My life in sports
Sports have always had a profound impact on my life. Since I was about four years old, baseball has been my passion and in a way, it mimicked real life with its ups and downs. Some of the more positive moments were fulfilled by making all-star teams, winning championships, and just being able to play on teams with my friends contrasted with the lows stemming from disappointing seasons and poor individual performances.
Not just playing baseball has fueled my love for the sport, however. Following the MLB and more specifically my favorite team, the Detroit Tigers, has still kept me involved with the game and taken me back to years ago when the Tigers would go on deep postseason runs, though coming up just shy of hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy on multiple occasions. This sense of fandom has remained constant throughout my life, and I’m always excited whenever I see the Tigers or any other team play in person. Some of my fondest memories include getting the autograph of former Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga, who is infamous for having what should’ve been a perfect game yanked away as a result of an umpire’s botched call, and receiving a ball that MLB MVP and Cy Young winner Justin Verlander had used to warm up.
My obsession with sports does range past baseball as I have also played basketball and football, sports that I have teams to root for and still follow but don’t play competitively anymore. I still play these sports with my friends, though, which displays the ability of sports to be played competitively or recreationally. I have also recently taken a newfound liking to both soccer and hockey, sports that are very different in pace of play but are still fun to support.
I’ve also had negative experiences with participating in new sports, but I’m still thankful for having the opportunities to try these new activities. Crew, for example, was a sport I knew hardly anything about, but after being suggested to join the team in my freshman year by some friends, I obliged. I quickly realized I wasn’t a big fan of traveling hours away to wait outside all day at a regatta for a chance to row for about seven minutes, then proceeding to tear up my hands with blisters. However, if I would’ve never signed up, I could still be regretting the fact that I never went out for a sport that piqued my interest.
Overall, it doesn’t matter that my love for sports sprung from an infatuation with a rubber cork wrapped in yarn and sealed with cowhide and 108 stitches, but rather the fact that all of my sporting experiences have provided me benefits throughout my life: meeting new friends, patience, teamwork and more. This recent lapse in sports has really awakened me to how important sports are in my life. Not being able to wake up and watch highlights from a game last night before going to school has been really weird, and the biggest leagues in the country have even had to resort to showing their old games on TV rather than the games they had planned on their schedules. Once we get sports back, I will never again take them for granted.