50 for 50: 1977

YEAR: 1977

AGE: Turned 7 on Nov. 6

LOCATION: Chicago, McVicker Avenue, then Rascher Avenue in Oriole Park

SONGS I LIKED: "Star Wars Theme" by Meco; "Fly Like an Eagle" by the Steve Miller Band

MOVIE I LIKED: "Star Wars" (duh ...)

TV SHOWS I LIKED: "The All New Super Friends Hour"; "The Brady Bunch Variety Hour" (which, for years, I was convinced that maybe I just imagined, because it never showed up in any sort of reruns, and without an internet, there wasn't an easy we for me to prove it existed -- but it turned out to be not a dream)

CUBS' RECORD: 81-81

WHITE SOX'S RECORD: 90-72

BEARS' RECORD: 9-5

BULLS' RECORD: 44-38

Sometime in the winter of 1976-77, Dad took me to see my first Chicago Bulls game at the Chicago Stadium. I can't remember who the Bulls played or if they won, but I do remember being enthralled by the giant four-sided scoreboard hanging over the court, and how the adds at the bottom of the scoreboard would rotate so you would see something new every minute.

That winter, I also played organized basketball at Norwood Park. Dad and one of his police friends coached our biddy ball team. We played on 8-foot rims, but at the first practice, with kids from the entire league in kind of a clinic setting, the lower backboards on the sidelines hadn't been installed yet. There two long lines of kids shooting layups, but I was so small and scrawny, I couldn't get the ball over the rim on a 10-foot basket.

A new Jewel was opening at the new Brickyard shopping center near our house, and Tom Boerwinkle and another Bull were appearing one evening to sign autographs to help celebrate the occasion. Dad was going to take me, but we never made -- I want to say my parents were meeting with a real estate agent because we were selling the house or closing on a new one.

By April, for the first time, I was excited about baseball. I came home from school opening day and watched the Cubs lose. Sometime that summer, I saw my first game (at least the first one I sort of remember) at Wrigley Field. The mustard on the hot dogs annoyed me, but I loved everything else about it.

That summer, I also saw a Brewers game in Milwaukee. I don't remember much of the game, but I do remember tailgating in the County Stadium parking lot and throwing a Frisbee with my dad and his friends. (The trip to Milwaukee was an adventure in itself ... for another post.)

We moved that May to Oriole Park, to a block filled with kids ... but all the boys were younger or older. To this day, I don't know how I lucked out in that the older boys let a skinny, dorky 6-year-old hang out with them, but they turned out to be the big brothers I never had. And, they got me even more hooked on sports. 

Through my new friends, I started collecting baseball cards. I was reading so well at 6 that the cards were more than just pictures -- I would pore over the stats and read the fun facts on the back. I also began playing Whiffle ball.

That fall, I was introduced to football. I'm not sure how I didn't get into it before, but my friends really got me hooked. I watched the Bears, played pickup tag football (and sometimes tackle) with the guys, and started collecting football cards.

What helped my sports awakening was the Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, and Bears were all sort of good. The Bulls made the playoffs; the Cubs and Sox were in first place in their respective divisions in late July; and Walter Payton put up one of the most ridiculous seasons for a running back in NFL history, leading to "NFL Today" on CBS to play Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" over his highlight reel that December. 

Alas, I also became well-versed in being a Chicago sports fan in that the Bulls lost in the first round of the playoffs, the Cubs and Sox choked, and the Bears got blown out by the Cowboys. However, the sports goofiness never went away despite the heartbreak. 

Between the fateful 1977 and watching my dad play basketball and softball (and even one season in a crazy touch football league -- at least I remember it looking just nuts) and him coaching my teams, I was really hooked. That led to me continuing to collect baseball and football cards, playing Strat-o-Matic Baseball and Statis-Pro Basketball (and a whole bunch of other sports-themed board games), playing and enjoying real sports (even though I wasn't that good), coaching my own kids' teams, and, eventually, becoming a sports journalist. Would that have been my career if I didn't start watching, playing, and consuming sports when I was 6? I don't know.

So much changed in 1977 after the move -- a new home, new friends, a new school, going simply bonkers for "Star Wars," and so on. It was all memorable, yet, I didn't write about the new house much, or the last few months in the old house, or second grade, or Luke Skywalker. That shoebox of baseball cards, the feel of a basketball or a Whiffle bat in my hands, and Brent Musburger and Jimmy the Greek on a Sunday morning loom as large as the scoreboard did over the Chicago Stadium court.