I have decided to establish a weekly feature of sports themes on Wednesdays. I love reading, writing and discussing sports (as does my son), so I have decided to pick a sports topic every Wednesday. For readers who enjoy sports I hope you can look forward to my weekly column on the topic. For those of you who aren’t sports fans I hope you follow along anyway and enjoy the ride. Today’s topic: there’s something cozy about late night sports.
I have been a Toronto Blue Jays’ fan since their first game on April 7, 1977 (the fact that I was only 9 months old on this date is secondary but you get the idea). My favourite sport is definitely baseball. I will clarify that – my favourite spectator sport is baseball. As a child and teenager, I loved listening to Tom and Jerry on the radio as I did my homework in the evening. I have always liked watching the Jays on TV and of course a trip to the ballpark to actually be at the game is the best.
Since the Blue Jays play in the American League East, they play most of their games in the Eastern time zone or Central time zone. But that does leave a number of games each season for west coast teams. They always make a few road trips each season to play in cities such as Los Angeles, Oakland or Seattle, and that means a late night sports start.
My son is not a fan of west coast road trips because the games start at 10:00 pm or even a ghastly 10:30 pm sometimes. While Matthew is a night owl and desperately tries to stay awake when his beloved team plays in California, by 10:17 pm I usually find him in a deep sleep in my bed, with the game blaring on the TV.
I have a little more staying power than my 10-year-old. The Blue Jays are currently on a west coast road trip, with stops in Oakland and Seattle. The game has started at 10:07 pm the last couple of nights, and I decided this morning that there’s something cozy about late night sports.
For the last two evenings, with the kids asleep and the kitchen clean, at 10:00 pm I sat down in front of the TV, turned it on to Sportsnet and sat back to watch the baseball game. The house was quiet and the game was mine to enjoy. By 11:00 I started to nod off on the couch, so I moved a sleeping Matthew to his bed and climbed in to my bed to watch the rest of the game.
The only problem, for me, with late-night sports is that I am incapable of staying awake for the whole game. Hard as I tried to keep my eyes open, by 11:30 pm I am quite sure I was fully unconscious. The game entered my dreams, and there’s a chance I hit into a double play or got a double.
It’s too bad the Blue Jays have lost the first two games of this six-game west coast road trip, and today’s game is in the afternoon. But Seattle is up next, with a couple more 10:00 pm starts. That means I can enjoy a couple more cozy evenings of late night sports.