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Highlights From the Sandlot!



 We're home from a Kansas City Christmas, and I'm reading assorted articles about the greatest moments in sport for the year. I'm still nursing a pulled groin and a strained hamstring from two family football games played in K.C. I loved those games as I have loved family and friend games in my past. What I'm reading seems to pale against my flashbacks as I realize that my greatest memories in the world of sports have seldom come from a scene that included crowds and uniforms and referees. My best recollections are from the sandlot. Here are a few a them:

Greatest Game of All Time:
A snow football game at the Capital Grounds in Bismarck, North Dakota. Two feet of powder, 15 degrees above zero, New Year's Eve afternoon and eight guys going after each other for at least two The game was so close and hard fought that I can't remember who won. Nobody got mad even though most of us got creamed into the fluff more than once. Everyone played hard to win. We had audibles, blitzes, and 4th down gambles. The game was called due to exhaustion. Sports ecstasy.

Greatest Play of All Time:
An over-the-head, give-and-go, hook and ladder style play that caused my good friend Joel, my opponent at the time, to stop and literally take off his hat in honor of its timing and intricacy. Touch football, Capital Grounds, I'm the QB. I throw the sqare-in to my buddy Tom who takes two or three steps and just before being touched throws it blindly back over his head to a spot in the middle of the field a few yards beyond the scrimmage line. After throwing ball to Tom, I take off straight up the middle and the ball is miraculously delivered right into my hands without my ever breaking stride. I waltz into the end zone untouched. The game stops. Joel gives tribute and on we go.

Greatest Scene of All Time:
Now it's hockey with a shinny puck on a dugout watering hole in the middle of cow pasture near Regan,ND. The class of '73 is playing the class of '74. Brother Gord welds together two regulation size goals out of rebar and we back them up with straw bales and saddle blankets. The dugout is shoveled clear and now has two to three foot banks of powder to be checked into. Buddy Joel can't skate so he plays goalie in his Sorrel boots and is the star of the game because he is fearless and reckless and incredibly lucky. '74 buds outskate, outshoot, outpass, out everything my class of '73. But, class of '73 outscores '74 thanks to Joel and his boots. Afterwards, chili and baked potatoes at the farm house thanks to Colleen and Jerry, my folks. It truly doesn't get any better than that.

The point of this article is simple. I hope everyone has their greatest list. I hope everyone has gathered friends and family for a pick-up game of their favorite sport and found the joy I've found in sports on the sandlot.

At Networthy we've written often of the games we've played and taught to our children. It will thrill us if our children grow up to teach their children how to play hard and fair with exercise, fun, and comraderie as the only real goals. They too, will make memories for a lifetime and will be do-ers rather than watchers as our Lord encouraged us to be in all facets of life.





About the Author:


 Steve Graner is a Christian educator and familyman employed by the Minot, ND Public School District. A licensed laypastor, he is passionate about Christian writing and Christian drama. Along with family and friends, Steve has performed numerous self-written dramas and musicals for area church audiences.