(This has been an interesting conversation, so please don't think I'm arguing just for argument's sake.) "Football, cricket, baseball, sprinting, javelin throw

(This has been an interesting conversation, so please don't think I'm arguing just for argument's sake.) "Football, cricket, baseball, sprinting, javelin throwing: these are all diversions of the field, for sure." There's where I got it from. One of the Webster's definitions for field is An open space; an extent; an expanse, and that, for whatever reason, was the connotation I read into the passage (probably because I was thinking of the expanses of the Boundary Waters as I read it). I wonder if the introduction to the passage is what soured the passage for you. If, instead of hearing about how the author built the passage, with a set of connotation applicable to that, you had started with the passage as written, if that would changed things. It shows the power that a turn of phrase can have, that's for sure.