Dear Friends,
I don’t have the energy to talk about anything serious today. I’m not dying or anything, and I did have a good chat with my granny yesterday, but I’d rather just talk about sports today.
When I was in high school, I was part of the school newspaper at both Deer Valley and Camelback where I attended in the mid-1980s. At Deer Valley, I was primarily a sports reporter and eventually was named back page editor for the first half of junior year before I moved. For a while, I wanted to grow up to be a sports reporter, though, and sports have always been a passion for me.
I love playing sports, too, but I also have been a lifelong fan of the Phoenix Suns. If I could have played for the Suns, that would have been the ultimate dream, but writing about them would have been a close second for me until I discovered playing in bands. To be in the locker room asking questions and writing about my favorite team is still something I dream about from time to time, but I’ve never really pursued sports writing since high school.
My allegiance to the other local teams has come, and in the case of the Diamondbacks, gone since their arrival. As a young fella, I was a fan of the Oakland Raiders in the football world before the Cardinals came to Arizona and in baseball, it was the Los Angeles Dodgers until the Diamondbacks got here. I guess I should mention that I root pretty openly for all the ASU teams, even though they often make me bitter, and I’ve developed a little love for Grand Canyon University’s basketball team, too.
As for hockey, I do root for the Coyotes, but have zero faith they will be here for the long haul.
If you would have asked me at age 25 if there would have ever been another baseball team for me other than the Dodgers I would have laughed at you but when the Diamondbacks came along, my loyalty went to them pretty rapidly and fairly soon, I even began to loathe the Dodgers. When they peed in the pool at the stadium where the Diamondbacks play, that was enough.
Over the last couple of years, between the Diamondbacks terribly boring brand of baseball and their owner (Ken Kendrick…look it up) donating a bunch of money to dipshit republican crazy assholes like the gal (Rep. Bobert) from Colorado, I can’t support them anymore. I refuse to spend a single dollar that might go to that guy, so I won’t be supporting his team. I have switched my fandom over to the Boston Red Sox.
There are two major reasons for this. One, I spend a good deal of time on the east coast and many people I love are Sox fans. Two, I’ve been to two games at Fenway Park now and I love it. It is the best place to hang out and watch baseball and the fans are awesome. Shit, I guess there is a third reason: I hate the Yankees.
I once almost went to a game at Yankee stadium, but I couldn’t bring myself to go in. Standing there waiting in the line to buy tickets being surrounded by all those Yankee fans was revolting. Instead, I decided to go to a museum. This was an excellent decision even though the Guggenheim was closed when I got there. I was still able to walk around the lobby area and see what a cool building it was and still is.
So, anyway, I love the Red Sox now and follow them from afar. Fuck the Diamondbacks.
I do love and support the Arizona Cardinals. I rooted for the Raiders for a while after the Cardinals got here, but eventually I lost interest. I’m a one football team guy, I guess. For many years, I used to tell people that being a fan of the Cardinals was the easiest thing ever. There was no pressure. If they won, it was awesome. If they lost, oh well, they did that a lot.
Then they went to the super bowl in 2006 and all hell broke loose. Expectations rose and the pressure came with them to live and die with them every week. In the 1990s, I would often start watching their games, nap through the second and third quarters, and then pick up in the fourth and not feel like I missed much. Now, I tend to be on the edge of my seat.
I don’t like Kyler Murray as a person very much. He’s a terribly exciting player a lot of the time, but his body language is a huge turn off for me. I also don’t like how predictable they become sometimes on offense. I tell my fellow football fan friends this a lot: “If I know what they are going to do, the other team’s defensive coordinator must know, too.”
This makes sense, right? I’m not even a huge expert on football.
I do hope for the best, though, and I think they have the potential to do some cool stuff if they put together a great game plan and the injuries don’t pile up even worse. It would be great to get some guys like Deandre Hopkins and JJ Watt back for the playoffs, but I’m not holding my breath. Injuries in sports are heartbreakers and every team experiences them at some point.
This brings me back to my Suns. Holy crap are they a fun team to watch. They move the ball and for the first time ever, play some great defense. They are truly a team and that is a rarity in pro sports today. They seem to really enjoy playing together and have a great “next man up” thing going on. I do hope they can stay relatively healthy down the stretch and make another great run.
Last year, I was in Maine during the majority of the playoffs, and it was really hard to stay up so late for the games. I totally get now why east coast folks don’t know anything about how great this team is these days. The games are on super late back there. I still got to watch the really important ones, though.
That’s enough for today.
See you tomorrow.
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