Sooner04
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 15, 2009
- Messages
- 2,394
- Reaction score
- 239
I stand before you again, dear Lord, and I must say that I’m not real happy about having to be back in your presence. It’s been four years since I approached your almighty bench, and I’m still smarting from the utter lack of regard and consideration you gave my previous request. Sure, I thought you were open to it, and why wouldn’t I when you consider that what I asked for was happening just as I requested it. The team I wanted to win was winning easily, and the team I wanted so desperately to lose look out-manned and out-gunned.
And then you pulled the rug right out from under me. More missed free throws than a Blake Griffin instructional shooting video; more careless turnovers than a Carl Blair montage. And then, finally, the dagger three by a player I couldn’t stand to send a team I truly abhor into overtime where they ultimately won.
Thanks for being so kind.
And so I stand in front of you a mere four years later with another request. It’s a request that isn’t outlandish and, as a matter of fact, it’s well within reason. But to prove that I’m deserving of you hearing my plea I will once again detail the roaring stream of agony that is my sporting life. I think you’ll see that it may be time to throw me an oar to help me fight your current.
I love OU basketball, and in the four years since we spoke you threw me a powerful lifeline named Griffin. But just before you let us reach the peak of the mountain you clanged his brain against his skull and took him away for a couple of games. We lost them both. Instead of a #1 ranking and a slam-dunk 1-seed, we never regain our luster, drop to a two, and get stomped by North Carolina in the Elite 8. The rest has been rehashed over and over. We now suck. We suck worse than we have in two generations. Thanks for that.
The San Diego Padres, as you well know, are my baseball team of choice. I wear a brown and yellow cap showing my devotion for them just about everywhere I go. I know they suck, and I expect them to suck. But something weird happened in 2010: they were really good. In mid-August they had the best record in the NL and were a game or two away from having the best record in baseball. Then they lost ten in a row, TEN in a row, and missed the playoffs by a single game after losing on the last day of the season. No team who’d ever led their division or league so late in the season had EVER lost ten games in a row, but my team did. Then again, they’ve only been playing the game for 140 years. Thanks for that.
I trumpet the virtues of the Minnesota Vikings from all rooftops, never mind that they’ve lost each of the four Super Bowls they’ve played in or all four NFC Championship Games they qualified for in my lifetime. You made me believe in 2009 though, even while forcing me to watch my all-time least favorite quarterback, Brett Favre, turn in his green for purple. His performance was so transcendent that I decreed a Super Bowl appearance would cause my unborn son’s middle name to be Brett, but then that waffling dog threw a crippling pick as we drove into field goal range against the Saints, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Appreciate that.
My love for Greg Norman knew no bounds. My closet full of hideous Reebok shirts was a testimony for that, but I’d tucked all those memories away. No more Masters to lose, no more majors to be snatched away. And then, not long after my previous appearance before you, here comes the Shark out of nowhere to lead the 2008 British Open after 54 holes. Could it be? Could my man become the oldest to ever win a major championship? Of course not, and I was up at dawn to watch each of his 77 agonizing strokes en route to third. Lovely.
But then you turned the amp of angst up to 11. I’d loved the Seattle Supersonics since I was a little boy. Tom Chambers, Dale Ellis, Ricky Pierce, Detlef Schrempf, Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, Hersey Hawkins, Sam Perkins; the list goes on. You gave me great teams several times, but they either choked (’94) or ran into the buzzsaw of all buzzsaws (’96). But to wipe them from the face of the earth and move the ruins 25 miles up the road from me? Lord, that’s just cruel. Now they’re the “it” team of the NBA, tormenting me nightly with memories of what was and what will probably never be again. Fantastic!
And so here I am, back in front of you four years later, dear Lord. You’ve screwed me before, you’ve screwed me since, and I’m here to beg for one lifeline. One gentle breeze back to shore, dear Lord, is all I ask. From the fingertips of your calloused hands you’ve sent forth wave after wave of sporting misery my way, and I’m here to ask you for one night of calm waters. One reprieve from my dark and lonely world of losing and despair, dear Lord, and I’d like to think, no, I BELIEVE, I’ve earned it.
Just one request, dear Lord, and you can continue to dump crap all over my umbrella-less existence. Hear my plea, dear Lord. Hear it now and see it through.
Dear Lord, please don’t let Kansas win tonight.
And then you pulled the rug right out from under me. More missed free throws than a Blake Griffin instructional shooting video; more careless turnovers than a Carl Blair montage. And then, finally, the dagger three by a player I couldn’t stand to send a team I truly abhor into overtime where they ultimately won.
Thanks for being so kind.
And so I stand in front of you a mere four years later with another request. It’s a request that isn’t outlandish and, as a matter of fact, it’s well within reason. But to prove that I’m deserving of you hearing my plea I will once again detail the roaring stream of agony that is my sporting life. I think you’ll see that it may be time to throw me an oar to help me fight your current.
I love OU basketball, and in the four years since we spoke you threw me a powerful lifeline named Griffin. But just before you let us reach the peak of the mountain you clanged his brain against his skull and took him away for a couple of games. We lost them both. Instead of a #1 ranking and a slam-dunk 1-seed, we never regain our luster, drop to a two, and get stomped by North Carolina in the Elite 8. The rest has been rehashed over and over. We now suck. We suck worse than we have in two generations. Thanks for that.
The San Diego Padres, as you well know, are my baseball team of choice. I wear a brown and yellow cap showing my devotion for them just about everywhere I go. I know they suck, and I expect them to suck. But something weird happened in 2010: they were really good. In mid-August they had the best record in the NL and were a game or two away from having the best record in baseball. Then they lost ten in a row, TEN in a row, and missed the playoffs by a single game after losing on the last day of the season. No team who’d ever led their division or league so late in the season had EVER lost ten games in a row, but my team did. Then again, they’ve only been playing the game for 140 years. Thanks for that.
I trumpet the virtues of the Minnesota Vikings from all rooftops, never mind that they’ve lost each of the four Super Bowls they’ve played in or all four NFC Championship Games they qualified for in my lifetime. You made me believe in 2009 though, even while forcing me to watch my all-time least favorite quarterback, Brett Favre, turn in his green for purple. His performance was so transcendent that I decreed a Super Bowl appearance would cause my unborn son’s middle name to be Brett, but then that waffling dog threw a crippling pick as we drove into field goal range against the Saints, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Appreciate that.
My love for Greg Norman knew no bounds. My closet full of hideous Reebok shirts was a testimony for that, but I’d tucked all those memories away. No more Masters to lose, no more majors to be snatched away. And then, not long after my previous appearance before you, here comes the Shark out of nowhere to lead the 2008 British Open after 54 holes. Could it be? Could my man become the oldest to ever win a major championship? Of course not, and I was up at dawn to watch each of his 77 agonizing strokes en route to third. Lovely.
But then you turned the amp of angst up to 11. I’d loved the Seattle Supersonics since I was a little boy. Tom Chambers, Dale Ellis, Ricky Pierce, Detlef Schrempf, Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, Hersey Hawkins, Sam Perkins; the list goes on. You gave me great teams several times, but they either choked (’94) or ran into the buzzsaw of all buzzsaws (’96). But to wipe them from the face of the earth and move the ruins 25 miles up the road from me? Lord, that’s just cruel. Now they’re the “it” team of the NBA, tormenting me nightly with memories of what was and what will probably never be again. Fantastic!
And so here I am, back in front of you four years later, dear Lord. You’ve screwed me before, you’ve screwed me since, and I’m here to beg for one lifeline. One gentle breeze back to shore, dear Lord, is all I ask. From the fingertips of your calloused hands you’ve sent forth wave after wave of sporting misery my way, and I’m here to ask you for one night of calm waters. One reprieve from my dark and lonely world of losing and despair, dear Lord, and I’d like to think, no, I BELIEVE, I’ve earned it.
Just one request, dear Lord, and you can continue to dump crap all over my umbrella-less existence. Hear my plea, dear Lord. Hear it now and see it through.
Dear Lord, please don’t let Kansas win tonight.
