The Long Dry Season Comes To An End

Have you seen Hidalgo? It's the story of a former Pony Express rider who takes his horse to Arabia and wins a mega-mile race through the desert. Again and again, you see him and his horse wandering slowly through the shifting sand, staring numbly at another thousand miles of nothing in front of them, no different than the nothing they've already passed.

Another scene, this time from the movie Alive. The premise: a plane full of soccer players crashes in the middle of the Andes. Besides eating a couple of their frozen buddies (can you say Donner donors?), they end up trekking their way out of the mountains. The scene: a few of them struggle painfully up the side of what they are sure is the last mountain in their path, only to reach the peak, gaze out beyond and discover more mountains as far as they can see.

The point in both of these scenes, or at least what they represent to me, is bleak, never-ending suffering. Hopelessness. Long, lonesome days and nights sprinkled with a smidge of despair. And, of course, the Major League Baseball Season.

Day after day, night after night. Nothing but meaningless game after game after game.

Come Saturday, though, they're be a new sheriff in town -- and he's a lot more exciting than his overpaid, steroid-laden, jock-scratching, sunflower-seed-spittin' brethren. His name: College Football. And each week, literally millions of rabid fans will cram into our nation's stadiums with beer and brats on their breath to watch him play.

Personally, I'm a Buckeye -- and there aren't many who are more rabid than our lot. Especially this year, with a preseason #1 ranking, two Heisman candidates and a genuine shot at another national title. But it doesn't really matter which team you follow. College Football is still the best game in town, bar none. Case in point: it doesn't need a silly fantasy league to make it more interesting, like the pros. This game is best played on the field -- not in the chatrooms.

So Go Bucks! And best of luck to Eyebrows' Irish (as long as they aren't playing us...even though we've owned them lately). ;-)