To summarize, it was just me and the ball in the back field; goalie behind me and everyone else up ahead, looking to make a play out of it. I stepped into the ball to take my kick right footed and must have stepped too hard on my worn out left knee only to make it snap as I hit the grass.
This reminded me one winter evening, known among friends as “The Drunken Ice Capades” when I slipped on ice, hitting the pavement in front of my apartment after a few margaritas with friends. In gracious fashion, after I fell, they each obliged and did the same.
But on this June day, I didn’t hear my patellar tendon detach as I went down but my goalkeeper did. He also informed me that, more importantly, I got off a pretty good kick. Later when someone asked, “What did you do to the other guy?” I had to answer that there was no other guy, just a ball.
Actually it wasn’t that big a deal. Over time it heeled just fine.
The very next week on the same field and same time, 10am maybe, we were up against a lesser equipped team in a playoff. Our best player, Jeremy, was carrying the ball downfield as always, speeding down the right side and getting ready to score as he always did. And as usual there wasn’t much the other team could do about it.
Yet this time, some hack that got stuck playing defense, probably because he wasn’t in good enough shape to run far, fouled Jeremy, sticking his leg out in front our guy with the ball. Jeremy went down, tumbling over with a yell and a couple of f-bombs.
From my sideline spot about 20 feet away it didn’t look like he went down that hard. But the colorful words were plenty justified as we found out later that Jeremy had broken his ankle in three places and would require surgery that day. While being lifted into the ambulance, Jeremy apologized for his language.
That was about seven years ago and to my knowledge Jeremy had the metal rods taken out of his leg not too long ago. Since the injury, he’s played plenty of games since, including soccer, softball and a few other sports, with extra caution, and a doctor’s note for the airport metal detector as the only major inconvenience.
But the injury, the pain, the foul language and the surgeries weren’t the main problem. Nor was the metal rod destined for his leg, nor the doctor’s note that would accompany it. The big problem that faced Jeremy that day was that the Yankees were playing the Cubs at 1:05pm.
I had Cubs season tickets that summer; night and weekends, 60-some games, third base side and great view. And it was the first season in five or six decades that the Yankees would come to Wrigley. And I don’t think they’ve been here since.
By then in a hard cast, leg straightened, I couldn’t sit in my Wrigley seats anymore, and I had many friends lobbying me for those tickets. Moreover, Jeremy was a lifelong Yankees fan and a rabid, partisan one at that. Don’t get him started about how much he hates fair weather Red Sox fans. He had to see his team and so he got the Cubs-Yanks tickets for that Sunday. To top it off, Roger Clemens was on a hot streak and was pitching that night, set to get his 300th win**.
But it took more that an ankle broken in three places and an orthopedic surgeon to tell Jeremy that he wasn’t going. The hours between 10am and 1:05pm flew by as any reasonable person would expect, but that didn’t matter. It took Jeremy’s brother a few attempts to talk some sense into him, before the crushing blow, “Forget it. You’re not going today.”
As it turned out, the tickets went last minute to a Canadian friend of ours who made a blind date out of it. Surprisingly, the Cubs beat the Bronx Bombers 5 to 2 that evening, and Clemens did not get his 300th win.
Understandably, Jeremy was annoyed about his ankle and the prospect of hobbling around Chicago. But he was really miffed about missing Clemens pitch.
I’ve written many times before about sports fandom, and the apparent irrational nature that goes with being a sports fan. Many, like me, associate rabid fandom with being glued to the tube during a tight game, or rearranging plans to watch. Sometimes we get a little wild at the ballpark and yell, talk trash, or throw a beer at the opposing team’s outfielder. And don’t get me started about what Philadelphia Eagles fans have thrown onto the field over the years.
But it seemed unusual to see a guy with a broken ankle say “hurry up” to the doctor and his staff so he could take his seat at a regular season baseball game. Then again, maybe it’s not so unusual.
There’s something about competition and suspense that pulls people in and holds them tightly as fans and TV viewers relentlessly without mercy. This might explain why so many tune in repetitively to watch “The Bachelor” and “America’s Got Talent”. Certainly it’s not unpredictable plots or interesting dialogue that makes it all a hit.
But there’s a strong difference between the competition that you witness on game shows, and the kind you feel during a down field drive. Or suspense you feel during a pitch to a batter at full count on home plate, with two outs and bases loaded. Sport is the one thing that embodies competition and suspense in its most rich, dense and enjoyable form.
This goes for sport of any kind, whether you’re talking golf, hunting game, or team sports like volleyball, cycling or even a four on four game of bocce.
First, as participants, we’re willing to risk injury just to play and then we’re willing to brush it all off, broken bones or not, to participate as spectators in our favorite team’s afternoon endeavor.
The love of sports, its suspense and our psychological need to follow it, causes the fan to do other obsessive or irrational things. Maybe not as irrational as my team mate Jeremy, but still...
So, what are the symptoms of this social condition I call “the sports complex”? First off, it consists of things we’re all aware of. Constant checking of scores, wearing of replica jerseys, and studied knowledge (if not savant-like knowledge) of sports trivia…these things all apply.
But it might creep a step further when a member of your household designates one room as the “sports lounge” or dresses up the dog in a football jersey. Generally, one’s behavior is affected in ways both big and small. Perhaps some anecdotes would paint a picture of a complex at work.
One parent that I know personally, painted a golf course scene around his infant son’s room. In that scene, a Chicago Bears fan, clad in dark blue and an orange pointed C, was enjoying his day on the links. His caddy was tired and slumping, dressed in yellow and green with a frown on his face. And a big Green Bay Packers “G” on his cap.
Another friend from college, an Ohio State fan, ends every email from August to January with the farewell “Beat Michigan, ”
Similar college football sentiments came up once after my kid attended a fellow 3 year-old’s birthday party. My kid gave his friend, for his birthday, a wooden puzzle map of the United States. His parents, who are friends of mine and Alabama football fans sent a warm thank you note pointing out Bailey’s great friendship and also that any map from a University of Mississippi fan’s academic collection would usually have states missing from it.
Ha ha, yeah, OK. I wasn’t sure if the joke was cracked on Ole Miss’s academics or Mississippians’ age old Civil War fixation. But like any greeting card, it’s the underlying thought that counts.
Years ago, the marketing people in Las Vegas stole an old adage from the culture of English Football. That old adage, “What happens on the pitch, stays on the pitch” was transformed to the tagline, “What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas.” Sure, they stole a good line for profit and TV advertising, but at least the marketing people got the spirit right.
Since I’m not a shrink or a social scientist it’s fair to say I’m not the proper authority to fully define or diagnose the sports complex. But I do know one thing about sports nuts.
And that is that, no matter the symptoms, whether it is the collecting of caps, ball and jerseys; the hours spent watching sports live and on TV or whatever; every fan with the sports complex shares one thing in common.
That common attribute is living every moment with at least a little bit of sports on the brain. Most importantly, that fan can never, ever just “leave it on the pitch”.
Andy Frye writes about sports and life here and also tweets several times daily @MySportsComplex on Twitter.
**He had to fact check this stat from memory and 7 years ago but totally nailed it. Such is the condition known as “the sports complex”.
Writings © 2010. Clock picture courtesy of Photobucket.com
