Vikings DE Jared Allen BEGS fans to buy playoff tickets

I find the older I get, the more I appreciate the smaller, low-key events. I live in a town with teams in the top 4 sports leagues, but the events I'll actually pay to see are spring training baseball and minor league hockey.

 

I can't think of more than about 1-2 events I'd pay to watch, in any way. There's nothing exciting about going to a game for me.

 

Honestly, I feel the same way. I think part of it is that this job has really soured me on being a sports fan. I mean, when you go to five-six games a week and it's your job to watch while remaining objective, it's tough to get all 'Ra! Ra" about any type of game.

Also, I think it has a lot to do with age for me. When I was a kid, you couldn't remove me from the TV. Now, if I watch two baseball games in a regular season, that's an accomplishment.

 

I know a very good veteran sports columnist who's told me that quite a few times.

I'm down with that. There are very few events I enjoy more than spring training and minor league hockey or baseball. Great bang for the buck.

 

See, I get that. I rarely have any "Ra! Ra!", either, unless it's one of the few teams I have that I cheer for. But even when I'm at one of those teams' games now, I don't show much emotion.

But I don't understand how your second sentence correlates to the first. I'm still very much a sports fan -- it's just different for me than it was when I was a kid, that's all. But I can still watch it all day, still enjoy it as much as I ever did. I don't feel like the job has "soured" me at all. But I increasingly find that a lot of people in the biz feel the way you do, and I wonder if I'll ever get that way, too. No offense to any of y'all, but I hope not.

 

I hope not for your sake too, buck.

 

Ditto.

One wise man once said to me and a friend (who was going into the priesthood) "Don't make your passion your career, lest it will cease to become your passion". Maybe there's truth to that.

 

buckdub --

Love, love, love just about any baseball game I can see in person. Ditto hockey. Hoops is a tossup -- good seats and it's great, bad seats and it's awful.

NFL football is entirely designed for a television audience. I can't think of anything less fun than being in the upper deck of the Dome for four hours during a game. You can't see. The timeouts are interminable. It's just flat dull.

And ditto to whomever touted minor league stuff, as well -- the best bang for your buck is absolutely A ball or junior hockey. High level sport and tiny prices, often in really nice, newer barns.

 

I'm going to a Providence Bruins hockey game on Sunday afternoon so I'll test this theory.

 

I sincerely doubt that brand of cynicism could fit me nearly as well as it fits you. It suits you well. Not me.

 

Yeah, it long ago became a job to me. Possibly before it became a job for me.

 

I really don't like going to NFL games. And I usually go to Browns game for free! Not liking it has nothing to do with the Browns playing. There's just too much down time. Too much sitting around waiting for something to happen in NFL games. Most of it is either running up the middle or the players standing around waiting for the TV timeouts to end. I love watching NFL games on TV, though.

I bought season tix to the Cavs this year off some guy on Craigslist. He had to unload them, so I got them for 65 cents on the dollar. Now those games are fun. (And the Cavs are very good.) They're nosebleeds, but certainly worth $13.50 a game for two seats. I go with different buddies and we have a grand old time. Don't even feel bad about buying a couple things at the concession stand what with getting the tix so cheap.

But the NFL (and probably college football -- I don't go to those) is just very blah in person.