Figures. I go to my one and only baseball game tonight — Durham Bulls versus the Columbus Clippers — and a whopper of a thunderstorm rains it out. It wasn’t that I was looking for Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins (I met them once in a bar in the Bahamas on a bonefishing expedition and played pool and drank too much tequila with Tim in the lounge of the Pink Sands Hotel ((that’s my one and only Hollywood name drop)). It isn’t that I care much for baseball. I just wanted to sit in the southern evening and take in a frigging ballgame.
This was a company outing — after a full day meeting — and it was going to be fun … until the rain came. But whatever, I gave up on baseball on October 25, 1986 in the sixth game of the World Series, Red Sox vs. the Mets, when Bill Buckner committed his infamous error. The champagne was iced on the coffee table in front of me, ready to toast the Red Sox’s first series since cavemen roamed the earth, the big payoff of being a Red Sox fan since the age of 9 when they lost the Series to St. Louis in 1967 — The Impossible Dream Team with Jim Lonborg on the mound, Yaz, Tony Conigliaro …. I had stuck with them for twenty years, getting deranged and disappointed every season, my fanaticism rewarded only by the glory years of the Boston Bruins in the early 70s and the glorious dynasty of the Celtics in the 80s.
When Buckner blew it I threw the bottle of champagne at the TV and vowed never to watch another game, never read another newspaper article, to avert my eyes whenever they mentioned, shown, or otherwise invoked.
That worked until 2004 when they finally won a Series, but by then I was tainted, a fairweather fan. So … with cycling trashed by the Affair D’Floyd, I need a new sport. Maybe cricket.
aw, c’mon back to baseball. it’s much safer now, and fairweather is a term that could never be applied to a fan such as yourself with so much prior history.
it’s the perfect sport for summer, and steroid controversy aside does still have a timeless quality to it.
there’s a reason the best sports movies are baseball themed, you know 😉
Nah. I can’t do that to those poor souls who have hung onto every pitch. They deserve the glory. I will live in the horror of ’86 and feel good about that.
I recommend competitive eating and sumo wrestling. (They could perhaps be considered complimentary.)
My father played triple-A for the Phillies one season years ago. He was the most loyal of baseball fans. He gave up the game completely back when the big players strikes began. Never watched another game.
I’d go with rowing or sailing. It’s obvious the sea is in your blood. With rowing, when you can’t get on the water, you can erg. With sailing, you can do it on the weekends, when you’re home on the Cape. It’s a win-win!
Yeah, but your television viewing opportunities are nil for rowing and sailing. I need something to follow. What I participate in tends to be on the fringe.
Real fringe outdoor sports enthuisiasts watch live pigeon shooting on OLN at night. a 28 gauge is perfect for this as it’s quiet and ‘splodes them nicely.
Jim
check out http://dogbegone.com/
select “maximum carnage” videdo
Poor poor Prarie Dogs.