I have a question: Why is it so hard on NFL.com to find the records for "Most Explosive Plays in the First Six or Seven Weeks of a Season"?
I ask because John Gruden just declared that Philadelphia's DeSean Jackson "has more explosive plays in the first six or seven weeks of the season than any guy in NFL history," and I just thought I'd do some research to see whose record Jackson broke in this category.
I haven't watched a 'Monday Night Football' game since the first one of the preseason, which ended in more Gruden stupidity, specifically the coach "analyzing" a rather amazing finish to an otherwise meaningless game by saying, "Wow! Monday Night Football on my birthday!"
I just finished watching a tremendous "30 in 30" documentary about the USFL on an ESPN network, and then I turn to another and hear this nonsense. I can't believe it's the same network.
Update: Jackson just muffed the Redskins' punt. I think that's explosive. Therefore he has just put a little more distance between himself and his pursuers for the record.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
The Embassy Celebrates
My good friend Dave the Tall Jew spent about three years living on the West Coast in the years shortly after college, and I really would not have been surprised to see him stay there. He's such a laid-back guy, he would seem to fit in nicely in California.
Except for one thing: the guy's a die-hard Yankee fan. And when he moved back, one of the things he told me was how hard it was on him to be so far away from his Yankee-fan friends as the Bombers won three straight titles from 1998 to 2000.
I now know how he feels. I lived my entire life in the Greater New York area until last September. I had never been away from a place where the basic cable package included the Yankees' primary TV carrier. And I watched a TON of games. From 1985, when I was 12 years old, until 2007, I probably averaged about 120 games a year and never saw fewer than 100 (excluding the strike year of 1994).
Moving to Boston this year was not a test of loyalty. Watching the 1989-1992 Yankees was a test of loyalty -- passed with flying colors. This year was just a unique experience for this Yankee fan, but a common one for baseball fans of most any era. My Yankee-fan experience this year has been a mixture of post-modern, merely modern and positively ancient. A hundred years ago, fans who could not get to games followed their teams through the newspapers. I did that this year, though I read said papers online.
In the first decade of the 20th century, not only did newspapers post game stories and box scores, but some, during the World Series, would post giant displays on the sides of their buildings that showed the scores, the balls, strikes, outs and positioning of baserunners. If that sounds a little like MLB GameCast to you, you're 100% right. I followed plenty of games that way. I caught grainy broadcasts on AM radio, and those got a little easier to hear as the darkness came earlier and earlier as the season got later and later.
I made two long trips from Boston to New York to go to games at the new Yankee Stadium because I could not bear the thought of not going there this year. And yes, I even saw the Yankees play at the wondrous Fenway Park -- and let me tell you this: I don't like Red Sox fans, and I don't think they're the great fans that, well, THEY think they are. But the experience of being a sports fan in Boston is absolutely fascinating. It's just very hard for a Yankee fan to enjoy it because clearly we are not welcome -- though I did find a neighborhood bar around the corner from the Embassy that would let me watch the games there in relative peace.
But tonight's pennant-clinching win was a unique experience for me. I was always surrounded by other Yankee fans -- in 1998, by about 57,000 of them at Yankee Stadium. Tonight, I was in an apartment, alone, and not even in the same place in time as other Yankee fans, because I had to work and started watching the game on the DVR at about 9:45 or so.
So when I saw Mariano Rivera strike out Gary Matthews, it was an hour after it had happened and I was in the same empty apartment in a city full of sleeping Red Sox fans.
It also was an entirely different experience than any Yankee title I've been old enough to see -- which is to say, the ones that have come from 1996 on, as I barely remember the 1981 World Series and knew nothing prior to that other than Reggie and the Yankees were champions twice in my toddling years. I spent the 15 years leading up to 1996 not only wondering if I'd ever see the Yankees win a title but pretty well convinced I would not. So when they did, indeed, win that '96 championship, it was more satisfying than anything I could imagine. And when they won four more pennants and three more titles in the five years after that, it remained so sweet, because the taste of the years of not just failure but near incompetence remained fresh.
The last nine years have brought so much frustration, compounded by the newfound success of our chief rivals, that it has made the 1996-2003 glory seem so long ago, as the Yankees ceased to conjure fear, maybe even respect. And the Yankees spent and traded and rebuilt and reloaded and came up empty year after year.
But you knew something was different this year. You just felt like they had the right guys. Guys like the old Kevin Brown and the old Randy Johnson and the one-season teases Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright and the enticing but untested Jeff Weaver and Javier Vazquez -- you always knew these guys were the type that would be good pitchers on other teams but not aces on a Yankee staff that needed one. You knew that Jason Giambi would put up big numbers but come up short as a championship piece.
Enter C.C. Sabathia, who everybody in baseball knew was an ace; and A.J. Burnett, who is frustrating but does not have to be a No. 1 guy in New York; and Mark Teixeira, whose best years will not rival Giambi's but has made more great plays with his glove this month than Giambi has in his whole career.
And enter Nick Swisher, the posterboy for Moneyball. His batting average is not good, yet he's always on base and he hits home runs. I watched Sox fans berate him during batting practice before the first Yankees-Red Sox game this year at Fenway and scratched my head, knowing this is exactly the type of player Boston keeps digging up and plugging in, to great effect (Kevin Millar, anyone?).
And re-enter Melky Cabrera who struggled through an absolutely pathetic offensive season last year, finally suffering the indignity of a demotion to the minors three years into his major-league career. What a difference a dose of humility can make. Swisher, Cabrera and Brett Gardner are a great reminder of the importance of role players to a championship team. They are the guys who find a way to come through because nobody necessarily expects them to. They are not chokers when they fail, so they don't.
So yes, so much was different this year, both for me and for the Yankees. But the core of a New York pennant, now as a decade ago, is the same, minus O'Neill and Bernie. It's Andy Pettitte taking to the mound and showing you in the first inning that he's not getting beaten tonight. It's Jorge Posada's fiery leadership keeping everyone "grinding it." It's Mariano Rivera being completely dominant -- and in the rare instance that he fails, getting right back at it the next day and dominating again.
And it's Derek Jeter playing like a Hall-of-Famer again. So much was made this year about the fact that Jeter will make the Hall, but mostly because of his great "longevity" and "intangibles." No. That's not why. He has longevity and intangibles because he is a great player. Check out the numbers. The guy has a career batting average of .317 and an OPS of .847. His OPS in the postseason rises to .858. Is there anyone else in baseball you'd want up in a big spot? Me neither.
That leaves Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez's failure to come through for the Yankees has been documented well. Neither Rodriguez nor any Yankee fan -- or Yankee hater, for that matter -- needs to be reminded that Rodriguez's first year in New York coincided with the exact season in which the Yankees' 80-plus-year dominance of the Red Sox came to a pronounced interruption if not an end. No one has to be told of his collossal failures in the postseason leading to his being dropped to eighth in the batting order in the Yankees' last game of the 2006 Division Series against Detroit.
Rodriguez had failed in the clutch over and over, during the regular season as well. So when he put up a monster season in 2007, including what seemed like nightly big hits in big spots, it still was not enough to make you think he'd come through in the postseason, and he didn't.
But something was different this year. It started disastrously enough, with the public discovery of his steroid use, followed by hip surgery that kept him out until May and clearly hobbled him all year. But it became obvious that the steroid revelation made him want to keep his mouth shut and let his bat do the talking. It also appeared quite clear that being without some of his incredible physical ability made him realize that he'd be better off just blending in with his team, because he was not going to carry them on his own.
And then something funny happened: he did carry them. Mystique and Aura, thy names had never been Rodriguez -- until this month. Rodriguez's late-game heroics against the Twins and Angels might have stood out against the backdrop of his putrid post-season tableau from Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS right up through 2007, but they were right on par with his 2009 season, except for one thing -- through 2009, he was clutch, but his average said he was a lesser player. This month, he has been clutch, and he has been a superior player to everyone out there.
Yet he has blended in. The Fox cameras showed cutaway shots of almost everyone during the ninth inning of Game Six, as it was obvious, with a 5-2 lead and Rivera on the mound, that we were watching the countdown to a championship. It would have been understandable for Fox to keep flashing over to Rodriguez, inferring that Rodriguez's finally getting to the World Series was the story. They never did. Only after it was over did they show a tight replay of Alex's reaction to the final out -- mixed in with the same shot of Jorge Posada, Joe Girardi, Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, Mariano Rivera and Robinson Cano.
I think it's fitting that C.C. Sabathia won the series MVP award over the equally deserving Rodriguez. It might not have mattered, but maybe "ALCS MVP" is not a label Rodriguez needs. Maybe "Yankee third baseman" is best. That would make him the one thing that so many people have said, over the last six years, he is not.
A Yankee.
Except for one thing: the guy's a die-hard Yankee fan. And when he moved back, one of the things he told me was how hard it was on him to be so far away from his Yankee-fan friends as the Bombers won three straight titles from 1998 to 2000.
I now know how he feels. I lived my entire life in the Greater New York area until last September. I had never been away from a place where the basic cable package included the Yankees' primary TV carrier. And I watched a TON of games. From 1985, when I was 12 years old, until 2007, I probably averaged about 120 games a year and never saw fewer than 100 (excluding the strike year of 1994).
Moving to Boston this year was not a test of loyalty. Watching the 1989-1992 Yankees was a test of loyalty -- passed with flying colors. This year was just a unique experience for this Yankee fan, but a common one for baseball fans of most any era. My Yankee-fan experience this year has been a mixture of post-modern, merely modern and positively ancient. A hundred years ago, fans who could not get to games followed their teams through the newspapers. I did that this year, though I read said papers online.
In the first decade of the 20th century, not only did newspapers post game stories and box scores, but some, during the World Series, would post giant displays on the sides of their buildings that showed the scores, the balls, strikes, outs and positioning of baserunners. If that sounds a little like MLB GameCast to you, you're 100% right. I followed plenty of games that way. I caught grainy broadcasts on AM radio, and those got a little easier to hear as the darkness came earlier and earlier as the season got later and later.
I made two long trips from Boston to New York to go to games at the new Yankee Stadium because I could not bear the thought of not going there this year. And yes, I even saw the Yankees play at the wondrous Fenway Park -- and let me tell you this: I don't like Red Sox fans, and I don't think they're the great fans that, well, THEY think they are. But the experience of being a sports fan in Boston is absolutely fascinating. It's just very hard for a Yankee fan to enjoy it because clearly we are not welcome -- though I did find a neighborhood bar around the corner from the Embassy that would let me watch the games there in relative peace.
But tonight's pennant-clinching win was a unique experience for me. I was always surrounded by other Yankee fans -- in 1998, by about 57,000 of them at Yankee Stadium. Tonight, I was in an apartment, alone, and not even in the same place in time as other Yankee fans, because I had to work and started watching the game on the DVR at about 9:45 or so.
So when I saw Mariano Rivera strike out Gary Matthews, it was an hour after it had happened and I was in the same empty apartment in a city full of sleeping Red Sox fans.
It also was an entirely different experience than any Yankee title I've been old enough to see -- which is to say, the ones that have come from 1996 on, as I barely remember the 1981 World Series and knew nothing prior to that other than Reggie and the Yankees were champions twice in my toddling years. I spent the 15 years leading up to 1996 not only wondering if I'd ever see the Yankees win a title but pretty well convinced I would not. So when they did, indeed, win that '96 championship, it was more satisfying than anything I could imagine. And when they won four more pennants and three more titles in the five years after that, it remained so sweet, because the taste of the years of not just failure but near incompetence remained fresh.
The last nine years have brought so much frustration, compounded by the newfound success of our chief rivals, that it has made the 1996-2003 glory seem so long ago, as the Yankees ceased to conjure fear, maybe even respect. And the Yankees spent and traded and rebuilt and reloaded and came up empty year after year.
But you knew something was different this year. You just felt like they had the right guys. Guys like the old Kevin Brown and the old Randy Johnson and the one-season teases Carl Pavano and Jaret Wright and the enticing but untested Jeff Weaver and Javier Vazquez -- you always knew these guys were the type that would be good pitchers on other teams but not aces on a Yankee staff that needed one. You knew that Jason Giambi would put up big numbers but come up short as a championship piece.
Enter C.C. Sabathia, who everybody in baseball knew was an ace; and A.J. Burnett, who is frustrating but does not have to be a No. 1 guy in New York; and Mark Teixeira, whose best years will not rival Giambi's but has made more great plays with his glove this month than Giambi has in his whole career.
And enter Nick Swisher, the posterboy for Moneyball. His batting average is not good, yet he's always on base and he hits home runs. I watched Sox fans berate him during batting practice before the first Yankees-Red Sox game this year at Fenway and scratched my head, knowing this is exactly the type of player Boston keeps digging up and plugging in, to great effect (Kevin Millar, anyone?).
And re-enter Melky Cabrera who struggled through an absolutely pathetic offensive season last year, finally suffering the indignity of a demotion to the minors three years into his major-league career. What a difference a dose of humility can make. Swisher, Cabrera and Brett Gardner are a great reminder of the importance of role players to a championship team. They are the guys who find a way to come through because nobody necessarily expects them to. They are not chokers when they fail, so they don't.
So yes, so much was different this year, both for me and for the Yankees. But the core of a New York pennant, now as a decade ago, is the same, minus O'Neill and Bernie. It's Andy Pettitte taking to the mound and showing you in the first inning that he's not getting beaten tonight. It's Jorge Posada's fiery leadership keeping everyone "grinding it." It's Mariano Rivera being completely dominant -- and in the rare instance that he fails, getting right back at it the next day and dominating again.
And it's Derek Jeter playing like a Hall-of-Famer again. So much was made this year about the fact that Jeter will make the Hall, but mostly because of his great "longevity" and "intangibles." No. That's not why. He has longevity and intangibles because he is a great player. Check out the numbers. The guy has a career batting average of .317 and an OPS of .847. His OPS in the postseason rises to .858. Is there anyone else in baseball you'd want up in a big spot? Me neither.
That leaves Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez's failure to come through for the Yankees has been documented well. Neither Rodriguez nor any Yankee fan -- or Yankee hater, for that matter -- needs to be reminded that Rodriguez's first year in New York coincided with the exact season in which the Yankees' 80-plus-year dominance of the Red Sox came to a pronounced interruption if not an end. No one has to be told of his collossal failures in the postseason leading to his being dropped to eighth in the batting order in the Yankees' last game of the 2006 Division Series against Detroit.
Rodriguez had failed in the clutch over and over, during the regular season as well. So when he put up a monster season in 2007, including what seemed like nightly big hits in big spots, it still was not enough to make you think he'd come through in the postseason, and he didn't.
But something was different this year. It started disastrously enough, with the public discovery of his steroid use, followed by hip surgery that kept him out until May and clearly hobbled him all year. But it became obvious that the steroid revelation made him want to keep his mouth shut and let his bat do the talking. It also appeared quite clear that being without some of his incredible physical ability made him realize that he'd be better off just blending in with his team, because he was not going to carry them on his own.
And then something funny happened: he did carry them. Mystique and Aura, thy names had never been Rodriguez -- until this month. Rodriguez's late-game heroics against the Twins and Angels might have stood out against the backdrop of his putrid post-season tableau from Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS right up through 2007, but they were right on par with his 2009 season, except for one thing -- through 2009, he was clutch, but his average said he was a lesser player. This month, he has been clutch, and he has been a superior player to everyone out there.
Yet he has blended in. The Fox cameras showed cutaway shots of almost everyone during the ninth inning of Game Six, as it was obvious, with a 5-2 lead and Rivera on the mound, that we were watching the countdown to a championship. It would have been understandable for Fox to keep flashing over to Rodriguez, inferring that Rodriguez's finally getting to the World Series was the story. They never did. Only after it was over did they show a tight replay of Alex's reaction to the final out -- mixed in with the same shot of Jorge Posada, Joe Girardi, Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira, Mariano Rivera and Robinson Cano.
I think it's fitting that C.C. Sabathia won the series MVP award over the equally deserving Rodriguez. It might not have mattered, but maybe "ALCS MVP" is not a label Rodriguez needs. Maybe "Yankee third baseman" is best. That would make him the one thing that so many people have said, over the last six years, he is not.
A Yankee.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Swisher was out. Then he was safe!
If ever a make-up call actually made up for a blown call, it was in the top of the fourth tonight, as Nick Swisher was clearly out at second base on a pick-off throw but was called safe, and then was clearly safe tagging up at third on a would-be sac fly but was called out. So, no harm done. Obviously umpires don't try to miss calls, so there's not much to argue about these. It happened.
But here's something worth thinking about: perhaps MLB should expand video replay review to include tag-up plays. I'm never a fan of too much replay, but this is an instance where it would be welcome because: A) it's not going to happen that often; B) when it does happen, it often will be directly related to a run scoring or not scoring; and C) as we just saw, there really is no way an umpire can see this clearly. You just can't keep one eye on the outfielder making the catch and one on the foot of the baserunner making the tag. The umpire surely can't rely on sound the way he does when making a safe/out call at first base.
Admittedly, these plays aren't as important as home run calls, the only calls for which replay is used, but at least on those calls the umpire can focus right on the spot he needs to watch -- where the ball lands. He can see it or not see it, but at least he doens't have to pretend he saw two things happening at once as Tim McClelland did moments ago.
Meanwhile, C.C. may be pitching the best game of his Yankee career, and Alex Rodriguez just made Joe Buck look like a genius. Please, keep it going, boys!
But here's something worth thinking about: perhaps MLB should expand video replay review to include tag-up plays. I'm never a fan of too much replay, but this is an instance where it would be welcome because: A) it's not going to happen that often; B) when it does happen, it often will be directly related to a run scoring or not scoring; and C) as we just saw, there really is no way an umpire can see this clearly. You just can't keep one eye on the outfielder making the catch and one on the foot of the baserunner making the tag. The umpire surely can't rely on sound the way he does when making a safe/out call at first base.
Admittedly, these plays aren't as important as home run calls, the only calls for which replay is used, but at least on those calls the umpire can focus right on the spot he needs to watch -- where the ball lands. He can see it or not see it, but at least he doens't have to pretend he saw two things happening at once as Tim McClelland did moments ago.
Meanwhile, C.C. may be pitching the best game of his Yankee career, and Alex Rodriguez just made Joe Buck look like a genius. Please, keep it going, boys!
Monday, October 19, 2009
Final word on the "neighborhood play."
It amazes me how someone as intelligent and insightful about baseball as Tim McCarver is can completely whiff on an explanation the way he did Saturday night when Melky Cabrera was called safe at second as the umpire declined to invoke the "neighborhood" play.
McCarver and Joe Buck were incredulous that Cabrera could be called safe on the front end of what would have been a double play as Erick Aybar failed to touch second. Their logic was that Aybar was in the "neighborhood" of second base, and that umpires give the out to the defensive team on such plays, even if it appears the second baseman or shortstop might not have touched the base.
The problem with this argument is that the neighborhood play is invoked usually as the player is gliding across the bag, and it's not just for the protection of the fielder. It's because it's almost impossible for an umpire to determine if a foot gliding across a bag touches that bag or not.
Erick Aybar was not gliding across the bag. He was straddling the bag in a way that almost seemed intended to demonstrate to the umpire: "I refuse to touch this silly bag." Aybar obviously was not trying to avoid the bag, but he gave the umpire no choice.
McCarver and Joe Buck were incredulous that Cabrera could be called safe on the front end of what would have been a double play as Erick Aybar failed to touch second. Their logic was that Aybar was in the "neighborhood" of second base, and that umpires give the out to the defensive team on such plays, even if it appears the second baseman or shortstop might not have touched the base.
The problem with this argument is that the neighborhood play is invoked usually as the player is gliding across the bag, and it's not just for the protection of the fielder. It's because it's almost impossible for an umpire to determine if a foot gliding across a bag touches that bag or not.
Erick Aybar was not gliding across the bag. He was straddling the bag in a way that almost seemed intended to demonstrate to the umpire: "I refuse to touch this silly bag." Aybar obviously was not trying to avoid the bag, but he gave the umpire no choice.
Game Three underway
And that was a nice, loud cheer as Jeter crushed the third pitch of the game for a leadoff home run. Funny, I thought only Red S*x fans ever went on the road.
Fox has a mike on home-plate umpire Bill Miller and eavesdropped on a conversation in which Miller seemed eager to tell Jorge Posada how late his flight arrived and how little sleep he got. I wonder if Fox left out the part of the conversation in which Miller told Posada "I feel like an idiot for calling you out on strike two, but it was because I was so tired."
Fox has a mike on home-plate umpire Bill Miller and eavesdropped on a conversation in which Miller seemed eager to tell Jorge Posada how late his flight arrived and how little sleep he got. I wonder if Fox left out the part of the conversation in which Miller told Posada "I feel like an idiot for calling you out on strike two, but it was because I was so tired."
Friday, October 2, 2009
Giants Fan Returns to the Road
Football and barbecue. Only in America.
For the last five years I have traveled, usually with my old college friend Dave, in search of the best of both. Dave and I are Giants fans from opposite ends of the New York megalopolis, he from central New Jersey, me from southwestern Connecticut. He’s one of my best friends, but significantly, he’s my Giants buddy and BBQ compatriot.
We had Giants season tickets for the 1999 and 2000 seasons, which gave us a chance to see some amazing Giants games – remember Big Blue’s 41-0 slaughter of the Vikings in the NFC Championship Game? We also used those times to perfect the art of tailgating. There is very little that has walked or swum that did not find its way to our grill. Bison burgers. Shark steaks. Turtle soup. Scallops and bacon (which makes for a spectacular grease fire, for all my fellow pyros out there!). Even mulled cider spiked with Captain Morgan.
There is nothing, however, like perfectly slow-cooked barbecue. I’m talking about ribs and chicken thighs cooked in the vicinity of low-temperature wood smoke for hours until that nice pink ring develops just below the surface – and the meat’s flesh breaks down to a wonderful, buttery texture. That’s barbecue.
I first fell in love with this most uniquely American style of cooking in college, when I spent what little disposable income I had at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, a Syracuse rib joint with snarky attitude and food so good that upon being told that the waiting time for a table was 2 hours and 45 minutes, I would instantly respond, “Cool. I’ll be at the bar.” It wouldn’t even occur to me to leave.
Barbecue, of course, is not indigenous to the Northeast. Great “Q” is tough to find in the New York metro area and nearly impossible to find in Boston. The best of it is located in America’s heartland.
Just like real football tradition.
Dave and I had two memorable seasons of attending all of the Giants’ home games. They were also two very tiring seasons. Getting up at 7 a.m. on a Sunday, often after the type of Saturday night a single guy in his 20s typically spends, to prep food and pack a cooler and a grill and various layers of clothes and chairs and a table and a football and driving 75 minutes to the Meadowlands for a few hours of cooking and drinking and sweating while chasing down a football, followed by the game, followed by possibly a few more hours of tailgating or a few hours of gridlock or BOTH! Then getting home at 8 and unpacking everything. Then doing it again a week or two later, eight times in four months. It’s absurdly fun, but more than a little exhausting.
I know I speak for Dave when I say that I would do it again in a heartbeat – for face value. But in 2001, with the economy in a downturn and both of us trying to rein in our spending, we decided two years was enough for us of paying a premium – albeit a fair one – for tickets. Since then we have gone to a game here and a game there when tickets have become available at face value.
We also started developing an appreciation for Giants road trips. Through connections of friends, we ventured to Philadelphia, Baltimore and New England for Giants games – all losses.
But in 2004, Dave had a more ambitious idea. He’d been dying to see Green Bay’s legendary Lambeau Field. The Giants played there that year. I needed no convincing.
And, I’m glad to say, Dave needed no convincing when I suggested that a good way to spend the Saturday before the Giants-Packers game would be to go to a big-time college game. A Big Ten game. Wisconsin-Illinois at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison.
If you’ve never been to a major college football game, you need to do so. Immediately. The atmosphere surrounding one of these games blows the NFL experience away. Don’t believe me? Try it. Go to one of each in a single weekend. For me, the only reason I could even get excited about Sunday’s game after the electricity of Saturday’s is because the Giants were playing.
This was confirmed each of the next three years. We headed to Texas in 2005, and saw an exciting Giants-Cowboys game featuring an Eli Manning fourth-quarter comeback to force overtime. Yet my primary memories of that weekend involve Bevo, “Texas Fight” and Vince Young leading the soon-to-be national champion Longhorns to a rout of Colorado in Austin – after a stop in some little Texas town for some roadside barbecue, of course.
Likewise the following years. Giants victories in the sterile, corporate environs of the Georgia Dome and Ford Field are happy memories, yet they leave less of an impression than the giddy, raucous Alabama and Ole Miss fans among whom we sat at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, or the Ohio State and Michigan marching bands, who showed us at the Big House that those schools’ famous rivalry is steeped not just in hatred of one another as in respect by playing the other school’s fight song.
This year, however, there will be no college game for us – but there will be no post-modern NFL stadium, either. Instead, we’ll be at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium, and I anticipate this may be the last place left outside Green Bay where the aura of the game, and the tailgate, will rival that of a college clash.
And it will bring us back to our barbecue roots. Kansas City is the mecca of barbecue, and home of this weekend’s American Royal Barbecue contest. I’ve wanted to go to one of these for years, and it’s about to happen. I already have contacted a BBQ contest entrant known as “Mr. Bones” and asked to be included on their VIP list for the big “Friday Night Party.” Beer will flow and football will be discussed – I think – as the crew practices "smoking" in advance of Saturday night's main event, to be judged late Sunday morning.
By Sunday, we’ll know more about ribs and brisket than we ever thought possible, and maybe we’ll put some of that knowledge to work at the Arrowhead tailgate.
In short, it will be a weekend-long tribute to meat and football. Tell me that isn’t every man’s dream.
For the last five years I have traveled, usually with my old college friend Dave, in search of the best of both. Dave and I are Giants fans from opposite ends of the New York megalopolis, he from central New Jersey, me from southwestern Connecticut. He’s one of my best friends, but significantly, he’s my Giants buddy and BBQ compatriot.
We had Giants season tickets for the 1999 and 2000 seasons, which gave us a chance to see some amazing Giants games – remember Big Blue’s 41-0 slaughter of the Vikings in the NFC Championship Game? We also used those times to perfect the art of tailgating. There is very little that has walked or swum that did not find its way to our grill. Bison burgers. Shark steaks. Turtle soup. Scallops and bacon (which makes for a spectacular grease fire, for all my fellow pyros out there!). Even mulled cider spiked with Captain Morgan.
There is nothing, however, like perfectly slow-cooked barbecue. I’m talking about ribs and chicken thighs cooked in the vicinity of low-temperature wood smoke for hours until that nice pink ring develops just below the surface – and the meat’s flesh breaks down to a wonderful, buttery texture. That’s barbecue.
I first fell in love with this most uniquely American style of cooking in college, when I spent what little disposable income I had at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, a Syracuse rib joint with snarky attitude and food so good that upon being told that the waiting time for a table was 2 hours and 45 minutes, I would instantly respond, “Cool. I’ll be at the bar.” It wouldn’t even occur to me to leave.
Barbecue, of course, is not indigenous to the Northeast. Great “Q” is tough to find in the New York metro area and nearly impossible to find in Boston. The best of it is located in America’s heartland.
Just like real football tradition.
Dave and I had two memorable seasons of attending all of the Giants’ home games. They were also two very tiring seasons. Getting up at 7 a.m. on a Sunday, often after the type of Saturday night a single guy in his 20s typically spends, to prep food and pack a cooler and a grill and various layers of clothes and chairs and a table and a football and driving 75 minutes to the Meadowlands for a few hours of cooking and drinking and sweating while chasing down a football, followed by the game, followed by possibly a few more hours of tailgating or a few hours of gridlock or BOTH! Then getting home at 8 and unpacking everything. Then doing it again a week or two later, eight times in four months. It’s absurdly fun, but more than a little exhausting.
I know I speak for Dave when I say that I would do it again in a heartbeat – for face value. But in 2001, with the economy in a downturn and both of us trying to rein in our spending, we decided two years was enough for us of paying a premium – albeit a fair one – for tickets. Since then we have gone to a game here and a game there when tickets have become available at face value.
We also started developing an appreciation for Giants road trips. Through connections of friends, we ventured to Philadelphia, Baltimore and New England for Giants games – all losses.
But in 2004, Dave had a more ambitious idea. He’d been dying to see Green Bay’s legendary Lambeau Field. The Giants played there that year. I needed no convincing.
And, I’m glad to say, Dave needed no convincing when I suggested that a good way to spend the Saturday before the Giants-Packers game would be to go to a big-time college game. A Big Ten game. Wisconsin-Illinois at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison.
If you’ve never been to a major college football game, you need to do so. Immediately. The atmosphere surrounding one of these games blows the NFL experience away. Don’t believe me? Try it. Go to one of each in a single weekend. For me, the only reason I could even get excited about Sunday’s game after the electricity of Saturday’s is because the Giants were playing.
This was confirmed each of the next three years. We headed to Texas in 2005, and saw an exciting Giants-Cowboys game featuring an Eli Manning fourth-quarter comeback to force overtime. Yet my primary memories of that weekend involve Bevo, “Texas Fight” and Vince Young leading the soon-to-be national champion Longhorns to a rout of Colorado in Austin – after a stop in some little Texas town for some roadside barbecue, of course.
Likewise the following years. Giants victories in the sterile, corporate environs of the Georgia Dome and Ford Field are happy memories, yet they leave less of an impression than the giddy, raucous Alabama and Ole Miss fans among whom we sat at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, or the Ohio State and Michigan marching bands, who showed us at the Big House that those schools’ famous rivalry is steeped not just in hatred of one another as in respect by playing the other school’s fight song.
This year, however, there will be no college game for us – but there will be no post-modern NFL stadium, either. Instead, we’ll be at Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium, and I anticipate this may be the last place left outside Green Bay where the aura of the game, and the tailgate, will rival that of a college clash.
And it will bring us back to our barbecue roots. Kansas City is the mecca of barbecue, and home of this weekend’s American Royal Barbecue contest. I’ve wanted to go to one of these for years, and it’s about to happen. I already have contacted a BBQ contest entrant known as “Mr. Bones” and asked to be included on their VIP list for the big “Friday Night Party.” Beer will flow and football will be discussed – I think – as the crew practices "smoking" in advance of Saturday night's main event, to be judged late Sunday morning.
By Sunday, we’ll know more about ribs and brisket than we ever thought possible, and maybe we’ll put some of that knowledge to work at the Arrowhead tailgate.
In short, it will be a weekend-long tribute to meat and football. Tell me that isn’t every man’s dream.
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