Every weekend college gameday rolls around. I look at what times the two teams I follow will play at and file it away. And then I go about my day as normal. Depending on the time, I'll look it up later and see how they're doing or did. And that's it.
I can respect football as a sport. I still struggle in respecting many of the players for various reasons that I still have problems with Major League Baseball as well. But football I always approach at a distance, I've just never been THAT interested, and college football even moreso. This is all while growing up in Mississippi, a state entrenched in college football rivalry between MSU and Ole Miss. Part of it is my parents never watched football, so that opportunity wasn't there. Eventually I did have friends who watched football, but even being at every football game in band, and having days off and free tickets to the see the game of my college team, Southern Miss, I never went. I did, however, take some tailgater's tray of chicken fingers. I'm sorry.
Anyway, I still approach it with nonchalance, but I actually follow Southern Miss more now than I did then. At first it was just to see if we'd win a game last year, when we were doing so bad. I'd like them to do well, but I recognize that as an uphill battle. So one game at a time guys. Living in Austin, TX, it's hard not to be a supporter of UT, and they've fallen a bit at the start of this year to the point that both them and USM have the same record of 2-4. I feel like some type of balance set in. But in the end, I'm still not that concerned. I'll check in, great. If not, eh, it happens. I mean, I like it better than basketball. But not more than hockey, or lacrosse for that matter. But I follow teams in football where I don't in the other two sports. I don't have a good explanation for it, I'm just here as a fan. Not "here as a fan," but "just here."
SHIFTING GEARS
We're in the playoffs! For lots of folks. We started off with the Netherlands getting things going, and have moved into the MLB, the NPB, and the CPBL all running their finals around the same time! It's exciting, but that's how baseball goes, there's a few leagues all running around the same time. You just never noticed before, did you? Tut-tut.
Anyhow, one thing I was very excited about as a follower of the international game is the re-emergency of the Chinese Baseball Association/League in mainland China. In the past two World Baseball Classics, the national team had at least edged out one win, one of which came against fierce rivals and IBAF ranked #4 Chinese Taipei. However, when gathering my top 30 league info a month or so back, I found out the league had folded or put on hold back in 2011. Now, after a few false starts, they seem ready to roll again, in the form of a smaller 4 team tournament. I'm excited.
Neighboring Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) is also in the playoff range, two teams playing each other as they have all year. I think there's a certain admirability to their persistance. They've played a full season, and there's only 4 teams in the whole league. So each team knows so much about each other, there's no way it's not intimate.
There's a little tournament running through Barcelona the next two days, featuring players from teams representing the Catalonia and Navarre regions of Spain, as well as from the North Italian baseball teams, and the Italian All-Stars. It's the 20th annual "City of Barcelona" Tournament, and it's just held over these two days. Each team played a game on Friday, two games today, and then there'll be the 3rd place and championship games on Sunday. Very quick tournament, and there's a bit of video footage of the games at this website here.
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