Sports

Following sports, or participation in one or more sports, makes life more fun and entertaining. Sports and games have always played a big part in the American Culture. I do not think sports is as important as meditation in making life work, but it does help ease the frustrations, and disappointments that life can bring. This blog will discuss the sports that I follow and why. From the top, here is what I like to watch, and what I do not follow as much, or not at all.

College Football. This is my favorite thing to watch and enjoy. I love the pageantry and enthusiasm of the crowd, and it seems that every game has some kind of importance. The game is much more entertaining than pro football. It is fast paced and the offenses are more diversified. Football is one of those sports that is more fun to watch even though the quality of play is just a notch below professional football. I do not care who is playing, if I have some down time I will watch a college football game. I am an Ohio State grad so I have a strong rooting interest in the Ohio State Buckeyes but there are other teams I follow like the Pitt Panthers.

Ladies Professional Golf. I really enjoy watching the women on the LPGA tour. Their tournaments seem to be more exciting and their swings are easier on the eye. Their coverage is better now that the Golf Channel shows all their events. If the women could only putt, then I think they could challenge the men on certain venues. It is an odd thing that statistically speaking the women’s game is pretty much even with the men’s except for the putting stats, where they lag way behind.

Baseball and the Pittsburgh Pirates. Baseball is almost second but the game has lost some touch with modern society. It is oh so slooooooooooooow, and the powers to be do next to nothing to speed up the game. If you are a long time Pittsburgh Pirate fan you will always remember what you were doing when Bill Mazeroski hit the home run to win the 7th game of the 1960 World Series. Even though the Pirates have had their struggles in recent times, I have been fortunate to follow a team that has had a rich and glorious history especially from 1958 to 1992.

The Pittsburgh Steelers. Talk about a rich and glorious history, this is one of the all time great professional franchises in any sport. It was not always that way. The Steelers of the late 50′ and the decade of the 1960’s were quite a cast of characters, that played some hard nosed football but with variable, but mostly bad, results. But it was those vagabond Steelers, that captured my heart and soul, and made me a life long Steeler fan. Again, all Steeler fans know what they were doing when Franco made the immaculate reception against the Oakland Raider in the 1974 playoffs. Other than the Steelers I really don’t follow other aspects of Pro Football. I find the game boring and do not get to excited by final scores of 12 to 9 , yawn.

The PGA tour. Since I play golf often, I naturally follow the PGA tour. The way I am putting these sports in order, translates into if all 5 of these sports were on TV at the same time, this would be my preference to watch them. As you can see the PGA tour is fifth, which is still better than my next list of sports, that I hardly watch at all. I like to see the outcomes of the events and watch the players perform. There is a certain sameness to the players. There are no more characters or personalities on the tour. Now the PGA tour does not like hearing this, but if you ever see a presidential poll taken of tour players, 98% of them vote for the same guy.

Sports I follow a little bit, is hockey because of the Penguins. I watch the NCAA basketball tournament but do not follow the regular season at all. Pro Basketball I rarely watch, except for an occasional play off game. There are various reasons I don’t watch these sports as much. Hockey, it is the fighting, College Basketball I feel there are too many games and not a lot of significance to them. With Pro Basketball I lost interest in, when they stopped running the fast break. So there you have the sports I follow and like, and thanks to the modern DVR, I can follow them in less time than ever now. Bless the DVR especially when it comes to Baseball. Get into sports, your life will work better.