I already know that, even though not many people read this thing, I am going to lose even more potential viewers from the title alone. I haven't written in this thing for a couple days, which is probably a good thing. If I write a blog entry, it normally means that something was keeping me from sleeping and I was looking for something to occupy myself. Unfortunately that's happened again tonight, so here I am. I'm switching things up a little bit, I guess. For the first two entries, I listened to my iPod while writing and it got me pretty emotional. What am I doing tonight? I'm watching the Indigo Plateau season of Pokemon online. Maybe that will put me in better spirits? We'll have to wait and see.
Ever since I was a baby, I was groomed to love sports. My father is huge into them and he instilled that in all 3 of his kids. My older sister likes the Chicago Blackhawks and can sit down and enjoy a Chicago Cubs game but she's no legitimate fan. My older brother also loves the Blackhawks, but other than that, couldn't care less about sports. Luckily for my father, I was born and he finally got the sports loving child he was looking for. From the moment I was a kid, I was engulfed in a world of sports. My father enrolled me in a baseball league, a basketball league, & a floor hockey league. I would look forward to all my games each and every day, they were the highlights of my week. I played floor hockey from the time I was 6 years old to 15. 9 years of floor hockey and countless championship medals, I loved it. I played basketball as well, from the time I was 10 years old to 15. All those years I played on both the school team and two local community teams. I couldn't get enough. Baseball was always the sport I was most passionate about. I was 6 years old when I got signed up for tee ball and played in the same park district, working my way up all the leagues until I was 16 years old. For 3 years I played on a traveling all-stars league, it was some of the most fun I've ever had. It may be juvenile to say, but I don't care, some of the most proudest moments in my life came from baseball. When I hit a home-run out of my high school's field, made the game-saving catch at first base, the diving barehanded catch I made, the line-drive I caught at 3rd base, or all the times I pitched my team out of a dangerous inning, I look back on those days with pride. I still have the traveling all-star jersey with my name on the back and I will probably never get rid of it. I don't have to relive my past glory, I have it because it sparks amazing memories in my mind.
I've since stopped playing baseball, but that doesn't mean I'm done with it. I have been umpiring baseball games for the past 8 years and continue to do it, progressing to higher levels of baseball leagues (and making more money) I also have since joined my father in the coaching aspect of baseball. We've coached little league baseball together for the past 4 years and it feels great to share my knowledge with the children. I've never been the best player on any teams I've played on (except one of the basketball teams and holy shit that team sucked) but I was always one of the better players. It felt good to have a great game and be a part of a team. I miss it every day. I loved it when my friends or girlfriend would come to one of my games, I tried so hard to make them proud of me.
Most people I know can't even begin to fathom why I am so passionate about sports. I don't have many friends who give a shit about sports and the few that I do have, I barely even talk to anymore. I miss being able to discuss sports with people, I often times annoy my friends because even though I try to hold it in, I can't help but begin talking about sports. It's the thing I'm the most enthralled with on a daily basis and I can't help but talk about it. I wake up in the morning and almost always turn on the television and instantly check ESPN. I will sit there and watch SportsCenter for hours, absorbing every sports fact they have to throw at me. There is not a person in this world who can begin to understand how much sports knowledge I have stored up in my mind. I have never had someone who sat down and just asked me to explain it all, I doubt I ever will, but that's okay. I don't learn these things to show off, I learn them because I love it all. A lot of the times I am sitting there watching ESPN while surfing their website as well, answering questions in their polls and reading their articles. Inevitably one of my favorite teams are playing that day and that means I'll be watching the Chicago Bulls, Cubs, Blackhawks, or Bears. That doesn't mean I'm tied to just those teams, I don't mind at all watching random nationally televised games featuring teams I don't really care about. I must have watched 100-150 NBA games this past season and it was by far my favorite season of all-time (there's going to be a post concerning the NBA in the near future, just a warning) You would think that would be enough for me. It's not. Thanks to the wonderful gift of unlimited texting, I have signed up for text updates from ESPN. Any news happening in the NBA, NFL, MLB, or NHL and I get a text message informing me of it. Scores in the Bulls, Blackhawks, Cubs, or Bears games are all sent to me in real-time fashion. Believe it or not, there IS a part some time in the day where SportsCenter becomes too repetitive and there is nothing new to learn. What happens then? Well, I have a Playstation 3 and that means I'm throwing in NBA 2K11 (my all-time favorite game) or MLB The Show 11. It's also not surprising if I play Madden 11 or NHL 10. At the end of the day, when I'm FINALLY nestling myself into bed, what do I do? I turn on the radio and listen to sports talk radio until I fall asleep. I'm a full-fledged sports FREAK and I am quite proud of it.
The most important thing with sports is something that few people even know. Sports is on the same level as music for when it comes to being there. There's some nights, believe it or not, where I'm not looking for music to be there for me. Often times the music can make me feel MORE emotional and it's a lot to handle. Sports are ALWAYS positive towards my attitude. Even if my favorite team loses, it doesn't hurt me too bad. I can appreciate a great game, hence why I love so many games of other teams as well. Sports don't ignore me or let me down, it's always there. ESPN ALWAYS has something going, 670 The Score ALWAYS has sports talk going. I don't have to worry that it won't be there, it's the one thing in my life I can absolutely count on, no matter what. It feels good to always have that one thing I can fall back on when everything seems hopeless. I don't have to sit there watching highlights, worrying about the next thing I have to take care of, watching sports is the only time in my life where I feel I'm actually successful in turning my brain off (which I wish I could do a lot more)
There's not a person I know who can actually understand my passion and appreciation for sports, but that's okay. Everyone has their own thing, I'm sure plenty of my friends have things they love that I wouldn't understand. So that's all for this post, I already know what the rest of this night...err...morning has in store. I'm going to continue playing MLB The Show 11 and watching Pokemon until I get tired. Then I'll lay down on the couch and put on the morning SportsCenter until I fall asleep with it on. When I wake up, I'll start watching it again.
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