I am watching a football game.
I am not entirely sure why.
It could be because I am a little under the weather and lack
the energy to do anything else. Nah, I
would probably watch it anyway. And by
the way, what does your position relative to the weather have to do with not
feeling well? It would also seem that
the “wellbeing-weather report” is apparently unidirectional, as no one in
tip-top condition ever proclaims that they are “over the weather.”
Bringing me back – because I have no more to say about that
– to the original question:
Why am I watching this football game?
Well, it is a playoff game. There is a tension involved – it is “Win or
go home.” But that’s about the teams,
not me. I’m already home.
I suppose, sometimes, you have to accept that you’re
watching a football game for no justifiable reason, contenting yourself with
the fact that you are doing minimal harm to yourself or to society, and simply curtail
speculation. Which, in this case, is exactly
what I do.
At which point, I am confronted by a pregame commercial. It is not for beer. Or a fast food restaurant. Or a truck that gets surprisingly good
mileage.
It is a commercial for United States Navy.
Getting me thinking,
Look at that. My
hard-earned tax dollars are being used to pay for advertisements on football
games.
Leading subsequently to another thought.
Given the fact that over the last fifteen years, our country
has been fighting Middle Eastern extremists on terrain known considerably more for
its sand than for its water, having never heard of an Al Qaeda Armada, and our
being now decades away from “Sink The Bismarck”, I begin to wonder, pre-kickoff,
what exactly does the United States Navy do?
(Note: I am
emboldened to pose such a query after reading an extended article in the latest
Atlantic in which writer James
Fallows opines that ever since the military has gone “all volunteer”, there has
been a detectable drop-off of public criticism, compared to the criticism the
military received when, because of the draft, we were all in it together, similar
– this is not Fallows’ analogy, it’s mine – to when someone volunteers to have
to over for dinner, you do not criticize their cooking.
Fallows believes our incomparable military might win more if
they were faced with more scrupulous scrutiny, and it is in that patriotic
service, that I inquire, in my ignorance, but in hopes it will inspire
meaningful debate in the appropriate circles, in the contemporary context of
combat, what precisely the United States Navy does.)
The game begins.
It’s the New England
Patriots versus the Baltimore Ravens. Almost immediately, I find myself rooting
involuntarily for the Patriots. And once again, the perennial, nagging
question:
Why?
New England versus
Baltimore. What difference does it make to me?
I have spent two days in New England, but the experience was
hardly memorable enough to make me a lifelong enthusiast of their football
team. I have never been to Baltimore,
which I know is in Maryland, but to be honest, I would have difficulty
pinpointing Maryland on a map, likely confusing it with Delaware. Which does not have a professional football team.
So there is no personal connection.
I am not particularly knowledgeable about either team. I cannot rattle of either’s season “won-loss”
record. Of the fifty-three active
players on their rosters, I can name exactly one player on each team – Tom
Brady the New England quarterback and
quarterback Joe Flacco of the Ravens.
And I cannot imagine being so petty as to root against a
team because their quarterback’s name is Flacco. If anything, I should be rooting against the Patriots because of their sourpuss head
coach Bill Belichick, not because his name is Belichick, but because one look
at his unmitigated grimness and I feel compelled to reach for some Tums.
There is no logical sense to my reaction, why one team means
more to me than the other. And yet,
there is a palpable difference. The
advancement of the ball by the Patriots
makes me excited; the slightest accomplishment by the Ravens makes me noticeably wince.
All I know is that, mounting two separate two-touchdown
comebacks, the Patriots take the lead
and ultimately prevail. And I could not
have felt happier if the Toronto Argonauts
had captured the exalted Grey Cup. Well,
that’s a little over the top, but you get excited that the team you’ve been
pulling for though you have no idea why is victorious and it happens.
After the game, I am in the bathroom and, as I have
elsewhere reported often occurs, standing over… the thing, I am the recipient
of a clarifying illumination.
Suddenly, I know why I’d been rooting for the Patriots.
Ravens’
quarterback Joe Flacco is eight years younger than New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady who, at age
thirty-seven, is approaching the finish of his illustrious career. Earlier in the week, I had heard a respected prognosticator
confidently predicting that if he lost that game, though Brady might continue
to play, he would be irrelevant as a factor in further championship success.
A loss that day, and Tom Brady was effectively washed up.
So there you have it.
I was not rooting for the Patriots that afternoon.
I was rooting for “old.”
And, on that day at least, “old” triumphantly kicked butt.
Apparently, football is more than what happens on the field.
It is also what happens in your head while you’re watching
the game.
3 comments:
Lucky you didn't watch my game then eh.
You should have been rooting for the Ravens. They are named that because they play in a town that Edgar Allan Poe, a world famous writer, called home. You are a writer, although in a different style than Edgar Allan Poe. So by that logic, you should have been supporting the team that indirectly was honoring a writer by naming themselves after one of his most iconic creations. Thus quoth THIS Raven who might actually just be raving.
Maybe a couple of hundred years from now after you've passed on there might be a sport's team named after something you wrote....although the Major Dads just doesn't have the same ring to it as the Ravens.
The navy mostly prepares for a possible naval war against China (China does a lot of low level naval/coast guard aggression against it's neighbors and is expanding it's navy rapidly. China also threatens it's neighbors with attack a lot) or anyone else (Iran, etc). They fight and patrol against pirates and terrorists on the high seas. (Most of the stuff you buy travels to your store/home at least part of the way by boats on the ocean, and the navy guards all that stuff). Most of the world's population lives within a couple of hundred miles of the ocean, so the navy can strike a lot of targets. Also, the Seals are navy, you might recall they killed bin Laden not too long ago. The marines are part of the navy, they have been busy. The navy rotates some personnel to land assignments to help the army & air force. And the navy also does a lot of humanitarian missions, like after tidal waves or earthquakes.
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