Zigs' Picks

Author: Zach Allen

Cabin fever is rampant in the Northeast around this time of the year. There has been little to do over the past several months except waste away indoors with large quantities of alcohol, a good novel, and an eight log oak fire raging. It is a generally unhealthy lifestyle one pursues to make it through the winter here, and to compound the problem the human body by March has completely expended the supply of vitamin D it spent building up from the sun's rays over the summer. This has pernicious consequences. Without vitamin D, the sex drive and libido are doomed. The body takes on the color and texture of uncooked dough, while the brain slowly strangles itself under the weight of its own inactivity. Sensory cells die off in the billions, and the rate of hair loss is accelerated. The body becomes numb to each morning with the knowledge that the day will be exactly the same as the one before it, and the one before it...
The point, I guess, is that it is impossible to get excited [or write] about sports right now, for any reason. There is no point to either activity.
A general sense of fear and despair is hanging over the world, with 250,000 American GIs and millions of Iraqis standing on the edge of an abyss over the cradle of human civilization while the populace of the developed world is slowly fractured on every different institutional level. Nobody is interested in a headline like: "Yanks fine Wells $100k," or "Rockies Acquire Rehabbing Oriole for Prospect." I wouldn't go with the stupid old saying that "well, with all the bad things in the world right now, sports are a good distraction." Never even mind the inherent danger of allowing the general populace to be distracted from the course of human events by sports. When every bumpkin who wins a NASCAR race steps out of his hot rod, looks into the camera with a straight face and says: "Well golly, what a race ... I'd just like to tell everyone to support our president," I am struck with a strong urge to pack up and move to Iceland, preferably near some volcanic hot springs where I can soak all day, drink whiskey and listen to Bjork. They don't broadcast NHL games in Iceland, to my knowledge, and so I wouldn't have to watch the [seemingly] mandated seven minutes of jingoistic activity before any American sporting events. Nor will I have to watch the mandated 10-12 commercials during the game urging me to go join the Navy, Army, Marines, Army Reserve ("Hey! Go have some adventure! Have fun! See the World!"). And now, look! I have introduced exactly the kind of thing I despise into the sports pages, and possibly drawn the ire of my hard-working editors. Go Red Sox.