PASSED BY THE GAME?

If you grow old enough you get passed by lots of things.

And it starts early with games.

Baseball passed me by at age fourteen, which according to my calendar was 1969.

History remembers 1969 as a big party year.

My big party was learning to hit a curve ball.

When the ball didn’t curve, but the coach said, “Stand in there,” I stood in there.

And got beaned a few times.

After I hurt my arm so bad I couldn’t throw the ball from second base to first, I took it as an omen.

After I slid into third base head first like Charlie Hustle and got a load of dirt down my shirt, I knew it would be my last season.

Fast forward to the major league strike of 1994.

The World Series was canceled, which set me off. Why?

 

 

I like the World Series. I lived in NYC in 1978 when the Yankees won it all, working in lower Manhattan during the victory parade.

We went out into the crowd at lunchtime and it was pretty great.

People love their baseball heroes, they need them, and if their team doesn’t make it to the World Series, they still love them.

I saw it watching the Cubs vs Padres in Wrigley Field in ’73.

I saw the love watching the Phillies play a season in Veteran’s Stadium in ’76.

My wife has been to Dodger Stadium for games.

I saw the Dodgers vs Mariners in the King Dome with Eddie who had seen the Dodgers play in Brooklyn.

 

 

With that in mind, the strike of ’94 bothered me enough to go out and buy baseball mitts for my wife and I.

For Christmas.

She didn’t get it, the nostalgia, but we still played some catch.

I bought the A2000 for me, my dream glove. She got a Wilson, a good one, but since she didn’t have a dream glove it worked out.

The mitts still aren’t broken in, but they’re solid and ready.

 

Passed By Football

Football passed by me in 1973 after three years of starting on the varsity line.

I got hurt and stayed hurt. My shoulder, my neck, my ankles.

Maybe I would have been a late bloomer, but enough was enough.

 

 

I’m the tall one in the back row.

I stopped playing organized football, wrestled in college for a year, then tried out for the Army team.

But I stayed a football fan, a Dallas Cowboy football fan.

Yes, I know.

 

 

After this guy came some lean years in the 1980’s.

Their huge success in the ’90’s felt unreal.

They were set to run the decade until they lost their way, lost their coach, and are still lost twenty-something years later.

Every year I pledge to find a new team, but still hold out hope for the Cowboys and the Oregon Ducks and the North Bend Bulldogs, my Big Three.

And at the end of every disappointing season I remake my pledge to never watch another game.

Then I break it.

The good news is I’m not a gambler, or fantasy league guy, just a fan harboring bad memories of Super Bowls lost on a missed catch in the end zone by Jackie Smith, and a national championship for the Ducks against Auburn on a bad call.

Follow me for more excuses.

 

Passed By The Game Of Life? Hold On There

Some days you can expect to look back and wonder where all of the time went.

You might ask yourself, ‘What happened?’

Don’t worry about it. Instead, do a quick review and it all plays out.

You know what happened. You just don’t remember all of the details.

 

 

You won’t be as good as you’d like to be, or as bad as you could have been.

But, when you do it right, you’ll get a certain feeling, and it’s not empty.

Instead of a hollowed out bitterness, keep an open mind.

 

 

An open mind isn’t the same as an empty one.

If you feel empty, get to work.

Make the day, today, your day. Tell yourself, ‘This is my day.’

I do it every day with varied results.

 

 

Sometimes I get help, asked for or not.

Today is your day?

It will be after you get past a few things.

 

 

You could have been a contender? Really?

Maybe check the memories before going down the rabbit hole of why you weren’t.

The main thing is recovering from the setbacks.

Fall off of a horse? Get back on.

This is me in San Antonio, Texas learning to ride.

It’s me and Fancy, a good horse I met during my time at Fort Sam Houston.

My buddy and I decided to go riding instead of the usual Army base leisure time of drinking Lone Star beer in the PX.

 

 

PS: When life seems to repeat itself into a boring spin-cycle of waiting for each day to mercifully end, do something new, learn something new, and put it to use.

PSS: You might be better than you give yourself credit for. When is the last time you rode a real bike? Take one for spin, but wear long pants in case you slip on a pedal. It hurts, it bleeds. Ask me how I know.

Now, giddy up.