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| "A Boy's Dream" - Compliments of artsdesireable. Order a print of this photo here or visit their Etsy shop for more beautiful art here. |
I must begin by admitting that I am not what you would call a "traditional sports fan." I admit this with some shame as I am married to an athlete who played college football and our family has survived the past 5 years partly on money made through coaching. My history of non-avid fanmanship (yes, I made that word up) is in large part due to my ignorance about the games, rules, how they work, etc. And things, in general, hold my interest and support much longer when they make sense to me. Which brings me to my next point: Being A Sports Fan Has Never Made Sense. (To me)
At least a fan at the major league level. I can understand being the fan of your school's team, or your child's team, or, say, the team that your husband coaches...that type of thing makes sense. But it has always puzzled me why someone would follow and support a team of players that have no idea who you are. Yet, the athletes play and perform and are encouraged by the fact that there are thousands of fans following their progress and supporting them - even though the athlete doesn't have any idea who most of them are, specifically. Such is the paradox I suppose. (Please understand, I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with it! Simply that the reason of WHY tends to elude me.) I know there are lots of obvious answers - we enjoy the entertainment, the suspense of games, the strategy...but those reasons are...obvious. We can find those things in other activities. There must be something deeper, some driving secret that deals with our essence as human beings. How else would sport, in its different capacities, have remained so captivating for so many centuries?
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| "A Stitch In Time" - Courtesy of TonkeyFeathers. Order a print of this photograph here, or visit her Etsy shop here for more great art. |
Which brings me back to the World Series. Yes, the St. Louis Cardinals won in Game 7. (Again, great rejoicing here. Sorry Ranger fans.) However, I believe that it is Game 6 that will live on in glory.
A quick lesson for those whose sports knowledge, or lack of, rivals mine: In the World Series two baseball teams play a series (get it?) of games. The team that wins the majority of games is declared the winner. Four games have to be won before a winner is called, so up to 7 games total are played. You may have noticed that I mentioned the Cards winning in Game 7? That means it was pretty neck and neck and the series required all 7 games to be played before a team won 4. Makes for good entertainment.
So, back to game 6. We were "watching" it on the computer because we don't have TV at our house. "Watching" is a term I use loosely because our internet was so slow that there was an extreme delay and long pauses. We should have just pulled out the radio. Anyway, the beginning of the game was not good. The Rangers had already won 3 games and the Cardinals had won 2. That meant the Cardinals needed to win in order to tie the series and be able to play a 7th game. If the Rangers won the series would be over and they would be crowned victorious. (Although, they don't actually get crowned.)
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| "Baseball" - Compliments of schugirl - Order a Print of this photo here or visit her etsy shop to view more incredible photography here |
I realize that the suspense here is nil because you already know the ending. But for the sake of my amusement I am going to give you the play by play from our house: By the 7th inning Cardinals were losing 7 to 4, which is a big gap in baseball. They had already committed multiple errors and the game just didn't seem to be going well. It was getting pretty late, and a school night of course, so Matt decided the sun had set on the Cardinal's season and with a heavy heart he went to bed. Around 1:30 am I was up with the baby and decided to see what the final score had been.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered the punch line you already knew was coming. And I'm sure you've been hearing about this on every radio and TV station for the past couple days, so I'll keep it brief. I was groggy and smelling like baby spit up when I sat down at the computer, but slowly achieved coherency and then stunned disbelief which eventually gave way to amazed excitement. Apparently in the 9th inning (typically the final inning) the Cardinals had rallied to tie the game. Then, in the 11th inning, St. Louis player David Freese hit a walk off home run to win the game. Cardinals won and were back in the picture. Game 7 would be played after all. And, you already know the rest of the story.
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| Copyright 2010 D&D Photography. I sincerely appreciate being allowed to use this image - click here to order a print, here to visit the Etsy shop, or visit the FB page - www.facebook.com/DandDPhoto - for more great Cardinals photography. |
I returned my attention to the task at hand (that is, battle of wills with an infant who refuses to sleep) with renewed energy. And trust me, anyone who has ever been in a battle of will against an infant knows that you need all the energy renewal you can find!
That's when it hit me. The nail was hit on the head, so to speak, and one of the biggest reasons we are captivated by sports became clear. Glory. Triumph. Not just in the simple sense that, when "our team" wins, we share vicariously in their glory and triumph. But deeper. It's in the human spirit. We love seeing a team that refuses to be conquered. We feel their strength apparent so deeply that it makes us feel strengthened in our own spirit. And that inspiration makes our own spirit a little less prone to being conquered.
In short, we all want to know that no matter how bad things appear, no matter what odds are stacked against us and obstacles loom in our path, that we can strive onward and emerge victorious. Even if all the world gives up on us, all of our fans say "well, good run anyway" and head to bed - in the dark of the night we keep trudging onward to slay our dragons and greet the morning as the conquerors rather than the conquered. Sports remind us that even in our darkest hours the saga may end with our hitting a walk off home run and winning our game. Sports inspire us to dream, strive and ultimately, survive. And for that, typical non-sports fan as I may be, I say: "Play ball!"
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| And this guy is my boy!! Photo compliments of Bobbi - read her ever amusing and wise blog here. |
If you enjoyed the black and white baseball photographs throughout this post, click here to view a treasury of these and similar art that I collected. For fans for baseball, black and white photography and wasting time.
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