--Michael Jordan
A scuffed white wiffle ball, a canary yellow plastic bat,
and a patchwork of dirt and grass for a playing field: those are my first vivid
memories of sports and games in this life.
My next door neighbor Joey and I would have season long backyard tournaments
from late June until early September, play ball for hours, until our Moms would
join in a chorus of “SUPPER!” calling us in from the fading light of dusk. What
games! Two boys, eight year old best friends, trying to hit a winning home run at
Fenway Park, a rusted chain link fence our
Green Monster.
It was just a game.
And we loved it.
No adults to set the rules or pick the teams. No fancy uniforms.
A travel game meant we played two streets over.
It was always pick up. Who ever showed up joined in. Other times of the
year we switched from one pastime to another.
Basketball in suburban driveways, shirts versus skins. Touch football on
the town green, with cries of “one Mississippi,
two Mississippi…”
Street hockey in a church parking lot with a green tennis ball for a puck. Pond
hockey on frigid winter days in the marsh behind our house. Then back to baseball again.
We marked the turn of the seasons by whatever games we
played.
We worked hard to win, wanted to win, but in the end I think
we knew somehow in our young wisdom that it was always just a game. A joyful activity
which allowed us to burn off the frantic energy of childhood and to test out
our growing bodies. Later when I played
organized sports, I loved those games too. Savored the hits and drama of
football and I played into high school.
But still, for me, it was always just a game. A diversion to take my mind off of school and
whatever other stresses ailed my teen life.
Then one day when it was no longer fun, when it no longer felt like a
game, when it became more like a job and less like play, at the end of that last
season of youth sports, I left the team.
But I never lost the fun of playing games and sports.
Watching games and sports for fun too: the Red Sox, Bruins,
Celtics, and Pats. Like most New
Englanders I went crazy when the BoSox broke “the curse” ten years ago on a
full moon October evening and finally won the World Series. THEY DID IT! Sunday
afternoons in the fall and winter are often about the couch and football and then
turning to the sports page on Monday mornings for a recap. Offer me tickets to any game and I am there:
a Coke in one hand, a hot dog in the other.
Professional sports as fun.
Games played by overgrown kids.
At their best, spectator sports entertain; provide a respite
from work and all the real news in the rest of the world, which weighs so
heavily, the outcome of which actually matters. For me that’s what makes fandom
so enjoyable. If the Pats or Sox lose
there’s really nothing at stake.
Nothing. No one dies. Nations don’t totter and fall because of the final
score, and there is always the next game to get excited about.
Because for me, finally, sports are just that…sports. Games. Nothing more.
Competition played between the lines, a gift from God, to give
us the pure enjoyment of playing and watching games. I think our world needs to
remember that truth every once in awhile, the purity of play for play’s sake.
We need to keep sports in perspective. We need to teach our kids that sports
are an important part of growing up and so too is family, community service, school,
work, God and just being young and having fun. We need to stop feeding the
sports media monster which creates false idols out of the players and teams and
then tears them to pieces when they end up disappointing. Plenty of that
happening these days. We need to learn
again, that before sports became big business and big time, it was played by kids
and amateurs, for the love of the game.
Because I do love sports: playing, watching, cheering, and
competing. Sports make this life better. But in the end? It is only a
game.
Thank God.
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