America's new pastime
Baseball will always be my favorite sport.
No matter what happens the Detroit Tigers will always be my favorite sports team.
Football, on the other hand, is starting to grow on me.
Each year I love the game more and more. NFL, college, high school, it doesn't matter; there is just something about a once-a-week game that get the adrenaline flowing.
My love for the game obviously has nothing to do with my favorite teams.
The teams I root for in the NFL, (Washington, Detroit, and Kansas City) have won a whopping one Super Bowl between them since I became a fan at eight.
In college, Virginia is eliminated each year from championship contention once Florida State is printed on its yearly schedule. Kansas might be OK this year, but a realistic fan hopes for a .500 record.
No, success of my favorites has nothing to do with my increasing enjoyment of watching the most popular sport in America and the most wildly misunderstood sport in the world.
Football, or as it's called everywhere else, American football, has as firm a grip on American pop culture as a running back does on a pigskin.
Sundays have become religious in more ways than one. Unlike MLB, and the NBA to a certain extent, the NFL has a few teams each year rise from the bottom and become the talk of the nation.
St. Louis did it in 2000, New England in 2002, and Carolina in 2003.
Although the Panthers lost to the Patriots in the Super Bowl, they were one of the worst teams in the league the year before.
But that's not what has drawn my attention to the sport. The buildup all week to a game that means so much, can make the adrenaline rush like a waterfall.
One loss in football is like seven in baseball.
One play in a football game can swing the momentum of the season faster than any Randy Johnson heater.
There is so much at stake in a football game, every play is exciting.
With soap scrimmages Friday officially beginning the start of the sport at the high school level, talk of whose hometown team will be the best begins.
While the complexity of baseball, which is not known by those who don't play, is great for the diehard fan, it hurts the game in many ways.
Football has become the national pastime no matter what anybody says. It is America's sport and will be for a long time.
Sept. 1 for high school, Sept. 3 for college, and Sept. 8 for the NFL the blood starts pumping.
Are you ready?
