Sports aren’t what they used to be for me. Make that sports isn’t what it used to be for me, because my interests over the year have dwindled to a single sport— the National Football League. Oh, I follow local high school sports, rooting on some of the kids I know, but I’m talking about sports at the national level.
Sports on television has become a real bore—with the exception of the National Football League and, most notably, its postseason.
Take college basketball. I don’t pay much attention to it until March Madness arrives and, even then, only a handful of games interest me. My limited attention span includes the Sweet 16 through the championship game. Winners and losers pass with little notice. By May I couldn’t tell you two of the Final Four teams.
Then there is professional basketball, the NBA. I used to watch it a lot during the regular season, and I followed the playoffs closely. Whether it was the Knicks with Willis Reed and Walt “Clyde” Frasier, the Lakers going against the Celtics—through the Magic-versus-Bird years— and even, to a lesser extent, the Michael Jordan era. Now I seldom watch an NBA game—not even the playoffs—and I paid only nominal attention to the championship clash between the Mavs and Heat last year. I only remember who played because of all the negative stuff about LeBron and Dwyane. By the way, I think too many pro basketball players were named by parents who couldn’t spell. Dwyane for Duane? Shades of Isiah (Just Call Him Isaiah) Thomas.
Forget about the NHL. I‘m not into hockey at all, and if I want to see punching, missing teeth and bloodied faces, there is boxing. Come to think of it, I don’t watch boxing anymore either. I think I stopped paying attention to that sometime around the downfall of Mike Tyson.
Oh, yes, I do pay occasional attention to college football, but I don’t really pledge allegiance to any particular team. The closest would be Penn State, which is only a couple of hours’ drive from me, but there are so many rabid Nittany Lions fans in these parts that the bright side of losing is the pleasure of them shutting up. Recent events and transgressions have turned the once rosy image of Happy Valley into a sober, if not menacing, one. It has made rooting for Penn State akin to confessing you were once a Hitler Youth.
As for the rest of the collegiate football scene, I can’t get all that excited about the modern day college powers from places like Baton Rouge, Birmingham and Tulsa. It’s like rooting for the pro-slavery side in the Civil War.
Baseball gets mired in an interminably long season that doesn’t mean anything. In fact, the more dominant you are, the less likely you’ll even get to the World Series, let alone win it. It’s those teams that clinch a playoff berth in the last few innings of the season who seem to excel in the postseason. Witness St. Louis— barely good enough to qualify as a wild card but the ultimate World Series champion. Watching major league baseball in the spring and summer? Forget about it.
The only baseball I follow any more is Little League—as in the championship playoff tourney in Williamsport. Like most American boys, I grew up playing both sand lot and organized baseball, savoring the unique rhythms and skills of the game, imagining myself in the major leagues. Kids playing baseball is an iconic American image, and Little League is the only place where playing with joyful abandon is still part of baseball.
That leaves the NFL, and I do watch at least one game most weekends. My favorite time of the year is right now, with the AFC and NFC playoffs. It is fast moving and combative, lurching forward in spurts of military precision and superb athleticism, separated by pockets of dormancy, not to mention commercials and timeouts. You can email, text, pay your bills, write a letter to Aunt Gracie, fill out your tax forms, do some light calisthenics and run back and forth to the refrigerator a lot and still savor every play of the game. It’s perfect for partying, offering a minute of action for every two minutes you can cheer, place bets and make inane observations that are generally forgotten because they are, well, so inane and everyone’s pretty drunk anyway.
There is no more fun place to be than a sports bar during any of the NFL playoff games right through the Super Bowl. In fact, the Super Bowl itself is probably the least fun of them all. People who don’t even like football host Super Bowl parties and invite people who are more into the commercials and halftime show. If you are really interested in watching the game and all its nuances and intricacies, don’t go to one of these parties. Everybody’s talking and laughing during the game and paying rapt attention to the commercials and the mini-concert at halftime. People expect you to hold up your end of a conversation, and you’re trying not to appear rude as you check out via peripheral vision whether they convert that critical third-and-two.
It’s the finality of each contest that is so compelling. We’re down to four teams and two games—make that three games—and that’s a shame. The worst thing about one-and-done playoffs is that is always comes down to two teams putting it all on the line in one game—and one game only. It’s also the best thing.
