Not Like Riding a Bike

You pick up the ball, but it feels awkward in your hands.  Too heavy, or maybe too light.  It's hard to believe there was once a time you were even decent at this at all.

You look at the goal, but it seems too high or too far away.  You decide to dribble a couple of times, an attempt to get a feel for the game once again.

There's no one around, so you shoot.  You miss the goal by a foot and the ball bounds harmlessly, first on the pavement then into the grass.

Air ball.

It was always your tradition, or compulsion, to make your last shot of the day.  Which today might very well be your first shot of the day.  So you retrieve the ball, dribble back to the same spot and try again.

Though it feels as clumsy as the first, this time the ball clangs off the backboard then the side of the rim.  A little closer.

As you try and miss a third time, you wonder if it will ever feel as it once did, years ago when you could sometimes sense where the goal was and make the basket without even looking.

You think most likely not.  O, how you took those times for granted.

Finally, on your seventh or eighth or ninth attempt, the ball drops through the rim unscathed, making that sweet, once-familiar sound as it swishes through the nylon.

And you think maybe -- with good weather, countless hours of practice and frustration, and help from above -- you can learn to write again.

Just pray no one sees that first shot.


"Keep on dreamin' even if it breaks your heart..."

Here comes the sun

(Congratulations to my friend, Pia, from Courting Destiny. She is now blogging for Psychology Today. And you can read her first post here. It makes me proud to see a former Roast-A-Bone host going on to bigger things.)

The sun came out Saturday. It was 72 degrees here. And just like that -- although the calendar wouldn't agree for three more days -- for me, January was over. Thus ending what in a hundred years will more than likely be referred to as my blue period, which basically amounted to two posts.

I don't know why I let the season come and conquer me. But it's all right now. There's not spring, but there's the promise of spring, and that's enough.

This weekend was my long-awaited-though-sometimes-uncertain return to the land of the living. I did things this weekend I thought I'd forgotten how to do, like shower on a Saturday.

Sister Bone, Nephew Bone and I went to the Bama basketball game Saturday night. Bama is not exactly known as a basketball school, but the team is having a pretty good season, so it was nice to see the game was sold out. They won the game comfortably, 70-46, over LSU. For me, any night's a good night in Tuscaloosa -- the atmosphere, the history, the Taco Casa! Just knowing that for one night you are in the same city as Nick Saban somehow makes everything right with the world.

I believe it was the wise King Solomon who wrote, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." At supper, Nephew Bone pointed to the "A" on the Taco Casa cup and said, "Bama." It's nice to know the hours I spent repeating "Roll Tide" and "Bama" to him while everyone else was trying to get him to say "mama" and "dada" paid off.

I golfed with the Darryls on Sunday afternoon. That was a dream come true. Literally. Except that we did get to finish the round. We golfed horribly, but who really cares. Balls and clubs can be replaced. Pride can be restored, theoretically. And as I like to say, 'tis better to have golfed and failed than to never have golfed at all.

In one final bit of big news, I start guitar lessons tomorrow! I'm kind of excited. Dad has been trying to get me to learn to play for, oh, the past twenty years or so. I figure I may as well give it a shot. Also, he said he would pay for the lessons. Not that you should think my parents still pay for everything, or give me a weekly allowance. Because they don't. And they haven't since I turned 35.

Beyond that, Wednesday is National Signing Day. I'm contemplating taking off of work for that. And of course Sunday, as most everyone aware I'm sure, is the highlight of the year for Roman Numerals.

Then comes the roughly six-week long period of time I like to refer to as sports purgatory. But we'll fall into that deep, yawning chasm when we come to it.

"And I'm looking to the sky to save me, looking for a sign of life..."

With apologies to CCR

Before we begin today, I have a confession to make: I kinda want to see Hot Tub Time Machine.

I know! It's just, the previews look rather hilarious. Also, I've never been in a hot tub or a time machine. And while I'll always consider the latter a definite possibility, the former -- given my chronic germophobia -- will likely never happen.

Whew, I'm glad to have that off my chest. Now we can move on to more pressing matters. (Could it get any less pressing?)

The NCAA Tournament has taken up quite a bit of my time these past two weekends. I wish I could say the same for the Kansas Jayhawks, my pick for national champs. Unfortunately, they couldn't be bothered with more than a couple days of March Madness this year.

The Bone bracket was a mixed bag. I correctly picked St. Mary's and Cornell for the Sweet Sixteen. However, I also had Georgetown in the Elite Eight. And only one of my Final Four picks made it: West Virginia.

Finally, I feel I would be remiss if I didn't mention a topic that is on the minds of many Americans these days. And that is, how to fix our current fantasy baseball team naming system.

Last year my team -- Los Rojos -- finished 3rd. For some people, that might be satisfactory. But I say no! When did 3rd place become good enough? This is America! No one goes around shouting "We're number three!" They don't sell big foam hands with three fingers extended at football games.

Combine that with the fact that I finished in 4th place the year before, and it became obvious to me the current system wasn't working. It was time for a change.

So I put a lot of thought into coming up with a plan which would select the best fantasy team name possible. One which would both display my right-brain creativity and inspire my left-brain baseball knowledge, thus resulting in a first-place finish.

After narrowing down my choices to five finalists, I consulted with several of my trusted inner email circle, then submitted my final choice for approval. Well, the right-wing anti-Bone fat cats at Yahoo Sports were having none of it. Clearly clinging to failed policies of the past, they had placed an ultra-conservative 20-character limit on all fantasy team names. Therefore, the greatest team name in fantasy sports history -- Between Bill Buckner's Legs -- will not be used.

Forced to scramble and come up with an eleventh-hour compromise -- my fantasy draft is Wednesday -- I did my best. I know some of you may view this as nothing more than a heavily watered down version of my original proposal, but my hope is that it will at least be better than what we had.

And so, without further adieu, allow me to introduce you to your 2010 Bone fantasy baseball team: Rolen On The River.

Is this change we can believe in? Time will tell.

"Left a good job in the city, workin' for the man every night and day. And I never lost one minute sleepin', worrying 'bout the way things might have been..."

Great moments in Bone sports history

I believe it was William Shakespeare who wrote: "Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." (Actually, I thought it was Kennedy. But evidently not, according to Google.) But I am here to tell you that deep down, most men measure their own greatness by athletic achievement.

Why else would aging athletes keep hanging on or coming out of retirement for one more year? What else could drive men to bowl in a league every Wednesday morning until they're 80? And why else would Huey Lewis & The News have released an album entitled Sports, when none of the songs on the album have anything to do with sports? (Seriously, I really would like to know this. Wikipedia doesn't say.)

With all that in mind, today I will attempt to countdown the top four moments of Bone's athletic career. I was gonna do a top five or ten, but I didn't want the post to be too long. Plus, I could only really think of four. So come along on a magical journey through some of the greatest sports moments you've never heard of. I have a feeling this post will help explain so much.

4. Scoring 26 points in a basketball game - It was my senior year of high school. And what a way to go out. A career-high 26 points. I was en fuego! OK, so it was a church league basketball game. Actually, a preseason church league game. But still, everyone was trying their best! Also I should get bonus points since I did it in those frighteningly short Larry Bird shorts, which were still somewhat prominent in 1991.

3. The race - As some of you know, I am a bit of a runner. How one determines what classifies "a bit" of a runner, I do not know. But nevertheless. How successful has my running career been? Suffice it to say that I've gotten my name in the paper a few times.... along with everybody else who finished the race.

But it all started in middle school. It was the Presidential Fitness Run. The distance was one mile, which was four laps around the orange cones that Mister Stanley, the PE teacher, had set up on the playground. I was running a solid third the entire race--not showing off, not lagging behind--and was pretty much resigned to finishing there. But as I approached the start/finish line to complete my third lap, I saw the two guys ahead of me inexplicably slow to a walk and then a complete stop.

As I zoomed by, I glanced back at them, wondering if they were tired or if maybe I had miscounted the laps. I could see Mister Stanley say something to them, then they started to run after me. I hadn't miscounted, they had! Buoyed by my unbelievable luck, I could not be caught. I won! And from that day on, a myth began to grow about my speed. OK, not really, but it's a great line.

2. The big mud volleyball tournament - In olden times, my friend Ben would attend church from roughly March through July so that he would be eligible to play on the church softball team. Well, one of those months in one of those years, some people from his church decided to get up a team and enter a local mud volleyball tournament. Needing one more player, he gave me a call and as fate would have it, not only was I home, but I didn't have any plans.

The other teams were about equally made up of guys and girls. But our team was composed of five guys--none of whom had ever played organized volleyball--and one girl, who happened to be the volleyball coach at the local high school. It was kinda like a bad volleyball reality show, but with the attractive scantily clad female aspect of Dog Eat Dog.

We came. We played. We got mud on our face and on our clothes. In our hair and in between our toes. And our team finished second. That was out of four. But finishing second alone would not have made this one of the four greatest moments in Bone sports history. Oh who am I kidding, sure it would have. But what elevates it all the way to number two status is what happened next.

A girl on the team we lost to in the finals was standing there talking smack about their victory. So I crossed under the net and proceeded to tackle her gently in the mud. Then some of the girls led us into the woods to a creek where we all hopped in. I had never played mud volleyball before, and never did again, but to this day that still might be the most fun I have ever had.

1. Bone on ice It was my very first time ice skating. I was in high school. What, I was a late bloomer, OK? Anyway, I wasn't doing so well. The first trip around the rink, I must have fallen at least twenty times. Every time I'd let go of the rail, down I went. About a quarter of the way through my second lap, I had just fallen again. Before I could get up, I heard this angelic voice ask, "Need some help?"

I looked up and saw two girls standing there smiling at me. Or giggling at me, whichever. They helped me up and with one girl taking each arm, proceeded to skate me around for the rest of the night.

Can there be any doubt that was the greatest moment of my athletic career?

I would like to be able to tell you that I got their numbers. But it was not to be, for I did not ask. (This was pre-What Would Brian Boitano Do, so I was lost.) That's what makes this such an inspirational, yet tragic tale. It's kinda like in The Natural when Robert Redford hits the homerun, then dies at home plate. Or am I remembering that wrong?

This concludes our countdown of the greatest moments in Bone sports history. I hope these memories have helped to entertain and inspire each of you. Until next time, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.

Unless you're like in a planetarium. That would just look stupid.

"Glory days, well they'll pass you by. Glory days, in the wink of a young girl's eye..."

Nothing but chicks and basketball

I hope you all had a good Easter. Apparently, the word is out that I like Peeps, as I received no fewer than four packs of marshmallow chicks and bunnies this weekend. That's in addition to the one pack I bought myself before Easter, just in case everyone else forgot. I couldn't risk it.

In other weekend happenings, Jamie and I played golf Saturday, my first time on the links in 2008. I'm proud to say I only lost two balls, which as you may know is how I truly keep score. It's kinda like that peg game at Cracker Barrel. If you leave only one peg, "yore a genius." Well, if I lose only one ball, I'm... whatever the golf equivalent of a genius is, in my mind anyway. I'm not sure what losing zero balls would equal. But as that's pretty much like the three minute mile to me, I probably shouldn't waste a lot of time pondering it.

The highlight of my day, yea, my weekend, was holing a 25-foot par putt from the fringe on the 13th hole. It was a big breaker to the right. And probably the single greatest moment in my life since I hit a homerun in a softball game a few years ago, which didn't end up counting anyway because we'd already reached our alloted home run limit of one for that game.

Should it disturb me that I consider athletic acheivement among the greatest moments in my life, when I've not played any organized sports--other than the occasional softball league--since high school? Tell you what, let's not even analyze it. If we dig too deep, it could just become sad. And who would want that.

After golf, I headed over to Axl's to watch basketball. Ah yes, March Madness. When seeds and brackets aren't just gardening and hardware terms. When Bryant becomes the "other Gumbel brother" for two and a half weeks. And when your wife or girlfriend is babbling on about being upset, and your response to her involves the phrase "five-twelve."

I have Kansas, UCLA, North Carolina, and Texas in my Final Four. Out of curiosity, I was looking back at my March Madness post from a year ago. Oddly enough, two statements I made then are applicable again this year. And I quote: "The good news is, my Final Four all made it thru to the Sweet 16... The bad news is, my Cinderella team, Winthrop, lost in the second round."

The only difference is that Winthrop lost in the first round this year. Note to my 2009 self: Do not pick Winthrop.

I had three different stops to make yesterday for Easter. At Mom's, she of course still boils eggs. And dyes them. And makes us hide them and hunt them. In her living room.

I should probably mention here that there was no one under the age of twenty-seven among those gathered at Mom's. Anyway, you really have to get creative with hiding places, especially by the fourth or fifth go round. I think my best was when I unscrewed the light bulb from the lamp and replaced it with an egg.

Meanwhile at my Aunt's, I got into an existential discussion about the Easter Bunny with my nine-year-old cousin. I asked what seemed like a harmless enough question, "Did the Easter Bunny come to see you?" She replied with, "The Easter Bunny is fake. But my momma came to see me." She's nine! I was driving before I figured out the Easter Bunny.

I decided not to even bring up the Velveteen Rabbit. I know he's real.

"Closer than my peeps you are to me, baby. Shawty, you're my angel, you're my darlin' angel..."