As I noted in my semi-live blog on Iowa caucus night, my Portland Trail Blazers are on a roll. Despite #1 draft pick Greg Oden sitting out his rookie season after microfracture surgery, this relatively-inexperienced team (the youngest in the NBA) has won 16 of their last 17 games.
Indeed, they are no longer the Jail Blazers, although that rep did carry the upside of seeing more Blazer jerseys than Wizards jerseys in the District.
Meanwhile, Blazermania has gripped the Portland metropolitan area like it hasn’t in nearly a decade. For the first time since anyone can remember, home games are actually selling out. The team has encouraged this by offering package deals for tickets like the four-tickets-for-$88 that put me in a seat at Paul Allen’s allegedly-bankrupt Rose Garden this December for the first time since the 2000 Western Conference Finals (from which I may never fully recover).
And it’s not just special ticket packages — the Blazers are making concerted pitches meant to appeal to Blazer fans’ better basketball selves. Here’s one that’s currently on the official Blazers website, that I thought was worthy of noting here:
Now, tell me that doesn’t sound like a last-minute campaign fundraising appeal. In fact, all they need now is a fundraising bat.
While the games are starting to sell out again we’re still a far cry from the Blazermania days of the ’90s. During the team’s recent double-digit winning streak an Oregonian columnist asked, “Why doesn’t Portland care about the Blazers now that they’ve cleaned up their act and are actually winning games?” Aside from the sports page or the Rose Garden there’s no real signs of fandom around the city that I can see. On a recent trip to a popular sports bar I found the place full of PSU professors drinking cocktails, completely oblivious to the Blazer game on various HDTVs scattered around the room. I guess the wound created by years of mismanagement and “JailBlazer” ethos has yet to fully heal.
Not to turn Blogpi into a Blazer forum, but:
Brandon, “Blazermania” was always most intense during the playoffs. It may seem, through the rosy fog of memory, like everybody ran around town all year wearing black and red jumpsuits, burning Magic Johnson in effigy — and certainly some of us did. But the current semi-interest is totally normal for this early in the season.
Plus, your description of the Cheerful Tortoise that evening would differ markedly from mine, if I had one.
Brandon, John Canzano wrote that article following a Wednesday night game I believe. There aren’t many teams that can sellout an arena on a Wednesday night. Following a 13 game win streak, the “Jail Blazers” have been completely forgotten in the city of Portland. Rip City is back Brandon, despite what John Canzano says.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but referring to Canzano as “an Oregonian columnist” is misleading, and designed to make him sound like a respectable representative of the Portland community. Sop using Canzano-wing talking points!
Not to get too pedantic, but Dan, what’s a Blogpi? Can you recite it to 30 places?
Sorry, I just call this site Blogpi because that’s what I type into the URL thingy to get here. Move to blog-p.i.net if you don’t like it!
Brad/Danimal: I’m as eager as anyone to see Blazermania shine again but I’m just calling it likes I sees it. Everyone got excited when Oden was picked and his jersey was hung on the side of the Wells Fargo Center with loving care but once he was forced to sit out for the season it’s as if the Portland’s fandom went into hibernation. Here’s hoping we see something on the level of the old days by the close of the season. For the record, from what I remember there were only two other people at the Cheerful Tortoise paying attention to the game that night.
Bill: Er, Canzano IS an Oregonian columnist. He has a local radio show on KXL, has received a few Pulitzer noms and has appeared on Sportscenter. Friggin’ guy even has a bobblehead doll modeled after him. I don’t want to defend Canzano but it’s not like he’s penning a little-read Blazers blog in his parents’ basement. If he doesn’t represent the city’s sports community on a major level then who does?
Brandon: There were two other people, aside from our group of six (that WOULD NOT have come together for a Blazer game in any of the past five years), in the same room with us, paying attention to the game that night. There were many people elsewhere. It’s a large and many-chambered place.
Plus, it’s a little disingenuous to say that “the place [was] full of PSU professors drinking cocktails” when the reasons for that is that more than half of it was, after all, reserved for a private cocktail party. Plus, it’s essentially a campus bar and this was Christmas break.
Bill: I’m really sorry to hijack your forum like this. Hey, at least we’re not Paulbots.
Dan: Hey, I’m enjoying this.
Brandon: Portland’s sportswriting scene leaves much to be desired.
All: Lickety-brindle, up the middle! Rip City! That is all.
Danimal: If you stubbornly insist on arguing this petty point then, hey, I’m on the clock right now, why not? Yes, we were in a group of six people there for the express purpose of watching a Blazer game and, yes, two other people were watching the game in the back corner where we were sitting. Now when I first got there I walked around the entire place. A good portion was sectioned-off for the professor party and they couldn’t have cared less about the game. All the others was watching the Beavers. If I had to venture a guess I’d say that only 10% of everyone in the bar was watching the game and those professors made up the bulk of the crowd. If you feel I was being disingenuous for using this tidbit to prove that Blazermania isn’t at its highest level in a nearly a decade, as William claimed, what do you want me to do? Head down there on an average weekday night for a game and take a headcount? I think a better test would be to track down a random Portlander and ask them to name anyone on the team besides Oden and Roy.
William: It’s so adorable when you break out a can of East Coast condescension on us clueless, bored and oftentimes barefoot hippies living out here in the uncivilized wilds of the Pacific Northwest. Canzano may not write for a publication like the Washington Post or the always inspiring, always relevant, always classy Times but do any of their staff writers have their own bobblehead?
I feel fairly safe saying that every sports columnist worth his (or Sally Jennngs’) smugness must have a bobblehead. If your city’s top sportswriter would obviously rather be somewhere else, that’s not a good sign. This has nothing to do with East Coast condescension, and nothing to do with the reporting. I have nothing bad to say about Jason Quick. It’s the punditry that leaves a lot to be desired.
I’d like to see Portland sports bloggers rise up and dominate Blazer talk. The establishment newspaper isn’t serving their readers, and that’s usually when bloggers start to make headway. Someone should give that Draft Kevin Durant guy a job. Heck, maybe even The Oregonian.
Brandon, wait. Was this during the OSU bowl game? Of course they were watching the Beavers! There won’t be another football game until the fall! Whereas the Blazers will be back on the court in another day or so.
And I think this even buttresses Dan’s point about Blazermania being strongest during the playoffs. Are you unimpressed because no one has yet made a T-shirt out of the Oregonian’s story on their 13th straight win?
Canzano can be a tad preachy at times. A recent column on the Ducks trip to El Paso was especially heavy handed. Still, I don’t think he’s too much of a smug pundit for the gig. Isn’t it the job of a sports columnist to be critical, meddlesome, self-righteous and, well, a pundit? I think he’s perfectly adequate for the job and has been just as critical and unrestrained in his opinions of the Blazers’ management over the past few years as any blogger would be. It’s not like he plays it safe and is little more than a cheerleader for the team. I’m pretty sure one former self-published Blazer blogger now pens the team’s “Center Court” blog on blazers.com but it reads like a series of short press releases. I’d rather read Canzano’s stuff.
T-shirts aside, as far as Portland is concerned the team may as well be in the middle of another miserable season. No one seems to talk about the team. You don’t see signs or people wearing regalia around town. In the middle of a regular season during the Clyde Drexler-era this stuff was everywhere. This is a town with a single major sports franchise. The current incarnation of the Blazers and their winning streak should be a bigger deal than it’s been treated. Like I said somewhere else in this string of posts, I think the average Portlander would be hard pressed to name more than two players.
Brandon, I think you’re completely missing Bill’s point about Canzano, which is that he’s basically a journeyman “pundit” with no real connection to Oregon sports. He’s here, pretending to care about our teams, because it’s his job. He’ll move on when a better job comes along. Compare this to Dwight Jaynes, who is a freakin’ Oregon sports punditry institution.
Anyway, yeah, yeah, yeah. The truth about Blazer fandom lies somewhere in between “Blazermania is back!” and your “no one cares” view. The very fact that we are talking about them, and going to games, and watching games, is revolutionary compared to the past five to seven years. On the other hand, sure, I encounter a lot of indifference that wasn’t there in 1991. I think right now the re-birth of Blazermania is essentially in an “early adopter” stage. It’ll spread. I wouldn’t be surprised if some genuine rabies catches on when we make the playoffs. But of course it’ll take years of continued success and charisma to re-gain what was lost. Duh.
Dan understand my point about Canzano exactly. I was going to praise Jaynes in an earlier comment, though I admit the truth is I haven’t read him in years. Nevertheless, he’s straight up PDX 4 LIFE.
And I totally agree that it will take time for people to shake off that indifference. It’s nothing if not rational for people to play wait-and-see. They don’t know the players’ names because the last time they learned some names, it was a mistake. And you never know — after all, Darius Miles isn’t gone yet.
Ok, fair enough. I’m sorry I misinterpreted William’s statements as pithy putdowns. Here’s hoping the smoking ember that is the current state of Blazermania will soon grow into a wildfire.
I think we’ve reached the end of yet another flame war. Is there anything else you guys would like to argue about?