I don’t know where to begin.
For the last year, the impossible has been done time after time.The Red Sox won the World Series, Phil Mickelson won a major, Northwestern beat Iowa in wrestling, and a poker professional made the final table at the WSOP. The most bizarre (I will never use this word again in an article) events all happened. And then again, so did the most redundant.
For every apocalyptic event to occur over the last year, something else of equal redundancy has headlined the sports section.
Iowa State finds a way to lose out on a conference title in football.
A star athlete gets acquitted/has charges dropped in a high profile trial (Kobe Bryant).
ESPN alienates all its loyal viewers by turning more and more (and more and more and more and more and more, etc., repeat chorus 2X) hip hopish.
Some west coast horse gets hyped to Mars in February and we are still waiting for his breakout win (Rock Hard Ten).
So which saying is true; the more things change the more they say the same or the more things change the more shocked we are? Are they hand in hand? Are they the same?
Yes.
The sports world has become more and more confusing as the unthinkable occurs day-in-day-out, yet it also becomes more predictable.
Maybe it takes a miracle to predict the Super Bowl teams in August (which I did for the first time in modern history), but it all makes sense.
There are no surprises anymore, with the exclusion of an occasional Hampton over Iowa State (note that Iowa State and losing go hand-in-hand a lot), but in the long run their significance is minimal in the general scheme of sports. OK, Chaminade in Hawaii did not change their name because they beat #1 Virginia in nineteen-eighty-god-knows-what, but it is insignificant.
Almost every game, every point, every upset, every missed field goal makes sense. You always know when a field goal or extra point will be missed. It is a sense. Or at least I have it.
Yet again, these little things change seasons.
Iowa State was eliminated when they lost to Hampton. Virginia’s invincibility was slashed when they lost to Chaminade. Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl repeat run hit a tumble and Carolina eventually made the playoffs because of a missed extra point in a 9-9 game with 0 seconds left. I won my office football pool and Jim Haslett nearly lost his job because Detroit missed an extra point that could have cost Minnesota a playoff birth and cost me $1800 (difference between 1st and 2nd).
So last year Martha Stewart went to prison, but Tony Stewart got fined by NASCAR just the same. For every shocker, there is one more consistency that has become part of life. Like Kordell Stewart getting benched in the middle of the season.
The more things change, the more they stay the same confusing and redundantly weird things they were the same. And then there is that occasional lapse.
So “1918” won’t be chanted anymore as signs as a curse. But maybe “2000?”
We will find out.
But it is all the same, just a little different.
Now the Democrats need to find a new team to lose the Sunday before the Presidential election, but they will find some trend. It all depends on whether the Cardinals opponent three weeks prior scores the first touchdown of the second half. If this happens, the incumbent party will lose.
Anyone have the Cards 2008 schedule yet?
But it is still all the same.
Sports have become a redundant mess that is overly predictable (like ESPN sucking).
But thank god for the occasional Northwestern 22, Iowa 19.
THAT is what makes sports interesting.
Boston 4, NYY 3.
THAT is what keeps us coming back.
NHL 5, NHLPA 3, bottom 136th.
THAT is what turns us away.
Well goodnight.
Maybe there will be that interesting upset (like a new, good episode of the Simpsons).
Oh, New England 23, Philadelphia 7 (I’m never right in the Super Bowl).
Have fun. Enjoy the commercials.
Maybe I’ll even catch a little football in between beers.
Nah. I know what will happen.
Any word from Janet Jackson?
One reply on “The more things change…”
Proof… College Player Hits 90-Foot Shot in OT Win
Tue Feb 1,11:17 PM ET
By HANK KURZ Jr., AP Sports Writer
For this former quarterback, it took a Hail Mary thrown like a baseball to win the basketball game. With 0.6 seconds left in overtime, Jordan Snipes of Guilford College rebounded the other team’s missed free throw, wheeled around and heaved the ball the full length of the court.
Swish.
For Snipes, the improbable, 90-foot shot for the 91-89 victory over Randolph-Macon on Monday is a memory the former high school quarterback doesn’t expect to top.
“I think that’ll be my highlight,” the sophomore said Tuesday afternoon after the game. “I thought if I went to sleep that it was just going to turn into a dream and when I woke up it’d be over.”
Snipes was hoping to grab the rebound and lean quickly against a Yellow Jackets player hoping to draw a “cheap foul,” he said. But then he heard the Randolph-Macon coaches tell their players to back away from the line.
“When they did that, I couldn’t get near anybody in six-tenths of a second, so I just took the ball and threw it,” he said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
The shot capped a career-best 34-point night for Snipes, who made 6 of 7 3-point tries.
Tom Palombo, coach of Greensboro, N.C.-based Guilford, said he was already walking toward Randolph-Macon coach Mike Rhoades to shake hands when the flight of the ball caught their attention.
“I remember thinking it looked like it had a chance and when it went through, it was just crazy,” he said. “When the referee came and said it was good, I kind of jumped up and down when I was right next to (Rhoades),” he said. “I told him I was sorry.
“It was hard to control your emotions on a play like that.”
Rhoades told Adam Krovic to miss the second free throw on purpose, following the conventional wisdom that six-tenths of a second is not enough time to make a play.
He realized there might be trouble after Snipes released the shot.
“When it got to halfcourt, I said, `That’s going to hit something,'” Rhoades said. “The guy just made an incredible play. That’s life.”