Samuel

Ever since I was a small child, I’ve had an aversion to sports. I don’t think I ever remember my Dad watching a sports game other than the big ones; the World Series, the Super Bowl, the big ones. I never even remember my Mom watching those. In first grade I played tee-ball. I didn’t know how to throw, didn’t know how to catch, and didn’t know how to hold a bat. A kid called me “tinky wiss” and I ran home in tears. My Dad still pokes fun at me for that. Thanks Dad.

In second grade I played soccer. My school was the Spanish Immersion school, and even then our soccer team was always among the best in the city. Maybe it was our proximity to latin culture, although I doubt it since we were 99% suburban white kids. I played goalie, which was generally pretty good for me since our team was so good and the ball rarely made it to my side of the field. My most intense memory from my two months of soccer was my Mom scolding me for making daisy chains in the grass. I guess I let several shots go right past me. I was having fun.

That was the end of my sports playing, other than some occasional dabbling. At recess I tried playing basketball a few times, but my classmates were unwilling to experiment with my ideas for rule modifications. They mostly had to do with pretending that the players were spies, dragons, devils, unicorns, and generally anything more interesting than a bunch of third graders. I also tried my hand at wall-ball, four-square, and hopscotch. Those were more my speed, not because I was any good at them, but because my play time was limited by my incompetence so I spent most of my wall-ball playing hours standing in line waiting for another turn against the big kid who never lost.

I also liked tether-ball, but only when I was playing without an opponent.

My point here is that I was never athletic, never wanted to be, and never got any real encouragement to be. It wasn’t that I was an inactive kid. In fact, the phrase “I was an inactive kid” would probably be an unwise one for me to speak when riding in a car driven by an adult who knew me as a kid, as the laughter it would be likely to elicit would potentially cause a serious motor vehicle accident. That was a sentence, I promise. It’s just that I’ve never much gone in for organized sports, or even individual athletics in any formal sense. My preference was always to just, you know, run around and pretend to be a unicorn. Or an evil devil creature. But a few of my closest friends were from conservative christian families and they wouldn’t play pretend with me if I was being a devil of any sort, or even a demon or a demon-like creature, so I usually ended up being a unicorn.

I never thought I’d be interested in sports. But then, a few years ago, I started going to the minor league baseball games at Civic Stadium in Eugene. Our home team, the Ems, aren’t great. They haven’t had a genuine winning season in a long time (although this last year they didn’t do too badly, and barely missed a shot at the regional finals). I realized that I kind of like baseball.

At first, I thought that I just liked going to the stadium, which is a beautiful historic structure, full of character and life. But the past few days, as Baseball season has started, I’ve started to wonder why it is that I’ve always been so aloof to sports. I think that it has to do with a temptation toward a certain kind of intellectual superiority that I too often succumb to. I mean, in a lot of ways, I am “that” liberal. I listen to NPR News every morning. I believe, or at least put off the impression that I believe that my political opinions are based in rational thought and scientific fact, while the opinions of those with whom I disagree are ideologically and religiously motivated. I am arrogant about who I spend my time with, and don’t easily put up with willful ignorance. I have actually referred to the midwest as “the flyover states”. I drink $10 bottles of beer. And I scoff at sports fans as uncouth midwesterners, ignorant and uncultured, worthy of disdain.

I don’t like this about myself. I try not to react in knee-jerks, and while I’m not going to change my mind about global warming without being presented with some really convincing scientific evidence, I can at least give a major form of American entertainment a second (first?) chance. So I’m going to try to follow baseball this season. I’m going to root for the Boston Red Sox, because I own a Red Sox baseball cap that I found on the street. I’m going to keep up with scores, stats, and all that. I may even watch some games.

If I hate it, at least I can say that I don’t follow sports because I know I don’t like them, not because of any cultural elitism. And I think I’ll be a better person for it.

But while I’m watching, I’m still going to pretend to be a unicorn.