FanNation - The Republic of Sport

Monday morning, and the only sounds are the horrific din of me eating a doughnut and drinking too-hot coffee.  The page finally loads on my laptop and I can surf the CNN/SI pages for football-related articles, and eyeball a few cheerleader photos.  With 30 minutes to kill before work, I click the tab for "football," and endure my Monday Morning Horror.

There it is, lurking on the page like a canker sore you'd rather not see in the mirror; it is something you try to miss, yet which demands attention.  There is the brightly-colored link to Peter King's "Monday Morning Quarterback" article.  We all love it.  We cannot get enough of it.  We have made Peter a wealthy man, in our need for that between-weekend fixes of football kibbitz.  But the pain, the agony...  Ah, the humanity.

Like a man walking to the gallows, I click the link and begin the read.  Since I am a man far above plagiarism and not given to a great real of typing enthusiasm, here below is my own digested version of Peter's latest MMQB article (note that regardless of the date you read this blog, below is indeed the digest for Peter's latest MMQB article..).

"Never before has the love of one man for a football franchise burned as hotly as it does right now within my breast for the New England Patriots.  It would take a bag of kitty litter to control what happens in my trousers any time my eye catches a glimpse of that swooshy blue and silver logo.  The Patriots can cure cancer.  They can beat up Chuck Norris and Mr. T.  They can tug on Superman's cape, spit into the wind, pull the mask off that ol' Lone Ranger, and slap the piss outta Jim.  The Patriots can divide by zero, prove the unified theory of physics, and are just a great bunch of sagacious, mature, and noble role models.  God, how I wish one were my father.  I unconditionally have given my daughter's hand in marriage to whomever among the Patriots should court her, and would be willing to forgive my wife should she stray with a Patriot.  If a Patriot had a pet dog, I am sure it would win all dog shows.  If a Patriot had a pet cat, I am sure it would be the ultimate mouser.  Patriots big.  Patriots good.  Patriots him my father."

My favorite moment of reading Peter King was a "mail response" article wherein a mailer had rather sardonically asked Peter why he disliked the Patriots.  King responded as if it were a genuine question, and pointed out the handful of articles wherein he spoke well of the Patriots.  I would become an instant fan of King again, forgiving his hideous bias, if he were to indicate that he knew the reader was joking and that he was joking too.  We're all fans; we all are irrational at the onset of all this, eh?  I do not expect professional writers to be immune (I wouldn't read them if they were).  I just expect them to at least try to be a little more tongue-in-cheek when they're allowing their fandom to influence their opinions.