Cheers everyone and welcome to Friday’s Morning Open Thread.
Morning Open Thread is a daily, copyrighted post from a host of editors and guest writers. We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an open forum. Join us, please.
❧
Notes from Below Sea Level “Suspending Disbelief”
I’ve related this story before, in an abbreviated fashion. I think it bears retelling, though, as so few friends of mine truly appreciate one of the noblest of games ever gifted from the gods to us mere mortals. This is a story that begins many years ago: in the latter part of the last century when knights and dragons roamed the lands, damsels were sometimes distressed, and living “happily ever after” was a thing. It was on a clear, crisp evening those two decades ago that I briefly fell in love—an affair that sent me on a quest, revealed me as the fool I am, and was, ultimately, unrequited.
The object of this fleeting love was cricket, that most patrician of games, recorded as far back as the rule of Edward I. There is a consensus of expert opinion, though, that it was probably developed during Saxon or Norman times by children living in the Weald, that area of dense woodlands and clearings in south-east England. But as a regulated, standardized sport, you only need to go back to the Seventeenth Century when, typically, an otherwise wonderful game with local variations and a certain flexibility, came under the thumb of the rule makers—and English ones at that. From that point on, the avaricious commercialism of the British East India Company and the ravenous expansionism of the British Empire helped spread the sport around the world.
The first written “laws of cricket” were established in 1744. They stated, “[t]he principals shall choose from among the gentlemen present two umpires who shall absolutely decide all disputes. The stumps must be twenty-two inches high and the bail across them six inches. The ball must be between five and six ounces, and the two sets of stumps twenty-two yards apart.” There were no limits on the shape or size of the bat. It appears that 40 notches was viewed as a very big score, probably due to the bowlers bowling quickly at shins unprotected by pads. The world’s first cricket club was formed in Hambledon in the 1760s, and the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) was founded in 1787.
-Brief History of Cricket
But in my tale, the year is 1998 and, for a bit over a month in late spring, I’d been in a tiny mountain-side village in the Italian Alps near Canale Di Tenno. Late the previous year, I was invited to a friend's small wedding in Dorset, England and had used that as an excuse to head over early to spend time in Italy in the borrowed second home of the bride’s father (who lived in London). A week or so before the nuptials, I caught a Ryan Air flight from Turin to Gatwick, with a heading in the direction of Dorset. The plan—equally ostentatious and quaint—was that following the brief (private) ceremony, the wedding party would gather on a local (private) pitch and spend the day playing cricket. Being one of the few Americans invited, I was determined to make a good impression on that pitch and spent some months prior researching the odd ballet named cricket before heading out to Italy. I actually learn the rules, read various accounts of its history, and worked through several volumes of memoirs.
In my usual manner of over preparing, I felt I at least had an intellectual feel for the game even if I had never played a single moment. Well, prepared except for the outfit. The invitation had been quite clear: "cricket whites appreciated."
Once in London, I rented a car and met up with a friend, a General Practitioner in close-by East Sussex. The plan was to take about four days to make the two-and-a-half-hour drive to our destination and, along the way, collect my whites from charity shops. These shops, which have a great history, are run mostly by old, very proper, English women, all of whom remind me of my grandmother if she had spoken English. But these shops quickly prove to be a challenge, despite the fact that I manage to find an outstanding pair of cricket cleats on my first attempt. A beautiful, almost-new leather pair that fit me perfectly. Finding comfortable white slacks that would hold a crease was slightly more difficult, but we did eventually find a suitable pair; thinking ahead, I had a white button-down (lightly bleached) dress shirt and white socks in my backpack. My holy grail, however, were white suspenders. Although I am known to be thrifty (I think it’s called “cheap” in American), I was determined to be stylish and ever so slightly ironic (I was younger then, so forgive me).
As my English friend accompanied me to shop after shop throughout southern England, she watched patiently and with amusement as I queried at each charity shop. She had a white dress and hat and refused to get actual cricket shoes as her “white trainers are just fine, thank you.” But she was a stalwart second and through our meandering travels patiently guided me to shop after shop in town after town for three days running.
"Do you have white suspenders?" I would ask.
"What size?"
"My size," I always answered with some slight wonder, if not a tad of agitation by the third day.
"No, I'm afraid we don't," was inevitably the reply, a sardonic smile upon the lips of the white-haired, proper volunteers.
Three days, a half a dozen towns, and twice that many shops later, my friend finally takes mercy on me. We are having tea at a local house just outside Bath and I am pouring over an opened map, planning out our next town and asking for suggestions about where we should spend the night. She places a hand over mine and explains, as only the English can, that the "suspenders" I am searching for are called "braces" in England. "Suspenders," she explains, "are what you Americans call "garter belts." Another of those familiar, sardonic smiles playing about her lips.
One last trip to a different shop and I have my outfit completed (apparently white braces, in my size, are commonplace). Now, onward to play my first game of cricket. The pitch was beautiful, Dorset was beautiful, and the now-married couple were beautiful. As it turns out, the English love to play, but they are all a little confused about the finer points of the rules and their score keeping was sloppy at best. After successfully arguing that being out stumped is credited as a wicket to the bowler, I was appointed scorekeeper and head umpire—my rulings were law— Throughout that afternoon I played, pitched, batted, and, quite frankly, fell in love with that Byzantine, slow-moving, stylized game. I had never been quite so taken with a sport.
Since that mystical afternoon, I haven't had the opportunity to play again, although I tried to get a game together in Audubon Park one weekend a year or so after my return, only to have it turn into a pickup baseball game with the borrowed cricket equipment piled sadly under a large live oak. But that day on the pitch, the bowling, the well-placed stumps, the beauty of it all still haunts me sometimes. I took a single picture that day—a small black and white panoramic of gentlemen in whites, women in long white dresses and broad-brimmed hats, and the grey of deep green receding to the horizon.
That day holds meaning, a time infused with laughter and light and joy. A day remembered as one of love found and love lost.
(March 2020-2024)
❧
❧
☕️
Grab your coffee or tea and join us, please.
What's on your mind this morning?