Recently I’ve been listening to Slate’s really good sports podcast, “Hang Up and Listen.”  I came to it because I’ve liked Stefan Fatsis on NPR and in print (Word Freak and A Few Seconds of Panic are both terrific books.)

They’ve done a couple of nice segments on the Winter Olympics and one of them (I think it was Josh Levin) mentioned that lots of the sports shown by NBC on the Olympics just aren’t shown very well.  The sliding sports (luge, bobsled er, bobsleigh, skeleton) are simply a series of cameras at different parts of the track.  You see pieces, but not the whole.  They do a better job with the big ticket sports like figure skating and alpine skiing and even manage to turn biathlon into something of a story.

I have, as some of you probably (don’t) remember, been an every-four-years fan of curling for a little bit now.  I really like watching it.  NBC did figure out, bless its corporate heart, that curling couldn’t be highlighted and it couldn’t be narrativized.  What it could be was shown in its entirety with experienced curling commentators.  On CNBC and USA.  Ok, so I have to live with no primetime curling.  But I’ve got dish and a dvr.  Dish always gives you CNBC and USA.  It’s like a woman I know says about grits in South Carolina.  You don’t have to ask for them, they just come.

Anyway, there’s a lot of curling on, actually.  Several hours every day.  Since I don’t actually have several hours to turn over to the sliding granite stones every day, I had to figure out my own approach to watching.  By the by, I love that I got to do that.  That’s what’s wrong with NBC’s coverage on primetime.  I’ve got to take what they give me.  That’s all well and fine the night the show the women’s long program, but less so during ski jump after ski jump or, heaven forfend, ice dancing.  For curling though, I make my own rules.  I set my own schedule.  How to do that, though?

Don Duguid and Colleen Jones (the curling commentators) are enthusiastic about the sport to such a degree that it’s hard to sort out what to be excited about and not, so, at first, they weren’t much help.

I happen to be an American who finds the Olympic American hometown rah rah thing a little annoying.  I also suspected that the American curling teams weren’t very good.  (Quelle Suprise!  I was right).

I first came across curling during the Salt Lake City Olympics (sorry, Olympic Winter Games) where I watched the Great Britain women’s team take gold.  I toyed with rooting for them.  I guess I should acknowledge the given that I’d be focusing my watching on women’s curling.

Then, I hear (from Colleen–who was ready to guide me after all) about Cheryl Bernard and her Canadian team.

It seems that Canada lets its best club teams compete against one another to represent the country in the Olympics.

Cheryl and company (Susan O’Connor, Carolyn Darbyshire, and Cori Bartel) were good enough to make the trials, but no one expected them to win.  They were, by all accounts, the 4th best performing team in Canada.

They did win the “Roar of the Rings.”  Thus were they Team Canada.

Then there was all this drama about their not having enough international experience and should Canada change the system and blah blah blah.

Cheryl and her team came to Vancouver (their club is in Calgary) and beat pretty much everybody in the preliminary rounds (they lost once to China) and then won their semi final against Switzerland by which time everyone had stopped talking about whether they should have won and whether to change the rules.

I watched most of their games.  I read up on curling and how to make the stones (a complicated process) and even looked to see if there were SoCal curling clubs (yes, but in Orange County, which isn’t close enough).   Still I’d like to touch a curling stone.  And wear those cool slidy shoes.

Cheryl and her team were, in a fundamental way, my Olympics.  Honey and I have watched lots of primetime.  It was curling I looked forward to.  I rooted for them.  I imagined them singing “O Canada.”  (Side note:  Canada has a MUCH better national anthem than we do.  It’s rousing, it’s singable.  I’d take “God Save the Queen,” too.  I can’t hit that high note in ours and neither can you, so don’t act like you can).

I followed the controversy over the supposed swimsuit photos she took.  Worried about her cold.

I wasn’t the only one.  Canada went a little curling mad.  They wore those curling hats. People stopped Cheryl on the street and asked for her autograph.  Guys held up signs asking to marry her.  Her husband borrowed one of them.  They were in the gold medal game.

Then Friday afternoon they faced Sweden.  The Prime Minister of Canada was there.  So was the King of Sweden.  I was too.  It was a state mandated furlough day for me.  Curling and furloughs go great together.

There, too, was the all the international and Olympic experience the people of Canada had worried about in the person of Anette Norberg, Sweden skip.

It was a tense match.  Colleen even said so.  Sweden looked like they would win and then Canada came back and stole two ends.  (Basically they won points they shouldn’t have).  It looked set for my girls.  Cheryl needed to make one shot in the 10th (and last end).  She missed it and Norberg tied the game.

Then, in the (extra) 11th end, Norberg made a spectacular shot at the end and Cheryl couldn’t match her.

I was heartbroken.  Not as much, I’m sure, as Cheryl was.

You can look around the web and you will find lots about how she messed up and lost the gold.  There are Canada fan sites and curling sites.  Newspapers and blogs.  There’s a lot of talk about choking.

For me, it wasn’t about any of that.  She was an underdog who got everyone on her side.  When she lost she walked (ok slid) over to her team and they embraced.  Most of the pictures of them on the podium with the silver medals around their necks show their dissapointment more than anything else.  She seemed to handle it all with class.

As I watched her Friday afternoon, I remembered why I still like sports sometimes.  I remembered that sports should always be about winning and losing and heartbreak and triumph.    (Not money or contracts or steroids or whatever.)

Cheryl Bernard broke my heart today.  Two weeks ago I didn’t know her name.

Cheryl did manage a smile over the silver medal at the end of a lovely two weeks of curling.  Thanks for letting me follow along.

I’ve always held onto baseball.  I lived in DC pre-Nationals, so I didn’t adopt a second team in my time there.  When I moved to L.A., I adopted Teresa’s Angels (after I met Teresa, that is) and continued to root for the Braves.

When I was in graduate school, I had a hard time my first summer finding a job.  I finally landed one with a company that did SAT tutoring in high school students’ homes.  I have never before (or since) had such an up-close view of affluent L.A.  Before I started the tutoring (which was mostly a late summer/fall activity, scheduled around the SAT test dates), this company hired me to answer the phone in the office.  The office was in one of the owners’ apartments down in a cool part of the city.  I wasn’t allowed to do much, just take messages.  The owner, in fact, laid me out when he heard me giving a parent a little information about what they did.  I had repeated a little bit of his spiel verbatim.  I had, after all, heard it a thousand times by that point.

He was an arrogant prick.  Very impressed with his own masculinity and Ivy League degree.  He was also a rabid fantasy baseball player.  He dismissed my curiosity about it.  Women couldn’t possibly be interested in baseball at the level fantasy required.  Certainly not mid-Atlantic educated ones, who weren’t admitted to an Ivy.  Or a seven sister.  Or…

I worked for them for one SAT season.  Never once did I ever see or experience them backing up one of their employees.  They were perfectly happy to let us line up passively in front of the bus that was angry parents of lazy student’s SAT scores.  It was a wretched experience.  If anyone wants the name of the company (they sold out to a national company, but still have the same set-up), do let me know.  I know, given the current economic situation in the U.S., there are lots of people who need jobs.  If you’d like one that will make you feel like shit, let me know and I’ll hook you up.

I left the bad company and went to work for a much more pleasant one (who did the same thing(ish) in a mini-mall east of downtown).  Company II was owned by and catered exclusively to Taiwanese immigrants.  Laying the weird meat buns I would sometimes get as gifts aside (but not those lovely red envelopes with money), it was a nice thing to do for the rest of my graduate school summers.

I held onto baseball past that.  I hoped with the Braves every year.  Felt very sad the summer of 1994.  Got back my joy with the Braves World Series of 1995.  Teresa and I went to Angels games, mixed in a Braves/Dodgers game here and there.  We also took time out to go to minor league ball in the Cal League.

My favorite experience was attending a game at the home of the Stockton Ports (now the Mudville Nine) and winning a six pack of pickled peppers.  What was not to like?

The 2002 series was unbelievable.  We breathed in and out with each pitch.  We named our new cat Halo.

Then, a few years ago, Ivy-jerk notwithstanding, I started playing fantasy baseball.  First, I played for free (with strangers) on Yahoo.  Then I joined a money league, ran the blog league and enjoyed myself (mostly).

Last year baseball started to change for me.  The money in the game has been out of control for a while.  Add the drugs.  What have I watched?  The game itself is fine.  MLB far from it.

Was Mark Lemke the last clean player?  Maybe Tim Salmon?  Bob Horner?  Bib Gibson?  Did Bart Giamatti’s untimely death ruin it for good?

When I think about my sadness around baseball–and it is surely there–some of it is tied up in fantasy.  The baseball blog league (which was terrifically fun) never attracted enough people to keep it going (unlike it’s much healthier sister blogleague football–coming soon for 09!).  The pay league, into which I was invited by my brother, has gone like this:

Year 1:  My dad and I agree to have a team.  He does nothing except pick the team name (with which I am still saddled).  I finish dead dog last.  It cost me real money.

Year 2:  I invite a blog-friend in.  I finish tied for third.  It costs me less money.  Somehow, my dad gets talked into taking a team of his own.  I try to help him on the phone.  I try to help him in person, while we’re on vacation.  It’s really frustrating.  He finishes last.

Year 3:  For some subconsciously masochistic reason, I agree to be the commissioner.  I like being the commissioner in the blogleagues.  This is not also true of the pay league.  I also switch jobs mid-summer.  Result:  I finish out of the money by 1 point, I spend a lot of time I don’t have entering changes for the league.  Mostly though, I have my integrity questioned, am accused of using my commissioner “powers” to cheat and then have a huge fight with my brother.  He tells me in the course of the fight that the guy who said I had cheated had done more for the people in the league than I would ever know.  I decide to quit.

Year 4:  I don’t quit.  I think (at the time) that I might get some love of the game back.  Be easy, enjoy yourself.  Today, again, my integrity is questioned because of a lopsided trade I agreed to.  It was lopsided trade designed to help me next year.

But today, I keep thinking about baseball.  And feeling sad. And wondering whether I should play or watch at all next year.  Or the rest of this.

I can think of a few things that might help me feel better–the Ken Burns doc, some Roger Angell, some Stephen J. Gould.  I’d say that I could go to a Rancho Cucamonga Quakes game, but we’ve had two actual earthquakes in the last three days and somehow I don’t want to go to a stadium called the epicenter.  Plus there’s that whole–I don’t like the Inland Empire much problem.  My university’s team is done for the year, so the *pling* of the aluminum bats can be no comfort now.

That’s Bronson Arroyo, one of the guys I got in the lopsided trade.  He’s curently 6-5 with an ERA of 6.56.  He’s 6’5″ and goes 195.  I don’t think he uses steroids.  That’s good, at least.

It’s a beautiful game, baseball.  I need to find out how to get back to its beauty.

The dirt’s pretty.  So’s the ball.  It’s everything around it that’s suspect.

Cue outro…

“Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio [or insert alt player, as needed]…?”  I’d like some of the joy in Mudville back but am afraid there are too many strikes now.

Some preliminary thoughts:

1) People smoke here more than they do in L.A. Seems ill-advised given the thin air. They’ll need their lungs.

2) The Mint should have a nicer gift shop, especially since they didn’t have any space left on their tour today. They make a profit on those state quarters. Cycle it back such that the gift shop doesn’t seem like a trailer time forgot. There are just the two Mints, really. They could try harder. Does anyone know if they try harder in Philadelphia mint-wise?

3) If I wanted Rockies World Series gear, my timing could not be better. It’s all 50% off. Now that I know the Rockies actively recruit born-again Christian players, I don’t so much want Rockies gear.

4) I’m in the hotel the BoSox stayed in last night. To hear tell, we’re lucky to get rooms, as the celebrated rather, um, vigorously and didn’t leave when they were supposed to.

5) I also hear tell that the Packers are staying here tonight. For fantasy football reasons, I’m hoping they have no real reason to celebrate. Brett Favre especially. Plus he doesn’t pronounce his name right. Ok, he does, given that he’s from the South, where Ponce De Leon is pronounced “Ponse Dee Leeeon” and Cairo, GA is pronounced “Kay-roh.” Still.

6) The Rockies (mountains, this time) are really pretty.

7) Ok, I’m off to dinner with my boss. I’m going to try not to say anything stupid.

The Falcons were never very good, but there was the occasional glimmer of hope. The “grits blitz” was fun, in a “Po’ Folks” kind of way and Steve Bartkowski could throw the ball a really long way. There were rarely guys where he threw the ball, but every once in a while, he’d get it right.

More often, they’d hand off to the fullback for two yards in three consecutive downs and punt. It reminded me of that handheld electronic football game I had.

When I left for college, I mostly left football behind me. I went to a university without a team and lived in a city with a team I couldn’t bring myself to like very much.

Lately, I’ve been enjoying football more. Between the excitement that Mr. Vick brought to the Falcons and the naked hilarity of Blogleague football, it’s back in my life. Not enough to prompt me to wear my hat backwards or drink beer out of large plastic containers, but around in a pleasant way.

The other issue in Vick situation, of course, is animals. Let me go on record. I like them. Not all of them, mind you. I’ve encountered unpleasant ones here and there, but as a rule, I like animals. Dogs especially. In my adult life I’ve owned a dog for all but about a year and a little.

Aside: Scout’s mother claims that she heard that Vick used kittens as bait in training fighting dogs. I’m opposed to people making up things that aren’t true. Also to kittens as bait.

Anyway, this morning I was listening to Vick’s apology. I was waiting for the obligatory part. Not the apology to the kids, or the league, or the owner. Nope, I was waiting for the shout-out to Jesus. About halfway through he said,

“I’m upset with myself, and, you know, through this situation I found Jesus and asked him for forgiveness and turned my life over to God. And I think that’s the right thing to do as of right now.”

Whew, I thought, Took him a while to get there. But get there he did. Here’s the thing. If he didn’t do the shout-out, I would have been disappointed. It’s not that I don’t buy it (though I kinda don’t), it’s that I don’t want the apology speech without it. It’s like having a full breakfast without grits. Sure, it still “counts” as breakfast, but I KNOW there’s something missing.

Here’s the primer:

I like:

Football=ok

Blogleague fantasy football=a lot

Getting the Jesus shout-out in when facing prison=obligatory

Dogs=a lot

Kittens=a lot

I don’t like:

Dogfighting=at all

Kitten baiting=at all

Vaguely racist stories about kittens=at all

Oh, and what do I think about Vick? I hope he meant what he said today.

In the meantime, Ivan Basso has been let go by Discovery and admitted to “trying” to dope. Uh-huh. Jason Giambi also apologized for using that “stuff.” Baseball. Cycling. Doping sucks. My honey said so, so it is so.

Here’s the weird bit, that’s actually getting some national media play. Floyd Landis, the homophobic TdF winner from last year, who is accused of using synthetic testosterone, is the subject of a hearing right now by the U.S.A.D.A. (anti-doping agency).

Greg LeMond, the first American TdF champion, testified in the hearing last week. LeMond has been VERY outspoken against doping and has accused Lance Armstrong and now Landis of doping. He says he received a phone call from Landis in which Lemond urged Landis to come clean about doping. LeMond admitted in the course of that phone call that he had been sexually abused as a child and was trying to make the point that secrets can harm you in the long-run. LeMond contends that Landis tacitly admitted to doping in the conversation (a claim Landis denies).

Landis’ manager, the night before LeMond was to testify, called LeMond and threatened to expose his secret (the abuse) to the world.

It’s all just beyond bizarre.

The thing about any sport is that, however compelled by it I feel, I can choose to do it instead of watch it. My Gunnar mountain bike is off the be repainted and Honey is thinking about trading up her bike. There’s a lot to pay attention to that doesn’t involve Floyd Landis or Ivan Basso.

When I glance across my office to my road bike, which is my only bike at the moment (what with the Gunnar in parts in my garage and on the way to Wisconsin), I take some comfort in the name on the tubes. He may talk a little much, but right now, LeMond stands for integrity and fortitude and who can’t use a little of that?

It’s spring break here at the fine institution of higher education. Since I am a twelve month employee, I’m here. That and my assistant director gave almost everyone the week off. Somebody’s got to be here in case the provost calls. He never does, but I worry that he might.

I’m going to try to get caught up on my backlog of big projects. I lack motivation for most of them, which is why they’re un or half done. I’m going to try to do a little every day on most of them. Small bites are easier to swallow.

Spring is here. I know this because UCLA lost again in some ignominy and baseball started.

Fantasy baseball drafts happened over the weekend. I didn’t end up with many distasteful Yankees in the American League only Blogleague. Jorge Posada seems like a good guy, despite his lifelong Yankee status and I can still picture Johnny Damon as a Royal if I squint. Plus, I got some Angel pitchers.

In my money league (which is NL-only), I drafted better this year than I did last year. I had a little money to spare and targeted players I wanted without overpaying. As of right this moment, I’m in second place after one game. Shawn Green, bless his heart, went 2 for 4 last night in the Mets win over the Cards. That was my only stat from the night, but it was a good one. Let’s just call the season done, shall we?

I tried to get Chris Carpenter and didn’t succeed. While I don’t think his ERA will stay at 7.5, I take a little guilty pleasure in his bad outing last night.

Plus, Tom Glavine, who I still like from his Braves days, got one win closer to 300. He needs 9 more to get to 300 and will be only the fifth lefty to get there. My favorite game of his doesn’t even count in that total. It was his 1-0 masterpiece over the Indians in Game 6 of the 1995 World Series. Glavine is not on my fantasy team, and he’s now a Metropolitan, but I hope he does well this year. The big numbers (like 300) can still matter.

Baseball, as Bart Giamatti famously said, is designed to break your heart. It will break my heart this year when Bonds passes Aaron. That number will not matter to me. Hank Aaron will be the Home Run king in my mind until a clean player passes him. It will also break my heart when the Angels and Braves, once again, fail to match up in the World Series. I trust that Bill Hall and Barry Zito will do their respective parts to break my heart a little, too. My fantasy players don’t care enough about me

For now, though, fragile Spring holds promise. And pollen. Maybe that’s why it’s so fragile. All that pollen could make things brittle.

I was unused to sports failure. My high school was routinely competitive at the state level in basketball. Won championships competitive. We were bad in everything else, but who cares? Excellence of that level doesn’t ask for companionship. Ask any Duke fan. Any USC fan. Any Lady Vols fan. Do they stay up at night wishing their school could be exemplary in just ONE MORE thing? No, they’re pretty happy liking real excellence in the one thing. It’s hard to say Duke basketball exhibited that this year, or indeed that SUC football (oh wait, sorry, USC) did, but that’s another matter.

Basketball, despite my high school’s achievements, wasn’t my favorite sport. I always preferred baseball. And football. Well, and tennis. Still, I do like basketball.

The team that beat my college’s one and only championship effort? UCLA.

When I decided to go to graduate school in completely-random-field(tm), I only had a few choices. That’s because it’s a, well, completely-random-field(tm). One of the choices was UCLA. And, when it came right down to it, it was the only choice. Oh sure, I could talk about the weather and the beach as big factors. The real reason I moved out to the coast? Money. UCLA offered me some to go to school. No one else did.

When you go to graduate school, especially in completely-random-field(tm) (read: esoteric), you’re supposed to study, argue, write, think, drink, and argue some more. I did all of those things. I also watched UCLA sports. You’re not supposed to do that. Sports are an undergraduate thing.

But there I was a T.A. With UCLA football players in my classes. UCLA football players who were playing in the Rose Bowl. And in 1995, there was a national championship in basketball. Not state. Not high school. First time since John Wooden big-ol-dealio. I recognize the problems. Jim Harrick was not a great guy. The UCLA football players stole handicapped parking passes. There’s a lot of money in it. The basketball coach might ought not to be the highest paid person at a university. I get it why it’s not so good always.

Still.

Then, there’s the whole USC thing. The place I teach now is lousy with folks who went to UCLA and with folks who went to USC. It’s kinda fun. It was really fun this year when UCLA beat USC in football. I may have talked a little smack. Just a little.

I like wearing the UCLA blue and gold at commencement.

Look everybody, it’s Tommy Trojan and Joe Bruin!

That’s actually Joe Bruin’s old head. A few years ago, somebody stole Josie Bruin’s head. She matched and they didn’t want a rogue Josie Bruin. So he has a new head now. Wouldn’t that be nice? If you get tired of your head, just get a new one. And people still know who you are!

I’m proud to have gone to UCLA and like my complicated UCLA PhD diploma.

The truth is (glance around to see if anyone is actually listening), I’m also a fan.

It’s nice to be a fan sometimes.

Bottom line, I guess, here on the verge of the Final Four in my home town with my adopted graduate level (can you even call it this?) alma mater playing…

Go Bruins!

I hope all your teams give you happiness, too. Unless they’re Florida, Georgetown, or Ohio State this weekend. Or USC ever. I could go on, but won’t. Let’s stay positive.

U C L A

SportsCenter Blues

My sweet baby loves me truly,
Woo-woo
But she’s been sleepin’ in the chair
Mmm Hmmm
Her back ain’t so good no more, nooo
And the bed hurts her sumpin fierce

So late at night I lie there
All alone and sad
Watching on the tee vee
About the sports of ball

Base and foot are best
Though girls’ hoops is
Ok too

Spare me the hockey
And those stupid cars
Going round and round and round
MMM HMM

Who do I have for solace?
Well my good old Biscuit dog
She’s all black and spaniel soft
But it ain’t like my sweet girl

Now those Relax the Back
Folks seemed nice
Til they took my girl away
Now all I got is SportsCenter
And things just ain’t the same.

Someday she’ll come back to me
That sweet girl of mine
And then I’ll give up teevee
And lie in her arms
Dreaming of sports no more.

Woo-Woo.

My career on the pitch was less than illustrious. Being the awkward big kid meant playing left fullback and doing it badly. The Ladybugs weren’t winners. Neither were the Eagles. The Lady Bulldogs were also less than spectacular. And my efforts didn’t contribute much. The worst part of the Bulldog experience was that the Geometry teacher we had recruited to coach knew less about soccer than I did and didn’t like me much. The result? I practiced a lot and didn’t play much. Geometry coach toyed with not giving me a letter. She didn’t follow through. So, somewhere I have three big fuzzy D’s. I played soccer in the age before there were trophies. So, my childhood sports acknowledgement is restricted to those D’s.

In college, I was too into being in college to do much sporting. I did play on a co-ed intramural soccer team and we won the championship. Again, no thanks to me, but I did play most of the games. I had a friend who had been on the University’s soccer team. They had played (and lost) for the National Championship. He was INTENSELY jealous of my intramural championship shirt. So, I gave it to him. There went my one real “trophy.”

I played tennis some with my roommate in college. She wouldn’t keep score.

In my adult life, I haven’t done much in the way of competition of a sports kind. Graduate school was competitive. I was recently talking to treecup about how much we had to compete with one another over the scant resources while we were working on our PhDs. I remember being very angry that I was ranked third for a dissertation fellowship behind a woman who has since gone on to become one of the real bright lights in my field. I should have been third. It didn’t seem right at the time. Now it seems just. She teaches at a prestigious institution and has a book forthcoming from a major press. I administrate at a regional institution and just had an article published in an online journal. In academic score-keeping, she’s “winning.” But I’m not keep score. I like my job and my little article.

This week, weese and I both won for the first time in the blogger fantasy football league. I even moved out of last place.

Honey and I have not yet begun the process of picking out the trophy for the blogger league. Halfway through the football season, it is safe to say that it will not be at our home.

It’s too early to say how election day is going.

In 2000, Honey and I lived in an apartment above some horrible Republican bitches. That may be repetitive. Anyway, we went to bed thinking Gore had won and woke up to their screaming in joy. Laying aside the fact that Gore did actually win, it was a bleak moment.

Speaker Pelosi would be a bright one. It’s nice when your team wins, even if you don’t get a trophy.

1986 Senate.

1995 Braves.

2002 Angels.

2006 Dems (?).

Meantime, my three fuzzy D’s and my one fantasy football win attest to the fact that I am not a total loser. If only I had something to put on my mantle. Never mind, since I never outgrew the big or the awkward, I’d probably just break it.

Go team!

But, then there was traffic. So much traffic. Two hours worth of traffic. Honey and I hadn’t eaten in anticipation of an early dinner. But it took us so long to get there, we needed to go straight to the game.

This change of venue was not kind to the Sparks. Only the die-hardedest of fans made
the journey. Oh and us. We came.

I like the Sparks. Honey and I used to go to games occasionally when they played at the Forum. I think we both like the idea of the WNBA on several levels. There’s the whole lesbian fan thing. That’s good. It’s like going to a lesbian bar, but it doesn’t smell like spilled drinks and everyone is wearing yellow. We also like the women athletes. Beyond that, the Sparks star, Lisa Leslie, seems beyond cool. She’s well-spoken, articulate, and came to an appearance at a lesbian bar a few years ago. From all reports. Lisa is a nice person. Ashton Kutcher even punked her. Lisa is cool.

There are minor things to like as well. Sparks games are cheap. We paid as much for parking as we did for the seats. To a playoff game. And I liked the Forum. It was an old-school arena.

The Sparks, during our active interest days, were good, but kept losing to the Comets en route to the championship. The finally broke through and won the championship in 2001 and again in 2002. By that time, our interest had waned. We were both glad they had won but we hadn’t gone to any games. Because at the end of the day, with all the upsides, Honey isn’t much of a sports fan and I am not much of a basketball fan.

Still, while I was driving to work on Friday, the Sparks advertised the playoff game on the local Air America outlet. That and Rutabegorz were enough to get me thinking.

We settle in our seats (behind the basket) and discover our proximity to superfan. Superfan was on the club level just above our heads. She has a little megaphone. And she starts shouting through it. Loudly. Towards us. Really, it was towards us. Because this Sparks game was only attended by the faithful and we had bought tickets, we were in a section of non-true fans.

“On Your Feet Until We Score!”
“On Your Feet Until We Score!”
“On Your Feet Until We Score!”
“On Your Feet Until We Score!”
“On Your Feet Until We Score!”

None of the four of us stood. She kept shouting. The Sparks didn’t play well and didn’t score and didn’t score and she kept shouting.

Nearby her was a woman who thought telling the Sparks what to do was her job. Every admonishment started with, “Come on Ladies!” and continued with what they should do.

The Pond, home to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, is a nice facility. The seats were comfortable, the concourse was clean. It was, in other words, sports venue by Disney. Bryduck and I noticed that the Ducks had three banners. One celebrating their first season, one celebrating their tenth season, and one the year they made the Stanley Cup. Bryduck said they should have had a banner that said, “1995-1996, we played that year, too,” just because they seemed that desperate.

Superfan kept it up. Mwadi Mabeka played relatively well in the first quarter (unlike the rest of the Sparks) and superfan liked using the megaphone to shout, “Mwadi, Mwadi, Mwadi, Mwadi, Mwadi, Mwadi, Mwadi, Mwadi” over and over and over again.

We posited (I think was Honey’s idea) that the reason our seats only cost $12 each was that we had to sit near superfan.

I expressed a desire to steal the megaphone but was afraid she could catch me on her scooter if the batteries were fully charged.

“Mwadi, Mwadi, Mwadi, Mwadi, Mwadi, Mwadi, Mwadi, Mwadi”

muh waaaah deeee muh waaaah deeee muh waaaah deeee muh waaaah deeee muh waaaah deeee

Then, some Monarchs fans joined our section and I became distracted by their fan gear. One woman had her face painted and was carrying a box of Wheaties. Which she employed thusly:

I was close enough to see that she had not opened the box. So, she was in better shape than Honey or I in terms of needing/wanting to eat.

Celebratory cereal. Who knew?

At half time, I went up to throw away some trash and got a full glimpse of superfan. She then emerged to go to the bathroom. Here she is:

She may own one of everything the Sparks have ever sold.

I love sports and love being a fan. Two of the happiest times in my life were game six of the 1995 World Series and game seven of the 2002 World Series. Watching my teams win was amazing. And I’m glad superfan loves the Sparks. I really am. My attitude toward her softened once I saw her in the hall. It also helped that by this time, the Sparks were so far behind, she was less vocal.

I can’t help but worry about superfan. The Sparks had 41 games this season, including pre-season and playoffs. Twenty of those games were at home. I wonder if I would want to live my life such that 20 times a year I was in my element. I guess I hope superfan has other passions.

We left before the game was over and got lost on the way to Ruta’s. When we finally settled there, it was nice.

During dinner I kept thinking back to superfan and the woman who was walking out of the Pond as we were. She was on a profanity filled tirade that went something like, “I can’t believe I’m in f***ing Anaheim. If we were at the f***ing Staples Center, I would be f***ing closer to f***ing home. And we rode the f***ing bus. If we had driven the f***ing car, we could leave now. We f***ing suck. The Monarchs f***ing suck. But we f***ing suck worse. F***.”

I am happy, I think, once again, to close this door. I like a lot of what the WNBA and the Sparks are, but there’s a bit of it that makes me a little sad. And so, I’ll let it recede into my past again until it’s all hazy enough to remember it fondly and make me want to go back again.

By that time, they’ll be back at the Staples Center and we can go to Phillipe’s for French Dips. Mmmm.