Ryan is the only son of my sister Paula and her husband Ron. As such he is my nephew, and a fine young man he is, educated, gainfully employed, handsome, and possessing the fine quality of manners so missing in many of his contemporaries.
He was raised by three parents. . .his mother and father, and ESPN's Sports Center. As such, he fancies himself an expert on all things sports related. In many ways this is true. He can rattle off every insignificant factoid about the inconsequential NBA and NFL you could ever possibly want to know. But, his greatest area of expertise is in the world wide scourge known as soccer. Ryan is a walking, and unfortunately talking, soccer encyclopedia. It's too late for me to undo that damage, soccer being a rapidly progressive disease with no known cure. However, there is a glimmer of hope in the kid. Recently, he has shown a nascent interest in baseball!!
Of course, I have jumped all over this ray of hope in the kid's development. He has picked a team to root for, the Washington Nationals, which happens to be my national league team. Hopefully, I can guide his baseball enthusiasm away from the Yankees, who he only likes because, well...because Yankees evil has spread throughout the fruited plain like a Bibilical curse, and young skulls full of mush are basically powerless against its influence. But, I'm hoping that with persistent education and guidance I will eventually break the grip that the dark side currently has on his mind.
Just to let you all know what I'm up against in this battle of overcoming baseball ignorance, earlier today he sent me a clip on Facebook of Vin Scully reciting the famous "..if you build it, they will come" speech from Field of Dreams. So far, so good. The fact that he too was moved by that sacred text is cause for celebration. But then he added, in typically Ryanian fashion, the flat statement..."best sports movie ever."
Poor kid. I have so much work to do with this one. My reply was rather direct..."Umm, it's only the second best baseball movie ever made!" I then explained that the best baseball movie ever made, as everyone knows, was Bull Durham, to which he responded, "never seen it."
So, much work to do. But I am psyched for the job.
He was raised by three parents. . .his mother and father, and ESPN's Sports Center. As such, he fancies himself an expert on all things sports related. In many ways this is true. He can rattle off every insignificant factoid about the inconsequential NBA and NFL you could ever possibly want to know. But, his greatest area of expertise is in the world wide scourge known as soccer. Ryan is a walking, and unfortunately talking, soccer encyclopedia. It's too late for me to undo that damage, soccer being a rapidly progressive disease with no known cure. However, there is a glimmer of hope in the kid. Recently, he has shown a nascent interest in baseball!!
Of course, I have jumped all over this ray of hope in the kid's development. He has picked a team to root for, the Washington Nationals, which happens to be my national league team. Hopefully, I can guide his baseball enthusiasm away from the Yankees, who he only likes because, well...because Yankees evil has spread throughout the fruited plain like a Bibilical curse, and young skulls full of mush are basically powerless against its influence. But, I'm hoping that with persistent education and guidance I will eventually break the grip that the dark side currently has on his mind.
Just to let you all know what I'm up against in this battle of overcoming baseball ignorance, earlier today he sent me a clip on Facebook of Vin Scully reciting the famous "..if you build it, they will come" speech from Field of Dreams. So far, so good. The fact that he too was moved by that sacred text is cause for celebration. But then he added, in typically Ryanian fashion, the flat statement..."best sports movie ever."
Poor kid. I have so much work to do with this one. My reply was rather direct..."Umm, it's only the second best baseball movie ever made!" I then explained that the best baseball movie ever made, as everyone knows, was Bull Durham, to which he responded, "never seen it."
So, much work to do. But I am psyched for the job.
No comments:
Post a Comment