the greatest moment
in sports history and I …
was there to see it

I am NOT the world’s biggest sports fan.

I know there are those who might argue that, and to those I respond that if anyone think’s that I am a big sports fan … has never met a big sports fan.

Sure I like Michigan sports but regular readers will know that its a family thing going back over 100 years so I come by it honestly.

Sure I have a lot of Michigan emblazoned stuff, but most of it was gifts so again, I come by it honestly.

Yes, I did just order myself a M Football Jersey for this year’s #42 but then this year, Michigan player wearing #42 happens to be named Jalen Hoffman so I can get a personalized jersey without ordering a personalized jersey so I come by it honestly.

The CEO of the company I used to work for was fond of saying, “33% of Americans love sports. 100% of American’s who love sports think EVERYONE loves sports.

I can agree with that.

I can also agree with the great sportswriter (and stepson of EB White) Roger Angell when he wrote …

“It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look — I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable.

Almost.

What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring — caring deeply and passionately, really caring — which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives.

And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved.

Naïveté — the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball — seems a small price to pay for such a gift.

With that in mind, I have witnessed a couple of great moments in sports.

Along with my good friend, Doug, I witnessesed what was billed as a double header between The Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers at Comiskey Park back in 1979.

The 2nd game of the double header was never played as between games a riot took place when 8,000 fans rushed the field to take part in what was called Disco Demolition.

It might not have been sports but it has gone down in history as the world’s WORST sports promotion of all time.

And I was there.

Also with Doug, I witnessed Anthony Carter score a touchdown to beat Indiana with no time on the clock in Michigan Stadium.

Also in Michigan Stadium, I saw Desmond Howard fly 20 yards horizontally over the field for a touchdown to beat Notre Dame and win the Heisman Trophy.

I saw Willie Horton hit a pinch hit home run to beat Texas and give Mark Fidrych another win in Tiger Stadium.

But the greatest moment in sports I ever saw happened in the gym at Crestview Elementary School in Grand Rapids, Michigan when I was in 4th grade.

Back then, we didn’t have Phys Ed or a regular gym class but every other week or so, a Gym Teacher assigned to our school would show up and we would change into out gym shoes that hung on the back of our chairs, and file down to the gym for some directed physical activity.

(BTW to this day it is ingrained in me to ‘respect the hardwood’ and I cringe when I see people in street shoes out on a court but I digress.)

Aside from that, we would go the gym when our teacher needed a break or when she sensed we had a lot of pent up energy, like before Christmas when emotions ran high.

Without the Gym Teacher, it was up to our regular teacher to come up with something easy to do in the gym.

And the easiest thing to do in the gym was to get out a bunch of those big red rubber four square balls … and play dodge ball.

My 4th grade class met the usual demographics for 4th grade.

It was around 30 kids, half girls and half boys with some big kids and lots of little kids.

There were always a few kids who were born late in the year and started late and were ahead of the rest of us physically.

And then there was Cookie.

Cookie was the nicest kid, always had a big smile and a laugh.

He was just … big.

And he loved to play dodgeball.

When it came to dodgeball, he didn’t see the rest of us as kids but as targets.

Cookie didn’t just play dodgeball with us.

He played with us, playing dodgeball.

Ever see those videos of dogs herding sheep or maybe better, jackals circling a herd of water buffalo?

We would get to the gym and our teacher would go into the storage closet and toss out those rubber balls.

You remember those red rubber balls, don’t you?

The were red.

The were rubber.

And the surface was roughed up so you could get a grip on one.

The rough surface also had a way of grabbing onto you if thrown hard enough, and taking most of the skin off wherever it hit.

With the balls out on the gym floor, our teacher would get out of the way and Cookie would take over.

Cookie was such a master at this game that when word went out that the 4th grade and Cookie were playing dodgeball in the gym, other teachers realized they needed to go to the office for something and leave their classrooms to stand in the gym doorway and watch.

There would be a mad rush to start as we tried to survive.

The girls would usually pick up a ball and toss it at another girl to get out quickly.

I not too proud to admit, the boys would do the same thing.

But to get out quickly just delayed the inevitable since when who ever got you out, got out, you were back in.

The only way to the sidelines and safety was to let Cookie get you and get it over with.

Cookie playing dodgeball was art in motion.

He could throw and throw hard.

He could catch.

And he could dodge anything.

He once set his sites on me so I stood behind a friend of mine for safety.

Cookie flexed his fingers as he threw and that ball spun and curved in flight right around my friend and smacked me in the face.

Like I said, Cookie was the nicest kid.

He took it easy on the girls.

There was an unspoked agreement and the girls could run at Cookie and throw a ball at him which he would catch and the girl could go safely to the sidelines.

If I would stand up straight in the middle of the gym floor, Cookie would have mercy and finish me off with a nice easy throw that if it hit me on a bare arm, would leave a mark only for a day or two and I could walk off.

But show detemination?

Show courage?

Make an effort to get Cookie out?

And you were doomed.

Unless you had a plan.

For a long time, the third-baseman-playing-close-to-close-the-cone theory made popular by Graig Nettles of the New York Yankees stuck in my mind.

I thought about dodgeball late at night and I had figured that if I ran in close to Cookie and closed the cone, I would decrease the amount of time the ball had to pick up speed, and maybe I would have a reasonable chance to catch the ball and put Cookie out.

It might have worked for Graig Nettles but I doubt it and it didn’t work for me.

Let me tell you though, if Graig Nettles had been with us in that gym and been hit with a Cookie fastball, he would have given up on the idea, like I did.

All the time the game was going on, balls flying, kids flying, kids screaming, Cookie waded through the battle with his big smile on his and slowly but surely, knocked everyone in class out, every time we played.

Understand, Cookie played without malice but with a joy for the game and the fact that he played dodgeball so well.

Then came the day.

As I remember it for the sake of this story, it was a gray rainy Michigan day which meant no recess and our teacher went to the office to reserve the gym for our class.

When she came she announced no outside recess and to change into our gym shoes.

“Let’s play …”, and she paused, “dodgeball.”

The room took on the feeling of an NFL locker room for a team about to play the ’85 Chicago Bears.

We all changed into our gym shoes in silence while Cookie smiled his smile.

As always there were a couple of boys who were up for the game.

Walking down the hall to the Gym, Cal and Sylvester and Edward and some others would be trash talking Cookie.

“Today’s the day, Cookie!”

“You going down, Cook!” … and other such phrases.

Years later when people complained about the Fab Five Michigan Basketball team and their trash talking, I told folks, they hadn’t heard anything like my 4th grade class.

Tension and excitement built up down that long walk to the gym.

Once inside the gym, we scattered but there is no place to hide on a gym floor.

I can hear the sound those bouncing red rubber balls made when our Teacher tossed them out onto the gym floor.

She looked around, counted one … two … three and blew her whistle.

And the game was on.

Get Cookie early was the strategy, when the early melee was starting, filled with confusion.

But even if someone did get a chance to get a throw at Cookie, he would catch any ball like an all pro wide reviver.

Cookie was so quick and he got one of two of balls early and started picking us off, one by one.

Within five minutes, half the class was the sidelines.

As the sidelines crowd grew, so did the ohhhsssssss and ahhhhhs like what you hear at the 4th of July fireworks as one kid after another was blasted out of the game.

There would be an occasional burst of action when someone who had managed to get other kids out, got out themselves and those kids had to get back in the game.

Soon it was down to 6 kids then 5 then 4 and then all that was left was Cookie, Cal and little Stevie.

Stevie was one of those kids who always had a smile on his face no matter what.

Stevie was quiet but always gave 100% no matter what the class was doing and he was always up for any game in the gym.

Now Stevie and Cal faced off with Cookie

Luck was with them and they had all the rubber balls and Cal and Stevie were able to work Cookie into a corner.

Cal motioned to Stevie and they both approached Cookie at the same time along opposite walls with a ball ready to throw.

Great strategy!

I can still see Cal staring straight ahead at Cookie while he gestured to Stevie to move in along the other wall.

They got to within 20 feet when Cal nodded at Stevie and they both threw as hard as the could at Cookie at the same time.

Cookie jumped to one side and caught Cal’s throw one handed.

Cal was out.

Stevie’s throw missed.

Cookie stood up and smiled.

Stevie ran for the other two balls which he threw as he ran and Cookie dodged easily.

Now Cookie held one ball and all three other balls were behind him.

Stevie stood alone in the center of the gym.

And they stared at each other.

Then Cookie taunted Stevie and he rolled the other balls out, daring Stevie to make a move to get one.

Stevie didn’t move.

Cookie took a step or two closer and faked a throw.

Stevie didn’t flinch.

Then Cookie stared at Stevie, drew a bead, as they say, on him and fired off the single hardest throw in dodgeball history.

Faster than a bullet, it hit Stevie full in the chest with a loud red rubber ball WHUMP and knocked him off his feet into the air and back about 5 yards.

I want to say it knocked Stevie out of his shoes, into the air and he fell hard, flat on on his back and then slid about 20 feet on the polished hardwood.

No one made a sound.

Stevie laid there on the gym floor.

We first thought he was dead.

Little Stevie just laid there.

When the ball hit him, his whole body had kind of crumpled up, arms and legs, in a tangle and Stevie just laid there.

Stevie just laid there and there, against his chest, under his arms and legs … was the ball.

The gym was silent.

We looked and looked again.

Cookie looked and looked again and then looked down.

Yessir, Stevie had wrapped himself around the ball and landed on his back!

It had happened!

Little Stevie had caught the ball!

Cookie was out!

Cookie for a second stopped smiling then he nodded with appreciation at what had just happened and smiled.

Stevie got to his feet, his arms still wrapped around the ball like he was never going to let go and his face was one big smile.

The Gym exploded with that the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball.

It was the greatest thing in Sports I had ever seen and will ever see.

I will never forget it.