T-shirt #288: SPORTSCENTER

Sports have always been an important part of my family. Whether it was a Little League game or Red Sox game, street hockey in the driveway or watching the B’s play for The Cup, there was usually something sports-related going on with The McGraths. So, in no particular order, I give you what would be the Sportscenter “highlights” of my sports “career”. These are in no particular order, but just as they popped into my head (you’ll notice most of these happened before I was 18, giving an indication when my athleticism peaked).

• Not a highlight, but a fact I’ve always found fascinating: With the four males in my family playing baseball, my father bats righty and throws righty, my older brother bats righty and throws lefty, I bat lefty and throw righty, and my younger brother bats lefty and throws lefty. How the hell did that happen?
• In 3^rd grade, I broke my ankle playing basketball at recess, an indication that I should have stayed away from this sport
• (Sorry, Ca) I know this isn’t funny now, but it really was back then. When my sister bravely joined the boys for a game of touch football and ran with the ball straight into a fence
• In the 4^th or 5^th grade, I broke up a no-hitter in the last inning
• In the 6^th grade, I went 5 for 5 in one game
• During that same baseball season, I hit a two-out, two-strike bases loaded triple in the top of the 6^th (a.k.a. 9^th) inning to tie the game up
• Also in 6^th grade, I won a spot in a shootout contest during halftime of the Globetrotters game. I bricked the shot, but got to meet some of the Globetrotters
• In the 8^th grade, I had a shutout as a goalie in intramural floor hockey (I know, not a big deal, but it felt HUGE back then!)
• Also in 8^th grade, I batted over .500 for the season on the junior high baseball team
• At a Red Sox game when they put up the “Can you guess the attendance?”, my cousin Katie cheered when she thought she had the right answer (she picked the first one they removed from the scoreboard)
• When I was in the middle of my cancer treatment, the church group played a softball game at what is now “Greg’s Field” in Westboro. My brothers and I turned a 6-4-3 double play during the game (A fact that only I knew up until now was I “sharted” a little during that play – What can you do? Crohn’s + chemo + excitement = sharts)
• In college my friends and I would play roller hockey at Conte Forum after the hockey season was over and they melted the ice. One time, a couple of the players joined us and I was playing goalie. Jamie O’Leary (a BC player) had a breakaway on me and I stoned him. My friends joked that this haunted him for the rest of his career including when he hit the crossbar during the championship game in 1998 that BC ended up losing to Michigan
• In 2003 when Grady Little didn’t take Pedro out and the NY Jerks tied it up, my older brother and I (watching in different houses) both decided to leave the house. I think he threw a chair on his way out, and I got in my car and drove around listening to the rest of the game on my radio – there was no way I was going to have to watch my team lose again. I didn’t actually seen Boone’s homerun (turning away every time a replay was on) until AFTER the Sox won it in 2004
• In the summer of 2005 my roller hockey team won the league championship in overtime. It was the first and only time any team I ever played on won a championship
• This past summer I hit a walk-off homerun in the second round of the playoffs at a wiffle ball tournament up in Burlington, VT – My brother’s team ended up winning the tournament, which was a lot of fun to watch

I’m sure there are more, but that’s all I can think of right now. Thank you to my great friend Patrick for donating this shirt!