Evidence. Actually enjoying myself at a football game.

In grad school I was lured to a tailgate with promises of sun, friends, BBQ, and beer on a pretty Saturday afternoon. I grudgingly went. We are not sports people. I don’t paint my face and support the team. Please. That day – who knew? I enjoyed a few sweetwaters, good company and a gorgeous Saturday afternoon. Well, huh! Football is awesome! I eventually even made it to a game! And, slowly, grew to be a Georgia Tech football fan.

And now, Bobby Dodd Stadium at Historic Grant Field is where I spend my home-game Saturdays. We sit in the back row of the east stands, where you can see the entire field and still catch a breeze wafting off the connector, where a group of friends congregates and stomps and cheers and sings and toasts the Yellow Jackets. It’s completely different from the typical small-town college football experience, as we are smack dab in the center of midtown Atlanta. Over my left shoulder towers the Bank of America building, and to my right, the midtown skyline. Night games are gorgeous, and if we’ve had too much to drink, we’ll walk a few blocks down Peachtree and catch a cab home.

I’ve come to love all the traditions that make up the institution.  The fight song, “I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech,” is the only one I know of that is about drinking and gambling and cursing (at least in early 1900’s when it was introduced, “helluva” was in-a-ppropriate). It was sung on the Ed Sullivan show in 1953 – censored, of course, to “heckuva engineer.” It was the first school song played in space (a sort of bizarre

Not exaggerating when I say "back row." View's not bad though.

superlative, but I’ll take it). It was also sung by Nixon and Khrushchev in 1959, as the story goes, easing the tension during the Kitchen Debates in 1959 – Nixon didn’t know any Russian songs, but Khrushchev knew Ramblin’ Wreck. Rat caps, the Budweiser song, paging the fictional George P. Burdell, stealing the T, racing recently designed and constructed recks at 8am on homecoming morning – except for that 8am business, I’m a fan.

I know that in-state rivalries requires a good number of you to read this with disdain for our crappy program (while denying that a rivalry exists because GT is so far beneath UGA and the SEC), but Georgia Tech football is a pretty unique Atlanta experience. We’re lucky to have it.  And we’ll be playing Duke and Miami and UGA in the coming month (oops edit: UGA is in Athens) – but not on the day of Chomp and Stomp, which means I get to fully participate in all of my favorite fall pastimes. Pretty sure you can track down a ticket to at least Duke, probably Miami (edit: on Saturday Nov 13th). Protip: the guys with “I need tickets” signs don’t really.

I plan to check out the Dragon Con parade, the GT game, and hopefully a bit of the book festival. All on bikes (parking downtown and in midtown, I assume, will be pretty miserable with two football games going on), and some neighborhood park-grilling may be in my near future, too. What am I missing? What will you guys be up to?

I would be making an even more horrific face than the ones on the Algerian team here. Photo from AJC.

I thought this was a good reason to tell you three about the work going on to bring the World Cup to the US. Details are at gousabid.com, but the short version of it is that we MAY see a world cup game in Atlanta in 2018 or 2022 (I know, I know, it’s Beltline years away). That’s why we hosted a game of the World Football Challenge last summer, AC Milan versus Club America, to prove that we have the ability to host a large-scale soccer game (I think this was a test more of our ability to bring in fans than logistics like parking and facilities. Which we passed, apparently).

So the gousabid people have a petition that damn near 600,000 people have already signed to bring the games here.  (When the world cup goes to a country, the games are spread out all over the place, so it’s a big deal if your city is picked to be a host, but we’ve got to get them to the US first). You enter your zip code upon signing, and apparently Atlanta is up there in the top five for signees out of 18 cities, which is pretty major.

So let’s practice a little bit of long-term planning, dear metblogs reader(s), and support Atlanta’s bid for some World Cup action. Check details and sign here.

This jives pretty well with my experience as a sports fan.  Not only the pro sports, but college sports as well.  The misery comes not from just plain sucking – you can kind of get used to that and just go do something else.  It is that every year they have a chance, or at least you think they do.  Your teams get close.  They make the playoffs, win a round.  Then, of course, like always, they tank.  Ugh.  It is brutal.  And spare me the “poor me’s,” Cubs fans.  That is one team.  Chicago has had many other championships over the years.  Apparently Forbes thinks Seattle is the only more miserable city to be a sports fan in.  Sigh.  Second place.  Again.

I was most surprised by the source of the comeback.  This was my thought process during the last two innings:

• Troy Glaus comes up with two outs and a runner on.  He had come up with the bases loaded earlier in the game and one out, and prompted grounded into a double play, just as I expected.  The fans were booing him the at-bat before this one.  I thought, “This game is over.”  I was pretty slack-jawed when he actually knocked it out.  ”Well, good for him.  He really needed that.”  Still down a run with two out, no point in getting TOO excited.
• Heyward comes up.  ”It is too much to expect him to do it again.  Maybe he’ll get a hit, keep it going.”  Holy crap.  This kid is the real deal.  It says a lot about him that this event was the LEAST surprising part about the comeback.
• I see that McLouth, the pitcher’s spot, and Diaz are up in the bottom of the 10th.  ”Great, the worst part of the order.  This will go to 11 innings.”  How wrong I was.

One thing that was great about the early 90′s Braves (the completely biased standard by which I judge all great baseball teams) is that they had very timely hits.  Guys like Lemke and Belliard didn’t put up great numbers, but they came through in the clutch.  That kind of clutch performance has been missing for what feels like a decade.  When Glaus hit into that bases loaded double play, it just felt like typical Braves.  The 9th inning was NOT typical Braves, although I hope it becomes typical of THESE Braves.

He is a beast, and is generally regarded among Michigan fans as being at least equal to Pro-Bowl Steelers Linebacker LaMarr Woodley, another monster DE out of That State Up North.  Michigan has really sucked the last few years, so Graham has flown under the radar, but check him out tearing up the Senior Bowl:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AINhjlisAMk&feature=player_embedded#[/youtube]

Also, I want some Wolverines around to root for around these parts.  I keep an eye on Chad Henne and Jake Long down in Miami, but I want some Wolverines to play for the Falcons!

Jason Heyward reported to spring training Monday, then jaws hit the floor. Millionaire athletes reached for words to describe the masher from McDonough, whose already epic physique has become more so…

Most of his added weight appears to have been distributed across his muscular shoulders. Simply put: dude is shredded.

And yet, Heyward has maintained the narrow waist and V-shaped back that he had last spring training.

Also, La Madre reaction to the article was “he’s on steroids, right?”.  I think part of the oddity of this article is that I remember when guys like portly Terry Pendleton and lanky Fred McGriff were typical ball players – as a smaller youth I was drawn to the game precisely because you didn’t have to be omg shirtless to play it well.  Mark Lemke was entirely average at 5’10″ and 167 lbs – as a 10 year old, I could aspire to this.  I’m not used to viewing ball players as physical specimens like this, even though I get entirely too excited when I read about all the weight some sophomore defensive lineman put on over the summer.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1pykLK_CUs[/youtube]

I still think that is awesome.  My favorite part is Jordan’s reaction to Spud’s last dunk.  I mean, Spud’s my height – 5’7″!!  And ‘Nique was a living legend at that point.

And while I’m thinking about the 80′s, can I just say that I miss TBS and Andy Griffith re-runs during Braces rain delays?  I wish Ted still owned the team.

Bah!  Get off my lawn!  Damn kids…..

Maxim Afinogenov (Right Wing) and the Russian team (including the recently traded Ilya Kovalchuk) will take on Latvia in their first match Tuesday night.

Tobias Enstrom (Defenseman) and Johnny Oduya (Defenseman), and their fellow Swedes, will take on Germany in their first match Wednesday afternoon.

Pavel Kubina (Defenseman) and Ondrej Pavelec (Goaltender), along with the rest of the Czech Republic team, will take on Slovakia in their first match Wednesday night.

None of them are official Atlantans or even Americans by birth (who is in hockey these days? LOL) but they’re Blueland boys and that’s what counts. So unless they’re playing the good ol’ US of A, give a cheer (even if it’s a silent one) to our boys in Blue. Go Thrashers!!!

*Attention curling enthusiasts: Save your emails! I actually find the sport oddly fascinating. And, BTW, the USA takes on Germany tomorrow morning.