BUTCHING IT UP

I like football games...mostly when we're on a winning streak, and although I'd rather have upholstery tacks pressed into my gums than actually GO to a game, I can yell and jump around the living room during the Superbowl. I used to like to hear a baseball game on the radio as well, but I think that was mostly because I associated it with warm summer evenings. Hockey..not so much, but I like Sidney, though watching a game hurts my eyes...like following a tennis ball back and forth hurts my neck. About all I know about basketball is that it's fun to watch the Globetrotters. Of course as a gay guy, I love the diving and swimming at the Olympics ( that's just a given ).

Now there was a great line from Karen on WILL AND GRACE when someone tossed some keys to Jack, and he missed them and Karen said to Grace " They don't catch." That about sums up my abilities or lack there of when it comes to any object thrown in my direction. I never liked tennis or even badmitten because inevitably someone tosses you a ball, or I think it's called a "birdie" or something like that. When I was growing up my Dad traveled to New York a lot on business, and over the years would bring back two baseball mitts...really good ones he said, and would regularly invite me out to the backyard to catch. I still remember those dreaded words, and the feeling that I'd just been invited to feel like I might either faint or suffer a 10 year old's massive heart attack with every ball that eluded me...and most of them did. My Dad never lost patience however, and also never suggested that I try out for Little League. ( watching me on the diamond might have required CPR for both of us.

In our Catholic grade school, we never had a gym....just "recess" where we'd run around when we were little, then stand around when we were older. Entering High School, I thought my new gym outfit was pretty cool, but soon felt my spirits collapse and my heart begin to race when we were expected to play sports.

When I was order to play "right field" I didn't know if that meant my right or the coach's right (since we were facing each other). Football season came quickly and I was a nervous wreck as I stood in the Autumn wind with absolutely no idea of what I was supposed to be doing. Monday was gym day....first period, and after trying to be sick for about nine Mondays in a row, I finally escaped my terror by begging pleading and looking doe-eyed until I landed an early morning job "helping out" in the office. WHEW.

Now the funny thing is that I was also the co-editor of the Yearbook...writing all the sports pages. Honest.

I loved to write, and knew how that stuff was worded, and to this day it makes me chuckle. Two years ago I was asked to blog along with 7 other people for the Post Gazette...PG plus...on line. I've written almost two hundred blogs for them now, and as fate would have it, I'm on the sports page. I have no idea why, but my blog there has more than a six figure hit statistic. Only one other guy writes there who doesn't write about sports....but there he is...and there  I am. When I taught school I'd ask my sports-crazy sister in law for one insightful and clever comment to make about some current sport, then I'd sort of shout it out to all the other men in the teacher's lounge, and then eat my sandwich quietly while they marveled at my sports knowledge. Hey...a guy does what he has to do. GO STEELERS !