Published Tuesday, January 31, 2012 3:13 PM
Updated Tuesday, January 31, 2012 3:14 PM
Because there will be Super Bowl parties galore and I won’t be invited to any of them. So I get bitter.
So, we’re faced with another Boston and New York showdown for a sports championship trophy. Is anybody but me totally fed up with all things Boston and New York?
It’s amazing how that tiny little corner of the country, way up there at the top, a solid 15 hours from anybody not calling Boston or New York home can command the attention of the remaining sports nation.
You’ve heard me say this before – New York fans think the sports world ends at the banks of the Hudson River, Boston fans thinks the sports world ends at the seat of their pants.
I can think of nothing I’d rather do than be subjected to two weeks of sports analysis about what’s going to happen when the Giants play the Patriots. Actually, I can think of one thing, but it would involve driving bamboo shoots under my fingernails and this is a family publication and ritualistic torture is frowned upon.
Another thing about the Super Bowl I don’t much care for is that football is supposed to be played outside, in the weather, in the mud, the rain and the cold; not inside on green indoor/outdoor carpet. That’s one reason why I liked the 49ers/Giants matchup last week. The game was played in the elements like football was supposed to be played.
Football is supposed to be Vikings – Packers, playing in the snow, outside, in the weather, on a mud-bogged field.
I’m used to cold weather being a part of the whole football experience. You haven’t lived until you’ve had to brush off the four-inch blanket of snow off your numbered portion of the 2x4 bleacher at Notre Dame Stadium before sitting down to watch the Fighting Irish play.
Ohio State playing Michigan in anything other than the sleet and rain just isn’t football.
What I like most about sports is the whole hero and goat thing. For every game-winning home run hit in the bottom of the ninth there is a pitcher who served up the hanging curve.
I like that thin line of pathos separating hero from goat, kind of like those twin masks that symbolize the theater.
Where one smiles there is another near tears.
I got to see that twice this past week and it was the Harbaugh brothers that served it up. First there was Ravens Coach John Harbaugh’s mouthing the words “He missed it,” as Billy Cundiff’s chip shot field goal sailed wide left, and then 49ers Coach Jim Harbaugh’s “Oh my God,” when Kyle Williams coughed up his second fumble on a returned punt – well, the first punt hit his knee – but both resulted in New York points.
I’ve been both hero and goat several times, and while I never enjoyed making the last out in a game, or giving up the winning basket, it was fun on both ends of the stick. At least I got to play.
The Wide World of Sports began its weekly Saturday telecasts with the phrase, “The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat,” and of course the agony of defeat included the ski jumper falling off the side of the mountain.
Except for the team that hoists the trophy, everybody else goes home unhappy.
Giants and Patriots, isn’t there a way here that both teams lose?
Then I’d go home happy.