Only one more week of pointless crappy football before the real thing starts. Hooray! It's about time.
I've never really had the patience for Baseball. For me, as a Detroiter, Baseball means turning on the radio and listening to Ernie Harwell while you sit on your porch and drink lemonade, or beer or your beverage of choice. You probably would want a book too. It certainly doesn't mean paying attention to what is actually going on with the team. 162 games? Who has that kind of time? Is this a hobby and diversion or a part time job? And why aren't I getting paid for it?
So summer is always low sports time. The Olympics provided a bit of a diversion, but really were little more than that. So the end of the annoying preseason is welcome, because by August you've been long enough without football that even pre-season games seem interesting, which is more a sign of just how far my definition of interesting has slipped.
I'm going to discuss something now that may be a Detroit phenomenon. In general, people support their home teams and remain home team fans do or die. This is as it should be and I support it. Ocassionally you will find the lone dissenter, of the kid from Texas that roots for the Redskins, but it generally remains the same. But as a Detroit football fan, almost everyone I know who is one is a simultaneous fan of one other team. I think this is a direct result of how incredibly inept the Lions have been in my lifetime. Its possible that a similar situation exists in Cinncinati, but I have observed very strongly in Detroit. For me, it was the Eagles. Between Dick Vermeil and Randall Cunningham, I was hooked. Not to mention the best cheerleaders in the game. My cousin was always a Steelers fan. I know others that follow the Redskins, Bolts, and Dolphins. They are all Detroit fans, and their first loyalty is to the Lions, but somewhere deep down they all know that nothing good will happen, so they'd better have something good to root for in the meantime. Non-Detroit people, do you see this too? Detroit people (football fans), do you do the same thing?
My Eagles look pretty good this year. T.O., punk or not, should make an impact since Philly's receiver corps is not quite up to High School quality without him. It's a shame to see Staley go across the state to Pitt, but it will probably be better for him over there.
The Lions, well, I'm cautiously optimistic. They have what could be a better than bad first team, but 2 or 3 injuries and they're back to cellar-dwelling. The defense doesn't look to be much better, with Bailey out and the line still pretty patchy.
But time will tell, and finally after this weekend they start playing for real. If Hockey gets locked-out like all the experts say it will, Football season will be that much more essential for my weekly diversion.
Posted by ktismael at September 2, 2004 7:44 PM