Sack Up, Ho.

Some of you may know about my close personal friend Bill Bryson, who is a totally awesome writer and whom I have never met or contacted but whom I reference all the time, thus the "close personal friend" title.

There's a passage in one of his books, The Lost Continent (buy it today!), where he talks about Nebraskan football, to wit:

For a long time I couldn't decide whether the original settlers in Nebraska were insane or just stupid, and then I saw a stadium full of University of Nebraska football fans in action on a Saturday and realized that they must have been both. I may be a decade or so out of touch here but when I left America, the University of Nebraska didn't so much play football as engage in weekly ritual slaughters. They were always racking up scores of 58-3 against hapless opponents. Most schools, when they get a decent lead, will send in a squad of skinny freshmen in unsoiled uniforms to let them run around a bit and get dirty and, above all, to give the losers a sporting chance to make the score respectable. It's called fair play.

Not Nebraska. The University of Nebraska would send in flamethrowers if it were allowed. Watching Nebraska play football every week was like watching hyenas tearing open a gazelle. It was unseemly. It was unsporting. And of course the fans could never get enough of it. To sit among them with the score 66-0 and watch thm bray for more blood is a distinctly unnerving experience, particularly when you consider that a lot of these people must work at the Strategic Air Command in Omaha. If Iowa State ever upset Nebraska, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they nuked Ames. All of these thoughs percolated through my mind on this particular morning and frankly left me troubled.

(Hilarious, no? Seriously, the book is fabulous, as is his entire catalog. Don't hold back. Just one brief Bryson accolade before I get to the point: My entire family got hooked on his books because other family members would be sitting and reading and occasionally emitting everything from the gentle snorts of escaping chuckles to full on, head-thrown-back laughter, and you'd have to know what was so funny. He IS that funny.)

So...I'm a Pats fan, right, and a Sox fan, and unfortunately, most people who are NOT Sox or Pats fans tend to not really like Pats of Sox fans, because let's face it, a lot of Pats and Sox fans are fucking obnoxious. I agree on the obnoxiousness - at any given time, about 60% of the teams' fan base is acting like smug, arrogant, irritating douchebags, and it's similar to the whole psycho liberal thing I am always bitching about...because that obnoxious 60% is also the most vocal part of the membership, every discussion I want to have about sports has to start with establishment of the fact that I am not one of them, which can take anywhere from thirty seconds with those who know there are non-horrendous fans, as with Awesome Friend and Yankees Fan, The Lucy:

Me: Well, I like the Sox.
Lucy: Are you one of the fucking obnoxious Sox fans?
Me: No. Are you one of the fucking obnoxious Yankees fans?
Lucy: No.
Me & Lucy: Right then, carry on.

...to up to an hour of non-refundable time with someone who doesn't understand the concept:

Me: I'm from Massachusetts.
Dude at a Bar in DC: *hour long rant about how the Boston Red Sox were all imported directly from hell and should be shot on sight*

And I understand the frustration...the celebration in 2004 when the Sox won the Series got out of hand and the gloating was insufferable because Sox fans are so used to getting into these "well we were just as good a team we just didn't win" battles for EIGHTY SIX YEARS without being vindicated with a win, so when we finally won, it just all exploded. Yeah! Obnoxious! No one's really 100% adjusted yet and the Yankees Suck chant is irritating as shit! Fine! And this year, let's have it said, the Sox were the most dominant team in major league baseball, start to finish, with only a small (though ulcer-enducing) dip at the end of the regular season. For that reason, Tim McCarver can shut the fuck up, twist his inane babble about how the Sox suck and the Rockies are awesome into a nice little solid cone, and sit and spin, because whether or not the fans or the team or whoever are obnoxious, it doesn't make the Sox NOT GOOD. That Rockies team was so comprehensively overmatched it felt unfair, but LET'S NOT LET THAT STOP US FROM PRETENDING OTHERWISE. My favorite was when over a visual of one of the Rockies' twentysomething pitchers, McCarver started going on about how cool, calm and collected the pitcher looked. THE GUY LOOKED LIKE HE WAS PEEING HIS SPECIAL BASEBALL PANTS, DUDE. I am trying not to be That Guy, but if you want cool, calm and collected before cracking age 25, let me direct you to 23-year-old Clay Buchholz's no-hitter. Dude was so chill I though he was in shock. I repeat - the Rockies pitcher looked one nasty look from Ortiz away from wetting himself. AND ORTIZ ISN'T EVEN THAT MEAN LOOKING. Fuck you, McCarver.

And yeah, the Pats fans...ohhhh the Pats fans. Less obnoxious than Sox fans, I think, even though I am relatively new to football. And the Pats at least had won shit before, so there's less championship-drought-psychosis. But it seems to me that the hate New England fans direct towards Peyton Manning comes back towards the Pats as a team, which...yeah, people winning shit all the time is obnoxious unless you're the team doing it, and frankly, I'm sick of hearing about Tom Brady, too.

But if I hear one more goddamn thing about the Pats running up the score against Washington, I'm going on a shooting spree. Maybe I'm a relative of one of those U of N fans, maybe I'm one of the ones who would nuke Ames, maybe I'm an asshole because of it, but if you don't want to get your shit handed to you by thirty-point-plus margins, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. What you decide to do is up to your own creativity and willingness to take risks. But for the love of God, if I have to listen to Dan fucking Marino make one more lobotomized comment about how it's unsportsmanlike, I'm going to vomit on his shoes. The Patriots this year are one of the best teams probably ever to play the game. They overmatch the ENTIRE LEAGUE. They are fucking GORGEOUS to watch. Did you see those two freakish airborne catches Randy Moss made? Double coverage, way the fuck down the field, and STILL Brady threw to him and STILL MOSS CAUGHT IT! That DEFIES PHYSICS, ya'll. I understand being frustrating, because frankly I LIKE the Pats and still make comments about one or more of them being complete freaks of nature during every game. But my God, to go for this pathetic mealy-mouthed whining about how you shouldn't spank the Redskins when you're obviously capable of it...personally I find it gross.