Ravens 20, Steelers 17 November 30, 2009
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Close game. Weird game. Great game. Weird game. Weird because there’s a lot of ambiguity about how to feel about it this morning. Pardon the lateness on the post, I was in attendance and the priority was eating chicken parmesan and going to sleep.
This may seem scatterbrained, but it was a bit of a scatterbrained game. In the first quarter, the Ravens looked like they had gotten it all together, scoring on their first drive against the number one defense in the league. But then we ended up trailing and eventually ended up in overtime.
Let’s ignore the whole “If they were healthy” argument right now. It’s very likely that the Steelers would have been infinitely harder to beat with Ben Roethlisberger and Troy Polamalu in there. But if we’re going to play fantasy football, let’s get Samari Rolle and Terrell Suggs in the lineup, maybe even Fabian Washington too (as the dime back. all that does is get Chris Carr and Frank Walker off the field). The inaccurate balls that Dixon threw aren’t open because of Rolle and he doesn’t have the time to throw with Suggs breathing down his neck. Different game. Let’s talk about the one last night. (more…)
An Open Apology to the Second Best Bond November 24, 2009
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Looking back on the world you can often find yourself rethinking things thought before. For years, we knew Caddyshack was the greatest comedy of all time. We knew that Michael Jordan was the greatest basketball player of all time. We knew that Abraham Lincoln was probably the greatest president, even though the first and only civil war as on his watch and he had a relatively short McTerm.
And we knew that Timothy Dalton was the worst Bond. (more…)
Oher Number One September 15, 2009
Posted by rosolio in Uncategorized.Tags: charley casserly, michael oher, oher best tackle
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Okay, he didn’t say exactly that, but Charley Casserly insinuated that Michael Oher is the best offensive lineman in this year’s draft class. I’ll listen to anything Casserly says, since he’s the guy with the cojones big enough to pass on Vince Young, Reggie Bush, and Matt Leinart to take the best player in the 2006 draft. And Mike Preston, who is harder to impress than Neil Armstrong (“Really? Two weeks on the French Riveria. Whoo, that’s nice. Hey, listen, look up for me for a second…”), lauded Oher as having, “some of the quickest feet I’ve ever seen from an offensive lineman.” This coming from a guy who watched Jonathan Ogden wear the same uniform for eleven years.
Oher had two big things against him leading up to the draft: one was that the hype from The Blind Side made him seem overrated because his story was so compelling. The other was that he was dumb. A lot of people said it. They said he was a mental work in progress. But watching him fight off stunts and, frankly, erase the right side of the KC defensive line (which has a couple first rounders on it, mind you) leads you to believe that the guy doesn’t have to do advanced calculus to be a smart football player. And reading this Q&A with the Sun, he sounds a whole lot more eloquent than the average 21 year old NFLer. Really, the only questionable thing he says is that even though he’s in one of the top seafood cities in America, he likes Red Lobster.
When is the rest of the league going to start cheating off Ozzie’s draft board?
Swine Flu is the New Black April 27, 2009
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It’s no simple task being a human. The cerebral cortex that led to the dawn of the most advanced civilization in the history of the universe has come at a price (a quick preemptive strike to all the sci-fi emailers: yes, there could be something else out there that has infinitely renewable laser energy, six legs and Jetsons-style Turkey Dinners In A Pill. Show me one and I’ll agree. And not on photoshop). Humans are the only species that know they’re going to die (again, no photoshop). In a way, we have to live our lives constantly ignoring the fact that at any minute, for no reason, we could be dead. Stories on the local news of pianos falling on pedestrians and Natasha Richardson’s million-to-one checkout should scare us to the point of not being able to get up and go to our job at the fuel pier. Who in their right mind is going to dock boats and man the pump-out if they could die doing it?
We need to ignore these things that could randomly kill us, especially if there’s nothing we can do about it. So when we have 24/7 news outlets and access to the rec league baseball scores in Dubai (they don’t emphasize pitching), information can spread like Hep C at a Duke Lacrosse party, and when that information can kill us, we’re all foisted by our own technological petard.
Ladies and Gentlemen: Swine Flu.
There was no escaping swine flu last week. Commercials running during that horsesh*t fake Lost episode advertised the growing threat of Swine Flu. They brought up Swine Flu during the NFL Draft. Even The Soup was a dangerous show to watch, because you didn’t know if the chicks from The Hills were going to be discussing Swine Flu when the writers decided to add in a super-hot bartender to create a fight between Speidi and Speidi (they’re one person…the terrorists could have a point).
What the hell is swine flu? Is it just in Mexico? Can I get it from eating bacon-wrapped hotdogs on Hollywood Blvd at four in the morning? If a pig doesn’t sneeze in my mouth, am I in the clear?
Only one way to find out: spend six hours on a beautiful Southern California day online reading all about how we’re going to die.
There are actually a few things one can do to remain safe: numero uno is stay the hell out of Mexico (as if a full fledged civil war can’t keep you away from five cent margaritas). The rest is all common sense stuff: wash your hands, avoid contact with sick people, and eat Carl’s Jr as often as possible (damn you, branded content!). But the real truth is that the Swine Flu is no different from Bird Flu or West Nile or SARS or anything else that has threatened to wipe us all off the face of the earth in the last thirteen years since the Dustin Hoffman movie Outbreak came out and convinced us the only thing saving us from total destruction was Dimetapp. Part of the deal with being human is knowing there are millions of ways for us to get snuffed out and eventually one of them is going to get each of us. No one’s getting out of life alive. So all you can really do is be glad you’re alive now, like this very moment, and not worry so much about little ridiculous things that won’t matter in a hundred years. There will always be something new that can kill us.
Like the pending alien invasion from the planet Bribnak (thanks for the photo submission, StrshpTrpr37. See ya in hell).
Gandhi With A Unibrow December 22, 2007
Posted by rosolio in Los Angeles, Media.Tags: adam carolla show, bonaduce, carolla, change, klsx, strasser, teresa
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Everyone always looks at the end result. This is true for everything. The Spanish American War; who won, who lost, how many people died. Watson & Crick: don’t tell me what they had for lunch, just tell me what they did. The middle doesn’t really concern anyone. But there’s something to be said for the journey, and you can’t accurately describe it until it is over. So it was officially on when I saw the headline:
Danny Bonaduce is gone from The Adam Carolla Show.
The show has been a larger part of my life than it probably should be. I haven’t missed a minute of the show since August 2006. Literally, not one minute. I can’t listen to the show live, and when I do, I still go back and listen to the whole thing on the podcast. The show made my day job in Chicago beyond bearable and all of my drives in Los Angeles entertaining. I get all of my news from Teresa Strasser, and there really isn’t much to say about Carolla that hasn’t already been said. The guy is a genius, a Howard Stern for people who like to think.
And then there was Bonaduce.
When he started, my reaction was one of confusion and rage, partially because it removed Dave Dameshek from the show, but primarily because Bonaduce is a classic radio personality; all shock and ego. He put on an air of intelligence, but it was nothing more than surface level, considering his repetition with the things he seemed to know and understand. The Duce personified a transaction from A Fish Called Wanda:
“Apes don’t read philosophy!”
“Yes they do, Otto. They just don’t understand it.”
I don’t think he ever caught on, but the recurring bit Dick Gobbler’s Morning Zoo was a shot at Bonaduce’s style. Anyway, it wasn’t until late February that I started tolerating his presence on the show.
Fast forward to Ace’s “illness,” a mysterious two-day, three show hiatus that confused the bejeezus out of all of his regular listeners, who know his rants about work and The Rally Gene. Something was amiss. Either Lynette or one of the kids was sick or no one was. Anyway, that Wednesday show with Teresa and Bonaduce wasn’t so bad. It actually had me thinking, “Wow, Bonaduce is actually holding his own here.” And then there was a sequel the next day, and the strangely non-Ace-like Christmas Special.
It was odd because I found myself getting frustrated with the Bonaduce haters on the message boards and the occasional phone lines. I guess the idea was that I had accepted Bonaduce’s presence as being a part of Carolla. I wasn’t going to stop listening to the show because of the Red Man’s contributions.
But then every now and then he’d be late…and the show was better.
There was no denying it. My acceptance of Il Duce was nothing more than that. My frustration with people who hated him was the same as with the people who complain about the government and don’t vote. I knew Jack Silver liked Bonaduce, and I know that he was extended, so there wasn’t any point in complaining about it. And now he’s out. And the show will be better for it.
Whether it was actually true that Carolla’s absence was a hunger strike to get Bonaduce out of there has yet to be seen. I’m guessing he’ll be honest about it when the show returns in January, considering the level of candor with which he approached the removal of Jimmy Brusca, Fat Tad, and Dameshek last year. He always talks about how little he cares about his fans, but that’s the only reason Carolla would do this, considering the improving ratings throughout Bonaduce’s tenure.
But it’s a testament to how good Carolla is that all of his fans stuck with him during the Bonaduce-Era. We all accepted it. We needed to know what he and Teresa had to say about anything and everything going on in the world. And we’d do it even though we had to listen to snippets of a regular morning show running in the middle of our extraordinary one. And for our loyalty, we get the old Ace back on January 2nd.
We’ve earned it.
The First Post Since ‘That’ Game December 5, 2007
Posted by rosolio in Football, Los Angeles.add a comment
Okay. Here’s how you know I’ve officially settled in Los Angeles. Because everyone I know out here gave me the same look on Tuesday. That same wide-eyed look that Jack Palance gets from the saloon he walks into. That slightly on edge, deer who might have heard a hunter look in their eyes that wait anxiously for Mike Rosolio to pull a Billy Costigan with his cranberry juice. I have nothing more to say about that game, other than we almost beat the greatest team ever assembled. Plain and simple. The horseshoes and hand grenades thing is true, and no one will remember it, except in Baltimore, where it could live on in Namath infamy. The only way it could get worse is if Pittsburgh is the team that knocks them off this weekend in Foxboro. Luckily, I think there’s no shot in hell of that happening. If it does, I guarantee I will throw up. Everywhere.
The ultimate upside from the ultimate optimist (who had to drive 30 miles out to Malibu and stare into the black of the Pacific Ocean for an hour to fashion said optimism) is that the Ravens might need that much of an overhaul. Granted, everyone played above and beyond themselves. Ed Reed was a terror, the fumble on the return being his only blemish. Willis McGahee played like his forty million dollar contract was on a string in front of him. Haloti Ngata had his Adrian Peterson-like coming out party as the best defensive tackle in the league. Samari Rolle showed a physical side that I’ve never seen before, even back to his Tennessee days (lesson to all young corners; have seizures and you can tackle). And crazy young guards Jason Brown and Ben Grubbs beat all-pros Richard Seymour, Vince Wilfork and Ty Warren into submission. With a fourth place schedule next season, precisely no expectations, and no superhuman Pats team next year (they won’t be like this ever again), the Ravens are a lot closer to contention in 2008 than previously thought.
So two schools of thought for 2007: either Baltimore is screwed for the rest of the season (which wouldn’t surprise me considering the staggering frustration level and the black cloud officially checking in over Charm City) or they realize they’re a lot closer than previously expected and go on a rampage, destroying Indy, Miami, Seattle, and Pittsburgh along the way. Either is possible, and we won’t know which one until kickoff against the Colts. But this team will absolutely cover this week. And might do a whole lot more before this done season is actually done.
Please Judge November 28, 2007
Posted by rosolio in Politics, Racism, Terrorism, World.Tags: gibbons, islam, khartoum, muhammad, sudan, teddy bear
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In the words of the great Adam Carolla, “Every culture is beautiful and we cannot judge.”
I can hear the nasally sarcasm from the Prophet of North Hollywood already, and hope that this story makes its way across his desk at KLSX just so I can hear him explode with a rage similar to my own about this story. When you’re mad, you want other people to be mad, I think because angry people by themselves are assholes, but when there are many, angry people are just right.
The finest news source in the world, the BBC, released this morning the story of Gillian Gibbons. She’s a 54 year old teacher from Liverpool who heads a class in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. She’s obviously not there for the cheesesteaks or the skiing; this is clearly a humanitarian effort. You look at a picture of this woman and know that she’d be really good at reading to kids. And then you see she’s going to jail.
And then you see why.
Naming teddy bears in the class, one of her students wanted to name a bear after himself. His name is Muhammad. Because Gibbons allowed it, she’s being charged with insulting religion, inciting hated, and showing contempt for religious beliefs. Here’s the rationale:
“… chapter 42, verse 11 of the Koran does say: “[Allah is] the originator of the heavens and the earth… [there is] nothing like a likeness of Him.”
This is taken by Muslims to mean that Allah cannot be captured in an image by human hand, such is his beauty and grandeur. To attempt such a thing is seen as an insult to Allah.” [from the BBC]
What I’m about to say is not an indictment of every Muslim on the planet, or every religious person on the planet, because I do know that not everyone who believes in something is crazy.
But I do know that the people who believe Gibbons is a criminal are. They’re completely insane. They’re cavemen. You know how I know? Because of the punishments for the crime: Six months in jail (think less Prison Break and more Ben Hur), a fine, or 40 lashes. They’re going to whip this woman like she gave Ramses the stink eye. Retro.
Situations like this separate the civilized people from the cavemen. Who seems less crazy:
“This is a disgraceful decision and defies common sense. There was clearly no intention on the part of the teacher to deliberately insult the Islamic faith,” said Secretary-General Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, in a strongly-worded statement.
“We call upon the Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir, to intervene in this case without delay to ensure that Ms Gibbons is freed from this quite shameful ordeal.”
Or…
“What has happened was not haphazard or carried out of ignorance, but rather a calculated action and another ring in the circles of plotting against Islam,” the Sudanese Assembly of the Ulemas said a statement. [both quotes from the BBC]
Calculated action?!? This woman moved to your third world country to help the next generation possibly shake that moniker, but is really coming in as an act of holy war? Don’t you get the impression that somewhere in the Sudanese assembly, or maybe it’s just the Fundamentalist Islam manual (copyright Penguin 632 c.e.), that you have a conversion chart, where thousands of actions in the left column each correspond with one line on the left: “Conspiring against Islam”? This sort of psychotic religious paranoia is reminiscent of another crazy guy with loyal followers and facial hair (though admittedly, a lot less).
If a court in Alabama did something like this, we’d revoke their statehood and ban the Crimson Tide from the BCS. But because the people signing up a humanitarian to get beaten for giving a teddy bear (not a pile of shit, but a cuddly, wuddly teddy bear) the most common name in that part of the world are a different color than us, we have to tread lightly, because then we might be called racists or jingoists. Isn’t it more racist to have a different set of moral rules for people, like we don’t hold them to the same standards as us? Isn’t part of getting past petty differences to treat people the same, and holding white, black, brown, and yellow (like the Simpsons) people accountable when they’re being crazy?
We like to call ourselves the beacon of morality in the world. We lose that if we don’t judge.
Ace man, back me up.
Stalingrad 90028 November 25, 2007
Posted by rosolio in Los Angeles.add a comment
Psychotic.
Can anyone else think of a better term to describe the Hollywood Santa Parade? Let’s take a look at this perfect storm.
November 25th is the 2nd busiest travel day of the year in America. We know this because every local news outlet is sending their best, brightest, and most sleep deprived to every airport to cover the carnage. When I left BWI to return to Los Angeles this morning, news crews had gathered, ready to watch with a distant journalist’s eye.
At the same time, on the left coast, the government of Los Angeles has decided to shut down Hollywood. The whole city. You can’t enter or exit a gigantic gulag of streets from Sunset to Hollywood and between Argyle and La Brea. No one gets in, no one gets out. It is Soviet Russia.
I can understand having a parade…on any other day of the year.
Anyone got a better word for this?
A 48hr Layover November 24, 2007
Posted by rosolio in Genius.Tags: las vegas trip gambling
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The plan to go home for Thanksgiving took a minor detour. The pacific Baltimore consulates would be returning to the homeland, but not without a quick stop in Las Vegas.
The concept for the Vegas trip is unlike any other as far as anticipation is concerned. We got a bunch of buddies from home together for a trip, and for weeks in advance, the emails sent back and forth made us look like the biggest losers on the planet. “Dude, no one is going to sleep!” “Bro…we’re going cougar hunting man. Whoever bangs the oldest cougar wins, man!” Vegas is billed as a paradise of sin and opportunity, where you roll into palatial casinos like you’re in the rat pack. You’re James Bonded out, you’re rolling in duckets, and you will absolutely, definitely get laid. Repeatedly. That’s Vegas.
Vegas isn’t seven dudes in a single hotel room, with a pact that whoever loses the most gets a bed. Vegas isn’t rolling over to O’Shea’s or Imperial Palace in search of a two dollar blackjack table. Vegas isn’t guys in sweatpants and elderly women without arms carrying around players cards so when they play five hundred hours of video poker they get a shrimp cocktail.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, because if it got out, no one would ever fucking go.
Think about this for a second, the INSANITY of it; you’re in an environment where you know you’re going to fail. The entire city is built on the absolute certainty that if you stay long enough, you are going to lose. Plus, they’re feeding you booze! They’re coming right out and saying that they are going to impair you. It’s like someone saying, “Okay man, go ahead and try to jump over that crevice in your ATV. Oh, I’ll be shooting at your ballsack with an airgun. Good luck, sir.”
The moniker of sin city doesn’t exactly fit either. For one thing, it’s the most religious city in America. That’s right. I’m not talking about religion that tells you it’s wrong to do a rail of blow off a set of gigantic fake tits, because that’s never wrong (cue Leykis). I’m talking about God and magic and shit that’s doesn’t make sense. That’s what religion is after all. People are afraid to question their faiths because they’re terrified of dying. People flock to Vegas because they’re terrified that someone else is going to get their free money. But it’s true. You do ridiculous things under the influence of that place. The concept of a Hot Shooter, for example. When you’re underway at a craps table, you believe that the guy in the Corona Visor and the t-shirt that says “Ass: The Other Pussy” can, in some way, throw the dice in a manner that will get them to land exactly the way he wants to. He has no discernible skills and works at a car wash, but knows enough of vector physics to time four hundred bounces correctly. This is what we’re banking on. He stacks the dice up, switches them really fast, wiggles his hand like it’s a salmon over top of it, pretends to finger-bang the table, wipes the imaginary secretion under his nostril, and screams “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!” every forty five seconds. And then there’s that moment when you’re rolling the dice, and you’ve had about seven Red Bull and vodkas compounded by the contact buzz off the phermaldehyde holding the cocktail waitress together, when it hits you. I can control the dice! I can throw any number I want! I am magical! I can see into the future! KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!
Seven out.
Two of us walked away in the black. Severely. The rest were in the red. Also severely. It was my worst gambling defeat of all time. I reached a point of absolute sartori, standing outside The Palms watching the sun threaten to come up over the mountains, signaling that the trip was over and that any attempt to get back to even would be in vain. Technically, they were all in vain, but the next one never is. I imagined how a hangover would just start to develop once I got in the security line at McCarran.
Then I started to think about the next trip, and how ridiculous it was going to be.
That’s Vegas.
I Was There! October 19, 2007
Posted by rosolio in Uncategorized.add a comment
A day after a historic collapse by the Arizona Cardinals, I realized this old article I threw together for the New Yorker wasn..t up anywhere. It is now.
———————-
It was the first time all year that I hurried to get out of the cold, rushing with short, slip-proof steps toward a bar in Baltimore’s Federal Hill. It was the first round of the NFL playoffs, but I wanted to make sure I got to hang out with a few friends from college before people truly started going their separate ways. The conversation broke at one point as the San Diego Chargers forced the game into overtime, and one of my compatriots asked me, “What is it about sports? I mean, do you really care about this?” It was like that scene in The Godfather when Kay asks Michael countless questions at his sister’s wedding, and you can tell in his face that he’s never had to give answers before. It’s tough to explain what you know when you haven’t known anything else.
I gave some short quip of an answer to appease my friend, who wasn’t looking for an actual detailed response (in fact, it was probably just a rhetorical question aimed at getting me to stop looking past her head to the TV as the Jets kicker lined up for the game winning field goal). But it was a reasonable question; far more reasonable than even she recognized, I’m certain. I distinctly remember the feeling after watching my alma mater capture the national championship in basketball; the jubilation on campus mirrored old tape I had seen of G.I.’s returning from the second World War to grateful, welcoming masses in Times Square and all over America. These people had just defeated the Third Reich; we had just beaten Indiana. There’s no logical reason whatsoever that these two events should yield remotely similar results. But in the minds of 10,000 celebrating college kids, they were on the same exact same level.
Why, though? Why is it that so many people cried their eyes out after Boston won the World Series? Why do people have such spiteful views of cities they’ve never visited and people they’ve never met because of their athletic allegiances? How is it that a game we’re not even playing can be so important to us?
We’ve found a way to make it about us and our place in history.
The sports fan is a lover of history, but would never admit it. The fan chooses to separate his passion for sports from the stereotypical historian’s lifestyle, which is built on speculation and the accounts of others. A historian spends hours in dark libraries, reading the dusty personal accounts of people who had no idea someone would be studying their words this far into the future. A sports fan is a historian who needs concrete proof to back up his claims, and would prefer to obtain that proof via his own perception. There are no primary sources with sports; there are NFL films, records books, and the Hall of Fame. Instead of illustrations, there are photographs, from Ali knocking out Liston to Bobby Orr’s airborne game-winning goal. There are also, of course, “I Was There!” commemorative t-shirts.
The games at their core are all incredibly basic, but the assembly of statistics is as complicated as the most abstract sciences. I honestly believe that if a sports fan’s knowledge and study of statistics was instead directed at the study of medicine, most of this country would hold a Ph.D. We know how batters do in hot weather, cold weather, against lefties, against knuckleballers. We know how well quarterbacks play inside, outside, against a zone, against a constant blitz. We know which player on our basketball team has the highest free throw percentage in games with a 5 or less point differential. More importantly than all of this, we know who was the best. At least we think we do, and will argue our side like Clarence Darrow covered in face-paint.
Competition is often measured with the winner’s calculator. In warfare, the two sides tally up enemy casualties and their own, although neither really can definitely decide the outcome. For example, the Allies sustained seven million more total casualties in Europe than the Germans did. War is not as cut and dry, as pure, as sports are. There is no question who won, because the rules are set in stone more solid than the Ten Commandments. But debate can still exist, however, in a different form.
The New England Patriots had just played in their third championship game in the last four seasons. But the questions leading up to that game were not “Will they win on Sunday?” or “How did their preparation this season help them win the Super Bowl.” The main question on every sportswriter’s lips was, “If they win, are the Patriots a dynasty?” This term carries incredible weight and not because of the Ming Dynasty (which did not field a particularly competitive football team despite scattered effort). A ‘Dynasty’ in sports is a period of time in which this was the best team in the league. The term is most associated with the Pittsburgh Steelers of the 70′s and the San Francisco 49ers of the 80′s, which are both remembered as being legendarily dominant teams. Breaking this down and really looking at the literal questions being asked, everyone’s concern approaching and immediately following the Super Bowl was, are we witnessing history? Are we seeing a milestone of human achievement, perhaps another Shot Heard ‘Round The World (Bobby Thompson edition)? Of course, three championships in a sport is going to pale in comparison to an actual milestone (the landing on the moon, for example). But in a way, sports fans are trying to put them on the same plane. They feel that they are somehow validated by it, that they had been alive to see something truly amazing.
There is a distinction that clarifies the need to create history through sports. The majority of events that qualify as milestones of civilization, as history flashing before our eyes, are not positive events. History is Pearl Harbor and September 11th, the Kennedy Assassination and its sequel. History is the collection of events that knock everyone out of their comfort zone and change the world forever. Sports give us a taste of difference, but there’s another season to start it all over again. We remember the purity of the games, the simplicity and uniformity of the goals involved; what could be simpler than two groups trying to run around in a circle a greater number of times than their adversary (the quick-and-dirty rules of baseball). We get the feeling of believing in something that we can see with our own eyes and satisfy our spiritual needs vicariously through the players’ actions.
Because of the spiritual quenching found in the following of teams, sports can be as comforting and divisive as religion. It’s a rare feeling to be stuck in an airport in a foreign country, waiting patiently with a gaggle of Americans trying to get back to their home, and seeing the insignia of your favorite team on someone else’s luggage. You’re no longer alone in the airport, even if you don’t know anyone’s name. In a world of strangers, you are among friends. Religion exists in many cases to give people a sense of community and belonging, feelings which are never thicker than in the deafening cheering unity found in a stadium.
It is not all in the pursuit of historical validation, however. We as fans depend on this escape to hide ourselves from the grim realities of death, taxes, and loneliness. I think about the 1980 Lake Placid Olympic Games, when a single American victory over an unbeatable Soviet hockey team pushed the “woe-is-me” 70s into the “Ronald-Reagan-blind optimism” of the 80s. I think about the faces of the crowd at the Superbowl in 1991, as Whitney Houston belted out the National Anthem during the opening weeks of Desert Storm. I think of the Yankees wearing the colors of the NYPD and FDNY at the close of the 2001 season. We needed them then, to take our minds off of chaotic reality, and to believe in purity and simplicity again.
I wish I had been aware of this at the time the question of “why” was posed to me, because the answer is clearer than I originally thought. Sport is history with undeniable proof and religion with immediate results, without the unpleasant side effects of either. There is no death, no genocide, no treaty violations, and no slavery. There is no original sin, no infidels, no excommunication, and no crusades. But there are true believers, and there’s always next year.
