Contact Sports

by Marinka on April 17, 2012

You may know this, but I have  recently become a baseball superfan.  I am a superfan because my son is a superfan and I refuse to be a regular type of fan.  I even went to a game with him.  And I watch him play.  Because, as previously explained, I am superfan.

And one of the things that I really appreciate baseball is that it is a low-contact sport.  Compared to, say, football and sumo wrestling.

To make things even more reassuring for me, the boys have to wear a cup over their Balzac and also a special shirt with a heart protector.  (Yes, I have looked to see if the shirt comes in extra huge and fashionable spring colors.)

Except on Sunday, Husbandrinka called me from the game to tell me that Young Ladrinka “got pretty banged up.”  Well, he really called me to remind me that he was out of peanut butter so could I make my way to the store to get some, but when I asked how the game was going, he told me about Young Ladrinka.

“WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?” I shouted.

“Just his elbow and his face,” Husbandrinka reassured me.  “And don’t get the Chunky this time.”

“HIS FACE?” I screamed. “By the way, I really like Chunky.”

“Then get the Chunky for yourself, but get me the Creamy,” Husbandrinka reasoned.

“But I don’t like to get a whole thing for myself.  I like to share,” I explained.

And it’s true. I don’t want to be one of those weirdos who has her own jar of peanut butter.  And then the kids would make a sign “Mom’s Peanut Butter” or something and then it would become fodder with my future inlaws.  “Here you go, I got your favorite Chunky peanut butter, Mother Marinka,” I can hear my future daughter-in-law saying.  “I don’t suppose your mother will choke to death on the Chunky this year either,” my son-in-law will bemoan. “It was really promising the way she was shoveling it in over Thanksgiving.”

Fuck that.

When Young Ladrinka came home, I almost passed out.  His eye was like a Picasso, circa Blue Period.  Swollen and bruised with green and purple and yellow.

“I don’t know why you think baseball is no contact sport,” Mama said at lunch, while I shed many tears over Young Ladrinka’s bruised eye and he said heartwarming things like “stop looking at me!”

“Because it is a no-contact sport.”

“There is a lot of contact,” Mama announced, with significance. “A lot.  Everyone hits each other with bats.  That’s why they have to change the material they make bats with.”  She said this with such confidence, that I, who have been to many baseball games and have never seen anyone hit each other with any bats, started to question whether I was perhaps missing an essential beating-with-bats element of the game.

Fortunately, Husbandrinka appeared in an award-winning performance as The Voice of Reason.

“They changed the bats from wood to aluminum because the bats kept breaking,” he explained.

“Oh, so the aluminum bats won’t break when they are beating with them?” Mama asked hopefully.

Husbandrinka didn’t say anything.

It’s hard to talk when you are eating Chunky peanut butter, you know.

 

One year ago ...

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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }

alaina
Twitter:
April 17, 2012 at 9:04 am

I didn’t think baseball was a contact sport either. It always looks like a lot of standing around to me. Although, they do have to wear those hard hats. There is probably a reason behind that.

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tracy@sellabitmum
Twitter:
April 17, 2012 at 2:00 pm

Excellent idea making everyone enjoy the chunky.

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lyndsay April 17, 2012 at 10:53 pm

I have my own Chunky peanut butter. But now I’m re-thinking it.

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Tinne from Tantrums and Tomatoes April 18, 2012 at 7:36 am

What is baseball?

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Loukia April 18, 2012 at 8:49 am

The things I have to look forward to as my boys continue to grow… I’m surely going to be institutionalized by the time they’re teenagers, what with my never-ending anxiety and worry. Sigh.

P.S. white or red? I pack wine for hotel rooms!

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dusty earth mother April 18, 2012 at 11:06 am

I’m a Creamy girl, myself. I hope you still like me. Enough to not hit me with an aluminum bat, at least.

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the mama bird diaries
Twitter:
April 18, 2012 at 12:51 pm

We only buy the natural peanut butter so no one eats it.
Where is the photo?! Not of the peanut butter!

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Marta
Twitter:
April 18, 2012 at 5:39 pm

I can barely stifle my laughs, I’m at my workplace you shouldn’t be THAT funny. (Perhaps instead I shouldn’t be reading blogs, but that is neither here nor there).

I prefer creamy. But I also like the organic kind and I don’t share.

I promise should I ever play baseball near you I would not hit you with the bat, I will probably also not hit the ball, but that is neither here nor there.

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Maricris @ SittingAround April 18, 2012 at 7:59 pm

ha,ha. I know someone who has her own jar of peanut butter!

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Gretchen April 18, 2012 at 10:31 pm

I have recently been forced to become a superfan of Track and Field. Which is also, ostensibly, a non-contact sport, though those javelins look like an accident waiting to happen. And…I have my own jars of everything.

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anymommy April 19, 2012 at 8:57 pm

Any sport with a ball is a contact sport. At some point, the damn ball will make contact with someone’s body.

Creamy. I want my own jar because I hate crumbs in the jar. Do not go back into the jar after you touch the toast with the knife. The rules are simple, but people are idiots. And by people I mean my husband.

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Cy
Twitter:
April 19, 2012 at 11:48 pm

I was never so grateful as when my kids aged out of baseball (you have to be really good to continue after, like, age 12 and that wasn’t happening ’round here.) A special heart protecting shirt would have made me feel MUCH better.

You are so damn funny, Marinka! I’m happy and jealous every time I read you!

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