Baseball in Hiroshima

Last night I watched the HBO documentary about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The movie is worth watching for many important reasons. But one unimportant scene caught my attention in relationship to this blog. One of the survivors is pictured enjoying a professional baseball game, laughing and cheering just the way Americans do when watching Major League Baseball.

I do not know if spectator sports were popular in Japan prior to WWII, but the image of the Japanese ballpark was so similar to what you see in American ballparks, I felt that this form of spectatorship was a "gift" of America to Japan. The Japanese survivor seemed to be having so much fun passively watching extraordinary athletes play the game.

In the context of the movie--about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people--the issue of spectator sport addiction is nothing. But the documentary did remind me that the draw of watching is probably universal.

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

I'm a worrywart. I don't just worry about ordinary things like finances, health, global warming, and the possibility that a meteor is going to hit West Marin where I live.

I also worry about things that can't possibly happen. For example, when I was a kid one day my mom noticed a light red line running down my leg under the skin. Being color blind, I hadn't even seen in. My mom took me immediately to the doctor who diagnosed the problem as a serious infection. Had we delayed coming to him, I might not be talking to you right now.

I got an antibiotic and that was that. But sometimes I catch myself worrying: "What if my mom hadn't noticed that red thing?"

My wife calls this retroactive worrying, and I worry that it's not a good thing. I know that too much worrying can be harmful to one's health.

Now what's this have to do with Sports Addiction? Everything. When I was watching sports--especially watching a team that I rooted for--I'd worry throughout the game. If it was baseball, I'd worry about whether our clean-up hitter would clean up. I'd worry about whether our closer could close. I'd worry about everything.

I mention this because today, having got maybe halfway through the baseball season without watching an inning, I find myself being less worried. I still worry about my finances and health, of course. But not about players and games that have nothing to do with my life.

Weather and Sports

My wife knows that I'm kicking my sports addiction. So I was surprised yesterday when she looked up from the newspaper and said, "Did you know that for the fourth day in a row a snow storm has forced cancellation of baseball in Cleveland?"

I replied, "You know that I'm ignoring sports these days."

"Yes," she answered, "but this isn't a sports story. It's a weather story."

She was right, I suppose, but I still felt jarred by the mention of baseball." I'd like to be so oblivious to the news of sports that I actually forget it's baseball season.