Monday, May 21, 2012

Back to the Future

Last Friday, one time Chicago Cub messiah, Kerry Wood retired after a 14 year career that was plagued by injuries, and will go down as one of the all-time greats. To be specific, “great what coulda-beens” By now, if you follow sports at all, you know that in just his fifth start in the majors, he threw what I believe to be, the greatest game ever. A complete game, no walks, one infield hit and 20 strike outs. It was 1998 and with Roger Clemens in his mid-30’s, it looked like the un-official baton of Texas Fireballers was being passed on. Of course, Wood’s arm was a mess after the year, and he missed the entire following season. Still, he bounced back and by 2003, he reached 1000 strike outs faster than anyone else had before.
The point of all this? Well I was speaking with a friend about Wood’s career after his last game, and it just amazed me that 14 years had passed. I started a list of things how things have changed:
In 1998, the following were all true, happening, news or just interesting to me:
·         Robin Young, Nolan Ryan and George Brett weren’t in the Hall of Fame yet.
·         Alex Rodriguez had 64 career home runs.
·         The New York Yankees had won one World Series in 18 years.
·         Peyton Manning was a rookie and John Elway was a Super Bowl champion.
·         Kobe Bryant was in his second season and Michael Jordan won his sixth NBA title.
·         You were playing video games on either: a Sony PlayStation (the first one), Nintendo 64 or a Sega Saturn.
·         Shawn Colvin won the Record of the Year Grammy for “Sunny Came Home.”
·         Top five movies in the box office were: Armageddon, Saving Private Ryan, Godzilla, There’s Something About Mary and A Bug’s Life.
·         You were using AOL 3.0 when the year began.
·         Mark Zuckerberg was 14.
·         The Bellagio opened where the Dunes once stood.
·         Sex and the City, Dawson’s Creek and Sport’s Night made their television debuts. One out of three aint bad.
·         The Nokia 6120 was the top selling cell phone, and you played the hell out of Snake.
·         A gallon of gas cost $1.15.
·         A little company called Google was founded.

All this makes me feel old. I have a this weird quirk (one of many) where I judge time by how much has changed in sports and pop culture. When guys my age start retiring, I start questioning where the time went. Truth be told, I don’t feel any different today than I did 14 years ago. Maybe I’ll mature a little over the next 14, just in time for Kerry Wood’s son to take the mound.

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