There is something endearing about the way Indianapolis has embraced the Pacers, something so determined about how they link the fact that the entire city has sold its soul to the athletic-entertainment complex with their desire to remain small-town Hoosierland in their devotion to the team.
(I’m not kidding about the first part, either. This is a city that tore down a dome to put up Lucas Oil Stadium, which looms over the highway looking for all the world like Noah’s Ark on the side of Mount Ararat, only more expensive. This is a town that wanted the NCAA to come and set up shop.)
So you get a new basketball arena that’s bigger than Albania, and you sell the naming rights to a bank, but you call it a “fieldhouse,” and you have 85-year-old Carl Erskine, the former Brooklyn Dodger great, play the national anthem on a harmonica (…)
The Pacers are of a piece with the whole scene — earnest craftsmen, all of whom know their roles.
Grantland’s Charles Pierce, actually paying a little bit of attention to the Pacers as something other than the regional theater character actors who happen to be playing the cast of Battleship. The rest of the world outside of Indianapolis is going out of its way to force themselves to not have to try and talk about the Pacers, who before yesterday had not been seen nationally on Sunday since 2005. At halftime yesterday, as the Pacers were up by 8, sniveling ESPN celebrity-lackey Michael Wilbon heartily encouraged Magic Johnson to use his seventh-grade vocabulary to find a way to talk about LeBron’s first half (which was great, but again: Pacers up 8). During the second half, Hubie Brown (who I love) sounded absolutely relieved that the Heat were playing better, during the tide-turning third quarter. At one point, he said “this is what everyone’s been waiting for.” God, I hope the NBA entertainment complex gets a Pacers/Spurs final after how they’ve behaved this season. (via marathonpacks)