SPORTS

This is quite possibly the best picture ever posted on the internet.

There is just so much going on.  People are ducking and flailing their arms in order to avoid the rogue bat that so quickly entered their universe and one man to the left is literally using his baby as a shield.  The man that is taking the bat to the face is doing so like a champ.  His arms remain tranquil and motionless at his sides as though in the split second he had before impact he decided that his face would be best to bear the brunt of this one.  And you have to admire his commitment to that ideal.  Almost as interesting, the slightly rotund redheaded girl in the foreground does not even seem to have noticed any kind of approaching danger as her attention seems to be fixed elsewhere.  This leads me to believe that this girl either is pondering something earth-shattering or is blind.

   Tonight is a big night for Utah Jazz Basketball, which I have become an avid fan of.  My evolution into a sports fan has been a slow one.  Even as I write this, I can still taste the martinelli's that I chugged out of the bottle and sprayed all over my teammates after we clinched the victory in our bowling league championships with a strike in the tenth frame.  Not to mention the fact that I am mentally preparing myself  for a double header softball game tonight for our undefeated intramural team.  But you may be surprised to know that I have not always been so dominant in the realm of semi-leisurely sports.  In fact, when I was a young boy it was quite the different story.

My earliest memory of sports was being forced to play little league when I was about 7 or 8.  I wanted to be out in the stream picking up rocks, catching frogs and chasing water skippers.  But my parents felt that instead I should be learning life lessons from a sadistic coach and a bunch of kids that seems to already be roiding.  My stint in little league was short lived, I think my parents finally decided that it was not worth the effort when I would just sit down in the grass in right field every game and play with bugs.    No amount of yelling or coaching could make me get up.  I was making my stand and I did it well.  I was subsequently talked into playing other organized sports, all of which I failed miserably at (except for street hockey, in which I represent a dominant force to this day)  I played city basketball with my dad as coach and I think I only made one bucket the entire season.  Im pretty sure this kid knows how I feel when I think about middle school basketball.

  In high school I wrestled for three years and while I was pretty decent at it, I hated every minute of it.  Tennis was my next foray and I'm pretty sure that is where things changed for me.  I finally found a sport I loved and soon I started even embracing other sports of all kinds.  I even like watching them on TV, a fact which my mom and several girlfriends have despised.  As summer approaches, I literally get giddy thinking about the softball season.  I am rambling.  I like sports.  I wish I knew what that little girl was thinking about.