Wicked Wednesday: Sports — love em or leave em?

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Anyone who has lived in New England knows the four seasons, Bruins, Celtics, Red Soxs and Patriots. Wickeds, do you follow sports? Have a favorite sport? Have a favorite team? (If any of you say the Yankees you’ll immediately be tossed out on your ear…)

Liz: I am so NOT a sports girl. Of course, I’ll root for the New England teams, celebrate wins and lament losses. But ask me to watch? No thanks. And if I hear one more sports analogy at work….

IMG_1031Barb: When I moved to New England, I was so naive, I thought baseball was played once a week, like football. I’m more educated now, thanks to my Red Sox-loving husband. I love Fenway Park. There is no place like it on a summer evening. And baseball on the radio while I read on a summer night. Same with a Patriots open practice on a summer evening. But don’t ask me to watch sports on TV. It shrinks down the spectacle. (I feel the same way about opera.) I will, however, ardently defend the local teams in any situation where they need defending. That’s what being a New England fan means.

Jessie: I only watch the Olympics and the World Cup. And really, I only watch those because I like to create regionally themed snacks. For me, the highlight of the games is to plan menus to celebrate the food cultures of the opposing teams. If Korea was playing Sweden I might make Kimbap and Smorgastarta. I’m already planning for coxinhas and caipirinhas when the Olympics are in Brazil in 2016!

IMG_1043Sherry: Bob and I will be up to watch the Olympics with you Jessie! I love sports. Growing up in Iowa it was all Cubs, Cardinals, and Bears. I live in Colorado when John Elway joined the Broncos and I fell in love with them. When we moved to Massachusetts I went to my first hockey game expecting to hate it but enjoyed the game. And there is nothing like a game at Fenway. My husband has me hooked on English Premier league soccer. Go Manchester United.

Edith: I’m not a sports fan. Neither my father nor my brother was interested in any sport as I grew up, and definitely not my mom or my sisters, although my grandparents would follow the World Series, and as a high-achieving student in high school, I won a ticket to see Sandy Koufax pitch at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. But I live with a Red Sox fanatic, and I apparently raised one, too, so how can I not follow baseball with them? Funny, Barb, for years listening to baseball on the radio was just noise to me. I couldn’t even figure out what they were saying. The last time the Sox were in the World Series, though, I was driving home from Boston alone during a game and I turned on the game. Lo and behold, it suddenly made sense!IMG_3674

I love watching the Olympics, but my annual sport is following, anticipating, and watching the Boston Marathon. I even ran it (with a charity number) in 1986, finishing in 5 hours 16 minutes. Accomplishment of a lifetime! (Although if I win the Agatha Saturday night, those two will come close to a tie.)

Julie: I am a HUGE Red Sox fan. Huge. I love baseball season, and games are often the background music to my writing.

Readers: What’s your sport? Micro-local, regional favorite, or national team? Or maybe your sport is more on the order of lifting a margarita on the deck while reading the latest cozy mystery? We want to know!

Published by Sherry Harris

Sherry Harris is the author of the Agatha Award nominated Sarah Winston Garage Sale Mystery series and the Chloe Jackson Sea Glass Mystery series.

16 Thoughts

  1. Oddly enough, I’m the sports fanatic in our house: Cincinnati Reds, Cincinnati Bengals, The Ohio State Buckeyes, NASCAR, the Olympics (particularly figure skating and gymnastics), and horse racing.

  2. Syraucse Basketball! Oh were we crushed when SU pulled out of the playoffs this year. In years past, those of us who are SU alums outnumbered my beloved brother-in-law, the Pitt grad. He’s the sports expert, and it’s a joy to watch any game with him. So glad you asked! And I love that shot of the Green Monster– Go, Red Sox!! –kate

  4. I was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan as a kid (and therefore learned to hate the Yankees) but when Dem Bums packed up and left, that pretty much killed my interest in sports until much, much later when I discovered that Red Sox fans were also the sworn enemies of “the evil empire.” I have to admit, though, that I’m usually reading while we watch a game on TV. Same with the Pats. No interest in basketball or hockey (except for the U. Maine Black Bears) but I do watch the annual Kenduskeag Stream canoe race from start to finish. It’s usually held in Bangor on Patriots Day weekend, but this year it had to be postponed for a week because the water was too high for safety.

    More than anyone really wanted to know, right? Blame it on Malice. This is the day I spend dithering about what to pack. I’m procrastinating by reading blogs.

    Kathy/Kaitlyn

  5. I started watching the Patriots at a very young age, and grew up with parents that where Fanatical in their love of the Bruins, to the point they would wake me up on game nights yelling and shouting. My love of baseball started later in life once my children started playing baseball, I wanted to learn how to “Keep the book” at the games for hubby and slowly fell in love with the Red Sox, a deep abiding, loyal love … okay I’m a little fanatic. And the Pats? I never miss a game! In fact when we moved south 6 years ago, I told hubby I would live anywhere in the world with him as long as I could take along my Sox with me 🙂 Hello Direct TV and the baseball and football packages. Go SOX! Go PATS!

    1. In my house we’re now so disillusioned by the whole concussion/brain injury thing that we don’t even watch the Patriots any more. It’s so sad that this kind of damage is condoned.

  6. I don’t follow sports. But I recall the almost poetic rhythm of radio baseball play-by-play on weekend afternoons in summer as a child in the early fifties. The sound wafted from the open windows of the neighbors on warm summer air…and blends with the memory of the sunlit golden paper window shades at naptime…..

  7. I’m not a big sports fan, and I come by it honestly since neither of my parents are either. I’d rather be reading or watching something with a plot. My brother, however, loves sports. Go figure, right?

    Growing up in the San Francisco area, I do root for the 49ers and the A’s by default as much as I care. I have played fantasy football the last couple of years and have found I enjoy having football on as background noise. I watch maybe one play a quarter, but I enjoy having it on.

    However, I love ultimate Frisbee. I play it every chance I get and willingly went way out of my way to support the first ever professional game in Los Angeles. If most of the games weren’t opposite when I normally play, I’d probably attend more.

    And I run to train for mud runs.

    So I guess you could say my sports are the lesser known ones. I just can’t go for the most popular stuff.

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