Sports Overload

Wow, what a day! Sunday was sports sensory overload day, for this dyed in the wool New England sports family - first a day at the football stadium, followed by our second World Series triumph in four years. Very nice!

I have season tickets to the New England Patriots. Well, I don't have tickets all by myself, as I am part of a consortium of 10 who share 6 season tickets. We have been doing this since the early 90s, back when you could actually get tickets. These days, I guess there is a 50,000 strong wait list for them!

So one share gets me three pairs of tickets. Up until this year, I had two shares, so I could be sure to get four tickets to a single game during our annual selection. But I agreed to give up one share as long as we could arrange somehow for four tickets to a game if I didn't get one during the picks. Well, I didn't get them during the picks, but I bought another pair from a fellow shareholder so our family game this year was the 4pm game against the Redskins on October 28. I prefer 1pm games, and certainly earlier in the year, but we once again lucked out, as the weather was a spectacular Fall day - cool but sunny, with some wind.

But I messed up. I've been doing this for too many years to get sucked into the traffic hell that is Gillette Stadium, yet somehow, an hour before kickoff, we found ourselves stranded in traffic. I'm not sure what kind of brain cramp I had, as I have a perfectly serviceable side road to get there in no time, but I didn't take it. So we got to the parking lot only 30 minutes before game time, leaving us no time to fire up the grill and get into the tailgating, disappointing everyone.

But we got into the stadium and saw our New England Patriots kick some Washington ass from one side of the field to the other. Supposedly a team that promised to offer some competition, but instead all they did was whine about the Pats "running up the score", which is, of course, exactly what you are supposed to do in a professional football game - score points. If you don't like it, just stop them once or twice.

But the side effect of a lopsided victory was that, despite our usual exit after three quarters, the traffic was completely clogged. And to top it off, our usual side exit strategy from the lot was blocked off by cones, so we had to go into the traffic with everyone else, making for a two hour drive home, when it normally should only take about 45 minutes. A traffic disaster from the start, which definitely took the edge off the excitement. But the girls didn't seem to mind, as they got to scream all day, each plenty of junk food and in general have a great time. R called it "the best football game ever!" (our kids are prone to hyperbole...)

So we listened to the start of World Series Game Four, with our Red Sox going for their second straight four game Series sweep. This year, it was a much easier post season to watch. After all the heartache that was healed during the 2004 championship season, it was nice to just ride along with the team in a "baggage free" postseason. It was a likable, professional team, with some real shutdown pitchers and Jon Lester, who only a year ago was diagnosed with cancer, pitching the final game. Great story and great ending.

I was watching it on DVR but realized as the end of the game loomed that I had better fast forward or I might hear some celebrating going on. But I was only in the middle of the ninth inning when I heard some fireworks going off and I turned to my wife and said "Well, that answers that!"

We should have taken the girls out of school yesterday and gone down to the victory parade. It was another gorgeous fall afternoon and, as my sister said, what would they remember more, a day in school or a day cheering on the Red Sox? But the youngest stayed home due to a sore throat and my wife is completely against taking them voluntarily out of school, so we just watched on TV. According to the newspaper, it was probably a good thing, because I guess the subway was completely jammed for hours.