Monday Musings
*You know, I think I am starting to understand how Yankees fans feel. My skin just crawled, typing that, but hear me out.
Remember way back in the day, when the Yankees were a dynasty? All their fans did was gripe and complain that everyone was out to get them, that major league baseball was conspiring to bring them down.
It is getting that way with the Patriots. You look at the schedule and see the murderer's row lined up -- on the road at Carolina and Pittsburgh, at home against San Diego, back on the road to Atlanta and Denver, etc. -- and assume the league wants someone other than the Pats to win. Then you notice the Colts get their bye week right before they play the Pats. And you notice the referees seem to throw flags against the Pats every single time they make physical contact with another player. Then you notice that the clock sure seemed to get stuck on "0:01" for a suspicious amount of time as Adam Vinatieri's field goal went up yesterday.
Then you take a deep breath and realize that there isn't really a conspiracy against the Pats; that maybe they really are playing that sloppy and commit that many penalties.
And then you take a second breath. And you realize it is way more fun to assume everyone is out to get the Pats. New England has already proven everything there is to prove on the field. Some folks want to deny this, but it sort of got boring at times last year, the mechanical precision with which the Patriots mowed down the competition, as anyone who sat on their hands through the win over the Dolphins to set the consecutive wins record can attest. The Patriots have always done their best when they've perceived themselves the victims of slights, whether real ("Peyton Manning cannot be stopped!!! No really, ignore the fact the Patriots beat him like a rented mule, Peyton will really win this time!!! We swear!!!") or imagined. So let them think everyone is out to get them. Maybe that's what kept the Yankees going all along.
*Man, and … as if on cue … I have the Yankees-Orioles on in the background, and all they've been doing on the YES network is ramble on and on about how it is vitally important they get the game in tonight, even though it is pouring sheets of rain, and how you cannot mess with King Randy's rhythm, or something like that, and it is not fair to force the Yankees to play a doubleheader at this time of the year when so much is at stake. They keep briefly mentioning the Red Sox got rained out tonight and are playing a doubleheader on Tuesday. Apparently it is OK for Boston to play a doubleheader. They're back in rain delay now, and airing a video called "Tales of Triumph: The 2001 World Series." I personally wouldn't call a series in which a team blows both a 3-2 series lead and a ninth-inning lead in Game 7 a "triumph," but maybe that's just me.
*Got to let all y'alls back East in on the best thing in sports you've probably never given a second thought: Pac-10 football. This stuff's great. USC might be the greatest college football team ever assembled. Arizona State has a ridiculous offense. California deserves a higher ranking that it is getting. Oregon, UCLA, and possibly Washington State are good enough to throw monkey wrenches in the big boys' plans. Now, I don't buy into the whining East Coast bias theories they bitterly cling to in Seattle, because the fact is the Pac-10 has a self-inflicted visibility problem in which they don't bother airing their games on ESPN and they get most of their games regionalized on ABC. But if you like high-scoring games and are the type of person who only checks in on the biggest college football games of the year, make it a point to watch USC-Arizona State on Saturday, which could very well end up having a final score of 77-56 or something to that effect … if you can find the game anywhere.
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