A lot of people will watch the Ryder Cup this weekend. A lot of people will care about it.

That wasn’t the case for many sporting events I’ve covered in my career.

1. 25-cent beer night at a Cedar Rapids Reds game: It was a Saturday night. It may have been the last home game of the season. It was a long time ago.

The crowd was drunk. The atmosphere got weird.

Someone put a tambourine atop a broomstick and shook it all game long. A male of 18 or 22 or something like that ran onto the Veterans Memorial Stadium field and did a beautiful hook-slide into second base. The security cop chased him. The young guy would pull up long enough for the cop to get close to him, then pull away again. All the way to third base, where he surrendered.

I sat above it all in the open-air press box, not sure if I should write about the game or the extracurricular activities. I hope I did the right thing and ignored the game. It was a long time ago.

There were many others, but why tell all my little stories in one fell swoop? My Ryder Cup coverage will begin here on Thursday, by the way.