Carmelo Anthony figures he was 8, right about the time he moved from Brooklyn to Baltimore, when basketball took hold inside of him.
He was lured by the gym, with all its smells, all its sounds and all its orderly dimensions.
“I loved that rectangle,” Anthony said. “I loved the smell of the gym, the sound of the basketball, the feeling of swishing a shot. I just loved those things.”
His home gym was the Robert C. Marshall Recreation Center, located two blocks from his family’s apartment, and it became something of a safe haven amid the chaos of the Baltimore streets. Sometimes he would go there to watch. Sometimes he would play. And every time he would escape.
“Anybody who knows me would tell you ‘Melo is a gym rat,”’ Anthony said. “I love being in there and taking myself mentally to another place. I knew that at 8 years old.
