perfidy

At least OSU is still 4-0. GO BUCKS!

As a full time Indians and Browns fan, I am comfortable with disappointment. I had no choice, it's either comfort or insanity. I have never been able to get behind the Redskins, and I have never really like Steve Spurrier, so my football options are rather limited here in DC. The Orioles play the Indians too often for me to like them, and the Ravens, well, I can't express my feelings for the Ravens and Art Model on a family website such as this one.

Because of distance and the prejudices of local sports broadcasting, I am at a comfortable distance from the Browns and Indians, while I can actually watch games of the one team that actually does well - OSU.

What needs to happen is for the Montreal Expos to leave the ungrateful Quebecois, who manifestly neither deserve nor understand the sacramental nature of American baseball. Then, the team should move to DC and be rechristened the Senators. As long as they stay in the National League, there will be no conflict with my beloved Indians, and all will be right with the world.

And Washington can be "first in war, first in peace, and last in the National League."

Don't get me started. The Expos play in one of the worst stadia in the major leagues, and one of the largest. It's also poorly situated for walk-up tickets.

Moreover, the Expos (prior to their unlife as a zombie of MLB) pursued the same blockheaded spend-and-win strategy that has failed to work for such diverse teams as the Tigers and the Marlins. Clearly they'd be better off taking a Sabermetric approach to the game like the A's or the Red Sox.

I'm not so sure that the Expos DO need to move, much less to Northern Virginia, you buncha damned bastids ya. What they need(ed) is (was) intelligent ownership and upper management, better scouting, and a playing venue smaller and more friendly than the hangar deck on a Super Star Destroyer. The fans are there in at least the numbers they have in goddamned "Arizona". There's just no reason to CARE, or even pretend to care.

OHOWIHATE
OHIOSTATE

You're not a Michigan fan are you? I don't remember seeing suspiciously maize and blue colors on your person or in your home.

It's not so much that I want to deprive the good people of Montreal of the pleasures and contentments to be found in a diverting afternoon at a ballgame, because I do - it's that I would like to have a NL team in DC so that I would have some local major league sports that I could get behind. If we could reanimate the Senators without hurting Montreal, it wouldn't be as fun, but still a satisfactory ending.

I have never been a pro basketball fan, and even less so recently as Pro ball has begun the final destruction of College ball. I don't know hockey, and have desire to learn, because sports is all about unreasoning hate, tradition, and the hatred of change.

The Skins are not a team that inspires any kind of interest in me, even after four years. I don't wish them evil, but I couldn't care less if they win or lose.

And I can't get behind the Baltimore teams because of the obvious conflicts with Cleveland teams. (Though I do like going up to B-town for an Orioles game. Camden Yard is a beautiful park.)

For these reasons, I need a NL baseball team in Northern Virginia. MLB needs to act on this soon.

Yeah, ok, fair enough.

Michigan? MICHIGAN?!?!?

Hell NO! If forced to choose, I'll root for West Virginia or Pittsburgh in college sports every time. Go Panthers!

Except for women's basketball. Then it's the UConn Lady Huskies all the way.

On that point. College women's basketball, and to a similar extent in the WNBA, is the last refuge of fundamentally sound basketball. I Hate Hate Hate the showboating, never-call-travelling egofest that is the NBA. It's boring and repugnant.

Know what killed the NBA? Letting high school kids play the game.

Know what's going to kill my NFL? The same goddamn thing, if the league loses the lawsuit.

My mom and I were talking about exactly that the other day. Mens College Basketball is dying a slow death as its best players (or potential players) are hoovered up by the NBA. The effect on both is terrible. College ball suffers, and the NBA grows more repugnant.

The positive note in the suit against the NFL is that the player's union supports the NFL position. While we may have victory here, I think that in the long run, there is no way to prevent this corruption from happening.

I hate change in sports. I hate when teams move (generally), I hate when rules change. I am still bitter about the designated hitter rule. I want things to stay as they ever were.

However, this is not going to happen. The NBA is already perilously close to being a Professional wrestling style slam dunk exhibition. I fear that pro football is not going to be long in following them.

Baseball has the most tradition, and better resistance to these pressures; but with the arrival of playoffs, interleague play and other heresies I worry about it.

I want the world to be stable and sane. A place where I can hate all teams from New York, Florida, Texas and California for no reason whatsoever. Where Ann Arbor Michigan is the entrance to Hell. Where baseball is played by the rules handed down from our forefathers, with out addition or diminishment, as God intended. Where the Rose Bowl is always between the Pac10 champion and the Big Ten champion; and where there are no BCS rankings. Where college football is played on Saturday, and pro football is played on Sunday. Where the Winter and Summer Olympics are held in the same year, and where shuffleboard, extreme bmx, synchronized swimming and badminton are never Olympic sports.

And where I can dream that the Browns will win the Superbowl, and the Indians will win the World Series. At least OSU won the national title last year in the single best football game I have ever watched.

Oh, Buckethead, go read "Moneyball" and then report back to me about the benefits of tradition to Major League Baseball.

And then let's get to work reviving the one true sport of kings: roller derby.

I know it's an illusion, but one that MLB has taken greater pains to preserve.

No, seriously... go read "Moneyball." Blew my mind wide open, it did.