Sports Mondays: Who You With?
(Cent 1): I Bleed Purple and Gold ... And Dodger Blue
Thinking back to a time when I was too young to even speak, I have blurred memories of a television broadcasting the team that bore the Purple and Gold. I recollect that I had no clue what they were doing exactly, but the fact that they were running fast and putting this ball through the hoop while thousands of fans screamed and cheered intrigued me. Another Laker for life was born.
Around the same time, through the same foggy lens known as the childhood memory, there were people wearing these weird contraptions on their heads. It was made out of blue and had this unique symbol on the front which I later found out to be the letters "L" and "A" overlapping. I liked blue and again, I liked watching these guys on TV wearing it while they hit a ball and the crowd went wild. The Dodgers were now my team.
This is how my sports affection sprouted and it remains the same to this day, but only deeper. Through the "Showtime Era" ... during Kirk Gibson's heroic homerun with pumping fist ... through Lakers' dynasties with Magic, Kareem, and Worthy with Riles at the helm (then later Kobe, Shaq, and Phil) ... and also the heartaches ... the incident with Magic having to retire early on unprecedented terms ... the Dodgers not making it to the World Series since 1988 ... the incident with Kobe that circled not only him but everything Laker related .... Everything that happened to those teams, to those players, to that city I felt I was a part of. I cheer for them; I support who ever puts on those uniforms (except Karl Malone, but that's a different article). My life would feel a little empty without them. I'm glad I don't have to worry about that.
You see, things change in life. You might switch jobs. Move to a different city. Graduate high school ... then college. Loved ones are lost to life's unpredictable circumstances. People come and go, in and out of your life ... my teams won't. Sure, players switch teams, get traded, or even retire ... but their pedigree will always be with them. They will always be a part of that storied franchise's history ... they will always be a memory from my life ... and as long as I am able to, I will follow and cheer on my teams, from the lottery to the championship parade, I will be there.
(Cent 2): What Else Is Sports?
Call me a little crazy (but not to my face) but I find that sports has mirrored my life in certain ways. For instance, take the Los Angeles Dodgers right now. Since the All-Star break, they had lost 13 out of 14 games. Currently, they are riding a 9 game winning streak, sweeping three different series. First, they were dead in the water. They had no chance of getting something positive going. Now, they're the hottest team in baseball and everything is going well for them. They had to remember it was a long season (162 games, not including a possible playoff series or two) and that losing and winning streaks happen. Hey, it's baseball.
I feel like in life, we go through "winning" and "losing" streaks too. Sometimes we feel like we're doing everything we can do to succeed and we just can't get a call to go our way. We fall short. You just have to remember things come back around ... just as it's a long season, it's a long life (in relative terms). We have hours, weeks, months, years to deal with. We're in a seemingly never ending season with more streaks than Mark Roberts. Like the Dodgers have recently, you have to keep your head up and know each day is a new chance to turn things around. The championship attitude is to never give up -- in anything -- and to not use excuses. I feel this is the attitude we need to carry on our daily grind of life.
(1/2 Cent): My 5 Seconds of Fame
So, I figured since Mondays will concentrate on sports that I would keep a little running log of my new softball season (city league). Our team name is the Wannabes (no, I had no input in the name) and our team color is yellow -- at least that's what they say, because our jerseys haven't even arrived yet. My number should be 24, which I chose because it will be worn by Kobe for the upcoming 2006-2007 NBA season.
In my last entry for Grab Bag Fridays I wrote a short summary of the heartbreaking one run loss. To elaborate on the game ... it is a co-ed league, where you have to bat male, female, male, female, etcetera. You can have 10 position players (1 is a "rover" -- usually an extra outfielder). We play up to 7 innings or an hour, which ever comes first. Our season runs through August and September with a playoff tournament starting in October. There is only one game a week, on Thursdays.
So, for the first game I played CF for the first half of the game, but then our pitcher dislocated her finger while catching a line drive shot back to her (hey, this league is hardcore!) so we had to switch some positions up. I finished playing SS (which I never have since, uh, never ... not even in little league or high school) ... which resulted in an error from yours truly (and one that might be constituted as an error, but I rule as a hit because by the time it passed me, I was in short LF). Luckily they didn't turn into runs. Yes, I did make a couple plays that didn't result in an error ... no, I don't think I should play there again. I'd prefer 3B or OF.
We did play a lot better than we had practiced, again only losing 8-7 in the last inning with 2 outs. After they started off the game with a homerun off the first pitch and me thinking to myself in the OF, "Oh, boy ... this is going to be a LONG night" we finished up nicely. If it wasn't for a lot of defensive shakiness and a couple of baserunning mistakes, we could have taken it. I'll keep you posted.
Team Stats, Wannabes: (W-L) = (0-1) ... Last Game = L, 8-7
HCP Stats: Games (G) = 1, AB (At Bats) = 3, R (Runs) = 0, H (Hits) = 3, 2B (Doubles) = 0, 3B (Triples) = 0, HR (Home Runs) = 0, RBI (Runs Batted In) = 2, BA (Batting Average) = 1.000
HCP
Thinking back to a time when I was too young to even speak, I have blurred memories of a television broadcasting the team that bore the Purple and Gold. I recollect that I had no clue what they were doing exactly, but the fact that they were running fast and putting this ball through the hoop while thousands of fans screamed and cheered intrigued me. Another Laker for life was born.
Around the same time, through the same foggy lens known as the childhood memory, there were people wearing these weird contraptions on their heads. It was made out of blue and had this unique symbol on the front which I later found out to be the letters "L" and "A" overlapping. I liked blue and again, I liked watching these guys on TV wearing it while they hit a ball and the crowd went wild. The Dodgers were now my team.
This is how my sports affection sprouted and it remains the same to this day, but only deeper. Through the "Showtime Era" ... during Kirk Gibson's heroic homerun with pumping fist ... through Lakers' dynasties with Magic, Kareem, and Worthy with Riles at the helm (then later Kobe, Shaq, and Phil) ... and also the heartaches ... the incident with Magic having to retire early on unprecedented terms ... the Dodgers not making it to the World Series since 1988 ... the incident with Kobe that circled not only him but everything Laker related .... Everything that happened to those teams, to those players, to that city I felt I was a part of. I cheer for them; I support who ever puts on those uniforms (except Karl Malone, but that's a different article). My life would feel a little empty without them. I'm glad I don't have to worry about that.
You see, things change in life. You might switch jobs. Move to a different city. Graduate high school ... then college. Loved ones are lost to life's unpredictable circumstances. People come and go, in and out of your life ... my teams won't. Sure, players switch teams, get traded, or even retire ... but their pedigree will always be with them. They will always be a part of that storied franchise's history ... they will always be a memory from my life ... and as long as I am able to, I will follow and cheer on my teams, from the lottery to the championship parade, I will be there.
(Cent 2): What Else Is Sports?
Call me a little crazy (but not to my face) but I find that sports has mirrored my life in certain ways. For instance, take the Los Angeles Dodgers right now. Since the All-Star break, they had lost 13 out of 14 games. Currently, they are riding a 9 game winning streak, sweeping three different series. First, they were dead in the water. They had no chance of getting something positive going. Now, they're the hottest team in baseball and everything is going well for them. They had to remember it was a long season (162 games, not including a possible playoff series or two) and that losing and winning streaks happen. Hey, it's baseball.
I feel like in life, we go through "winning" and "losing" streaks too. Sometimes we feel like we're doing everything we can do to succeed and we just can't get a call to go our way. We fall short. You just have to remember things come back around ... just as it's a long season, it's a long life (in relative terms). We have hours, weeks, months, years to deal with. We're in a seemingly never ending season with more streaks than Mark Roberts. Like the Dodgers have recently, you have to keep your head up and know each day is a new chance to turn things around. The championship attitude is to never give up -- in anything -- and to not use excuses. I feel this is the attitude we need to carry on our daily grind of life.
(1/2 Cent): My 5 Seconds of Fame
So, I figured since Mondays will concentrate on sports that I would keep a little running log of my new softball season (city league). Our team name is the Wannabes (no, I had no input in the name) and our team color is yellow -- at least that's what they say, because our jerseys haven't even arrived yet. My number should be 24, which I chose because it will be worn by Kobe for the upcoming 2006-2007 NBA season.
In my last entry for Grab Bag Fridays I wrote a short summary of the heartbreaking one run loss. To elaborate on the game ... it is a co-ed league, where you have to bat male, female, male, female, etcetera. You can have 10 position players (1 is a "rover" -- usually an extra outfielder). We play up to 7 innings or an hour, which ever comes first. Our season runs through August and September with a playoff tournament starting in October. There is only one game a week, on Thursdays.
So, for the first game I played CF for the first half of the game, but then our pitcher dislocated her finger while catching a line drive shot back to her (hey, this league is hardcore!) so we had to switch some positions up. I finished playing SS (which I never have since, uh, never ... not even in little league or high school) ... which resulted in an error from yours truly (and one that might be constituted as an error, but I rule as a hit because by the time it passed me, I was in short LF). Luckily they didn't turn into runs. Yes, I did make a couple plays that didn't result in an error ... no, I don't think I should play there again. I'd prefer 3B or OF.
We did play a lot better than we had practiced, again only losing 8-7 in the last inning with 2 outs. After they started off the game with a homerun off the first pitch and me thinking to myself in the OF, "Oh, boy ... this is going to be a LONG night" we finished up nicely. If it wasn't for a lot of defensive shakiness and a couple of baserunning mistakes, we could have taken it. I'll keep you posted.
Team Stats, Wannabes: (W-L) = (0-1) ... Last Game = L, 8-7
HCP Stats: Games (G) = 1, AB (At Bats) = 3, R (Runs) = 0, H (Hits) = 3, 2B (Doubles) = 0, 3B (Triples) = 0, HR (Home Runs) = 0, RBI (Runs Batted In) = 2, BA (Batting Average) = 1.000
HCP
posted by HCP @ 11:45 AM
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