MOC6-Day-#9-Strike-Three
KAPOH, Jan 9, 2018
- Description:
- JOURNALING:
STRIKE THREE
(this letter is to be read if (and when) HE-WHO-SHALL-NOT-BE-NAMED pulls the plug on Columbus Crew SC.)
Remember WAY BACK when you were about 9 and you discovered a sport called "baseball" and a team called the "Cincinnati Redlegs?" Remember discovering how perfectly that sport "fit" with radio broadcasts? You could listen to EVERY game. Remember Waite Hoyt in the rain? Remember Marty ("...and this one belongs to the Reds") and Joe ("...the old left-hander rounding third and heading for home")? Remember your Daddy taking you to Crosley Field to see your very first game LIVE!? To this day you don't understand why hot dogs taste SO MUCH BETTER when you're at a ballpark, watching the "boys of summer." Baseball is a game of angles. Did your love of geometry come from your love of baseball, or was it the other way around? Let's not go in to why it happened, but somewhere in the mid-1990's baseball had broken your heart one too many times.
But, by then you had both figure skating and soccer (Columbus Crew).
You had learned of figure skating even before you found baseball, 1957 to be exact. You read a book about Carol Heiss. You could watch her on "Wide World of Sports" as she became a world and Olympic Champion. You continued to watch the sport on television until 1997 when you went to Nashville to see the "Nationals" LIVE. And you got an autograph from your childhood idol, now a coach! (In 2001 you would actually ride next to her on a bus and get to talk to her all the way to the arena). You kicked yourself every day for not being at Nationals in Philadelphia in 1998. You got tickets for 1999 and your sister joined you. And then, in 2000, in your home state, in Cleveland, it happened. You discovered a novice ice dancing team that took your breath away. Meryl Davis and Charlie White were so young, so tiny. But you couldn't keep your eyes off of them. Over the next years until 2014, you attended every Nationals in which they competed. You got to meet them and their families. Their moms called you and your sister "the twins." You watched them rise from that 6th place finish in 2000 to become six- time National Champions (fittingly winning their first back in Cleveland in 2009), two-time World Champions, and three-time Olympic medalists, winning Gold in 2014. You had to give up going to Nationals due to health reasons. You can watch Nationals on "Ice Network" (as you just did this past week), but it is NOT the same as being there.
But, you still had soccer. You became a season ticket holder the very first year of the Crew's existence. You had fallen in love with the game when the United States hosted the 1994 World Cup. You'd watched a game on television and were BORED SILLY. But, you realized there must be more to it because most of the rest of the world LOVES this game. You read the rules and watched a second game and were HOOKED! And then the amazing Lamar Hunt brought Major League Soccer to YOUR home town! And from 2007 to 2010 you got to see why soccer is called "the beautiful game" when the incomparable Argentine soccer giant Guillermo Barros Schelotto performed his magic as a member of the Crew, leading them in 2008 to their only MLS Championship. And now, that may be ending.
"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." (Dr. Seuss)
BUT JUST DON'T DO IT AGAIN!
CREDITS: LOGO: web; KITS: Sporty Grungy Solids by Kristin Aagard; Bundled Up and Football Crazy by Kate Hadfield; Staycation by Time Out Scraps; FONT: OldNewspaperType
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- Category:
- Month of Challenges 6
- Uploaded By:
- KAPOH
- Date:
- Jan 9, 2018
- View Count:
- 375
- Comment Count:
- 7
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