November 7, 2007

SOME FEAR AND LOATHING ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON

       With all due respect to Hunter S. Thompson everyone has moments of fear and loathing, however great or however small.  While I certainly have had great moments of each, moments that I won’t divulge now—and some I won’t ever--I had one of those smaller versions this past Sunday afternoon.   

      I will begin with the fear.  I am not reticent in the least to admit that I have a deep respect for electricity.  It’s not that I need to sneak up on a light switch or that I need help screwing in a light bulb—it’s actually a fear of the wiring inside.  Usually, if a light fixture breaks and it’s a problem that lies deeper than just replacing the bulb then I will throw it out unless I can find someone who isn’t afraid of electricity and willing to fix it at a reasonable cost.  I sure as hell am not going to pay some electrician a couple of hundred dollars to fix a twenty-dollar lamp, but if there’s a lot of rewiring involved and it’s an important box that controls a great deal of power…well, then I’d absolutely pay the freight—as I have done on a few occasions.

       So what does any of this have to do with sports, you ask?  Well I, along with millions of other sports fans, had been looking forward to the supposed game of the year between the undefeated behemoths of the NFL, the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts.   Now I rarely get caught up in hype, I don’t watch one minute of the hours of pre game mumbo jumbo offered up before the Super Bowl, and I don’t understand how a game in November could be billed that way—but this game had all the fixings to be a regular season classic.  And even better for me was that I had a sports appetizer—the Raptors were battling the new look Celtics earlier in the day.  I was looking forward to a terrific Sunday buffet of sports.  The only problem was that I had promised my wife (and myself mostly) that I would replace a broken exterior light that had needed replacing for a few years now.  In order to do the handiwork I needed a bright and clear day--not too cold--I needed my fingers to maneuver with dexterity around the wires, and I needed my wife around for moral support (and a quick emergency phone call in case I shocked myself to such an extent that I began to look like Don King and sound like Mike Tyson).

       Now, I know what most of you are thinking—what’s the big deal?  All you have to do is shut the power off to that particular outlet.  Of course.  I know that.  That’s exactly what I did—but fear is typically irrational, and even though there wasn’t any juice going to the outlet I went about replacing the broken fixture with trepidation and anxiety.  It took about a half hour to finish the job—and made me feel abominably silly afterward for having avoided the simple procedure for so long.  It didn’t matter though, the work was complete and I felt good about it.  And just in time for the tip off.  It was time to get comfortable and relish the successful distancing of my fears.

       Unfortunately, while I was eager and enthusiastic, primed for a great basketball game between two divisional contenders…the Raptors were not.  It became apparent rather quickly that the Raptor players were caught unaware of the early start time and were sleepwalking through the early portion of the game.  They were late on defensive coverage switches, they were passive on both offense and defense, and each player insisted on playing one against five when they had the ball in the offensive zone.  I had believed (and had stated on air during my weekly spot on Norm Rumack’s show on the Fan 590) that the Raptors, when they first saw the schedule, circled game two of the season against New Jersey and game three against Boston.  I was half right. 

       The Raptors were certainly geared up to play the Nets.  They sought some form of vindication and vengeance for their previous season’s playoff ouster, and had insisted that New Jersey was a statement game.  And they made that statement in bold ink.  The Celtic game however, was a completely different story.  There were no statements being made.  In fact there wasn’t much of anything being made except for a lot of frustration in this particular Raptor fan.  I thought that the game would be an opportunity for the Raps to prove to the basketball world that they, and not the Celtics, were the division favourite.  The Raptors apparently were unconcerned with such triviality.  It was just another game on the schedule.  The energy, the enthusiasm, the intensity and the team play they exhibited in throttling the Nets was left in the Jersey swamplands.  Instead we were privy to a roster full of individuals that were seemingly intent on trying to find their own game, and their own rhythm.  There wasn’t any sense of substance to their game.  They showed very little trust in their teammates, confidence in their shots or the quick ball movement that is so essential to their success as a team.  Even though the game went into overtime I never had the sense that the Raptors had found their rhythm (and judging by the games that followed they have yet to find it).  The Raps look like a club that peaked for game two, and then fell back into a club that was playing the early games of a long schedule.

       Fortunately, having settled in for an afternoon of sports television, and not finding anything other than frustration and loathing with the Raptors I was able to find excitement elsewhere.  While the Raptors struggled I switched channels and found the second half of the Green Bay-Kansas City game going on.  (I have been a Packer fan for nearly twenty years, though certainly the past few have been anything other than memorable).  But this year the Pack is back and Brett Favre is looking like someone who is years away from retirement.  The Packers may not be in the same league as the Colts and the Patriots, but at least Sundays are much more interesting now that they’re competitive again.

       As for the Colts and the Patriots I had only half my attention on them in the first half—as I flipped back and forth between the football game and the end of the Raptor contest.  Ray Allen’s last second basket to end that contest came just about at the half of the game of the year.  But I did catch the two early Colt drives that asphyxiated inside the five-yard line and resulted in a couple of cheap field goals.  When you are playing the supposed team of the year in the supposed game of the year those missed opportunities always tend to haunt you, and in the end they haunted the Colts. 

       Now, as I have stated, I am a Packer fan but I wanted the Colts to win for one very important reason.  How does a defending Super Bowl champion that has yet to lose host a game as a touchdown underdog?  The Colts seem to have the good guy image while the Patriots should really be wearing black.  Missing Marvin Harrison was a key—imagine how different the Patriots would look without Randy Moss—and it was easy to see that Peyton Manning missed his prime target when the Colts struggled in the red zone.

       After a slow start, and outside of a spectacular run by Joseph Addai in the final minute of the first half, it seemed as if the Patriots were beginning to take control of the game.  Once the Patriots came to the conclusion that it was better to keep Tom Brady in the shotgun the game seemed to open up for the visitors.  Brady had all day in the pocket and with their corps of receivers it doesn’t take much time for big plays to be made.   A 75 yard third quarter drive brought the Pats to within three, but an outstanding one-handed interception by linebacker Gary Brackett seemed to stem the tide, and when Manning turned that miscue into a touchdown early in the fourth quarter it appeared as if the Colts had withstood the rally.  But there was still nine minutes left. 

      Nine minutes is an eternity for a high voltage offense, and for the Patriots, possessors of the league’s best attack, it took less than two minutes to get that touchdown back.  A picture perfect Brady bullet for 55 yards to Moss highlighted the drive.  Watching Brady in the pocket is reminiscent of Dan Marino--the rifle arm and quick release—and it seemed inevitable that when the Patriots scored unless the Colts killed the remainder of the clock the Pats would find a way to win.  And they did.

       It wasn’t a great game, but it was compelling.  It just seemed ironic to me afterward that after having anticipated a great afternoon of sports the most rewarding part of the day was installing the light fixture.  You just never know what a day will bring.

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