Are you ready for some football?
I have been a football fan for over fifty years. My Dad took
me to my first game when I was six in the first grade. We went to Yankee Stadium
to see the Giants. They had a great team. Went to the Championship game and
lost. Allie Sherman was the coach. YA Tittle. Frank Gifford. Dick Lynch. Sam
Huff. The old Giants.
We got to go to one game a year. It was impossible to get
tickets. They were handed down from one family member to another. There was a
ten year waiting list. But we would scrounge and get a ticket now then through
the down years with Fran Tarkington and Norm Snead and Joe Pisarcik. They had
moved to Jersey by then so it was a hike.
It was lot easier to get Jets tickets. My old boss had
season tickets to Shea Stadium as he was an original Titans season ticket
holder. So I got to see a bunch of games in the early seventies when the team
went downhill after their Super Bowl win. Joe Willie. Matt Snell. Emerson
Boozer. It wasn’t the Giants but it was football.
I managed to get a partial season ticket in the glory years
of Simms and LT. This guy sold me one seat every other game. So I got to go a
lot. Right up to a few years ago when I got too busy to go to the game. But I
watch it religiously every week and tape the games if I can’t watch them
live. Every Giant game is an event for
me.
Lately though I have to rethink things. The NFL has really changed.
At one time it was guts and glory on the gridiron. Players played and they didn’t
really bring their politics into it. Or more precisely they only did pro
American politics. Roger Staubach going to Vietnam to entertain the troops.
Standing behind first responders on 911. Things like that. Pro American.
Now the NFL is stopping the Dallas Cowboys from wearing a
sticker to honor the cops murdered in Dallas. Some Ram players did a
demonstration of the bullshit “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” on the field during a game
and that was fine with the league. Tim Tebow was relentlessly attacked by
announcers on ESPN and on game day for his religious faith and drummed out of
the league while Colin Kaeperdick is being celebrated by these same people. When
he should have been cut immediately.
It seems that the NFL is full of liberal pussies these days.
The Days of Deacon Jones ringing the bell or the violent world of Sam Huff is a
thing of the past. The NFL fan base is basically the Trump voter. Solidly
Middle American working class. People who would be appalled if they were following
what is happening. I can understand if you want to keep politics out of sports.
That is a defensible position. But instead they are injecting politically correct
ultra-liberal politics like not even saying the name of the Washington
Redskins. It is time that the NFL get out of the political business. Or they
stand to lose a lot of fans like me. I have already given up on the NBA and the
Knicks this year. I would hate to give up on football. I hope that they make a
change soon and stop the political drift that has been going on or they will lose
me forever. That would be a shame.
I am ready for some football. But I am not ready for the
bullshit that is attached. I hope it changes and changes fast.
10 comments:
I gave up on football years ago, and I have not seen a game in almost 2 years. It's amazing what one can accomplish in life if one participates rather than spectates.
So true. I think I am going to make some chicken cutlets right now.
I just found out that Kaeperdick is from Wisconsin. That explains it right there.
Like I said, Wisconsin is basically Florida in the North.
So what sport is left for you?
Just do what I do, just watch the games. Skip the pre-game show, the half-time show, the post-game show and all the BS.
The NFL could make a fortune, just showing its own games, on their own channel. What do they need ESPN/CBS/NBC/Fox for?
As for Kap. The guy is just setting up an alibi - They fired me because of my politics. If you look at his record, no one ever thought he would be a great QB. He was drafted low, and spend his college days at Nevada U. He spent his first year on the bench and then had a couple good years, because the Coach was a offensive genius and the Defenses didn't know how to play him.
Starting last year, the genius coach was gone, and the Defenses had figured out how to play him. Result: Mediocrity, followed by a massive loss of confidence, and now he'll be out of the league.
Trump had it right. You don't like America? Then why not go somewhere else and be happy?
Kap must be worth at LEAST $50 million. He can live anywhere in the world. Why stick around in a country that 'oppresses' guys like him?
There's a running play in which the quarterback fakes a handoff to the fullback who plunges right while the real handoff goes to the halfback who swings left and the whole play depends on the tackles who both pull slightly back and then go left as the guards are plunging right. Those tackles have to be just ahead of the halfback and have to throw their blocks at just the right time to clear the path for the halfback. If they don't the play's a mess, if they do it's a thing of beauty that the fan can really see unfolding because of the greater space between the players than in a straightforward run into the line. You rarely see the pros attempt it, probably because it's harder at that level to make a feint work against pro defenders. But you do see it at the college level and it's one of the best moments in all of sports.
Not having television reception has freed me from ever watching sports again, unless I am there in person.
I went to a game in Cameron Indoor a couple of years ago, and that was very memorable, very moving. I may never get another ticket, and if not, I am good with that. Coach K's hair dye looks fake even from the next to last row up behind the basket.
It's nice knowing that portion of my life is complete.
The NHL is ready to take you back. Go Bruins.
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