From the cheap seats

Several people have talked to me in the past couple of weeks about my position here at The Colonnade.

Some seem to think that since I’m 6’3 and just barely over 200 pounds, that I played sports in high school. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here’s a little sample of my bio from the Colonnade’s web-site, which is www.gcsunade.com

“I didn’t play hardly any sports in high school except for track and field. I didn’t play football, because I hit my growth spurt in the 11th grade. I didn’t play basketball, because I have an uncanny way of injuring myself when I play that game. I didn’t play baseball because I threw like a girl and only half as far. But I’ve always loved sports and find nothing greater than reporting about them and stumping my friends in trivia.”

Then people ask if I was really into sports when I was growing up. Really, my love for sports all started in 1991 when the Atlanta Braves won their first of (now a Major Baseball League record) 11 division titles. The excitement of that year turned just about anyone living in Georgia into a Braves fan. In fact, I think anyone of my generation can say they stayed up late to see Franscico Cabrerra hit a hard single into left field to
score Sid Bream to beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in game seven of the
1991 National League Championship Series. If you didn’t stay up late to watch it, then no doubt you saw it on the news the next day.

Remember the red foam tomahawks that you made your mom go buy
you or the little tomahawk mailbox flags? How about the song on the radio “Takin’ Care of Pittsburgh?” That was one of the most exiting times of my life.

The 1991 MLB World Series between the Minnesota Twins and the Braves was the best World Series in the 90′s. Until last year’s classic between the New York Yankees and Arizona Diamondbacks, it was the best one that I could remember (that even includes the 1995 World Series).

You can’t really call me a bandwagon jumper (well, you can, but I don’t really care), because later I developed a love for the University of Georgia Bulldogs football team and the Atlanta Falcons.

The Bulldogs haven’t won a National Championship or even a SEC
(SouthEastern Conference) Championship since the 80′s. The Falcons have not faired too well except for the 1998-99 season when they went to the Super Bowl.

In the 1998-99 season the Falcons were called a fluke team. I guess that’s a fair assessment. The most remarkable thing about that year was the NFC (National Football Conference) Championship game between the Falcons and the Vikings. It brought out some of those feelings that I had in 1991 with the Braves, but an uneasy feeling that they were going to lose in the Super Bowl.

I think the reason that the feelings for the ’91 Braves differed so much from that of the ’98-99 Falcons was because the Braves came back and did it again the next year. They also did it in dramatic fashion again.

The Braves became ‘America’s Team’ in the ’92 World Series with the Toronto Bluejays. While the Falcons became the NFL’s (National Football League) whippin’ boys after 1998, failing to even make the playoffs in the next three years.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 27 2002. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry