Nope, it is not easy being a sports fan. And I’m not just talking about being an LA Kings fan. (That’s being masochistic.) I’m talking about regular teams that are good and have legitimate chances of winning and they break your damn heart and you want to kill yourself and cry after you’re dead.
Like, let’s take Sept. 25. Just a couple of weeks ago. A regular Thursday. I was feeling pretty damn happy and was walking around with my head held high and my stomach held out and my arrogance was really working for me, and most of the people I know hated me even more than usual because the Dodgers had clinched their division and SC was ranked No. 1 in the country and I was more insufferable than succotash.
And then within a span of six hours SC got beat by a midget up at Oregon State and my sports joy was wiped out and I wanted to hurt panda bears and break things and cry and whine and blame and become a Beaver fan and burn the house and die. The sports gods had turned on me. In one day. In one-fourth of a day. They just couldn’t let me bask in my arrogance for a freaking full day.
I know you’re feeling my pain. Especially you UCLA fans. All I can say is thanks and, Brigham Young 59-0. I think I’m starting to recover.
The misery of being a sports fan can rear its ugly noggin in a lot of ways. Just before the Dodgers got into the playoffs I went to a game at Dodger Stadium, and I was watching Manny be Manny, and choking on a corned beef sandwich (me, not Manny) with no condiments on it, and it’s the seventh inning so we’re all standing up and stretching and singing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” and this German guy behind me is talking real loud in a German accent and he’s saying, “You know, you Americans are kind of crazy. Just vat is Crackerjacks, anyway?” I am not making this up. He actually inquired as to what Crackerjacks is.
So I turned around to him and I said, “You don’t know what Crackerjacks is? You Third Reich goose-stepping swine maggot, how would you feel if I came over to one of your boot-stomping Nazi cities and saw some long stubby round brown things being grilled and I said “Just what is sausages, anyway? What would you say to that, Bratwurst Face?!”
He didn’t respond, so I said, “What if I went to one of your October gardens and watched a bunch of you suspender-sporting gazuntites all polka-ing your industrial-weight butts off and I inquired as to what you were drinking? Is zat beer?” Ah, sauerkraut this!
OK, I’m calming down.
I’m not sure how much longer I can keep being a sports fan. My blood pressure is now measured by how far blood spurts out my nose and hits the sidewalk. I’m up to being able to spurt over a hopscotch chalk outline now.
Another example of sports fan torture: I decide to go to an NFL game. It’s the first pro football game I’ve been to since the Rams left LA. So I buy three pretty pricy tickets for a Chargers game. The home opener. These tickets are not cheap. They’re on the 30-yard line, about 18 rows up. Damn good seats. So I invite my son Casey and his girlfriend Jessie to go with me.
We take the Metro down to Qualcom Stadium and go inside and sit down at our wonderful (expensive) seats, and I am smiling like I’m a pretty cool parent and Casey and Jessie should be grateful and always somehow owe me. So the game starts and we all stand up to cheer on the Chargers. Go Chargers! Kill those guys in different colored uniforms! We don’t care if they are other people’s husbands and sons. Kill them!
And then we sit down. But the fans in front of us do not sit down. I think, OK, maybe it’s some San Diego tradition to stand for the first series of plays. So we stand up and cheer. Go Chargers! Maim those brothers and uncles of other families! Make their sisters and aunts cry!
Well, those rat-bastard fans stood up for the whole game. Yes, the first 17 rows of fans all stood up for the entire game. We, being in the 18th row, had to stand up, too, and I, being a person who has been old enough to drink now for 46 years, had to stand too. I did not like this. My legs did not like this. My bones did not like this. My diabetes and hypertension were arguing. I did not like traveling for two hours and paying a lot of money to stand up for three-and-a-half hours in 90-degree heat. I did not like this. I was an angry sports fan. My cheers changed. Go Chargers! Kill the fans in front of us! After you kill them, Chargers, make their lifeless bodies be horizontal so we can see over them and see you kill Carolina Panther players like we paid for! Go Chargers!
I hate sports. I hate the horse that sports rode in on. I hate horses without riders. I hate riders without horses, who are sometimes referred to as pedestrians. I hate pedestrians. I hate pedestrians who like sports. I’m just giving up on sports and going back to what I do best.
Complaining.
Jim Laris is the former owner/publisher of the Pasadena Weekly. Contact him at jimlaris@mac.com.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
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