[Business Day One] Stacks and Stacks of Letters!
I’ve got an awful lot of mail to get to and precious little time to get to it in. But before I jump into the Nerds On Sports mailbag, I have to get something off my chest.
I’ve followed the New York Giants since I was a wee lad. I saw one of the most stifling defenses of the past thirty years win two Super Bowls before I was ten years old. Since my tenth birthday, 
though, they haven’t given me much to cheer about. When I was 12, they released Phil Simms (who everyone in Jersey loved like a dear cousin) to make way for Dave Brown and Lawrence Taylor snorted his way out of football. Dave Brown then left so Danny “The Blind Gunslinger” Kannell could wreck my teenage years. Then Kent Graham came in and began firing 80 yard missiles that would often hurt the hands of the defenders that intercepted them. Kerry Collins, still fighting off that perpetual hangover he was in for most of the 90s, dragged the Giants into the 21st Century. There was a bright spot, though. They did make it to Super Bowl XXXV, during which the Baltimore Ravens reminded me what a stifling defense can do in the postseason. And then came Kurt Warner and Eli Manning a couple of unmemorable years later.
All the while I watched them intently. I would change the channel in disgust after every red zone interception that Graham threw, or every time Coach Jim Fassel would yell “Are you trying to get me fired?” at his players, but I’d always change it back. Every hope I ever had regarding the (perhaps “my”) Giants were dashed as soon after they formed. I hoped that the star tight end they drafted in 2002 wouldn’t end up being a racist moron. I hoped that one of the finest running backs in franchise history would keep his mouth shut. I hoped that Giants Stadium would eventually stop smelling like urine. My hope was always rewarded with crushing disappointment. My afternoons watching them play fair defense and awful offense for a decade felt like dreadful wastes of my time. Emotionally, I drifted from the team I always followed.
And then I moved to Boston in 2000, home of the Patriots (well, Foxboro, but who’s counting). There was an articulate and well-mannered quarterback at the helm, a coach that studied under The Grand Tuna, and a fanbase just as rabid and proud as the Giants’. It felt good to watch their games. I was never upset, even in the losses. It was a joy to see them play, which is a feeling I hadn’t felt watching football since the night my dad tossed me up in the air as Longwell’s kick went wide. I felt like a fan again…
And then the Giants had to beat the Buccaneers, Cowboys and Packers on the road, as the underdogs, in three straight weeks. They played inspired defense, the twangy and infuriating Eli Manning didn’t make mistakes, and they are now in the Super Bowl against the New England Patriots. Last night, as I went to bed, I actually asked myself why the Gods of Sport found it necessary to punish me in such a way. What the heck am I supposed to do now?
I don’t have an answer. But I do have answers to other questions, which is why I’m very blessed to have a stuffed mailbag in front of me. Let’s jump in, eh?
Dan (Somerville, MA) - Why can you never get decent beer at any professional sports arena?
-Simply put, because they don’t need to sell good beer to get you to pay eight bucks for it. Read more »
didn’t materialize at Gillette Stadium this weekend. Sure, I was 
team together, go on a journey, battle villains along the way, learn some lessons and eventually confront the Main Bad Guy in an epic final battle. The fine folks that programmed these games made assumptions about how strong your team would be (i.e. what level they were at) at any given point in the game and adjusted the relative difficulty of the villains accordingly. So, at the beginning of the game, you’d come across angry slime piles that would pose a challenge to a Level 5 team. At the halfway point, there’d be roving bandits that would threaten a Level 30 team. By the end, you’re throwing down with stone golems that’d give a Level 55 team the business. What I used to do is spend hours battling in minor skirmishes to built up my team’s level far beyond where the programmers figured I’d be at each step. So I’d be slaying those slime piles with all my heroes at Level 10, dispatching bandits at Level 45 and crushing golems effortlessly at level 70. I loved to be one step ahead of the game. I loved it to the point where I’d spent 15 or 20 hours over the course of my week walking back and forth in a forest fighting tree elves to level up. There’s just something about utter dominance over an enemy force that is so darned fun.
Thanksgiving has, over the years, evolved into the perfect storm of sloth and gluttony. The trip home is usually exhausting enough that you want to spend Thanksgiving Eve half asleep on an old high school buddy’s couch. The gut-busting feast on Thanksgiving Proper is filling enough to make you remain sedentary for all of that night, most of Black Friday, and at least half of that Saturday. The World of Sports has developed a symbiotic relationship with the World of Holiday Over-Indulgence, so as America digests, they can also watch early season NBA games, the final regular season college football games and the Packers take on the Lions. Not a bad way to spent time otherwise spent reconnecting with family. Anyway, all of this eating and sports watching put me in a position to make some pretty interesting observations:
