Shawn sucks at Sportsing

I didn't play many sports as a kid but the ones that I did play I was horrible at. Here are 3 sports I played when I was younger and how long they lasted.

Soccer

Soccer was huge when I was a kid and I mean gigantic huge! So huge that there was a point where every kid “had” to play soccer. All the kids had their cool looking Plymouth Youth Soccer jerseys they would wear out and about and I guess my parents thought I should have one of them too.​

​Practices were held at Nelson Park in Plymouth, which was right next to the ocean. Great for kids who had trouble paying attention.

I remember the coaches throwing a bunch of soccer balls on the field and telling us to dribble or whatever the hell they called it down to the other end of the field. Well the soccer superstars would be done with this little drill in about 2 minutes while I would not even be halfway down the field.

Then, oh god, there were the dreaded game days. Now I am not sure if there just wasn’t enough players to leave me out, on the sidelines or if it was one of those things where everyone played but I was out there, every single game and it was an absolute nightmare. Imagine a 6 or 7 year old with a dumbfounded and clueless look on his face running after his teammates. I wasn’t running after them to catch the ball mind you, I was running after them because I had no clue what the hell I was doing.​
Total soccer seasons: 1

T ball and Baseball

Where do I even begin to describe my hatred of baseball growing up? Now mind you I actually liked watching baseball and following stats for the Red Sox players like Wade Boggs and Mike Greenwell. Playing though is a whole different ballgame. See what I did there?

Let’s start with T-ball, the game where they made it so it would be pretty damn hard to actually not hit the ball. Hell it was on a friggen stand, right there in front of you, all you had to do was swing the bat.

My issues here were many including swinging too high, and my bat getting a big whiff of air. Mainly though I would just the hit the stand itself and cause the ball to flop on the ground. The coaches, who probably didn’t know what the hell to do, would count it as a “hit” and encourage me to run to first base. Everyone else knew it wasn’t a hit though, they weren’t stupid and I got the “kid look” from everyone else which basically said “you suck”

Moving up to actual baseball, which I am not sure why or how I actually moved up in the first place.

Putting someone with attention issues in left field when the majority of the time, no one hit it past the shortstop is not idea. It leaves a lot of time for daydreaming and, well, just looking down at the grass. So you can imagine when a ball actually made it past the base line, the ball would certainly always zip right by me, usually allowing the person to at least get to third base as I scrambled to catch the ball behind me.


So if I couldn’t hit a baseball off of a stationary stand, how the hell did people think I would be able to hit a moving baseball being hurled at my head? If I ever hit the ball, I can assure you, it wasn’t on purpose and more than likely it was me eliciting a knee jerk reaction and just happened to get lucky.

Total T ball and Baseball seasons: 2

Basketball

Now here was a sport I was actually okay at. I had a basketball hoop at home, which was at the front of my driveway where my parents would park their cars.
“Dad, can you move your car?” was a common request from me, which was usually followed by a groan from one of my parents, who would begrudgingly find their keys and move the cars blocking the hoop.

​The problem with my basketball hoop was that if I ever missed a shot, and I mean any shot, the basketball was rolling down the hill which was either to the left or behind the hoop. This used to frustrate me to no end because I’d spend more time trying to prevent the ball from rolling away than actually shooting it.

It wasn’t until a newly married couple had moved in next door and put a hoop up of their own, one which didn’t have any hills that I really started to practice my Larry Bird All Star moves. I would spend hours out there shooting around until one day the wife got pregnant, the husband began working longer hours, their relationship fell apart and the wife no longer wanted me using the hoop.

I joined a local youth basketball team and soon learned that, shooting hoops around your house and playing games of H-O-R-S-E with your friends, doesn’t mean you’re actually good at basketball. Games pretty much involved me

1. Getting the ball
2. Immediately shooting the ball the second it was in my hands
3. Missing

Now these shots I was taking, I could probably have made easily at home. The problem now was that I had 5 guys charging at me making sure that shot wasn’t going anywhere. This tactic worked, 100% of the time.
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There is a silver lining to this story though, a moment that will go down in history as one of the greatest basketball games ever played.

It was the last game of the season. We didn’t have championships or playoffs or anything like that, it was basically a set amount of games and you were done.

I think a few people on the team either didn’t show up that day or were sick because suddenly, everyone was passing the ball to me. Now these were other equally horrible basketball players passing it to me, so I can guess that they were just as scared as I was and just wanted someone else to take the ball.
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I was on fire that night. I was pulling 3 pointers out of my ass left and right and banking shots that I never would have made at any other point that season. I ended up scoring like 20 points that game which is something of a miracle if you ask me.

For years I wondered how I did it, how I got so many points. Was I in the zone or something? Did the hand of God come down from the heavens and nudge that basketball into the net?

I finally realized though that if you give someone quadruple the chances to score points, they're bound to do good.

Total Baskeball seasons: 1

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