{"id":30060,"date":"2012-05-21T14:57:23","date_gmt":"2012-05-21T14:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/there-is-something-endearing-about-the-way\/"},"modified":"2012-05-21T14:57:23","modified_gmt":"2012-05-21T14:57:23","slug":"there-is-something-endearing-about-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/there-is-something-endearing-about-the-way\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

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.<\/p>\n

(I\u2019m 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\u2019s Ark on the side of Mount Ararat, only more expensive. This is a town that wanted the NCAA to come and set up shop.)<\/p>\n

So you get a new basketball arena that\u2019s bigger than Albania, and you sell the naming rights to a bank, but you call it a \u201cfieldhouse,\u201d and you have 85-year-old Carl Erskine, the former Brooklyn Dodger great, play the national anthem on a harmonica (\u2026)<\/p>\n

The Pacers are of a piece with the whole scene \u2014 earnest craftsmen, all of whom know their roles.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Grantland\u2019s Charles Pierce<\/a>, 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<\/em>. 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<\/em>, sniveling ESPN celebrity-lackey Michael Wilbon heartily encouraged Magic Johnson to use his seventh-grade vocabulary to find a way to talk about LeBron\u2019s first half (which was great, but again: Pacers up 8). During the second half, Hubie Brown (who I love) sounded absolutely relieved<\/em> that the Heat were playing better, during the tide-turning third quarter. At one point, he said \u201cthis is what everyone\u2019s been waiting for.\u201d God, I hope the NBA entertainment complex gets a Pacers\/Spurs final after how they\u2019ve behaved this season. (via marathonpacks<\/a>)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019m not kidding about the first part, either. This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[1538],"class_list":["post-30060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","hentry","tag-humane-games","post_format-post-format-quote"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6PWot-7OQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30060\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}