Sports are too risky

Sports are dangerous. Football, hockey, online dating. You play long enough, odds are you’re gonna wind up hurt.

In these, my declining years, when I can injure myself without picking up a ball or hitting a puck, I don’t play sports.

As a kid, I tried my hand at baseball and football; I stunk at both. In high school, there was cross-country, but I only did that so I could hang out with my girlfriend, Corky, who was a serious runner. Once she dumped me, I dumped cross-country.

In addition to stinking at sports, I also seem to lack whatever competitive gene some people possess, that “spark” that prompts them to push themselves, to work, to “just do it,” to sweat and strain and … lordy, I’m exhausted just writing about it.

Fortunately, there are sports for guys like me. Bowling. Golf. Darts. Sports that involve beer and deep-fried food.

As with all sports, I stink at bowling, golf and darts. I play them anyway because, well, beer. It has a way of making whether I win or lose seem less important.

Also, it’s hard to injure yourself at a bowling alley or golf course. Darts, likewise, can’t really be described as high-risk. I mean, you might get unintentionally stuck by some newbie with more darts than sense, but generally speaking, it’s safer than hockey. As evidence, I’ll note here that dart players usually have all their front teeth. And if they don’t, odds are they didn’t lose them throwing darts.

That said, I’ll admit that years ago I nearly lost not only my teeth, but my life over a game of darts.

It was at a little West Side bar during the height of the dart league craze. I’d gotten involved in darts in order to – surprise, surprise – hang out with a cute brunette who played on a league. Laurie was no better at darts than I was, but it was something to do on a Tuesday night.

I’d done OK during the early evening league matches, limiting my intake to one Bud Lite per game, which I knew from experience left me able to continue finding the board with my dart right up until closing time.

Most of the league players had gone home, but Laurie and I hung out to practice afterward with a few friendly games between the two of us.

When the big guy asked me if I wanted a quick game of Cricket, I should have said no. Laurie was ready to leave, as was I. But the guy was insistent.

“Just one game,” he said. “C’mon.”

I couldn’t argue with that kind of logic.

To keep it interesting, we bet a beer on the game. I didn’t expect to win; the guy had a set of fancy darts in a leather case that looked pricier than my car.

But I did. Win, I mean. It was just blind luck, but I beat the guy badly.

“One more game,” he said, as I dropped in the last triple-twenty for a win. “Five bucks on this one.” The guy, who had a posse of buddies with him, was not going to take no for an answer. Since he was built like a clenched fist with a face designed to strike fear into any cellmate unlucky enough to share space with him, I agreed.

While he warmed up, I went up to the bar and bought another beer.

“Hey, pal,” the bartender said. “I wouldn’t be too quick to beat that guy.”

“No?”

“No. That’s Derek Newmann,” the bartender said, lowering his voice. (I’m changing the name here because the guy might still be alive and I’m still scared of him.) Turns out I was playing darts with the state’s top-ranked kick-boxer, a guy with a long history of trouble with the law, mostly assault charges.

My strong tendency toward self-preservation kicked in and I actively tried to lose the next game. Incredibly, I didn’t. Even when I barely aimed, my traitorous darts seemed determined to fly right into those doubles and triples.

Suggesting Derek needn’t pay me the five bucks was a mistake. He took it as an insult. I think he took most everything as an insult.

Derek and his crew followed us out. They stood in the entryway looking at me the way wolves look at a wounded doe, trying to decide if I were worth the effort.

I was real happy when my car pulled away with me in it, still alive, still with all my teeth. It was a long time before I went back on the West Side. After that, I gave up the darts league.

Sports are too dangerous.

I'll admit it. I just plain hate sports

I used to be uninterested in sports. During those moments when our editorial staff is all abuzz with breathless talk of playoffs and draft picks, I typically let my eyes glaze over as I go to my imaginary happy place, where tanned, young women deliver an endless stream of margaritas to my spot on the beach and the ocean waves gently lap my toes.

For me, tanned young women and margaritas will always be infinitely more interesting than anything that might have happened during the fourth quarter of last night's Big Game.

So, just sort of uninterested in sports. Until recently. Af a couple weeks ago, I actively hate sports. I hate baseball, I hate football, I hate basketball and I especially hate hockey. I hate all the people who play sports, the people who buy tickets to watch the people who play sports, the people who sell those tickets ... I even hate the company that prints those tickets in the first place!

I hate sports more than the Grinch hates Christmas, more than Tea Baggers hate Obama, more than Kanye West hates remaining in his seat during the Grammys. The equation is simple: Me + Sports = HATE!

Why this sudden vehemence toward something that previously barely registered on my radar? I'll tell ya.

Trivia Crack. 

Trivia Crack is a little video game you play on your smartphone, against other players, either friends or strangers. 

My daughter, Aubreii, introduced me to it.

As soon as I started my first game I realized something: I'm good at trivia. My head, it turns out, is chock-full of useless, random information that is utterly worthless; worthless, that is, unless you're playing Trivia Crack. If you are, all those worthless facts transform you into the Obi Wan Kenobi of smartphone gaming.

Ever wonder what a pregnant goldfish is called? I know that! (A twit.) How long does a dragonfly live? (24 hours). What happens to a female ferret if she goes into heat but cannot find a mate? (She dies.)

My brain, old and margarita-abused though it may be, is the Trivia Crack equivalent of the Library of Congress. Do I know everything? No, I do not. Not quite. But I know enough to be virtually unbeatable when it comes to Trivia Crack.

Until the topic turns to sports.

When a sports question comes up, I instantly devolve from Stephen Hawking into Lenny from "Of Mice and Men."

Sure, some of the sports questions are crazy tough. I mean, is there anybody, anywhere, that knows who played second base for the Tigers in game three of the 1968 World Series? No, there is not. And if there is, you can add that person's name to the above list of sports-related things I hate.

I can't answer questions like that! I don't WANT to answer questions like that!

But it gets worse. I'm also incapable of answering the so-called "easy" sports questions. Like: "Which one of these is not a ball? a) football, b) baseball, c) basketball, d) hockey puck."

Who cares?! What does any of this have to do with young, tanned girls and margaritas? When you can show me that link, THEN I'll try to learn something about sports.

Until then, I'll continue to be a hater.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273

There’s good in everyone, even fourth-grade football players

They used to call me “Mosquito,” the guys on St. Isadore Elementary School’s football team. I was in fourth grade and considerably smaller then. I was a runty kid to begin with. Add to that the fact I started school a year early and it was a foregone conclusion that my stature would at least in part dictate my nickname.

I was never quite sure how I wound up on that football team; I’m pretty sure my old man signed me up, hoping I would somehow and against all odds attain the sports hero glory that eluded him in his own childhood. At various times, he also signed me up for Golden Gloves, Young Marines, Little League and Cub Scouts.

I did OK as a Scout, but my boxing, baseball and military skills were no more impressive than were my meager efforts on the football field. On the rare occasions the coach made the mistake of putting me in the game, I could be counted on to do something terrible. The one time I actually handled the ball during a game, I ran 15 yards in the wrong direction before being tackled by members of my own team.

I got beat up a lot during the long walks home.

I probably wouldn’t have gotten clobbered quite so often, but in addition to being the team albatross, I was cursed with a mouth that would not close, no matter how many times it was punched.

I would smart off to guys twice my size (which back then was almost everybody) and then be amazed when they—following the code of the schoolyard—pummeled me into dust.

All this pounding might have made me smarter or at the very least, quieter. Eventually, I suppose it did. I no longer willingly offer my opinions to large, calloused gents in bars. I don’t point out the flaws of others, or even argue too strenuously with those who make note of mine.

I’m a lover, not a fighter. Or would be, if I could find someone to be a lover with. But that’s another story.

The point is (I’m sure there’s one in here somewhere), I got beat up a lot and, all in all, had a pretty grim childhood much of the time.

I’m not complaining. Really. Because if nothing else, my roughshod youth taught me there is good in everyone. (Yes, even my ex-wives.)

I learned this one day on that fourth-grade football field. It was just a practice scrimmage, a weekday afternoon. I remember it was cold; the leaves had vacated the trees and the tang of winter’s implacable advance was in the air.

My dad rarely attended practices, but he was at this one, sitting under a tree on the sidelines and pretending it didn’t bother him that his son couldn’t catch, throw, kick, or in all likelihood recognize a football, much less do anything worthwhile with one.

I was out there on the field, standing where guys who understood the game told me to stand, then getting knocked over by the kid facing me. I was more bowling pin than defensive tackle.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, the ball was in my hands! Somebody pointed me toward the goalpost (the correct one, for a change) and the whole team chased me madly as I ran toward it.

Now, I know darn well those guys let me make it to the end zone. Those of the team who took notice of me at all hated my guts. But because my old man was there that day, they allowed me to play the hero.

The following week I was probably beaten up by at least one or two of those same guys, business as usual, but on that day, they decided to do me a kindness.

That one act shaped my whole outlook, my opinion of the human race. I returned the favor the following season by not signing up for the team.