http://www.slate.com/id/2191488/pagenum/all/#page_start Dispatch From the New Garden By John Swansburg Posted Thursday, May 15, 2008, at 1:05 PM ET BOSTON—When historians look back on these last days of American hegemony, they will perhaps point to our blunders in Iraq or the fall of the once-mighty dollar as the first signs of our impending decline. I fear, however, that future scholars may overlook an equally ominous recent development: the invention of the T-shirt cannon. This device—used to project balled-up T -shirts into the farthest reaches of sports arenas—has proliferated among the NBA franchises with alarming speed. Last night, during breaks in the action between the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers, Lucky, the Celtics' mascot, pranced onto the court brandishing this weapon, using its coveted ammunition to work the crowd into a lather. That he succeeded despite the fact that every ticket holder had already been given a free Celtics T-shirt seemed to this fan a clear indication that our society's best days are behind it. 当美国的历史学者回头看美国的领导霸权，他们也许会指向我们在伊拉克的失策，或是 一度强势的美元作为我们衰落的第一个象徵。然而，我害怕未来的学者会忽略一个同样 不吉利的新进发展—T恤枪。这项设备—被用来把T恤发射的老高，到离场馆最远的地方 —在 NBA球队里以惊人的速度激增。昨晚，在波士顿塞尔蒂克队和克里夫兰骑士队比赛 的中间休息，塞尔蒂克的吉祥物 Lucky挥舞着这项武器，雀跃地走进球场，用它令人渴 望得到的填充物鼓动观众的情绪。他成功了，只不过每个有票的球迷都已经得到一件免 费的塞尔蒂克 T恤了，不过这似乎是一个清楚的指标，指出我们社会的最好日子已经过 去了。 There was a time, not all that long ago, when the Celtics didn't need to assault their fans with 100 percent preshrunk cotton to get them pumped up for a game. Nor was it deemed necessary to titillate the crowd by flashing footage of visiting celebrities on the Jumbotron during TV timeouts (last night's unlikely assortment: Jay-Z, Jonah Hill, and Rob Lowe). In the Bird era, there was no JumboTron—and, perhaps not unrelatedly, no celebrities. Nowadays, pre -game introductions are accompanied by a fireworks display powerful enough to make the menacing Ben Wallace hide in the locker room. 曾经有一度，不是很久以前，那时塞尔蒂克不需要用百分之百纯棉衣物来攻击球迷，让 他们为比赛兴奋，也不需要在暂停时，在大萤幕播放看球明星的作品片段使球迷高兴 ( 昨晚的不太像是真的组合：Jay-Z、Jonah Hill、Rob Lowe)在大鸟的年代，根本没有大 萤幕—还有，也许不太相关，也没有明星。现在，赛前介绍还要伴随烟火施放，强烈到 让Ben Wallace都要躲到休息室去。 I could go on about how the old Garden ways have been adulterated, cheapened, disrespected. But that'd be a bit silly. Last night, I saw the Celtics defeat the Cavaliers 96-89, improving their home record in the playoffs to 7-0. Clearly the T-shirt cannon is working. Or something else is, and not just for the Celts. The Boston win last night, coupled with the Lakers' victory over the Jazz at the Staples Center, makes the home teams a staggering 19-1 in the second round of the 2008 NBA playoffs. The only team to win on the road is the Pistons, who beat the Magic in Orlando in Game 4 of their series. By one point. 我可以继续说旧的花园的方式是如何被搀假、廉价化和不被尊敬。但是那就有点无聊了 。昨晚，我看到塞尔蒂克以96-89击败骑士队，把主场战绩提升到7胜0败。很明显T恤枪 发挥了作用。或者其他什麽发挥了作用，而且不只是塞尔蒂克。昨晚波士顿赢球，湖人 队在主场也赢球，使得今年NBA季後赛第二轮的主场球队战绩是19胜1败。唯一一支在客 场赢球的球队是活塞队，他们在奥兰多击败魔术队，取得第四战的胜利。只有赢一分。 The Celtics had the league's best road record in the regular season, but they've yet to win on the road in the playoffs, not even against the supposedly lowly Atlanta Hawks. I'm not the first to ask, What gives? This isn't baseball, where every ballpark has a unique shape, or football, where road teams are often subjected to drastic shifts in climate. Basketball courts are uniform in size and shape. The contemporary arena is a sleek, climate-controlled environment designed to pamper fan and player alike. In other words, it's nothing like the old Garden, which forced its visitors to endure cramped, rat -infested quarters that were cold in January and Kareem-sucking-on-oxygen hot in June. And let us not forget the parquet floor, which Celtic players supposedly knew better than they knew their wives. 塞尔蒂克季赛时有联盟最好的客场战绩，但是他们在季後赛还没在客场赢过一场球，甚 至连应该比较低种子的老鹰队都没赢过。我不是第一个提出问题的人，到底为何？这不 是棒球，每个球场都有独特的形状，也不是美式足球，客场球队常会遇到气候的剧烈改 变。当代的球场是保养得好好的，气候受到控制的环境，足以纵容球迷和球员。换句话 说，完全不像是旧的花园，那时客队被强迫忍受狭窄、老鼠丛生的地方，在一月时很冷 ，在七月时又热到贾霸要吸点氧气。也且别忘了拼花地板，那是个塞尔蒂克球员应该比 了解自己的老婆更多的东西。 Today, there's a section of the old parquet encased in glass hanging outside a ladies' room on the dining concourse behind the loge-level seating. The glimpses of the visiting locker room that I've caught on TNT suggest more than hospitable environs. So why have the home teams in this year's NBA playoffs been so dominant? 今日，有一块的拼花地板被装在玻璃柜里，悬挂在包厢层饮食区的女生洗手间外面。我 在TNT上一瞥而见的客队休息室是很招待周到的环境。所以为什麽今年NBA季後赛的主场 球队如此有主宰力？ Damned if the Celtics know. After another anemic performance Monday night at Cleveland, none of the players could put his finger on why their play was suffering so badly on the road. Kevin Garnett: "If I knew that, man, I don't think we'd be having these conversations or these problems on the road." Ray Allen: "It's hard to say. I have no answer for it. I have no answer." X 的要是塞尔蒂克知道就好了。在礼拜一克里夫兰又一场贫攻的表现後，没有球员知道 为什麽他们在客场的表现如此糟糕。KG说”如果我知道啊，我不认为我们还会有这段谈 话，或是客场这些问题了。”Ray Allen说”很难说。我没有答案。我没有答案。” Does anyone? The leading theories go like this: 任何人有答案吗？有几个理论如下： It's the building. Remember that scene from Hoosiers, when Coach Dale takes his players out on the court before the state tournament and has them measure the distance from the floor to the rim? Ten feet—just like back home! Yet even if basketball courts don't vary in shape and size, there are differences in how the courts play. Sight lines and floor markings, both of which are cues for shooters, can differ subtly from arena to arena. And there are other quirks. At Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena, the JumboTron displays both the score (87 -78, for example) and "The Diff" (in that case, 9). Maybe the Cavaliers have learned to put the split second they gain from not having to do math to their advantage. 是建筑。记得火爆教头草地兵的一幕，Dale教练在州巡回赛前带着球员上场，测量地板 到篮框的距离吗？十尺—就像家里一样！但是即使篮球场的形状尺寸没有改变，球场如 何还是有所不同。视线和地板的记号，两者都是射手的记号，可以在场馆间微妙地有所 不同。还有其他的不同。在克里夫兰主场，大萤幕同时显示比数 (比如说87-78)和比分 差(在前例是9分)。也许骑士队已经学会在空档时间不用作数学心算作为优势。 It's the crowd. You're thinking thunder sticks, but not so fast. If it were possible for fans to distract visiting shooters, you'd expect a pronounced drop-off in free-throw percentage, right? Yet Roland Beech of 82games.com has found that free-throw percentage is one of the only statistics that doesn't suffer on the road. Of course, this doesn't mean the home crowd can't have a deleterious effect on the visitors. Basketball is the most intimate of major professional sports, with fans (some quite partial) literally sitting on the playing floor. I was up in the balcony last night, so I doubt Delonte West heard the gentleman behind me, who inquired of the former Celtic guard, "Hey Delonte, how's your herpes?" But I'm confident even the more tactful types down in the padded seats were giving West, and his teammates, an earful. 是观众。你在想加油棒，但是还没这麽快。如果球迷有可能使客队射手分心，你会期待 罚球命中率的显着下滑，对吗？但是 82games.com的Roland Beech发现，罚球命中率是 唯一在客场不会降低的数据之一。当然，这不代表主场观众不能对客队造成有害的影响 。篮球是主要职业运动里最亲密的，球迷名副其实地坐在球场地板上。我昨晚在高高的 楼厅之上，所以我怀疑Delonte West有没有听到我後面那位先生，他询问这位前塞尔蒂 克後卫：”嘿 Delonte，你的疱疹怎麽了？”但是我有自信，下面那些座位上会给West ，和他的队友更圆滑的滔滔不绝。 It's the refs. What if the crowd doesn't just affect the players but the officials as well? The generous version of the ref theory posits that the game's arbiters are subconsciously loath to make calls that will cause abuse to be rained down upon them from the stands. The more sinister version is that the fix is in for hometown teams in the playoffs, part of a conspiracy to extend series, since more games equal more television, more tickets, more Gino paraphernalia sold. This is a small sample, obviously, but so far this postseason the home teams have won 76 percent of the time (49-15) compared with 60 percent in the regular season (739-491). 是裁判。如果观众不只影响了球员，也影响了裁判？一般的裁判理论假定，球赛的仲裁 者潜意识中不喜欢会让自已被潮水般辱骂的吹判。更邪恶的版本是季後赛里主场球队会 得到调整，一部分是为了延长系列的阴谋，因为更多比赛等同於更多电视、更多门票、 更多Gino相关事物被贩卖。很明显地，这只是个小例子，但是目前为止，今年季後赛主 场球队已经赢了76%的比赛(49-15)，而季赛是60%(739-491)。 It's the travel. One study of home-field advantage determined that the highest winning percentages for home teams in football, basketball, baseball, and hockey all occurred in the leagues' early years. One obvious reason for this would be the rigors of travel, which were more arduous before the private-plane era. When it comes to today's NBA playoffs, it's a bit harder to see how travel fits into the equation. Both teams are negotiating the same distances, and at least in the opening rounds, regional divisions mean you're not crossing many time zones. Road teams have to stay in hotels, but it's not like they're being put up in some flea trap. Then again, lobby life, even in luxury hotels, can have its drawbacks. During their Round 1 visit to Boston, the Hawks stayed in the swank new Liberty Hotel (formerly the Charles Street Jail). The story making the rounds last week was that the owner of Alibi, the hotel bar, instructed his employees to double the shots for any Atlanta Hawks who bellied up. 是旅途。一个主场优势的研究说，主场球队在美式足球、篮球、棒球和曲棍球的胜率较 高，都发生在联盟早期的日子里。一个明显的理由是旅行的艰困，这在私人飞机年代之 前是更困难的。当来到今年的 NBA季後赛，要看到旅行如何进入这个方程式是比较困难 的。两队都要面对相同的距离，至少在第一轮，地域分区代表你不用横跨太多时区。客 队要待在旅馆，但是他们不是要被丢到都是跳蚤的陷阱里。但是同样地，即使是在豪华 旅馆里，酒吧生活都会造成妨碍。在老鹰队造访波士顿的第一轮里，他们住在华丽崭新 的自由旅馆里(之前是查尔斯街监狱)，这轮决定的故事是，旅馆酒吧”不在场证明”( Alibi)的老板指示他的员工，给任何老鹰队想要喝点酒的人两倍酒精含量。 LeBron James, who finished with a game-high 35 points last night, certainly didn't play like a man who'd been slipped a Mickey. And despite some hearty New England vituperation from the Garden crowd, the refs hardly seemed in the bag for the Celtics (on the contrary). It's possible the Cavaliers missed The Diff, but Cleveland came out of the gate much faster than the Celtics, amassing a diff of as many as 14 points. The loudest noise the fans around me made in the first half came when several voices cried out, "Don't shoot!" when the trigger -happy Sam Cassell touched the ball. LeBron James昨晚得了全场最高的35分，看起来不像是被下了安眠药的人。尽管观众有 一些热情的新英格兰式责骂，裁判也几乎没有对塞尔蒂克比较好(反而相反)。有可能骑 士队会想念大萤幕上的得分差，但是克里夫兰比赛尔蒂克还要早进入状况，累积了14分 的领先。上半场我周围最吵的噪音来自於几个人大喊”不要投篮！”，这是当Sam Casell 拿到球的时候。 It wasn't until the Celtics put together a run in the third quarter that the Garden crowd really got into the game. But when they did, it made the Celts' 10-point lead feel insurmountable in a way their earlier deficits never did. I'm at a loss for how a sports economist could ever measure this effect, but it felt very real. It was perhaps most clearly manifested in the person of Kevin Garnett. The Celtics are officially ruled by a triumvirate, but K.G. has become the undisputed team leader. Before the game, he conducts his own opening ceremonies, spending some quality time with the padding underneath the home basket (against which he bangs his heads ritualistically and not softly) and anointing himself with a cloud of talcum powder so thick one official scorer has taken to wearing a surgical mask. 直到塞尔蒂克在第三节打出一段进攻，花园的观众才真正加入战局。但是当他们如此时 ，使得塞尔蒂克的十分领先如此难以被克服，好像他们早先的落後从未发生一样。我不 知道运动经济学者会如何衡量这个效果，但是它感觉非常真实。也许最明白显露在Kevin Garnett 身上。塞尔蒂克是被一个三人组掌握，但是KG变成没有争议的球队领袖。在比 赛前，他执行他自己的比赛仪式，在篮框下的填充物花了一点时间 (他会用他的头去撞 它，那不是太软 )，然後用滑石粉涂抹自己，厚到一个官方记分员要戴上手术用的面罩。 Garnett is always a live wire, whether he's on the road or at home. He's constantly chattering—to his teammates, to his opponents, to the fans, and, perhaps most animatedly, to himself—a look of intensity bordering on insanity in his eyes. And more than any other player on the Celtics, he seems to feed off the adulation of the crowd. Last night, as the Celtics started to pull away in the third, and the fans really started to get into it for the first time, Garnett began a series of points, waves, and wags at the crowd, creating a feedback loop of frenzy. When K.G. is locked in, and when the new Garden's crowd is behind him, you start to feel an aura of invincibility that feels very old Garden. In those moments, free T-shirts could rain from the rafters and no one would notice. Garnett 总是一个劲量中心，不管他是在客场或是主场。他不断地唠叨—对队友、对对 手、对球迷、还有最生气勃勃地，对自己—一抹在发疯边缘的认真眼神。还有比赛尔蒂 克的任何一个球员都多，他从观众的鼓励中得到力量。昨晚，当塞尔第课开始在第三节 甩开对手，球迷真的开始参与其中，Garnett 开始一系列的手指到处乱点、挥舞、对观 众摇摆，创造出一个疯狂的回馈效果。当KG上场，新花园的观众在他背後，你开始感觉 一种战无不胜的，老花园的气氛。在那些时刻里，免费的 T恤会从屋顶落下，但是没有 人会注意到。 --

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