12/06/2005
Game On
I'm not a huge sports fan. I enjoyed playing them myself, but I just never saw the appeal of watching people I don’t know or don’t care about get paid more than the gross national product of Uruguay to run back and forth and back and forth a lot. It’s gotten to the point that I’ll TiVo the Super Bowl just to watch for commercials and any errant boob that happens to fly across the screen.
Watching sports in person can be a different game altogether (see how I can use appropriate puns?). There’s something electric about seeing the players live and being amongst the crowd. I have a love/hate relationship with large groups of people – I tend to enjoy people on an individual level or in small groups, but something happens with a large crowd. I think the average IQ of people is inversely proportional to the number of people present. That being said, I’m a huge fan of people watching, and nothing beats people watching at a sporting event.
The reason I bring this up is because I recently went to a minor league hockey game, which I enjoy quite a bit. Not only does hockey provide the greatest amount of sporting lingo that sounds dirty but really isn’t (puck, high-sticking, in the crease, pulling the goalie, etc.), it’s Mecca for loony-bin fan watching. It’s like hanging out at the monkey cage at the zoo: you’re horrified, intrigued, and quite sure that at any moment the simian-like sports uber-fan may in fact fling his own poop at you.
The fan I sat behind at the hockey game did not disappoint. Magnificent, tangled hair that went down to his waist. A cowbell/noisemaker tricked out and customized to a size even Donald Trump would find ostentatious. Additional noisemaker in other hand in the unlikely event he would find himself unable to make any other loud noises. But the best thing about this dude was the labored and outright confusing things he would yell at the game. A few prime examples:
“You little no-chin!”
“You Mexican wanna-be!!”
“Give them some hockey Ex-Lax so they can get it out of their end!!!”
Granted, these examples could make sense if we thought about them hard enough. But it’s this next one that I will always fondly recall with a sense of awe and wonder; a soliloquy so richly packed with narrative and character yet at the same time bereft of any ostensible meaning. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:
“Let me guess – you are the kid who used to hang out at half court of the basketball game just standing there and waiting for someone else to throw you the ball!!”
Yes, this preceding sentence actually game out of this guy’s mouth. And the way he “delivered” this line made it even more fantastic. You could literally hear the gears in his head grinding together, emitting a shower of synaptic sparks so intense it was like Jennifer Beals was recreating the opening scene of Flashdance. He started yelling it at the top of his lungs, and then would pause every few words to catch his breath while simultaneously trying to figure out where his little story was going.
“LET ME GUESS…(breath)..…YOU ARE THE KID….(crunching of gears)……WHO USED TO…..(sparks, gears)….HANG OUT AT HALF COURT….(pause, breath)…..OF THE BASKETBALL GAME……(gears, pause, grind)….JUST STANDING THERE………(pauses getting longer, gears revving up to full speed)…AND WAITING FOR…..(waiting for…waiting for what? Think, man, think!)….SOMEONE ELSE TO THROW YOU THE BALL!!!!! (triumphant celebration in his head, look of pride and satisfaction on his face, gears ripped to shreds and smoking uncontrollably).”
All the while, I sat behind him listening to it all unfold. It took a good 15 – 20 seconds. During the first five seconds, I was just rolling my eyes at the crazy man. Then, as the tale began to grow, I edged forward on my seat. “Half court? Basketball? What on earth is happening here,” I whispered to myself in wonder. And then it kept going. And going. Clearly this man wasn’t just going for a double or a triple (to throw in even more random sports analogies). Oh no. This was the Babe Ruth of crazy sports fans. He had pointed to that centerfield wall, and he was going to crush the ball out of the park so far that he’d become a legend. He was going to deliver. And boy, did he. It was magnificent. The only thing missing was a little boy in a hospital bed somewhere who made Sports Guy promise that his next insane ramble would be the best ever…and he’d do it for him.
So here’s to you crazy sports fans everywhere. To those who think yelling “DEFENSE” from 400 feet away is going to actually cause the player to think, “By Jove, he’s right! I’m supposed to be on defense now!” To all of you who encourage athletes everywhere to “KEEP YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME!!!” only to delight in yourselves when it appears that the athlete now, in fact, does have his head in the game more so than before you screamed it. To all of you. Thank you for giving me something to watch other than the game itself.
Watching sports in person can be a different game altogether (see how I can use appropriate puns?). There’s something electric about seeing the players live and being amongst the crowd. I have a love/hate relationship with large groups of people – I tend to enjoy people on an individual level or in small groups, but something happens with a large crowd. I think the average IQ of people is inversely proportional to the number of people present. That being said, I’m a huge fan of people watching, and nothing beats people watching at a sporting event.
The reason I bring this up is because I recently went to a minor league hockey game, which I enjoy quite a bit. Not only does hockey provide the greatest amount of sporting lingo that sounds dirty but really isn’t (puck, high-sticking, in the crease, pulling the goalie, etc.), it’s Mecca for loony-bin fan watching. It’s like hanging out at the monkey cage at the zoo: you’re horrified, intrigued, and quite sure that at any moment the simian-like sports uber-fan may in fact fling his own poop at you.
The fan I sat behind at the hockey game did not disappoint. Magnificent, tangled hair that went down to his waist. A cowbell/noisemaker tricked out and customized to a size even Donald Trump would find ostentatious. Additional noisemaker in other hand in the unlikely event he would find himself unable to make any other loud noises. But the best thing about this dude was the labored and outright confusing things he would yell at the game. A few prime examples:
“You little no-chin!”
“You Mexican wanna-be!!”
“Give them some hockey Ex-Lax so they can get it out of their end!!!”
Granted, these examples could make sense if we thought about them hard enough. But it’s this next one that I will always fondly recall with a sense of awe and wonder; a soliloquy so richly packed with narrative and character yet at the same time bereft of any ostensible meaning. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:
“Let me guess – you are the kid who used to hang out at half court of the basketball game just standing there and waiting for someone else to throw you the ball!!”
Yes, this preceding sentence actually game out of this guy’s mouth. And the way he “delivered” this line made it even more fantastic. You could literally hear the gears in his head grinding together, emitting a shower of synaptic sparks so intense it was like Jennifer Beals was recreating the opening scene of Flashdance. He started yelling it at the top of his lungs, and then would pause every few words to catch his breath while simultaneously trying to figure out where his little story was going.
“LET ME GUESS…(breath)..…YOU ARE THE KID….(crunching of gears)……WHO USED TO…..(sparks, gears)….HANG OUT AT HALF COURT….(pause, breath)…..OF THE BASKETBALL GAME……(gears, pause, grind)….JUST STANDING THERE………(pauses getting longer, gears revving up to full speed)…AND WAITING FOR…..(waiting for…waiting for what? Think, man, think!)….SOMEONE ELSE TO THROW YOU THE BALL!!!!! (triumphant celebration in his head, look of pride and satisfaction on his face, gears ripped to shreds and smoking uncontrollably).”
All the while, I sat behind him listening to it all unfold. It took a good 15 – 20 seconds. During the first five seconds, I was just rolling my eyes at the crazy man. Then, as the tale began to grow, I edged forward on my seat. “Half court? Basketball? What on earth is happening here,” I whispered to myself in wonder. And then it kept going. And going. Clearly this man wasn’t just going for a double or a triple (to throw in even more random sports analogies). Oh no. This was the Babe Ruth of crazy sports fans. He had pointed to that centerfield wall, and he was going to crush the ball out of the park so far that he’d become a legend. He was going to deliver. And boy, did he. It was magnificent. The only thing missing was a little boy in a hospital bed somewhere who made Sports Guy promise that his next insane ramble would be the best ever…and he’d do it for him.
So here’s to you crazy sports fans everywhere. To those who think yelling “DEFENSE” from 400 feet away is going to actually cause the player to think, “By Jove, he’s right! I’m supposed to be on defense now!” To all of you who encourage athletes everywhere to “KEEP YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME!!!” only to delight in yourselves when it appears that the athlete now, in fact, does have his head in the game more so than before you screamed it. To all of you. Thank you for giving me something to watch other than the game itself.
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Welcome back. It was worth the wait.
You're right about attending sporting events; it's terrifying yet interesting to drink in those around you...who are drinking. Heavily.
I was at a Packer game with my father-in-law last month, and the troupe in front of us was getting a little too rowdy for public consumption. In a moment of fleeting self-control, one of the men jumped up and flailed his arms, knocking my father-in-law's baseball cap off.
"Oh, sorry man!" said the swaying, inebriated fellow, beer spilling from the sides of the glass. "No problem, it's a Packer game!" yelled back father-in-law, before leaning in close to my ear and whispering:
"If that guy hits me one more time, I'm going to throw his ass down the stairs."
Unfortunately, he never got the chance, but it showed me something very important. When mob mentality takes over, people can easily revert back to primal instinct.
You're right about attending sporting events; it's terrifying yet interesting to drink in those around you...who are drinking. Heavily.
I was at a Packer game with my father-in-law last month, and the troupe in front of us was getting a little too rowdy for public consumption. In a moment of fleeting self-control, one of the men jumped up and flailed his arms, knocking my father-in-law's baseball cap off.
"Oh, sorry man!" said the swaying, inebriated fellow, beer spilling from the sides of the glass. "No problem, it's a Packer game!" yelled back father-in-law, before leaning in close to my ear and whispering:
"If that guy hits me one more time, I'm going to throw his ass down the stairs."
Unfortunately, he never got the chance, but it showed me something very important. When mob mentality takes over, people can easily revert back to primal instinct.
I like how the only comparison the guy can think of for use as ridicule is also sports-related. What would have made it funnier is if he had kept going on with his stuttered tirade, but it kept getting more specific and detailed to the point where he's actually talking about himself, and then he started openly weeping, and he learned the true meaning of Christmas.
And then he would finish with, "AND I NEVER LEARNED HOW TO READ!" whilst "The More You Know" music played behind him...
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