Play Ball....

I'm something of a sports chameleon. That is, I take on the enthusiasm of the favorite sport of the closest sports fanatic to me. On my own, really, I'd care nothing for sports. I wouldn't even notice them.

As a child, the nearest sports fanatic was my dad and the sport was baseball. Growing up in New England in the 1970s - that meant being a Boston Red Sox fan. It served me well in life. I ended up going to college in Boston and the fact that I could name every single player in the 1978 Red Sox line-up got me major brownie-points at the Boston bar scene or random fraternity party.

As a married adult, so far it's been soccer and cycling. (Funny, those are the two sports my husband is passionate about.) I haven't watched a baseball game in years. But I caught nearly every one of the World Cup games this summer.

As a parent, the pendulum seems to be swinging back to baseball. Son D is obsessed with soccer (of course) but also, more recently, with baseball. Instead of asking me to wash his German Soccer Jersey to wear for tomorrow's trip home, he asked me to wash his Milwaukee Brewers T-shirt. This is a very new development. The German Soccer Jersey has been worn so many times, it hardly has any shape left.

On Monday, it was 60 degrees and sunny, so we walked over to the park. About 15 other kids had the same idea and we started the most fun game ever of pick-up baseball. We had a bat and a ball. Another kid brought bases. And another brought some gloves. I had so much fun. I'd forgotten how fun baseball is.

(The trend to over-schedule children hasn't quite hit the mid-west yet, so we regularly get large groups of neighborhood children who just "show up" at the park and start some sort of game.)

And how 'bout them Red Sox? Only 1 game out of first place, when I checked the paper this morning. (Yes, I know that their record was 0-1 this morning...but maybe they will win tonight.)

Off to wash the Brewer's T-shirt....