FanPost

September 4th, 2009 Daily Link Dump

While I sit here, sick out of my skull and yet still selling signs, I contemplate the futility of sports and the impotence in particular of my teams. I love the Oakland A's, The Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Cincinnati Bengals.

Not since Jerry Faust have I viewed the Irish with as much pity and contempt. Surely, they will be horrible again this season. My only sliver of hope is that they do poorly enough to get rid of the fat man. Their season starts this weekend.

The Bengals...well, being a Bengals fan is a unique experience that I would wish on no one, though it does give me empathy for the Royals fans of the world. I feel your pain. My team has been to the playoffs one time and had one winning season in the last twenty years. In that playoff game, hope lasted one offensive play before Kimo broke Carson Palmer. It seemed only fitting that an ex-Bengal would continue the curse. This off-season, my convict-happy Bengals signed Tank Johnson. I do not see the season ending well.

That brings us to our common ground. Upon my "wall of glory," I've removed the Miguel Cabrera Orlando Cabrera poster (he was an A for about three months). I've got the Jason Giambi AvoDerm poster up, some swag given to me by a sweet girl with magnets of Jason Kendall, Marco Scutaro, Mark Kotsay, Bobby Crosby, Eric Chavez and Justin Duchscherer. Of all of those players, only one has any chance of getting into another regular season game as a member of our team this season. And the rest have nothing but fleeting hopes.

Perhaps it's the fever talking, but I'm in a sport-related wasteland here. Sure, I can adopt surrogate teams--the Florida Gators, in particular, given my surroundings, provide me not only with comfort and winning, but also idle chatter conversation pieces to bring up while selling signs (you'd be surprised how uninspiring discussing the A's with the average Floridian is). But, it's not the same.

And you, dear DLD monkeys, what about you? Do you find yourself comforted in the arms of another? Another team you'd not like your AN buddies to know about? Repent and confess, lest surely ye be destroyed. Now dump child monkeys. Dump.