Well, it’s another week of no sports.
Honestly, I’m tired of just dwelling on that, and I’m sure all sports fans feel the same.
Sadly, this would have been a great week for sports in the Pine Belt.
Southern Miss baseball would be taking on Florida Atlantic in what would likely decide who would be in first place for the C-USA regular-season title. The Southern Miss softball team would be hosting UAB in a typical, pivotal C-USA West series.
In high school, Oak Grove would host George County in a district powerhouse matchup.
Hattiesburg and Pearl River Central would be going toe to toe in what has become a classic matchup in 5A south. Sacred Heart and Lumberton were probably due to having some sort of a slugfest from the two offensive powerhouses.
And not to mention, the Madness that starts in March would reach its conclusion as the NCAA basketball championship would have happened. Plus, for you golf fans, the Masters was set to happen this week as well.
I hope you can feel my head hitting my laptop keyboard in disappointment and frustration.
But, hey, let’s not dwell on that. I’m using this time to brush up on my sports films and like many reliving the nostalgia of games.
This past weekend, for the first time uninterrupted, I watched Field of Dreams. It’s a classic baseball film that deserves the credit it gets. SPOILER: Who doesn’t want to play catch with their dad?
Anyways, James Earl Jones or Terrence Mann’s speech at the end of the movie hit me the most when he’s talking about why people will come to watch a baseball field filled with ghosts. I mean, I would pay an absurd amount of money to have that right now.
But in the film, he says, “And they’ll walk out to the bleachers, and sit in the short sleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they say when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game, and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.”
One of the best parts about sports is nostalgia, whether it be the smells, sights, or sounds. I miss and, more importantly, appreciate those times even more so now.
That nostalgia might bring you back to that game-saving play or maybe the memories of practice.
I started to think about what I miss most about sports. As a kid, I miss the smell of crawfish boils at games, the grass and the taste of a snowball after a hot summer practice. Now, one of my favorite parts of a game is reminiscing of some of the great players I was able to watch.
Maybe I miss the human interaction, or maybe it’s the fact that the possibility of seeing something amazing doesn’t exist right now.
Hang in there, my friends.
