When You Love Sports But Hate Basketball

I watched basketball three times over the last decade.  For me, this was more than enough. Here they are, in order:

• I went to a Knicks game.  The year was 2001.  A lawyer I worked with asked me to go.  It was my first day on the job (as my previous post explained, this was one of the times I looked good.)  Now I know what you are thinking...don't shit where you eat.   But this was a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden...so the rule was allowed to be broken.  Our seats sucked.  I went home right after (I'm a lot of things but easy ain't one of them, especially when you sit in the nosebleed section). 

• TNT's coverage of Lebron James and the Heat against the Cleveland Cavaliers. "Akron Hates You" was the climax of the evening.  

• Carmelo Anthony's first game with the Knicks.  I AM a New Yorker so I HAD to.  If I hear Diddy's song "Coming Home" one more time I may just buy me a Knicks jersey!

Not even my love for Craig Sager and his dapper attire could force my fingers to type into my remote TNT on Thursday nights.

On a side note, there is not the right word in the English dictionary to describe my euphoria when Sager was part of the team that covered the Yankees during the ALDS and ALCS.  Say what you want about the idiocy of Smoltz and Johnson (Darling was on the 1986 Mets, so I can never say anything bad about him) Sager's presence was stellar.  Whether reporting on a controversial umpire call or accurately describing what some players ate for lunch; his coverage was always...in depth.  I attended Game 3 of the ALDS at Yankee Stadium and my seats where in the 400 section, but you know what I saw on the field?  That's right...Craig Sager and his suit. 

(If you have no idea who I am referring to, please google him.  You won't be disappointed.)

Back to the point of this blog entry.  As I anxiously await the beginning of baseball season, I find myself in a state of utter disgust and horror.  WHY???  My twitter timeline, Sportscenter, sportsradio shows, 3 or 4 or 100 television channels are all about basketball.  No not the NBA, but COLLEGE basketball.. COME ON MAN!!! 

I could care less about the mid-west, let alone their college basketball programs.  I asked friends who have never watched a college basketball game why they are filling out these "brackets."  "Football is over and baseball has not started."

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Even I am not desperate enough.