gor[b] Paul Gorbould: Words and Pictures

Bascitbol

I'm off to see the Raptors take on the Atlanta Hawks tonight. And, like any hoops fan, I'm presented with a serious pre-game question: what to wear?

See, I do own a Raptors jersey. Two, actually. The problem is with the names on the back: Charlie Villanueva (traded to Milwaukee for T.J. Ford) and Vince Carter (traded to New Jersey for a bag of gym socks).

And of course, the Raps have switched their colour scheme from purple to red, accentuating my out-of-fashionness. Team uniforms are a model of planned obsolesence, like iPods (except you can't hide them in your pocket.)

But I've found a solution for tonight's wardrobe malfunction.

Last year, my daughter (then four) decided to design a T-shirt for me with a basketball theme. And, though I've yet to wear it out of the house, I love it.

The "BASCITBOL" shirt features a game between four teams she dreamt up: the Tigers (TiGRS), the Polar Bears (POLRBARS), the Butterflies (BUtRFLiS) and the Polkadots (POCAbotS).

[Anyone who doesn't like the name Raptors should be glad my daughter didn't win the naming contest. Though the Toronto Polkadots has a certain ring to it....]

Below this scoreboard is a scene of half a dozen basketball players leaping for the ball. Some of the details really made my day:

- There are six little guys flailing around, plus one guy who is an absolute giant, coloured black. She's never heard of Shaq, so I think it's an attempt at drawing Chris Bosh. He's clearly dominating, which is cool. I wish I could show it to him.

- The players actually have jerseys with basketball players shooting the rock on them.

- On two of the guys, including the giant, she attempted to draw bums between their legs. But the end result looks like very generous... um... well, what Chuck Swirsky calls "onions."

I'm currently wearing this T-shirt at work, underneath a golf shirt. But I think I'll have a couple of beers then and flaunt it proudly at the game. Onions, baby!