Down and out for the Super Bowl

What is going on?

I swear I have been sick with one thing or another since Christmas Day! And now here we are on Super Bowl Sunday and I'm in bed again…sick! I can't get well.

No football party for me. No football pools. No nothing. Just lay around and mope. And to make matters worse, my Arizona Wildcats lost last night and on Tuesday morning I'll pick up a paper and read about how Syracuse is the top dog in the country in college basketball, not Arizona.

I've tried to beat this cold, this virus, this feeling of fatigue without going to the doctor, but I may finally have to give in and go. There's so many things going on in my body it may take an hour just to give the doctor a run down of my symptoms.

In 2013, I considered myself one of the "iron men" on the Tucson Old Timers baseball team. I played in 106 games for the TOTS and to top it off played another 20 games with the 60-and-over Tucson Aces, a team which battles the south side senior teams -- the Arizona Rattlers and the Old Pueblo Club, once or twice a month. Add to that the Men's Senior Baseball League (MSBL) World Series last October in Phoenix, where I played for two weeks and competed with my Tucson teammates, playing 12 games in 10 days.

That's 138 games for this 68-year-old. I survived it all, but I can't beat this cold, this virus, the ache in my back and now a tooth problem which keeps me awake at night.

I'm afraid the doctor is just going to shake his head and tell me I'm old!

If the doctor will stay in the room long enough, I may mention to him that my thumb joints are killing me and my right foot, of which I had an operation on in 2012 is bothering me…again. I have a nose which can't decide if I should be allowed to breathe at night.

My muscles in my legs hurt and a lot of my flexibility is gone (not that I ever had much of that).

Somehow, someway I make it to the ball field and take the field alongside my teammates -- all of whom have problems of their own.

So, it's a familiar problem for us old-time ball players who refuse to give up the game of baseball. The question is: Will I go to the doctor on Monday morning or will I go play baseball?

Who's kidding who! If I can crawl out of bed, breathe, and can shake off all my problems from head to toe, I'll probably play baseball!