In the Win Column

Whether it’s a cruel punishment inflicted on sports fans for no reason or some kind of alternate parallel universe opened in the space-time continuum by Biff stealing Marty’s sports betting book, the past few weeks have been a bizarro-world retread of the last two summers’ most irritating sports stories.  Two years ago I distinctly remember being assaulted with constant wall-to-wall coverage of the Michael Vick Incident. Nauseatingly repetitive coverage that was probably more torture than that which was inflicted on the poor dogs he was accused of killing. But he went to jail, the Falcons still suck, and whatever.

Last summer, with Vick starting his own prison team like Adam Sandler in The Longest Yard, the talking heads on Around the Horn needed something else to wring their hands over, so they picked Brett Favre’s anti-retirement journey. Thank God that Brett is about as indecisive as a fat kid staring down the Dollar Menu, because we were gifted a solid 4 weeks of following around the *Legendary Quarterback* like he was our first middle school crush. Eventually the drama died out and the New York Bretts were invented and this gray-bearded 39-year old gunslinger tricked half of Long Island and Queens into actually thinking that they were cheering for a good team for about 11 weeks before he remembered that he was in fact really a gray-bearded 39 year old silhouette of his former self and tanked the last 5 weeks of the season worse than the U.S.S. Indianapolis.

So entering this summer, yours truly could only imagine what the sports world would throw at us this time. What lovely turds would they drop on our doorstep in a flaming paper bag? How about Lance Armstrong tests positive for elephant steroids? Nope. Michael Phelps smoking pot? Shit, did that already. So you can imagine my confusion (and amazement!) when I woke up one morning and opened espn.com on my iPhone 3G from AT&T (unnecessary product plug #1) to find out that Brett Favre, the *Legendary Quarterback* wanted to play football again. Like a kid throwing a tantrum because his mommy made him leave his friends to come in and eat dinner, poor Brett felt left out again. HE JUST WANTS TO PLAY, GODDAMNIT, said everyone. And so who would the lucky team be this time? The Vikings? HE WANTS TO PLAY THE PACKERS TWICE A YEAR, everyone said, HE WANTS REVENGE!!!! Oh I get it. Excuse me one second while I staple my hand to my face. How could I be so naive? He just wants to get back at Green Bay for mistreating him. Right? No. Not everything is about you, Brett. I’m sorry you don’t realize this, but Green Bay was ready to move on from an old guy that threw up wounded-duck pseudo-Hail Mary’s everytime he ran out of options and threw more interceptions in his career than any other quarterback EVER. It wasn’t personal, it’s just that Aaron Rodgers got less action in 4 years than I did through all of high school and they didn’t want their #1 draft pick to rot on the bench. It was time.

But I digress. So now Brett has the Vikings hanging on his every move for 2 months while they’re supposed to be preparing for the 2009 season and choosing between Tarvaris Jackson and Gus Frerotte to be their QB 1 (yikes!) and now here you come with your media circus and your Southern twang. If that wasn’t enough, (and trust me, it was) we also get, as a package deal, Michael Vick, Round 2! AWESOME! Now he’s out of prison and I’ll be damned if he doesn’t want a job in the NFL again. “PLAYING FOOTBALL IN THE NFL IS A PRIVILEGE, NOT A RIGHT” says Vick and we’re supposed to sympathize with him now. I get it. Will he play or will Goodell suspend him??? I’m on the edge of my seat. So I’m on vacation again, which is where I usually am when these stories unfold, and I’m checking the flux capacitor to make sure I’m in the right year, as the best of (more like worst of) the past few summers’ sports stories replay themselves like a montage in a bad 80′s movie.

As enthralled as I have been to follow this thrilling coverage, I’m reluctant to say that yesterday Favre decided to stay retired (for now) and on Monday, Goodell handed down a conditional reinstatement to Vick, essentially allowing him to play in the league again by Week 6, if he can find a team that can tolerate the thousands of rabid PETA protesters that will likely picket outside of every game he starts from now on.

Maybe in a few years we can look forward to “BRETT FAVRE! MICHAEL VICK! IT’S SUPER BOWL XLV ON FOX!!!”