Here, have a beer and let's talk about why I'm tossing in a sports category which might seem like a misfit.
Well, if you know me you know I love sports. I love sports for many different reasons and I love many different sports. I love sports that you've heard of and I love sports so much that I will watch sports that you have never heard of if there are no sports that you have heard of on TV. Okay, maybe you have heard of them but you, like me, think they should not be on ESPN (i.e. corn hole, darts, etc.) but you could find on my TV if my wife wasn't home.
I played baseball for many years and am extremely partial to its glory. If you ask me I will tell you that I hate baseball. Baseball sucks. It's too hard and it causes depression. It's a stupid game that is too slow and boring. But, if I'm not prompted, I talk about it like it is the only sport that will be in heaven. It's always on and if I'm not watching it at home I'm watching it at a bar. I don't care if it's the World Series or if it's a Thursday, day game between the Royals and Angels. I talk baseball jargon to my wife like she knows what I'm saying. No, like she cares what I'm saying. I still think about my playing days and I dream about possible coaching days. I realize that it is not a wildly popular sport amongst the younger folks, and people are tired of hearing, "it's a thinking man's game," from old white dudes when they pass the slightest negative comment about it. I just want people to see it like I see it. I'm not a betting man but, if I were, I would bet that the majority of my sports talk will be about baseball.
Don't get it twisted, I may be partial to baseball but I love competition. Saturdays in the fall are annoyingly busy with college football games. Sundays in the fall are for NFL naps and Tony Romo's voice supporting me while I fold laundry. Jim Nantz and the boys make me feel like golf is the easiest sport on earth, which causes me to spend more money and get no better. SVP puts me to bed most nights, and checking scores on my phone in the middle of important meetings has become somewhat of a sport itself for me. Basically, I'm going to write about sports because I think I know so much about them that I have tried to get excited about possibly thinking about making a career out of it. I have a journalism degree and 0 years of experience in sports journalism, so I think I'm right on the cusp of a breakthrough.
The majority of sports posts on this site will be fun. Sports are supposed to be fun. There is no point in getting bent out of shape as a fan. Sports are sports and they don't actually effect our peasant lives day-to-day. It's fun to feel like we are a part, but for the sake of everything good, please, keep yourself separated. There are few things worse than when you get locked into a conversation with a Cowboys fan about how this year is "their year" then by week 3 they're blaming the freelance cameraman from NBC5 Dallas-Fort Worth for how bad Zeke Elliot is. Similarly, have you ever gotten caught up in a conversation with Joey, the Yankees fan, about a game the Yankees lost yesterday and he throws out old faithful, "27 rings!! 27 time world champion, baby!!"
Shut up, Joey. Close the yearbook.
How about Luis the Lakers fan talking about, "did you see the game? We dominated those fools!" Who the hell is "we" Luis? Do you have a mouse in your pocket, or do you play for the Lakers?
I digress. I am going to pretend like I know the ins and outs of football when I make fun of a coaching decision that happens in the NFL. *COUGH Pete Carroll* I'm going to write like making judgment calls is easy in a packed-house, American League Championship game 7 when I write about an umpire crew. There is always something to be said about how gosh dang athletic hockey players are and I'll write about women's sports if it's an olympic year - not because I hate women's sports, but because they don't get the media coverage they deserve.
Sports should be an outlet from everything hard in life. The problem is we become so attached that sports become the hard thing in life. Middle school boys arguing over Lebron James and Michael Jordan, when they've only seen the last 4 years of LBJ's career, is a nice example of that. The entire country shaming the Astros for cheating when they're just the only team dumb enough to get caught is another example. Philadelphia Eagles fans burning down their city when the Eagles WON the Super Bowl may give you a better picture. We have made our escape the trap. We have invested entirely too much of ourselves in athletes that we could never be. We elevate these people and games to a place in our head that makes us believe that when it doesn't go our way it's because they were out to get us, personally. We have become a bunch of buffoons who have lost sight of what sports should provide us.
Yes, I will be sarcastic and satirical, but maybe the reason that I love sports so much is because they are important. Sports and life have a lot of parallels and I credit a lot of my life experience to a sport. There is a special romance that we feel when the competition reaches its peak. All sports have a way of teaching hard things quickly and if you have ever played anything competitively I'm sure you would agree. There is something that keeps us holding on to those times, something that we can't really explain but it's alive. It is something more than the buzzwords, something deeper than our affiliation to a team. That's the thing that keeps Yankees fans talking about the 1915 World Series, and gives Cowboys fans hope {every year}. It's embedded into us as a culture and makes up a lot of who we are. That's what makes it fun. That's what makes us crazy.
Have another beer, the game is just starting.
The Kansas City Royals and LA Angels of Anaheim are not very good, and haven't been for a few years.
Tony Romo is a former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and current CBS in-game analyst.
Jim Nantz commentates the PGA tour and is known to have the most soothing voice in sports broadcasting.
S.V.P are the initials of Scott Van Pelt who has his own late night show on ESPN. His One Big Thing segment is sure to give you a good cry every once in a while.
Pete Carroll made an infamously questionable play call in a Super Bowl that resulted in a loss.
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