Just before the Super Bowl, I wrote here about my near-total disinterest in sports. That prompted Robert Rose to write in and ask…
As a follow-up to your note about not being a fan of sports, I don't question that part of it; I'm not much of a sports fan myself, though I think a bit more than you. I do like to attend the occasional baseball game, and I may actually watch the Super Bowl, or part of it, but that's more of a social activity — watching it with friends — than because I care much about the outcome.
But I am curious about your statement that "I still haven't paid enough attention to football to know how it's played." I can understand not following it as an adult, but how did you avoid it as a kid? I'm ten years younger than you, but growing up and going to public schools, I had to participate in P.E. classes, which means I had to learn enough about the rules of sports like baseball, football, basketball, volleyball, and soccer to at least participate, however poorly. I may not know enough to give a coherent explanation of the infield fly rule or to always distinguish between offsides and illegal procedure, but surely enough to follow the basics of what's going on.
I'm just wondering how you avoided this; or did you learn just enough to minimally get by, and promptly forgot it all after graduating from high school?
Well, I don't recall ever playing soccer in high school. What we played of the other sports you mention were simplified, modified versions of the games that were clearly not what professional teams played. Even then, I'm not sure I completely understood the rules but I guess I understood enough to get by. It helps that when you're as lousy at sports as I was, your teammates rarely pass you the ball. I was never a real active player in any of these activities so I could fake it.
In baseball, I remember we had a rule that when you hit the ball, there was a prescribed way to lay down the bat before you ran for first. Neatness in doing that counted in a way it never does in the Major or probably even the Minor Leagues. The one time at bat that I somehow managed to wallop the ball far enough for it to maybe be a home run, Coach Hawkesworth — yes, I remember his name — called me "out" because he didn't like the way I laid down the bat.
And the version of football we played resembled what the teams in the Super Bowl are playing about as much as an Egg McMuffin resembles Eggs Benedict. So you're right: Once I graduated high school, I forgot every bit of my athletic experience except for Coach Hawkesworth robbing me of the only home run of my life.
I was just plain lousy in sports, even back when I was underweight instead of over. I've always been one of the clumsiest people on this planet — the kind who can't cross the street without almost tripping on the white line. One time when I was working on That's Incredible!, Fran Tarkenton tossed me a football from about eight feet away and the ball bounced off my hands, hit me in the nose and then I stumbled picking it up. Fran told me I was the worst catcher-of-footballs he'd ever seen in his life.
Since a lot of people thought he was the best thrower of them ever, I figured he must know what he was talking about. It almost felt like an honor.
