Attending professional sporting events has run a somewhat similar track to a lot of other things in my life. Early on the idea of even going to a live sporting event was so far outside the realm of possibility it wasn’t even thought about, and quite honestly I’m not sure how interested I even was. It was another thing that wasn’t a big deal in my family, and I say that in a positive way and not a way that suggests being deprived somehow. I think it was cool that my family sort of didn’t subscribe to the everyday common place type of things, which was probably because we couldn’t afford them. For me though, I think interest in professional sports was a lot like swimming, I didn’t get into it until I was about 12 or 14 and part of that I think had to do with the 1986 Bears and the Super Bowl Shuffle to be honest.
I mean as a sixth grader how could you not fall in love with this and be totally and suddenly interested in football. Makes total sense right?
Didn’t this seem a lot cooler when you recall it in your mind and don’t actually watch it? I mean I love Walter Payton as much as the next human, don’t get me wrong, but not sure he should be remembered for the following quote:
Running the ball is like making romance.
-Walter Payton
Is it sweetness? Is it really?
Lack of professional sports viewing prowess aside, I do have a very vague memory of attending the 1988 Cleveland Browns Wild Card Game loss to the Houston Oilers. When I say vague, I mean extremely vague, I think I recall being in the stands and it being freezing and sharing a blanket with my sister and thinking, man does this suck. In fact, upon researching it, I’m not even sure it was that game that I was at (I told you the memory was vague). In 1988 the Cleveland Browns last game of the season was against the Houston Oilers and the weather was awful. They would then go on to play the Oilers the following week in the Wild Card game and upon viewing some old game footage I noticed the weather for that game wasn’t so bad. Also, that Wild Card game was on Christmas, and I definitely would’ve remembered that, and also probably would not have wanted to attend that game at all.
So now I’m thinking (boy it’s fun to piece together your own life like some sort of awful Lifetime mystery movie, and probably even more fun to have to read about it as it’s happening) I might’ve been at that week 16 game and it was noted that this was the same team the Browns were going to play in the playoffs. Who the fuck knows, if not me then not likely anyone am I right or am I right.
What I do know, no matter which game it may have been, is that my sister’s very cool boyfriend (I dug the dude because he paid attention to me, which is more about me and not suggesting some kind of neglect or lack of attention from others, trust me I had a lot of attention, I just wanted more) had gotten tickets to the Browns game and that’s why I was there, it may have been a playoff game, it may not have been, but my opinion of it was, this is cold and it sucks.
However, I’m a lemming, and a human being which most times is synonymous, and once I found professional sports I was all in. Sometimes I was more than all in but we won’t get into my prior gambling issues during this entry, or probably any entry ever to be quite honest. So when the opportunity to actual attend live sporting events became an option, I loved it. It was another life experience, even if it is manufactured, and I wanted in any way possible. There are numerous events for which there are glorious firework memories that I have to capture, and will do so on down the line. However, sadly, I would say this too ran its course, and what I mean is that getting an offer of a ticket to a game or an event no longer comes with an immediate, “Absolutely!”, after it. I hate to say it, but at first the reaction is almost that of an obligation, like oh man, I’m not sure I want to take on that liability. Now that’s not true of everything, but for the most part that captures it. That might be just me, and essentially whether it is or it isn’t it simply needs to change, much like a lot of the retrospective learning I’ve had since diving into this adventure. The cool thing is, the firework memory that I have that led me down the road of this topic was an instance in which I was “enlightened” and for a moment that shitty, beaten down, tired perspective, was quashed, and it was, and still is when i reflect on it, glorious.
In and of itself, I’m not sure if I’m a fan of attending a professional baseball game. On one hand the game is super fucking long, painfully long, and so it can drive you berserk when it’s just meandering on. Even if you’re a humongous fan of in person baseball games you have to agree with this, I mean the crowd reactions prove it to be true. Everyone will just be sitting around chatting away and then when it’s time to actually pay attention because something is happening everyone gets really into it and starts standing and actively participating in whatever cheering is taking place. That kind of contributes to why I like the games too though, because they’re really fucking long. It’s the only sport where you can carry on a meaningful and enjoyable conversation while the game is taking place and it mostly doesn’t matter, like you’re not going to miss anything major. When I say that, I mean an entire conversation, like the thing has a beginning, middle and an end. You get to the end of the conversation and you’re like, “Ah, that was great, ok, what next?” I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been at a baseball game and at one point said, “Hey, when did that happen?”
It was at one of those baseball games, a late afternoon Cleveland Indians game I had taken my daughter to, where I have a truly outstanding and important memory. I was recently reminded of this by one of those memory reminders on Facebook. It’s nice when the computer actually does a better job of remembering your life and the things you’ve experienced and said then you do. Anyhow, this particular reminder was about something my daughter had said when she was 4 years old and we were listening to an epic Indians game on the radio. I’ll save that amazing quote for the closing of this entry, but seeing this memory on Facebook reminded me of a time when I took my daughter to the aforementioned Cleveland Indians game (Note that I started writing this entry about a few months ago when I closed this sentence by saying: or whatever the hell they plan on naming the team in the future, I vote for the Human Beings but probably not likely).
I’m not sure how we got the tickets to the game but I remember my wife and I discussing the option of me taking our daughter, which we weren’t sure about because of her age, which is kind of ridiculous because I think we had already taken her to a Browns versus the Ravens game with tickets in the Dawg Pound.
That was also fun as I recall the fella sitting behind us swearing his head off and then frequently apologizing to our daughter “Megan”, only her name isn’t Megan. Also, it should be noted that I found that fella amusing and I’m not complaining about him, if anyone should be complaining it should probably be that guy about my wife and I bringing an almost 3 year old (because bringing a 2 year old would and should be an arrestable offense) into that universe. To this day if you call her Megan she will go into a trance and rattle off a tirade of profanity about how Johnny Football is a fucking no good loser. It’s offsetting and concerning, but also accurate.
Cutting to the chase (my proofreading wife started cracking up at this point of this entry because she said, “No you didn’t! You never cut to the chase. This is the funniest thing in here.”, to which I responded with something that wasn’t pleasant), I took her to the Indians game. Just her and I and we had these semi decent seats in the corner of the lower deck.
We sat there for an inning or two and then we got up and started to wander around the stadium a bit. We went to the kid’s zone where she played like crazy on playground equipment that was set up across a couple of loges. We then sat out on the balcony of the kid’s zone and watched the game from there for a while, then played in the kid’s zone some more and then headed down to the standing room area in right field where I hiked her up on my shoulders so she could watch the game from there.
Here’s the thing, at some point I started to iterate to her that we had to get going. I’m not sure when it was, but I definitely started to get anxious and stressed that we had to leave, so I would remind her of this, on a somewhat regular basis. If you have kids you’ve heard yourself say it, “Alright, we have to get going soon, just finish up.”, or, “Ok, five more minutes and we’re gonna get going ok.” Not sure what it was, or what it is, that had/has me thinking this way, but maybe, in my feeble defense, it was because it was getting late and I was thinking she had to get to bed. I’m not sure, but I was pushing it, until I got to one point in which I realized that we were having so much fun that I literally said to myself, “Wait, why do we have to leave, what are we rushing off to, why am I so anxious to leave?”
It was at that moment that I had the epiphany, we didn’t have anywhere to fucking go, we didn’t have to rush off anywhere, the kid wasn’t being traumatized in same way. I then made the conscious decision to not leave and to just simply enjoy. So we continued to hang out in right field, her up on my shoulders and us taking pictures and taking in the game. It was a hell of a finish to a game too. We were playing against the Tigers and at the bottom of the eighth the Indians scored two runs to tie it up at 5-5. The Tigers would score 4 runs in the top of the ninth and the Indians would make a valiant attempt to come back again but would only score 1 run to lose in the bottom of the ninth.
The thing is, all of those game stats I just told you came from me pulling up the box score right now. I didn’t remember any of those details of the game. The only thing I remember for real was that it was a good game, and that at some point I decided to tell myself to shut the hell up and to stop trying to run out the door to a deadline that didn’t exist and didn’t truly matter, and to simply enjoy being with my daughter. And I did. I absolutely loved it and to date, despite attendance to play off games, World Series games and the All-Star game, it undoubtedly is the best experience I’ve ever had at an Indians game. Hands down. It’s also the day my daughter, whether inadvertently or not, reminded me to take a moment and live life, just shut the fuck up and live the life that’s happening right now. Smell the hot dogs, cheer the home runs, make funny faces at the opponents that come your way, just stop being in such a damn hurry all the time and enjoy. I may only be talking to myself here, but I can tell you when I get myself in too much of a damn hurry I think back on this game and that moment when I told myself, shut up and enjoy! (Apparently I also took a ton of damn pictures that day and I’m super glad I did!)
So as I alluded to earlier, there is that Facebook memory that triggered this thing for me, and I think I cherish it as much as I cherish the memory of attending that game with my daughter.
