Pauline Bridges would’ve been 92 years young this week and, while it remains up to others to determine if there’s anything good about yours truly, she’s definitely the reason why.
My Mother wasn’t an athlete, but she loved baseball and basketball. She really enjoyed watching her son as he embarked on a not-so-promising athletic career until she lost her superbly courageous fight against cancer in 1971, at the rather ridiculously young age of 37, leaving an aspiring superstar with a broken heart and without his favorite backyard batting practice pitcher to boot.
She routinely washed and ironed my uniform and made sure I had the proper glove and cleats every season, despite my inability to hit or even lay off a high fastball being thrown my way.
This marvelous lady never missed one of my games until her health failed, and on the rare occasion I made a good play, you could hear her a mile away yelling out “atta boy” to her favorite .206 hitter who struck out quite regularly, but always swung the bat with great pride as I knew she was watching me.
The same scenario also played out in basketball, where I was a tad better at hoisting three-point attempts than hitting a home run.
She bought me a Voit brand basketball and a pair of Converse Chuck Taylor high top tennis shoes and then convinced me that I was to be the next George McGinnis, or at least a reasonable facsimile of the man we watched with great interest at the State Fairgrounds Coliseum in the salad days, when the Indiana Pacers were dominating the ABA.
She was without question the quintessential sports fan…
She was without question the quintessential sports fan who lived vicariously through her eldest, and despite my lackluster performances, she provided encouragement and support, including a trip to Dairy Queen after every game I played, regardless of the final score of the contest.
She also taught me to read the sports page of our local newspaper and never failed to tune in for the games that were telecast in black and white on that monstrosity of a floor model television in our living room, where I always had to remove my shoes before walking on her spotless wall-to-wall carpet.
There’s no question that my Mother was bitten by the sporting bug and passed on her passion for such to a skinny, bespectacled, gregarious young man who’d rather watch the weekly televised NBA game on Sunday with her than ride his bike with the cool kids to the neighborhood convenience store to get candy or a soda.
After she passed, I somehow made the basketball team my sophomore year in high school. I went on to score a bucket and two free throws for the ancient (but powerful) IUPUI Metros as a rather untalented replacement player, getting the call to peel off my warmups as we trailed by a mere 40 points to Kentucky State University in a mostly empty Market Square Arena, where the Indiana Pacers too would struggle mightily later in the night cap of a rather dubious doubleheader against the equally sad Chicago Bulls.
That’s a moment she never saw, but I’m sure she was looking down smiling, ignoring how I got taken off the dribble and why the coach waited so long to put the worst player on the roster in for the mop-up minutes.
Thank you, Mom, for showing me the sheer joy of sports…
Thank you, Mom, for showing me the sheer joy of sports and how to channel one’s thoughts into writing about such. You made me into a proverbial sports geek, and I wish we could attend just one more game together.
This time, I’ll buy the tickets and join you in yelling at the referee during a timeout as we munch on cotton candy just like the good old days.
Danny Bridges, who still relishes the twelve years he had with his wonderful Mother, can be reached at (317) 370-8447 or at bridgeshd@aol.com.
Danny Bridges is an award-winning journalist and a longtime sports columnist for the Indianapolis Recorder. He covers college, professional sports and especially all things IndyCar racing. He can be reached at 317-370-8447 or at bridgeshd@aol.com.
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