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For Mother’s Day, I gave my mom a signed copy of Mike Krzyzewski’s new book, The Gold Standard. Even though she’s a Tar Heel, my mom likes and cheers for Coach K and Duke—and the University of North Carolina.
That’s unusual, I know, but my mom is an unusual sports fan. She doesn’t use the word "hate" and she’s never booed a single team or person in her life.
She gets that sunny disposition from her mom, my 90-year-old grandmother, who not so long ago declared that she wouldn’t be reading anymore stories with unhappy endings. Why bother, she said, when there are more than enough happy endings to keep her busy?
That’s the kind of logic that explains why my mom is so blissfully unaware of A-Rod’s nastier nicknames; why she doesn’t get angry at Brett Favre for retiring and un-retiring; and why she never gets agitated by the likes of Skip Bayless and Jay Mariotti, ever.
My mom saves her energy for the people and teams she likes the most. When her Boston Celtics lost to the Orlando Magic the other night, my mom sent me an email saying, “Well, it was nice to see JJ Redick playing for Orlando.”
She also roots for the New England Patriots, but my mom never made excuses or cast blame during the Spygate scandal in the fall of 2007. She was too busy rooting for her favorite team, the Boston Red Sox, as they marched to their second World Series win in 89 years.
My mom’s love for all things Red Sox-related sparked a much sadder email from her on Thursday. But no, she wasn’t worried about Manny Ramirez’s legacy or his 50-game suspension.
She was worried about Jerry Remy, the voice of Red Sox Nation, who is battling lung cancer. Maybe that’s why my mom doesn’t watch ESPN that much. Although he will never be the subject of an ESPN Special Report, the RemDawg is a person truly worth worrying about. Just like my mom, I’ve always liked him, as long as I can remember, I think.
In his memoir “Trying To Save Piggy Sneed,” John Irving wrote, “A fiction writer's memory is an especially imperfect provider of detail; we can always imagine a better detail than the one we can remember. The correct detail is rarely, exactly, what happened; the most truthful detail is what could have happened, or what should have.”
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