My MLK Day Tradition

Ahhh…the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. One of the best days of the basketball year. There's nothing like leaving all my co-workers at work and going out for a beer with lunch followed by a matinee Wizards game knowing that the rest of the non-federal government world is at work. Sounds like something wonderful to me.

I think my first MLK Day matinee at Verizon Center (then MCI Center) was probably in January 2001, the first year I bought season tickets. I had known about the NBA's MLK Day tradition because I was home sick on the holiday one year when I worked in upstate New York. I was happy to find some live NBA hoops on TV (a Knicks game, no less) while I was snuggled on my couch nursing whatever had ailed me on that day. And I was sick, seriously, even if some of my co-workers weren't so convinced.

But it was a few years into my Wizards season ticket holder tenure that I first started to understand the possibilities of what this day could offer and since then it has become one of the best traditions in my life that I share with my friend Mike, who has held season tickets in some way with me since the 2002-2003 season. We always do the same thing year after year and this has been going on for the better part of a decade. I believe people are creatures of habit and there's no doubt on this day that I am. Yesterday was no exception to the tradition. Here's my day in pictures for MLK Day 2014.

11:49 a.m.: Free At Last

Done with work for the day after a mere four hours. Hallelejuh! I rode down in the elevator with three coworkers and made a beeline for the Clarendon Metro. Headed downtown, not to return until after a game and a few beers. My coworkers, I assume, went back for the afternoon session. Ha!!!

12:18 p.m.: Lunch at the Black Rooster, 1919 L Street NW

Grilled cheese with bacon and tomato with an Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. How can it get better than this? If you are thinking by looking at this picture that the Rooster's business was suffering due to the federal holiday yesterday, you are absolutely correct. At one point halfway through my meal there was a two to one staff to customer ratio (we were the only two customers with four staff there). We haven't always come to the Rooster for lunch before the MLK Day but we've recently been making more of an effort to get over there since our office moved out of D.C.

1:48 p.m.: Arrival at Verizon Center

The Wizards are on the court as we arrived. It looks like there is a two to one staff to customer ratio at VC just like there was at the Rooster but believe me, it filled in nicely for a 2 p.m. holiday start. The Wizards were looking to get back to a .500 record for the third time this season. Philly looked like some easy prey on a day when the Wizards have been unusually successful.

4:28 p.m.: Wizards Win!! Wizards Win!!

Just as I predicted, the Wizards stomp the Philadelphia 76ers to get back to an even record. OK, so "stomp" may be an exaggeration. We were up by 21 early in the fourth quarter and looked like we would cruise to victory. But then coach emptied the bench and the Sixers' reserves smelled blood, clawing back to an eight point margin before our starters, who had been re-inserted when the lead was cut to 12, polished off the visitors. Not a pretty win, but it counts. The Wizards are now 8-1 in their last nine MLK Day games. Boston's up next Wednesday night with a chance to finish the first half of the season with a winning record.

5:18 p.m.: Car Pool, Arlington

Before I moved to Arlington, I used to hang out at Car Pool and shoot some stick almost every Friday night. But since I moved a few blocks away, my visits are way less frequent. Over the years, Car Pool has gradually reduced the number of pool tables to what now has to be a bare minimum. I guess Skee-Ball (what adults play Skee-Ball??) and more tables for drunk patrons to rest their drinks on make more money than a pool table. I think there are fewer than eight tables here now. It had been about a year since I last played pool so I didn't feel too bad losing to Mike (who is way better than me) 3-2 this year, even if he did have a broken finger. Car Pool's one of those places that sticks in my memory as way better than the actual experience. It's just not the same now.

6:48 p.m.: Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery, Ballston Mall

Nothing like a beer and some tacos in northern Virginia's crappiest mall to end MLK Day. Rock Bottom's food is not as good as it once was but it's also not as bad as it once was and besides, it's tradition by now so we had to finish the night here. I think Rock Bottom got instantly worse when they got purchased by Gordon Biersch and ditched the local beer names but they have definitely gotten a little better since they hit, well, rock bottom with their food quality about two or three years ago. And yes, the words finish the night do apply to a place we arrived at just before 7 p.m. After beer with lunch, at the game and at Car Pool, there's only so much longer I can last and Rock Bottom did me in after one beer yesterday. I was home an hour and a half later. Or maybe sooner. A little fuzzy on the details.

So that's it. MLK Day 2014 is in the books. I'm already looking forward to next year.

The Rooster

My friend Mike and I have been going to Washington Wizards games together since the spring of 2003 when I talked him into going to the then-MCI Center in the last month or so of the Michael Jordan era. I believe that was Mike's first basketball game and that and the next few contests ended up being an instructional session on the basic rules of the game. And I really mean the basic rules of the game. I'm talking traveling, fouling, 24 second shot clock, essentially anything that was different between roundball and hockey, which was the sport Mike had grown up with. 

Despite that rocky beginning, Mike bought into my season ticket package the very next year and in the ten plus seasons since, I've seen more basketball games with him than anyone else and there's nobody I'd rather watch hoops with. For five of those years, from September 2005 to September 2010, we both worked in D.C.'s West End, either at the same firm or different firms. But unlike now that we both work in Arlington, when we can actually go home from work and change or eat before games, during those years there was always some time to kill and/or a quest for food between quitting time (anywhere from 4:30 p.m. on) and game time (almost always 7 p.m.).

We tried a lot of places to call home for the dead time between work and tip off but the one place we eventually settled on as our regular watering and dining hole was The Black Rooster over on L Street NW between 19th and 20th Streets. The bar and wait staff (Helen, Chris and Sarah most especially) at the Rooster always made us feel at home and over those five years we logged a lot of time there, whether it was before games, for work happy hours or even to hide and confide in my best friend when it felt like my whole life was falling apart. That last one's overly sappy I know, but it's true. And my life went on and got way better, by the way.

We don't hang out at the Rooster much any more but we try to get over there once or twice or even three times a year. This past Monday, before the Wizards' undermanned victory over the Memphis Grizzlies behind John Wall's career high 47, we made some time to grab a beer or three and a sandwich. Every time I go back, I wish we still worked over at Lafayette Center so we could go more regularly. They always have some great beers on tap for me (and Bud Light for Mike) and the grilled cheese sandwiches on Texas toast (with bacon and tomato for me; plain for Mike) are still the grilled cheeses we love the best. We don't even look at the menu any more.

The Rooster almost closed once (in fact, I think they did actually close their doors due to a rent dispute with their landlord) but I'm glad they are still open even if we don't spend as much time there as I'd like any more. In this world of impermanence, it's comforting to know there are places like this out there. As long as I'm a Wizards season ticket holder, I'll always make time to go back a couple of times a year until I can convince my company to move downtown again. Long live the Rooster!

D.C.'s best grilled cheese? Maybe.