The Scizz

No "dismantling of the Bills' draft" column today folks.  Not up for it.  I have already posted once this week and I had a god-awful stomach virus in the last few days that was worse than watching Patrick Lalime or Jose Theodore suit up as Ryan Miller's backup.  Which reminds me: What do you call it when you shit and vomit at the same time?  I am not sure if an official word has ever been created for this phenomena.  I was going to connect them and call it a "SHIVOM", but it sounds eerily Yiddish and I don't want to offend any of our fine Jewish friends (Hey Bluedot!  Told you I'd work a shout-out in one day).  Please leave your shit/vomit word creations in the comments.  IT TAKES A VILLAGE PEOPLE!!!

So what's up with the post?  Well the fact is I am simply not ready for baseball right now AND possibly all season.  Not feeling it.  Interest has faded.  More concerned with new episodes of Pawn Stars.

As you may know (read our damn bio's!), I am a Cubs fan, and have been since the days of grade school.  It may be easy to blame my lack of concern with the game today solely based on the ineptitude of the Chicago franchise, but I swear to Jim/Thurman/Andre/Bruce, that's not it. You see, baseball and I have always had a love/hate relationship.  I will not bore you with too much detail, but as a young child, Buffalo only had the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons, so with no real MLB team to root for, I flat out didn't give a shit about Baseball.  This went on through most of grade school until I discovered afternoon games on WGN.  As soon as I walked in the door from school, there was the brilliance of Harry Caray calling the game, with the likes of Ryan Sandberg, Mark Grace, Greg Maddux, Andre Dawson, and of course the world's greatest utility man, Luis Salazar!  I was hooked.  My love for baseball grew and my love of the Cubs grew.  I always kept it to myself because my friends either didn't give a crap about baseball yet, or chose the Yankees or Mets because it was the same state.

This early Cubbies obsession went on through Junior High, but as soon as the strike of 1994-1995 occurred, I again was disillusioned with America's past time. Besides, I was in High School now with better things to do, like force myself to be accepted by everybody I came in contact with, ride the pine in basketball only to miss two gimme free-throws in my only chance to win a game, and make my parents feel guilty for not buying me six new pairs of Nikes yearly so that I would look cool.  Gosh darn those were some wonderful years. SHIVOM! (still not working, is it?)

Enter College.  Here I could ramble on forever, but I'll save you your time and effort.  My interest peaked again in these years.  I will say it started to rise right before I left, mostly because of the Home Run race between McGwire and Sosa, but it didn't completely get me back in the groove until that first full year of undergrad.  Yes, having my "favorite" team on the front pages was awesome, but their was still this lack of coverage in Buffalo, or any love for the game from any of my friends, and that held me back.  What pulled me back in, was attending a college that was filled with New Yorkers.  In my entire life I had never seen people so obsessed with baseball.  Their passion for baseball was equivalent to my passion for Hockey and Football.  Watching games with all these guys that would eventually become my lifelong friends was one of the best parts of college.  I could play the middle man between my Mets and Yankees friends because of my Chicago love and enjoy all of the games.

*Sidenote: During the 2000 subway series, my friends and I would go to our usual Thursday night hangout, this dirty and over-crowded bar that had cheap beer and would serve anyone with a shitty fake ID called....you guessed it, "CHEERS".  As we walked in the side entrance, they were only letting in one person at a time, which of course made us nervous that the ID policy had suddenly changed.  But what was really happening, was the bouncer asking everybody "Yankees or Mets"? He was a Mets fan, and  if you answered "Mets", it was two bucks to get in.  If you answered Yankees, it was five.  I answered "I'm a Cubs fan".  He shook his head, said he was sorry and let me in free of charge.  YAY SADNESS!!!

After college, I moved back to Western New York briefly and my interest began to fade again.  But the Cubs were on fire and there was no way I was leaving this team behind!  Then Steve Bartman happened.  Fuck.  I actually blamed myself for this.  I kept saying, "Holy Shit!  As a Buffalo fan, my luck is now screwing other cities too."  This is from a real conversation I had in my living room.

This did not last long however, because in the summer of 2004 I moved to New York City, the motherland of baseball (Up yours Boston!  Every one of your franchises has won a championship now so you can no longer whine about ANYTHING!).  Once here, baseball surrounded me.  I got to see the Cubs play in Shea and Yankee Stadium several times (No wins on record yet), and I even found other Cubs fans to hang out with and watch baseball, a first for me.  It has been pretty awesome to say the least.

Yet this season.  I really don't care.  I didn't care when the Cubs signed Carlos Pena.  I didn't care when they re-signed Kerry Wood.  And when I heard last week, "Opening day begins Thursday March, 31st", I sort of shrugged it off and went back to work.  I have no clue why this is, and by the end of the season my interest may return.  Maybe its because I'm in full-on hockey playoff mode, or maybe its because the possibilty of no upcoming NFL season has scared to death, but at the same time happy I won't have to deal with any letdowns this year. Who knows.  Until I figure it out, you can find me in my room watching highlights of Jhonas Enroth and Nathan Gerbe over and over again on my laptop.  Midget fetish?  I hope not.

The Yachtsman

This is not a team I particularly enjoy. I don't like the majority of the players (Derek Roy, Drew Stafford, Tim Connolly, Mike Weber, and Andrej Sekera in particular), I don't like the inconsistent nature of the team, and I really dislike the fact that Thomas Vanek is not a guaranteed lock for Captain. Also, I'm pissed that these meatballs are wasting another potential HOF goaltender's prime. With all this in my head, I swore off this Sabre team months ago. My vow held strong through Pegulamania, the winning roadie, and basically all of my friends haranguing me to get over it and start pulling for them again. That vow was holding fast like the krauts at Dunkirk until Jhonas Enroth walked in last night and stole my heart.

I'm a sucker for goaltenders. Some people like dekes, jukes, and a sick wrist shot -- my hockey crack is a diving glove save or a goaltender breaking up a two-on-none with a nasty stick check. I actually didn't really pour my heart into the Sabres until Hasek started dominating in the early 90's. My #39 jersey is still the only Sabres jersey I own, and it will probably remain that way until Miller wins another Vezina. I was the weird kid growing up who always wanted to play goal (much to the old man's chagrin....goalie equipment is f'ing expensive). Ryan Miller is my favorite Sabre of the past decade (alongside Chris Drury). With this in mind, little Jhonas Enroth has been slowly forcing me to pay attention to the Sabres again. Goddamn Swede.

I really don't think enough has been said about Enroth's performance last night. So many factors were in play: The Playoffs, Miller's Injury, the loss to the Maple Shits, Enroth is 5'10", Lundqvist was across the ice, and our 2nd best (a VERY close 2nd mind you) D Man was out with injury. The fact that he came out and shut the Rangers out at home in a playoff race (yes, the Rangers suck offensively but still) should put to bed all of our reservations about goaltending depth heading into the tournament. Three straight shoot out victories plus a 1-0 shut out? That's this kids resume so far....pretty impressive if you ask this guy. That's why I'm so pissed off...Jhonas Enroth came in and performed in the CLUTCH right when I thought this team was chock full of choke. Prince Jhonas (yeah, that's what I'm calling him) has me reinvigorated and re-energized for another Sabres playoff run. Last night (and it wasn't hard) made me fall back in love with the Sabres. I fully blame Jhonas Enroth and his dominant goaltending. Once we bomb out in the ECF after a heartbreaker to the Flyers in Game 7, I'll look back to this moment, ask myself why I do this to myself, and point the finger directly in Jhonas Enroth's direction. Goddamn Swede.

The Apologist

(Prelogue: This will be Buffalo sports blasphemy to many, but I know little to nothing about Rick Martin, other than he was the greatest scorer on the greatest line the Sabres ever had. I'd love to do some sort of proper memoriam to him, except that I wasn't alive when he played and I don't know what to say. So I'll leave that to the pros. And by pros, I mean, the Buffalo News. Please don't hate me.)

As I've stated in the past, I watch sports to escape the nonsense of everyday life. I think all sports fans would agree that there's something wonderfully pure about a game's final score. In all cases, when all is said and done, the score is the score is the score. You can debate what went wrong or what should've been done, but the outcome is beyond dispute. This team won. That team lost. Over.

Any other category of life can come with an overwhelming amount of gray area. Whether it be politics, family life or your job, rarely are things ever cut and dry like they are at the end of a game. But that certainly would be nice ('I'm sorry, Boss, but the scoreboard clearly states that I deserve a raise').