Fall sports, TV rules, family ties
What a great time of year this is: a chill in the air in the evenings and mornings, nice warm days in between, with a real scorcher now and then; fresh corn on the cob and tomatoes every night at dinner; and young ones back in school.
Happy New Year to all parents of school kids!
Late summer/early autumn is a great season for sports fans too. The boys and girls on the local teams are back at it in preseason practice and early contests, full of optimism.
Middlebury College athletes, tan and fit, are arriving back in town from points near and far, enduring their two-a-days, or three-a-days, till classes start next Monday. Here are their parents, loaded down with ambivalence, helping them lug their stuff into dormitories.
Soon enough, we will be able enjoy one of those wonderful sunny Saturdays when the college’s teams — men’s and women’s soccer, field hockey, and football — are all at home playing spirited contests on adjacent fields up against the brilliant Green Mountain backdrop of the changing colors of autumn.
With 135 games already played, the Red Sox are in the midst of a tight race for postseason play, and nothing seems assured. Fortunately, World Series wins in 2004 and 2007 have eliminated the pathological desperation of Red Sox Nation.
We have a Red Sox problem in our family this time of year. Our children, Peter, and Annie, are 13 and 11, so naturally we have rules about TV: no TV on school nights, for example, no “screens,” in fact. This is just good parenting, we think.
The trouble is that I really want to watch the Red Sox on TV in September, and hopefully in October too. So Peter and I watch the Red Sox, after his homework is finished.
Annie, who likes the Red Sox, but not on our scale, has a problem with this arrangement. She thinks it’s unfair that her brother can watch TV, but she can’t.
I explain to her that I’m watching the game, and Peter has chosen to join me. She may, too; we’d be glad to have her.
Believe it or not, there actually are people who don’t agree with me in this approach. So help me out. In the spirit of interactive journalism, choose one of the following responses, A or B, and help me solve the TV/Sports dilemma I have with my children:
A. Brilliant reasoning, Karl, sports on TV should be exempted from “screen rules.”
B. Hang in there, Karl. You’re right. They’re wrong. The Red Sox need you. Baseball on the tube is educational.
So where did my love of sports and appreciation for its potential for good for individuals, families, and communities come from?
Well, certainly from my dad, an athlete himself (a football player) as a young man, and a sports fan all his life, a fierce partisan for Bates College in Maine, his alma mater and employer for nearly 40 years.
He grew up near Boston (Waltham) and passed on to me his devotion to the Red Sox. He read a Boston newspaper every day, always starting with the sports page, another habit I have inherited.
One of my fondest childhood memories is of killer pepper games in my backyard, night after night in the summer, with my dad at the bat and my friends and me arrayed in front of him exhibiting spectacular glove work.
My mother’s contribution was more subtle and whimsical. She still loves to tell stories of her own athletic incompetencies as a girl.
When I was home sick from grade school she would endlessly play a flashcard game with me with my baseball cards. She held her finger over the player’s name and I identified him from his face, and then recited from memory the facts and stats on the back of the card: Gus Zernial, Elmer Valo, Chico Carrasquel, George Zuverink, Wally Post and so many other stalwarts.
At World Series time, she would listen to the games when I was at school (all the games were in the afternoon) and then reported accurately what had happened when I arrived breathlessly home.
I remember once she told me that the star of the game for the Giants was a player named “Bah-lee Bah-loo.”
I was stumped and said finally, “Ma, there’s no guy named Ballee Balloo.”
But she insisted that was his name and soon enough he came to bat and the announcer identified him, “There,” she said, “that guy! Ballee Balloo.”
He was “Felipe Alou.”
Both my mother and father supported my play on school teams all the way through college, but not in way that interfered, or exaggerated its importance. I loved playing in athletic contests when my parents were there; I also loved playing in athletic contests when my parents weren’t there. It was my thing, not theirs.
This weekend I head over to Maine to celebrate my parents’ 70th wedding anniversary (that’s not a typo, their 70th!). I know how blessed I am to have them still in my life.
My dad and I will greet each other, and he will say, “Think the Sox will make it?” And I will say, “I love you, too.”