Sports Shorts

It is possible that the UofA,  my home town team, may not win another game this season.  The Cardinals,  who wear our local NFL laundry , continue to find ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.   The Diamondbacks made the post-season but never made it past the first round.

It's hard to be a fan in Arizona these days.
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It used to be comfortable to be a Yankee fan.  Not so much this year, as they join the D'backs on the bench, watching others aim for the World Series.  Sports Illustrated wrote an article on the Philadelphia fans' adoration of their Phillies and they, too, are out before they really got started.

It's hard to be a hometown fan in other places, too.
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The Wall Street Journal opined that less is more when it comes to the NBA, and I couldn't agree more.  Have you noticed that the pre-season hasn't begun?  I just asked TBG if he thought it ought to have begun by now and his quizzical furrowed brow tells the story - he doesn't know and he doesn't care.

I've been annoyed by the lack of effort players exert during the regular NBA season ever since Michael Jordan retired.  For me, a 40 game season would be just fine.

Of course, that assumes that I have a team for which to cheer.
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Peyton Manning is out for the season and so is his back-up and their third string quarterback has been  acquitting himself admirably while losing.  He was, however, the centerpiece of a sports conversation I had with a total stranger and his son last Sunday.  They arrived at the ramada under which Isababby's family and I were picnicking wearing #18 jerseys.  We commiserated, we reminisced, we predicted and we wondered about Painter, the 3rd string guy.

I was pretty impressed with myself, keeping up with the conversation.  The father and son seemed oblivious to the fact that I was a grey-haired old lady .... we were talking sports and that's all that mattered.  It was a nice moment.
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I have perfected the art of reading on the couch next to a man watching football on the big screen tv in front of us.  I snuggle and turn pages.  He changes channels and groans.  On occasion, I will look up from the printed page to see something wonderful.  It's easy to tell when to interrupt myself; the fans are cheering.

NFL Red Zone has changed all that.  Commercial free, it zips from best play to best play all over the league all day long.  The fans are always cheering.  The ball is going hither and yon.  One minute the team in red is going left to right and the next they are going right to left and it's up to me to figure out that Red Zone has switched games between the paragraphs I was reading.

TBG loves it; he doesn't have to click the remote.  It makes me nuts.  I never know what is going on.
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Al Davis died this weekend.  As always, Bob Costas got it right : "he was a rebel, a renegade, a Raider".   I always liked Al Davis, the contrarian, the last chance for lost causes, a man who knew who he was and wouldn't be bullied.

I didn't agree with him.  I just liked him.