Other People Watching Sports

Last night there was a big basketball match between the local Celtics squad and a team from some other part of the country. Orlando? I'm going with Orlando. My roommate had informed me he would be having some friends over to watch the game and hang out. Growing up in New England, I know my average sportsfan, but it's been a long time since I've observed them in their natural habitat. Also, I haven't actually watched a sporting event in a long time. I don't hate sports, I just really don't care. I've been to games for all of Boston's big teams and had some good times at them (the last baseball game I was at was Lester's no hitter, so that was pretty special), it's just that over the years I've chosen to focus my attention on other things.

So, right off the bat (ha!), Peter get's a call from one of his friends informing him that he will only come over if it's guaranteed that every second of the game will be watched. No changing the channel to check something real quick, no turning down the volume while something is discussed. Basically total basketball focus or he won't come over. It was at this time that I attempted to convince everyone who was already there to tell him that we agree to this but then switch to a Bugs Bunny cartoon as soon as he arrived. I was unsuccessful, but you know that would've been hilarious. This is the kind of person I'm dealing with. And I dealt with it by getting gloriously drunk on vodka.

So I watched people watch the game, occasionally asking insightful questions like "OH MY GOD, how is this game still going on?" and receiving answers like "Dude, it's not even half time." People argued about which player is better and ate pizza and nothing exciting really happened. That's the important part. Nothing exciting happened. Remember the kid who demanded we watch every second? Turns out it didn't matter. The Celtics scored first, jumped out to an early 2-0 lead and never fell behind. The other guys never even got close, and it was dreadfully boring. There was never any suspense, no drama. Even if I liked basketball, I can't tell you that I would enjoy watching a game. Maybe just the highlights on the news or sportcenter or something. Actually, yeah, that's what I'd do. To put it in movie terms for myself, I guess it seems like a Michael Bay movie- tons of boring crap with the occasional cool explosion. Just string the explosions together and I'll watch that, I don't care about Shia LeBouf's story arc. Fortunately, last night's victory guarantees a whole new set of games for me to not be interested in.