By Jim Coffman
I knew I had definitely left the country when I turned on the TV and didn’t just find cricket, I found cricket in the sand. One of the British networks was televising some sort of special cricket exhibition on a beach somewhere. The bowlers were firing away at the wickets, the batters were swinging their cool flat bats and the hits were flying . . . until they plunked down unceremoniously in the sand. Guys trudged in, dug the balls out and then tossed them back to the middle of the field. I’ve seen soccer played on the beach, and touch football, and of course there is volleyball. But cricket?
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I actually attended the only college in America with an official cricket team. I have watched portions of games – it is just about impossible to watch an entire test (match) – they often lasted all weekend when I was at the ‘Ford in the 1980s. I even had a go at writing a story about cricket during my college newspaper days (also just about impossible if one hasn’t spent a lot of time learning the lingo). So I might have been the only expatriate sports fan in all of England willing to try and find something to appreciate in the midst of this undeniable sporting silliness.
Couldn’t do it. Then again everyone involved seemed to be having a grand old time and what’s the harm in that then?
The other sporting choice on television that night at a hotel on the outskirts of Heathrow was Everton versus Chelsea in Premier League soccer action. Everyone was very excited about the goings on out on the pitch and Chelsea even scored a goal (Hurrah!) before the intermission, but I couldn’t stay awake as the second half wore on. Must have been the jet lag.
My family wrapped up a long trip to Israel (with a brief stop in London) last week and while sports were entirely peripheral to the journey there were still plenty of, not “highlights” exactly but there were plenty of happenings and therefore plenty of observations.
* It used to be that I couldn’t imagine living outside of the U.S. and away from blanket coverage of our beloved sports scene. I consider myself a soccer fan but the celebration of that game to the exclusion of all others in the couple of European cities I’ve had the chance to visit would be tough to take long-term.
But that has all changed in the past, what, 15 years? There is, of course, all the coverage you could ever need of whichever team on the Internet 24 hours a day. And satellite TV systems offer all sorts of sports networks (for a price, of course). Heck, ESPN Europe even televised the NFL draft. There I sat at a little past midnight Jerusalem time early last Sunday as the Bears picked Chris Williams in the first round. This world may have problems, but clearly if I was able to tune into this sort of programming from that far away, well, I take that as a rationale for rampant optimism.
* In Israel there was almost as much basketball to be found as there was soccer on non-ESPN networks. One night I watched a game involving noted European League power Maccabi Tel Aviv and there was a familiar face. It was Will Bynum, the high-flying (despite standing less than six feet tall) former Crane Tech point guard who couldn’t quite stick in the NBA after he completed his college career at Georgia Tech.
Bynum had been in the news a few months ago when he was arrested in Tel Aviv and charged with hit-and-run after an incident outside a nightclub. At the time I think it was the team’s owner who was quoted as saying there was no way Bynum would ever play for Maccabi again. And if he had been convicted it might have ended his basketball career
But it turned out that Bynum, who was paraded in front of the media in handcuffs and shackles shortly after the arrest, was later completely exonerated. The prosecuting authority in Tel Aviv determined that Bynum was fleeing a fight (a fight that he apparently was losing, badly) when his car made contact with a bystander outside the nightclub. His actions qualified as self defense.
On the court, Bynum was lighting it up for Maccabi (he would go on to lead his team to the Euro League Final, where they lost to CSKA Moscow a couple days ago). He is still a high flyer who tossed in a spectacular, hanging layup while I was watching. He hit a couple threes and would not be denied the lane, finishing several forays into the paint with perfect passes. I’ll bet he’ll get another chance or two to stick with the big boys back here in the States.
* Oh by the way, Maccabi was the club where Naperville product Anthony Parker (Candace’s older brother) had huge success (he was a big part of their winning a couple Euro League championships in a row in the middle of this decade). Parker used his tenure there as a springboard to a starting spot with the Toronto Raptors.
Guess who else plays for Maccabi? Former Bulls lottery bust Marcus Fizer! But he was out with an injury.
* There was one final event that received all sorts of air time on what I think was the Sky Sports Network throughout my second week away – The World Snooker championships. I didn’t think a televised competition could be less dynamic than the World Series of Poker, but the Snooker broadcasts give it a run for the money.
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Jim Coffman shares the love in this space every Monday.
Posted on May 5, 2008