tennis, life and a few things in between

Baseball or softball isn’t a foreign sport, I played it in primary school in the middle 70s in Beijing, Zhongguancun Erxiao 中关村二小 as past of physical education, in our front yard.  The positions weren’t as clearly defined as in MLB.  Not sure Mao banned it.  I enjoyed it a lot.  To my dismay, once a class had to be canceled because US president Ford was to visit the Summer Palace and our school was at the corner of the route in Zhongguancun.  Our school was even considering to ban few students (who always failed) from attending schools during the period.  The article’s assertion that 150,000 people play seemed low,  I played, so did my g/f who attended Qinghua University fm 1980-85 played as part of phy ed – two years basic and then one year specialized (两年基础体育课,然后一年专项体育课) – just to name two, and we weren’t athletes.  One of my classmates played tennis at sport school in Sichuan, she gave it up once she moved to Beijing.  At the time, late 70s, sports could not compete with A+ and getting into a top college. True that we played a lot of ping pong and badminton in China, but let’s face it, baseball is a slow sport, can be really boring.  Despite the love I have for the game, but I have no patient to watch it, ice hockey and football are the spectator sport.  Remember back in the autumn 1986, I was awaken by the sound of cheers, honking, beer bottle chattering on the street in the middle of the night.  Ha, Mets just won.  The following day, every one were talking about the Mets and its win.  It still couldn’t move me to watch.  One game per season is my max tolerance.  When Jack was around, Golfer’s buddy, I did go to Central Park to play pick up game with him.  First time, the team captain complained that he didn’t want a girl on his team.  Jack told him, “too bad .. she waited for her turn ..”  Grumpily, the huge guy took me.  It turned out, I was pretty good at bat but a lousy fielder, :).