Daily Blague

What a shock it was to see this picture!

Photo by Édouard at Sale Bête.

I was minding my own business, reading everybody's blog, when I came across this photo at Sale Bête. The building in the background is New Rochelle High School. It was on these very fields - covered with oiled dirt at the time - that I learned, at a day camp in the Fifties, that I was missing the sports gene.

Assigned to the outfield, I had my back to the action most of the time, which I spent drawing pictures with my right sneaker. I hated being out in the sun. The curious thing is that I never hated myself. I did not long to be like the other boys. All I longed for was release from the torment of baseball.

This is not to say that my aversion to sports didn't burden me with heavy baggage. I might as well have had to wear a tiny colored star - you pick the color - to indicate that I was not a Team Player. The lasting result has been that I still don't like men in groups. On a much more positive note, I have never had the slightest difficulty "getting" the complaints of people who, for one reason or another, don't quite match the profiles that men in groups have drawn up for them.

Now that I'm too old for it to matter, I can imagine that it must be wonderful to be able to pitch a ball well, and that it must be great to hit that ball "right out of the park." Athletic achievement must be a joy for those who are at least halfway gifted. But I'm sure that a plea still needs to be made on behalf of kids who just aren't cut out for it: obligatory sports do not build character.