MVN: Most Valuable Network

Surely if you had the opportunity to see the greatest player ever play in person you'd leap at the chance, wouldn't you?  What, you're having second thoughts?  Be careful what you wish for!

So having lived most of my adult life as a student, albeit maybe a grad student, I am finding it both amusing, then absurd, and now increasingly annoying at how one's perspective changes as a result of receiving a large sum of money. The absurd part is that we're supposed to be in a really down real estate market, nothing is selling. And yet after only a couple of months on the market my mom's house sold and nearly at the asking rate. My two younger sisters and I scratched our heads over that one, but we have to thank those two gay boys for taking one look at the place and falling in love with it. I like to think it was the pool that did it. Now I hope they scare the neighbors with many a naked pool party up there in the hills of Glendale California on a Saturday night.

I'm already getting scared. I really didn't have many clues as to what I would ever do if I ran into some dough. I am alone in this. A number of acquaintances have already compiled their lists and are avidly offering me suggestions. They didn't seem to have any trouble at all spending the sum. I kept hoping some of their cheeriness would rub my way.

Then, from somewhere in the back of my mind, an idea I realized I had had for quite a while started creeping out again. The idea whispered, "Now you can see Roger play!" Recently I was joking with someone about this. Seeing Roger would be a religious experience, like the man wrote in the New York Times a few years ago. It would be like visiting the cathedral at Lourdes or circumambulating around the Kabbah in Mecca. We ha-ha'd at the thought, poking fun at ourselves and our new-found religiosity.

Maybe because of such lofty fantasia flitting about my head I now find though that I am getting cold feet about the prospect. It's all looking too easy. Indian Wells is just a hop and a skip up the road from San Diego, that would be the closest venue for me to see Roger. So no problem there. In more practical terms still, it would require that I do some judicious picking as to which day/match Roger might end up in on the day I visited. Well, ok, so that can be resolved too. But what if he loses on the day you go? That, I'm afraid, can't be resolved.

Is that what is putting the kabosh on my plans? That Roger might actually lose the match of my dreams? Three or so years ago that thought would never have entered my brain, because back then Roger just did not lose many matches at all. Now he does. I have a hard enough time dealing with his losses on TV. In person? I don't even want to go there. They might need to call a stretcher and cart me off.

Somehow my dream of witnessing some personal sporting greatness was not proceeding very well. I realize I have far too many expectation scenarios for me to attempt the real thing. Somehow it was easier when I was a kid, the expectations were fewer then. I remember as a kid my dad taking me to Dodger Stadium to see the Yankees play, and I felt so thrilled to finally see Mickey Mantle in person. Of course we all knew that what Mantle did well was hit home runs, but I don't remember that I desperately expected that. So I was highly pleased when at one of his at-bats he parked a fast ball over the right center field wall for a home run. I remember to this day the way the ball just cleared the top of the fence. It was a happy moment.

How many moments does one get like that in a lifetime? Never enough, that's for sure. The trick is not to think of it as a win-loss column, but just suck in the experience as a fine athletic moment. Roger will be Roger winning or losing. The fact he may lose on occasion should not negate the beauty of seeing him play. God knows, he's lost some great matches this year in which he has still played wonderfully, not the least being the Wimbledon final. It's just the man has so accustomed me to his winning ways that anything less than that scrambles my brain. This year we Federer fans have had to shuffle this around in our heads. It's so like the game, which is all about adjustments too that we have to make. Roger is losing more, he will be losing more because he is getting older and everyone is improving. Maybe now is the time for us to take the view that his variety of play may become more subtle as he adapts to ever-shifting conditions in tennis.

So play, Roger, play! I want to be there to watch how you play on that particular day, to enjoy your play if you are winning, but to enjoy how you adapt when you may be behind. Win or lose, the sport has been so graced by your presence in the game. The least I can do is offer a small token of appreciation by showing up.