FanPost

The Dog Days: A Metaphorical Romp Through the Fires of Sports Hell



It's here.  Sweet whatever deity, prophet, small mammal, amphibious creature, or Mel Gibson (say what you want about the man, but the son of a bitch knows story structure!) you pray to, it's finally here.  We sit here on the eve of what may be the most glorious, exalted day of the year behind Texas - OU weekend and Penguin Awareness Day.  The month of August is aptly called "The Dog Days."  I have another name for this particular time period and the weeks prior: The Dog Days of Sport.

The day the NBA Finals ends and Lebron takes his trophy home (read: cries like a little bitch for his mommy back in Cleveland though he can never set foot in that city again) feels like I'm Andy Dufresne, and they're tossing my ass into Shawshank.  Unlike Andy, however, I'm more like his counterpart that sobs all night and screams, "I don't belong here!" before getting my ass whipped by the guards.  I'm innocent, and I know it, but I must survive my hell.  I claw through the calender in front of me one day at a time, just like Andy slowly picks away at that prison wall, knowing that there MUST be an end to this.  The MLB is the Sisters.  Every time I go to the laundry or film room (ESPN, Fox Sports, et cetera), it's there to beat me into submission and steal my dignity and manhood.  I wish I could tell you that I fought the good fight and the MLB let me be, but the Dog Days are no fairy tale.  The only difference is that I don't have the luxury of helping a guard avoid the IRS taking part of his inheritance who in turn beats the MLB until it can't walk anymore in return.  No, kids, I get pummeled in terrible places every. single. day. by SportsCenter highlights of this demon known as baseball (OK, I GET IT! YOU'RE ALL REALLY GOOD AT CATCHING F-ING FLY BALLS!).  But today...oh, today! How glorious of a day it is! Today is the day that I drop that last bit of dirt into the prison yard.  Today is the day I crawl to freedom through five hundred yards of shit smelling foulness (the rigors of my day).  Tomorrow's tailgating is when I go to every single bank and take the Warden's money.  Kickoff is when I'm on a beach and my old friend walks up out of nowhere.  That old friend is college football, and I can't tell you how much I've missed my friend.  Yes, my friends, today is a good day.

Ok, some of you seem lost.  Let's say you're not a movie goer. I respect that.  Let me see if I can frame it another way.  The Dog Days feel like I'm imprisoned in a glass, soundproof cube.  There are 50,000 speakers blaring on repeat a mix of Ke$ha, Rebecca Black, and Miley Cyrus (alright, we can just call it a top 40 station owned by Clear Channel). All the while, I see all of my friends who enjoy baseball and actually LOVE the dog days sitting outside of my box listening to The Sirens (minus the death and destruction) singing their renditions of Rush's 2112, The Beatles' Abby Road, Led Zeppelin's IV, and various Patsy Cline numbers.  I can see them enthralled by this beauty, but, alas, I cannot partake. I chose my hell a long time ago by not adopting baseball as a sport, and all I can do is watch the glass crack a little more every day from the musical diarrhea being fed to me.  But today, I see that the glass has finally reached its breaking point from the weeks of shrieking.  Today, my cube shatters!  I explode from my glass cage of emotion and join the jam session by playing an epic guitar solo while kicking a giant rhinoceros in the balls in front of a mushroom cloud!  It's amazing! The Sirens bow before my greatness!  The MLB falls into relative obscurity because people hate following a damned ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY TWO GAME SEASON! College football season enters the room and kicks off the most kick ass rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody the world has ever known!

As the music fades to black and the crowd of millions sits silent, in awe of the greatness they just heard, for the encore, the clouds part and the muse you prayed to above looks down upon this great nation and says "Let there be football!" 

My friends, today is a good day.  Hook 'Em.

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