By Bart D.
Co-Founder
Follow the author on Twitter @Bart_cfn or the site @bestdamnpoll
I’m weird. Sports is probably weirder. Let me get that out of the way. Nothing where you’re so helpless to the overall outcome should carve up the emotions the way it does. Being a fan isn’t like playing, it’s 5,000 times more stressful. I’ve been on both ends. You get lost in the moment on the floor. When other people are living and dying by what you do, you’re simply setting the right screen, running the right route, making that one extra pass completely unaware of anything but the outcome. When you’re a fan? Frigging helpless. And we all have those Mount Rushmore moments, the ones that when you’re incontinent and wetting yourself in a nursing home, you’ll be telling the younger generations about. Those times you just don’t forget, and in reality, there rarely are that many of them even for fans of the best teams. One of mine came last week, and is here.
It’s taken me a week to even write something about it, because I feel like I’ve been pissing liquid gold for the last seven days. When Billy Cundiff’s football treated the goal posts like they had malaria and sent the New England Patriots to the Super Bowl in Indianapolis, it set off a celebration at the intersection of “Overjoyed” and “Psychotic” in my house.
I don’t really understand it, these Patriots and my blood pressure. As I’ve aged, I’ve slowly normalized. I curse less, say rude things more rarely than ever, detest some of the stuff I did in my younger days, and have stopped chucking inanimate objects at the wall when my teams lose. Age has numbed me, as did Rich Rodriguez. If I acted the way I did in my early 20s every time Michigan football lost the last 4 years, I’d be living under a bridge because everything in my home would be destroyed. When I get in non-injury related car accidents, I sort of shrug. If I get laid off, I grab a 6 pack on the way home and figure I’ll figure out the next move here in a day or two. When I sprain a knee, break an ankle, or shoot a nail through my hand, I curse for a moment, then chalk it up either to stupidity or old age. But when the Patriots play, something different happens.
The scene last week was something out of a comedy/horror movie. I don’t think I sat on my butt from 2:50 PM until the game was over. Multiple times, my way-too-attractive-for-me wife had her hands in her face praying, mostly because she didn’t want to see another Patriot-loss causing meltdown where I go outside, yell at stuff, and then stare at the wall lifelessly for the next 48-72 hours depending on the magnitude/who they lost to. I mean, I sit and sweat during these games, and it’s 30 outside and I detest wasting money turning up the heat. Yet you could wring out my shirt after a Pats playoff game and probably fill up a glass, and it’d probably be at least 70 proof.
I’ll spare you the particulars, my running outside in the Midwest winter screaming as I ran down the road, or me turning what normally is about a 14 inch vertical into something Spud Webb would be proud of. Or the fact that the next day, I was so hoarse from screaming shouts of joy, I sounded like I smoked a carton of Vantage. Every hour.
This time with the Patriots is sort of my sports “conjugal visit.” This won’t last forever, which is why I suppose I cling to it like grim death. It will never, ever be this good again, and it’s not exactly in its infancy stages. So I’m going to enjoy this week, because the last few years have been some sort of sports version of hell. It’s sometimes easier when your team sucks, because you don’t go through the ups and downs, and you never “get the tip in” just to have her smack you and say “take me home.”
I suppose the indignity of 2007 is erased if this works out the way it needs to and the Pats win. And celebrate on Jim Irsay’s home field. You see, this is more than just one last shot at a Super Bowl. It’s a shot to do it a stones throw from where I live on an every day basis. In a city I begrudgingly call home. In front of a fan base that’s both terrible and tormenting ever since I moved here. It’s nothing the last decade to walk downtown wearing Patriots stuff to get lobbed a few death threats, crimes against your car, dog, or human decency in general. Keeping in mind, I’m not really that small of an individual. I’d hate to be the small, sheepish type. I’ve ached for this moment since I turned my phone off after Pats-Giants part 1, and 48 hours later turned it on to find a bunch of message from people either telling me to die, or asking me if I did. Jokingly of course, on both ends.
I like this town enough, but I hate their fans, I hate their drunken, Twitter-happy owner, their fair-weather, we win and we’re great, we lose and we’d rather mow grass with our teeth Colts Nation. I hate the horseshoe they stole from Baltimore and their phony franchise quarterback with a forehead that you could land a Boeing 787 on. When a Tom Brady pass to Randy Moss clattered to the ground four years ago, I figured that was the low. It wasn’t. Bernard “I be tryin’ to learn how to read” Pollard happened. Then 4th and 2. Then Rex Ryan and the Jets. The last 4 years around these parts have been all kinds of “suck.” Nothing can make up for it, right?
Wrong. This is it. Tomorrow, the Patriots will have invaded West 56th Street, home of the Colts complex. Belichick will be in Bill Polian’s old chair. Plenty of time to use that Sky Caddie now, eh, Bill? Tom Brady will be hanging pictures of his smoking hot wife up in Peyton Manning’s (old) locker. Patriot logos will adorn the complex. Indignity? How about this fact: the Colts and their employees aren’t even allowed in the damn building while the Pats are there. This is like the guy that got the promotion over you taking your wife out to eat to celebrate, engaging in coitis with her in your bed, and then telling you to make bacon and eggs for them when they’re done. But don’t start too late, because he’s gotta take your kids to the Yankees game. They have front-row seats.
Patriots jargon is all around town. It’s dominating the moment you walk into any department store in Indy. Patriot mugs, shirts, shot glasses, flags…give me another 7 feet of snow, I’d think I lived back there. And the fans? Suddenly they’re nice. No one knows I’m not in from out of town, and suddenly everyone’s saying stuff like “enjoy our city!” or “we don’t like you, but good luck! Have fun!.” My car’s tires breathe a little easier.
This is it. This is amazing. This is one of the greatest weeks I’ve had as a fan, and it’s only just begun. Most of the time, sports is agonizing as a fan. As an athlete, it can be, but there’s mental resolution in realizing that you have no one to blame but yourself after a loss. There’s not much solace in knowing you can’t change the outcome of your emotions. Someone else is responsible for that. Seven days, several parties, and a lot of beer from now, I’ll be back there, sweating, pacing, the house as loud as a bad Russian night club as my family shuffles in, bloodthirsty as I for that 4th ring. But for now, this is fan utopia. They…um…just better win. Otherwise I reserve the right to void these emotions…
And by the way...Go Pats!