WICKER PARK — Call him the patron saint of basketball nets.
Around 7 a.m. on Palm Sunday, a man was observed dragging a ladder to the basketball courts inside Wicker Park's namesake park.
The man also was carrying a box containing four new basketball nets that he had bought online for $30.
"It's for all the kids. We've noticed for three years that the nets were bad. Last summer they got a lot worse," the dad said, referring to himself and and his 13-year-old son.
The man, who declined to give his full name, said he's lived in Wicker Park since 2002 and for the last few years has played basketball with his son in the park at 1425 N. Damen Ave.
With warmer weather finally here, the man said he wondered if the fraying, gray, barely there nets would ever get replaced by the city's Park District.
"I figured it was the kind of thing that would take a long time after you ask, so I just decided to do it," the man said.
The good deed took about an hour, as the man cut off the old nets with scissors he'd brought from home and threaded the new nets through the metal slots at each of the court's four baskets.
Later in the day Sunday, Neil Pineda, 26, a Humboldt Park resident, was among the many people shooting hoops at the crowded courts.
"I noticed the nets were new, and I was happy, of course. New nets are good," Pineda said.
Mike, working on the second of four nets early Sunday. [Photos by DNAinfo/Alisa Hauser]
Removing the old net with scissors.
Neil Pineda, a Humboldt Park resident, shoots baskets on Sunday.
One of four new nets at Wicker Park's basketball court.
