Thursday, April 9, 2009

TO

Whats up? Thanks for stopping by and welcome to my blog. The idea for this blog was thought up over some gin and tonics at a wedding last summer. My hope is to mix some of my takes on the Jim Rome show with my love (hate) for being a Buffalo Sports fan. I think that the city of Buffalo and fans of Buffalo sporting teams have basically two voices for sports. WGR and the Buffalo News. I am hoping to grow this blog into an interactive forum where we can be real about what the hell is going on in this city with our sports teams.




The Buffalo Sabres have now missed the playoffs five of the past seven years. Amazingly, I no longer see girls in Ryan Miller jerseys, people with sabres flags flying from their cars, and most notably the players whom we all idolized and could do no wrong two years ago are now the whipping boys for a failed organization.



Buffalo has to be the biggest "band wagon" city in North America. The reason people in Buffalo get so low on their sports teams is because the people here get so high.



Buffalo will never be a New York City, Philadelphia, Dallas, Los Angeles, and any other big time market you want to throw in there. Some will say we should expect championships, others will contend that we should just be happy Buffalo has two major professional sports teams. It seems whatever camp you are in tends to be a losing battle

The problem with Buffalo is that sometimes we are a bit to willing to just accept failure. Whether it be our economy or our sports teams. We have a football team that has not gone to playoffs in over two presidential terms, a hockey team that has only made it twice in the past seven years...Yet we sell out the stadiums, buy the merch, and spend our days telling our friends "there is always next year."



















There is a guy name Lou who sits behind me at Bills games. He is a great, hard working guy, who has been coming to Bills games since the days of the rockpile. Towards the end of the season last year Lou just gave up. He stopped cheering, stopped swearing at the refs, and started to read the sports page during the game. It was during a TV time out that I turned around saw my fate. The game was out of hand, the Bills were now on the brink of being eliminated from the playoffs after a 4-0 start, and Lou was sitting in his seat with a blank look on his face. His face wasn't someone who bummed out over another losing season. It was the look of someone who knew that in his life he will never, ever, see a Superbowl brought home to Buffalo.






His pain and frustration was so evident it radiated off him. It was at that moment I knew that being a myopic Buffalo sports fan may literally be the death of me.

Quick Hits...
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T, Owens today was asked by a local reporter something along the lines of how he liked "Western New York?"....After spending the first half of the question talking about Toronto, TO had some very nice things to say about the area. This is pretty encouraging. Hopefully he can find a bit more places to eat than Willis "I Don't Even Tip at Applebee's" MacGahee.

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The Buffalo Bisons opened their season today. In a brillant marketing move the Bisons invited Gov. Patterson to throw out the first pitch and gave tickets away to several hundred folks whom had just lost their job. There is no word yet if the Bills plan on having a represenative from Rogers Communication flipping the coin at the Bills home opener or if a whole bevy of former CEO's of Bethlehem Steel will be leading the St. Patricks Day Parade next year through South Buffalo. Poor form Bisons. Those people who are down on their luck should have been allowed to "escape" at the ball park not be reminded of everything that is wrong with WNY. However, it was quite comical to see Byron Brown, Chris Collins, and Paterson all in line together. The only other line in Buffalo that has acheieved less is Thomas Vanek's line.
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Clay in Buffalo

1 comment:

  1. Solid work buddy! It's good to see you continue to Live the Dream. Over the past few years your takes on Rome have been thoughtful and unbiased. I think all of us BuffaloOwens ;) are happy to have such a strong voice in the community. Thanks and keep up the great work!

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