Dents

"We're here to put a dent in the universe."

 

-Steve Jobs

Every fourth Thursday in November the United States celebrates a holiday called “Thanksgiving.” The holiday is promoted as honoring the “First Thanksgiving,” which was a 1621 celebration of the first harvest gathered by a group of white settlers of North America (the Pilgrims) and local natives.

While the historical accuracy of our “Thanksgiving Story” may be up for debate, the importance and staying power of the holiday isn’t.

In 1863, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens."

So every year at this time, many Americans gather with family, friends and/or sports teams via television, eat copious amounts of food then pass out on the couch. Somewhere in there, many of us try to dwell, at least momentarily, on the good things in our lives.

This year, I am thankful for dents. The Free Dictionary defines a dent in this way:

1. A depression in a surface made by pressure or a blow.

2. A significant, usually diminishing effect or impression.

3. Meaningful progress; headway.

I am here today to give thanks for a dent in my universe.

Regular readers of my semi-regular blog have probably already read of my selection late in life to play the role of daddy to a little girl. It was a surprise selection, but one which I decided to take on with as much gusto as I could muster. So I padded up, grabbed a bat and strode to the crease, confident that it would be OK. After all, I’d always been pretty good with kids. How hard could it be?

Then came this little fast bowler—a three-foot-tall Courtney Walsh in a princess dress—running in, sending high speed bouncers, swinging it both ways and often knocking me flat. And leaving dents in my highly constructed life.

What kind of dents?

Well, let’s see ….

I’m a quiet guy. I like to sit and read and listen to classical music. As a writer, I have always been a big reader. Know how many books I have finished since I started this innings? One. And I don’t even remember what it was. As for the classical music, most of those CDs are now in a box in the basement.

I was a fan of foreign and/or independent films. Stuff without a lot of action and lots of talking and interesting camera angles. I am also a Brit-o-phile, and a huge fan of Last of the Summer Wine, which I collect on DVD. But now we are much too busy watching, singing and dancing along to Meet Me in St. Louis, The Wizard of Oz, Mary Poppins and Dora the Explorer. (Although to be fair my wife and I do set aside time each night to watch something of our own liking—and her tastes are similar to mine—and she loves Last of the Summer Wine, too!)

I was—and remain—a cricket fan. I would stay up to watch games online, or order them to watch on satellite TV. But nowadays the laptop is long dead, we don’t have satellite service and I am much more interested in giving her stuff than ordering a cricket package. But I do still get to listen online at work and a bit at night after we go to bed.

I was rather insulated from the world. I could sit and look at various issues and problems, feel a certain way about them but not get too concerned, because I had built a world specifically designed to avoid those conflicts and problems. But I have been awakened to the true importance of many issues facing our world now and in the future, because those issues will have an impact on my little girl as she grows into a woman. I really do worry and get worked up over these things now.

These may sound like negatives. But they aren’t. These dents are good. And there are more dents for which to be thankful.

Every time she laughs, or smiles, or dances with me, or runs into my arms, or calls me daddy, it puts another big dent in my universe. I can no longer imagine life without her (let alone her mommy).

Yes, the biggest dent of all is that she has slipped in under my bat and dislodged the bails of my self-importance and insularity. She has made me love her.

The biggest dent of all is in my heart.

And it feels good.

And I am thankful.

Greyhounds, Kevin Pietersen, Quakers and Four-Year-Olds, or, what kind of world are we making for our children, anyway?

I read something extremely disturbing the other day. It was about greyhounds. Not the buses. The dogs.

Greyhounds are fast. Because of this, people naturally race them. And bet on them. And because people suck, when a greyhound is injured or too old to race anymore, that dog is left to die or simply killed in one of several often gruesome ways, including shooting, clubbing or throwing it into the water for shark bait. These dogs are beautiful, loving animals that can think on about the same level as a four- or five-year-old kid. And we’re doing crap like this to them. Pardon my language, but come the crap on! We do this to other dogs and also cats as well, in a more “humane” way, but this seems especially egregious. Dogs are thinking, feeling beings (as anyone who has ever owned a dog can tell you) and we are murdering them in cold blood because of money. Got to keep those profits high, keep the customers happy, keep the costs down. “We must keep the money machine going.”

Things like this really get my attention these days, because this kind of thing is allowed in the same world as the one in which my wife and I are trying to raise a little girl.

I read something else disturbing the other day. It was about this whole flap about Kevin Pietersen being allowed back in the England cricket team (“reintegrated”) after a process of reconciliation. Never mind how disturbing it is that they are using terms normally associated with quite important things…like reintegrating prisoners back into society, and seeking reconciliation between perpetrators of genocide and their victims.  Basically what this all comes down to is that KP is a spoiled brat with an ego the size of the moon, and he keeps showing it. But so do many of his teammates, who are jealous of his success and talent. The England and Wales Cricket Board, after many bouts of ham-handed foot-in-mouth disease, has now spent all kinds of time and money on an issue which really boils down to egotistical little boys fighting on a playground. Nobody seems to be able to stop and say “This is a sport—a game, for crying out loud. Just play it and stop all the nonsense.” Except it isn’t just a game or sport any more—at least, not at this level. It is a money machine, both legal (sponsorship deals, ticket sales, etc) and illegitimate (gambling, etc.) so people think the stakes are too high. “We must keep the money machine going.” And while the ECB and KP and everyone else spends untold gobs of money traveling, meeting, reporting, covering, discussing and negotiating, hundreds of thousands of people face imminent starvation in Somalia, hundreds have died so far in floods in Nigeria and humanitarian crises loom in Afghanistan and Syria. But that isn’t important. What is important is that KP wants a lot of money. The ECB wants a lot of money. People will pay a lot of money to see KP. People will pay to read about KP. Let’s not move on to something important and ignore these tantrums (on both sides of the issue). “We must keep the money machine going.”

Things like this really get my attention these days, because this kind of thing is allowed in the same world as the one in which my wife and I are trying to raise a little girl.

This talk of reintegration and reconciliation in the England cricket team brings to mind an issue in my home state of Indiana. Something else I find disturbing. The Christian denomination to which I belong is undergoing a split—or, as we are calling it, a “reconfiguration.” Indiana Yearly Meeting—a part of the Friends, or Quaker, denomination—is splitting over issues like interpretation of the Bible and homosexuality. We have spent years arguing over this. We have spent the past couple of years talking and arguing and saying really hateful and mean things to one another. We are splitting because some churches don’t want to be associated with other churches (or, Meetings as we call them) who would welcome and affirm LGBT folks as equals in Christian fellowship. The people think that being even tenuously connected to people who tolerate gays means they are going to Hell. Meanwhile, the United States has the highest child poverty rate in the developed world, we have mass shootings occurring every year and some jerk in Texas recently “lynched” an empty chair representing the president of our country—calling to mind racist acts of the past where people were hanged simply because of their race. In DR Congo people are enslaved and killed over a precious metal we all need in our mobile phones—and that’s the only place to get it. But talk on. We are too busy being right and kicking out people who don’t agree with us to worry about such things. Jersey Shore is on the TV, followed by a televangelist, then we need to text someone about donuts and it will be time to go to bed feeling self-righteous. And our denomination isn’t the only one. Many people can’t let go, forgive and move on because to them Christianity is a Thing. A business. A growing business. A successful cultural machine. In other words, a money machine. “We must keep the money machine going.”

Things like this really get my attention these days, because this kind of thing is allowed in the same world as the one in which my wife and I are trying to raise a little girl.

I shudder to think about a future conversation I might have with our little girl.

Her: “Daddy, why did they do that?”

Me: “I don’t know, honey. I guess those people didn’t like (fill in the blank).”

Her: “It was awfully mean.”

Me: “Yes. Yes it was.”

Her: “So if I don’t like (fill in the blank), can I (shoot/kick out/berate/bribe) those people?

Me: “No, honey, that wouldn’t be right.”

Her: “Who would stop me?”

Me: “Well, I guess mommy and me.”

Her: But why didn’t you stop (fill in the blank?)”

Me: Silence.

What will my answer be?

Me: “Um, let’s go outside and play some cricket, honey.”

Her: “Later, Daddy. First why don’t you answer my question?”

Me: Silence.

So what would your answer be?

For that question there really is no answer, is there?

 At least not one that our kids or their kids would find satisfactory.

Everybody Get Together, Or, I get sappy about my high school reunion

(To my usual readers: I apologize for the non-cricket post!)

People love to hate high school reunions. The prevailing wisdom is that it is a waste of time to go back to the old hometown and spend an evening not talking to people you don’t know, and probably won’t like, who were once people you knew and actually didn’t like.

“I didn’t like those people when I was in school,” one of my friends responded when I mentioned my high school reunion. “Something tells me that hasn’t changed.”

We all remember what it was like in high school, right? Cliques, bullies, rejection, hassles…never mind the fact that we were all just trying to figure out the meaning of life. At least, that seems to be the high school we often want to remember. And, let’s face it: There were bad things. Bad people. Racists. Jerks. Misogynists. People who picked on you. People you picked on. People who ostracized you. People you ostracized.

As my own 30-year reunion date approached, it would have been easy for me to fall into this type of thinking. Just remember bad stuff. After all, I was a 90-pound weakling when I graduated. I was a geek whose jeans were often too short and who was too afraid of deep social interaction to form really close relationships. Don’t get me wrong: I knew a lot of people, and had a lot of school friends. I cracked jokes. I tried to be nice and friendly. I was just … well, shy might be an understatement. I was such a mess that, although my fondness for the female sex was (and remains) at an atmospherically high level, I never once asked a girl out. Not in all of high school. Even though there were several I really, really wanted to ask out (no names, sorry!). I was too afraid. You get the picture, right? It would be very easy for my human memory to filter things through this lens of shyness, backwardness and social aloofness, and for me be one of those naysayers who decides to skip yet another reunion.

But as my wife and I walked into my 30-year reunion, the first thing I saw was a stark reminder of the things we should remember about our high school class, and about ourselves: A huge, handmade “get well” and support card for a classmate who is suffering from cancer … and a jar for contributions to help send him to get an experimental treatment. This was more than just people getting together to stand in cliques, have some food and a beer and talk about Mr. Ellis the crazy social studies teacher. It was about community.

Community is something we strive for in our culture, and yet it is something we destroy by our own actions. We sit in our cubicles at work, then drive home alone in our cars, and pull into our identical houses in our identical suburbs and hole up until time to go back to work or church or kids’ activities. We read and post political diatribes on Facebook, watch reality television and feel superior about how crazy everyone else is (and that we don’t have to deal with “those people”).

But we forget one very important fact: We are—each of us—one of “those people.”

So, instead of the lens that a smug, faulty memory and pop culture would provide us to remember high school, let’s use as our lens a group of aging rebels gathered in the back of a bowling alley on an October night in 2012.

After the card I mentioned above, one of the first things I noticed was that nobody wanted to sit down (except when we were eating of course). We wanted to stay standing as much as possible, so we could walk around and talk to one another. There was lots of hugging. There was lots of noise. Laughter. Smiles. Stories about those present, and those who couldn’t or wouldn’t make it. Stories about our lives then and now. Stories that reconnected us … or showed that we are always connected.

We shared stories about that one fight we were in. Stories about how we avoided fights. Stories about hallway antics and being sent to the dean and going to ball games. Stories about what it was like to be ourselves, fully alive in the moment.

It was, as critics like to say about reunions, a lot like high school. But in a good way.

Do you remember it now? Do you remember what it was like to be in a community of people who were different from you, but the same? People to whom our differences didn’t matter as much as we would all like to think? People who could find common ground between all of these “other” things that could keep us apart?

That common ground was that we were Muncie Southside Rebels. We were the school on the “wrong” side of the tracks. It was us against “them.” Sure, in many ways it was a social construct into which we were forced by geography. But living in a social construct doesn’t create a community. We were a community because we really needed to be. Wanted to be.

The other day my wife and I heard some cheerleaders doing their bit to drum up crowd support for their team. I don’t recall the exact cheer, but it struck me that all they were really saying was “Yay, us! We are us!” It sounds kind of silly. But it isn’t.

1982: We are us. We are female, male, white, black, Hispanic, straight, gay, tall, short, buff, round, KISS-loving, Kenny Rogers-loving, Donna Summer-loving, Dallas-loving, Dallas-hating, athletic, geeky, wise-ass, serious, smoking, non-smoking, drinking, tee-totaling, engaged, single, democrat, republican, independent people. We are sons, daughters, cousins, friends, lovers. We are shy, lonely, outgoing, loving, mean, hurt, healed. We are as different as snowflakes. We are as similar as rays of sunlight.

2012: We are us. We are female, male, white, black, Hispanic, straight, gay, tall, short, buff, round, bald, gray, young-looking, decrepit, football—loving, football-hating, cricket-loving, cricket-ignoring, Snooki-watching, Snooki-ignoring, athletic, geeky, wise-ass, serious, smoking, non-smoking, drinking, tee-totaling, married, divorced, remarried, single, democrat, republican, independent people. We are truck drivers, veterans, peace-lovers, accountants, teachers, bartenders, writers. We are moms, dads, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, friends, lovers. We are shy, lonely, outgoing, loving, mean, hurt, healed. We are as different as snowflakes. We are as similar as rays of sunlight.

Looking around at everyone in the back of the bowling alley, it struck me that some things never change. I’m not talking about stagnation. We grow as people. We have to. But as we smiled and talked and laughed and hugged, all the “other” stuff fell away. We were ourselves. Fully alive. In the moment.

Perhaps my lens is a little out of focus, or perhaps I walked through a Happy Juice Fogger. But I see it. Do you?

We are us.                                                                      

Yay us!

So I guess high school reunions aren’t so bad, are they? For a few hours we are reminded of who we really are; that, in many ways, who we are now is who we were then. Before life walked in and sat on our shoulders and bent our backs and told us how things are supposed to be in the “real world.” When we could sit next to or talk to a druggie, or someone in KISS makeup, or someone wearing a suit and tie, or a cheerleader or a geek and have none of it really matter.

This is not all to say that we are all perfect and get along all the time and choose to hang out with everyone all the time. Far from it. We had and have cliques. We have people with whom we share more in common and with whom we choose to spend most of our time. We were and are mean to people. We are human beings.

The point is what happens in those spaces between our likes and dislikes, and all those characteristics I listed above. The point is that those spaces between aren’t as wide as the world tells us they are (or should be). In fact, when we meet there they begin to overlap and all that stuff gets clouded and pushed aside and we are simply there, with each other, caring and sharing and laughing and hugging. Is it me, or does that sound a little bit like what everybody wishes life in a community would be like?

So I guess we Muncie Southside Rebels from the class of 1982 already know the secret to being a community.

It’s love, man. Say it with me. Love. Not just loving others. Loving yourself enough to let those around you be themselves. And our time growing up on Muncie’s south side and in Muncie Southside helped us become people who can do that.

Do you get it now?

We are us.

Yay us!

See you all in five years, if not sooner!

Doing it for the Kids, or Free Coloring Pages

One of the projects I'm working on is a cricket-themed coloring and activity book for kids. Below are a few pages I've started working on. Feel free to print them out and see if your cricket-loving kids like them ... or see if your non-cricket-loving kids like them!

These are lo-res jpegs. I have hi-res PDF if you'd prefer...just let me know!

Comments are welcome, as are ideas for activities and pages to include.

Cricket Noir

Cricket Noir

A Short Fiction

By Terry Coffey

In the fading twilight, nobody hears you scream. Correction: They hear you. They just don’t pay any attention. Not even the umpires.

That thought was etching itself slowly on my brain like a cheap tattoo from a dirty needle as I sat on the ground pondering my next move. I was trying to decide whether or not to stand back up after a nasty bouncer had come at my head out of the darkness like a demonic express train pouring out of a railway tunnel.

It actually wasn’t much of a choice. In this business you don’t last long or get many calls to play if you can’t handle a little dirt and danger. I was here to do a job, plain and simple. Do the job in as honest a way as possible. Any other way could only lead to being dropped. Or being branded a coward and having every head hunter in the league spoiling for a shot.

So I stood up. The stars were coming out over my head, making me think that, on this occasion, my assigned task was appropriately named. I was the night watchman, sent in to survive the final over of the day and protect our marquee batsmen so they might live to bat another day. Not a pretty business, but, in fast-fading light on a dark and dangerous cricket pitch not much is pretty. At least not close up.

This happens all the time in my business. From a distance I’m sure it all looks very calm and serene. Perhaps a late evening picnic with a fine wine or local craft beer would be in order. But there in the middle, with the darkness gathering on your eyes and shoulders like moss and trailing vines, it’s anything but serene. It’s mean and deadly and those who want to survive need to keep their wits about them. So I ignored the frigid beauty of the stars beginning to twinkle knowingly above, took my guard and hoped like hell that earning my daily crust of bread wasn’t going to involve having to pay for any costly dental work to allow me to eat that crust.

The next ball that rifled out of the darkness of the bowler’s hand wasn’t quite as short as the first, but was almost as dangerous. It thudded short of a length with the sound of a blackjack fracturing a skull, then fizzed up at my throat like a guided missile. Just in time my bat was there to intercept the blow. This time the sound was more like that of a small caliber pistol dispensing a soft-nosed bullet into the back of a corrupt gambler’s head, and thanks to my soft hands the ball dropped to the ground at my feet with just as much life and future.

Cases like this are always the toughest ones to crack. So it is always a point of pride with me that I’m the guy who gets called on to handle it. Don’t get me wrong: The flamboyant all-in-white gents who populate the rarified air at the top of the order are necessary in this business. They attract the money, the fans, the accolades and they do the big, important, match-winning jobs like scoring fifties or hundreds. Down here in the low rent district, though, you’ve got to have guys like me. Guys who bowl or keep wicket, guys with rock in their jaw and steel in their eye. Guys who can take it and dish it out. Guys who crack the case and get the job done through a combination of luck, skill, street smarts and determination. Guys who survive.

Ball number three reminded me of a featherweight dancer I once knew. Mona was tiny and beautiful and she would dance seductively and lightly toward you, all welcoming and promise until she laid you out with the help of a roll of nickels in her small fist. It looked and felt like a slower ball as it emerged from the grey. I skipped eagerly toward it like a mark going for a grifter’s best line. But it spat off the pitch as though propelled by a chemical reaction and caressed my jaw like Mona’s roll of nickels. I fell to earth I knew not where for the space of several seconds.

When I stood up again I wasn’t sure if the brightening stars were in the sky or in my head, which was now more or less the consistency and usefulness of mush. There were cuts on my lip and chin and the metallic taste of blood was forming on my tongue, but other than that I appeared to be in one piece. I couldn’t say the same for one of the fielders. In this business there are always innocent victims, and the death’s head ball that rose inconveniently out of a pock in the pitch and bounced off of my face had found a much more devastating target to end it’s painful trip in the cupless lap of the unfortunate first slip. As he writhed in pain I knew there was nothing I could do. And their physio wasn’t going to chance a trip out onto the pitch. Any delay would force the umpires’ hand and the day’s play would end. So they left the poor sap there, rolling on the ground, his face a mask of pain that burned out even through the gathering darkness and seared an image into the eyes of every man standing on the field.

As I wobbled to the crease to take guard once again, one of the other fielders decided to help out the bowler. There’s always at least one of these wise guys on every team. This one was an Aussie and, like most Aussies I’ve known he came complete shark tooth grin, a chin that jutted forward dagger-like, eyes like razors and the gaudy patter that comes with insecurity. His patter was no gaudier than most, and in fact less effective. But I was done taking a beating. Finished with being the patsy. Sick of being knocked around like the new kid on the playground.

As the bowler appeared with menacing intent and hurled the ball toward me, I knew exactly where it was going and what I was going to do with it. It was another throat-high delivery, dangerous as a gunshot. But the previous delivery’s knockdown of me and injuring of the slip fielder had apparently caused the bowler to take a couple of miles per hour off the velocity. I rose with venom, bringing the bat up and then downward with the grunt of a drunk expending all of his energy on one last attempt to climb into bed. The bat connected with the ball with such ferocity that my joints ached with the vibration.

The Aussie never had a chance. I watched in slow motion as the ball homed in on his middle and knew that, cup or not, he would be unable to speak for several minutes when the missile hit its target. He collapsed straight down in a pile, imploding like a derelict building being demolished by explosive charges. I felt a little sick myself as he lay there, retching onto the pitch and crying for his mother.

I was banking on ball number five being a yorker. After the previous two deliveries I figured the bowler would want to try something to just get rid of me, before anyone else got hurt. Sometimes that what you have to do in my job. Rattle enough cages and make people mad or disgusted or exhausted enough to just want the whole thing over with.

It was in fact the yorker that came my way, and it went back in the opposite direction twice as fast. The ball flew away on a curve like the small of a woman’s back, hovered magically above the line separating the darkening ground and the still-faintly-lit sky then fell over the rope for a straight six.

That left me with just one more ball to face. One more bullet to dodge, then I’d head back to my rooms to sit by the open window with a bottle of rye. I’d watch through lightly breezed curtains as the night city played and crawled and coughed in the neon moonlight and I might even think about Mona and her roll of nickels.

The bowler ran in as though he’d been saving his energy for this one final sprint toward immortality. He emerged from the outfield and gathered speed like a 1957 Buick, hard and shiny and deadly with the high beams completely focused on one point, one destination: my head. My eyes and mouth were open wide as he leapt into the air and began his delivery.

I wanted to scream and duck, but as I said at the very beginning, in the fading twilight, nobody hears you scream. Correction: They hear you. They just don’t pay any attention. Not even the umpires.

Living in Fear, or Why a Young Man Died on the Tracks

I never met Tom Maynard. I never even saw him in person. What I know of this incredible young cricket talent is what I learned from his Wikipedia entry, and from Mark Church’s descriptions of his play. I don’t even know the exact circumstances of his death, or of the hours leading up to that fateful moment on the tracks of the London Underground.

But I do l know one thing: Tom Maynard was afraid. The question is, afraid of what?

It has been reported in the media that Maynard had earlier been pulled over by police for driving “erratically,” and that he had fled his car on foot. An hour later he lay dead. The erratic driving will lead to the charge that he was driving while under the influence of alcohol. Time will tell on that point.

But whatever the cause, Maynard bolted like a terrified and untested batsman leaping from crease without even thinking that there is no run to be had, simply because the flight instinct has taken over.

How many similar accidents, injuries and deaths have we read about with a shake of the head and the thought “Well that’s a shame?” Celebrities. Sporting heroes. Regular folks. All running blindly from sheer fright. Again, why?

Fear is a subject in which I can claim some knowledge. I suffer from a strange and painful habit of suddenly seeing myself on my deathbed, feeling the lonely steps of Death’s approach, watching the blackness take hold as my eyes close. On such occasions I tend to leap up and shout something like “God help me,” or, if the attack is less severe, simply kick out with my legs, wave my arms and shake my head. These are all automatic reactions—I can’t stop myself from doing these things, any more than I seem to be able to stop my attacks. I run. I run from death. I run from the pressures of taking care of a family in tough economic times. I run from the fear of not being able to provide for the daughter I love. I run from the fear that she will never be any closer to me than she is now because I am legally her step-father. I run from fear of failure. I fear judgment.

A few years ago my house was hit by a drunken driver. A young kid—no more than 17 or 18—lost control and wound up threading between trees on the property and bashing one corner of my home. It was about one o’clock in the morning, so it took me a few seconds to get downstairs and to the front door. The young man was long gone … he had abandoned his smashed-up car and run away on foot. He had been so frightened that he had forgotten that there was nowhere to run. His car, complete with registration and fingerprints, was still behind, and in the hands of the police within minutes. Yet still he ran. He ran from trouble with his parents, possible jail time, and a darkening future once bright with possibilities. He ran from the awfulness of his mistake. He feared judgment.

Remember Princess Diana? Careening madly with Dodi Fayed through the early morning streets of Paris, pursued by the paparazzi? She ran from fear and tiredness. Fear of yet more pictures being published with misleading angles and captions. Fear of yet another moment lost to a lack of privacy. Fear of letting down any of the millions of people who loved her. She feared judgment.

And what did Tom Maynard fear? He feared everything I’ve just mentioned. He feared the loss of opportunity. He feared the loss of the only life he held dear. He feared the end of his world. Perhaps he too feared judgment.

Whose judgment?

Yours.

Mine.

His own.

In a way, Tom Maynard, like Princess Diana, the young drunk driver and countless others, was running from all of us. Pressure to be perfect. Because we are imperfect. Pressure to be talented. Because we lack talent. Pressure of people wanting to know the details of a public person’s life. Because we so hate our own lives. The pressure of approaching judgment. Because we fear so judgment.

Perhaps no more fitting tribute to Maynard could be found than to think on that. Why was he afraid? Why did he run away? And to think about what can be done to make sure this stops happening.

In a world of constant pressure to do it right, not let anyone down, do everything for everybody so you can keep your world together and turning for those you love, perhaps each of us should ask the question: Why do we want to make each other live with this fear? Because when you live in fear, it becomes a habit and it begins to color your every move. Like a batsman at the crease who fears the fast bowler’s high bouncer, one can never live a full and productive life if one’s only thoughts are papered over with the blackness of fear. The old saying about a coward living a thousand deaths is true and very appropriate to the modern life.

Should Maynard have been afraid? Had he done something wrong? I cannot say. I cannot judge. All I can do is see another human being, full of love and hate and promise and talent and faults and fear. And mourn.

For him.

For me.

For the whole damned thing.

Can A Leg Glance, and where does an Off Drive? Or, Where’s the Ball Going?

Whether listening to audio commentary, reading a match report or following a game via ball-by-ball texts, following the action on the pitch can quickly become confusing to the cricket neophyte and recent convert.

The pitch is broken up into several sections, each one named to help communicate who is doing what where on the pitch. And when the batsman hits the ball into one of these sections, wouldn’t it be nice to know where the ball is actually going?

                       

Enter the American ArmChair Cricketer! Simply open and print off the diagram showing the most basic cricket shots and their locations and hang it up wherever you listen to or follow cricket matches. For the most part, this graphic will help you see where the ball is going in relation to the batsman.