But but BUT... I love football. Played in high school. A great play in football can make you leap from the couch and scream. Few things in this world can rouse you like sports, (One exception: Golf, which is pure evil. Every wrong with humanity stems directly from golf.)
This weekend, I have a special wish for the NFL. It goes this way...
1. I love Buffalo. It's a great town. The long-suffering Bills Mafia is heartful and righteous. The fans actually send money to charities of opposing players, as they did with that Raven tight end who dropped the big pass last week. In every way, such events are Buffalo's finest hour.
2. I hate the Chiefs. If I never again see Andy Reid and Pat Mahomes pitch the bundling of home and car insurance, that's reason to live. I have no issue with Kansas City. They traded us Roger Maris. But the Chiefs have won enough. Everyone in America knows this. Everyone wants the Bills to win.
3. I hate the refs. Game after game, with phantom penalties, they decide winners and losers. It's the fourth quarter, a minute left, close game. A hail Mary pass. Players collide. For one long, endless moment, everyone looks around. Then the flag is thrown. Pass interference. Or holding. Or roughing the passer. Something. It doesn't matter. Suddenly, it's all over but for the chip shot field goal. A great game... with a sad, dreadful, tiresome conclusion. Decided by the refs.
4. The instant replay must prove this. It will be be obvious, so incredibly wrong that whomever is in the TV booth - Romo, Aikman, Collinsworth - they openly blast the call. And it will be one of those penalties that cannot be challenged. The network will bring in the league's lackey, who hems and haws, and says it coulda gone either way, but the whole world will know that one team just got screwed. Again. And everybody will be pissed.
When I was a young man, I kept a book of quotes, which I wrote down whenever I saw fit. Here's one from Cyprian St. Cyr.
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16 comments:
Captivating-emotional-inspired-truth. . .
The Bills, if they win, could change the curse of mighty rivers.
Bend steel with their bare hands.
Then again nothing might happen - win or lose.
I mean seriously-how can you name a football team after a pair of bird lips?
I may never ask for ICE again.
WhattaWeek.
WhattaWorld.
Seems all sports owners are hated. We hate ‘em more in NY because it’s now Loser City.
For me the worse thing about the NFL is the corporate mentality, and the fake, lip-synched musical performances. (Whatever happened to Up With People? Somebody told me that’s how Jim Morrison got started. I don’t think that’s true.) Worst of all is the ersatz patriotism, cynically presented with hands out reaching for another tax cut and stadium deal. But yes, I love the game which I played throughout school as a rail thin 6’5 160lb hard-tokin’, pot-smokin’ end. That’s what it was called back then. Not wide receiver, wide-out, just end.
Yes, I’ll be watching Sunday. Can’t help myself.
Sadly, I got spoiled as a young boy by watching those AFL games. My brother used to stay up with that little black and white TV and watch the replays of the games that had been blacked out. Daryle Lamonica - the Mad Bomber, John Hadl, and, of course, Broadway Joe. Those athletes were so much more athletic. The game was completely different then and it was FUCKING EXCTING. Then, after Refrigerator Perry, the game slowly became more obese, slower, more boring - 3 yards and a cloud of dust type shit - and I just lost interest. Didn't help that the Jets became the true definition of suckitude. They ruined it for me. After doing something I normally never do - scrapping my loyalty to the Jets - I tried to like the Giants. I really, really tried, but they kind of sucked for years there and I realized that, unless you're raised in that tradition - as is my case with the Yankees - the narrative alone is not compelling enough to make me want to sit through years of colostomy-prep level football.
meant to say "colonoscopy prep level." sorry, got a 102 fever. not the Vid, but something nasty with a truly horrible cough. I'm not all here.
That is very well said and written, El Duque. You expressed most of my thoughts on football in a way I could never convey.
I have one question and one comment.
Question: Too much of a decked-out Taylor Swift?
Comment: Bundlerewski!
Also, your post should be published in another print media as a commentary or as a " Letter to the editor."
Colostomy-prep works, too. In fact, it's even more terrifying and accurate.
Whoa, wait a minute. Buffalo--as my father pointed out years ago--is the only actual New York football team, the others playing in New Guernsey. And my sister went to college there. And my oldest friend lived in Orchard Park in his early childhood. And the curse of OJ.
The Bills must win. The Chiefs must lose. Taylor must shed a theatrical tear. The Kelces must retreat into their former obscurity. Andy Reid must have his mustache cut off while he's sleeping. The Giants suck, the Jets suck, but Buffalo doesn't suck.
I'll take that.
I can see it now. The Bills are down by 1 point to KC with time expiring, and the kicker misses a 47-yard field goal just wide to the right.
Just one more comment on the Rivera "scandal," as I missed the conversation yesterday. And yes, you guys all covered it pretty well, and pretty sensibly. Yes, rape and sexual abuse is definitely underreported, and we need to be sensitive to it.
But according to the clip somebody sent me from the NY Post, anyway—and when have they ever got anything wrong?—the incident in question happened between two young girls, in the shower. One claimed the other groped her. How exactly the Riveras or anyone else is supposed to sort that out—and what that sorting out would mean—is beyond me.
I'm suspicious of the attorney then running right to the tabloids with it, as well. I think we should at least wait see more of what develops here.
And yes, I find the refereeing exasperating in the NFL, too. The replays slow the game down—as they do in every sport. I wish they would eliminate them—but I think they won't, now that all of sports is about gambling...
...As for the game—go, Bills, go!!! I like KC, and I admire what incredible pros they are. But Buffalo has won nothing since two AFL titles, back in 1964-65. Time they got a break!!!
Every once in awhile I will watch one of those classic NFL games from the sixties. Two announcers, who simply say "who, what, where, down and yards to go). Players make the play as though it's their job without the phony histrionics. No close-ups of celebrities, or anyone. Back when I had to go out of my way to find out players salaries. No music blasting or commercials in the stadium. Yeah I'm just like every old bastard pining for "back in the day". But damn, is it so wrong to just want to enjoy a game? My rant is over, thought I'd have something more to say...
Sports suck, but like any addict...
It's the head injuries for me. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy. And it isn't caused by game contact and concussions. It's caused by all the smaller but still violent hits in endless practices. And the league knew and suppressed it. Players dying of CTE dementia had to donate their brains to researchers for the truth to come out.
The NFL billionaires knew. Fuck them.
But yeah, the Bills may have suffered enough. I rooted for Elway at the end of his career. Glad he got two rings. Scott Norwood. There should be some restitution after wide right. And that was decades ago.
Fuck that demon Thurman Thomas. How dare he have Munson's name!
Amen.
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