1st World Problems Briefing: NFL-Related Stress

My beloved Green Bay Packers lost their most recent football contest on Sunday, the 7th of October. They faced the 1 win, 2 loss Colts of Indianapolis, Indiana, the northernmost Confederate state*. The Packers did what most fans and regular observers of the sport expected; they jumped out to an early and likely decisive 21-3 lead, which they took into the half.

The Colts weren't giving up, however. They decided to run plays that scored points instead of ones that did not score points. An excellent decision on their part. They logged nineteen unanswered of these "points" to take the lead in the football game, 22-21. I subsequently developed a stress-induced, painful pimple under the corner of my mouth.

The Packers scored, eventually, a "touchdown" which gave them another lead, 27-22. After they did this, there was approximately four and a half minutes left to play in the game. My face hurt. In my experience as an educated (don't laugh) and experienced football viewer of the Packers of Green Bay, Wisconsin, a silly, cognitively dissonant region, regaining the lead in 4th quarter with a few or more minutes left rarely ends with the Packers victorious. What tends to happen is that the Packers' defenders forget to run plays that prevent opposing offenses from advancing the ball and scoring points.

This common occurrence, on Sunday, resulted in the Indianapolis Cousin-counting Sodomites Colts taking the lead 30-27, with thirty-five seconds left. I think my pimple is infected now. Packers blue-eyed quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, did what he could in said thirty-five seconds: getting the Packers' offense to the edge of field goal range. With a field goal, Green Bay could tie the score and force the contest into "overtime". Overtime is an extended period of play that is pointless, according to all empirical evidence since the death of Robert Goulet, for the Packers due to the covenant they made with the football Gods.

My face feels swollen. Christ. Thankfully, talented but amazingly non-clutch kicker, Mason Crosby got the memo from wives across America and very convincingly missed his 51-yard field goal "attempt". The game ended. The Colts were victorious. The Packers were bestowed their third loss in five games. And my facial pain and emotional distress are making themselves at home. We're going to watch Jeopardy and sort some dirty laundry this evening together.

My face feels a little numb now. Maybe it's an ingrown hair.

*Not really, but they probably wish they were.

1962: Bigot, NFL Owner, Compensated With Win for Being Last to Integrate

Fifty years ago last week, the Washington Redskins fielded three African-American players against the St. Louis Cardinals. Fullback Ron Hatcher, offensive guard John Nisby, and Hall of Fame flanker Bobby Mitchell. The Redskins were the last professional football club to integrate. Mainly due to owner, bigot, George Preston Marshall, a native West Virginian, but also due to the Redskins having been the only "southern" club east of the Mississippi River.

HoF Bobby Mitchell

From 1937, when the Redskins arrived in the nation's capitol from Boston, to 1960, when the AFL founded clubs in Dallas and Houston, the Washington Redskins were Dixie's only NFL club. Marshall, during that time, created a vast partnership with dozens of southern radio and television affiliates. Marshall used his club's southern following as partial motivation to resisting integration. He also just plain didn't like non-whites. Seriously. Fuck this guy.

What matters most is that the Redskins finally succumbed to social pressure in the Civil Rights Era and let physical talent once again* speak for itself. And physical talent it was! Bobby Mitchell started off with a touchdown in the first and second quarters, and Washington never trailed in the game. And having been subject to protesters and picketers outside home games for holding onto segregation, Marshall's Redskins were now being protested and picketed by the Ku Klux Klan.

Mitchell's final numbers that day would have been astounding for a fantasy football owner: 7 receptions, 147 yards, and two touchdowns.

We as sports fans often forget what sports have done for our country. Without ball clubs, boxing titles, and track teams, what broken racial barriers would reach the masses? Perhaps we would be celebrating racial barrier firsts more beneficial to the species as a whole: Sarah E. Goode, 1885, first African-American to hold a U.S. Patent, or Edward A. Bouchet, first African-American to earn a Ph.D. from an American university (Yale, Physics).

Instead of Jackie Robinson's twentieth century accomplishments, we'd mark on the calendar when poet Jupiter Hammon, in 1761, became the first African-American published in the U.S. These would be great things to celebrate as a nation. But we're not living in the erudite utopia some of us yearn for. Instead, we're in 21st century America, where citizens come together, sans political opinion (usually) or prejudice (hopefully), and celebrate thrilling sporting accomplishments of all athletes (mostly).

It's not perfect, but it's a good thing.

*The NFL actually began as integrated in 1920. It remain integrated until 1926, and didn't begin reintegrating until 1946.

Autumn Colors of Maine

Saw an inflated prophylactic on the sidewalk yesterday blowing around with the leaves. It's gonna be beautiful fall in Biddy.