Personally there are a few sports I follow. College football, Major League Baseball, and the National Hockey league. I used to follow the National Football League but it broke my heart. National Basketball Association just aint my thing.
So I was in the sports bar Saturday getting pretty shitfaced and watching my beloved Hokies (Virginia Tech) lose to the Miami Hurricanes. This brings up my first point about sports. I have watched fans of other college teams in this same bar throw absolute hissy fits of kvetching and trash talking when (insert any team here) loses. I watched every minute of the VA. Tech / Miami game, and followed most of the Gators / Vanderbilt game that was playing at the same time. Neither of them made me lose my temper at other people in the bar. Yes I got a lot of crap from Miami fans there. But I held my head up and said the following.
"you know what, I am a Hokies fan yes, but Miami did a good job, they shut down Virginia Tech's Defense completely, and tech simply didn't play the best game. Miami deserved that win. They played hard and well. Congratulations."
I got stared at. For a long time. They weren't expected that. They wanted to trash talk, piss off the chick who rooted for the opposition.
"however, " I added, " the gators played pretty poorly to be honest, Leek ( the quaterback for the Gators) honestly lacked balls and botched quite a few plays because of some apparent fear of getting hurt. Vanderbilt isn't the worst team, but honestly Gators were playing like a bunch of freshman in High School."
"but the Gators won and Virginia Tech lost" was the response.
Yes they did. But the difference was while Miami played well against the Hokies, Vanderbilt did not play well against the Gators. Florida won by luck alone. Miami admirably kicked Virginia Tech's ass.
I am person who while watching sports admires the enemy as much as my team. I watch college football to see good plays, to watch the battle that occurs on the field and to admire those who do well. Yes I am heartbroken over Virginia Tech's loss, but honestly they blew it. Every year I can remember Virginia Tech gets cocky and plays a half ass game and loses. I must say though, I am glad the Hokies lost to an admirable opponent such as Miami and not some school with no ranking and a poor team as they have in the past. Any hokies fan can tell you of heartbreak games of utter frustration they have watched. Tech has a solid program with a great coach, but every year cocky attitudes and over confidence lead to a loss in a game that should have been an easy win (Boston College, Pitt are a few in my recent memory).
I think Frank Beamer is the best damned coach out there, and he deserves to lead a team all the way to number 1 in the BCS. He deserves "THE" Bowl. Beamer consistently delivers a solid team every year, that plays a tough game. Special teams for the Hokies are outstanding. Defense is incredible.
But overconfident kills everyone.
Every game is important, every member of the team is critical. Baseball is an example of this. While it was great to see a Team play like a team and win the series this year, there was something missing from the whole series...
the pitcher.
Pitching has been thrown aside in MLB for the power hitter. The money seems to be on the guys hitting it outta the park. I miss the tension of the pitch. I miss the excitement of a shut out inning. Baseball has become an all offense game and I personally think it suffers for it.
On the other side of the equation is Hockey, whose new shoot out rule diminishes the game. To have two teams fight the game to a tie and end it with a shoot out on a goalie is unfair and makes the wins cheap. It also puts the rest of the team on the shelf for the sake of the goalie who has to carry the burden of the loss if he somehow doesn't manage to block the shot.
There was an 18 inning game this year in MLB between the Braves and the Astros. It was tense, wrenching at times, but exciting. It was the longest game in division series history. But when that last hit was scored... it was not a failure of one man, if was a team effort and a test of endurance that got the game to that point. No one man failed for the Braves, at any point the skills were there for Chipper Jones, Andruw Jones or any other Braves team member to hit that ball outta the park, but they did not. The Astros made that play.
