The old prospect

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH6ri4yasfk&w=550&h=309]

“An ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own …”

— Shakespeare, pre-Vin Scully

By Jon Weisman

It was probably the pinnacle of my athletic career, and I can’t really explain why it happened, when it happened.

It was a pickup basketball game my senior year of college. I was cutting toward the basket from the right wing. The ball didn’t come to me, so I kept on running underneath the basket and popped out on the opposite side, down low.

I had eye contact with the dribbler. Back to the basket, I lifted my right arm skyward, and he tossed the ball toward me — high, higher than I had imagined. Without stopping, in a single motion, I caught the ball and with two hands, flicked it backward over my head and into the basket.

It was a reverse alley-oop. It was spontaneous, and it was glorious.

I pointed with a smile to the passer, like Michael Cooper to Magic after a Coop-a-Loop. He pointed back. I didn’t know the guy, never got his name, nor he mine. It was as fleeting and anonymous moment of glory as they come, and nearly 26 years later, I still cherish it.

For me, it was the smallest of windows into what makes athletes “athletes.” That moment of walking on air, defying gravity, reaching beyond your reach, triumphing.

I’m no “athlete” and certainly, on the cusp of 47, not fast becoming one. But I feel like I’ve been chasing that athleticism in my writing career, seeking that pure moment, of insight or turn of phrase or both, that moment that will make even strangers connect to you, admire you, even love you for what you’ve done. And the crowd goes wild …

I won’t lie: I don’t want anonymity as a writer. I want the glory. I want to earn it, rather than have it handed to me for no reason, but I want it just the same. (Although if it were handed to me for no reason, I’d probably take it.)

The advantage of writing over sports, in theory, is that as you reach middle age, the stage might only get bigger, the stakes more intense. The clock isn’t ticking, not nearly the same way.

But the creator in me is in constant battle with the me in repose, the one who is happier reading than writing, happier sleeping than slaving. If and when the work and parenting day ends (sometimes, it doesn’t seem to), and I have the choice between creating and collapsing, I’ll collapse.

And then, on an offseason weekend, if there’s a rare block of time to write on my own, I feel guilty if I don’t take advantage. But I feel even guiltier if I don’t take advantage of the chance to get outside, to do something in the real world rather than the theoretical. No one that I know of is banging the drum slowly, but I’m not immortal, and I don’t want to miss out.

Right now, I’d rather create an actual memory than a written one, rather savor life than try to make sense of it, which is why it’s taken me a month to sit down on my own time just to write out these thoughts that in my head, I very much wanted to have written.

That doesn’t mean I’m not a writer — Hemingway wasn’t exactly a shut-in — but it does mean I’m not the most productive writer. It doesn’t bode well for glory. Sometimes, I feel like the buzzer sounded without me even realizing it.

I’ve been wrestling with what to make of this.

If you’re a Dodger, no matter how young or how successful, you’re always aware that there’s a finite timeline for your success. Your career is going to be played out, well before you’re my age. You go all in until you’re all gone. Your prime passes, and then you move onto the next chapter of your life. Maybe a new prime. For some, that massive achievement of becoming a big-leaguer isn’t the end, but a beginning.

It’s weird to realize that after all these years, I’m still a prospect in need of seasoning.