Confessions of a Sports Atheist

I'm a sports atheist. But that doesn't mean I'm not a believer.
Most truly avid sports fans love their team, or their city's teams. They can tell you their backup center, their mop-up duty long reliever, and their third line winger. If it's a question about the Yankees, Giants, or Rangers, they know. But when you ask them about the St. Louis Cardinals, Rams, or Blues, it's like these teams don't exist.
I just love sports. The Oakland A's acquired Josh Willingham! The Trailblazers' Brandon Roy looks washed up at Age 26? You're right, Kansas City Chiefs' Dwayne Bowe and homeless Randy Moss are the two receivers most likely to go for 15 catches 150 yards and two touchdowns one week and bagels the next. What I'm saying is: I don't care where the team is, I care period.
I've never really understood why I'm not a homer. It's natural to root for your local teams. It makes sense. You grow up seeing some teams almost every week and they just end up sticking with you.
So is that my problem? I don't think so. I grew up a Yankees fan, but I remember secretly rooting for the Braves when I went to games 1 and 2 of the 1996 World Series. I liked the Yankees enough when I was growing up, but became disillusioned when they bought the rest of the league after 2001. Out, Scott BROscious. Enter Jason Giambi, his golden thong (gross), his 'stache (awesome), and a bagful of steroids (sad).
I still root for the Yankees somewhat, but I'm just not a frenzied fanatic like most of my friends. I find the Yankees to be exciting, but a bit overbearing. It's World Series or bust, but it should be when you have $80 million more talent on your team than 25 of the other 30 teams in the league.
I root for the Mets. My brothers are mostly Mets fans. If the Mets are playing basically anyone in the league, I'd want them to win. But I just don't have that same self-hating, but "maybe this year" mentality that a true Mets fan exudes.
My closest friends from college are sports fans par excellance. I've seen my friend walk around like a ghost for 3 days after a Cowboys' loss and avoid watching SportsCenter for a week because he couldn't bear seeing replays. It's not that he cares only about the Cowboys and nothing else. He can name players 8-deep on every NBA team, which I think is insane. But still, that connection with the Cowboys is so strong that it can sever his desire to connect with the sports world until his 'Boys are on the big screen again the following Sunday.
Most sports fans understand that. You're deeply and undyingly loyal to a single team or a single city. When your team wins, life is good. When your team loses, it's like you've been broken up with. When your team is the Cowboys and you expect to be playing in the Super Bowl, but they're 4-9 instead, then it's like you had a date with Giselle Bundchen but Rosie O'Donnell showed up instead. It's haunting.
I understand that type of sports fan-dom. But it's just not me. Am I destined to be a sports bachelor that likes playing the field too much? Is it wrong that I love sports generally, without limiting myself only to one team or one city?
I don't think so. People find it strange that I like the Steelers being from New Jersey. They think I'm a bandwagon fan. I tell them that the reason I like the Steelers is that my first sports memory is Neil O'Donnell throwing a Super Bowl defeat-clinching INT to Cowboys' Larry Brown. From that point on, I followed the Steelers. Jerome Bettis is my favorite NFL player of all-time. 3.5 yards every carry. Hines Ward is a legend. But that doesn't mean I don't still root for the local Giants and Jets.
Perhaps being from New Jersey has contributed to my general love of sports, but my wariness to lock in on only one team. New Jersey has the Devils and the Nets (kind of, moving to Brooklyn). The Giants and Jets play in New Jersey, but would never be thought of as NJ teams. Can this dearth of local teams explain it?
Hardly. Northern New Jersey passionately loves it's New York teams, while Southern New Jersey loves it's Philly teams. Most of my friends are as rabid Yankees fans as any. The bleed G-Men blue. The minority Mets fans of the bunch are tried and true. If you ask them about the recent Mets September collapses, they become somber and ashen. Even the few Jets fans stuck with them through the 1-15 years and have long awaited a truly competitive team. Being from NJ can't explain it.
Maybe there is no explanation. I'm not going to apologize for loving sports without discriminating. I get the benefit of being able to have genuine cross-league interest, without the pain of defeat when your local team loses.
In response, my Cowboys' friend would, perhaps rightly, point out that true loyalty to a team comes with the lowest of lows, but also the highest of highs.
Maybe he's right. But if loving sports generally is wrong, maybe I don't want to be right. I know it's strange that my sports interest is spread a bit more broadly than normal, but I wouldn't say it's spread too thin. Sports are galvanizing. It doesn't need to be your team for it to be a good game. If you like baseball, you care that Shaun Marcum was traded to the Brewers. Sports interest shouldn't have to be based on one's proximity. It certainly makes sense, but there are enough story lines in any given game to make it interesting to a fan regardless of location.
I understand why people kneel at the alter of the Cowboys, or the Phillies, or the Lakers. But while they're genuflecting, repenting, praying, and rejoicing, I'll be sitting in my lounge chair, watching the days' best game. And I'm fine with that.

This Day in Sports History

1917 - The first regular season games of the new National Hockey League (NHL) were played. Five teams made up the league

1984 - Wayne Gretzky, 23, of the Edmonton Oilers, became only the 18th player in the National Hockey League (NHL) to score more than 1,000 points. He did it in his 424th career game. The previous record was held by Guy Lafleur who did it in 720 games.

1986 - Michael Sergio was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and fined $500. Sergio, a Mets fan, had parachuted into Shea Stadium during Game 6 of the World Series.

1990 - Bo Jackson (Los Angeles Raiders) became the first athlete to be chosen for All Star Games in two sports.

2003 - The baseball that was deflected by Steve Bartman during a Chicago Cubs game was sold for $106,600 at auction. The foul ball appeared to be headed for the glove of left fielder Moises Alou in Game 6 of the National League Championship series. The Florida Marlins ended up winning the game 8-3. The Cubs then lost Game 7.

Information for this post was taken from:http://www.on-this-day.com/cgi-bin/otd/sportsotd/sportsotd.pl

LeJerk Visits the Garden

This past Friday Lebron James and the Miami Heat paid a visit to Madison Square Garden for the first time since Lebron and Chris Bosh opted to team up with Dwayne Wade and take their talents to South Beach. As a sports enthusiast I wanted to go to this game and check out Lebron and company. I scoured Stubhub and Ticketmaster for tickets but I could not find anyway, so I decided to go to Craigslist and see what I could find. After hours of searching I decided to buy tickets from an anonymous seller who claimed he had two tickets in section 107 row 3 for $225 per ticket. The person I went with and I handed over $450 dollars to the sellers messenger who then handed us the tickets. After the messenger had left, I began to inspect the tickets and they looked a little "suspect." However, I went to the Garden walked up to tower C got to the ticket scanner and handed him my ticket. He put his scanner up to it and I was informed that my tickets were fake. Was I shocked? No, I believed that there was a 50-50 chance that the tickets were real. I think my desire to go to the game overtook my common sense. I should I have realized that this tickets were fake, when tickets in sections nearby were selling for $600 dollars per ticket online. I ended up spending close to $600 dollars that night after I elected to go out for a nice dinner to drain away my anger for handing away $225 dollars. The moral of the story here is avoid Craigslist when buying tickets to any sporting events. Cheers and happy holidays

This Day in Sports History

1961 - Wilt Chamberlain scored 78 points against Los Angeles.

1983 - Wayne Gretzky (Edmonton Oilers) scored his 100th point of the season.

1993 - The NFL announced a new 4-year agreement with ABC, ESPN, TNT and FOX. FOX had taken the NFC championship package from CBS.

2001 - The New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority announced that they would ban all bottles, including plastic, from Giants Stadium.

Tis the season to be bowly...or not

Today marks the start of the college football bowl game season and it will carry on for 23 more days after this leading up to BCS National Championship game on January 10th when Auburn and Oregon face off for the most coveted title in college football. Throughout this "bowl season" there will be 35 games most of which people could careless about. This year there were 73 eligible bowl eligible teams for 70 spots. In order to become bowl eligible the team must have a winning record even if it is only by one game. In order to make these bowl games more appealing for people to watch, I think the eligibility requirements should be made more difficult. The NCAA should require that teams be at least 2 games over .500 and the NCAA should also get rid of the automatic bowl bids. To me, there is absolutely no reason why an unranked UConn team should be playing in the Fiesta bowl over the number 9 ranked Michigan State. Most People in my opinion, could care less who wins the New Mexico Bowl(the bowl that kicked off this years bowl season). So in order to make this bowl season more watchable the NCAA needs to contract and reduce the amount of bowl games that there are, and they must also pick the best teams to play in these games and not just the teams that will bring in the most money.

This Date in Sports history

On December 15th,

1891 - James Naismith invents basketball

1925 -1st hockey game at Madison Sq Garden, Mont Candiens 3, NY Americans 1

1973 - Tennessee beats Temple 11-6 in low scoring NCAA basketball game

1980 - NY Yankee Dave Winfield becomes highest-paid player, 10 years $15M

1992 - Arthur Ashe is named Sports Illustrated Sportman of Year

The New Jersey Devils the End of an Era?

There was much hype for the New Jersey Devils entering this season after the summer that revolved around sniper Ilya Kovalchuck. First the Devils signed Kovalchuck to a 17 year $102 million dollar contract which the NHL immediately rejected and an independent arbiter upheld the leagues decision. After weeks of will they or won't they, the Devils and Kovalchuck agreed to a 15 year $100 million dollar contract(hardly a drop off from the original deal). Fast Forward to today, 29 games into the season and the Devils are a measly 8-19-2 with 18 points and currently sitting in 29th place. The 100 million dollar man is on pace for 14 goals which would be a career low for the Russian sniper.

Who's to blame for this debacle? The fingers could be pointed towards General Manager Lou Lamoriello who was the architect of the 1995,2000, and 2003 Stanley Cup winning teams or could first year head coach John Maclean be to blame, or owner Jeff Vanderbeek who is rumored to have tried to sell the team the Nets owner and Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov. To me it is the perfect storm of all of those things. While Maclean paid his dues and coached the Devils farm team last year, in my opinion was not quite ready to make the jump to the big club. I think Lou in part hired Johnny Mac now because had he passed over him again I do not think he would have gotten the third chance to hire him. The Devils needed a coach who is stern task master similar to the late Pat Burns. Unfortunately for me and other Devils fans I think we might be seeing our beloved team miss the playoffs for the first time in 13 seasons which was the 2nd longest post season appearance streak in the NHL behind Detroit and their 19 year streak.

Why standing pat this Offseason is the right move for the Mets

This morning, many in baseball circles were surprised when they awoke to the news that Cliff Lee, the most prized possession of this years free agent class had signed with the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies signed Lee to 5 year contract worth 120 million dollars. The problem with that is that Lee is 32 years old, and prone to back problems. With the addition of Lee, the Phillies are paying their top 3 starters nearly 60 million dollars. Even with Lee, I still believe that Phillies window for winning is closing and closing fast. The rotation is hardly filled with youngsters, their ace Roy Halladay is 33, Lee is 32, and Roy Oswalt is also 33. This leaves the often inconsistent Cole Hamels as their only starter under the age of 30. The Phillies window to win will only be about 2 to 3 years, because at that point the lethal combination of Oswalt, Halladay, and Lee will be 35. The Phillies position players are also not what they used to be, Jimmy Rollins is far from what he once was when he won the the National League MVP award in 2007, Chase Utley has been battling injuries the last few years, and Ryan Howard continues to do what he does best: strikeout. Now to what this has to do with my team the New York Metropilitans. The Mets brass led by General Manager Sandy Alderson, decided to spend very little money so far this offseason, and frankly as a Mets fan I am happy that Sandy did not become an ATM like the Washington Nationals were when they signed free agent outfielder Jayson Werth to a 7 year contract in excess of 126 million dollars. Alderson took a jab at Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo by saying, "I thought they were trying to reduce the deficit in Washington."Alderson also took a swing at former Mets General Manager Omar Minaya when he also said this about the Werth contract,"It makes some of our contracts look pretty good." The Mets in reality, will not be challenging the Phillies, or pretty much anybody else in the next 2 to 3 years, so this slow frugal approach when it comes to dishing out money should be a welcomed sign to us Met fans that the guard is finally changing here in flushing.