Opening day was rained out here in Boston yesterday and all over the office that seemed to be the dominant story that people wanted to talk about. People love the teams in Boston and show their support in various ways from a Patriots sweatshirt to a Red Sox license plate to setting fire to a flipped over police car. Many people I know, work with or are related to love love love the home teams and sports in general. Me on the other hand? Yea, not so much. Why is that exactly? Does it stem from the memory of my father taking me to Ferry Way Green park (which is now the site of a school and my school I went to as a kid is now a park...so confused) as a little kid and yelling at me because I didn't know how to hit a baseball? Um, Dad? Yea, this is the very first time I've ever tried this. It stands to reason I may not be good at it. Should we maybe practice some more? Maybe give me some pointers? Oh, you'd rather just scream at me from the pitchers mound, call me an idiot and then NEVER take me back to the park to try again? Ok. That may have some impact on my opinions.
In my normal every day life not knowing sports stuff isn't a hindrance. But in social or even pseudo-social settings it can be. Like for instance, I had a guy come over to look at our kitchen for our planned refurbishment who right off the bat started talking about sports. I guess that for most guys it's a common-ground thing where friendship and/or business partnerships are typically launched but for me it just produces large gaps of awkward silence. Unless the sports figure has been around forever or maybe shot someone recently odds are I don't know who you're talking about. He mentioned some sports thing or team or whatever and I guess I was supposed to have an opinion about it but I just...don't. So rather than pretend to know all about the bullpen for the Sox this season (I had to look that up by the way..I never knew what they were referring to. It's basically a frickin' sports reference within another goddamn sport. That's just not fair), I just come right out and say I don't know anything about it. After years of trying to play along and fake interest just to move a conversation along or whatever I've found it's less stressful for me to be upfront about my sports ignorance.
Now I don't HATE sports. I just don't care about them. I literally never think about them. I've gone to games and in the 80's I was all about following the Celtics (especially 1986) but for me it was more about the story rather than the stats. I have friends who can tell you not only who was on what team and when but every mind-numbing statistic from that guy's career. My head is full of junk but I simply do not have the capacity for that stuff. It's amazing to me. And they're excited to tell you about these facts. Luckily they all know by now that I cannot participate in this little exercise so they won't talk to me about sports (however, they will on occasion talk about it with each other while I stare at the bar wishing the conversation would go back to which season of The Wire was the best [season 4]). My eldest sister Theresa is really into sports too (especially football, the Eagles specifically) and I remember when she came up from Philly to stay with the Wiff and me for Christmas she wanted to watch Sports Center. I didn't even know what channel ESPN was on my cable (I still don't). I've tried to get "into" sports before. I'd read the sports page and try to watch Sports Center but I'll be god damned if it doesn't lull me to sleep. I do like Real Sports on HBO and when I catch It's Only A Game on NPR I usually stay with the show. But those programs don't really talk about sports, they are talking about the stories behind the sports. The sport is usually secondary which is probably why I like it.
My dad (aside from the yelling thing) was not really into sports all that much either when I was growing up. I don't really remember him watching the game (any game) on TV or stuff like that. You know what he did watch every Saturday? Bowling. Yep. He never missed a match. But later on after I had moved out and I'd go visit he'd be sitting there in the kitchen under a low cloud of cigarette smoke watching sports. He got into it much later in life. I wish he was still around so that I could take him to a game and we could pretend to understand what was going on together.
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