I am embarrassed by the amount of time I spend on sports.
Well, no, I’m not really embarrassed, but I should be, because it borders on
obsession. In fact, my sports Rubicon is far back in the rear-view mirror. [1]
My dentist is a MI State U fan. He is as sports-obsessed
as I. We have concluded there is something wrong with us. His hygienist agrees.
When I apologized one day when she could not start scraping on my teeth because
Chris and I were talking sports, she sighed and said, “It’s okay. I schedule
extra time when I know you are coming in.” [2]
I once cancelled a TV service because it did not have the
Big Ten Network. When I was nominated for a distinguished alum award at Garrett
Theological Seminary, my profile did not mention stuff I did in the ministry.
It talked about how much I love baseball.
When daughter Katie and her husband taught history at
Auburn U, and granddaughter Brigid was born there, Perry & Sue Biddle were
gracious enough to let us spend the night with them in Nashville on our way
from IL to AL. They usually had a party for us, inviting old friends we met in Scotland,
Amos & Etta Wilson, and other folks they thought we might enjoy. One man,
as he left one night, said, either with admiration or bewilderment, “I’ve never
before met a minister who knew so much about sports.”
I don’t know why I have this obsession. I don’t come from
an athletic family. I hardly knew sports existed until we moved to Oakland
City, IN, when I was 10. Maybe it was the isolation of the farm. We didn’t have
a car. From the last day of school in May until the first day in September, I
didn’t have any playmates. I really wanted something to do besides farm chores.
By myself I could shoot at the basketball goal on the side of the barn, and
throw a tennis ball against that same barn, and pretend I was Ted Kluzewski or
Gil Hodges scooping up ground balls.
I used to justify my obsession, at least in my own mind,
by claiming that it’s good exercise. It keeps one healthy. But my sports
activity came to a screeching halt, unless you count walking as a sport, when I
was 70 and we moved to Iron Mt and there was no softball league for old people,
and where the only sport is strapping a couple of sticks to your feet and
sliding down a long slope on ice and snow and then hanging in the air, buffeted
by blizzard winds, until crashing into the tops of red pines several miles
away. [Iron Mountain has the highest man-made ski jump in the world and hosts
an international competition each winter.]
So now, I just watch. It’s hard to justify sitting in
front of the TV several hours a day, especially between seasons when there is
nothing but field hockey and water polo and curling, relieved only by Big Bang
Theory re-runs, and claim that’s good for one’s health.
This comes up now because old people need to get rid of
stuff, and I’m sorting through old correspondence. There was a time I
corresponded with the President of Ohio State about the firing of football
coach Earle Bruce… and with Joe Paterno about sharing football factory receipts
with historically black colleges… and Milt Weisbecker, the Athletics Director
at ILSU about hiring a black basketball coach… and other coaches and ADs trying
to get scholarships for kids.,,
Only now do I understand my obsession with sports. It’s
not about sports at all. It’s about justice. My daughters learned to become
advocates for justice because they heard me proclaim, whenever one of my teams
lost, that “It was a grave miscarriage of justice.”
Spring training starts tomorrow. ”Let justice roll down
like waters, pitchers and catchers reporting like an ever-flowing stream.” My
sports obsession does not mean I am emotionally weird. I’m just committed to
justice. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
JRMcF
1] I don’t want to insult anyone by suggesting you don’t
already know this, but the Rubicon was the border [river] that Caesar crossed
and was thus irrevocably committed to civil war. When you’ve “crossed the
Rubicon,” there’s no turning back.
2] Chris Selden is no longer my dentist, since he is in Iron
Mountain, MI, and I am in Bloomington, IN, but I started writing this when we
still lived in IM. In that remote and frozen place, it was important for me to
have someone who shared my yearnings. I no longer live where it’s remote and
frozen, but I miss him.
3] The exception to my lonely existence was my Uncle
Johnny [John H. Pond, my mother’s youngest brother, 15 years older than I.] He
was single and lived with his mother in a town of 600. There wasn’t much for
him to do in the evenings. Many evenings he drove over from Francisco, five
miles away, after he had closed his hardware store, and hit flies to me in our
orchard/pasture field. I so looked forward to those moments with him. He was my
best man at our wedding. To this day, when I am at loose ends, in my mind I go
to that field and chase those fly balls. I still think of him as the best
playmate I ever had.
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