Love Thy Enemy

Interesting story of the day

So I'm on the sidelines for my youth football team (Leesburg Cardinals - B League - I call the plays) and we're in the middle of a barnburner. 14-13 "good guys" ended up being the final; we stopped them on an extra point in the 4th quarter to get the win. Well, during the nail biter, I thought to myself, "man I'm really nervous, my stomach is in knots". A few seconds later I proceeded to throw up a little bit in my mouth. I never could handle food too close to a game.

I kind of gave up on baseball once preseason football started; the O's and Nats both stink and they were well out of contention by that point. But, every once and a while I'll watch Baseball Tonight or peruse MLB.com and check out the standings. I like to have an idea what the heck is going on when playoff time rolls around and the games actually mean something. So low and behold who's in the hunt for the NL Wild Card; none other than the Atlanta Braves. Now make no mistake, I used to hate the Atlanta Braves. I hated their trifecta of pitchers (first Smoltz, Glavine and Steve Avery and then Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux). I hated their scrappy guys who the announcers always seemed to hype up more than I thought they deserved. I hated David Justice. I hated Chipper Jones. I hated they fact they beat the Pirates in game 7 two years in a row (with slow ass Sid Bream delivering the final blow). I hated the rube fans that did the Tomahawk Chop and I really hated Ted Turner and Hanoi Jane whooping it up from their box seats. To me they were on par with Duke, the Cowboys, the Pittsburgh Penguins...the bane of my existence. Then something happened; they only won won championship and then started to peter out. Instead of getting nipped in the series, they'd lose in the first round; and then they started not making the playoffs at all. So, I stopped caring about the Braves.

They haven't really made a serious run at the playoffs until this year, and with their slip-ups against the Marlins this week, they're likely not going to be able to catch the Rockies. But I'm still rooting for them to get in, if for nothing else to remind me of my youth. When the Braves were competing for World Series, Miami was contending for the national title and Duke was trying to break through during the tournament...and I HATED them all.

Like I said before, I hope to see Atlanta make it to the postseason. And then I hope they get swept by the Dodgers, so all the folks at Turner Field have to dry their tears with their foam tomahawks. What? Cut me some slack; old habits die hard.