Wednesday, September 24, 2008

No Crying in Baseball

Around these parts you would have to be living in a cave (as some of us just may be due to the wind storm event Mother Nature and Hurricane Ike presented to us) to not know that the Ryder Cup was held in Louisville this past weekend.

300,000 homes may have been knocked out of electricity when the remnants of Hurricane Ike blew through here but the Valhalla Golf Course was put back on line within moments. The Show must go on.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against golf. I just had to be educated that the Ryder Cup is Super Bowl to their fans. I know lots of people who worship at the alter of the Golf Links. I even tried it once, was horrible at it and quite frankly, did not like it much.

I have endured the golf metaphor for years. My boss once developed a "score card" complete with a boogie and a birdie and all that jazz that had to be explained to me. "Now a boogie means its good?"

It has even spread to the sermon I sat through at church this week end. First a video was show of the pastor participating in the Ryder Cup (this church has remarkable editing staff!) that was hokey and too long....but I got it, I am in the minority when it comes to my boredom with golf. Then we were delivered the sermon which was good, but still the golf metaphor began to get on my nerves.

I did like the part about a Mulligan. I did not know those existed in golf! Every body deserves a Mulligan now and then (which is a do-over) and I certainly agree with that.

Yesterday I was in conversation with two guys. Two golfers, don't you know.

"Golf is like life, a metaphor for life." one said the the other.

I interjected, "I though Baseball was a metaphor for life."

They turned to me and shook their heads, "No, it's golf." Like I was really asking a question!! I was making a statement.

I prefer baseball. You keep swinging until you get it right. If it's a foul you keep swinging until you get it in the ball park. Sometimes you strike out, sometimes you hit a home run. You work as a team and everyone plays their part. You run really really fast to be safe! You get your manager to go nose to nose with the authority if they think you have been done wrong. Then at the seventh inning everyone gets to stand up and stretch and sing! You get to eat hot dogs and throw back beer!

Yup, baseball sure seems more like real life than that golf game.

2 comments:

Chris said...

I thought life was like a box of chocolates.

Paul said...

A man is golfing with his wife. He shanks a shot, which hits her in the back of her head and kills her.

After an autopsy, the medical examiner tells the husband, "Well, it was just what we though...blunt force trauma to the head, but we found something else, really unusual. There was another golf ball wedged between the cheeks of her buttocks."

"That would be my mulligan," the husband explains.