My Ultimate Sports Memorabilia - Unusual for an American, It's a Cricket Jersey

Collecting sports memorabilia, aside from baseball, is one of America's favorite pastimes. There is not likely to be a man among us who does not have some favorite item of sports equipment, or some team jersey, tucked away in a closet, or proudly on display.

I'm a klutzy athlete, barely made the basketball team in high school, was a good home run hitter in high school baseball when my poor vision enabled me to even hit the ball, and served as a tackle dummy - otherwise known as a clumsy running back - when I played football in college. But, the one thing I am good at is collecting sports mementos. My favorite, though, is not one that most people would associate with an American sports fan.

The centerpiece of my sports memorabilia collection is actually not one item, but three. It is an inseparable set that has to be viewed together to appreciate. I am the proud owner of a cricket bat, cricket ball, and team jersey from the Zimbabwe National Cricket team. The bat is signed by every member of the 2011 team that competed in the ICC World Cup in India and Bangladesh in the spring of 2011, marking the Zimbabwean teams return to test cricket after an eight-year self-imposed absence. You can't, of course, have a cricket bat without the ball to go with it; a rock-hard sphere with a large ridge around its hemisphere that is hurled, or bowled in cricket parlance, at speeds of up to 65 MPH, bouncing in unpredictable patterns off the pitch at a batsman who, if hit, knows he's been hit. The jersey, though, is my all-time favorite item in the set. It's a team jersey with my name on it, making me an ex-officio honorary member of the team.

It's seldom that the collector of an item of sports memorabilia gets to establish such a connection with the team with which it's associated. I got into cricket through the back door in a manner of speaking. I met some members of the national cricket board at a social event, and they learned that I had experience as a motivational speaker. I was asked to give the team a pep talk before they went off to the world cup matches. Despite knowing absolutely nothing about the game, I gave it a try, and apparently succeeded. I've since become a diehard fan, proving that sports can cross oceans.