Bouree (also commonly known as Bouree and Boo-Ray) is a trick-playing gambling card game primarily played in the Acadiana region of Louisiana and the National Basketball Association. Like many regional games, Bouree sports a large number of variant rules and betting consideration. The object is to take a majority of the tricks in each hand and claim the money in the pot. A bouree results in taking no tricks at all and having to match the money in the pot.
It was a two-handed game of Boo-Ray being played on a Baltimore Wizards charter flight between teammates Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton that ultimately led to the “High Noon’’ incident at the MCI Center last month when Arenas carried four guns into the locker room and told Crittenton to choose one as a way of settling his gambling debt
For a scary moment, the two pointed loaded weapons at one another, with no signs of laughter. Arenas would later dismiss the incident as a big joke and fake shooting guns in the air prior to a game in Philadelphia. .
Some joke. The self-styled “Agent Zero’’ who was considered the most popular professional sports figure in Washington, was suspended indefinitely by NBA Commissioner David Stern even before the FBI finished its investigation, costing the high-scoring guard $147,000 for every game he missed..
Arenas, who is in the second-year of a six-year $111 million contract, already realizes his days as a Wizard have ended, and he stands to lose all his money if rival NBA teams consider the self-described “goofball’ too high a risk to sign him
Arenas pleaded guilty in D.C.’s Superior Court, Jan. 16, and will be sentenced, March 26. The government indicated it will not seek more than a six-month term, although the judge can give Arenas anywhere from probation to the charge’s maximum term of five years.
Guidelines call for six to 12 months, but a prison term is more likely following Crittenton’s plea bargain, Jan. 25, for which he drew a light one-year sentence of unsupervised probation. Crittenton has agreed to meet with Commissioner Stern, and the legal eagles are betting that he will describe Arenas as a dangerous bully who instigated the frightening locker room scene But Stern elected to suspend both “gunsels’ for the rest of this season.
Imagine this monumental mess all over a game of Boo-Ray. Just hearing that card game mentioned brought back a flood of memories of a far more innocent time almost half a century ago when reporters covering the then Baltimore Bullets were actually invited to participate in games of Boo-Ray with the players to kill time on bus trips to Philadelphia and New York, and, occasionally, even on short flights.
It was our understanding that Boo-Ray was introduced to the team by forward Bailey Howell, a southern gentleman from Mississippi. He would be a regular in the game, along with guard Kevin Loughery, a New York native with a gift for card games, and free-spirited forward Gus Johnson, more willing to take a high risk.
One has to understand that in these days, my humble pay as a sports reporter for the Baltimore Sun was most equal to the salaries of the NBA players. Crowd favorite Earl Monroe, who was the Bullets’ No. 1 draft pick in 1967 following a storied career at Winston-Salem where he averaged over 40 points a game, reportedly signed a one-year worth $20,000, plus an option for a second year before “Bighouse’ Gaines, his college coach and “advisor’’ arrived on the scene. While the fledgling ABA was promising more lucrative conracts, Monroe simply wanted to prove himself in the NBA
His game was even more crowd-pleasing than Arenas’, but he was as introverted off the court as he was flamboyant on it. That’s why it seemed so out of character when he was arrested in 1971 for allegedly helping instigate an ugly brawl at Dunbar following a two-point loss tot Mount St. Joe’s, a nearly all-white Catholic school.. The charges were later dropped when it was determined “The Pearl’’ was actually trying to serve as a peacemaker, but the incident probably weighed on his decision to holdout and force a trade to New York.
Unlike Arenas, Monroe valued a buck and did not engage in the animated Boo-Ray games. But several card-playing sessions with the Bullets left an indelible impression. One occurred on a charter flight from Cincinnati to Baltimore If memory serves me correctly, it was a game of Blackjack’’ not Boo-Ray, in which the game could not begin unless a participant had a pair of “Jacks’’ or better.
For some reason, the pot grew to an unusual sum (maybe $50) before I was able to open with a pair of “Kings’’ By this time, the plane had landed at Friendship (now BWI), but no one would embark, not even the non-participants. Finally, Johnson’s face broke into a huge grin. He had topped my “Kings’’ with a pair of Aces. You could see the team’s fashion-trend setter was already thinking about buying a new flashy suit or a pair of suede shoes.
The card games also were held in hotel rooms when the Bullets arrived in a town the night before a game was scheduled. My phone rang one night with an invitation to join a game. I will not reveal whose room the game occurred (this was long before computers, blogs and prying cell phones), but two scantily-dressed ladies sat quietly in a corner. Thier time would come, but not until the important card game was concluded
Way back then the players even carried on conversations with the media instead of offering sound bites and also shared good times at sporting bars in and out of town. No one to my knowledge carried a gun or a knife. If there was a disagreement between teammates or rivals, fists were the weapons of choice.
There was a memorable game in Seattle one night when fiery guard Walter Hazzard instigated a fight, sucker-punching then Bullets’ center Bob Ferry. As each Sonic left the bench, Johnson, who could have been a professional fighter or a great tight end in the eyes of then Colts’ coach Don Shula, would quickly drop him with a classic hook. Soon, there were more Sonics stretched on the floor than left standing.
But today’s spoiled NBA players can’t even imagine such an innocent time. If you’re making an astonishing $147,000 a game, you have to defend your turf. As Cal-Berkeley professor Harry Edwards, an expert on the rise of Black Power, notes, a young Afro-American stands a better chance of surviving in war-torn Kabul than on the drug-ridden streets of urban neighborhoods
Arenas, perhaps failing to realize that the city of Washington has the strictest gun-control laws in the country, is now paying a heavy price for his utter stupidity. Will other players profit from his painful example? It’s as doubtful as the outcome of a game of Boo-Ray.
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