Suzy Says

Awright, sports fans (and you know who you are). The neophyte and knowledge-less Sporty Suzy (who has no stats at her manicured fingertips and nothing in her brain cell that isn’t frivolous, shallow, and non-athletic) needs your help.

How and why does one keep supporting one’s home team?

1. The players rarely, if ever, actually come from the city whose team they play for, so it’s not like they personally embody the spirit of the place.
2. While they do get paid a lot of money, they are more or less helpless pawns who may be traded at any moment. Despite this sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, they have to be team players in the most literal sense, all working toward the same goal (no pun intended). If they do get traded, they have to start all over again with people they don’t know, or possibly with former enemies.
3. Your favorite players get traded and you don’t get to see them play anymore. Do you switch loyalty to the team they play on, or keep watching the old team with the new people you don’t care about?
4. Do you have to overlook things like Barry Bonds’ deplorably diva-like behavior, both on and off the field (I find the way he treats the women in his life more deplorable than the steroid accusations)? Do you have to overlook the fact that the Giants didn’t can his overbearing ass, but they did dump several players so late in the season that it was almost impossible for them to get picked up by other teams? I admit this rankled with me the most in the case of Marquis Grissom, my favorite Giant, who was a total gentleman about the whole thing. He was the Anti-Bonds. I really miss him.
5. The whole embarrassing NHL d&eacuteb&acirccle. I can’t believe they were all so damned childish that there was no hockey for a year, and when it came back, the schedule was stupid, the rules had changed, and with the salary cap, some of the best players became instantly unaffordable. The Maple Leafs, for example, were dropping like, well, leaves (why are they the Leafs and not the Leaves, anyway? Anyone? Anyone?), losing stellar players like Brian Leetch, Gary Roberts, and Joe Nieuwendyk faster than you can say Don Cherry.

   Leaf it to a bunch of men to mess things up. I wonder if sports would be different if we girls ran the show. I bet the uniforms would be cuter.