America's Favorite Pastime

Chris and I are avid sports fans, and since we've lived in Hong Kong, we've gotten very attached to rugby, a contact sport like no other - even American football, with all its pads and helmets, pales in comparison to the brutal hits these boys on the rugby field endure. We love nothing more on a weekend than to hunker down in our favorite sports pub in Wanchai and watch an afternoon of rugby right along side fans who have grown up with the game and know every nuance of every play. And despite the fact that we've only been watching for a few years versus a lifetime, we can hold our own and heckle with the best of them!

That being said, and despite the fact that our nephew now plays Prop (a crucial position at the heart of the scrum) with his high school rugby team here in Washington, the American sports are still what we long for most. There's nothing that can compare to the invincible feelings of hope that come with the first day of football season or the sigh of relief on opening day of baseball, knowing there's a whole summer season of games ahead. And what better time of year could there possibly be than when baseball and football cross-over in the Fall, and every TV in the house is blasting one game or another! Add in the tail end of the PGA tour and the start of basketball and there's really no reason to ever put down the remote!

Long ago we decided watching football from the comfort of home is by far preferable to fighting the cold and crowds at the stadiums. But baseball is another story altogether. There's simply nothing to compare to the thrill of sitting down close to the field on a cool Spring evening, eating peanuts and hotdogs, yelling at the umps, urging our favorite players to run faster, throw harder, and score every inning! Baseball is a sport for every sort of fan, young or old, male or female, rich or poor, folks from every walk of life, and although we're rarely in the States long enough to catch our beloved Yanks playing in the Bronx, we join fans the world over to catch as many games as we can.

Tonight we had a rare last-minute opportunity to catch the Yankees play the Orioles at Camden Yards in Baltimore Harbor. Camden Yards is a rare and wonderful ballpark constructed about 20 years ago in the "retro style" of stadium construction, meaning that it's smaller, more intimate, seating less people, and is only used for baseball and no other sport. It makes for a wonderful baseball experience in the most traditional sense, and sitting there last night made me think of my Dad, who attended every Philadelphia Phillies game he could back in the 30's and 40's in old Shibe Park, a stadium that might have been the model for these new "retro" ballparks. It was a wonderful night and a perfect way for us, after all our winter traveling, to finally feel like we're "home."

Being in Asia has allowed us to expand our "sports horizons" and we've become familiar with every kind of sport from rugby to Australian football, F-1 Racing to Moto GP, international sailing tournaments to the European golf tour; at one point, we even tried to learn the rules of cricket, but couldn't figure out a way to skip work for a week to watch all the matches! Regardless, it will never matter how long we're on the other side of the world or how far afield we may venture, for us there are no sports greater than American Football and certainly no better fan to be than a fan of America's favorite pastime!