Worth waking up early for

by Greg, seemingly ranch, Monday, May 14, 2012, 08:41 (5139 days ago) @ River

On Mother's Day, to be up with the kid before the wife/mother wakes up and to get to flip between ESPN2 and Fox and get both sets of announcers' commentary as things unfolded was a blast. Particularly when we flipped right after City's first goal and saw United still celebrating, then flipped again 90 seconds later (or so) and saw them dejected. Add in the QPR reaction to staying afloat in the top division and the commentators' discussions of relegation and what it meant, being top 4 and what that meant, and what in the world Chelsea was doing in resting so many players the last two games and going all-in for the Cup. It was all really amazing.

Then we went to a Doyer game and, prior to the game, watched the Clips/Griz game on the jumbotron (what a neat idea, watching another game in another sport live before yours even starts) and I realized that between the bad teams tanking (hi, Indy!) and the good teams being able to coast and get into the playoffs where they should have stark advantages over multiple-game series, there is not the same win-or-die mentality anywhere in American sport that there is in EPL. Except in college football, once upon a time before Alabama lost its most important game of the year at home and was rewarded with a free pass to a championship rematch. Or, maybe, in 1993 when FSU lost its most important game of the year and then leapfrogged over the team that beat it to play the sole undefeated team in America for the title. And when I thought of that, I figured, "the college regular season really isn't that great, is it?" so why not have a playoff?