SPORTING GOODS

Many Americans grew up playing a variety of popular sports.  The idea of browsing a sporting goods store was popular when we were kids and the excitement stays with us to this day.  I was one of those Americans (and I still am).

Baseball was our early favorite growing up.  We played baseball and softball.  The baseball we played was often “pick up.”  We’d get as many kids together as possible, which wasn’t difficult growing up in the city of Chicago, and play ball in a park or a parking lot.  It didn’t matter if we had five kids or twenty kids, we could get a game together.  As long as every kid had a baseball glove (and most of us did) and somebody had a baseball bat or two – and a ball – we were good to go.

Softball was unique in Chicago.  Since leaving Chicago many years ago, I became exposed to the common form of softball, that involves a twelve inch softball and players playing the field with gloves.  In Chicago, however, the most common form of softball is played with a sixteen inch soft and no gloves.  The ball was as hard as any other softball, but we played with our bare hands.  The sport was played in traditional parks with dirt and grass but it was also fairly common to play the game in asphalt school yards.

Football was a disorganized sport growing up in my neighborhood.  WE played it on Thanksgiving day.  There was no equipment, just some jackets laid down on either end of the field to mark the ad hoc end zones.  Tackle was the game if we were playing on grass or dirt.  We also played football in the street and in the alleys of Chicago.  Here the name of the game was tag – one handed or two handed.

Basketball was played in the school yards.  Typically a half court game.  Someone always had a basketball they were dribbling about so a game of pick up basketball was never far away.  We almost never got the chance to play indoors, except when we played on the junior high basketball team or in intramural basketball leagues.

I didn’t start playing golf until I was an adult.  Now I play a couple of times each month.  The great thing about golf is that you can have a terrible round but have just a few nice shots during the course of the game and you feel like there’s a chance that you’ll achieve a great score on your next round.  That great drive, that awesome chip, that seven iron shot within 10 yards of the pin, or that unbelievable 20 yard putt.  They all keep you coming back.