Slap in the face

When it comes to bad days for a sports fan, Sunday afternoon was more or less a perfect storm. At least for me.

It started with the Red Sox, facing elimination after two dreary performances on the West Coast. However, they always play better at home, and sure enough, they took an early lead and held on as the game went on.

Finally, with two outs, none on, a two-run lead and Jonathan Papelbon (he of zero lifetime postseason runs allowed) on the mound, it was possible to think of a Fourth Game in the series. Yes, the Angels were probably the better team, but stranger things have happened.

They happened in the next 10 minutes or so. Whap, plunk, whap, walk, whap, and the Angels were ahead for good. As it turned out, the Red Sox played all season to earn the right to play an extra week and lose three more games. I'm not saying I'd trade the summer's routing experiences with those of Mets' fans, but a little more drama before the end of the baseball year would have been nice.

Switching television stations to the broadcast of the Bills offered no relief either. The game with the Cleveland Browns appeared to be one of the dullest in recent memory. Those who are out-of-town and hear a score like 3-3 in the fourth quarter assume that a monsoon had struck Orchard Park. No, it was just two bad teams who were incapable of moving the ball very far.

With three minutes to go, I let out a loud sigh that caused my wife to run in from the kitchen. What happened?!? Roscoe Parrish had fumbled a punt deep in Buffalo territory, and Cleveland had recovered. The game was more or less instantly decided, and a season that started with a little bit of hope had taken yet another emphatic circle into the depths of an abyss.

After listening to a Bills postgame talk show for a while and hearing the anger and disappointment, I called my friend Mark, who I knew was at the Bills game and at this point would be walking to his car. Thanks, I said, for not inviting me to see the dullest game in football history. Yes, he said, it was an all-time stinker.

And then Mark, who has his picture next to the words "good-natured" and "upbeat" in the dictionary, said in a slightly shaken voice, "And just to put things perspective, we were walking to the car when we saw the aftermath of a drunk driver who hit two people on Southwestern Boulevard. It looked pretty bad." Indeed, they were seriously injured -- one was flown by helicopter on Mercy Flight -- and five others were hurt in the incident. The talk shows didn't seem so entertaining after that. (Luckily, they all apparently will be all right.)

I'm not going to ever apologize for an emotional attachment to sports and the games. In a way, it pays my salary, and has the added bonus of bringing so much joy to my life. But while I had a bad day today, I know of seven people and their families who had a much worse one.

On the border...

Gotta throw in a quick note about one of the fun sports/television traditions north of the border.

It's Grey Cup week in Canada, as the Canadian Football League stages its annual championship game. That means one big party, and it lasts for week. Our friends to the north do it up right.

For those of us with access to the CBC, which means in a border state, we get to see "Grey Cup Classics" if we stay up late enough. At about midnight, I think, the CBC each night in the week leading up to the game shows a game from the past.

It's charming, especially the old ones. One game earlier this week must have been from the early 1960's. There were no graphics, no replays. Numbers on uniforms were all over the place, unlike the modern system of standardizing numbers by position. One game the other night had the Ottawa Rough Riders and the Saskatchewan Roughriders -- that's right, two of the nine teams in the CFL had the same name, more or less.

It's kind of like watching ESPN Classic, but this is really classic stuff. I'd imagine it would be even better if I had heard of more than a couple of the players. You won't see NBC try something like this. Too bad; it would be fun to see a couple of those old AFL games from the 1960's in their entirety.

(Oh, and give yourself 10 points if you recognized the title from the Al Stewart song. I think he said it's the only top 20 hit about gun-running in Africa.)

Fan mail

I did something unusual the other night. I watched a sporting event on television -- Buffalo Sabres vs. New York Rangers -- in a bar with some friends. The game was exciting, my friends were fine, the picture and sound were crisp, the beer was cold and the popcorn was free.

Still, it was an odd experience. I had to listen to some other fans during the game. Yuck.

Keep something in mind here -- the Sabres were the league's best team during the regular season. They beat the Islanders in the first round of the playoffs, and had a 2-1 lead going into Game Four in New York. By any standards, this is a pretty good team ... no matter what was going to happen on this night.

For two periods, I had to listen to fans' comments at the next table. They were enough to make me scream.

Jochen Hecht was a horrible player. Jaroslav Spacek was acquired for no apparent reason. The passing was horrible. The coaching was worse. The referee always hated Buffalo. You'd never know it was a 2-1 game, decided by a non-call on a goal in the final seconds. And so on. Some of the remarks were punctuated by obscenities, just to add a little spice.

Now, some of these people were wearing Sabre apparel, so they obviously had some rooting interest in the team. So if these were the friends of the team, what do the enemies sound like?

I'll be happy to defend anyone's Constitutional right to be wrong about their views of sport. But that doesn't mean I'm forced to sit next to them.

A quick note for now...

I was poking around www.sportsjournalists.com when I saw a thread about a Web site called Sports Media Guide (www.sportsmediaguide.com). So far it contains interviews with several top sports reporters and columnists from around the country.

I have only read a handful of the interviews so far -- gotta check out the people I know or who have met first -- but the questions are really good and so are the answers. For those in the business, or for those who merely like to read those in the business, this is definitely worth your time.

Besides, there may be a subject or six prompted by the remarks that could lead to a column here. And that's always worthwhile.