On Sunday, Sept. 12, Cleveland Park resident Wayne McFadden and his 20-plus-member crew of 40-year-olds showed up to play their regular game of weekend hoops at the Georgetown Recreation Center at 34th Street and Volta Place NW. But instead, they learned that the basketball courts, where they’d played for 22 years, would now be closed on Sundays. McFadden and his fellow players, who note that the tennis courts at the center remain open on Sundays, have cried foul. “The demographic makeup of both sports (basketball and tennis) leads us to believe that the closing of the basketball courts…is racially motivated,” he wrote in an e-mail. But according to Department of Parks and Recreation spokesperson Terry Lee, staffing or noise issues may be to blame, not racial ones. “We are not in the business of closing parks in order to keep a certain element out of the neighborhood,” he says.

—Martha Pitts