career with the San Diego and Houston Rockets before being traded to the Bullets and helping the team to its three NBA Championship appearances in the 1970s. In 1981, he was traded back to the Rockets where he ended his career. Unseld is undoubtedly the franchise's greatest player, spending his entire career with the team from the time he was drafted in 1968 until his retirement in 1981. He won both Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player honors following the 1967-1968 season and presided over the franchise's most successful run ever in the 14 seasons he suited up for Baltimore and Washington. The franchise hasn't been the same since.

After the Honors Ring, we were directed into the History of the Game Gallery, a room whose entrance is presided over by a bronze statue of Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball. Among major American team sports, basketball is unique in that its origin can be traced back to a single inventor on a specific date and time before which the game absolutely, unquestionably didn't exist.

The game was invented by Dr. Naismith in December 1891 while he was a physical education instructor at the International YMCA Training School (now Springfield College) in Springfield as a way to keep his students occupied during the New England winters when they were frustrated about having to exercise indoors. Naismith wrote the original 13 rules of the game down and pinned them to the gymnasium's wall before the first game was ever played. He originally requested two boxes for goals from the YMCA's staff but finding no boxes, elected to use peach baskets instead. I'm glad in a way. Although I never would have known it, I think I would have had a harder time being a boxball fan.

The original game was way different from the way it is played today. The first game was played with a soccer ball and dribbling was not permitted. The game also featured two teams of nine, because there happened to be 18 student's in Naismith's physical education class. I imagine the original game would be barely recognizable to fans of the current NBA game. The invention of the game is described in a video behind the bronze statue of Naismith in front of the History of the Game Gallery.

The History of the Game Gallery itself traces the game's spread and development from its beginnings in the YMCA system and then through the American Athletic Union (AAU) when the game outgrew the ability of the YMCA to manage the game's growth. It deals with the early professional leagues and the transfer of the game to the college level and its rise internationally. It also traces the development of the game's equipment, from the balls used to the design and manufacture of uniforms. The early woolen uniforms and smoking jacket like warmups (complete with pockets) on display in the center of the room are crazy. I can't imagine today's players competing or warming up in these things. 

Early gear in the History of the Game Gallery. Love the wool Celtics jersey.

The next room in the museum to the right of the History of the Game Gallery for me did a great job of crystallizing the start of the current NBA. Early on in basketball's development as a professional spectator sport, there were a number of regional leagues formed, mostly in the northeast and midwest, between the two world wars. At this time, before the development of jet travel, it was difficult to get anywhere outside of your immediate geography so most teams were clustered within few states. It's odd to think of Oshkosh and Sheboygan, Wisconsin being able to support teams but that's just where some of the early teams were located.

Eventually, two leagues, the National Basketball League (NBL) in the northeast and the Basketball Association of America (BAA) in the midwest became the dominant professional leagues. The NBL was important in standardizing the rules of professional basketball which had been in almost constant evolution since the game's invention. In 1948, the two leagues merged, creating a league which would eventually be renamed the National Basketball Association in 1949 and would continue under that name to the present day.

The same room that chronicles the development of professional ball also describes the NBA game's early days and the introduction of the most important development in the game's history: the introduction of the shot clock. The proverbial straw that broke the camel's back to need to speed up the game and stimulate more scoring came in 1950, when the Fort Wayne Pistons and the Minneapolis Lakers played to a final score of 19-18. I know a lot of people who criticize today's NBA game for too much scoring, claiming all you need to do is watch the last five minutes of the game to understand what happened. I can't imagine watching a game in which both teams scored fewer than 20 points. It would be worse than watching playoff hockey!

From this point, the Hall got a lot less interesting for me. We spent some time looking through the Players Gallery, Media Gallery and Coaches and Teams Gallery but the substance contained in the History of the Game Gallery were just not there. There are only so many uniforms and autographed balls and shoes I can look at in one day. The Media Gallery admittedly suffered from some of the interactive displays being inoperable, but ultimately I was there to learn about the history of the pro game and not the guys who covered it.

The last stop on my Hoop Hall tour was the Center Court on the ground level of the museum, a full size basketball court with a museum display on one side chronicling the development and history of the hoop itself, starting with Dr. Naismith's peach baskets and ending with today's NBA hoop and backboard. Since the place was relatively quiet the Friday I was there, I thought this would be a great opportunity to show off my shot on everything from the original peach basket to dropping in some Js from three point land on the main court.

When I lived in upstate New York, my primary source of exercise came from playing basketball down at the Cooperstown Elementary School (next to the addition I designed) and up at the Richfield Springs Central School near where I worked. While there were obvious deficiencies in my game (like my utter lack of ability to play defense), I always had a pretty good shot if I got going on any given day. It's been a few years since I've been on a court but I figured I could get right back into the groove like riding a bike or something. 

Not so much. The years away have not been kind to my game. My performance was quite honestly embarrassing. It took about four or five progressively closer shots for me to drop one in the peach basket and I never hit a shot from beyond the arc. I left humbled and felt the whole exercise in futility the next couple of days in my shoulder. I'm not as young as I once was clearly. At least I could still dribble properly. All in all a pretty humorous end to my trip. We moved on from here to a local bar, far more up my alley at this point in my life.

I know I'll come back here one day. I've promised myself I'll come take in Hall of Fame Enshrinement Weekend one day but I'm sort of waiting for a Wizards-related induction. Mitch Richmond this year doesn't count, despite him being in a Wizards uniform for a few seasons. Given the Wizards' fortunes of late, know I'll likely have to wait a while, unless somehow Antawn Jamison revives his career and squeaks by in a down year, so I may have to revise my philosophy. I'm not sure I can wait 20 years, assuming there's even someone who would qualify on our current roster. Until that time, I know I got something out of this year's visit and I'm glad I went. And I'll keep learning. I still have five or ten books on my shelves about basketball history I still haven't read.

Strip mall: Not the look I want for the Basketball Hall of Fame.