Nerds on Sports

Happy Belated Father’s Day, Nerds.

My dad, in honor of both his special day and the best tournament in pro golf, took me to the U.S. Open at Bethpage. I soaked in the sights, sounds, and startling Golgotha-esque levels of mud and muck. For sake of both speed and thoroughness, I’m going to list out both the Stunning Highs (SH) and Astonishing Lows (AL) of my experience at the public course at Farmingdale. Here we go.

SH: The conditions of the fairways and greens. Everyone on the East Coast has been aware of the monsoon currently soaking the seaboard. What everyone is not aware of is that there are hundreds of men and women with hundreds of grass-drying tools constantly working to keep Bethpage playable. If nature was left to its own devices, the entire town would be underwater. But due to the magnificent interference of the bold water wickers, only about 99% of it is. The remaining 1% was where the best golfers in the world were.

AL: The mud has to go somewhere. And that somewhere was the grandstands and foot paths. I’m not mad or anything, since I was wearing a pair of throwaway sneakers. But still, being on your feet for seven straight hours and having those feet constantly in mud gave me a sense of what Valley Forge might’ve been like.

SH: The quality of the play. I saw Tiger nail a birdie, Phil nail two, and players from all over the world content with the conditions with impossible levels of skill.

AL: How terrible I am at golf. Watching the highest levels of play remind me why I hung up the soft cleats a couple years back. I can’t drive without an ugly slice. My short game doesn’t come into play until I’m already one over on the hole. And I keep equating my score with my self-worth.

SH: The food and drinks. Lemonade, stuffed pretzels, hot dogs, sandwiches of all sorts, served from concessions tents spread throughout the course.

AL: The press of people at those concession stands. The lunch rush was overwhelming, and since you couldn’t bring in food or drink, there’s a good chance you could wait in line for an hour to get water. Seems dangerous, considering the number of older folks that had been hoofing it around all day.

SH: An efficient bus transportation network that connected all of the satellite parking lots.

AL: Having to pay $35 to park at a gas station due to flooding.

SH: Seven hours with my dad.

AL: Seven hours trying to keep up with my dad.

SH: The noise from the New York gallery.

AL: The failure of the golfers to keep a straight face when hearing some of the comments.

And the biggest SH of all: My clubs are now in the trunk of my car.

David Ortiz hit a homerun last night. His second of the year. He’s not back, and if you say he’s back, you haven’t been watching your baseball.

I’ve recently joined a gay softball league. I wasn’t sure if it’d be appropriate to post about it here, since gay =! nerd, at least according to popular stereotype.  But considering that our team was the Clinic Day team (read: comprised of members who were not chosen for the other gay teams), has yet to achieve a single victory, and had one our players construct a team website based off of Sharepoint, I figured that would be good enough to pass.

Which is not to say we aren’t getting better.  Our coach, a sweet avuncular man who drives a car with a sexually suggestive license plate, keeps telling us: “You don’t even know how much better you’ve gotten since the first day.” Softball plays a huge part of this life, as he plays with three other softball teams in addition to coaching our own. Weeks of fielding drills, scimmages, and time spent at the batting cages have resulted in marked improvement, if not an actual victory.

One thing I’ve truly appreciated is the whole feeling of being part of a team. The other time I’ve really experienced this is in a professional context, which always feels forced and leaves quite a bit to be desired. But with softball, the camraderie and support is a lot more sincere. It helps that when we’re not playing or practicing we tend to be drinking. When we were watching the other games, one of my teammates brought a bottle of Pinot Grigiot and hid it a paper bag. “It’s the ‘Gay 40,’” he said.

Like any good sports team, there’s a lot of sexual teasing and discussing who we find attractive. Another one of my teammates said, “It’s great that we can just talk about this openly here. It’s not like you can go to a Sox game and talk about who we find hot. I blinked and said, “Oh, I do that anyway.” Loudly. As anyone who has ever attended a Sox game with me can attest.

The Bruins, Celtics and Red Sox all won. The Portland Sea Dogs did as well (I was there, so I know). Happy Mother’s Day, Boston.

Boston College’s own Ron Brace was drafted by the New England Patriots this past week. In other words, a player from my favorite team has been drafted by my girlfriend’s favorite team. We’re getting matching jerseys. So if you see us, don’t make fun. Yes, we’re that couple now, but we have a very good reason.

Thank you, and Let’s Go Eagles.

So here’s what’s happening today in Boston.

9:30 a.m. – The Boston Marathon began.

11:00 a.m. – The Red Sox play the only morning game of baseball in MLB.

7 p.m. – The Celtics take on the Bulls at the Garden.

7 p.m.- The Bruins try to extend to a 3-0 series lead against Montreal.

See that, right there?  That’s what happens when you live in a sports city.  You start wondering how the heck you’re going to watch the marathon and the Sox game at the same time, and then you spent three hours deciding which bar to go to (my vote is Common Ground in Allston Rock City) to see both the B’s and the C’s play their way through the postseason.

Find what your city does well and embrace it.  That’s the way to love where you live.

… I’ve already had to use my cell phone to make a last minute roster change.

… I’ve already had a baseball-related bad dream.

… I’ve already lamented (only half-jokingly) that my season is over.

… I’ve already begun to think about this year’s keepers.

… I’ve already said out loud “thank god baseball’s back.”

A couple friends of mine are 2 of the 3 stars in these commercials for Boston Globe Red Sox Store that will air during Red Sox games on NESN this year. Check them out: