Many years ago, my sister got into running. She ran a lot of 5K and 10K races and even several marathons, including one finish of the Chicago Marathon. In those days she got our mother, who was an avid bicycler, into wearing New Balance shoes. I’ve never been much of a runner, though I did complete a few 10K runs when I was younger. I never did get into collecting equipment for running. I’ve been known to make fun of all of the name-brand clothing that young people wear. It seems that they are willing to pay extra to wear an advertisement for a sports company on their clothing. It isn’t that I don’t understand the desire to own sports equipment. I have quite a collection of canoe and kayak paddles and no small amount of specialized clothing for paddling. My dry suit has the NRS logo on both the pants and top, though if they offered a version without the logo, I’d likely buy that one.

But I recognize that slanted NB of the new balance logo because both my sister and mother wore that brand of shoes. When she was older, we helped my mom get New Balance shoes not because she was running, but because she could get a good comfortable fit for her feet and they helped her to walk steadily and safely as she experienced a bit of disability due to neuropathy.

The New Balance Athletic Shoe company is based in a suburb of Boston, home of the famous Boston Marathon. Although many athletic shoes made by companies with their headquarters in the United States are actually manufactured in other places, US companies have done well in the athletic shoe business. Nike, perhaps the biggest in the field, started out in Beaverton, Oregon. Their Jordans sell enough to rank as another brand when it comes to basketball shoes. Of course, the name we all knew from our teenage years when it comes to basketball shoes is Converse, another Boston-area company.

If the sport is Soccer, called football by most of the rest of the world, you might expect to see Adidas or Puma, German companies of England’s Reebok, maybe even Fila from Korea.

So it came as a surprise to me this morning, when I was looking at the headlines to see the New Balance logo, of all places, on a Cricket bat. Trust me, the only people in Boston who follow Cricket weren’t born in Boston. I mean, seriously, have you been following the Cricket World Cup? I suppose that if you are a big fan, you weren’t surprised that Australia beat England. After all, most Cricket fans expect Australia to take it all this year. But to win by 111 runs? That’s crazy!

At least I think it is. I have no idea how cricket is scored. It looks vaguely like a weird form of baseball with a funky bat and teams the size of football teams. There is some sort of rule about a “twelfth man,” but I never did get that part straight. The players, except the twelfth man have to play the entire game, which is two innings. The length of the inning is determined by how long it takes for the teams to bowl each other out, whatever that means. Basically it takes forever. Teams can be up by more than 200 runs at some points in the game, which then affects who gets to, or has to, bat.

I’m sure you’ve got the basic idea: Americans don’t get this game.

If you think baseball can get a bit boring on television, you haven’t watched a five-day cricket match.

And so, sports fans, you do have to enjoy basketball. High school basketball is generally played with four 8-minute quarters. Throw in a half time and a few free throws and there is even time for a bit of overtime in a couple of hours.There are plenty of high school games that don’t last an hour.

It probably seemed like a lot more than an hour for the Fairfield (Montana) girls basketball team on Thursday when they went down 50-38 to their Class B rival, Choteau. The victory was probably sweet for the Choteau girls, who hadn’t won a game against Fairfield since the 2005-06 season. No one had, the Fairfield girls were sitting on top of the nation’s basketball winning streak record. They went 120 games without a defeat before Thursday’s loss. 120 isn’t bad. Duncanville Texas holds the all time record with 134 games from 1987 to 1991.

Now I know that you don’t read this blog to get the latest sports news. And some of you may expect that I’ll still make some theological reference here at the end of the blog. After all, I’m the guy who wrote the blog on the theology of c-clamps a few years ago. But I don’t have a deep theological conclusion for this blog - or even much theological reflection for this day. Sometimes I am just surprised and amused by the news headlines that I glance over. Sometimes it is just an amazing thing to live in this world. And I do have a rather strange sense of humor. It is not at all uncommon for me to find myself laughing over things that everyone else is taking very seriously. It isn’t uncommon for me to sit at the back of a meeting giggling when everyone else is filled with passion about the decisions being made and the speeches being delivered.

I do have a few friends in Australia who read this blog from time to time. And they probably find nothing amusing about my lack of understanding of the game of cricket. Luckily, they’re unlikely to read today’s blog. They’re probably too busy celebrating Australia’s amazing defeat of England in the opening round of the world cup.

At least I think it was amazing. I really don’t understand the game at all.

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