Watching
Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself.
Those are the words of Donald Miller in his "Author's Note" in Blue Like Jazz. Seems like I've had this book for three years, and I'm finally getting around to reading it. I enjoyed another book of his very much, so I'm not surprised that I like this one so far. Back to the quote...it's true. While I've always been a Red Sox fan and followed (endured?) them since I was a kid, I never loved baseball until more recently. In college, that began to change and I owe it all to a- hold on to your hats now- a Yankees fan. Yes, it's Navid Mahooti's fault.
Navid played on the baseball team and lived on my floor sophomore year and then in the apartment across from me senior year. Navid loved baseball. I liked it well enough, but certainly couldn't understand how you could watch more than 2-3 innings, especially early in the game. So one day I decided to watch a game with Navid. I asked him to help me watch the game the way he does, and he did a pretty good job. Every year since then, my like for baseball has grown to the point where I can say I love it...love in cheap sense of the word love, not like I love my wife or daughter- duh. This love, of course, was enhanced by my participation in softball leagues, even though I don't pretend to believe that baseball and softball are all that similar. Either way, thanks Vid.
Those are the words of Donald Miller in his "Author's Note" in Blue Like Jazz. Seems like I've had this book for three years, and I'm finally getting around to reading it. I enjoyed another book of his very much, so I'm not surprised that I like this one so far. Back to the quote...it's true. While I've always been a Red Sox fan and followed (endured?) them since I was a kid, I never loved baseball until more recently. In college, that began to change and I owe it all to a- hold on to your hats now- a Yankees fan. Yes, it's Navid Mahooti's fault.
Navid played on the baseball team and lived on my floor sophomore year and then in the apartment across from me senior year. Navid loved baseball. I liked it well enough, but certainly couldn't understand how you could watch more than 2-3 innings, especially early in the game. So one day I decided to watch a game with Navid. I asked him to help me watch the game the way he does, and he did a pretty good job. Every year since then, my like for baseball has grown to the point where I can say I love it...love in cheap sense of the word love, not like I love my wife or daughter- duh. This love, of course, was enhanced by my participation in softball leagues, even though I don't pretend to believe that baseball and softball are all that similar. Either way, thanks Vid.
posted by Brian at 7:22 PM
2 Comments:
Navid and I were best friends when we were kids. I mean real young, like 5 years old, up to 11 or 12 when I moved to Virginia. I haven't talked to him in about 10 years. I just wanted to say he loved baseball as a little kid. He pitched in Little League. His room was filled with trophies and baseballs on the shelf with writing on them like 4/21/81 246ft "Praise the Lord".
Once he even broke his right arm (his pitching arm) and taught himself to pitch with his left and won the game. This was when he was 8 or 9 years old.
Just thought you'd like that story.
Aaron Wands
Hey Aaron,
Thanks so much for sharing that. I saw Navid a couple years ago at homecoming. A friend of his told him about this blog post. (I think they googled his name.) It was good to see him and he was doing well.
Rock on,
-Brian
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