A rainout at West 4th

When I was seven years old, my dad took me on a 30-minute walk from our apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan to peep the Saturday action at West 4th St.

Fans were standing four-deep outside the 20-foot-high chain-link fence and my dad, who told me this unique venue was called “The Cage,” would put me on his shoulders so I could see over the energetic crowd.

I didn’t know that much about basketball, just that the Knicks seemed to break everyone’s hearts and that people in the city took this game seriously.

The Cage was like nothing I’d seen before. The court was much smaller than regulation-size, the players ran like the fast Looney Tunes characters I’d see on TV, and the street-tough faces along the fence didn’t exactly resemble the corporate crowds sitting courtside at the Garden. The city game on the asphalt court was quicker, rougher and nastier and it fascinated me. Saturday trips to the Cage quickly became routine.

This past summer, twelve years later, I was the Bounce Magazine beat writer for Kenny Graham’s West 4th St. League. The 30-minute walk I used to take with my dad became a 20-minute stroll by myself and I was going five or six days a week, instead of just one. When I got back to my apartment, I wasn’t thinking about what was for dinner or what was on TV., but about the angle I’d take on the story.

But much of what made West 4th special for me as a seven-year-old remains the same today. The die-hards are still as into the game as ever, to the point where before this year’s championship, one screamed out, “This is the best sports night of the year” (And believe me, he wasn’t joking). The M.C., while no Bobbito, is always good for a line like, “One more karate chop and you’re outta there,” when a player draws his fourth foul. The fence is still 20-feet high and the court’s dimensions are still excruciatingly small, to the point where I even heard Ryan “Special FX” Williams complaining about it this summer.

Many say because it doesn’t draw as many pro or college players, West 4th now takes a backseat to Dyckman, Pro City, Tri-State, Rucker, HITS and Kingdome among others. But to me and the other West 4th regulars, the tournament that drew Sundiata Gaines, Darren “Primal Fear” Phillip, Antawn “Anti-Freeze” Dobie and Mike “King of New York” Campbell will always be the one league in which “no blood, no foul” isn’t hyperbole.

Mike Campbell and X-Men took home the West 4th title this summer.