Sports talk

When my husband Mike and I first started dating, many of my girlfriends (and others) asked me whether Mike is a sports fanatic. The question was a fair one. Most men like sports, and on top of that Mike is a sports broadcaster. My friends naturally assumed that he'd be obsessed with sports, maybe even more obsessed than most men are thought to be.

So people were surprised when I said, "No, Mike likes sports, but I don't think he's obsessed with them." He's immersed in sports talk all day long for his job. Often the last thing he wants to do is come home, plop himself in front of the TV and engage in sports all night long. In the three years we've been married, I have to admit I've learned quite a lot about sports. Mike WILL watch about any sport on television, including bowling and the "sport" that I consider a joke-- the world championship poker series. So while he watches sports, I occasionally watch too and start asking questions.

Before I explain what I've learned from Mike, I have to give a bit of background: I grew up with two brothers and a dad who, not surprisingly, loved sports. I remember shouting to get my dad's attention while he sat in his basement hideaway reading -- you guessed it -- Sports Illustrated while a basketball game blared on the TV in front of him. My dad never had the patience to teach me much about the rules of his favorite sports. My younger brother Jim was the one who taught me the ins and outs of football. I was about 12, and he was an 8-year-old teaching me about football. Because I understood it, football became my favorite sport to watch. I understand what first downs are, what offsides and holding mean, the significance of a fourth-and-goal play. I don't know all the positions the players on the field play, but I get the basics. I can sit down and genuinely enjoy a game.

This winter Mike did the radio play-by-play for the University of Colorado women's basketball games. I attended several games with him -- even went on a road trip to my alma mater -- and thus learned a lot about basketball, the sport that moves so fast it's hard to keep up with. I've come to enjoy college basketball, particularly women's basketball. College hoops are much more competitive than the NBA, which is so slow it looks like the players are just standing around waiting for someone to CARE and actually make a play. Their skill level is incredible when they actually engage in the game, but otherwise the players look way too nonchalant for me to get into what's happening. I'm sorry, but the occasional dunk shot isn't enough to get me that excited.

Now we're into baseball season, and every night as Mike watches his Colorado Rockies -- the team everyone loves to hate in Denver, but Mike still believes in them -- I ask questions. I've learned what the "hole" is between the shortstop and third base. Last Sunday we attended our first Rockies game of the season, the game where Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki made the 13th-ever unassisted triple play in Major League history. Before that game, someone would have said "unassisted triple play," and I would have said, "What?" I learned tonight that when a pitcher hits a batter with a ball (thus resulting in an automatic walk), the batter never rubs the spot where the 90-plus mile-an-hour ball hit him. I mean, that hit had to have hurt. But I guess it's a macho thing not to show it did. I've learned enough about baseball in the first month of this year's season that I'm beginning to think of it as the most fascinating sport of all of them. "Everything means something in baseball, from the scoring to what happens on the field," Mike tells me. It's fun to be curious and figure out what everything means.

One of these days maybe Mike will get me into what he IS obsessed about -- fantasy baseball. His fantasy baseball teams -- all four of them -- are why Mike watches way more sports on TV in the spring and summer than any other time of the year. I asked him tonight why he watches so much baseball. I assumed he liked it better than football or basketball. "Because there's nothing else to do in the summer," he said. Short pause. "No, it's probably because of my fantasy teams." And since in baseball, everything means something, every pitch, every hit, every run, every everything will affect Mike's fantasy teams one way or another. Mike is competitive; he likes to keep track of statistics, and he likes to win -- thus, the fantasy teams are such a kick for him.

Before Mike and I got married, a friend of mine gave me some good advice: "Since Mike's job is about sports and he likes sports, you ought to get into them too." At first I was like, "What?" Now I understand what she meant. A lot of my girlfriends complain that their husbands are so into sports. They complain that it captivates too much of their time and energy. I figure there are a lot worse things they could be into. There are also a lot worse things on television than sports. I still can't get into those dumb poker matches -- talk about egomaniacs; the poker players are the worst -- but I'd rather watch them than some of the other stuff on TV, including many of the shows that attract primarily a female audience.

Mike says the difference between me and other women is that I have a genuine curiosity about sports. The truth is I have a genuine curiosity about him, what he thinks, what makes him tick, why he likes certain things and dislikes others. That's why I'll continue to sit with him, let him turn on a game and start asking questions. It doesn't take long for me to start enjoying it as much as he does.