Don’t let your babies grow up to be (Dallas) Cowboys

Tortured Loyalties

NASCAR Sunday Scheduling

Don’t let your babies grow up to be (Dallas) Cowboys

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            The hiatus was extended.

            It began in September, 1994 and lasted until July, 2015. That is a long time not to be eating peanuts or singing during the seventh inning stretch, but that was the period of drought between watching or attending a single baseball game. The disgust began in August of the earlier year when the boys of summer struck major league baseball. It became complete when the World Series was cancelled. Enough was enough for me.

            I had been a baseball fan.

            The tradition and the confines of the game was the allure. We grew up playing baseball. The first series was in 1957 when we got our first television set. It was a deluxe Zenith with three channels. The Braves played the Yankees. We became baseball fanatics. We had favorite players. Every recess we ran to the diamond to tag up and play work up for 15 minutes. We played little league baseball with a fair amount of success. Western Gas was undefeated for two years in a row. Phudley and I had been late back from lunch two days in a row in Mrs. Oberg’s eighth grade home room class listening to the world series on the radio back in 1965. She let us off the hook both days. She stopped everything and just glared at us as only she could do.

            She then asked us, “Well, what is the score?”

            The cancellation of the ’94 Series, though, was unforgiveable. I never watched a game in 1995 when major league baseball attendance fell 20%, and, by 1996, I could care less. By the turn of the century I couldn’t name a single Cub player.

            It wasn’t until our son-in-law had a “business night with the Chihuahua’s” in El Paso two years ago that we experienced another game. It just reawakened an old friendship. That venue is tremendous and minor league baseball is just fun to watch. There was enough draw that I found myself starting to glance at the major league standings. That grew more regular as the Cubs started their 2016 push to the finals.

            It culminated with watching four of the games in that year’s Series. We were back, but it had been a long and reluctant journey. Baseball had to renew my trust. When the players became bigger than the sport, they lost me.

Don’t let your babies grow up to be (Dallas) Cowboys

            The computer guy and I discussed our loyalty to the 49er’s during the Montana reign. He had grown up in LA and was a lifelong Dodger and 49er fan whereas I had grown up in Silver City and watched every Dallas Cowboy game when theirs was the weekly featured game on El Paso TV. My loyalty changed when Tom Landry was unceremoniously fired by the new ownership. By that time, we were farming in California and San Francisco was our new regionally covered team. Coach Walsh was more than competent to fill the role of Landry and the Montana era began. It remained interesting through the Siefert and Mariucci regimes. Following the 2003-2010 black hole of Niner history, Jim Harbaugh arrived to refresh our loyalty to the boys in California metallic gold and scarlet red.

            It felt like a homecoming.

            It became tested, though, when that inked-up character arrived to run the team from the quarterback slot. I admit I don’t understand that, but we endured it until Harbaugh was separated from the new ownership. Deja vu it was, and no longer was there Jim to overcome the uneasiness. When that same fellow started kneeling during the call to the gate for a moment of unified respect during our national anthem my tortured loyalties collapsed. Quite frankly, I didn’t care how much he made or what his problem was. He tread on my loyalties and that transcended all sympathies he sought to expose.

            The rising tide of disgust didn’t change. It only worsened.

            Last week Governor Huckabee was on Fox discussing the kneelers. He concluded that while the rest of the mimes, comics, and animal trainers displayed such antagonism for our patriotic ritual, his Dallas Cowboys could be counted on to remain standing. I will surmise he was as wonderstruck as I was Monday night when there they were with their ancient wunderkind kneeling arm in arm. Sure, they stood during the anthem playing, but they have joined the fray. They have offended my senses. My tortured loyalties are on the verge of collapse.

            I am not alone.

            Those of the public who have contributed toward the $14 billion the NFL has harvested over the past year have got to be thinking their investment isn’t paying off. When we must sit in front of the TV with a tight bung anticipating another antagonistic middle finger aimed at our existence rather than a simplistic show of respect, we will only take so much.

            We will turn the channel or the television off. We can watch real cowboys, or switch gears and listen to the pulse of big engines.

NASCAR Sunday scheduling

            I have never been to a NASCAR race, but I am tempted.

            The idea of the rumble of big engines drowning out the sound of human voices has appeal. In fact, I am sick to death of some idiot telling me how the cow ate the cabbage when he or she has never walked ten feet in my shoes. I can’t fix a damn thing that happened in 1735 or any other time in history.

            Does NASCAR have a Sunday schedule? If they do, they will have my interest. Let’s see if I remember a single name on the Dallas roster by the end of the year.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “These owners had better stand up and deal with their issues starting with this commissioner or they are in for some rough sledding.”

Ah, yes. That first TV. Ours was a Zenith too, and I remember well how we got it.

Dad had been to the horse races at the State Fair. When he got home, it was pretty clear he had indulged in libations, and Mom really started to rag on him. Dad never said a word. He just reached in his left pants pocket, pulled out a wad of money and threw it on the kitchen table.  He then reached in his right pants pocket, pulled out another wad and threw it on the table. When he had finished emptying his pockets he turned and went to bed, without saying a word.

Mom gathered up the cash, and that's how we got our first TV.