R.I.P. James Plotz

It's sad to say, but the Saturday morning plotzketball game may be over.

When Plotnik moved to Saint Plotniko, the first thing he did was to find a pickup game. Once that was accomplished, and not until, could he then locate a grocery store, learn the name of his street, memorize his new phone number.

Then, every sunny weekend Saturday for the past 13 years, Plotnik faithfully rode his bike up, down, up and down again to James Plotz Middle School, to play ball. At the beginning, two courts were always running at the same time. If you lost on one court you could usually get on the other without waiting too long.

Originally, you had to be there by 7:30AM or you'd wait. Then, people stopped showing up so early, and 8AM was OK. Then 8:30. Then, Greg moved to Orinda. Rico now lives in Antioch. Skip, Sherlock, Mike, Reece, Cadillac and others live in Oakland. Terrence moved out to Marin. Bobby lives in Pacifica and Adili and Cleve drive up from Burlingame. Vince hurt his back. Brian rolled his ankle and doesn't play on concrete anymore. Tony got hurt too. LaMont is said to be running from people even bigger than he is. Big George stays in bed on Saturdays. No one has seen Chuy or big Alex or little Alex for years. Joel and Nick and Rab and others from the old days got tired of the squabbling on our court and formed their own game where we, it is said, are not welcome.

Plotnik and Sam and his son Shawn are the only ones left who still live in the city. Plus, the guys have gotten older. For over a year, it's been hard to fill up even one court.

Then, this year, the winter rains came. Man, it never stopped. For four months, every Saturday morning the court was wet. People would show up, shake their heads and drive back home, or find other games.

But this morning the sun was shining, the court was dry. Plotnik had been out of town for two Saturdays, and he was really excited to play, as he pedaled over the hills to the court.

He tied up his plotkicycle, hopped over the fence, took his basketball from his backpack, did his stretches, started warming up, running, shooting, sprinting, getting ready. Every few minutes he'd look over his shoulder at the street, to see if Sam...Sherlock...Bobby...Rico...anybody was coming?

No one ever did.

What could be sadder than a gray-haired Religious Leader with a red and white headband, dribbling up and down the court by himself, surrounded by blue skies and an empty patch of concrete with two nets dying to be filled?

And now, what?