Why We're Here

Back when I lived in NoCal, I'd take my eldest to about 20 Oakland A's games a year. We'd sit up high in the cheap seats, pack food, bring coloring books and other timewasters, and when the Kids' Club was open, we'd go there for a few innings, so she could exhaust herself in the bounce tent. When she was little, she'd fall asleep and I'd be able to watch the end of the game. When she was bigger, she was mostly there for the bribery.

While I tried various forms of encouragement to get her to actually like baseball, and she certainly liked going to the park, the actual game never really grabbed her. (To be fair, we left the area when she was six.) Maybe it would have if we had stayed, but that's water under the bridge now. We live too far away from any MLB team to make going a routine habit, and I've got no emotional investment in any of the teams. Maybe we'll go to a Phillies or Yankees game once a year, but that's about it.

So... why am I telling you this? Because it turns out that this is actually how history is made. Small desires and moments -- I want to eat that, I want to live there, I want to do that. If she grows up to like baseball, she'll have this background as a reason. If not, oh well.

Today's Super Bowl is a media experience that will overwhelm the senses and sense. Companies will spend $90,000 per second to try to sell us their goods and services. Announcers will extol the virtues of the coaches and players, as if they've done something particularly unique or heroic to make it to this stage (and yes, I'm still trying to wash the taste of the Bad Tooth's Friday column in which he broke down the Patriots' secret formula, one that no other team sought to emulate, of paying just the most talented players and not bringing in any head cases).

And the hype is 99.99% crap.

The reason why we are here is that we like to watch football. We want to see who the best team is. We want to know how the story of the season ends.

That's about it.

So, media, NFL, Giants Fans and Patriots Fans... please remember this.

The vast majority of the people watching today's game would be watching if it were Jaguars-Buccaneers. You're just not that special. You're just the last two teams playing.

The people who are only watching because it's the Patriots or Giants or both are not football fans. They are rubberneckers. They may be why you're making so much money selling the ad time, but they won't be there in the stadiums, or the training camps, buying the merch, and doing all of the other things that real fans do.

We understand that this game is more for them than us. We put up with them every year around this time. We just would like it, please, if you didn't make it harder than it has to be, by feeding us quite so much utter bullshit.

Game on.