Thursday, May 15, 2014

We'll See Who Wants It More

For the rest of my life I want to hang only with hockey fans and football fans.

Nobody else.

Hockey fans and football fans are insane, obsessed, manic, passionate and twisted. These are my kind of people.

They paint their faces, sport jerseys lovingly, scream, argue, defend their team and trash the enemy. They are loud, opinionated, over the top crazy.

I am much the same except for the face painting thing but I have lost some of the insanity because I watch most sports with a cat in my lap. I am too damn soft on our cats to scream one out of sleep and my lap or to bounce it off a wall.

I need to get some of that passion back this year. I might be forced to hang out in bars.

I was digging the Bruins fans last night. Pounding on the glass, agonizing over every mistake, celebrating the good stuff and the hard hits. Hoping, hoping, hoping and finally, painfully, mourning.

It sucks that the Bruins lost. But losing is part of winning.

I made that last stupid statement up. Or I think I did. If I didn't and it is a real expression I hate it even more.

There are so many foolish clichés in sports.

Every time you get to a game seven you hear "We'll see who wants it more."

Are you serious?

These guys have been playing the sport since they were children. They have been through every level and every experience and are now playing for real. For the one thing they have dedicated their entire lives to.

They know how hard it is to get an opportunity to play for the championship and how rarely that happens. If you think one team wants it more than another you are an idiot.

There are a lot of reasons why teams win or lose in big games, some tangible, many intangible, but I guarantee that the outcome is not decided by one team wanting it more.

"We'll see who wants it more" is yet another testosterone fueled, faux macho, meaningless cliché.

And just for the record, screw Montreal.

Sports Related: I caught a disease on April 19 at Fenway Park. Carol and I had a most perfect day at The Sox game that day. Absolutely perfect.

I was tuned in like it was my first game ever as a reasoning, cogent adult. Laser-like focus.

Carol has a sad addiction. The Boston Red Sox. They prance across our TV screen hundreds of times a year.

I am not kidding. I have never tracked it but I am willing to bet that at least 75% of Sox games are burned into the screen every year. Automatic. We stumble home from work, rustle up some humble grub and sit our tired asses down to baseball.

The beginning of the season thrills me. Then I fade. The Sox have played something like 38 or 39 games this year. By this point in the season I am typically half-assed watching the games. Reading, worrying and wondering when I will pull my life together, inventing new ways to create anxiety, spacing out, drinking too much whiskey on a bad night.

I have noticed a change since April 19 and last night was a perfect example. We switched over from The Bruins loss to The Sox, which we had been keeping an eye on during hockey breaks.

I lasered in. Watched the game with intensity. Focus. Emotion. Interesting because I was bummed by The Bruins loss. But I switched gears in minutes and began digging The Sox.

I have noticed this a few times already this season. Typically I can take or leave baseball, but not this year.

I am watching it like a fan of the game. An appreciator. It is giving me pleasure. Bonus pleasure, which is a goddamn gift in this pleasure-less world.

I caught a disease for which I refuse to seek a cure. I will enjoy it into my bones. And we WILL get back to Fenway this year. I guaranfuckingtee it.

Brief aside: I love the way Big Papi kicks Minnesota's ass every time they play. This is his former team, the team that cast him aside like an old shoe. So he could move on to The Sox and become a bona fide super star.

Apparently Big Papi "wants it more" than Minnesota does.

No comments:

Post a Comment