Monday, December 10, 2007

CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY:

A big thanks to Old as Dirt who sent me one of the best things ever last week in preparation for the big Steelers-Patriots game (which turned out not so big, more on that later). I anxiously tore open the UPS delivered package to find this:

That's right, my very own Steelers hard hat for game day. Nice.
OAD requested a picture with me wearing it so he had "proof that I got you to wear a helmet".
Well, game day came and once again I had reason to hate the Seachickens, or more importantly, that I lived in an NFL city that was not Pittsburgh. Why you ask? Because the NFL has some stupid licensing agreement that dictates that if a team is playing at home then no other games can be televised on the local affiliate. So that meant that even though we pay a bajillion dollars for our cable, I was stuck with the stupid Chicken Hawks versus the Cardinals. Ugh. The worst was when I was watching the NFL pre-game on CBS and at the end when they went to their scheduled televised game they made a point of taunting me, "...and later, most of you will be watching the marquee game of the day between the Steelers and Patriots". Aaaarrghh!!!
Being resourceful though I resorted to old school meets new school by finding the game on an online streaming CBS radio station and hooked it up through my stereo:


After the first quarter I went very old school and took my lady's Walkman and listened to AM 950 in between trees blocking the signal on my ride. The last time I listened to a game on AM radio whilst on a ride I didn't like the outcome of that either. It was November 25, 1995. I know the date exactly because it was when #2 and unbeaten Ohio State with standout players like eventual Heisman Trophy winner Eddie George, Mike Vrable, Shawn Springs, Terry Glenn and Orlando Pace played the 8 and 3 Wolverines in Ann Arbor. It was the day that Wolverine running back Tim Biakabutuka ran all over the Buckeyes, finishing the game with 313 yards and a Michigan upset over the Buckeyes.
The lesson in all of this: no more listening to games that I care about the outcome on a ride. Superstitious? You bet.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm a lifelong Steelers fan who became a Cardinals fan as well after moving to AZ. BOTH games were on here. As a fan of both teams it was brutal. Through the magic of TIVO I was able to watch every play of both games at the same time (I'd switch games during commericials and catch up by hitting the 30sec fast forward button between plays). At least the Steelers held on for awhile. I really thought they might win. I was a fool. Nice hat by the way, Joe. I have the same one --courtesy of a friend.