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Morrisseyweb Blogs
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I consider it an honor and a privilege to stand in for a friend who has suffered the loss of a friend - something I think we can all relate to.
This should be prime time for me - The NHL playoffs, the NBA season is wrapping up, baseball has just started. But I'm caught in a funk. I think the NHL season is too long, as are the playoffs, I couldn't care less about the NBA - particularly this year, a truncated season AND a bloated playoff structure - and the Red Sox kind of suck. There are other things going on - the MLS season is in full swing as is soccer around the world, the Boston Marathon is run this week - but I'm just not having it.
Did I really see the Pens and Flyers played to an 8-5 game? 13 goals in a playoff hockey game? I'm not here to rant against the NHL and the bloated playoff system - particularly since Pittsburgh is probably one of the best teams on the ice right now - but it seems to me that 1) Stanley Cups should not be won in June; 2) the league is too big and; 3) what the hell are they doing playing hockey in Florida and Texas? 13 goals would typically indicate a couple of teams that have no goal tending and have no shot at the cup, so why are they even in the mix, but that's not the case here. I suppose it could be a fluke, but I'm more convinced it has more to do with the whole league making the playoffs. No offense to anyone, but I'll wait til the next round to get excited.
The day after the Bruins had been wiped out of the playoffs by the Flyers, I wore my Bruins t shirt - and got hassled for it. Yet, they win in the playoffs, and the pink hats climb out of the woodwork. If you're going to hassle me after they lose you don't get to cheer them on when they win. Sully and I were wondering, how many pink hats would know what I meant if I was waxing poetic about Grapes on the Bruins bench.
I know this isn't a big soccer site, but on Saturday Piermario Morosini, an Italian Serie-A player suffered a cardiac arrest during a game and died. 25 years old. Can you imagine watching a game, seeing a man collapse, and learn later that he had died? I've seen some messed up stuff, but I've never seen that.
Monday marks the Boston Marathon and early baseball here in the Hub. Me? I can't wait...for the baseball. Running couldn't interest me less. But I guess enough people are into it to make it worth while, but don't think it hasn't escaped my attention that John Hancock life insurance sponsors the marathon - perhaps they've been paying attention to Italian soccer. I have a friend or two running Monday, so I'll feign interest, but...no, not so much.
My beloved Red Sox are screwing the pooch again. It's still early, but this IS kind of the way last season started out. I'm pretty sure as a group they looked at the schedule and said, "you know, we came within a game of making the playoffs last year, so let's just win 1 more game...." It's brutal. I get a text message after every game, and I have to tell you it gets old reading "the Boston Red Sox have lost to..." Yeah, yeah. I know the drill.
We like to complain about our teams when they sign 90-year old outfielders (can you say Johnny Damon), and I definitely like to complain about the NHL and whatnot, but at the end of the day, its our relationships that matter most. I know Norman is hurting right now and that kind of hurt doesn't just go away. Take the time to make sure the people in your life know you love them. Piermario won't have that chance. Everything else is just the details - before strapping on your sneakers for the marathon, make sure you let your loved ones know how you feel. THEN go out and kick ass.
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Starfleet to scoutship, please give your position, Over.
A little over three years ago now, the friends I had grown to know only via words on a computer screen were some of the most thoughtful in reaching out to me when my dad passed away - someone they had only heard of because they took the time to read my writing. That meant a lot to me. Fast forward to February 2011, one of our own has passed on and again that same community has gathered around to support one another.
As someone who has been graced with the support of this community, it doesn’t surprise me at all. Jud was such a superior contributor - the resident NFL history expert, paying homage to all the greats who had come before - it is only fitting then that we remember and pay homage to the greatness we shared and make sure those who come later remember him.
Although your world wonders me, With your majestic and superior cackling hen
Your people I do not understand, So to you I shall put an end
And you'll Never hear Surf music again
Death is indeed part of life. Jud spent a lot of time looking back in time at the greats of ages gone by, and he knew that someday he too would be a part of history, but I’m quite sure no one would have expected him to be gone so soon.
Today, Freddie Solomon, San Francisco 49ers wide receiver and two-time Super Bowl Champion, passed away at age 59 from colon and liver cancer. Like Judson, how you remember Solomon him says as much about you as it does him. Jud was a sports enthusiast and a military enthusiast. 3rdStone/CrazyCantonCuts to us, “Truthy” to others. Solomon is remembered in San Francisco as being Joe Montana’s primary receivers. He’s remembered in his hometown of Tampa Florida for his work with foster kids and his work in the county Sheriff’s office.
We remember the contributions to our lives. I think that is one of the reasons I follow sports - I want to see achievement and to remember those achievements. I want to be able to share those contributions. Thank you to all the Gabbers who have remembered Jud because you’ve helped me remember why I love writing and reading. I can’t imagine a better community than this one.
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Every now and again, we experience that sudden loss of something we had taken for granted. The kind of feeling when we return to a childhood home after many years away to find so much has changed, forever rearranging our memories and pictures of that place. That old elm tree that stood in the front yard, so big and tall that it stands in the background of all your childhood memories only to return back to find it long since gone, and you know you’ll never see those scenes quite the same way again. Some of it is the simple passage of time, of aging. Some of it is that simple neglect that keeps you from renewing the images as they slowly change. It’s that sudden jolt that changes everything - all at once.
And so it went today with a simple text message. Someone I had once considered a friend, if not a mentor and someone to look up to, had passed away weeks ago. I guess I had just presumed he would be there - and he was, with regularity he would share his thoughts right on schedule. One of the most gifted and knowledgeable amateur authors one is likely to come across. Yet, I hadn’t been there to appreciate his well thought out words and passionate discourse. He had been there all the while, yet I was not.
Mere hours before he suffered what was to be a fatal stroke, he had spent time reading the work of others and expressing his thoughts. And then, silence.
It was in this sudden realization he would no longer be sharing his knowledge and passion that I realized how much I had missed. I not only missed taking in his words as he wrote them, but I realized how much more he would never write. I learned he was not much older than am I and how quickly life can change. I learned he had three children, who would never have the memories of their father that I was able to have of mine.
It was striking to me how many lives this man had touched, even though he touched them without knowing them, reading the comments on the online obituary guestbook speaking to him. I, too, added my thoughts, but I addressed them to his children. Somehow I needed to let them know that he had left so much to share with them, and somewhere I hope for him, that they can see how knowledgeable and funny their father was and maybe take some of his passion for their own as they grow, and build and renew their bond with their dad. In hope they never look back on some random Thursday and realize how much everything had changed around them - like I had today.
Judson, “3rdStone,” I am so sorry I have not made more time to read your words while you were here. You were one of a kind. You allowed us to share your passion and humor. Your words had power, and you shared what you knew with us through those powerful words. Rest in peace, my friend. Your pen may now be quiet, but your words continue to be heard. The truth hurts, like freedom. The truth you're gone hurts, like freedom.
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Super Bowl XLVI marks the 5th Super Bowl rematch and the third rematch of Super Bowl Quarterbacks.
The Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys have matched up three times – with Terry Bradshaw and Roger Staubach meeting two of those times. The Cowboys have met the Bills twice – with Troy Aikman meeting Jim Kelly twice. There have also been two each of Dolphins/Redskins and Bengals/49ers tilts.
The news for Tom Brady is not good. In the first two rematches of Super Bowl quarterbacks, the same man won both games: Bradshaw and Aikman won. For the man with 3 Super Bowl rings, the thought of losing another Super Bowl to Eli Manning – the man who has a ring already against Brady’s 18-1 Patriots – must be as much a driver as the pursuit of his favorite ring, “the next one.”
On the other hand, the news for the Patriots is not quite as grim, albeit not good. Of the rematches, the Cowboys have won 1 of the 3 games, and the Dolphins and Redskins each split. The Cowboys victory in Super Bowl XXX was the most recent split of rematches. So there is some hope.
Overall it shakes down like this:
Pittsburgh 2 (Bradshaw – 2) – Dallas 1 (Staubach – 0)
Miami 1 – Washington 1
Dallas 2 (Aikman – 2) – Buffalo 0 (Kelly – 0)
San Francisco 2 – Cincinnati 0
We forget how dominant the Bills of the early 1990’s were because they just couldn’t seal the deal – their first visit a 1-point loss to the same New York Football Giants the New England Patriots will face in Super Bowl XLVI. And here is where history repeats itself. But for an improbable sequence of events in Super Bowl XLII, the Patriots would be coming into this rematch with history on their side and an historic season behind them. Had Scott Norwood placed a kick true to the posts in Super Bowl XXV, the Bills would have done down as the 1990’s most dominant teams and they would have 1 Lombardi trophy to show for their remarkable run.
In a game pairing the game’s best teams, the slightest error in judgment or execution over the course of a 60-minute game can be the deciding factor. Will this third matchup of Super Bowl quarterbacks have a different result? This is why the game is played.
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A week or so ago, I wrote that it had been some 4-years since I was as excited as I was leading up to the AFC Championship game and for that I took some grief. I decided this was something I wanted to explore.
15 or 20 so years ago, I was excited EVERY WEEK for that weeks' Patriots game. It was never about wondering by how much they would win - it was about IF they'd win, it was about the game. A childhood friend of mine is Cleveland born and bred - don't ask then how we are childhood friends, just accept it to be true. Each week he bemoans the sorry state of the Browns, and every week I assure him of two things: 1) the only way to truly enjoy the really good times is to be a part of the bad; 2) just enjoy the game, that's what it is about.
Sure, over the last 10 years, it's been pretty easy to be a Patriots fan. Sure there have been some amazing moments, but my second thought after Adam Vinatieri's kick parted the uprights as the clock expired in Super Bowl XXXVI, was that nothing would be the same again. Before that moment, every Sunday more-or-less I could count on Sunday at 1. Before that moment, you had to be in New England to get your hands on a t-shirt or jersey.
I was excited EVERY week. I remember the way the 2001 season progressed - in the aftermath of 9/11, that season was one of the most magical seasons I can remember. I went to the Rams/Patriots tilt at the old Foxboro Stadium, telling my wife that this game would be the Patriots Super Bowl and feeling pretty good that although they lost that game, they played well and could've won. Patriots fans were allowed to be homers, because the team were losers and it just didn't matter. Now, we're lumped in with those detestable 49ers fans of the 1980s. I went to see the Pats play in Cleveland last season, a game they shouldn't have lost, but did, and basically had to show my Massachusetts credentials to Browns fans so I could demonstrate I had a "right" to wear the gear.
So, yeah, I view it as a loss that it had been that long since I had been excited about watching a game. No, I don't see myself as a "spoiled fan." Fans of the Lions, Browns, et al. have never had a Super Bowl to cheer - they have however had NFL Championships to cheer. They're in a down time. At this point in their histories, now is the time the true fan is born - see someone wearing Browns gear, and you know they're a fan. See someone wearing Pats gear, you have no idea - make them show you their credentials. I'm beyond happy to have had the opportunity to witness what I have over the last 10 years - don't get me wrong. I do miss, though, having that excitement that on Sunday at 1, my favorite team was going to play. If your team is in a drought, man up and cheer them on. When their time comes, it will make that glory that much more wonderful.
I can't wait for kick off next Sunday. I'm excited to see my team play in the Super Bowl. I make no apologies for it - I haven't earned it, but I invested when stock was low and I'm sure as hell taking advantage of my stock options. When your team's stock is low, BUY BUY BUY. It makes the payoff that much more sweet.
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