The Twin Tanks

The Twin Tanks

I usually have to travel with body guards, not so much to stay safe from adoring fans or the paparazzi, but generally because of my unfiltered mouth, a nice way of saying I’m a smart ass to the nth degree. Shawn ‘Bubba’ Wilson has been pulling that duty for close to fifty years, but when I was younger I used to travel with at least two, and Stan ‘Steamer’ Miller filled that other spot perfectly.

The three of us used to travel in a pack, I couldn’t then, or now, handle my liquor very well, and by liquor I mean beers, and as all three of us were Ram fans we found ourselves at the Westminster Bowling Alley most Sundays to drink and watch our team play. Beer was cheap and after each score the management would spin a wheel of alcoholic choices, from shot specials to beers reasonably inexpensive.

I’ve made a few thousand mistakes in my time, and sitting between them in a booth was definitely one of them. Me and my smart mouth took a bruising every Sunday, not that I minded, it was their way of telling me how much they loved me, and as we all know, love hurts, especially for the little guy in the middle of the booth.

We saw a flier saying that the Los Caballeros Tennis Club was having a basketball league, and thinking we were all that, we decided to throw together a team, consisting of we three, Dennis Delany my little brother Matt and whoever else we could find. We were put into the ‘A’ division which didn’t bother us at all, until of course we found out these were all ex college players, and those dudes could ball.

There were guys who’d played in the NCAA tournament and a few that had played professionally overseas and we knew we had our work cut out for us. All five of us were extremely competitive so we weren’t about to back down, so we played with a lot of heart and smarts, but as the other teams were playing above the rim, not a one of us could dunk, not even close. Hell Matt and I couldn’t touch a low lying net.

This was the days when the Houston Rockets had the twin towers in Sampson and Olajuwon, so we countered with the twin tanks in Wilson and Miller. We were lucky if we had six guys and most teams had a full roster, and we opened with the defending champs, who had a couple six foot ten fellas and talent everywhere. They had finished the last two seasons as undefeated champs, but we weren’t smart enough to realize we couldn’t beat them.

We fell behind early but stayed within striking distance, about twelve to fifteen points back most of the game, and our entire plan was to pound the ball inside to our tanks and hope they could score. Both were adept at passing the ball back out and I too had a lot of shots falling. Dennis was an All American baseball player but couldn’t shoot any worse with the lights out, so we had that going for us as well. And Matt was a five foot six non player with no shot, no handles but he knew to throw me the ball at all times, yea he was that player.

The tanks decided to break out the one man full course press, me, and the other team for some reason got rattled, and as they threw the ball all over the place, Dennis and Matt started picking off passes and we got some easy lay ups. With about two minutes left we found ourselves surprisingly tied, and the other team were yelling at each other about “how in the fuck can we lose to these bums” and we realized we had them where we wanted them.

They started hurrying shots and the tanks starting dominating the boards, I hit a few outside bombs and Stan was making everything from the baseline. We pulled away in those last few minutes and won by eight, and that was their only loss all season.

We on the other hand had our ups and downs, apparently smoking weed before we played didn’t always help, but we did finish tied for third with a fine 4-3 record. That of course was the highlight of the season but we had a few low lights as well, as Bubba in one game went 0-10 at the free throw line with seven, yep seven, air balls. He told me he was weak from a possible flu bug and had stayed up all night with his infant daughter, but we still razz him to this day, I mean seriously, seven air balls? Even blind drunk I could do better!

We all agreed the best part of the league was Los Caballeros had a bar inside the center and being non members we took full advantage of it, mostly after games, but possibly before one or two, though no one will testify to that. We got no trophies, not even for participating, but still have memories of that win, and of course every time that team walked by they shook their collective heads as if to say “how in the fuck did you bums beat us”, and we’d raise our beers as they raised their championship trophy, and honestly an ice cold beer tasted great after wins and losses.

We were so good years later they broke up the team and sent us all over the country as Dennis remains in the OC, Stan is in Texas, Bubba in Missouri, Matt is in Ventura and I’m in Northern Idaho, and although we’ve all considered a comeback season, we all realized we are too damn old to play!

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