Running around to Give you the Reacharound

10.09.2011

Real Life Matters: Week Five

The League Championship Series-es have begun. It has to leave a dropping like bullion-weighted dogshit in your mental backyard: who for to root??

Sit on this - the more you hate, the more you love. Do you think hard Celtics fans would be so die without their Lakers foils? The more years that stack up with Georgia losses, the more Florida fans feel their is no rivalry.

And the more Georgia fans feel there is one.

Would you even care about the Olympics if it weren't for the USA vs. EVERYONE?

If you're from Alaska, Hawaii, Singapore, Djibouti or Queens, you may root for the Yankees. Hell, until the (soon to be) Miami Marlins showed up in the great Purple and Teal 90's Expansion Team Unirevolution everyone within 1,500 miles of Atlanta rooted for the Braves. Everyone in Alabama, everyone in Arkansas, everyone in Florida. But how regionalized and - by definition in today's sports world - relatable are the teams in the these Championship Serieseses? Is there a reason to root for any of them if you're not from that geographic area?

Green Bay, Wisconsin is the smallest market in all of American professional sports. If you'd like to stretch the "metro" area to 283,000, COOL. The second in the diminutive-ist list is Buffalo, New York! Population: 1.1 million.

For a different brand of bird, you sure do look cocky.

Here's an easy one! The Pujols drama is artificial because everyone knows a) nobody is paying 10-year contracts and b) the Yankess aren't in the game. St. Looey - BULLY to you. No offense to your fanbase, but your manager's a dick. Everyone loves Albert Pujols and his loveable inability to speak english, but after winning Eleven world championships since your 1882 introduction (8.5 World Series Winning Percentage [WSW%]) you cannot pretend to be an underdog any longer. Hell, you just won a World Series in 2006.

Be glad! Rejoice! This is your coming out party, Redbirds. Congratulations, you're now the Phillies. Nobody outside of your state ('s immediate rooting interest) are pulling for you.

Early in the 1920's, the infantile National Football League consisted of markets like the Decatur Staleys, Akron Pros, Canton Bulldogs, Muncie Flyers, Rochester Jeffersons and Rock Island Independents. Money, and the evolution of the game/markets/regionalism led to all of those small market teams folding. Except for the Packers, which was bought by its community.

Though a scared little kitty, easily the best DeTigers logo ever. Weird.

Have you even seen a single episode of Hung? Because it's the most bragging rights a Detroit native (DETROTIAN!) has had since capitalizing on Ford's assembly line "invention" by throwing thousands of underpaid fingers into the meat grinders. No, Bully to YOU, Detroit! You've really been with us since 1901? And you've won FIVE World Serieseseses (4.5WSW% [last 1984])?

The Lions are looking good. Your hockey (?) team is solid. Everyone in American knows your state looks like this:
Like the South, it's not all trash!

Congratulations, Tigers fans! The majority of America is rooting for you because your city is on its death bed! Yes, you are being given the Saints Vs. Katrina 2005 Sympathy Sports Award powerup. Run with it. Embrace it. Because unless your town can start producing flying cars, you will no longer be considered a major American city. This is your chance to be, beloved.

Know that the majority of America is rooting for you. Then un-know it. And just play baseball. Most people would like to see this.

Heeey! Milwaukee! Isn't that in Green Bay?

Sorry, Milwaukee (0 WSW% [last never]). Though the analysts (read: TV personalities) will talk endlessly about how your first baseman and the Cardinals' first baseman are both going into unrestricted free agency, and DEAR LORD how that's going to affect your mosque-esque shrine to small-market it-can-happen-without-money image, well.


Well, shit, Milwaukee. We just don't even know where you are. Just know that when Prince leaves, then comes the city, restaurants, bars barbershops and florists, and you're left with Rickie Weeks.


The Green Bay Packers were borne of a street-corner conversation, featuring Curly Lambeau and his Indian Packing Company employer. Curly convinced his J.O.B. to buy uniforms and provide a practice field. Put it together, this is where the namesake was fittingly originated. Lambeau starred for the team for 11 years, became its first coach (for 30 years) and eventually got bored. So he created the forward pass.


The reason you've heard so many Chuck Norris jokes,
is because every time Chuck Norris Kicks someons's ass a new joke is born.


So we are just chock FULL of teams that literally anyone in the country can root for - for any reason they choose. Texas, around since 1961 without grabbing the brass Ring in the MLB merry-go-round, has somehow also compiled a sad championship record (0 WSW% [last never]). Though not the most hated team, they have to be the favorites. And yet the Rangers will still be considered and rooted for like underdogs.

Like everyone else in this World Series race.

Despite
winning the first two Super Bowls and preposterously having street names like Packers, Lombardi, Ray Nitschke, Brett Favre, Mike Holmgren, Don Hutson, Reggie White, Bart Starr and Ton Canadeo, Packers fans somehow do not exude a pompous pheromone and therefore almost make opponents refuse to hate them.

Somewhere in the world, there is a baseball fan (no - there is) that has absolutely no rooting allegiance to any of these teams vying for a World Title. And to have the option to pick your own lame horse for whatever reason is, frankly, why he watches.

The Greenbay Packers were voted the third most popular team in the United States based on a 2010 Harrison poll. They are the only publicly owned professional sports franchise in America.

Every fan of their city is still pulling for their team. But the Packers this year are a juggernaut of immeasurable proportions. Once your team is out of it, you may not be rooting for them. But are you rooting against them?

On to this week's wagers! A reminder of what's at stake:

LOSER
- Swift kick in the ass. No bullshit. Velocity of kick dependent upon kicker (kick-ee likely to ask for more)

WINNER - Bottle of his choosing.

BONUS - Winning Percentage more than 10% differential? Georgia home game football ticket

A real problem this week, as I was either too lazy or too busy to post my picks in time. We'll go ahead and mark me off for three losses for Week Five, and I'll proceed through my week ashamed of myself.

SEASON

OBJ
9-9

Georgia beat the spread two weeks in a row! NICE. Too bad the momentum gained from going 3-1 last week completely stalled out from throwing this week's picks in the trash.

J-Rock
9-9

This Week's Picks
OBJ
Idiot!

J-Rock
Georgia (-2) over Tennesssee
A WIN! That's 3 weeks in a row of covering the spread against SEC teams.

Texas (+11) Over Oklahoma
A LOSS! UT didn't even come close, as Oklahoma is now firmly in the driver's seat for the TGCSECO (TeamtoGetCrushedbyanSECOpponent) Championship.

Florida State (-10) Over Wake Forrest
ANOTHER LOSS! An outstanding week for OBJ to sacrifice his picks. I'm still in this!

GEORGIA IS A GIRL
Each week we're going to bring to you what the University of Georgia football team is, metaphorically speaking. In terms of a woman you are sexually/intellectually/spiritually interested in:

Week of 10/3
This week Georgia is the Older Woman who may just more know about life than you do. Sure, you're young and have all the energy, but this chick seems to know stuff. Y'know, like which materials you're actually able to throw in your recycling bin, or how much life insurance costs. Shit like that.

The Older Woman is intriguing, because while most females seem to come fully loaded with wholesale-sized carts of insecurity, the older woman walks around with self confidence in spades. It's as if they stopped trying to zap/lather/cream/exfoliate/pencil/place-into-suspended-animation, etc. the wrinkles, and decided, "You know what? Fuck it. I think I'm pretty. That's really all that matters." It's incredibly arousing and wonderful in its simplicity.

Plus, you never know when they'll drop a knowledge bomb on you. You may date an older chick for a month, but that one time she said, "Ya know, babe, you really shouldn't take the trash out barefoot. On top of all broken glass out there, acting as a petri dish for countless diseases, scorpians and millipedes - TERRIBLY POISONOUS! - are also out in full force this time of year. By the way, when was your last tetanus shot?" will be ingrained in your mind forever. Older chicks rule.

1 comment:

J-Rock said...

When Chuck Norris jumps in the water, he doesn't get wet; The water gets Chuck Norris'd