‘The Wire’ — Game Day
A play-by-play of that afternoon when a basketball game was more important than the drug game
Editor’s note: This story contains explicit language. And some spoilers.
The goal was for the aggression to stay on the blacktop at Baltimore’s neighborhood-famous Cloverdale Courts. Proposition Joe’s Eastside squad was going up against Avon Barksdale’s Westside unit. The losing team would have to throw a party for both crews. And a six-figure dollar amount was on the line. Hell, ’hood reputation was on the line. Tension was high.
Avon clowned Prop Joe. “Ayo, wassup playboy? How come you wearing that suit, B? For real, it’s 85 fucking degrees … and you trying to be like Pat Riley!”
Joe’s retort: “Look the part, be the part, motherfucker!” Yet, the Eastside projects drug dealer hadn’t made any markings on his clipboard. Couldn’t read a playbook if he tried. This is a scene from “Game Day,” the ninth episode of the first season of David Simon’s and Ed Burns’ epic, intense and critically fantastic series The Wire.
In Episode 9, Baltimore detectives were finally able to identify notorious drug kingpin Avon Barksdale. The police knew he existed, but save for a childhood boxing photo, they had no idea what he looked like. Barksdale had evaded law enforcement for years, but they were able to identify him in this episode because he was coaching a neighborhood basketball game. “Game Day” is an essential chapter in The Wire. It sets the rest of the series in motion.
The Wire debuted on HBO on June 2, 2002. It was the same night of a gruff Western Conference finals Game 7 between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Sacramento Kings — the Lakers won in overtime, closing out perhaps the wildest series of the decade. A slow-moving, expository, 62-minute pilot episode was no match.
But The Wire ran for five seasons. It succeeded by giving us a deep, 360-degree view of life inside an urban American city — the politicians, the cops, the corner boys, drug kingpins, stickup men, addicts, families of the addicts, dock workers, the local media — and more. The Wire could have been Detroit. Or Oakland. Or Newark. But this series was set in Baltimore — and fans all over the country and around the world were rabid about it.
Baltimore’s illegal activity (for the afternoon of Episode 9) was on a kind of TV timeout. It was Game Day in a city that birthed real-life basketball stars such as Muggsy Bogues, Keith Booth, Reggie Williams and Carmelo Anthony. This is where a high school hoops legend like East Baltimore’s Aquille “The Crimestopper” Carr flourished — and slowed down crime for two hours in Baltimore every time he had a game. The Wire’s Eastside vs. Westside contest, and the drama around it, was one of the most authentic hours in one of the most authentic television series ever to hit the small screen.
Thing is, The Wire never got its propers while it was airing. It never won a single Emmy. And The Wire struggled to maintain an audience during the last three seasons. Yet, if you ask any true-blue fans, they’ll tell you the experience ended far too soon. One more season, they wanted. Just one more.
The show did, after all, introduce Idris Elba, whose sex appeal never overshadowed the treachery of Stringer Bell. The execution of Michael B. Jordan in season one remains one of the most gut-wrenching and heartbreaking scenes ever aired on television. And we got familiar with one of the most dynamic and complex characters ever written for TV, the Robin Hood of the ’hood, Omar, a role seemingly effortlessly executed by Michael K. Williams. Oh, indeed.
Those who wrote it, starred and co-starred in it, directed and produced it — and who love the episode — contribute to this play-by-play. This is the story of “Game Day.”
Everyone quoted is identified by the titles they held during The Wire era.
‘Look the part, be the part.’
Each season of The Wire focused “with sociological precision” on a different aspect of Baltimore’s state of affairs. Season one zeroed in on drug dealers and the police officers who were desperately trying to crack down on them. Consequent seasons centered on life on the docks of the Port of Baltimore, local politics, the local newspaper and the school system. This series didn’t feel fictional. “Game Day” felt like real life — language and all.
Co-writer, “Game Day”
David Simon created a world. He [was] a beat reporter for The Baltimore Sun … so the entire show, the crux of all of it, is so entrenched … in reality.
Detective Kima Greggs
By the time we got to the ninth episode, we knew that this was an authentic show.
Producer, writer and co-creator of The Wire
I spent 20 years on the police force. I was engaged in the drug world. I love that world. I love how brave people were. I love the integrity of the corners, and the streets. [On The Wire] we weren’t too keen about ad libbing.
Avon Barksdale, Westside Baltimore drug dealer
Ninety percent of the time — when you see me, Hassan Johnson, Michael K. Williams — we’re speaking to the script. David is a very smart writer, a smart guy. He’s a pro-cultural person.
Narcotics Detective Ellis Carver
Simon is the blackest Jewish man I know. … I also appreciated that he never wrote ‘niggers’ or ‘fucking niggers’ in his script.
Creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner, The Wire
The N-word was always written down. [But] sometimes it was thrown in by the actors. The actors felt the moment and did it without it being on the page, but sometimes it was very much on the page.
Narcotics Detective Ellis Carver
[People] were ‘shitbirds’ or ‘hopheads.’ I changed them to ‘niggers’ and ‘fucking niggers’ as often as I could.
Creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner, The Wire
It was the necessary word. I’m not going to lie and pretend. Now, if it’s gratuitous, it’s gratuitous.
Narcotics Detective Ellis Carver
I was like, ‘Well, David, I’m going to let you in on a little something: Black people who play by the rules and follow the guidelines really resent black people who don’t.’ So there’s a lot of anger there. A black cop is not going to call a black kid that he sees selling drugs a ‘shitbird.’ He’s going to call him something really personal, and ugly.
Creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner, The Wire
Maybe Ed knew better, or maybe just I’m not remembering right — but my sense of it was if there wasn’t an annual east-west basketball game sponsored by the pre-eminent drug crews, there ought to be.
Co-writer, “Game Day”
[David] Melnick and I, we’re big sports fans. I don’t know if David assigned us this story because he knew that.
Members of the Barksdale Organization sit on the bench while intently watching a basketball game in HBO’s The Wire.
Courtesy of HBO
Creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner, The Wire
Basketball or boxing were the only two things that would have credibly created a moment for east to meet west. Baseball would have been absurd. Football would have been too complicated.
Co-writer, “Game Day”
When we turned in our first draft, [Simon] really brought it more to life. We were just a couple young guys who were like, ‘Man, the basketball stuff is popping, and David’s loving it!’ We were excited.
First assistant director
I definitely praise David Simon … using [basketball] as the backdrop … [that] resonated globally.
Reginald “Bubbles” Cousins, heroin addict and police informant
[In the episode], you got everybody breaking the drug game to watch this basketball game. I remember games [like that] in [New York]. Lots of people would come to those … on Fourth Street. It rang true.
Actual professional player in European leagues, portrayed junior college ringer for the Barksdale Organization
I didn’t have the money for basketball camp back [in the day]. Camp was like 500 bucks. At the time, my coach was a gentleman who made good money in the streets. He said, ‘Look, Maurice, you want to go to this camp? Every dunk you make, I’ll give you $100.’ I finished the game with about eight dunks, and that’s how I had money for camp. Playing ball … it kept me off the streets, from trying to hustle. We needed something to eat? They’d go buy 20 french fries, 20 hamburgers, 20 chicken sandwiches and bring it back to the court. They’d buy us sneakers, uniforms, books. I’m not proud these guys had to hustle for a living and sell drugs, but I was impressed they didn’t want the same thing for us.
Avon Barksdale, Westside Baltimore drug dealer
Basketball in the black culture is very important. It’s looked at almost as a refuge, as a way out. It gave us heroes.
‘Ain’t gon’ be no trouble over no ball.’
In “Game Day,” which originally aired on Aug. 4, 2002, Baltimore’s two biggest drug dealers have their annual streetball game. Simon and Burns say they weren’t aware whether such a game ever existed in Baltimore, but they wanted to have some sort of athletic competition. The rivalry basketball game is pivotal because it introduces new character Proposition Joe (Robert Chew, who died in 2013). Avon Barksdale (Harris) wants to beat Prop Joe’s team so badly that he and Stringer Bell (Elba) recruit a junior college player (Blanding) as a ringer. “Game Day” begins on the court, with Elba and Harris looking down on Blanding playing what looks to be pickup ball. The actual scene was shot at Baltimore’s historically black Coppin State University.
Creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner, The Wire
We needed, for purposes of plot, to show that rivalry. We needed it because we were introducing the element of Prop Joe and his crew on the Eastside. We needed to frame that in some intelligent way. And the idea of competition naturally led to, ‘Is there a social function?’ Or a moment where these different crews would cross-pollinate? We came up with the basketball game.
Co-writer, “Game Day”
David Melnick, who wrote that episode [with me], are just a couple of guys from the ’burbs of Baltimore; there’s nothing hardcore about us at all.
Creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner, The Wire
It would be hard to avoid the extraordinary love affair that urban America has had with the game of basketball. Generations of it. You’d have to be willfully ignorant.
Show Creator David Simon on Capturing the essence of streetball
Footage courtesy of HBO
Producer, writer and co-creator of The Wire
All the kids, that was their one ambition, even more so than football, was being a great basketball player. We had a couple guys come out of Baltimore, Skip Wise being one of them, who would have been a great basketball player if he didn’t succumb to drugs.
Creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner, The Wire
Everybody in Baltimore knows the painful story of Skip Wise. He didn’t quite escape the street culture.
Producer, writer and co-creator of The Wire
There are moments when — in the first year of World War I, in the trench warfare — when Christmas rolled around, Germans and the French and the British went into no man’s land to celebrate that holiday. And then they went back to killing each other. There were moments when you could give me the ball, or the rock or whatever. And you could have that truce.
Avon Barksdale, Westside Baltimore drug dealer
I’ve played on basketball courts where gangsters are on the side and got money on it. You just want to play good. I knew what that feeling was like.
Co-writer, “Game Day”
That ringer thing was eye-opening for Melnick and I. We didn’t know that that would even be feasible in that world, that somebody with influence on the street level would connect with the university to try and get a ringer. That blew our minds. That was the first or second beat on that beat sheet. We saw that, and we were like, ‘Wow, that’s the way it works?’
Actual professional player in European leagues, portrayed junior college ringer for the Barksdale Organization
I grew up in Baltimore City, played everywhere in Baltimore City. Grew up with the real Avon Barksdale’s nephew. He played on my football team in high school.
Co-writer, “Game Day”
I remember that moment where we just sat down and started pounding keys and going, ‘OK, let’s, uh …’ [but] there is no research for that. First of all, the internet — we’re talking early 2000s — was not as far-reaching.
Narcotics Detective Ellis Carver
It seemed kind of strange to me, but David Simon said he had heard about something like that before when he was [at] The Baltimore Sun. I mostly was excited that I was having an episode that I had more than two scenes in. Me and Domenick Lombardozzi referred to it as my Taxi Driver episode, because it’s my favorite movie.
Creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner, The Wire
Narcotics Detective Ellis Carver
A layer of the shade [was] pulled back on how these guys are human. These are people. We’re treating them like they’re scum of the earth and they don’t have any rights. But if there’s a common ground like basketball, where two opposing sides can come together and put their differences aside … they mostly want to unify, they don’t want to destroy.
Narcotics Detective Ellis Carver
[My character had] that revelation of, ‘Oh, these motherfuckers might have feelings.’ They care about shit.
Detectives Herc and Carver watch an annual neighborhood basketball game while they try to identify who Avon Barksdale is.
Courtesy of HBO
Actual professional player in European leagues, portrayed junior college ringer for the Barksdale Organization
I was home on break from playing basketball overseas, and in South America. A buddy of mine was doing security for The Wire, and the director said, ‘Hey, do you know a guy that can play basketball, and can dunk?’ So I went up to Coppin … and I opened that episode up with Elba and Harris. Sometimes I look back and say, ‘Man, should I have started acting instead of continuing playing basketball in Europe?’ I made $2,500 in three days.
Avon Barksdale, Westside Baltimore drug dealer
I love that episode. “Game Day” is one of my favorites. … That’s the one I had the most fun shooting.
Co-writer, “Game Day”
The show was very urban, and gritty, but here we are shooting in a clean and pristine university gymnasium. That crossed grains with this show that we were getting to know. … It was outside of the element of the world that The Wire was [usually] taking place in.
Actual professional player in European leagues, portrayed junior college ringer for the Barksdale Organization
I was overly impressed, even though Dunbar is Eastside and I [in real life] was Westside. So I had a little issue with that at first because, you know, the rivalry’s real!
Avon Barksdale, Westside Baltimore drug dealer
Idris don’t really play basketball, but we still had a lot of fun.
Producer, writer and co-creator of The Wire
He didn’t know anything about drug dealing, either, when he started out! Idris instinctively knew the value of a scene. You didn’t have to go to him and say, ‘This is the way things are done.’ There was no need for him to really love basketball.
‘The projects got a ball team?’
Baltimore basketball is serious business — in real life and on television. Detectives Herc and Carver finally figured out that everyone in the streets has suspended all drug trafficking to participate in or watch the basketball game. In a scene leading up to the end of the game, Lt. Cedric Daniels (Lance Reddick) announces that the drug dealer they’re looking for (Harris’ character) is over at the historic Cloverdale Courts.
Actual professional player in European leagues, portrayed junior college ringer for the Barksdale Organization
They didn’t actually film that at Cloverdale. That was at Collington Square in East Baltimore.
Avon Barksdale, Westside Baltimore drug dealer
There was one issue. That episode was being directed by this French director whose name I can’t remember.
Director
I was born in Macedonia. I came here for film school and then stayed.
Creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner, The Wire
Milcho turned out to be a very good director. He was a good friend of [former executive producer] Bob Colesberry’s. Bob brought him in, very much admired his work. And there’s a lot to admire.
Director
It’s the only piece of episodic television I’ve done. I directed five features and wrote all of them. But this one was just so attractive because the writing was great. Colesberry was producing … so I knew it was going to be a creative enterprise.
Creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner, The Wire
He was a feature director who had never done television. In features it’s, ‘Get the writer off the set. We have the script.’ But in television the writers are the producers, so we’re worried about continuity, we’re worried if it will make sense in all [of the] episodes. He wasn’t used to having a writer always on set. If not me, Ed or somebody. We struggled a little bit.
First assistant director
He was new to TV and just didn’t realize the concept of you can’t reinvent the wheel. You have to learn how to adapt and fall within a frame of what the show is … you have the ability to color it and put your name on it. You can’t come in and completely change it. It caused a lot of tension. Unfortunately, I was the middleman between him and our VP and also the actors.
Avon Barksdale, Westside Baltimore drug dealer
After lunch — when you have lunch on the set or whatever, it’s like an hour long and you come back — no director. The director couldn’t be found. So what happened was … Anthony Hemingway … he was second A.D. for The Wire.
Malik “Poot” Carr, teen drug dealer
When everyone came back from lunch … Anthony was the man.
First assistant director
I had to rise to the occasion. It was very sensitive, only because the union obligations and all the legalities within that. I wasn’t technically directing, but … I was there for the show and had to step forward to protect the show.
Creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner, The Wire
The basketball thing is obviously an intensely choreographed dynamic. And the A.D. would be influential in terms of placing everybody and … you’re coordinating between the actual athletic narrative within the game, what’s happening, where we’re placing all the extras, where we’re placing our characters among the extras. That was Anthony. And I think, in some respects, it’s where he really began to shine.
Show Creator David Simon on Developing iconic characters
Footage courtesy of HBO
Producer, writer and co-creator of The Wire
We had a lot of faith in Anthony. He had been with us, particularly with [co-executive producer] Nina Noble, from the early ’90s. And he was extremely confident.
First assistant director
That day in particular was challenging because we needed crowds. We had open calls on the radio, getting people to come out. We had the turnout that we needed.
Narcotics Detective Ellis Carver
I think the extras were hired right from the neighborhood.
Actual professional player in European leagues, portrayed junior college ringer for the Barksdale Organization
And it was about 85 degrees. The humidity in Baltimore is ridiculous.
First assistant director
Insane and intense and crazy. I didn’t technically direct that episode. I had to make it, I had to be the Band-Aid and make the day flow. I was still assistant director. … I had to step in and keep the day flowing … but I didn’t, and will not ever, call myself as the director.
Preston “Bodie” Broadus, teen drug dealer
Wood Harris is the star of Above the Rim. … It was a basketball film; it had Tupac [Shakur] in it. It just took me there, like, ‘Wow, now I’m doing a basketball scene with Wood Harris? I must be making some type of progress. …’
Actual professional player in European leagues, portrayed junior college ringer for the Barksdale Organization
I didn’t even know Idris Elba was from England. He spoke the Baltimore slang and language so much. He was that good.
Malik “Poot” Carr, teen drug dealer
I was a fan of J.D. [Williams] from him being on Oz.
“We’re really part of something that was incredible and has become a part of the fabric of television.”
Actual professional player in European leagues, portrayed junior college ringer for the Barksdale Organization
I’m a Tupac fan, and I’m also a Wood Harris fan. I asked while I was sitting there, ‘How was being around ’Pac?’ He said, ‘He’s the ultimate professional, he’s a perfectionist, but he’s a down-to-earth man, just like you and I.’ I was sitting here talking to Wood Harris about Tupac! This is crazy!
Creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner, The Wire
There was one cross, one vicious move that [Blanding] made from the top of the key. When we saw it we just fell down, we were laughing so hard. It was such a great inside move. You’ve got to remember, we’re only doing this with a few seconds of ball. We’re not filming the whole game … so whatever time we have to devote to actual basketball, you want the footage to feel real. You also want to get the in-your-face ballet of streetball.
Actual professional player in European leagues, portrayed junior college ringer for the Barksdale Organization
That was scripted, but that’s how I play. The director was like, ‘Listen, don’t shoot the ball.’ [We] said, ‘Well, we just want to play!’ And that’s when we started playing a little bit more physical, and I played my real game and they stopped stripping the ball because they knew an elbow might come behind it. So the first part was scripted, the second part was like half-scripted, and then they made use of us really playing ball.
Creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner, The Wire
I remember seeing that on film and thinking, if you ever went to Collington Square, if you ever went to Cloverdale and watched the best players, that’s the kind of shit where you saw a move like that and it laid everybody out for 30 seconds. Like, ‘Oh shit! What just happened?’ We got one of those on film. I was very proud of us.
Avon Barksdale, Westside Baltimore drug dealer
I didn’t have to give them any technical advice. Everyone knew basketball. Everybody who was there was black.
Actual professional player in European leagues, portrayed junior college ringer for the Barksdale Organization
I thought it was authentic. When we play ball [in real life], you had guys who probably didn’t get along … on the street level, they’re enemies. But on the basketball level, they never brought it to the court. You’d have some shootings sometimes, people would get into a fight, but I’d say 95 percent of the time it was strictly about basketball. It did lower the crime rate in that area where we played — everybody just wanted to watch us play. Everybody wanted to see me dunk because I had like a 45-inch vertical back then.
First assistant director
I was out there trying to find moments … where especially black men can come together and support each other. And put behind us all the negative drama that has been perpetuated over the years, and support one another and love one another. And be able to be in the same place together.
Actual professional player in European leagues, portrayed junior college ringer for the Barksdale Organization
It was as authentic as I have seen anybody portray the streetball of Baltimore City, where they gettin’ in the referee’s face.
Avon Barksdale, Westside Baltimore drug dealer
When you see me get up and I’m bantering and checking the referee, that guy was a really good actor — one of my fondest memories of The Wire.
Creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner, The Wire
We [wanted to] demonstrate something about Avon Barksdale’s personality when he intimidates the ref on a bad call and then, in the next moment, becomes frustrated that the ref is about to cave. He wants to yell at the ref. He doesn’t want the ref to treat him like the winner because he’s feared. He wants to be right on the merits, and he no longer can be because he’s Avon Barksdale. And he realizes that.
Actual professional player in European leagues, portrayed junior college ringer for the Barksdale Organization
The crowd, that was normal. A summer league in Baltimore will generate a crowd of at least 500 people sometimes. It was just awesome.
Creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner, The Wire
We’re not thinking to ourselves, ‘We’re really making a statement here about basketball in the inner city.’ We were just using found material.
‘Maybe we won.’
Fifteen years later, this series still resonates (and it’s available at HBO NOW). Major urban centers are still dealing with the problems that embattled fictional Baltimore for the duration of this series. The Wire, sadly, feels contemporary.
First assistant director
I actually get very giddy when I go on different jobs, and I smile real hard when so many people really praise the show. That makes me feel great to be a part of that. That was my start.
Co-writer, “Game Day”
Five years out, when I started to hear, ‘Wait a second, he wrote for The Wire? I love that show.’ … I kind of scratched my head. It wasn’t those that are from that world. It was a white college girl who’d never spent any time in the city who was obsessed with the show.
Producer, writer and co-creator of The Wire
I don’t think anything’s changed. Now the drugs embrace the white community, the working-class community, particularly. The language might change from rural America to city America, [but] it is the same. And the acting is so damn good.
“I have a problem with the glorification of a drug dealer and America is fascinated with that world. We’re celebrating the very … problem that America has in its ‘hood. But Stringer Bell was no role model. He ruled the people who worked for him through fear.”
Preston “Bodie” Broadus, teen drug dealer
We blew everybody’s tops off, and they still didn’t give us whatever we deserved. That’s OK because that makes them look stupid. The most important thing is that the people who know, who love it, really love it.
Co-writer, “Game Day”
I didn’t realize how big and iconic the show was when we were in the middle of it. We’re really part of something that was incredible and has become a part of the fabric of television.
Reginald “Bubbles” Cousins, heroin addict and police informant
We knew what we were doing was real stuff. There was a certain pride and awe every time we got a script because we were like, ‘Are they telling our side or not?’ And we’re really telling this side of the story, and with such fairness, and in such a nonjudgmental way. It just kept us intrigued and happy to be a part of the show.
Detective Kima Greggs
The Wire is timeless. We’ve been living in these conditions for decades now. It’s not a surprise to me that it resonates. Until we address the structural issues that exacerbate the criminal element that exists in underserved black communities, this story will always be relevant.
Malik “Poot” Carr, teen drug dealer
I think I can speak for all of us saying we didn’t know that the show was gonna be a part of history like it is now.
Creator, executive producer, head writer and showrunner, The Wire
I would prefer to be living in [a] country where The Wire was less relevant 15 years later. I would have much preferred to think of the show as being anachronistic.
Narcotics Detective Ellis Carver
I thought it was gold when we were doing it. I still get a little frothy when people are like, ‘Why did that show go off the air?’ And I’m like, ‘Did you watch it when it was on? Well, that’s why the shit went off the fucking air.’ They were] watching The Sopranos, which was old and tired by that point. The Wire is still the best show in the history of television. And if you reran it right now, it would be better than everything else on TV.
These interviews have been edited for clarity and length.
Maurice Blanding: Works at Baltimore’s Department of Housing and Community Development.
Ed Burns: Lives in West Virginia and is working on several television projects.
Tray Chaney: Is a rapper and also stars in Bounce TV’s Saints & Sinners.
Shamit Choksey: Currently working in automotive sports marketing for Kia; also working on a new TV project with his brother.
Seth Gilliam: Co-stars on AMC’s The Walking Dead, is set to co-star in feature film Change in the Air.
Wood Harris: Is set to co-star in feature films Once Upon a Time in Venice (with Bruce Willis and John Goodman) and 9/11 (with Charlie Sheen and Whoopi Goldberg).
Anthony Hemingway: Is producing and directing television series including WGN’s Underground and is set to direct the indie film Bury the Lead. He also served as an executive producer and director on ABC’s American Crime and was nominated for an Emmy for his work on FX’s The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.
Domenick Lombardozzi: Is part of the cast of Fox’s Rosewood and will next star in the feature films Frank and Ava (2017) and Hard Powder (2018).
Milcho Manchevski: Recently wrapped the feature film Bikini Moon, which stars Condola Rashad.
Andre Royo: Co-stars on Fox’s Empire and is set to co-star in Amazon Studios’ Beautiful Boy alongside Steve Carell, out in 2018.
David Simon: His next series, The Deuce, is set to premiere on HBO this fall; it features several The Wire alums.
Sonja Sohn: Is currently filming Showtime’s The Chi.
J.D. Williams: Stars in Bounce TV’s Saints & Sinners.
Liner Notes
Illustration by Paul Lacolley.