A Feeble Attempt at Sports Talk

Skyepuppy had a fabulous post the other day about "dating games." You know, the whole post-date will-he-call-or-won't-he? dilemma of the dating world. She said she recently went on a date and is now vacillating between knowing he saw deal breakers and knowing she's mid-game and shouldn't expect a call.

In my occasional dating life, I've found I usually lose the most points when it comes to the land of sports.

I was not raised in a home that "did" sports. We didn't participate in them. We didn't go to watch them. We didn't even have them on the TV in the background of our daily lives. The sports section was the only unread section of our paper.

While I didn't feel I'd been left out, really, I'm now finding that my sports stupidity is most unamusing to dates in general. Please don't misunderstand me. I don't HATE sports. I just don't GET them.

I dated a volleyball coach for a while. I learned to understand that sport. Not well enough to speak intelligently with him about it. But enough to sit through TV games and comprehend who was ahead.

In high school, I was a baseball manager my senior year. I understood the basics. And I learned losses made for miserable bus rides.

And that's about the end of my sports knowledge.

It's true that when home alone, I'll watch TLC, Lifetime movies, HGTV or the Food Network before turning on a ballgame. It's true that on Thanksgiving, I'll put in a David Phelps DVD over the football palooza. It's true that in March Madness, I'm usually just mad about surprise late-season ice storms.

But it's also true that I went to a baseball game this year and had a blast. It's also true that I'm about to go to a football game and I can't wait. It's also true that in my few rare seasons of dating, I've truly happily sat through games of all kinds because that's what you do for someone you love.

All of that to say....I don't have favorite teams. I'm a Colts fan because I live in Indiana and that's what we do here -yes, even this year. (Because we're loyal like that.) I'm also a fan of virtually any New England team because one of my friends lives out there and he's a huge sports fan and he loves it when they win - and therefore so do I. (Because I'm loyal like that.)

But there is one player that actually drove me to turn on a TV and watch out of sheer genuine personal interest. And all of this yap up to this point was merely the intro to say I think it's pretty cool that an IWU alum made it to Major League Baseball - and more than just making it, he's doing a good job!

His name is Brandon Beachy and he's from Kokomo, which is not far from where I grew up. Then he went to IWU and while I don't think I ever actually met him in person while he was a student, I remember when he was there.

The first night he pitched for the Braves, my friend Jonathan came over to do some homework. Wish I would have had a camera to capture the look on his face when he walked in and I had ESPN on and my eyes glued to the TV. He said, "You're watching sports."

I said, "I know."

He said, "Why?"

LOL.

Earlier this fall, I read this blog post about Brandon, and I thought it was very well written. (It has to be. I actually understood it.)

So there you go. That's my attempt at sports talk. (No comment, Phats.)

Meanwhile, for a depiction of both my sports understanding and Skyepuppy's dating thoughts, you should check out the pilot episode for Dharma and Greg. Pretty well sums it up.