So, at last, Eric makes his return, only to waste the world's time with sports-talk. Here we are in the midst of a global financial crisis, with barely-stable nuclear regimes threatening to collapse and bring down all of society with them, and Eric decides to respond to all this fear and uncertainty by making a definitive list of how much he likes the respective members of the Portland Trailblazers. And as if that were not enough, he goes on to present his predictions for how the upcoming base-ball season will pan out, although the voices clamoring for such input amounted to pretty much just one: his own.
But I will grant him this foray into idle speculation, if only because as I have mentioned before, the blog is indeed a tool of self-aggrandizement. Eric himself has even copped to this. Who am I, a Blog-Master myself, to pass judgment on he?
A hypocrite, that's who, and judgment I shall pass. You, sir, are a self-obsessed fool.
Ah, that felt good. It has been many months since I have been presented with material to mock and deride, and it thrills me to no end. At this very moment strange stirrings are being felt in my nether-regions which I will have to attend to shortly. But first, there is one small matter to deal with, and that is my own version of self-aggrandizement, which is inextricably linked to the peg-taking-down of one Eric Walkingshaw.
Eric's post on baseball got me thinking: it has been some time now that I have been under the spell of that grand game called football in most parts of the world, and soccer here in the good old U.S. of A. For the last seven years or so I have become completely seduced by it, seeking it out in whatever form I can find and reading about it in as much detail as I possibly can. With the arrival (or re-birth, some might say) of the local Seattle Sounders, I have become irretrievably entangled in its web, and it can easily be said that in many ways, there simply is no other game for me.
Even as the new baseball season opens with all its pomp and circumstance, I have been too busy following the Sounders and indeed the whole of the recently-opened MLS season; I have, after many a year of fruitless efforts, finally fully embraced its hard-tackling, mistake-ridden ways. Couple the Sounders' surprising successes with Liverpool's sudden resurgence across the pond, and I simply have no time nor inclination to pay any heed to the Mariners and their haphazard ways, awesome Japanese superstars or no. And, over the weekend, as I spent hour upon hour watching various soccer matches and their attendant highlights on the Internet, I had a eureka moment that I never previously thought possible: in many ways, the average baseball game, in comparison to the average football match, is, quite honestly, boring.
This is only a big deal in my mind because one of the key arguments of football (see how readily I slip into the more sensible nomenclature?) detractors is that it's so slow, and boring, and nothing happens, and blah blah blah whine moan piddle. Yet these same people will extol the virtues of baseball, that timeless pastime, with its...three-hour snoozefests replete with constant stoppages in the action and pauses for increasingly annoying commercial breaks.
Don't get me wrong; I still much enjoy the sport of baseball itself, but as a spectator? I much prefer the constant ebb and flow of a football match, punctuated by the scoring of a goal, and interrupted only by half-time and the occasional on-field injury. I still watch and will still watch the odd baseball game, but only in bits and pieces; even at the stadium my attention is diverted by conversation or food-gathering. But for football I will park myself in my seat and watch intently, with no inclination to do otherwise.
In all honesty, I know Eric to be "soccer" fan as well, and so this may not in any way offend him or push his buttons. But it has been a long time and perhaps this gap between mind-duels has softened my edges. Perhaps it is not annihilation and domination I seek but simply a victory on my own terms, a common realization of differing ideals and opinions. There is even the slight possibility that my previous incarceration by his robot-loving hands has defeated my spirit. Whatever the case, in this instance, there will be no gauntlet-throwing, no wild accusations or fist-shaking declarations of anger. There will only be my semi-dismissal of his chosen sport, an off-hand crack about robots (stupid heartless machines), and most importantly, a few paragraphs where I get talk about myself for once and not His Large-Nosed Majesty.
And by-the-by, Travis Outlaw? Fears and distrusts robots with every slam-dunking fiber of his body. Also, if I recall correctly, loves chalupas.
