March Madness begins next week, can't wait...
...I was watching my Suns get trounced the other day by Cleveland and it dawned on me how bad my current "fandom" is looking. Fandom is a word I just made up, someone else has probably used it before, but it seems to fit. It is essentially the kingdom within which is contained all of a sports fan's favorite sports teams, professional, collegiate, maybe even high school, these make up a fan's kingdom or fandom.
...Let's look a little closer at the teams in my fandom:
...Phoenix Suns. Old, injured, we clearly have missed that overused phrase, "the window of opportunity" to win a championship. At the end of last season we traded for a player who did not fit our system. We got bounced in the playoffs by the our nemesis, again. We then fired the coach who got us to the brink of the NBA Finals, because now his system wasn't working due to the acquirement of said player who did not fit our system. We then hired a new coach to fit the player who did not fit last year, and he immediately installed a system that didn't fit the other 14 guys on the roster. About halfway through the season we decided that we made a mistake and so we fired the new guy and replaced him with an assistant who worked directly under the coach whose system we originally abandoned. We went back to the old system, we started playing better, and then a key cog in our machine, perhaps our best individual player, got injured and is out for the season, again. Detached retina. I feel his pain. Needless to say, the past five years have been just a tad disappointing for Suns fans. I have said it before, when we let Joe Johnson go it all went to @!#@.
...Denver Broncos. We play swiss cheese defense for 3 years. We go through defensive coordinators like sunflower seeds in a baseball dugout. We decide to fire the coach who won the only 2 Super Bowls for our franchise. This irritates our young star quarterback. He hints at wanting to be traded. We hire a bright young new coach who immediately decides that it would be fantastic to trade our young quarterback for another young quartback he coached last year. Instead, that quarterback is traded to a division rival. The new coach and our young star quarterback are now squabbling, they have a telephone conversation to try and smooth things out and apparently it does the opposite. Recent reports out of Denver say that our quarterback now has put both of his Denver-area homes up for sale. Now he is also reportedly asking for a trade. Our young star wide receiver got booked for disorderly conduct this offseason. This is the fourth arrest for him since March 2006. He was suspended for a game last year, wonder what he'll get this year? Might be some tickets available in Denver this year.
...Atlanta Braves. Perennial underachievers, we are now rebuilding. 14 division titles and 1 World Series victory to show for it. A for effort, F for outcome. Our big attempt at free agent signing this offseason was Ken Griffey Jr. Enough said.
...Oakland A's. Breeding ground for the rest of MLB's young talent. After reigning supreme in the late 80's and early 90's we have now become the poster child for small market teams trying to win big. Funny thing is, despite our GM's brilliancy, we have absolutely zero to show for our innovative approaches to getting the most out of very little. While we once were a lock for second half domination and subsequent playoff runs, we are now the worst offensive team in baseball. Nowhere to go but up.
...Arizona Wildcats basketball. Our 1997 Championship team was one of the best stories ever. To this date, they are the only team to defeat three number one seeds in the same tournament. Perennial contenders, the greatest coach and recruiter we have ever had just retired. We lost to ASU, our biggest rival, twice. We barely made the NCAA tournament and will undoubtedly get bounced early yet again. Definitely on the downslope.
...I am not making this a pity party, sports is constantly changing, one day you're up, the next you're down. Having multiple teams in different sports to root for should ensure that at least one is on the upswing, but sometimes the planets align against you and you are stuck trying to justify the statement, "They will be better than you think," for all of the teams in your fandom.
F@!#
...LCV
Grammy's advice for today:
"To let friendship die away by negligience and silence is certainly not wise."
- Samuel Johnson
