Rick Reed

Rick Reed was the first person I saw on HD television. They had the TV set up on the concourse at Safeco. I was going back to my seat with a beer and there was Reed in all the glory of high-definition television. I was stunned by how old, human, and less-than-perfect he looked. He didn't look like a baseball star or even like an athlete. He looked like some truck drivers, like a slobby guy who could lose a little weight, like someone might have trouble attracting women in a bar.

I then remembered going to see Jai Lai in Florida in the late 1980s. The players came out and raised their track-ball gloves to salute the crowd before the games began. It was like, in horse racing, when they trot the horses out so you can look them over and see who's sweaty and who's got foam around the mouth and so forth. They weren't handsome young men, these Jai Lai players. Jai Lai made me uncomfortable; I didn't like gambling on people the way I was used to gambling on horses. Also, they played in a huge chain-link fence cage.

Rick Reed reminded me of Jai Lai players. I don't know what that means, but I'm in no rush to go buy a HD television.