BY ROB FLEDER
AN ANONYMOUS sports fan once said, “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the places and moments that take our breath away.” OK, I don’t know if the guy who said that was a sports fan (or even a guy), but I do know that for those of us who love sports, the thrill of seeing an epic event or storied arena can be close to the meaning of life. We fans are thrill-seekers. We are also memory collectors—memory hoarders, to be more precise, and as we check items of our bucket lists, those checks become prized mementos. And our personal sports bucket list becomes an impatiently tapping toe: Time’s a-wastin’.
The long goodbyes of Derek Jeter and Kobe Bryant over the past few years, and the inal bell for Muhammad Ali and Gordie Howe, remind every fan that the old saw, wait till next year, is not always the best advice. The urgency of a sports bucket list comes not just from our own ticking clock but from the buzzer that always sounds on teams, on arenas, on athletic careers.