Friday, May 10, 2013

The Excitement is Justified

The never-ceasing din of 24/7 sports has led some to plea for an off-season for fans. The worst transgressor is football, formerly a September-December activity (or November---in postwar Hawaii the king of sports was high school football, which ended the day after Thanksgiving). Now NFL fans can get their fix throughout the year, from the draft to minicamp to pre-season to the regular season, playoffs, and Super Bowl, after which the cycle starts all over. The cacophony never ceases as basketball, baseball, hockey, racing, golf, and tennis, as well as biennial to quadrennial events such as the America's Cup and the Olympics blare for attention.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, however, the current year-round excitement is justified. Both the hockey (San Jose Sharks) and the basketball (Golden State Warriors) teams have overachieved by making the playoffs and defeated favored opponents in the first round. The San Francisco Giants have won two of the last three World Series, while the Oakland Athletics surprised everyone by winning the American League West Division in 2012. The San Francisco 49ers lost to the Ravens in the Super Bowl and are one of the early favorites to win it next year. Only the long-suffering fans of the Oakland Raiders have nothing to look forward to.

FYI, per Wikipedia's entry on Multiple Major Sports Championship Seasons the most recent metropolitan areas to be home to two champions were Boston in 2004 (Red Sox and Patriots) and Los Angeles in 2002 (Angels and Lakers). Only once--Detroit in 1935--did three champions (Tigers, Lions, Red Wings) hail from the same city.

No comments: