Sports, Politics, and Weather

For those of us who live in the San Francisco area the SF Giants have given us a pretty fun ride this fall. One of the more memorable moments was when the Giants recovered from a 3-1 deficit, which is not easy to do, and won the next three games straight, one in Cincinnati and two at the AT&T Park here in the Bay Area. Great p.r. for the city, from Fox Sports blimp footage of the Bay near sunset.

 

So, that shows a lot of crazy confidence, to come back from the brink of oblivion to win the next three games and go on to the World Series, and then win that in a sweep, for the first time since something like 1992. Or one of those mindless statistics that Joe Buck kept blathering about.

But back to game Seven in the National League playoff. The Cincinnati Reds were understandably fairly bummed. Who wouldn't be? But the Giants were playing their tails off, doing strange things, looking odd and generally being what passes for "normal" among them. And then, an hour before the end of the game it began to rain really, really heavily up north here. About five or six miles from the Ballpark. And we could look out the window and see a massive black cloud, moving slowly, majestically south across the Bay. Pissing down rain. Apparently in a World Series they don't call games on account of rain. Instead they have a rain delay, of an hour or two, or a day, and then they go at it again. On television, and in the sky, we could see when the Black Cloud reached the Ballpark. It was... kind of like Judgment Day.

In the Park it began raining quite heavily. One of our players threw his head back, opened his mouth and began drinking the rain, as though it was the champagne he expected to be tasting soon. But for the Reds, it felt very much as though their parade was getting rained on. It was not fun. Great players, just not their destiny to win that critical game.

And while that was going on, everyone in San Francisco came to believe that SportsModel Joe Buck was a complete jerk. People made signs that read "Joe Buck Sucks" and waved them instead of their team colors. They decided that they hated Fox Sports and most of all they hated Joe Buck, who would NOT shut up. They also hated that when the Giants did something great, Buck always seemed to speak of them as having had a stroke of luck. What's with him?

Anyhow, where I am going with all of this is that Hurricane Sandy is a bit like that dark cloud we watched cross the Bay, moving inexorably down to drench the Reds chance to win the World Series. Just one of those things. So Mitt Romney? When he can stay on script, he was getting fairly good at sounding like he had half a brain. Not more than half, but okay, a half. But toss in some bad weather and what is he out doing? Collecting canned goods in Ohio. That the Red Cross says that they cannot accept, since they don't have time to sort through them in time to get them where they are needed. Please just send money, they told him. Did Mitt listen? Naah, he really is a moron. See, he thinks that he is anointed by Mormon theology to win this election because he is the "White Horse". I mean, he's definitely white, and Lord knows he's got lots of horses, see? It all makes sense.

But it doesn't. And now it has rained on his parade. Badly. So badly that Chris Christie just converted to Democratism in hopes of getting lots of Federal assistance. Why? Because if he doesn't he will end up in the crapper like Bobby Jindal, and he knows it.

Politics really does make strange bedfellows, doesn't it? Obama is about to prove to the nation that he can work perfectly well with Republicans, even morbidly obese trash-talking morons like Chris Christie. I mean really, can you imagine anyone who is more of a polar opposite than Obama?

Anyhow, so the Presidential election is over. Oh, you still need to go out and vote, there are a lot of candidates and other things that are still in play, but the Presidential election just got decided by Mother Nature.

She probably doesn't like Joe Buck, either.

 

 

Arthur