Patriots Game Review Week Two...

With the exception of the three Super Bowl wins, this is the sweetest win I can remember as a Patriots fans. So many people can pretty much bite me this evening:

-The New York press who was all but begging for Belichick to be publicly executed after the Jet "embarassed" the Patriots. How did that turn out?
-Jets fans who started chanting 18-1. How does 4-12 sound? Because if this is the best you can do, you'll be headed back there.
-The Pink Hamster. This "loser" in a Bruschi jersey enjoyed every moment of this. Stick to mooning over your sticky Sarah Palin photos and leave the football commentary to people who like sports. If you wanted to "shoot your way out" of your WRKO contract by bashing WEEI, you failed. Again.
-Shaugnessy - the Curly Haired Boyfriend - who started this nonsense by saying the Pats would make the Super Bowl. Just please. Stop. No more.
-Everyone on ESPN who - without exception- picked the Jets. Take my advice to Shaughnessy and just give up. I can't predict anything and apparently neither can you.
-The Patriots "fans" jumping off the bandwagon after the Brady injury. You're not fans. Go away. And leave the Red Sox and Celtics alone as well.
-The walking turds on the Herald message board - especially the Howie Carr apologists (just leave the state already), the idiot Jets fans, and the twits who said Brady "deserved" his injury because he wasn't faithful to Bridget Moynihan. What the hell does that have to do with sports? Talk about failure on a titanic level.

So now that my immature trash talking is over, the Pats find themselves matched up with a horrible Dolphins team next week. It seems easy, but the Pats struggled against a miserable Chiefs team and a massively over-hyped Jets team. Not to mention the fact that Pats were clueless on offense up until the touchdown drive in the third quarter. Eventually, Cassel and Randy Moss have got to get on the same page. I was pleasantly surprised by Lamont Jordan - I'd like to see more of him - and the defense got MUCH better in this game. Only Brett Favre's creativity kept the Jets moving. The special teams had a great game as well. It looks like this team is moving in the right direction despite the obvious lack of a Tom Brady.

More props to other people's blogs...

This is unbelievably well said

If you've been reading my blog for any amount of time, you know that I have zero tolerance for the three ring circus that has become the Red Sox Fan Experience. All that is basically necessary to root for this team is to actually enjoy baseball and to enjoy watching the Red Sox play the game of baseball. That's it. And that attitude is as true in 2008 - after 2 world series titles - as it was in 1967 during the year when the fan base was created. It was still true in all the years when the Red Sox finished in last place.

What is not necessary is some of the superfluous programming I see on NESN (Sox Appeal?!??!) , the idea of Red Sox "nation" and any piece of Red Sox equipment that is not navy blue, red and white (the green hats are as bad as the pink ones, in my opinion). While the anti-Pink Hat sentiment does venture into misogyny, I want to make it clear that this sentiment is NOT anti-woman. Nor is it anti-"casual" Red Sox fan (no reasonable human being should be expected to live and breathe this team. This is a sports affiliation, NOT a lifestyle). Instead, it's an indictment against the current marketing campaign that the Red Sox have embraced where they're TRYING to turn this into a lifestyle. It's not and I refuse to play this game. I love baseball and the Red Sox and I'm going to leave it at this.

There are is a reason I feel this way The experience of rooting for PC hockey has so poisoned my enjoyment of sports in general , that I can't get too attached to a team for fear that they will kill me - as the Bruins are slowly doing. This has made me a notoriously poor loser. If my team is losing, I will not stay until the "bitter end" unless there's a chance my team will pull it out or if I'm up in Maine and someone stole my alternator. Also keep in mind that while I love the Red Sox, I also love the Patriots (EVIL!!!), Celtics, Bruins, Friars, and Celtic FC. I'm a sports polygamist.

In summation, it's a sport. It should be fun. And the team's colors are still navy blue, red and white. And I like women.

Random thoughts about the Red Sox

Bandwagon Ahoy!Would someone please look at the calender? There we go: it's July.
This means that regardless of how the Red Sox (or any of their opponents) are playing, there's still a chance. I bring this up because I grow weary of panicky Red Sox fans, the unbelievably pessimistic bunch who have replaced our usually cocky friends from the Bronx, and the nouveau rich Rays "fans" who are printing up World Series tickets already that NOTHING has been decided. It's July. If you don't believe how inconsequential the standings are at this point in the season, please find a Mets fan and ask him or her about last year. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Hooray for Tampa Bay and their impressive start, but its means nothing unless they can carry this into September and October. The Ray's fan base (who didn't exist prior to July, apparently) will again be purely mythical if they're lack of experience ever catches up with them. I'm sorry - I'm not impressed by a week where the Rays roll over the Marlins, Pirates, the Lowell Spinners team impersonating the Red Sox and the Kansas City Royals. That's what Tampa Bay is supposed to do with that collection of teams.

Pink Hats I have two problems with the so called "Pink Hats" and only two. 1. Pink is not a color of the Boston Red Sox. It is not a color of any major sports team - with the possible exception of Juventus. 2. Jason Variteck is not going to have sex with you.
Other than that, we're completely cool.
I love it how the media is trying to spin the friction between the Red Sox diehards who predate the massive post 2004 bandwagon and their new bizarrely colored opponents in Red Sox "nation" as some form of sexism rearing it's ugly head. In fact, I think the real friction is between the people who had to go through the late forties, 1967, 1975, 1978, 1986, the abysmal playoff series in 1988, 1990, 1995, and 1998, and the cataclysmic stupidity in 2003 and the late comers who have latched on to the "Nation" silliness or whatever the Rem Dog is selling this week. While it's fun to pose Wally the Green Monster in different positions or vote for the president of Red Sox "Nation", none of this has a thing to do with rooting for the Boston Red Sox. Can we please get back to supporting the baseball team and stifle any talk of us being a "nation" and not a fan base? No wonder everyone now hates us; how presumptuous it is for Red Sox fans - or anyone else! - to describe their rooting experience as nationhood! While rooting for a team should be fun, baseball is an enjoyable enough sport to follow on it's own merits without the additional silliness. This is a sport. Not a lifestyle.
Part of the problem is that because I root for all four "Boston teams", I can not lavish all of my time and energy on the Boston Red Sox. I root for the seemingly (ouch) invincible Patriots just as hard as I do for the hapless Bruins. You can follow four sports at one time - this is what prevents me from growing obsessed about the Sox to the point where I would join in whatever silly pink or green capped "Nation" the marketing division at Fenway is jamming down our throats this week. And it is marketing. I hate to say this, but isn't this faux "nationhood" deal the reason why everyone hates Cowboys fans?

MannyManny should have been forced to sit down for one game following his altercation with the traveling press secretary. The end. He should not have been traded, kicked off the team, put on waivers, arrested, or beaten up by the press secretary's family. The discussion of Manny's punishment was a lovely attempt to distract us from the five game losing streak, but it was a transparent one. I grow weary of the reflexive Manny bashing on the part of the Usual Gang of Idiots at WEEI.

The good old days I also tire of the grumpy old man segment of Red Sox fans (first in queue is the arch-masochist Angry Bill who has been whining and carrying on since 2004 in an apparent desire to resurrect Bucky Bleeping Dent or whatever tragedy it is he'd like to revisit) who have been moaning about the team since Yaz retired in 1983. That's a long time to hold a grudge. Besides, if you want to root for a hopeless case, you have the Bruins. The anti-hockey establishment in Boston is almost as hopelessly pathetic as the frauds who hate the "new" Red Sox for selling out. I'd love to be ignorant enough to accuse the Red Sox of selling out. Tom Yawkey's teams of the 40's and 50's were always the highest paid in baseball. And let's not sugar coat the fact that the Sox were the last team in baseball to integrate. Yeah, nothing like 86 years of misery, overpaid prima donnas, and racism to make one nostalgic, right?

I hate to sound arrogant, but I like it when my team wins a championship. It's a satisfying way for my loyalty to be repaid. If you don't know why, please understand that rooting for PC hockey makes me appreciate these things far more than I would otherwise. How can you get spoiled when you root for the Boston Bruins?