The Outlander
Over the past week or so I’ve been debating two things: 1) if there is something related to my teams worth writing about, and 2) what that something is. The two biggest sporting events going on at the moment, something involving trophies, baskethoops and insufferable bandwagon hockeypucks fans that I once thought were good people, are not worth my time for two reasons- I hate all four teams involved in them and am not remotely knowledgeable enough to dive into them outside of the intricacies of my burning hatred. And besides, writing about the intricacies of my burning hatred is only fun when it involves my two favorite teams.
Soccer certainly has enough going on to warrant a post; beyond that, my team won its second BPL title in three years, an improbable run that was equal parts fun for watching convincing wins and crippling losses or draws from the teams that sat atop the table the vast majority of the season. But, unlike when Dubs writes about Liverpool, I don’t think any of the Man City fans I know read the blog and if I’m going to gloat to just piss off Dubs, I’ll do that in person when we watch Man City v. Liverpool at Yankee Stadium next month. I mean, if the fans of other teams want some solace, I didn’t get to watch the final game at Mes Que like I would have liked, but at an outdoor bar with my parents, the only one watching the games, let alone the only one in Man City gear. Wait, that doesn’t give you solace? Yeah, I guess it wouldn’t.
Over the past week or so I’ve been debating two things: 1) if there is something related to my teams worth writing about, and 2) what that something is. The two biggest sporting events going on at the moment, something involving trophies, baskethoops and insufferable bandwagon hockeypucks fans that I once thought were good people, are not worth my time for two reasons- I hate all four teams involved in them and am not remotely knowledgeable enough to dive into them outside of the intricacies of my burning hatred. And besides, writing about the intricacies of my burning hatred is only fun when it involves my two favorite teams.
Soccer certainly has enough going on to warrant a post; beyond that, my team won its second BPL title in three years, an improbable run that was equal parts fun for watching convincing wins and crippling losses or draws from the teams that sat atop the table the vast majority of the season. But, unlike when Dubs writes about Liverpool, I don’t think any of the Man City fans I know read the blog and if I’m going to gloat to just piss off Dubs, I’ll do that in person when we watch Man City v. Liverpool at Yankee Stadium next month. I mean, if the fans of other teams want some solace, I didn’t get to watch the final game at Mes Que like I would have liked, but at an outdoor bar with my parents, the only one watching the games, let alone the only one in Man City gear. Wait, that doesn’t give you solace? Yeah, I guess it wouldn’t.
Okay Couldn't Help This One
The World Cup starts this week (or has started, depending on how long this post gets/where it falls in the shuffle because invariably the only time deeg posts come is when they come in bunches), but since the Group draws I haven’t been following it much, mostly due to the fact that it seems very unlikely that the US will play more than three games. Normally I’d still be very excited about my backup team (well, 2nd backup since Ireland didn’t qualify) the Netherlands, but two things have dampened that: one, I have been unable to find my Holland track jacket I bought in a haze on the streets of Amsterdam ten years ago (really as safe an impulse buy one can have in such a state in that city) and two, it’s come to my attention Jeremy White also roots for them, which isn’t as bad as sharing the Red Sox with Pats fans but is damn well close. Either way, I like to leave the soccer writing to the more capable.
For me that leaves the Bills, Sabres and Red Sox. I think there’s four or five of our readers that root for the latter, and as the tightly wound machine from last season unspools, I can’t bring myself to get mad at them. I mean, not as a team anyways, of course there’s individual players that are easy to hate (Pierzynski for one, who for a guy who I’ve always heard described as “I hate him, but I’d love him on my team,” is actually really easy to hate when he is on your team), but are really just showing how improbable last season was and how much I should enjoy that. See, occasionally I’ll wonder what we would all be like not just when the Sabres or Bills reach the promised land, but how we would be the year after, after the parade, after the hangover, free agency, the draft, training camp and the preseason. I’d like to think I wouldn’t much care how they did defending their title, or if I did, that I would continually remind myself of the memories from the previous year and to be thankful. This year’s Red Sox team is a perfect example of why that should be the case. It’s a slog again, anemic hitting, a tire fire pitching rotation, a manager that seems completely befuddled on an almost nightly basis. But last season happened, it was glorious, it was more than so many baseball fans have gotten to experience in decades, and to be angry that Gomes and Buchholz suck now would just be kinda dickish, right?
So yeah, that just leaves the Buffalo teams. Don’t worry, this will only be tangentially about one of them, and also don’t worry, I’m not going to go on another “what does this all mean” post about the talent slowing ebbing away from Western New York; I may be in the- what, my town has THREE FUCKING AREA CODES?- but I still try to be as attuned to the Buffalo sports scene as I can without popping facial capillaries in an icy rage. All seems quiet with the Sabres, although that might simply be because half the fanbase woke up a month ago and decided being a Kings fan would kick ass. I don’t know, the draft is soon, plus there’s whatever washed up corpse the Sabres decide to sign in free agency and inexplicably make captain. There’s also the imminent Scott and Weber re-signings because the front office is so insecure in the team’s shittiness they need to make it obvious. Trust me, they’re shitty, you don’t need to push more Scott shirtsies on us to make us aware. Also, it appears the monkeys who run the marketing department at least figured there was no need to put out a “best games of the season” re-run series this summer because there were only two good games, one was on NBCSN, and the other is Miller’s last game which more people would remember as Steve Ott’s last game because again, half the fans of the team need not only a lobotomy, but a full brain scrambling with those tools from the end of Shutter Island.
For me that leaves the Bills, Sabres and Red Sox. I think there’s four or five of our readers that root for the latter, and as the tightly wound machine from last season unspools, I can’t bring myself to get mad at them. I mean, not as a team anyways, of course there’s individual players that are easy to hate (Pierzynski for one, who for a guy who I’ve always heard described as “I hate him, but I’d love him on my team,” is actually really easy to hate when he is on your team), but are really just showing how improbable last season was and how much I should enjoy that. See, occasionally I’ll wonder what we would all be like not just when the Sabres or Bills reach the promised land, but how we would be the year after, after the parade, after the hangover, free agency, the draft, training camp and the preseason. I’d like to think I wouldn’t much care how they did defending their title, or if I did, that I would continually remind myself of the memories from the previous year and to be thankful. This year’s Red Sox team is a perfect example of why that should be the case. It’s a slog again, anemic hitting, a tire fire pitching rotation, a manager that seems completely befuddled on an almost nightly basis. But last season happened, it was glorious, it was more than so many baseball fans have gotten to experience in decades, and to be angry that Gomes and Buchholz suck now would just be kinda dickish, right?
So yeah, that just leaves the Buffalo teams. Don’t worry, this will only be tangentially about one of them, and also don’t worry, I’m not going to go on another “what does this all mean” post about the talent slowing ebbing away from Western New York; I may be in the- what, my town has THREE FUCKING AREA CODES?- but I still try to be as attuned to the Buffalo sports scene as I can without popping facial capillaries in an icy rage. All seems quiet with the Sabres, although that might simply be because half the fanbase woke up a month ago and decided being a Kings fan would kick ass. I don’t know, the draft is soon, plus there’s whatever washed up corpse the Sabres decide to sign in free agency and inexplicably make captain. There’s also the imminent Scott and Weber re-signings because the front office is so insecure in the team’s shittiness they need to make it obvious. Trust me, they’re shitty, you don’t need to push more Scott shirtsies on us to make us aware. Also, it appears the monkeys who run the marketing department at least figured there was no need to put out a “best games of the season” re-run series this summer because there were only two good games, one was on NBCSN, and the other is Miller’s last game which more people would remember as Steve Ott’s last game because again, half the fans of the team need not only a lobotomy, but a full brain scrambling with those tools from the end of Shutter Island.
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