Dallas celebrates its winning team

We're not all that into sports--in fact, we were watching the Tony Awards on Sunday when the Dallas Mavericks beat the Miami Heat. But we had been tuning into the last few minutes of the playoff off games leading up to the winning game, and have to admit that it was fun to see a real Dallas team make it to the top.

Trivia question for you out-of-town readers: how many nationally-recognized teams do we have in Dallas? The answer is two. The Dallas Stars (hockey) and the Dallas Mavericks.

If you guessed the Cowboys, you've been fooled by their name into thinking they play here. They don't. The DINO (Dallas-in-name-only) Cowboys play in Arlington, as do the Texas Rangers.

A lot of sports pundits have analyzed the Mavericks' win, pointing to teamwork and coaching to explain it, but we think plain old-fashioned karma had something to do with it, too. The Mavericks deserve to win because their owner, Mark Cuban, hasn't begged the taxpayers for corporate welfare like Cowboys' owners did in Irving and Arlington. Mark Cuban is even picking up the tab for today's parade saying

"I'll pay for it because I don't think it's right for the city to have to pay for it. And let's just have some fun."

No one who lived in Dallas in the 1990s will forget the disastrous parade celebrating the Cowboys' 1993 Super Bowl win. (A trivia question for you--in what city did the Dallas Cowboys play when they last won the Super Bowl? Answer: Irving.) Today's parade went smoothly, with fans staying well-behaved--for the most part. Three people were arrested, some citations were given for selling unofficial merchandise, and 145 were treated for heat exhaustion, but otherwise things went very smoothly. Even the trash was picked up in a timely manner, with city workers picking up trash as it fell instead of letting it accumulate. Well done!

We also appreciated Mark Cuban sharing the spotlight with former Mavs owner Don Carter. There's only one word for that--classy. Mark Cuban has shed his image as basketball's richest brat, keeping his mouth shut throughout the finals. We think he gets it--good karma leads to big wins.

Over a decade ago, it looked like the Mavericks were headed down the same "bad karma" road as the Cowboys, when Ross Perot, Jr. bought the team from Don Carter and started demanding corporate welfare for a new stadium. Reunion Arena wasn't good enough, he said, and he wanted a new one. Well, in true big-money Dallas fashion, when the billionaire made demands, the city poobahs fell all over each other to support it. The deal to put tax dollars into building a new arena had to be brought before voters, and the pro-arena boosters outspent the frugal anti-side (us) by 20-1. Our side argued that we already had a perfectly good arena which could be remodeled to keep up with whatever sports enthusiasts were demanding as far as seating and big screen TV displays. The deal passed, of course, but by only 1,600 votes. Still, the pro-arena side rubbed opposition noses in the dirt by calling the new project "Victory Park," a name that still rankles opponents of the deal.

Then, naming rights were sold to American Airlines, jumping on the goofy bandwagon of naming venues for products. (Reunion Arena was named for La Réunion, a community of 18th century French settlers).

Ross Perot, Jr. realized over time that he really didn't know that much about basketball and sold the team to Mark Cuban.

Mark Cuban was a breath of fresh air in sports ownership. Sure, he cussed, made inappropriate comments about players, yelled rude things during games, but what the heck? He's a sports enthusiast, and that's how they act. You wouldn't expect that kind of behavior at the DSO, but sports fans act like that, so why not the owner? Among a field usually dominated by old pasty-white good ol' boys with beer bellies and comb-overs, Mark Cuban was an immediate standout, which--in our opinion, anyway--was good publicity for our city.

Like we said, we're not sports fans, but it was cool seeing "our" team on David Letterman last night reading the Top Ten.

And we also enjoyed seeing our mayor riding in the parade today. Another quick trivia question for readers looking at this in years to come: Who was Mayor of Dallas when the Mavericks won the NBA Championship? Answer: Dwaine Caraway. Former Mayor Tom Leppert stepped down in February to pursue a run for the U.S. Senate, leaving the job to Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway. Caraway got off to a bumpy start to his interim term, with questions over why he gave a key to the city to Michael Vick and what exactly went on when he called the cops late one night. But now, with Election Day on the horizon, his term days away from being done, there was our mayor, Dwaine Caraway, riding in the Mavericks' victory parade, being quoted in national blogs.

Congratulations, Mayor Caraway, for finishing your last days on the job on a positive note.

All the TV news stations ran coverage of the parade non-stop, and they estimate that 200,000 fans lined the parade route. Wish we could get everybody this excited about voting.

Research material used in this blog post:

Mavs Held Hostage, Robert Wilonsky, Dallas Observer, January 15, 1998.
Perot sells Mavs to Internet Mogul, Associated Press, January 21, 2000.
Mark Cuban's Millions in Fines, International Business Times, June 16, 2011.