Chip Shots: My Weekend Plans? Golf, Baseball… Sort Of
April 8, 2022 at 10:58 p.m.
Chip Shots: My Weekend Plans? Golf, Baseball… Sort Of
By Chip Davenport-
I’ll turn into The Masters for some golf viewing, ummm, if Tiger Woods makes the cut. Additionally, instead of watching Major League Baseball, I’m going to see if the 1976 comedy, “The Bad News Bears,” is streaming among my purveyors of on-demand entertainment.
Let’s talk about golf, first.
I am one of those folks who to this day does not watch golf unless Woods is in the hunt for a championship finish. From 1997 until 2009 there was nothing like him. He moved ratings and created purse levels so high in the game of golf any professional golfer making a great living should wake up each morning and bow to Florida before they hit the links.
I haven’t golfed since the summer of 2008. I sold my clubs the following winter.
“A middle-aged, middle class, white guy with no clubs in the Midwest,” you’ll likely say to yourself. “This guy ain’t right.”
I’ll pile on with you.
Chip Davenport, holder of one of North America’s WASP-iest nicknames and surnames, does not own a set of golf clubs.
I didn’t want to devote the time to playing the required rounds of golf to be even remotely good at it. I traveled so much between 2006 and 2009 when I was home my wife sure as heck wasn’t going to embrace me leaving the house for an additional four-to-six hours after she had already been solo-parenting with my “littles” the previous four or five nights.
I missed my kids, too, although I was a younger, but much grouchier version of my current self. The bug to play golf wasn’t biting me as hard as assembling LEGOs or playing a fashion designer video game was.
I’m eager to re-watch, for the first time in at least 40 years, “The Bad News Bears” instead of an actual MLB game. How could “The Bad News Bears” be better baseball viewing than MLB opening weekend action?
I weighed the pros and cons. Here’s why “The Bad News Bears” had more pros than cons.
The movie finishes much more quickly than a MLB game. I still own a good chunk of the afternoon when I’m finished.
The kids in the movie were just like many of the kids I played baseball with on the sandlot. It’s not necessarily high praise when you think of characters like Tanner Boyle, and Kelly Leak, but these kids were entertaining, nonetheless.
I believe almost every little league has at least one stacked team. I enjoyed the fact they won, as they should have in terms of superior talent, but I enjoyed – even more - Tanner Boyle and Timmy Lupus spoiling their victory celebration.
Alfred Ogilvie, the Bears’ stat nerd, hits close to home. I was much better at filing player stats in my brain than executing skillfully on the field. Unlike Ogilvie, however, I enjoyed playing even though I wasn’t talented. Instead of being nervous about a hit ball coming my way when I was put into right field, I wanted some action because the next chance was a chance to do something right to shake off the previous miscues.
My preadolescent athletic ineptitude at the plate overshadowed some other skills I had. I was fast, smart, I could catch most of what was hit in front of me (in FRONT of me), and – it’s beyond me why – I could throw from anywhere in the outfield. All it took to send me back from the plate to the dugout, however, was a pitcher at least eight-years old who could throw strikes… even when I was twelve-years old.
My baseball card would have read - according to my St. Francis Xavier Elementary School classmate, Jim Kirchener - “Chip Davenport, DO” for designated out. You could hear the collective exasperated voices as soon as I picked up a bat.
Another classmate, Pete Korte, once asked as I approached the plate, “Does anyone know the words to ‘Sound of Silence’?”
Finally, another fun takeaway from the movie was the parents. They were the biggest jerks in the movie, and I recall how well art imitated life even when I was watching the movie as a teenager in 1982, six years after its release, recalling what I saw and heard in organized ballgames.
Enjoy golf if you still play it. Have fun watching the 2022 MLB season in its first weekend. I, on the other hand, have alternate plans.
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I’ll turn into The Masters for some golf viewing, ummm, if Tiger Woods makes the cut. Additionally, instead of watching Major League Baseball, I’m going to see if the 1976 comedy, “The Bad News Bears,” is streaming among my purveyors of on-demand entertainment.
Let’s talk about golf, first.
I am one of those folks who to this day does not watch golf unless Woods is in the hunt for a championship finish. From 1997 until 2009 there was nothing like him. He moved ratings and created purse levels so high in the game of golf any professional golfer making a great living should wake up each morning and bow to Florida before they hit the links.
I haven’t golfed since the summer of 2008. I sold my clubs the following winter.
“A middle-aged, middle class, white guy with no clubs in the Midwest,” you’ll likely say to yourself. “This guy ain’t right.”
I’ll pile on with you.
Chip Davenport, holder of one of North America’s WASP-iest nicknames and surnames, does not own a set of golf clubs.
I didn’t want to devote the time to playing the required rounds of golf to be even remotely good at it. I traveled so much between 2006 and 2009 when I was home my wife sure as heck wasn’t going to embrace me leaving the house for an additional four-to-six hours after she had already been solo-parenting with my “littles” the previous four or five nights.
I missed my kids, too, although I was a younger, but much grouchier version of my current self. The bug to play golf wasn’t biting me as hard as assembling LEGOs or playing a fashion designer video game was.
I’m eager to re-watch, for the first time in at least 40 years, “The Bad News Bears” instead of an actual MLB game. How could “The Bad News Bears” be better baseball viewing than MLB opening weekend action?
I weighed the pros and cons. Here’s why “The Bad News Bears” had more pros than cons.
The movie finishes much more quickly than a MLB game. I still own a good chunk of the afternoon when I’m finished.
The kids in the movie were just like many of the kids I played baseball with on the sandlot. It’s not necessarily high praise when you think of characters like Tanner Boyle, and Kelly Leak, but these kids were entertaining, nonetheless.
I believe almost every little league has at least one stacked team. I enjoyed the fact they won, as they should have in terms of superior talent, but I enjoyed – even more - Tanner Boyle and Timmy Lupus spoiling their victory celebration.
Alfred Ogilvie, the Bears’ stat nerd, hits close to home. I was much better at filing player stats in my brain than executing skillfully on the field. Unlike Ogilvie, however, I enjoyed playing even though I wasn’t talented. Instead of being nervous about a hit ball coming my way when I was put into right field, I wanted some action because the next chance was a chance to do something right to shake off the previous miscues.
My preadolescent athletic ineptitude at the plate overshadowed some other skills I had. I was fast, smart, I could catch most of what was hit in front of me (in FRONT of me), and – it’s beyond me why – I could throw from anywhere in the outfield. All it took to send me back from the plate to the dugout, however, was a pitcher at least eight-years old who could throw strikes… even when I was twelve-years old.
My baseball card would have read - according to my St. Francis Xavier Elementary School classmate, Jim Kirchener - “Chip Davenport, DO” for designated out. You could hear the collective exasperated voices as soon as I picked up a bat.
Another classmate, Pete Korte, once asked as I approached the plate, “Does anyone know the words to ‘Sound of Silence’?”
Finally, another fun takeaway from the movie was the parents. They were the biggest jerks in the movie, and I recall how well art imitated life even when I was watching the movie as a teenager in 1982, six years after its release, recalling what I saw and heard in organized ballgames.
Enjoy golf if you still play it. Have fun watching the 2022 MLB season in its first weekend. I, on the other hand, have alternate plans.
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