It’s something like 5000 miles from Harvard University’s football stadium to Reliant Stadium, where the Texans of Houston play, but it didn’t seem like much of a difference to Ryan Fitzpatrick on Sunday when he, for the second time in his life, made an almost impossible comeback to win.
Some will call it the comeback of the week, of the season even… Others will say that it’s dumb luck over a bad team (The Rams were almost 4 point favorites over a team that’s only 1-10) but others will say that this is the start of something great.
Mr. Ryan Fitzpatrick is well known to those who watch Harvard’s college games for his massive comeback over Dartmouth something like five years ago, when he lead the Crimson Tide from a 21 point deficit. Today, he wasn’t just the first Harvard grad to play QB in the NFL ever, he lead the Rams to a 21-point comeback (10 points in the final few minutes of the game to force OT, plus an OT drive to the end zone that would make John Elway nervous) in his first NFL game ever. Ever.
This isn’t dumb luck. If this was the first time that it had ever happened, then maybe it could have been. But, as you learn in Law Class, once is an accident, twice is a fluke and three times is a pattern. This was the second time that he led a team from certain defeat to an implausible victory. And I don’t think we’ll be waiting too long for the third time that Mr. Fitzpatrick pulls the Rams out of the fire.
Besides, did you see that pass on a 4th down late in the game? Texans or not, this was a dominating lead. Maybe the Texans got lazy, maybe the Rams got lucky or maybe, just maybe both. I don’t think it matters – when a QB can pull off a comeback like that, he’s something worth noting.
This, reader, was the comeback of the year… mark my words: This kid has got many miles left in him.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Saturday, November 26, 2005
A final memo from the Ugly Seats: “It was a drag..."
“This monkey’s gone to heaven…This monkey’s gone to heaven”
Ye gods, what a way to be spending a grey, dark and cloudy November day. The wind is strong and cold this morning, and the vibes are weird and ugly… Sitting here in my parent’s kitchen, drinking black coffee and listening to The Pixies, just trying to think and get a grip…
I’m going to Toronto today for the CFL Eastern Finals (Brought to you by Scotiabank) and hoping to forget all the madness going on down there. Never mind that repulsive story about the witness getting killed at his friends funeral, never mind David Miller and his gang of cohorts, never mind any of that madness. Today I am a Spectator, an ugly fool with a wallet full of money, a head full of bad craziness and no real morals at all – perfect for the attendance of Richard Nixon’s favorite pastime, Pro Football.
“This ain’t no holiday, no, no / But it always turns out this way...”
Sitting next to me is an ugly reminder of just where we are in this year of 2005 – Hunter S Thompson no longer lives in that fortified house, he’s dead. And George W Bush, love him or hate him, is just months away from being a Lame Duck President, with many of his key aids and advisors under investigation… And the “Right Honorable” Paul Martin? He, and his party, are sitting alone as the Gomery Commission paints him as the new Nixon of Canadian politics, as it were. But hey, when you deal with Quebec it gets really heavy, really fast. This provides a segue, of a sort, to the main topic at hand…
Today, at 3pm, the Toronto Argonauts will face off against the Montreal Alouettes for the Eastern Championship and the passage to the Grey Cup. In another year, this could have been taken as a metaphor, perhaps, but this year it is just a grudge match. This is the fourth year that these teams have faced each other in these finals, and they’ve developed a sense of hatred that few teams can match, a heavy, ugly sense of hate… And why not? This is, after all, football. If it wasn’t hateful, angry and violent then perhaps something went wrong… Besides, this if the Playoffs, to boot. Its winner takes all, here, with the loser going home with the stench of defeat hanging around their necks like an albatross. This is it; there’s no second chances now, no do-overs, no mulligan shots. This is it for one team, the end of the road.
Gang warfare is on the tips of everybody’s tongue in Toronto these days, with a witness to the murder of his best friend killed at that very friends funeral. The city is apparently, according to major media outlets, full of anger and rage over the senseless violence – football should be the last thing on any reasonable person’s mind. Indeed, as I neared the city traffic looked as if it was all coming back to the city after a long weekend away from the bloodshed, but they all appeared to be heading not to the Rogers Centre, but away from the downtown, off to the suburbs. Well…Toronto is a hockey town, make no mistake about it. Just ask any fan of the Toronto Raptors or of the Toronto Blue Jays.
But the Argonauts of Toronto are almost a different beast altogether. They have been around for decades now, winning the Grey Cup 15 times, ranking them with such luminaries as the New York Yankees, the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Celtics. And today, at 3pm, they go into battle with the same team that they did last year at this time, and the year before that and the year before that. And Toronto loves them for it – just like they loved the Blue Jays in the early 1990s. It’s a brief, albeit strong, love from fair-weather fans...
This ‘Pro-line’ Betting guide sitting on my lap is all but impenetrable. There is no spread, no favorite mentioned, only a jumble of letters and numbers, all meaning nothing to me. Or to my father, for that matter: He’s spent the last few minutes calling it a game meant to “Separate the fools from their money”. I try to butt in, but to no avail. “Trust me, M, I know these things”.
The sky is a hazy blue hue as we get stuck in traffic near a Porto Rican church off to my left on the 401. The traffic is think and unmoving and the radio explodes with news about shootings and parades and over 41,100 tickets sold to the Argos game. And the Raptors, winless in their first nine, get barely a mention.
“Kill your mortgage” – Sign seen on light post in downtown Toronto
The rats of the sky are out in full force down by the core of the city, flying haphazard through the streets like a crazed kamikaze pilot, darting from shadow to shadow. But in this town, the word shadow means very little: Even though it’s all sun out, the streets are dark, with all the light blocked out by the buildings. The only way to see if it’s daylight outside is stand and look up, like a fool, 90 degrees – leaving you open to have yr wallet and keys and personal identification stolen like a fool.
***
No parking, no space, no room to breathe – the streets are immobile, like a no-fee parking lot where everybody has their cars running. They’re lined up as far as the eye can see, way down to the end of this street, right up to where an ambulance is parked and flashing like a children’s toy. The sidewalks are a sea of faces that you have to flow with by yr own will, or you’ll get dragged back by them… There’s a man on the corner, dressed in a large foam rubber suit covered with anti-police and pro-drug expressions of thought, handing out a badly Xeroxed newsletter… a sleeping bearded man, lying on his side with an upside-down hat full of loose assorted change… a flock of Asian women, dressed smartly in business suits, conversing sharply in some foreign tongue… This is the Pulse of this City; it’s people flowing like blood amongst the still-unmoving cars.
***
The Rogers Centre – Formerly the Skydome – sits at the base of the CN Tower and not too far from the Air Canada Centre. It’s a building that in it’s short existence (Since 1989) has housed 3 major sports teams: The Toronto Blue Jays (1989 – Current), the Toronto Argonauts (1989- current, with a 2007 move pending) and the Toronto Raptors (1995 – 1999) but make no mistake – it’s a baseball building first and foremost. Even during a football game, from the 500 level – as high as it goes – one can still make out a ghostly outline of the baseball diamond. The pennants that hang all year correspond to the Jays, from their 1985 AL East championship to their 1993 World Series win… the ‘honor deck’ has names of such famed players as George Bell, Joe Carter and the like, while the Argonauts honor roll only cover seats temporarily…
It’s up by these covered seats, in the 500 Deck, where the people sit at the same level as the lighting rigs; where they sit unsupervised, drinking heavily, acting weirdly and yelling randomly… This is where the College frat boys sit, where the irate fans sit, where you can see the game without being seen yourself… This is the Ugly Seats.
By the end of the Third Quarter the outcome of the game was sadly apparent – Montreal possessed the lead as Toronto fumbled or was intercepted seemingly every time they had the ball. Just down a few rows from me sat two lonely Montreal fans, cheering and screaming wildly whenever their team did something, from scoring to making a tackle to calling a timeout. The other people in my section would scream and throw food at them, but their spirits never dampened, they were the winners here and they knew it…
“Did…Did you not see the game? (Maniacal Laughter)” – Montreal fan, replying to slanderous insults
***
By the end of the game, the Ugly Seats were a horrible mess of drunken fans, bad vibes and some solitary man taping the game on his portable Sony Handi-Cam for reasons known only to him. Children next to me were weeping openly, tossing their inflatable ‘noise sticks’ down into the fast-empting seats in the level below… the only moment of joy, for these people, was when some punk kid threw down a large plastic horn, injuring a fan in the 100 level critically as the security looked panicked, but was unable to find out who threw the offending horn. In a complete contrast, however, the two Montreal fans were almost insane with joy, laughing and cheering and engaging in drink as their team marched off the field victorious… This is it, I remember thinking, a chance to see this violence that Toronto has become famous for in recent years…
The game ended not with a bang, but with a kneel of the Quarterback, as Montreal ran out the clock – a 17 point lead all but assured victory for them at any point in the 4th quarter. And despite, or perhaps because of, the loss there was no violence in the stadium, none of this rage and anger that I had heard so much about, only a bitter sense of sorrow. The fans were bummed out, too lost in a depressed stupor to do much else then wander back to their cars slowly. As we got outside, there was not a person who was remotely happy; everyone was shuffling as fast as they could to their cars in silence. Where at halftime there was a roar of Argo fans, all of them chanting in unison, there was now a stone-like stillness.
But where was this violence I has so much about? Did it even exist? Every day, it now seems, I hear about Toronto being a hotbed of gang warfare, with violent murders every day of the year. Yet, on this night of disappointment, there was no sense of anger, let alone any violence, only a vague sense of bitterness and resentment.
“It was a drag…” – Caller on Mojo 640AM
It was a scant few blocks away, on this same day, that the Toronto Raptors faced the Miami Heat – a team that was only an established winner, but ranked among the top teams in the NBA. And when the formerly winless Raptors managed to win, it went almost unnoticed among the population. It was barely mentioned on the radio, and was not mentioned in the Rogers Centre at all. In a town that managed to sell out every hockey game from the 1950’s until 1998, it is almost unsurprising that basketball, a game that is slowly losing popularity in Toronto, is all but unnoticed by the masses.
It hasn’t been all that long since the Raptors first played in the NBA along with that other Canadian team, the Vancouver Grizzlies… however, Vancouver proved to be a horrible town for basketball, with one player allegedly crying when they drafted him… But that is not a story for now, however. This is a story about Toronto and a team that may not be here in 10 years – and that we may not even notice their absence.
Toronto is a large place, cold most of the year… there are four major sports franchises here, and almost the same number of professional hockey teams (The Maple Leafs of the NHL, the Marlies of the AHL, the Majors of the OHL), so it’s not exactly outside the whelm of possibility that both Basketball and Football can go unnoticed in what is, and what has always been, a hockey town. True, the Argos brought in over 41,000 people today – but once it looked grim, they vanished into the ether, fast as their legs would take them…
(Two quotes at the top taken from songs by The Pixies, for those who care about that kind of thing.)
Ye gods, what a way to be spending a grey, dark and cloudy November day. The wind is strong and cold this morning, and the vibes are weird and ugly… Sitting here in my parent’s kitchen, drinking black coffee and listening to The Pixies, just trying to think and get a grip…
I’m going to Toronto today for the CFL Eastern Finals (Brought to you by Scotiabank) and hoping to forget all the madness going on down there. Never mind that repulsive story about the witness getting killed at his friends funeral, never mind David Miller and his gang of cohorts, never mind any of that madness. Today I am a Spectator, an ugly fool with a wallet full of money, a head full of bad craziness and no real morals at all – perfect for the attendance of Richard Nixon’s favorite pastime, Pro Football.
“This ain’t no holiday, no, no / But it always turns out this way...”
Sitting next to me is an ugly reminder of just where we are in this year of 2005 – Hunter S Thompson no longer lives in that fortified house, he’s dead. And George W Bush, love him or hate him, is just months away from being a Lame Duck President, with many of his key aids and advisors under investigation… And the “Right Honorable” Paul Martin? He, and his party, are sitting alone as the Gomery Commission paints him as the new Nixon of Canadian politics, as it were. But hey, when you deal with Quebec it gets really heavy, really fast. This provides a segue, of a sort, to the main topic at hand…
Today, at 3pm, the Toronto Argonauts will face off against the Montreal Alouettes for the Eastern Championship and the passage to the Grey Cup. In another year, this could have been taken as a metaphor, perhaps, but this year it is just a grudge match. This is the fourth year that these teams have faced each other in these finals, and they’ve developed a sense of hatred that few teams can match, a heavy, ugly sense of hate… And why not? This is, after all, football. If it wasn’t hateful, angry and violent then perhaps something went wrong… Besides, this if the Playoffs, to boot. Its winner takes all, here, with the loser going home with the stench of defeat hanging around their necks like an albatross. This is it; there’s no second chances now, no do-overs, no mulligan shots. This is it for one team, the end of the road.
Gang warfare is on the tips of everybody’s tongue in Toronto these days, with a witness to the murder of his best friend killed at that very friends funeral. The city is apparently, according to major media outlets, full of anger and rage over the senseless violence – football should be the last thing on any reasonable person’s mind. Indeed, as I neared the city traffic looked as if it was all coming back to the city after a long weekend away from the bloodshed, but they all appeared to be heading not to the Rogers Centre, but away from the downtown, off to the suburbs. Well…Toronto is a hockey town, make no mistake about it. Just ask any fan of the Toronto Raptors or of the Toronto Blue Jays.
But the Argonauts of Toronto are almost a different beast altogether. They have been around for decades now, winning the Grey Cup 15 times, ranking them with such luminaries as the New York Yankees, the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Celtics. And today, at 3pm, they go into battle with the same team that they did last year at this time, and the year before that and the year before that. And Toronto loves them for it – just like they loved the Blue Jays in the early 1990s. It’s a brief, albeit strong, love from fair-weather fans...
This ‘Pro-line’ Betting guide sitting on my lap is all but impenetrable. There is no spread, no favorite mentioned, only a jumble of letters and numbers, all meaning nothing to me. Or to my father, for that matter: He’s spent the last few minutes calling it a game meant to “Separate the fools from their money”. I try to butt in, but to no avail. “Trust me, M, I know these things”.
The sky is a hazy blue hue as we get stuck in traffic near a Porto Rican church off to my left on the 401. The traffic is think and unmoving and the radio explodes with news about shootings and parades and over 41,100 tickets sold to the Argos game. And the Raptors, winless in their first nine, get barely a mention.
“Kill your mortgage” – Sign seen on light post in downtown Toronto
The rats of the sky are out in full force down by the core of the city, flying haphazard through the streets like a crazed kamikaze pilot, darting from shadow to shadow. But in this town, the word shadow means very little: Even though it’s all sun out, the streets are dark, with all the light blocked out by the buildings. The only way to see if it’s daylight outside is stand and look up, like a fool, 90 degrees – leaving you open to have yr wallet and keys and personal identification stolen like a fool.
***
No parking, no space, no room to breathe – the streets are immobile, like a no-fee parking lot where everybody has their cars running. They’re lined up as far as the eye can see, way down to the end of this street, right up to where an ambulance is parked and flashing like a children’s toy. The sidewalks are a sea of faces that you have to flow with by yr own will, or you’ll get dragged back by them… There’s a man on the corner, dressed in a large foam rubber suit covered with anti-police and pro-drug expressions of thought, handing out a badly Xeroxed newsletter… a sleeping bearded man, lying on his side with an upside-down hat full of loose assorted change… a flock of Asian women, dressed smartly in business suits, conversing sharply in some foreign tongue… This is the Pulse of this City; it’s people flowing like blood amongst the still-unmoving cars.
***
The Rogers Centre – Formerly the Skydome – sits at the base of the CN Tower and not too far from the Air Canada Centre. It’s a building that in it’s short existence (Since 1989) has housed 3 major sports teams: The Toronto Blue Jays (1989 – Current), the Toronto Argonauts (1989- current, with a 2007 move pending) and the Toronto Raptors (1995 – 1999) but make no mistake – it’s a baseball building first and foremost. Even during a football game, from the 500 level – as high as it goes – one can still make out a ghostly outline of the baseball diamond. The pennants that hang all year correspond to the Jays, from their 1985 AL East championship to their 1993 World Series win… the ‘honor deck’ has names of such famed players as George Bell, Joe Carter and the like, while the Argonauts honor roll only cover seats temporarily…
It’s up by these covered seats, in the 500 Deck, where the people sit at the same level as the lighting rigs; where they sit unsupervised, drinking heavily, acting weirdly and yelling randomly… This is where the College frat boys sit, where the irate fans sit, where you can see the game without being seen yourself… This is the Ugly Seats.
By the end of the Third Quarter the outcome of the game was sadly apparent – Montreal possessed the lead as Toronto fumbled or was intercepted seemingly every time they had the ball. Just down a few rows from me sat two lonely Montreal fans, cheering and screaming wildly whenever their team did something, from scoring to making a tackle to calling a timeout. The other people in my section would scream and throw food at them, but their spirits never dampened, they were the winners here and they knew it…
“Did…Did you not see the game? (Maniacal Laughter)” – Montreal fan, replying to slanderous insults
***
By the end of the game, the Ugly Seats were a horrible mess of drunken fans, bad vibes and some solitary man taping the game on his portable Sony Handi-Cam for reasons known only to him. Children next to me were weeping openly, tossing their inflatable ‘noise sticks’ down into the fast-empting seats in the level below… the only moment of joy, for these people, was when some punk kid threw down a large plastic horn, injuring a fan in the 100 level critically as the security looked panicked, but was unable to find out who threw the offending horn. In a complete contrast, however, the two Montreal fans were almost insane with joy, laughing and cheering and engaging in drink as their team marched off the field victorious… This is it, I remember thinking, a chance to see this violence that Toronto has become famous for in recent years…
The game ended not with a bang, but with a kneel of the Quarterback, as Montreal ran out the clock – a 17 point lead all but assured victory for them at any point in the 4th quarter. And despite, or perhaps because of, the loss there was no violence in the stadium, none of this rage and anger that I had heard so much about, only a bitter sense of sorrow. The fans were bummed out, too lost in a depressed stupor to do much else then wander back to their cars slowly. As we got outside, there was not a person who was remotely happy; everyone was shuffling as fast as they could to their cars in silence. Where at halftime there was a roar of Argo fans, all of them chanting in unison, there was now a stone-like stillness.
But where was this violence I has so much about? Did it even exist? Every day, it now seems, I hear about Toronto being a hotbed of gang warfare, with violent murders every day of the year. Yet, on this night of disappointment, there was no sense of anger, let alone any violence, only a vague sense of bitterness and resentment.
“It was a drag…” – Caller on Mojo 640AM
It was a scant few blocks away, on this same day, that the Toronto Raptors faced the Miami Heat – a team that was only an established winner, but ranked among the top teams in the NBA. And when the formerly winless Raptors managed to win, it went almost unnoticed among the population. It was barely mentioned on the radio, and was not mentioned in the Rogers Centre at all. In a town that managed to sell out every hockey game from the 1950’s until 1998, it is almost unsurprising that basketball, a game that is slowly losing popularity in Toronto, is all but unnoticed by the masses.
It hasn’t been all that long since the Raptors first played in the NBA along with that other Canadian team, the Vancouver Grizzlies… however, Vancouver proved to be a horrible town for basketball, with one player allegedly crying when they drafted him… But that is not a story for now, however. This is a story about Toronto and a team that may not be here in 10 years – and that we may not even notice their absence.
Toronto is a large place, cold most of the year… there are four major sports franchises here, and almost the same number of professional hockey teams (The Maple Leafs of the NHL, the Marlies of the AHL, the Majors of the OHL), so it’s not exactly outside the whelm of possibility that both Basketball and Football can go unnoticed in what is, and what has always been, a hockey town. True, the Argos brought in over 41,000 people today – but once it looked grim, they vanished into the ether, fast as their legs would take them…
(Two quotes at the top taken from songs by The Pixies, for those who care about that kind of thing.)
Friday, November 25, 2005
Those Fools were unprepared
Editor’s Note: Due to a recent major events in the author’s life, his original column – a commentary on Toronto, the state of the Argonauts and the NBA in Canada – has been delayed until possibly next week. In it’s place, we were able to procure the following from M while he was in the midst of a betting frenzy after Mike Anderson was pulled from the Dallas / Denver games… what follows is a verbatim transcript, pulled directly from M himself:
Jesus Murphy, what happened? Yesterday it was so clear out, not a cloud in the sky… today we have over a foot of snow being dumped on this irrational town as the people scamper about like crazed chickens. At the local supermarket yesterday, I overheard a produce clerk talking about his hometown: “Yeah, we got two feet of snow… And now they want to open the skiing hills, too! In this weather! Can you imagine those fools thinking that they can pull this off?”… Well, I suppose that he was the fool there – The Snow is packing it deep now, and the ground is surely frozen.
I was watching the game today and talking to my friend Larry when the snow began to fall down, blanketing the ground and the houses with a thick powder that was wet and almost impossible to remove… he began to curse as his high-powered satellite dish lost it’s connection and severed him from the game, his feed falling apart like Warren Dunn exploding through the Lions defensive line… I laughed at him; he was an unprepared fool that had no real bearing on how to handle serious football viewing. He was unprepared for such an event, just like how the Lions were unprepared for Dunn, Vick and the Falcons defensive unit…
Did you see the way that Warren Dunn was able to wiggle and stretch his way through the Lions secondary? Or the way that Michael Vick was able to single-handedly out pass three Lions quarterbacks in only 3 quarters? The Falcons did something today that I thought was impossible – embarrass somebody from Detroit. The fourth quarter hadn’t even started and the fans were leaving in droves, making the Stadium seem dead and empty… The Lions have no excuse for folding up like that, none at all. This was Vick at his prime, the way that he managed to excite us in what now seems like so long ago, when nobody cared what his numbers were like, only that he may run or pass or scramble madly and do both.
This, of course, made no difference to me – my thanksgiving was many moons ago.
Jesus Murphy, what happened? Yesterday it was so clear out, not a cloud in the sky… today we have over a foot of snow being dumped on this irrational town as the people scamper about like crazed chickens. At the local supermarket yesterday, I overheard a produce clerk talking about his hometown: “Yeah, we got two feet of snow… And now they want to open the skiing hills, too! In this weather! Can you imagine those fools thinking that they can pull this off?”… Well, I suppose that he was the fool there – The Snow is packing it deep now, and the ground is surely frozen.
I was watching the game today and talking to my friend Larry when the snow began to fall down, blanketing the ground and the houses with a thick powder that was wet and almost impossible to remove… he began to curse as his high-powered satellite dish lost it’s connection and severed him from the game, his feed falling apart like Warren Dunn exploding through the Lions defensive line… I laughed at him; he was an unprepared fool that had no real bearing on how to handle serious football viewing. He was unprepared for such an event, just like how the Lions were unprepared for Dunn, Vick and the Falcons defensive unit…
Did you see the way that Warren Dunn was able to wiggle and stretch his way through the Lions secondary? Or the way that Michael Vick was able to single-handedly out pass three Lions quarterbacks in only 3 quarters? The Falcons did something today that I thought was impossible – embarrass somebody from Detroit. The fourth quarter hadn’t even started and the fans were leaving in droves, making the Stadium seem dead and empty… The Lions have no excuse for folding up like that, none at all. This was Vick at his prime, the way that he managed to excite us in what now seems like so long ago, when nobody cared what his numbers were like, only that he may run or pass or scramble madly and do both.
This, of course, made no difference to me – my thanksgiving was many moons ago.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
T.O. was Right-O
Well, it appears that Donovan McNabb will indeed be getting the surgery that he needed sometime during this season, instead of waiting until the end of the year. And you know what this means: It looks like TO was right; at least on some level.
I see T.O. as two different people. One is a fantastically talented and smart Wide receiver who ranks among the best ever to play the game. The other is a selfish loudmouth who can single-handedly take a team down without much of an effort. We all remember how he danced on the Star in Dallas, how he made what will be remembered as "Son of The Catch" in the playoffs a few years ago. We all remember his Joe Namathish remarks about playing in the Super Bowl with a broken leg - which he did do. He all remember the loudmouthed antics of TO, how he acts like Jim McMahon and makes an ass out of himself. But we all like to forget his talent, the reason the Eagles wanted him in the first place.
Love him or hate him, he is one of the best Wide receivers in the NFL. This year he scored his 100th touchdown, in less then nine full seasons. He played through an injury that would have season-ending in the Superbowl - making 9 catches for 122 yards. He averaged a touchdown per game for five years in a row. He is tied with Jerry Rice with more then 5 seasons of 13 touchdowns or more. He has made plays that for any other player would be unforgettable, but for him are utterly forgotten.
Remember when he tore down those signs in Cleveland? And we all faulted him for what was essentially standing up for his team? He had the right attitude, but we all hated him for it. And then when he doubted McNabb we all called him "detrimental to the team"?
Well guess what: He was right again. And you, the typical sports fan, cannot stand it. You hate him for being right. You hate it that we all knew he was right all along and that we still disagreed because we all hate him so damn much. But he's the one laughing now: He's getting paid to sit around, he'll have every team wanting him for next year and we'll be the one apologizing because we all doubted him.
If TO was anybody, anyone at all, other then T.O. we'd agree with him. Applaud him, even. But he isn't someone else. He's T.O. and we hate it that a loudmouthed, selfish player is the one who was right all along.
I see T.O. as two different people. One is a fantastically talented and smart Wide receiver who ranks among the best ever to play the game. The other is a selfish loudmouth who can single-handedly take a team down without much of an effort. We all remember how he danced on the Star in Dallas, how he made what will be remembered as "Son of The Catch" in the playoffs a few years ago. We all remember his Joe Namathish remarks about playing in the Super Bowl with a broken leg - which he did do. He all remember the loudmouthed antics of TO, how he acts like Jim McMahon and makes an ass out of himself. But we all like to forget his talent, the reason the Eagles wanted him in the first place.
Love him or hate him, he is one of the best Wide receivers in the NFL. This year he scored his 100th touchdown, in less then nine full seasons. He played through an injury that would have season-ending in the Superbowl - making 9 catches for 122 yards. He averaged a touchdown per game for five years in a row. He is tied with Jerry Rice with more then 5 seasons of 13 touchdowns or more. He has made plays that for any other player would be unforgettable, but for him are utterly forgotten.
Remember when he tore down those signs in Cleveland? And we all faulted him for what was essentially standing up for his team? He had the right attitude, but we all hated him for it. And then when he doubted McNabb we all called him "detrimental to the team"?
Well guess what: He was right again. And you, the typical sports fan, cannot stand it. You hate him for being right. You hate it that we all knew he was right all along and that we still disagreed because we all hate him so damn much. But he's the one laughing now: He's getting paid to sit around, he'll have every team wanting him for next year and we'll be the one apologizing because we all doubted him.
If TO was anybody, anyone at all, other then T.O. we'd agree with him. Applaud him, even. But he isn't someone else. He's T.O. and we hate it that a loudmouthed, selfish player is the one who was right all along.
Saturday, November 12, 2005
"I really can't stay - Baby it's cold outside
I've got to go away - Baby it's cold outside"
('Baby it's cold outside' - F. Loesser)
Toronto, being a northern North American city, is known for having cold winters - not as cold as other cities, such as Winnipeg, Chicago or New York, but cold none the less.
And with the opening few games of the NBA season, it would appear that the winter chill came early to Toronto this year, with the Raptors now tied for last place in their division, and only one loss behind the worst team in the NBA,the Atlanta Hawks. Right now, their only hope of doing much of anything is a weak eastern division - end even then, it's still a race for last place.
The main problem is that Toronto is too new: there are few, many too few, solid veteran players to anchor the youthful players. Toronto has talent - Jalen Rose, Chris Bosh, Charlie Villanueva, for example - but it needs a solid, experienced player (preferably at centre) to lead the way for the team.
Look at the Maple Leafs, Toronto's other major winter team. After their captain Mats Sundin went down with an eye injury in the first period of the first game, the Leafs dropped three games in a row before Eric Lindros, finally looking like himself again, led the Leafs to a series of wins.
This is what the Raptors need: after last season's fiasco with Vince Carter, they need a solid leader to lead them in what will be a strong division... if they don't get one before the season gets rolling, they'll be stuck in limbo towards the bottom of the league.
I've got to go away - Baby it's cold outside"
('Baby it's cold outside' - F. Loesser)
Toronto, being a northern North American city, is known for having cold winters - not as cold as other cities, such as Winnipeg, Chicago or New York, but cold none the less.
And with the opening few games of the NBA season, it would appear that the winter chill came early to Toronto this year, with the Raptors now tied for last place in their division, and only one loss behind the worst team in the NBA,the Atlanta Hawks. Right now, their only hope of doing much of anything is a weak eastern division - end even then, it's still a race for last place.
The main problem is that Toronto is too new: there are few, many too few, solid veteran players to anchor the youthful players. Toronto has talent - Jalen Rose, Chris Bosh, Charlie Villanueva, for example - but it needs a solid, experienced player (preferably at centre) to lead the way for the team.
Look at the Maple Leafs, Toronto's other major winter team. After their captain Mats Sundin went down with an eye injury in the first period of the first game, the Leafs dropped three games in a row before Eric Lindros, finally looking like himself again, led the Leafs to a series of wins.
This is what the Raptors need: after last season's fiasco with Vince Carter, they need a solid leader to lead them in what will be a strong division... if they don't get one before the season gets rolling, they'll be stuck in limbo towards the bottom of the league.
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