That’s really cool that you got him those boots.
I mainly turned on to cricket when I had an appendectomy and spent about a week plus in bed recovering at the same time the cricket World Cup was on. I read up on the rules and then listened to the broadcasts of the games, and followed it play by play on my phone, just like I do baseball games. And I was in correspondence with the roommate I mentioned throughout. He had a running account of the cup on Facebook and so I stayed up with his blog and then took even a deeper dive on my own.
There’s an aspect to cricket that I really like, and that’s each player only gets one out per side. So a really good player might make an out early on, and it changes the whole calculus of the match. Puts a continual air of excitement into it, ie that every player is living on the knife edge of disaster, that really amps up the tension. So the game is like a slow burn but yet the fire is still very hot.
But you know I basically like any sport that includes a moving ball, just like my dear golden may she RIP. So cricket qualifies, bigtime, for me.
Yup, I get that, and that's a good way to put it.
Of course, modern cricket has been changed dramatically, and as I understand it the "major" version of the sport no longer has matches that last 1-2 weeks. I have no doubt that's a good thing for modernizing it, but of course there's that nostalgic part of me that wouldn't mind rolling back pretty much EVERY sport a few decades.
I don't know why, but we're talking about our non-American friends and I feel compelled to mention this extremely sad footnote to my above story, perhaps as some sort of memorial or tribute to my truly dear friend Tom Kite, whom none of you knew or will ever know-- but honestly, I've known many of you longer than some of my "real life friends" and I feel a connection that I wouldn't ever want to change.
My dear friend Tom Kite died two years ago from his second bout with colon cancer. He "beat" it the first time though he had major surgery that removed a section of his colon. He was okay for a couple years but then it resurfaced again, and this time he was less fortunate. As far as I know he never did anything that would have put him at risk, though admittedly I don't really know the risk factors for colon cancer. But he exercised regularly, ate well and didn't over-indulge in pretty much anything. He was perfectly fit, until the cancer appeared in his colon. I suppose there's a genetic predisposition, I don't really know, and both his mother and father have survived him and were of course devastated.
I'm a guy that went to a tough engineering school and a tough MBA grad program and has known plenty of brilliant people throughout my life. I can say without question that Tom Kite is the smartest person I've ever known, and likely will ever know, and he was also kind and funny and ironic and amazing. He was one year older than me, which means he was 44 when he died two years ago. Ain't that a bitch?
I'm rambling now. So I'll raise a toast to my friend Tom Kite, who never played golf in his life, but enjoyed a pint of English Bitter as much as I did.
