Men With Balls

At the City Civic Arena today, a group of very tall men bounced a large inflatable ball and hoisted it towards a hoop situated about 10 feet off of the floor As this was going on, another group of tall men dressed slightly differently from the first group, tried to take the ball away from them or, obstruct the path the ball took towards the hoop. On several occasions, they succeeded and, with the ball in hand, ran the other direction bouncing and throwing the same ball among themselves, much like the first group of men, but towards a different hoop.

Each time one of the groups of men succeeded in passing the ball through the respective hoop, the large group of people in the arena watching them uttered sounds. Sometimes the sounds indicated euphoria and at other times the sounds reflected disappointment or displeasure.

All the while this was going on, a clock on the wall counted down time as if a rocket was going to be launched. This occurred four times during the event and each time when the countdown reached the point of blast-off, a scary sound (some called it a horn) was emitted from speakers in the arena.

The event was overseen by a group of three individuals dressed in black and white striped shirts. Each carried a whistle which they would blow on occasion. When this occurred, activity on the court would cease, at which point the group of people watching the event would utter sounds similar to the ones mentioned earlier. In many cases, the sounds were directed to the people in striped shirts, though these men appeared not to be able to hear what was being said.

After whistling occurred (on some, but not all occasions) one of the men would be given the inflated ball and he would toss it towards the hoop as others had before, but, in this case, no one would try to interfere with the transit of the ball as it moved toward the metallic ring.

After the fourth countdown on the clock was completed, people in the arena seemed to be distraught, as if something unfortunate or untoward had happened. They then filed out of the arena, many of them muttering to themselves.