Cosmic Sports Collison

What do baseball, soccer, tennis and football have in common? This date in history. At least that's true for our family.

I was on my way to baseball camp with Smunch this morning while the U.S. played in the FIFA 2010 World Cup. Smunch had been watching on TV before we left, so I turned it on the radio in the car for our drive. There were only a couple of minutes left when we got to the ballpark. The game was tied with no score. If the U.S. didn't score, they were going home. If they did, the got to move on to the round of 16. We sat in the parking lot to listen to the end. Regulation time ended. No score. Then there were 4 minutes of make-up time for all the timeouts they'd had. The radio announcers talk so fast when calling soccer games that Smunch couldn't really keep track of what was going on. And American announcers are apparently too staid to yell GOOOAAAALLLLLLLLL! So he just about missed it when the U.S. kicked a goal with three minutes to spare. What a FUN end to a long game!

On the way home, there was another sports story on the radio. A match at Wimbledon was still going on...after 8.5 hours! Turns out it went on for 10 hours and then they stopped for the evening. It isn't even over yet. It's 58-58 in the 5th set. Ridiculous and kind of unfathomable.

But perhaps the most unfathomable thing happened last. I went to pick Smunch up from baseball camp at 4 o'clock this afternoon. He was tired and happy, as usual. As we left, I saw a familiar-looking guy getting into a shiny, white minivan. Nah, I thought. Couldn't be. But I stopped and told the kids to stop to see who it was backing out of that parking spot right there. Sure enough. I felt stupid standing there gawking at the man, so I waved awkwardly...and he waved back. "Dang, Smunch." I said. "Steve Young just waved to you!"