Game On in the True Cold War

I love football. Maybe it's the Texan in me, but I enjoy watching no matter who is playing and in some years have even become semi-knowledgeable about specific teams.  I don't do stats or team rosters or fantasy but I can watch and debate with my husband what is a good or bad play and complain if I think a bad or non call is an issue.  (I can't watch  Notre Dame because I yell too much).  But watching pro ball, I'm safe to have around children.  I especially love the playoffs.  There's always a story, the play is fast and slick, the action strong and seldom do you get a blow out or a boring game.

And the weather can be a factor.  Like tomorrow. 

Granted most of the country (sans Florida) is in a deep freeze, but then there's Green  Bay.  

For those unaware, the playoff game tomorrow is in Green Bay and stars the Green Bay Packers, the San Francisco 49's and temperature.  

The high tomorrow is FIVE. 

FIVE!  
My two year old can count higher than tomorrow's forecast's top temperature.

That's five.  Five degrees! Ah Ha Ha Ha Ha!

The low for tomorrow absent the wind, i.e. if everything is serene and calm, is a balmy negative 22.  At some point, the value of spending the rest of your life with all of your fingers and toes intact comes into the equation even where playoff games are concerned. How much is my nose worth becomes more than a theoretical question, as the very real reality of vital members breaking off from being tackled in such a climate looms. 

But we're not predicted to have calm and cold as in kill you if you inhale type cold weather in Wisconsin.  It will be dark and there will be wind.

How much wind do you ask?  Enough to make it feel like -35 to -45. Now I would debate if one can feel anything when the temperature on the field is colder than the surface of Mars on some days, but let's just say that before the wind chill, it was bone crushing awful.  But Negative 35? That's somewhere between causes mass extinctions resulting in (shudder) more animated movies staring Ray Ramono  and Mr. Freeze vs. Captain Cold.  Yes, this is weather that can only create super villains.

  Hyperbole about the sheer pain of going outside for the purposes of satire and humor becomes unfeasible. 


Even I, football girl fan that I am, think this is dangerous stupid stuff. 

The playoffs perhaps ought to be given the mercy of being played on neutral warm territory so both teams need not worry about being killed on route to the Super Bowl because of the weather.  The one bonus of this artic exercise in machismo gridiron is I can watch and be spared the prospect of seeing Packer fans wearing Cheesekini's, a mercy if ever there was one. 

There Will Be Joy in Mudville

Last night, we went on a date to a sports bar for dinner.  We watched the Nats limp through 4 innings where they gradually gave up enough runs to whittle a 6-0 lead down to 1 in the fifth and final game of the playoff.  Driving home, we listened on  the radio.  We are still sick with the knowledge the Nationals ended their season in a painful 9-7 loss to the Cardinals.   The O's also had their run for the World Series destroyed by the Yankees this dark Friday.   To watch and love baseball is to know at any moment, it may be glorious and also, at any moment, your heart shall be broken.   It is part of the "of course it's hard. That's what makes it great." zen poetry of this sport. 

However this morning, my husband explained why this particular loss has more cosmic consequences than that beltway residents now must face only the perpetually disappointing Redskins and the dull soul sucking pain of election year politics:

My fellow baseball fans,

Seven hours removed from the disaster of the Nats' historic collapse at the hands of the Cards, and the O's anemic loss in New York, I have reached a conclusion:

Perhaps when the the Yankees meet to do battle in St. Louis in what will prove to be a fateful Game 7, the Mayans will finally be proven correct.

After 512 innings of improbable comebacks, 350 hits by heretofore unknown journeyman, 75 over -the-wall game saving catches, and 43 combined home runs between Ibanez and Descalso, the last man on the Yankees' bench, Alex Rodriguez, finally gets into the game, not as the highest paid hitter in history, but as a pitcher trying hold the Bronx Bombers' 1 run lead.

As A-Roid angrily strides toward the mound to face David Freese, the New Madrid fault line finally ruptures, sucking not only Busch Stadium but the entire planet into a black hole as every last ounce of the Earth's luck will have finally run out.

Wait 'til next year. If there is one.