While it can sometimes be hard watching sports with a sports bettor, it can also take the sting out of a bad loss. Like this past weekend, for example. There was little for me to be pleased with. The Browns lost. Brett Favre lost. What brightness could come from so dark a scene? Alex made money on both losses. While such wins do not make up for such losses, they certainly make the pain easier to bear.
I was really rooting for a Red Sox--Phillies World Series. Not because I like either team, not at all. In fact, I care very little for baseball. I liked it a lot as a kid, when we'd go see a Cleveland Indians game every summer. We'd begin with dinner out some place fancy enough to make me a Shirley Temple (nowadays you can get an ST just about anyplace, you can get one at Friendly's for a buck-fifty that comes in a 32-oz cup with free refills, but once upon a time, Shirley Temples were only made in places with full bars) then head over to the stadium. I remember sitting high up in the stands looking down on the action. The action was always of less interest to me than the sky. I loved looking at the swath of sky carved out by the open dome of the stadium, the endless summer night sky of northern Ohio. I would be taken out of my reveries on occasion by the roar of the crowd responding to the action below me, and for a time I would follow the game. But mostly I just liked to sky-gaze. There's so much downtime in baseball that I couldn't stay connected to the game for long. My grandfather used to listen to every Indians game on the radio, and I remember the tinny voices of the announcers as I'd cross through the room to head outside, my grandfather's gaze far too distant to be seeing anything that I could see. Clearly, he was at the game. He needed no picture to connect him; listening to the action took him right to the stadium. My brother today listens to Yankees games on the radio, and the look in his eyes when he's really lost in the game brings me right back to my grandfather. Baseball is a part of the family legacy. My great-grandfather, Paddy Livingston, was a pro player a century ago. He played in the All-Star game in 1909 or 1911, I forget the year. The game-day photo of both teams shows Paddy with the 30 or 40 other players, in their pajama-like uniforms, few of them smiling for the camera. Though in those days, taking a photo took time, more time than one can comfortably hold a smile. It took so much time, in fact, that one guy is actually in the team photo twice, he just ran to the other side as the camera was taking in the full scene. I never met Paddy, but his pictures showed him to look much like his son, my grandfather, Robert. Grandpa had a shot at going pro, too, but the demands of the Depression took away many opportunities for many people. So Grandpa drove a truck and raised his family and listened to baseball on the radio. And his son, Bob, had his own talents on the field, a star player in high school. But again, limited means make for limited choices. Both my brothers played Little League in Ohio, and I was pretty killer on the TeeBall team (okay, I could hit a stay-put ball, that was about where my skills ended). But once we moved to Jersey, there wasn't much baseball in our lives. We weren't fans of the Mets or Yankees so we didn't go to see games, and my brothers weren't playing in school. This is about when baseball lost most of it's interest for me. Now, I get interested around the playoffs. And I was watching that game 4 between the Sox and Yankees a few years ago when the Sox made the comeback of a lifetime and beat the Yanks, which then had me watching the rest of that series, which was edge-of-your-seat excitement throughout. And even though I was living in New York at the time, I really wanted Boston to win. For one thing, I generally root for the underdog, unless my team happens to be the favorite (which happens rarely as a Cleveland fan). And Boston was a huge dog that year, the Yankees were at the top of their game, and the history of these teams was ugly all the way back to Babe Ruth. So I was really happy for Boston to win that year. But now....
I've got a problem with New England sports. I've had a problem with them since the Patriots responded to the Bears "Super Bowl Shuffle" with a terrible, terrible song, I can't even remember the name, I just remember the chorus, "New England, The Patriots are We!" which even as a 10-year-old pissed me off. I was a HUGE fan of the '85 Bears, with Jim McMahon Walter Payton and the Fridge. And what a tune they produced:
"We are The Bears, The Shuffling Crew
Shuffling on down, doing it for you!
We're so bad, we know we're good,
Blowing your minds like we knew we would."
At one point, I knew it word for word. And I truly believed, once I heard both the Bears and the Patriots songs, that there was no way a team that had a song as bad as the New England song could win. And I was right. Better song=better team. Years later, even as I lived in Boston for 4 years, I couldn't get behind the Patriots. The song had soured me on the team for life. I never became a fan of any Boston team, but I didn't take issue with any of them, except the Pats. Wait, I should take a step back: I have been a life-long liker of the Celtics. Not a fan, just a "liker". I followed basketball even less than I followed baseball as a kid, I went to a Cleveland Cavaliers game once, but basketball didn't do much for me. However, my OTHER grandfather, Grandpa McLynn (he who gave me my first car which Alex repaired with duct tape), he was a HUGE Celtics fan. My grandpa was a fan of all things Irish, and the Boston Celtics were representative of the Irish. In his later years, Grandpa's winter uniform was dominated by his wool Celtics sweater, worn on game day or not, and the outcome of a Celtics game determined his mood for the days to come. So, I have always liked the Celtics, mostly because I loved my grandad, and he loved his team, so I cannot see the Celtics without thinking of my grandfather, and so I cannot help but like them. In fact, I watched the NBA playoffs and finals for the first time in my life this year, and even though the Celts beat the Cavs in a game 7 heartbreaker, I was cheering for Boston every inch of the way against the Lakers. And I think I might have become a fan of the game of basketball. I was watching Team USA in Beijing this summer play their 3am games and was actually excited about it. ANYWAY. I'm not a Boston sports fan. And in the last number of years, Boston teams have dominated 3 of the 4 major sports in this country (the Bruins even gave a run for the Stanley Cup early on in the hockey season last year, but to no avail in the end). And frankly, I'm tired of it. Even as I was cheering on the Celts, I was hoping for the Sox to stay out of the Series, the Pats to stay out of the Superbowl. So why then, why would I have been hoping for a Sox--Phillies Series? Two words: Smack. Talk.
I do love some good sports-centered smack-talk. I can't give it out so good, but I try nonetheless. And even though my teams always lose, it's still fun to talk down my friends' teams. Especially when my friends' teams are from Boston. My friend Pete is a lifelong New England sports fan from the great state of Maine. I am always pleased to send him a text on a Sunday to let him know that the Pats just got scored against, and Pete is always happy to let me know how Favre just threw his 3rd interception of the day. Smack-talk makes game day extra-fun! Alex is a fan of all things Philly. And I do mean ALL THINGS PHILLY. (Greatest movie ever made? Rocky. Greatest actor/musician? Will Smith/The Fresh Prince. Greatest parade? Mummer's Day.) And he's got a lot of friends who are lifelong Boston fans. So a Sox--Phillies series would provide much fodder for the belittling of the home-town teams of lots of people in our lives. I will gladly take on the side of Philly to root down Boston. (Which makes little sense, considering how much I loved living in Boston for 4 years and think of my 1 year living in Philly as one of the worst years of my life.) But unfortunately, Tampa Bay handed Boston it's ass before Philly could do so. And I don't know anyone rooting for Tampa. Which means that I am almost completely without interest in this series. Go Philly, for Alex's sake. Blah. I just don't care...
But I do care about the Patriots. I care so much I want them to lose every game. I have to admit it, the Pats piss me off. The Sox might annoy me, but I still generally want them to win against all but maybe 3 teams out there. The Pats though, oh the Pats...I want them to lose. Against everybody. I want them to look ridiculous. I want them to suffer defeat time and time again. Granted, I didn't want them to lose their star quarterback. I feel really bad for Tom Brady, sustaining a 2-year injury when at the top of your game is just wrong. But he's got 3 Super Bowl rings, so he can suck it up. And Coach Belichick...I've got nothing good to say about him. Let's see, he was the Browns coach for 5 seasons in the 90's, and of those 5 seasons, he only managed a winning record in one of them. He took one of Cleveland's only bright spots (Quarterback Bernie Kosar, whose name would be substituted for the title name in the song "Louie Louie" to become a favorite Cleveland chant) and benched him for Vinny Testaverde. By the end of Belichick's reign in Cleveland, the Browns had a 5-11 record and the team's owner announced that he was moving the team out of Cleveland and into Baltimore, where it would become the Ravens, which is now an enemy team. So, I blame Belichick for Cleveland losing it's team (which it eventually got back, but the years were dark for Cleveland in between). Every time I see Belichick on the Patriots sideline, I get angry. I want to smack him. I want him to lose. The fact that he's done so much winning in New England just adds insult to injury. And the fact that he got caught cheating with the Spygate incident just makes him that much more despicable to me. He deserves to lose. And it's been a pleasure watching him do so this season. (Though the Pats kicked ass this week, beating the Broncos by 34 points. Bitches.)
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