sports coming out our ears

Earlier this week, I had my car radio tuned to KFAN, the local sports-talk radio station, and part of that time as I listened I was wondering about the hosts and the callers-in, Do these people make sports their whole lives? How many times can you, for instance, analyze every detail of the Vikings-Jets game last Monday night?

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But now I realize how full of sports my week is this week. Unusually so -- I might be setting a personal record! First, there I was watching the Vikings-Jets game on Monday Night Football; then I attended the pre-season home opener Tuesday for the Minnesota Timberwolves (basketball); tonight my son Tom and I are going to the Minnesota Wild regular-season home opener (hockey); Saturday I'll be watching the Phillies on TV as they continue in the playoffs to try to get to the World Series again (baseball); and Sunday, Jerry and I are going to the Vikings-Cowboys game at the Metrodome (football again).
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I know it's just a short time when all four major professional sports games are going on at the same time, but as I am complaining that those KFAN listeners should be Getting A Life, I realize that this is a week when I had no life either!

more sports and weather

It looks like Brett Favre isn't coming to the Vikings after all, or, who knows?, maybe he just wants a chance later on to get his name back in the headlines again, Will he un-retire or won't he? I know the guy is a dweeb, but I just want to see some spark in this franchise so that they don't move to Los Angeles in a couple years if they don't get their new stadium, and maybe he could be a one-year spark.

Switching from football to a sport that is actually in season -- baseball. The Minnesota Twins, the team that was almost dissolved several years ago by Major League Baseball because the state wouldn't build them a new stadium, moves into their brand new stadium next spring. The stadium is looking good, everybody is excited about finally having baseball outdoors again after twenty-some years inside the Metrodome, an awful venue for baseball but which somehow helped bring them two World Series Championships. And there is certainly something romantic about picturing those beautiful summer nights watching baseball outdoors. But remember what I was telling you about what a terrible April we had this year -- the wind and the rain and the cold? And do know how many snowstorms Minnesota has had during the month of October while some teams somewhere were off playing in the World Series? Let's hope for lots of rugged season-ticketholders. And players.
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On the home front: we've taken our house off the market for now and are going to try to stick it out. :-)
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My next blog will be sport-less and weather-less. I promise.

the Phillies do it!

The Phillies have won the 2008 World Series.

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When you're a fan of the Philadelphia professional sports teams, you wait a long time between chances to win the Big One. I think of my nephew Michael. He is an absolutely devoted Philadelphia sports fan, and, since he has been old enough to follow the teams, there has been a total drought of championships. He has had his heart broken many times during those years...

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So, I say to Michael, enjoy it!!! The Phillies did it!

a home run

A reason to flip the channel from last night's final (thank God!) presidential debate: The Phillies were beating the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the National League pennant and head to the World Series. Let's go, Phils.... Philadelphia hasn't had championship team in so many years...

(wow, it's October 16th already and the World Series doesn't start til next week -- Was the Series always this late? Might be chilly baseball weather -- unless they end up playing in Tampa, that is.)

No TV tonight... I hate TV most of the time. And the work week was too busy.... So it's mellowing-out night tonight... Listening to Rachmaninoff, 2nd Piano Concerto. From there, maybe I'll get really wild and move on to the 3rd.

go, phillies!

It's a rainy day here. Not a great morning for the Twin Cities Marathon, but a good morning to write a blog entry. The problem is coming up with blog thoughts that aren't a further rant against Sarah Palin and her daddy, John McCain. Or there is the Wall Street bailout, which none of us begin to understand enough to even intelligently discuss. To try to escape from our dismal realities, I even rented four movies this week that I hadn't seen, and it's rare for us to ever rent a movie. How desperate must I have been to rent Napoleon Dynamite (which I liked, as it turned out... well, sort of)?

And how rare is it for me to feel sorry for average Republicans?.. I mean, let's face it, they aren't that crazy about John McCain anyway, and they are stuck with him as their candidate... He certainly isn't a good poster-boy for their pseudo- "family values"... Then he picks Sarah Palin as his ticket-mate, and even Republicans can see what a disastrous pick she is. They were scared to death of what she might say in her debate this past week with Joe Biden. She was awful, of course, but at least she didn't pass out or vomit, so they had to pretend that she won the debate! I mean, really! It was like these pretenders were having a fake orgasm!

One of the only good things about the Sarah Palin fiasco is watching the clips from her interview with Katie Couric. I kinda like Katie Couric, even though she is always last in the news ratings and her interviews are a bit "soft", and when was the last time she got all this attention? Then of course there is Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live doing her amazing, hilarious impersonations of Sarah. Oh, maybe this candidacy isn't so bad after all -- IF we can be absolutely sure that she won't win and that it's all just for laughs!

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The best part of the week: the Phillies beat the Milwaukee Brewers in the first round of the baseball playoffs.

football fantasy

Now that the tear gas and the other nasty smells of having the Republican Convention in our Cities have mostly blown away and the SWAT storm-troopers have moved on to wherever it is they normally hang out, it's time to change the subject... Besides, if i think about Sarah Palin for even one more minute, I might barf.
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My brother Ronnie, who lives in South Jersey, called me a couple weeks ago to tell me something funny. He had just read the Sports Illustrated picks for the top NFL football teams this year, and they were picking our team, the Philadelphia Eagles, to meet my adopted team, the Minnesota Vikings, in the NFC Championship Game, which the Eagles would win, but then the Eagles would lose to New England in the Super Bowl.

We laughed for several minutes. I don't think it occurred to many people in either the Philly area or in Minnesota that these teams have anything special this year. Besides that, everyone knows that both of teams do better when nobody is predicting that they could win. It's a jinx! Having Sports Illustrated pick them probably means that neither team will even make the playoffs!

Week One: The Eagles are off to a good start, beating St. Louis 38-3. The Vikings are off to a typical start, losing to Favre-less Green Bay. And the Patriots are now Brady-less for the season, which probably blows Sports Illustrated's AFC pick too.
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Speaking of New England, Jerry and I leave later this week for a few days in New England, after a brief stop in New Jersey for my cousin Darlene's wedding.