Smile-breaks
The San Diego Chargers Make it to 2009
Ohmigosh! They won! I can’t talk about the Chargers/Colts game, ’cause this goes to press before then, but meanwhile, I’m savoring the Sunday night win over Denver by a bunch of Chargers acting like real football players. Denver – well, Denver stumbled a lot. So now, by the skin of their helmets, the Chargers are the AFC West champs.
I sure hope this year’s not gonna be like last year. But made it to the playoffs. How’d that happen? It happened. Reward for suffering through The Fall of the Chargers. Last night they rose from the ten-yard line and ran, passed, intercepted and kicked for their lives and they beat the Bronco’s. Soundly.
And now we get to see what they do to the Colts. Until then I’m enjoying memories of a great game of fun football. Fun is watching a reverse – Quarterback Rivers handing off the ball to Jackson who flips it to Sproles who runs for the first down. Fun is watching Charger Cason reach over and grab the football as it pops out of the Bronco receiver’s hands. Fun is watching Sproles zig and zag down the field, head bobbing between the waistlines of the defenders. Fun is winning the game!
So I hope that’s what they do Saturday against the Colts. Not that I love football or anything, but it’s a great excuse to sit on the couch and yell. Yeah, I do love football. And baseball. Basketball – I used to love that in the small town I grew up in. It was the big sport of the town, because the whole town could fit in the high school gym and watch their sons, cousins, friends, friends’ kids, and classmates run up and down the court shooting, missing, shooting, rebounding, - whoa! A three-pointer! But San Diego doesn’t have a hometown team and if it did, I don’t think we could all fit in the gymnasium. So I’ll stick with football and baseball – Chargers and Padres.
We can’t possibly have another year as miserable as 2008. But then, the Padres are up for sale and Hoffman and Greene won’t be here and probably no Peavy, either. Who knows what this year will bring? If the Chargers could start us off with a Super Bowl win - wouldn’t that be a great standard to set? A World Series win for the Padres, a fifteen and one season for the Chargers…
Am I dreaming? A World Series win? I can’t even get my bracelet on. The clasp is impossible; the bracelet is beautiful. If I can’t even get a bracelet on, how can the Padres get a player on? I have more years of training in bracelet putting-on than any of the Padres have in base putting-on.
All this and the economy’s in worse condition than either the Padres or Chargers were last season. The whole world’s in a terrible state and sports are only something to cheer us up between news flashes of crises. Sometimes even sports can’t do that.
But right now, I’m waiting eagerly for the Saturday night Chargers/Colts game, hoping for one more riveting game. Hoping for a win that brings us to the next round. Hoping Rivers and Jackson and Phillips and Hester and – you know what? So many players come to mind from last week’s win that I don’t have room to list them all. Nice…
Whatever happens, we had a good December; we’re hoping for a Super January and maybe even a winning spring, summer and fall at the ballpark. Then we’ll hope the football season goes deep into 2010.
But more than anything, we hope 2009 brings peace and joy to the world.