Culture

distant second, and basketball and hockey were largely irrelevant.  They seemed like sports for doing, not watching.  I had a one of those rubberized Spalding basketballs with a David Thompson signature; just a plain leather colored one, alas, not the red, white, and blue ABA model.  I also had a street hockey stick (Bobby Clark) with a bright orange plastic-blade.  I didn’t know Thompson was a former number one overall pick of both the ABA and NBA.  Didn’t even know who Clark was.  Eventually someone mentioned something about the Flyers.  All I knew is that it was fun now and again to shoot some hoops and whack shit with a stick. Now that I’m older, football has leapfrogged baseball, garnering the lion’s share of my attention, but that’s mostly because I like to gamble (shhhhh!).  Basketball and hockey are still way behind, duking it out for a distant third, that is, when I’m not watching a boxing match.  But when it comes time to pay attention to hockey and basketball, I do throw my support behind the Rangers and Knicks, even if it’s lackadaisical, so lets clear the air on why.

ago with Steve Carell and that woman with huge teeth?  I don’t’ think she’s an Osmond though.” “The one with Don Adams, Barbara Feldon as 99, and Ed Platt as the Chief.” “The original.” “Yeah.” “Wasn’t Mel Brooks involved with that?” “Him and Buck Henry both.” “How does it feel like that?” “Well for starters, it’s a huge goddamn disappointment.  I mean, you expect better from Mel Brooks and Buck Henry than some shitty sitcom with a bad laugh track and some crappy tag lines.”

you might think that for a Steelers fan such as myself, lucky number seven would be the icing on the cake, and that having already won two of the last five, it wouldn’t be so bad should they lose this time around. You would be wrong. I’ll concede this much.  It certainly wouldn’t be like a Vikings fan witnessing the methodical destruction of their team in four Super Bowls over a seven year period.  Nor would it be like a Bills fan watching their team go down four straight times, like Joe Frazier against George Foreman. And it would hardly be like a pre-Nike sellout jersey Broncos fan watching their team not only lose four, but losing by wide margins in the first two and getting hammered so badly in the last two that it not only made the Baby Jesus cry, it even made the Baby Buddha reconsider everything he ever thought about the nature of human suffering. But that’s all I’m conceding.  And here’s why.

had that arrogant, patronizing, smug, almost anthropological feel.  “Why look at these quaint little Bostonians,” the sub-text sneered.  “What silly and exotic customs they practice out in the provincial backwoods.” Normally, it’s the kind of NYT article that makes me want to wretch.  There are few things I find more distasteful than bourgeois cultural imperialism, something the Times’ lighter fare seems to specialize in.  But in this case I found myself championing that condescending approach and wanting to pour more on myself, and not because I’m a native New Yorker.  No, it’s because I live in Baltimore.  And Baltimore, along with cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, the article noted, engage in the same practice.  It’s something I’ve been witness to and endlessly appalled by for ten winters now.