I finally got out to see the Royals in person for the first time this season. The nice 1pm matinee was good because I got to take a couple of boys who are on spring break this week. The weather, the new stadium and the hope of a new season made for a good afternoon.
So did having conversations with middle school boys.
One of the luxuries I had as a kid was having a dad who taught me a lot about sports. We spent a lot of nights in Memorial Colosseum watching the Blazers tear it up. We also took in a handful of minor league baseball games, countless high school sporting events, and a lot of sports on TV. I learned a lot about the wild world of sports in the process.
My boys don’t have that same opportunity. They know very little about sports, because they don’t have dads around to take them to games and explain to them what’s going on when they do watch events on TV.
This was evident yesterday when one of the boys started observing his game experience.
Boy: Man, this is weird. Nobody’s talking. Like, when you watch the game on TV, you always have people talking and telling you the stats and stuff. But today, it’s just quiet.
It’s hard to respond to a comment like that off the cuff without making the other person feel kinda dumb. So I resorted to giving a somewhat quizzical look, until he finally realized I was having a hard time answering him.
Boy: You don’t get what I’m talking about. See…
Me: No,no,no. I get what your saying. It’s just that when you watch a game on TV, there are announcers. They sit in the press box, and they say things that only people watching on TV or listening on the radio can hear.
Now it was his turn to be confused. Fortunately, our tickets have a nice view into the press box so I got to point out to him the dudes wearing the headsets and then explain their jobs with the help of the visual assistance.
Renew and Restore
