It all started one day after we had moved to Belmont and I was hanging out with my new first-grader buddy, Andrew Creedon. Andrew, with an older brother around
, had already moved to the level of sports loving where he spent his personal money on sports- he had a very cool baseball sticker book about the 1987 season. I was still blowing my 50 cents on candy mostly. I quickly became obsessed with the sticker book. I remember spending all of my money on packs of stickers. Good players got stickers that were twice as big, while the smaller players' stickers were smaller. I may have perused that book so many times that I can tell you who the big sticker players were for each team. I know an odd amount of information about the baseball season of 1987, the first 
"year of the home run". My love of baseball baseball exploded after that, as did my spending on baseball related materials, as I branched out quickly into baseball cards and earning enough "fun points" to go to games with my Dad by doing chores around the house. From Topps to Major League Baseball, these corporations had ingeniusly ensnared another young mind to sports addiction.
I practiced and honed my early math skills with sports statistics. It was pretty difficult to wrap my elementary school brain around earned run average, but I got it. I learned long division and percentages all with the help of batting averages and free throw percentages.
But up until this last week sports had only taken from me. Sure, it has given me hours upon hours of entertainment, but financially sports has never given back, and that is not because I did not have plans for it to. I, along with every naive middle schooler from the early nineties, thought that I would be able to sell my baseball cards for a profit at some later date. I do not think that those cards have appreciated at all in value since then, but I could be wrong. I also had dreams of becoming a professional player and broadcaster, but those dreams have seriously faded with the reality of my lack of physical size and ability and the impracticality of a sports journalism career. I still hold out hopes that after I have made my millions I will start at the bottom of a baseball organization and work my way up, capitalizing on my organization psychological background. Doesn't it seem like Theo Epstein or Danny Ainge would love to have someone enlightened like me with the Sox or Celtics?
But sports never has given me anything financially back, that is until a few weeks ago when I went on to a local sports trivia show on the radio and won! Carrie used to work at the same radio station, and thought that the guy who did the trivia show, Charles "Chuckles" Booms, was
a bit eccentric. Judge the picture for yourself. The day after the Red Sox came back from impossible odds to beat the Rays they ran a sports trivia show themed: The Biggest Sports Choke Jobs. After hearing the locals struggle with the first two Red Sox related questions, I felt that I had to call. But by the time it was my turn the Red Sox questions were over, and the host smugly said that he doubted I was going to get this question right: During the NFL playoffs, the Houston Oilers were killing the Buffalo Bills 35-3, but ended up losing to the Bills. Which QB led the Bill comeback?Luckily for me, my best friend Jon Hook was obsessed with everthing Houston because he had just moved from there, and we watched that whol
e game. I knew that the question was tricky because Jim Kelly, the hall of fame Bills QB was hurt and his back-up was in that game, Frank Reich. My answer garnered $15 at a local eatery.I have now decided that i am calling this sports trivia show as often as they will let me and cash in on my previously useless knowledge.
Thank you Frank Reich for leading that memorable comeback. Thank you Dad, for raising me right. Thank you Jon Hook, for being obsessed with Houston Oiler football. To all of the sports fans out there: Do not despair. Sometimes it does feel like you are involved in a horribly abusive, one-sided relationship. But sometimes sports pays.
2 comments:
Two questions:
1.) What did you win?
2.) What were the Sox-related questions that the callers couldn't get?
Great questions Ben.
1.) I mistakenly deleted that sentence. i won $15 at at Springfield Brewing Co. Nice place, but the food was deliciously salty and unusually dry, we think in order to coax customers into buying their expensive drinks.
2.) The questions were in an odd order, giving me the impression that the hosts were improvising them: What player hit the game-winning HR in Game 5 of the 1986 ALCS to win the game for the Red Sox to continue that series?
Against which team were the Red Sox playing?
Who gave that HR up and eventually killed himself over it?
At that point I had to call because I was sure they were going to ask about the 1986 World Series, but by the time I got on the air and could hear what topic they had moved on to, they were talking about football.
I can give the answers too, but the questions are more fun.
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