NFL, Come Soon

Earlier, I was listening to Bill Simmons's podcast, which drives me nuts with the censorship and the Subway sponsorship slots, and he had Michael Lombardi as the guest. Not the Rescue Me guy, but the sportswriter who appears frequently on the NFL Network and other things NFL. Simply listening to them talk about the upcoming NFL season tortured me. I love the NFL, and watch as much of it as I can during the fall/winter.

I'm sick of baseball. I know I've said this many times, but my attention span won't allow me even to consider the season until about now. Each year, I push it back. I used to say I don't pay attention to MLB until after the All-Star Game. Though that's still true, it used to mean that I would start watching baseball seriously in August. Now, I watch it almost begrudgingly, and am only biding my time until the playoffs. Even then, I don't really care unless I have a team that I like, like the 2005 White Sox, in the fray. Four years ago, I watched every playoff game, and sat in front of the television like an autistic child during the Sox's road to the championship.

This is not a problem I have when it comes to the football season. First of all, the season has less than ten times the number of regular season games, so each game means something. In MLB, a team can get swept and shrug off the series as a bad weekend. Why? There are 162 games a year. Honestly, I would care much more about the season if it consisted of a fraction of the games. Say, oh, I don't know--a tenth.

You know why baseball players can play that many games? Because their sport is not that strenuous (with the exception of catchers, who have to squat for nine innings. As someone who's had an ACL reconstruction, I cringe whenever I see a catcher stand up, throw a ball back, and then squat again). I can't think of another sport that's less hard on the body. I mean, after three outs the players get a breather. Even in golf, the pros have to keep standing when it's not their turn. Baseball players get to sit in their dugout and spit copiously, as if they have OCD. They also get to practice their sunflower seed extraction technique. Then, more spitting...

I won't even get into steroids that much. Really, though? You play major league baseball and you still have to take a shot in the ass before you head to the on-deck circle? With regard to the NFL, at least the players hit each other anyway, so the incidence of unsportsmanlike penalties is much lower. This is probably false, but at least the fights are not as violent as bench-clearing brawls that happen occasionally in baseball. I actually hope that football players take steroids, because the sport is punishing on the body. Getting tackled, or just hit, is much more traumatic than striking out, or even gettinng hit by a pitch. For baseball players, the latter happens very rarely, and I'm sure getting hit by a 90-mph fastball stings like hell. Still, I'd much rather take one for the team, as they say, than get leveled by Shawne "Lights Out" Merriman.

Just mentioning a player or thinking about the stately facade of Soldier Field tantalizes me enough to make me salivate. Granted, the new stadium looks like a spaceship landed in the middle of the field, or half of the Lombardi trophy blew up in size, cracked like an egg, and lies there. The old columns, though, stand as a testament to the sanctity of the sport, and the franchise.

And forget about college football--I'm talking about the NFL. I've had numerous arguments with friends who scoff at my disregard for college football. However, my college didn't exactly make me pay attention to their season. Even with the "big" Harvard-Yale game before Thanksgiving, I didn't give a shit as to the outcome. In reality, it's only an excuse to tailgate and get soused early in the day, all day. I have no problem with this, but I had no trouble drinking in my dorm room with friends. (Later, the friends became extraneous, which is why I stopped drinking.)

This sort of camaraderie happens in baseball, too, but it happens with the players nearly as much as the spectators. Enough with the dugout water fights, which make the homoerotic game of volleyball in Top Gun look like a medieval battle. Just give me my football, now.

I'm listening to PJ Harvey now, and "Leaving California" in particular. I won't ramble on about my hatred of that state, but I will say that the song makes me yearn more for the impending NFL season. When she sings, "England, come soon," I mentally substitute the league for the country.

R