Finding Something to Do

When I was young, grade school kind of young, I developed an interest in schedules and standings. It sprang as an accident when my mother bought me two copies of Baseball Digest. She knew I liked baseball and figured I would like the magazines. To be perfectly honest, there wasn't a whole lot in them I found interesting. But the one edition did have something which I found just fascinating. It was a grid showing all 24 professional teams and the dates when each played where.

About the same time I was given a diary. Not being able to keep the diary up I did the next best thing. I translated the schedule grid into my diary. Now I could jump to any day throughout spring and summer and know which teams were playing where.

But that wasn't enough. I elected to then devise a means by which I could pretend to play every one of those games. That way, the teams I wished were best would be. It would prove to be the beginning of a lifelong interest in pretend leagues.

Using two decks of ordinary playing cards I devised a way to play each game, granting an "edge" to better teams, and "penalties" for weaker teams. And I played the whole thing out. Uh, my team did win the World Series, by the way.

Eventually, I expanded my play to include Hockey and Basketball. And knowing that no two seasons could be the same I began to devise my own schedules. I learned just how complicated that can be. I also learned how to schedule play-off grids, and tournament grids. By the time I was in high school I had become quite good at it, and began to view all tournament grids with a critical eye. It amazed me how people who just had no clue at all were given the task of devising these things.

One thing I always wished for was some way to automatically calculate random events, and to store and calculate season averages. Wasn't I happy when home computers came on the scene? I wrote a strategy baseball program on an Atari 800. Use all by 2 bytes of the available memory. The program was stored on a cassette tape and took five minutes to load. But once loaded it ran very fast. After all, it was a strategy program and had no graphics.

I played nearly two seasons with that program. It actually took longer than a year to play a season because each game took more than an hour to play. At some point in the second season the cassette tape became damaged and I lost the program. My backup didn't work.

I used to think I was unusual in this joy I got from playing make-believe seasons with make-believe players. Then I learned it is actually quite common. Lots of people find living vicariously this way to be a great stress reliever.

Personally, I do not like the video games for playing sports. They all require something which I do not like at all: dexterity with game controls. That's not what interests me at all. Timing when to swing a make-believe bat on a television or computer screen doesn't do it for me. What does do it is being the manager, giving the steal sign to the runner on first, and getting pissed off because he gets thrown out at second. Or putting on the hit-and-run and watching it succeed.

It's kind of like writing a story. Ultimately, I am in control and have the final say on everything. Yet it is interesting to just let the players play sometimes and see how they do.

Not sure what brought this up. Hope you're having a good day.

What do you do to amuse yourself? Anything you made?

A Rambling Mind is a Terrible Thing to Let Free

I apologize. This is way too long, but I've lost the energy to edit it. So be warned. Even for me, this post tends to ramble. You might want to bail on it and try again another day. Sorry.

Stephen wasn't much for writing and I was no great shakes at art. I sang in choir, but I had a voice like beef jerky (either you love it, or you hate it). Stephen never even attempted to join choir or band. I became involved in drama, but Stephen left that to his brother, Glenn, who was quite good at it. Regarding athletics, while Stephen was a better athlete, I was more successful. Stephen was always more emotional than me, although I have become far more so than I ever was. I was more sentimental, however. In many ways we were dissimilar. I was tall and strong. Stephen was short and quick. I think we may have looked like Mutt and Jeff. So how did we become friends?

The credit must go to Stephen. That is true for everyone who has ever been close to my heart. I am a responder, not an initiator. Spouse asked me out. And then asked me out again. I never asked Spouse for a date until after we were married. (Didn't fear the "no" reply so much. [grin]) Getting married was Spouse's idea.

Stephen was new to our school in ninth grade. His family had moved to our district from a Minneapolis suburb. Surprisingly, one of Stephen's summertime friends also moved to the area. That was Kevin, and they continued to be friends until college, when Kevin kind of just disappeared into the world.

Stephen was in my algebra class, but I didn't notice him. It wasn't until basketball season began that I even knew there was such a person. It was during basketball that he attached himself to me. Why, I'll never know. But it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

I didn't want to play basketball. In fact, I didn't even try for the teams in seventh and eighth grade. But I had always been the tallest boy in the class, and in ninth grade I passed Sharla at last and became the tallest in the class. Pressure from coaches, teachers, and students eventually got the best of me and I signed up.

No one ever taught me to play basketball. All the coach cared about was that I got rebounds. So I couldn't dribble well. I couldn't shoot well. I wasn't aggressive because I didn't want to hurt anyone. And I couldn't keep up. I remember our guards loved to fast break, even when it wasn't there. Craig, who I don't believe ever got much taller than five feet, would try race down the court and do layups. I lost count how many times he was blocked by some six foot forward or center. But I would exhaust myself trying to keep up, finally spending my time in the middle of the court, always half a play behind the ball. I was a horrible basketball player. I was probably as bad at basketball as I was good at baseball.

The truth was, baseball was the only sport I really cared about - until Stephen taught me tennis. That's because no one would let me play what I wanted. I didn't want to be the center in basketball. I wanted to be a forward. In football, they saw how big I was and made me a guard. I wanted to be a wide receiver. Mickey had taught me to catch everything, and I would have made an excellent receiver. (Craig, our five-foot wonderboy, was our wide receiver. Sheesh.) I didn't block well and the quarterback and running backs constantly yelled at me - and any other guard or tackle who didn't get the job done. I remember the quarterback kicking me in my b*tt when I bent over to start the play. He never should have done that. I knew better than to drag his a*s all over the field. He was popular with the coach. But I got my revenge.

Before EVERY play, I would tell the defensive lineman across from me which side of me to use to reach the quarterback. Then I would pretend to block the guy and just let him through. Our quarterback spent a lot of time laying in the dirt. I didn't play football again until my senior year, when I was again co-erced into it. Actually played well that year. We had a new quarterback. But I had both my knees broken at the same time, which kind of ended my career.

But back to Stephen.

We became friends during the freshman basketball season. I felt bad because Stephen was probably one of the best players we had. But he didn't get to play. I was one of the worst. I started every game. Such is the fairness of high school sports. Stephen wasn't part of the "In Crowd". Neither was I, but I had the distinction of being the tallest player on the team. What would happen is that I would go out onto the court and foul out by the end of the third period. Then I would sit with Stephen, Joe, and the other benchwarmers and enjoy the rest of the game.

Stephen also played baseball. But our roles were reversed here. He wasn't very good at it, while I excelled. I would eventually be moved to varsity, where the older players resented me being as good as them and let me know it. My old teammates resented me being better than them and let me know that, too. Kind of took the joy out of playing. It also affected the quality of my play.

After we got our driver's licenses, Stephen taught me tennis. I thought it was a "sissy" game. (Anything I couldn't do was "sissy", which is funny now. I have very much become the "sissy" I used to try and hide from. To be honest, I'm happier with it. It seems more honest.) Actually, Stephen didn't teach me tennis. He just got me out on a court to play. We didn't know the rules and only had vague ideas of what the lines were for. So we played it like table tennis, the only tennis we knew. By chance one day, Kevin's family was at the court next to us. He looked at me and asked me what the score was. I told him, "Sixteen to ten." Horrified at our ignorance, Kevin then proceeded to teach us the rules of tennis. It became one of Stephen's and my favorite activities.

During the summer months we would often play six or more hours a day. We spent all of our time together. Stephen taught me about food, such as eating spaghetti with mushrooms, chinese egg rolls, and fried rice. I don't recall teaching him anything about food. He made me put on a swimming suit and actually try to swim. Until then I was terrified to even try. He taught me that it was all right to want to do the things I wanted to do. Most importantly, he accepted me for who I was, despite the many times I was subjected to, "You idiot!" Stephen made me feel happy I was me, because I was the one Stephen liked. I don't know what I gave him, but he must have got something from me. I wonder what.

We never lived together, despite being best friends. Not sure why not. Might have had something to do with the fact that Stephen seldom had a job. Now I don't have one. It's probably best, though. A lot of friends cease to be friends after sharing an apartment or flat. We never did, although we did suffer a couple of separations. Always, it was Stephen who came looking for me. We're separated again. Some day he's going to come looking for me again. Some days I wish it were now.