Sports want to consume summer.

The NHL and NBA nibble the beginning of it. The NFL excretes the end of it.

Commentator Frank Deford believes these games are serious business and are played when people get serious (autumn and winter).

He’s right.

Summer is a reprieve from all that.

Who cares how the Red Sox do in June? That’s why the pennant race was invented. You can goof off until September.

But now, the NBA and NFL surround summer. And the NFL Europe has an aerial shot in its scope.

I love summer. I don’t want to see it overwhelmed by sneakers and shoulder pads and pre-game shows with statistics flying all over the screen that I’m supposed to care about.

So quickly, while I’m still tan, I’ll explain why I love this season so:

I love sitting on wooden bleachers at a high school baseball game as the smell of buttered popcorn drifts in behind the chalk dust.

I love stepping into the clubhouse on a July day and letting the first gush from the air conditioner run through my body.

I love forgetting the heat index of a score I just shot when my foursome finds a corner table and discusses movies and beer and women.

I love watching a kid beat another kid by a Kool-Aid mustache in a 50-meter race on an asphalt baking track.

I love jumping two inches and spiking a beach volleyball over a net that’s shorter than me.

I love the indent the spike leaves in the sand.

I love to dig into the batters box and smell alcohol on the catcher’s breath as the softball glides towards me.

I love to watch football players try not to watch themselves in the mirror at the YMCA.

I love passing a hot dog six people over at Wrigley. And then passing the change six people back.

I love to hear “BEER HEREAHH,” in right field and some guy yell, “I’ll take five.”

I love the paw-prints my dog leaves in the morning dew as she chases after a tennis ball.

I love pouring all my balls onto the fifth fairway and pounding them onto the fifth green, long after I can see the flagstick.

I love finding them all near it even more.

I love listening to Jack Buck and Mike Shannon with the city in my rear-view mirror and not caring who just saw me pound the steering wheel and scream out the window when Sammy hit the game-winner to beat the Cards.

I love watching a little league game through my glove, just like the centerfielder is.

I love to take a fork and knife to a salmon four hours after it was caught.

I love the way my glass of lemonade sweats as I watch the family wiffle ball tournament from my lawn chair.

I love to return to the wooden benches in the twilight of an August evening and watch the ball smack the catcher’s mitt the instant dust leaves it.

I love to watch the dust float away on a warm breeze.

Paul Kix is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Hubbard.