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Lucky In Jersey

“I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.”
Daniel Day Lewis as Daniel Plainview, “There Will Be Blood”

Quite the Super Bowl yesterday. I picked up a hundred bucks for hitting the winning fourth quarter numbers in a pool with a bunch of strangers. They didn’t seem to mind in light of the remarkable victory from their home town heroes, and they almost forgot to check to see who won. “Who’s Mon-co?” some big guy with an Eli Manning jersey asked, and I sheepishly stepped up to collect. “Way to go, dude” he told me. I seem to come up big with some frequency in these pure luck gambling endeavors, although it never won me any friends in the Monaco Labs company pools. What was I supposed to do – give my squares away to charity?

I’m not a strong believer in the school of thought that says you can adopt new sports franchises as your own when you move to different cities. And you only get one choice per large metropolitan area – none of this “I support both the Giants and the A’s” garbage. For me, it’s the (baseball) Giants and the 49ers. Despite Billy Beane’s dead-on Money Ball instincts, the A’s will always be a glorified softball team playing in the lesser league. And you can keep your “Raider Nation” too. If you have to don silver face paint and a scary costume to feel good at a football game you might want to consider getting your testosterone levels checked.

Having said this, I was definitely pulling for the boys from the Meadowlands yesterday. This instinct took root about three months ago when the Red Sox were trouncing the Rockies in the World Series. Loud whoops and hollers could be heard from the normally quiet apartment next door, and I put it together than my neighbor was a Boston fan. I was fine with this until after the football season started, and I noted his mounting exuberance with each passing weekend, as the Patriots won game after game. I’m no Scrooge, but nobody deserves this kind of overwhelming success from both his favored sports franchises. So, little by little, I developed a growing hatred for the New England Patriots. I see nothing wrong with this, as opposed to developing false hometown allegiances. And while I can’t assume equal claim to those who grew up with the likes of Frank Gifford or Lawrence Taylor, I did have a good time yesterday. The hundred bucks didn’t hurt, and I enjoyed the quiet from the apartment next door when I returned home. Go Big Blue. (2/4/08)

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