This Sporting Life

          It is quite possible that I’m the only female on the planet who has absolutely no interest in sports.

          As a child I never participated in any sporting activities at school, mainly because I was too busy trying to learn how to read, write and speak English.  As an adult my first attempt at tennis resulted in a pulled groin muscle which had me limping around for weeks and put paid to any wild dreams I might have had about Wimbledon; my laughable foray around a golf course had my friends surreptitiously kicking my little ball towards the hole so we could finish before the moon rose in the heavens, and riding a horse was such an exercise in futility the riding instructor asked me to please only return when he was not on duty.

          Watching others taking part in this thing called sports leaves me confused and frustrated.  Despite having the game of football (gridiron) explained to me, I’m still at a loss to understand why the ball takes forever to move barely inches at a time and why all the men spend most of their time in a huddle, flashing their bottoms at the yelling crowd.  All this while grumpy looking gentlemen walk along the sidelines, mics attached to their faces, glaring at all and sundry and endlessly screaming at unseen bodies.

          I must admit though that baseball has, from time to time, tweaked my interest.  Usually it’s after I’ve spent a couple of hours drooling over Robert Redford hitting balls into the stands or the equally luscious Kevin Costner converting a cornfield into a baseball diamond because ‘if you build it, they will come.’ 

          After one such movie outing I was convinced that, in fact, I could become an enormous fan of baseball.  Non baseball aficionados advised me that the game was actually mind numbingly boring unless it was a game between the best of the best in the business, and then only if they were having a great run.

          But, not to be deterred, I gathered together a group of friends and we took ourselves off to Baltimore’s Camden Yards for what I was sure was going to be a truly exciting afternoon.  It had such potential.  Camden Yards had only recently been opened after either a refurbishing or a complete overhaul from the ground up (I can’t remember which one).  It was designed, so I was told, in the style of the old baseball stadiums of years gone by and thus carried with it all the nostalgia that such a building can produce.

          I must admit, sitting in the stands behind first base, I was quite fascinated with all the stuff happening that had nothing to do with the actual game.  Vendors with trays laden with peanuts, candy and cans and cans of beer, ran up and down the aisles hawking their wares; kids armed with baseball mitts jumped around practicing catching that big hit ball in their tiny hands; and the jumbotron screen homing in on unsuspecting fans, plastering their faces on the screen for all to see. 

          When a ball was actually hit into the stands and caught by an excited child, I loved the loud trumpet blare and the announcer suggesting to: ‘give that kid a contract!’  It really was fun.

          The game we attended was also the one at which the crowd gave Cal Ripken a standing ovation for, as he said, ‘just turning up for every game for the past 25 years,’ so there was an element of sentimentality there too.

          But sadly, the actual game was a disaster.  At halftime, one team was so far ahead, it appeared the other side was sleepwalking through their innings and, for that matter, their more frequent outings.  By the seventh inning most of the crowd had given up and started to head home.  I insisted we stay to the bitter end, and that’s exactly what it was… a bitter end.

          It’s probably not fair to judge a whole sport by one single game.  But, as our little group straggled to our car so terribly disappointed, we all had to agree, it was unlikely our next outing would be a baseball game.  Next time… dare we try cricket?