So this weekend posed another challenge to this blog getting done. This week’s gauntlet has consisted of house projects which are both ambitious and necessary. We’re both very productive and very tired all the time lately. I also had to upgrade phones and will now be cutting my family’s meal plan from 3 meals a week to 2 and from brushing every day to brushing once a week. Here’s to hoping Owen and Isaac know someone who is a dental hygenist or can get an appointment at the dental school when they are 30. Daddy needs a better camera for his phone!
Anyway, while not managing a house that seems to systematically scheme to make more work for you the more you get done, or gambling my children’s future health. I had a chance late last night to see a documentary about fantasy football. It was pretty boring and the production value probably equals my new toothpaste budget but what was interesting was they tracked down and interviewed the players. Amazingly these were players from the MN Vikings in probably 2006-2007. Players like Chester Taylor and Artose Pinner...were we ever so young? Well every player basically said this “I don’t know anything about it but people come up to me all the time and say “You helped me win the pot in my league” and I say “That’s great! were is my cut?” It helped me realize something that I’ve thought about for a while.
Best as I can tell, most people can be defined by one or more if these labels when it comes to a positive response to sports:
- Casual Enthusiast - Willing to follow the sport enough to talk to it and maybe watch it live once in a while.
- Athlete - Sports is something they actively participate in for their own personal health, social, and character building benefits. The best way to do this is to do something organized and competitive.
- Sports Geeks: Did not or currently does not play sports but follows it, thinks critically about it, analyzes it.....I’m not sure how to define it in a sentence. Here are some, you might be a Sports Geek if examples. Hopefully Jeff Foxworthy doesn’t read this and get bent out of shape with me copying him. If he is reading, hey Jeff, this is a blog that exists for like 12 people. I get it you made a bajillion dollars by this stereotyping gimmick. I just want to use it once because I’m unoriginal and I’m in need some vehicle to express this point. So get over it and please get rid of the creepy 80s mustache. It’s almost as bad as my creepy 90’s goatee that I wore in the aughts.
Here it is. You might be a Sports Geek if...
- You bought baseball/football/basketball/hockey cards as a kid but that’s not all you did. You kept them in mint condition and bought a pricing guide to try and sell them...as a kid. Extra points if you still have them because you’re convinced you can retire on that Jeff Hostetler rookie card as long as you keep it safe for 50 more years (he won a Superbowl for pete’s sake!). Picture this: I have a plenty of hair but have a comb over haricut, I’m sitting in an abandon Woolworths on a nice summer Saturday morning behind a folding chair. Next to me are older ladies selling knick knacks and wooden bears that say “Welcome.” The biggest highlight of my day is that someone bought a 1986 Ellis Burke card from me for 50 cents. I’m naively unaware of how impossible I’m making it for girls to even think about talking to me in the next 5 years. Any movie music scorer would play “Owner of a Lonely Heart” in the background. if this were the scene in a movie. I need
- You got as many autographs from players as you could. Maybe an inane former player came to your school to talk about drugs. Maybe it’s because he has stories of driving his Carolla through a ditch for a couple miles after a “get together with friends” during the offseason back in the 80s and then running naked through a corn field because the children of the corn were threatening him through his head speakers.. He’s just looking out for your best interests and wants to make sure you don’t end up like he did. Physically talented, too young to make adult decisions, overpaid in his generation, short career, underpaid in the next generation after inflation. Why not get his autograph on a non-descript notebook while you’re at it? Better yet get it on a baseball/football card because the card from his 7th year when he was injured half the season is worth way more.
- You can make jokes with other sports geeks about severely inane sports details and not only do they understand but they laugh too. The rest of the world is collectively and simultaneously ambivalent and embarrassed for you.
- You listen to sports talk radio as your primary radio station and seriously consider calling in from time to time to discuss the latest news (please read here: give uneducated, inexperienced opinion on how general local athlete to be named isn’t entertaining the caller the right way as a part of their job and/or argue with the host about said baseless opinion)
- While corporate tax writeoffs and fair weather “I want the experience once a year” ticket holders probably make the majority of the revenue for the team, you stick with the team through the lean years, get overlooked when the team is successful attendance is high and get patronized during the lean years when you may be their only source of revenue. When the bad times come like, I don’t know let’s say a lockout, the owners don’t care what you want, the players don’t care what you want. Both sides assume that when they offer their product again that you’ll be there like you were before. And you probably will be right there waiting again. Any other business would fold with this business model because they are not a monopoly. I have to say I will still enjoy watching Harrison Barnes and Jared Sullinger this year. There’s a good chance all the former NBA sponsors and networks may agree. Enough talk about it because it’s too stupid to talk about.
- Not only will you play Madden and try to get it every year. You will play Franchise mode and draft all of your players. Sometimes you will simulate 10 years ahead just to manage the lineups because it’s quicker than having to play each game.
- You get legitimately angry when the team you are rooting for doesn’t just lose a close, bitterly fought game to their rivals but smiles and jokes it up with the opposition after the game. You assume and wish everyone on your team was a permanent resident of the city and hated those other teams like you hate them.
Anyhoo, I was both an athlete and a Sports Geek at one time. I used to be predominately an athlete but I don’t qualify anymore as I haven’t played organized sports in any fashion in about 6 years so I’m officially a sports geek. I’ve had to think about whether my participation in fantasy football is on the geek side or not. It’s clear that a pure athlete based on my definition above is not really a sports geek and may not even be a sport enthusiast (see Bernard Berrian or Ricky Williams). In fact they may not even know the current standings or the score of the game they are playing. They don’t need to because their talent and effort is what their paycheck is for... not for tracking other peoples stats.
So for a long time I thought FF was considered geeky because it just couldn’t hold up to the athletes more utilitarian view of sports or the casual enthusiasts diversified interests. But imagine if it was 25 years ago and I told you that there were a certain amount of people in 2011 that would communicate with each other via electronic mail and computer applications that would be on machines. These people would carry these machines with them all the time and would spend half their attention span on them in social situations. The Izod shirt, Levi’s 501, Member’s only jacket wearing fictional person I made up would say it would be all the nerds. The “neo maxi-zoom dweebies” of the world. Bender from the Breakfast Club would push them up against a locker, punch them in the face, and then do the fist pump while Simple Minds plays in the background. Well those dweebies are smartphone users and are 125 million strong in the US. I guarantee that all members of Metallica have smartphones. They are probably on Facebook and Twitter. What was anti social and weird has become socially acceptable and popular. Bender probably has a blackberry that he stole from someone’s locker.
Fantasy football can be no different at least on a smaller scale. It’s not enough for pro athletes to be patronized in to having us believe that we need to take football more seriously. There is nothing more crazy than a football purist who thinks that you play through concussions and that everyone should be so serious about this GAME that they cannot be entertained by end zone celebrations or the crazy personalities in the NFL. They are the same people that scoff at fantasy football and say that individual stat line listings at games and on the TV ticker is ridiculous. The irony is that there is an estimated 19 million leagues in the US and all these people watch adds sandwich between the start and end of a 10 second kickoff to see if Desean Jackson might actually catch a pass for once this week. This is a game, it’s entertainment, that is it’s utility to society and if fantasy football captures the attention of 5 million people who now know who Roy Helu is then football purists should be ecstatic. At least football isn’t just for sports geeks, gamblers, and former athletes anymore. Bender’s team name is the “Barry Manilow Wardrobe Raiders.”
Well it’s week 10 and we have 4 more weeks until the end of the regular season which means it’s the 4th quarter so to speak. Or according to this kid it’s go time!:
USA!USA!USA!USA!
Kent vs Kidz - The Kidz managed a tie last week against their archrivals the Lifecoaches. They have a 22 point head start this week against Team Kent who is defending his title well and is #1 in the Einhorn division and #2 overall.
Boys Club vs Dancer: The Boys were handed a tough loss last week to Big Blows. Without a bye week in the way this week she hopes to come back and establish the same dominance in the league as she once had. The Rain Dancers look to take over the top of the league and say “We’re the dancers”
Peligroso vs Blows: Peligroso is like the Patriots this year, storied franchise that is a little better than average but just not the same team. With the resurgence of Michael Turner and the potential of Michael Vick and Julio Jones that could change quickly. The Big Blows have Aaron Rodgers, the highest scoring player in the league and have a 23 point head start thanks to Michael Bush...or should I say thanks to the Chargers D. OH SNAP!
Lifecoaches vs Fumble Mumble - No bye week, no major injuries get in the way of Fumble Mumble trying to get one of the last playoff spots. Will the tie on Week 8 help? Is it better just to do fractional scoring? What is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more. The Lifecoaches don’t want to risk giving FM a chance to oust them and have a 3-1-1 record since Week 5 without Andre Johnson and without Ahmad Bradshaw this week. Can CJ Spiller equal Ahmad Bradshaw? Only if the question is are they both football players.
Mall vs. Bangers: I guess you could say that in real life it was Brookdale Mall vs. the Bangers too. The Bangers ultimately won and Brookdale Mall is vacant and desolate. Will it happen in Superbowl Shuffle too? The Bangers are loaded for bear with the hopes that Tim Tebow can be the key to a playoff run. The Bangers hope that stud Lesean McCoy can continue putting up numbers with hopes his receivers start to produce.
Have a good week everybody!
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