JimFormation

When my future wife and I told my Nan that we were going to get married, she took my future wife aside and said:

He likes to play sports. You know he plays baseball and football and basketball and tennis and street hockey and golf. If you want to have a happy marriage and have a man who won’t run around with other girls or spend time in the gin mills, let him play his sports.

My wife has never stopped me from playing anything, but I’ve never taken advantage of it either. Okay, I’ve seldom taken advantage of it.

At barely 5-foot 9-inches tall and my playing weight being 10 pounds on either side of 155, I’ve never been a gifted athlete. What I’ve lacked in size and strength, I tried to make up for with speed, quickness, intelligence, and grit. I always tried to figure out how to be a technical athlete. To compete, I needed it.

This morning while playing golf in the sub-zero temperatures, I nearly knocked a ball on the green at the par 4 thirteenth hole. I swung hard. Really hard. As hard as I could.

I always wonder what that swing looks like. I always hope that it’s balanced and coordinated, and not hacky and wild.

My partner was our club’s Club Champion for the last three years. He is a big, strong guy. But he is also a gifted, technical golfer. He knows golf, so I asked him, “Roc, how does it look when I swing hard like that?”

“You look like a guy who knows what he’s doing.”

The best compliment I could ask for from the game’s best player. At least the best player in my world.

He’s not the first top-notch player give me a compliment. It happened once before. This time a basketball player.

Let me tell you this: When it comes to the most important part of playing basketball, getting the ball in the hole, I suck. I can dribble; I can penetrate; I can play D. I can’t shoot. The way I say it is “I have everything but the bottom of the net.”

When I was in late teens and early 20s, I would get involved in some high caliber pickup games. In many of these games, the two best players on the court would choose up sides. I was accustomed to being picked last.

One evening I was picked first by the best player ever to play at the park. I thought it must be a mistake, so I asked him, “Bird, you’ve played a lot of ball with me. Why’d you pick me? You know I can’t shoot.”

“I don’t need you to shoot, Jim. I can shoot. I know you hustle on defense. You bring the ball up the court safely. And you’ll pass me the ball. That’s all I need.”

Again, it’s the best compliment I could get from the game’s best player. At least the best player in my world.

My favorite compliment has to be when playing softball though. My size belies my abilities. I’m a small guy, but I can hit the ball hard. I’m a line-drive hitter that gets the ball in and through the gap in a hurry.

When outfielders first see me come to the plate, they don’t know what I can do. They see a little guy and figure they can cheat a little. They play in.

I take advantage of their folly.

The compliment comes the next time I’m up at the plate. The outfielders are playing twenty steps back.

…

An Aside

Jim Verd was a high school jock. Bigger than me by three. Maybe four.

He played varsity football and baseball. I think he wrestled too.

I’ve known him since second grade. He never considered me to be athletic in any way. Well, not until we needed an extra guy for softball when we were in our 30s and a bloated and daft Jim Verd got the call.

He was immediately inserted in the shortstop position on the field. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

When he saw me going out to center field, he asked incredulously, “Jimmy, what are you doing out there?” He expected me to be hidden in right field or behind the plate.

I smiled and said, “Just watch.”

Besides being able to hit, in the field I developed a little something I like to call “Fuck You Batter.” That’s turning hits into outs. Getting the ball when it’s in the air at all costs. Diving. Lunging. Leaping. Sprinting. Glove flashing. Denying. Fuck. You. Batter.

And wouldn’t you know it, in the first inning of a game that I ever played with Verd the batter hit a hard sinking liner toward the gap. I sprinted, flashed, dove, and “Fuck You Batter.” Right. In. Front. Of. Verd. Who was darting backward.

I jumped up. Verd was 10 feet from me. Running past him with a shit-eating grin, I flipped him the ball and said, “That’s why.”