Last night was like Christmas, the first day of spring and payday all rolled into one. Only it was better than that.
The Fish got fried in Pittsburgh.
Football returned. OK you skeptics. High school and college football began last weekend. Gilroy and San Benito had exciting openers. Three Division 1-AA schools knocked off Division 1 schools, led by Colorado’s embarrassing loss at home to Montana State.
Any football is better than no football. But there’s something about the NFL that brings out the fan in all of us.
Want proof? Check out the numbers of viewers at the Super Bowl each year. Check out the numbers of Fantasy Football players.
And they say baseball is the national pastime. Not any more.
Football has more than three times as many Fantasy League players than baseball. And with the mediocrity of the National League this season it’s hard to get excited about the senior circuit unless you’re a Giants’ fan who envisions a sub-.500 team making the playoffs.
Argue that the Giants are better than the 49ers. So what! The truly wonderful thing about football is that any given Sunday is every Sunday during the fall and early winter. Baseball is a long snore after the All-Star break when most of the divisions are wrapped up and small-market clubs are already thinking about next year (when their good young players in line for salary increases will seek employment in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles).
Everyone starts equal in football. Two-thirds of the teams are in contention until the second last week of the season. Teams scan the waiver wire in midseason, in sharp contrast to baseball where the Yankees outspend everyone to buy a great team, and other wealthy teams like the Mets, Angels and Red Sox follow suit.
When’s the last time a team from Pittsburgh or Seattle made the playoffs in baseball? Smaller-market teams have a better chance in football because the system is great, regardless of what Bryant Gumbel has to say about Gene Upshaw.
Don’t know about you, but I love the idea of non-guaranteed contracts that guarantee players will give it their all in football at all times or not get paid. No Darryl Strawberry’s or Carl Pavano’s slip through the cracks collecting money for doing nothing.
If someone pulls a Terrell Owens in baseball, the union gets behind its man and blames the team. Not only that, baseball players, i.e. Barry Bonds, thumb their collective noses at the establishment and lie about whether they use performance-enhancing substances that make even their heads look more muscular. Bud Selig brags about baseball having the toughest steroid policy of any sport, and all he has to show for it is 40-year-old Rafael Palmeiro and a bunch of low minor leaguers getting suspended. Even superstars answer to football’s drug policy.
So give me football any day. Give me the Ravens and the Saints. It will excite me more than the Red Sox-Yankees.
Yes, Hank Williams is not the only one who’s ready for some football. A fish fry at Heinz Field is worth more than a dozen chowderheads in Yankee Stadium, or whatever that monument to George Steinbrenner being constructed in New York will be called.
