What bowl?
A few days ago on my way out of the bank after making a deposit for a client (not the sort of thing I usually do, but if it helps the checks clear it’s time well spent) the branch manager (an overly friendly man, but that’s preferable to the alternative) said to me, «enjoy the game!»
I stopped to think and turned to him. «Game?»
«Yeah,» he chuckled. «There’s a football game. You might have heard?»
Of course by now I knew what he was talking about. I said, «isn’t football season over?»
The branch manager appeared genuinely shocked. He said, «no! the Super Bowl is this weekend!»
«Are the ‘Niners in it?» I asked. Once again I knew the answer to the question before I asked. When the answer came back no, I said, «yeah, season’s over then.» He either got it then or pretended to: he laughed and said, «good point.»
I’ve never been much of a football fan. I can appreciate the game when it’s put in front of me, and I have to give credit to the producers of TV football for having done the impossible making a game someone else is playing interesting on television. I love baseball but can’t bring myself to watch it on TV. Football actually is more entertaining and interesting on TV than it is in person.
But I won’t be watching the game this year. No interest at all. I grew up in New England, so it should go without saying both that I’m not a Patriots fan1 and that I have a knee-jerk hatred for any team from New York.
Since the ‘Niners are leaving San Francisco anyway, I do have a fantasy that would actually make this year’s Super Bowl relevant: the New York Giants should move to San Francisco, take over Candlestick, and let both our teams be the Giants.
When the Giants beat the Patriots a couple years ago (beating some very long predicted odds) someone on one of my forums or mailing lists wrote, «today, God smiled on the New York Giants.» I replied: «that happened in 1957».
It would be great if it happened again. I may have that New Englander knee-jerk hatred for all New York teams, but the Giants could entirely redeem themselves in my eyes by doing what so many other New Yorkers do: move to San Francisco.
- No one from New England who is old enough to vote is a Patriots fan. They never won any games and no one cared enough about them to pay attention to until the September 11th attacks, when pro football proved itself to be just as rigged as pro wrestling by bringing the Patriots — the losingest team in football — forward to win the Super Bowl. Anyone from New England can tell you that the Bad News Bears have a better chance of winning the Super Bowl than the Patriots, unless the game is rigged. And yes, I know the Bad News Bears was a fictional baseball, not football, team ↩
