I have spent my life watching sports, and I have always bristled at people who say “I am sorry, I don’t follow sports.”
Wait, what?
How do people not follow sports? If I did not follow sports, I’d have no relevant hobbies. I won’t say I would have no life but … well, I’m not sure how to finish that sentence.
But there are days where in the style of “Mr. Destiny” or “It’s a Wonderful Life,” I would love to know temporarily just what that’s like, to not care about sports.
My gosh, I would not know where to begin. Perhaps I should start with the disclosure that I am up writing this during an overtime Monday Night Football game that I have no emotional attachment to at all.
Well, that’s not true, I need Indianapolis quarterback Carson Wentz to take 75 percent of the snaps this year so the Eagles get a first round pick for him next year.
OK, so you see what I am talking about here at least.
I spent part of the night earlier watching the Tampa Bay Rays lose to the Boston Red Sox in the baseball playoffs. I am not a huge Rays fan but I support my people back in Florida, and I can’t stand Boston. I don’t care for that dirty water at all. I don’t even like the band Boston. Or Chicago, while we’re on the topic.
On my wedding day, I was in the other room at the bar with some of the fellas watching the end of the Florida-Kentucky basketball game. Then I heard the DJ say off in the distance “And now, a special dance for the bride and groom.”
Whoops, I think that’s me. Thankfully, a friend left a detailed play-by-play of the finish in our guestbook for posterity.
When I was 9, adults in our section at spring training would ask me the answers to the trivia questions. I rank among the top 10 days of my life the time I met Muhammad Ali, the time I met John Wooden and the day Roy Halladay spun a playoff no-hitter in my presence.
I have yelled at the television thousands of times and been in a scrape or two at ball games with opposing fans. I plan my activities around certain game times and seasons. I have lamented my teams’ failures and been elated at their rare successes.
But what if I didn’t care at all?
See, I am not saying I would not want to care about sports ever again, even at my lowest points. But would one day not caring about them be fun? I think it would.
Where’s Clarence the guardian angel when you need him? And after reading a novel, walking through a dewey meadow and taking time to listen to what my kids are saying on Sunday afternoons instead of just nodding, I would run back and beg Clarence to bring me home.
“Look, Daddy, teacher says every time a bell rings, Urban Meyer does something embarrassing!”
“Shhh, can’t you see I’m watching the game?”
Matthew Osborne is the editor of The Northeast Georgian. He can be reached at 706-778-4215 or editor@TheNortheastGeorgian.com.