TMM Season 18 is now complete. During its year and a half in operation, BallyAir flew to 50 worldwide destinations, traveling across 101,283 miles in 131,308 words. Upon identifying and locating The Portal™, BallyAir tunneled back 132 years through the four-dimensional continuum–the first airline in history to manage this feat.
It was a journey through space, time, and a world possessed by the human mind. The BallyAir reservation website, now mostly inoperative, remains online as a wayback machine. Below please find the comprehensive schedule of flights, if you've found reason to relive the journey in whole or in part. Or, if this is your first time, welcome aboard. You have choices when you fly, so thank you for flying BallyAir.
🇱🇹 BL327 · Vilnius, Lithuania (VNO)
1 · The journey begins, at the end. Where are we Going?
🇷🇴 BL331 · Pitesti, Romania (OTP)
2 · March Madness, in Romanian, and the legend of Gheorghe Mureșan.
🇭🇷 BL401 · Zagreb, Croatia (ZAG)
3 · Bosnia's KK Igokea earns a EuroLeague spot in 2013, then promptly gets screwed out of it.
🇹🇷 BL406 · Istanbul, Turkey (IST)
4 · The alternate reality where Istanbul wins the Pandemic Olympics, not Tokyo.
🇪🇸 BL410 · Barcelona, Spain (BCN)
5 · Footsoccer does not explain the world.
🇷🇸 BL411 · Belgrade, Serbia (BEG)
6 · Pick your flavor of Serbian nationalism: Red Star or Partizan.
🇵🇱 BL415 · Zielona Góra, Poland (IEG)
7 · Russia gets kicked out of the EuroLeague, and the VTB United League descends into chaos.
🇪🇪 BL421 · Pärnu, Estonia (EPU)
8 · A story about gum, and a basketball team sponsored by the world's worst gum company.
🇸🇮 BL427 · Novo Mesto, Slovenia (LJU)
9 · Luka Doncic, and a new political theory of Daddies and Uncles.
🇽🇰 BL501 · Pristina, Kosovo (PRN)
10 · From Kosovo to Mariupol, the unbearable lightness of disputed territories.
🇩🇪 BL507 · Crailsheim, Germany (STR)
11 · The legend of the Crailsheim Merlins, Deutschland's first basketball party club.
🇳🇱 BL511 · Leeuwarden, Holland (GRQ)
12 · Korfball's coming to town, in your diary write it down.
🇨🇿 BL521 · Ústí nad Labem, Czechia (PRG)
13 · Close your eyes. Now open them. You are the mighty falcon.
🇬🇷 BL529 · Athens, Greece (ATH)
14 · The Athens 2004 basketball arena, where Team USA lost to Puerto Rico, is loaded on a truck and moved out of town.
🇨🇦 BL531 · Montréal, Quebec, Canada (YUL)
15 · Who can forget Le Matrix de Montréal?
🇺🇸 BL605 · Oakland, California, USA (OAK)
16 · An NBA Finals story about telemarketing, leather pants, and the 1990s Warriors.
🇺🇸 BL610 · Boston, Massachusetts, USA (BOS)
17 · A NBA Finals story about my dad, fax machines, and the 1986 Celtics.
🇨🇦 BL619 · Toronto, Ontario, Canada (YYZ)
18 · The game spreads north in a new century, but Canadian fans think it's hockey.
🇺🇸 BL622 · Uncasville, Connecticut, USA (BDL)
19 · The Connecticut Sun, and who they're named after.
🇺🇸 BL626 · Shreveport, Louisiana, USA (SHV)
20 · Bill Russell tries out the Back To Africa movement in the 1960s, and finds nothing but hypocrisy and disappointment.
🇵🇷 BL701 · San Juan, Puerto Rico (SJU)
21 · "At least I make millions of dollars, as opposed to you all." - Richard Jefferson, Athens 2004
🇲🇹 BL703 · Ta' Qali, Malta (MLA)
22 · EuroBasket Division C, a/k/a the mid-majors of the continent.
🇱🇻 BL707 · Riga, Latvia (RIX)
23 · A classic Ukrainian fairy tale, The Cat and The Chicken.
🇵🇭 BL717 · Manila, Philippines (MNL)
24 · Early YMCA secretaries turn Manila into Southeast Asia's hoop paradise.
🇮🇩 BL724 · Jakarta, Indonesia (CGK)
25 · Lebanon (the country) disintegrates. Lebanon (the FIBA Asia Cup squad) does the opposite.
🇬🇧 BL807 · Birmingham, England (BHX)
26 · The British Empire spreads its own version of basketball in the early 1900s, for girls.
🇺🇸 BL814 · Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (LAS)
27 · A convicted Russian gangster assembles a new Charlie's Angels, but for women's hoops.
🇹🇳 BL826 · Monastir, Tunisia (TUN)
28 · An early FIBA administrator, a closet Egyptoboo, turns postwar international basketball into something very odd.
🇨🇮 BL828 · Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire (ABJ)
29 · A Portuguese expat in Africa refuses to return after colonialism ends, and becomes the father of Angolan basketball instead.
🇬🇪 BL906 · Tbilisi, Georgia (TBS)
30 · Becky Hammon is branded as a Red traitor for accepting a Russian passport to play international hoops. J.R. Holden does the exact same thing, and is not.
🇩🇪 BL911 · Berlin, Germany (BER)
31 · "Chuck's a tosser!" A fatefully timed field trip to EuroBasket 2022.
🇦🇺 BL929 · Sydney, Australia (SYD)
32 · Lauren Jackson's career is nearly derailed by odd run-ins with the Russian mob.
🇨🇳 BL1029 · Beijing, China (PEK)
33 · A (failed) field trip to see Lester Hudson play in the CBA for the Shandong Heroes.
🇰🇷 BL1101 · Seoul, South Korea (ICN)
34 · The archipelago embraces Halloween, and an American Good Foreigner takes on a new name.
🇯🇵 BL1127 · Tokyo, Japan (HND)
35 · The world's first-ever LED basketball court lights up the premiere of the Japanese B.League.
🇮🇷 BL1205 · Tehran, Iran (IKA)
36 · An Iranian basketball coach rescues 15 girls from Kermanshah's vigilante morality police.
🇸🇦 BL1209 · Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (JED)
37 · The worst trade in basketball history: Brittney Griner for Viktor Bout.
🇧🇷 BL1229 · Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (GIG)
38 · A long night layover in Paris on the way back home.
🇲🇽 BL122 · Mexico City, Mexico (MEX)
39 · Rock Art and the Mexico 1968 Style.
🇺🇸 BL125 · Cedar Falls, Iowa, USA (CID)
40 · The coldest day, and the perils of warm luxurious comfort.
🇺🇸 BL128 · Indianapolis, Indiana, USA (IND)
41 · The CPIA is on fire.
🇺🇸 BL226 · Chicago, Illinois, USA (ORD)
42 · In the 1890s, the long-forgotten Central Cardinals put Chicago on the map as basketball's second city.
🇺🇸 BL330 · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (PHL)
43 · After undergrad, my father and I drive cross-country from Oregon to Philly in a German jalopy.
🇨🇦 BL729 · Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (YWG)
44 · We have located The Portal™.
🇺🇸 BL2010 · Indianapolis, Indiana, USA (IND)
45 · They were supposed to lose. Why were they supposed to lose?
🇷🇸 BL2002 · Belgrade, Serbia (BEG)
46 · Reconstruction is fiction. To rebuild would be a lie.
🇺🇸 BL1997 · Eugene, Oregon, USA (EUG)
47 · That's who we are. We're all counter-clockwise.
🇯🇵 BL1974 · Tokyo, Japan (HND)
48 · Ten-ten-temari, ten-temari.
🇮🇳 BL1947 · Kapurthala, India (ATQ)
49 · Something stopped them from crossing the line.
🇺🇸 BL1891 · Springfield, Massachusetts, USA (BDL)
50 · The journey ends, at the beginning. Where are we Going?
Season 18 also features cameos from a number of the players from basketball's First Team on their paths away from Springfield, some working to spread the game around the world as YMCA secretaries.