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October 30, 2006
sports bigamists
An old girlfriend had a system in roulette. It primarily consisted of her sitting at the table and looking beautiful until some rich dolt tried to ply his way into her pants by placing an enormous bet on her behalf.
"Dinner's on me!" she'd say later, clutching fistfuls of cash.
Until the dolt materialized, she had another system. She bet on everything. For any given spin, she'd have a dozen stacks of chips out there. Some on odd numbers, some on numbers outright, some straddling numbers, some on rows of numbers. The idea, she explained, was to hedge her losses by betting on as many outcomes as possible. She never won big, but it also took her a long time to go bankrupt. And she had the satisfaction of winning on nearly every spin.
I think of her whenever someone tells me that they're a Seahawks fan and a Rams fan, with a side bet on the Dolphins, and they grew up a Colts fan, so they claim them too, especially when they're winning. This fan, too, is someone who bets on as many outcomes as possible. This fan wants to win on nearly every spin.
Bubba is like that. He's a sports polygamist. A renaissance fan. This Football Weekend, we're seeing no less than four teams he claims as his very own: the Seahawks, 49ers, Falcons, and Panthers. 
I wanted to get window flags for our rental car. My window would fly the Steelers' colors, of course, but I had no idea what to get for his side. Does the whole NFC conference have a flag?
I don't get it, and he doesn't get my not getting it.
Those of us who marry a team during childhood—and stand by them faithfully, for better and (mostly) worse—have little regard for sports bigamists. We're content to let them exist as inconsequential background noise, but invariably, these people want to talk trash. When the Steelers lose, the gloating mail comes in.
This is exactly as meaningful as a guy who pays for hookers, then brags—to someone married for 30 years—about how much he gets laid. Um, yeah, that's kinda what hookers do. Congratulations on getting laid and all, but what about this transaction entitles you to call the hooker "my girlfriend?"
posted by john at 8:09 AM • permalink