Take Two of These, Call in the Morning
Monday, January 8th, 2007
If you’re an American sports fan who reads sports publications daily and you’re sick of Peter King ejaculating on The Patriots, or you don’t care where Nick Saban is going or who won that Giants/Eagles game that everyone keeps insisting is important, it can seem like there’s nowhere to hide. You habitually type in those same websites and read the same crap about the same people you are sick of hearing about.
This can be especially tough after your team has just been eliminated from the playoffs. Your wounds are still raw and swollen yet every fat blow-hard sports writer who went out on a limb to predict the obvious is stroking his flaccid ego all over the sports pages and websites pouring salt into your fresh wounds. Sometimes you wanna go where nobody knows Tom Brady’s name; a virgin oasis where no one cares whether or not Rex Grossman will be this year’s mediocre QB to ride a talented defense’s coattails to a Super Bowl, somewhere where Peyton is a Place off the New Cross tube stop in Greenwich, SE10 and Balco is Bharat Aluminium Company Ltd. A place where there are no “Sports” only…“Sport”.
After reading a cricket scorecard, perspective slowly takes shape and you realize most of the world not only doesn’t care about American football but doesn’t understand it, or care to understand it. Australia beat England by ten wickets. TEN FUCKING WICKETS!
And Obafemi Martins? The Magpies may move him during the January transfer window to help out Drogba and solidify The Blues’ front line. Can the The Toon rebound from such a ransacking?! Tynesider derby-mates Sunderland hope not, as they attempt to ascend the League Championship table and avenge past relegation shame.
The less sense that makes to you as a frustrated American, the more therapeutic reading it will be. You will realize there are whole continents who don’t know who Tony Romo is or why he dropped that ball that the other man looked like he was trying to kick or why he then ran towards the end of the pitch with the different color grass.
But when it comes to who’s going to take home The Ashes? Many a quid will be wagered in parlours all across Old Blighty and all her colonies. The offies and boozers will be rife with banter about who will have the bowlers fit to out stump the batsman. And while Chester City continues their improbable FA Cup run, across the pond some yanks in helmets will carry a brown rugby ball, then stop, then run, then stop, then pass, then stop…
