Football '14 Week 8: One Last Chance.

       Well, I am on the road again.  I have spent the last few days here in New Orleans drinking too much and meeting celebrities and now, finally, it is game day. 

I am ready for a do-or-die game against the Packers on Sunday Night Football; I really will be waiting all day for Sunday Night...

You might look at that photo and wonder what is draped across my tickets...

Somehow, I forgot my lucky stadium day helmet (I blame leaving at 4am on Thursday).  So I had to improvise and yesterday I came across this glorious thing at the Black and Gold Shop in Metarie.  And I must say, it makes me look fabulous.  Besides, what fun is football without silly hats?

At 2-4, the Saints need this win in the worst way.  In a poor division, 9-7 could easily mean a playoff spot.  If they do find a way to blow this game as they have so many this season, I do have a back-up plan.

I got a hatbox full of junk wax cards to go through (gotta love the antique shops in this town), which, after a drink or three, should yield some amusing results.  But I hope it doesn't come to that.  I want a dominating win followed by an evening of late night decadence.  Luckily in New Orleans, it is hard to tell the victory celebrations from the defeated drownings. 

Football '14 Week 2: Uniformity.

       Last week, the Saints lost a heart breaker in overtime to the hated Falcons.  Most people would find blame for the loss in the red zone interception Drew Brees threw in the second half or perhaps the crushing fumble in overtime by Marques Colston.  My mother, however, found all the blame to be with the fact that I didn't wear my game jersey. 

This, of course, is the gamer: a white 3X #9 Drew Brees Saints model 2011.  I only had my Sir Saints tee shirt on, so obviously, it is all my fault the Saints are 0-1.

Since most of you come for the cards, here is Drew wearing a similar jersey.  Mine, sadly, does not have the nifty captain's C patch. 

If I feel like mixing it up, I also have this baby:

A retro #8 Archie Manning.  I like wearing this to live games, it gets the best comments.



The only real issue with it is that it is not a throwback, like you see in this gorgeous autographed card.  I love the Saints throwback jerseys and the old school gold color and all the stripes.  Modern football sleeves are so boring. 

I recently acquired this one as well:

This is a 2010 #88 Jeremy Shockey.  Shockey was a polarizing figure with the Giants, but he was a good solider with the Saints and even caught a touchdown in the Super Bowl.  When the opportunity to pick this up for $17 came, I took it without thinking twice.  Eventually, it will be a dandy throwback.  

My next jersey purchase will definitely be of a different tight end:

I think Jimmy Graham will sign a long term deal with the team and therefore, his black #80 will be a good addition to the wardrobe. 

We have to go to the back of the closet to find my last black gamer:

You will notice the Mets jerseys are already in the closet...

Yes, I do wear those shirts into public, why do you ask...

My #25 Reggie Bush was a prized possession for a long time. 

This badboy was a second skin for games for five years.  I bought this right after he was the second pick in the draft in 2006.  Sadly, business is business and he has played with Miami and now Detroit since 2011. 

Wow, Max, you own a lot of Saints jerseys.  You haven't seen nothing yet.  This is just the laundry pile...

I wore the short sleeve Sir Saint last week; this week is a little more chilly, so I could go with the long sleeve:

Sadly, that is faux-vintage.  I could go with vintage-vintage, this shirt is pretty old:

I could go hard core vintage-vintage.  I bought this in a thrift shop in LA, so I have no idea how old it is.

I could also go new swag:

I got this at a game last year from a booth run my the lottery commission.  You bought $20 worth of tickets and they gave you a bunch of Saints stuff.  My inner gambler and lover of free stuff couldn't resist.  Of course, I think I won $2 on the tickets, so really, this shirt cost me $18.  So I guess it isn't swag at all...

I also have one tee shirt jersey, you probably have seen it before if you read the blog:

This is my Steve Gleason #37.  It also has a faux-vintage look to it.

Of course, there is my absolute favorite t-shirt:

When the Saints won the Super Bowl, the first thing I did Monday morning was go online and order these for myself, my mother, and anyone else in the family who wanted one.  I had them delivered overnight so I was wearing this on the Tuesday after they won.  I try not to think of how much this shirt actually cost, but really, it is priceless.

It is Sunday, so the choice to remain in my pajamas is there, and believe me, it will be optioned:

Hell, the pajamas I have on right now are Saints branded:

Yes, I know what you are thinking, I am the NFL's wet dream with the amount of team merchandise I own, but believe me, being a Saints fan living in New Jersey, I like to wear my fandom literally on my sleeve.  And on game day, I suppose am superstitious enough to think that if others think I am not pulling my weight, then I should wear more.  I am going to wear the Manning jersey with the black pajama pants.  I have done my part, now it is Drew and the boys' turn to go out and win one on the road.

Football '13 Week 18: Wild Card.

       A couple of times this year, I posted very early on Sunday morning going on and on about how the Saints were going to destroy that week's opponent.  That was a poor choice of blurbs as both times the Saints ingloriously lost on the road to lesser foes.  So I learned my lesson for the playoffs and decided to hold off any pregame braggadocio and let the games take their course.  This course of action worked well as the Saints beat the (hated) Eagles in Philadelphia for the first road playoff victory in team history.  Sticking it to the awful Philly fans was just a bonus. 

In celebration of the Wild Card victory, let's look at a couple of player pages with a different player stuck in as a, um, wild card.

Here is a page of Superstar Jimmy Graham with a Chrome Kenny Stills rookie card in the lower right.  Stills showed great promise as a fifth round pick this year. 

This is a page of unsung receiver Marques Colston.

There are some great inserts on this page and in the lower right, a rookie card of Nick Toon.  Sadly, Nick got hurt before last season and has not returned.  I am rooting for him not just because he is the son of Jets great Al Toon but because he has one of the great simple wonderful names in recent memory.

OK, that whole idea is a little silly, so let's just look at some cards instead.  I grabbed the first two fancy cards on top of my Saints pile and scanned them for your enjoyment.

The first one is a manu-patch of Drew Brees from the Super Bowl season.  Those last two things way overcome that first one.  The second is a great autographed patch rookie card of Kenny Stills.  I believe that swatch is from the '8' from the TV numbers on the shoulder.  That or Kenny is a much smaller guy than we are lead to believe.

Oh, and look, a team set.  I always liked this design and Topps used it across the sports that year.  I think it actually works better for football than it did for baseball.

In case you were wondering, these are from 2010 Topps...

...and we all know what happened that year...

Next stop Seattle.  Revenge is a dish best served piping hot.

Triskaidekaphobia.

      Today seemed like such a good day.  I got a good night's sleep, the coffee was hot and effective; I greeted the day with a positive vibe and vice versa.  Then I realized what day it was and was overjoyed.  It's Friday!  And then the date occurred to me, the 13th, and an uncontrollable feeling of dread overwhelmed me.  Now, I am not the overly superstitious type.  I have no issue with black cats or mirrors or ladders per se.  But will I not walk under a ladder and I will sidestep a black cat and I have rarely power slammed a mirror against a wall...you know, just in case.  I also don't necessarily believe in lucky or unlucky numbers either.  The belief is universally held in the western world that the number 13 is unlucky.  No one can say specifically why, it just is.  Now, in Chinese culture, the number 4 is thought of as very unlucky and this at least has a reason: because it is a near homophone to the word death.  With all the jokes about how 7-8-9, this is somewhat understandable.  But why does 13 get a bad rap and not, say, 6 or 29?  I had a rotten year at the age of 29, so I have a lot more reason to hate that number than innocent old number 13.  OK, I'm rambling here, the point is, superstitions are silly yet we react to them anyway, usually irrationally. 

All that said, and as usual it was a mouthful by me, I would never ever wear the number 13 on a sports field.  Why temp fate?  Of course, correlation does not imply causation, but facts are facts.  Let's take a look.

Wilt Chamberlain:

He's one of the greatest basketball players of all time.  He was literally unstoppable - when he wanted to be.  He put up numbers that are hard to fathom 50 years after the fact (50 points a game for a season, 55 rebounds in a game, etc).  And yet, his career is looked at as something of a failure.  He had all this talent and was faster and stronger and taller than everyone else, so why didn't he win championships every year?  Sure, he won two, but Bill Russell, a direct contemporary, won 11, including 8 in a row and several directly at the expense of Wilt.  Bill Russell had the drive and the heart, they say.  Wilt just didn't have that killer instinct.  Or maybe, it was the number he wore.

Dan Marino:

He's sort of the Wilt Chamberlain of football.  He set all the records.  He had all the skills.  His release was quicker than anyone had ever seen.  Yet he only made one Super Bowl in his career and lost it to Joe Montana, who was not nearly as physically gifted as Dan. Some blamed the defense, some blamed the running game.  I blame the number on his back.

Kurt Warner sort of breaks the pattern here, but not really:

Kurt has one of the best feel good stories of all time.  He went from stocking groceries to winning the Super Bowl in less than a year.  He powered one of the greatest offenses of all time.  Cinderella don't have shit on Kurt Warner.  But then...then he lost to the Patriots.  Then his teams floundered.  Then he found himself out of a job.  Then he found himself behind Eli Manning.  Then, worse, he found himself behind Matt Leinart(!).  He eventually regained a starting job and then somehow led the endlessly unlucky Arizona Cardinals to the Super Bowl with a 9-7 record and had them winning that Super Bowl in the final few minutes.  But a few Big Ben passes later, the game was lost.  No one would ever say Roethelisburger is a lucky man (most would say he is a scumbag), so maybe it's the number - again.

Mats Sundin:

It was hard trying to even remember a hockey player that wore the number 13.  Then, thanks to google, they gave me a great example.  Sundin was a great player, and from all accounts, a great teammate.  But he had the misfortune of playing for one of the more snakebit teams of the last 40+ years, the Toronto Maple Leafs.  If you were Toronto, would you let your best player wear the number 13?

Billy Wagner:

Billy Wagner threw hard.  Real hard.  He also had one of the greatest sliders you ever saw.  He was also really good at blowing big saves.  Of all the "great" closers, I am hard pressed to find a better closer who blew more big leads in big spots than Wagner did.  With four different teams, he never did win a championship.  I think you might be on to my reasoning.

Baseball is all about numbers.  And part of that tradition is great players should wear great numbers.  Hank Aaron wore #44 (maybe not great if you're Chinese).  Mickey Mantle wore #7.  Frank Robinson wore #20.  These are dynamic numbers rich in history.

So when A-Rod came to the Yankees, why on earth did he pick #13?  Why?  This boggles my mind.  I know #3 was not available (duh), nor #23.  But #12 was, #30 was, #33 was.  If he liked the #3 so much, those numbers make sense.  Why go with #13?  As much as I despise Barry Bonds (#25 - also a good number), I hope Alex Rodriguez doesn't break the all time home run record just because the notion of someone wearing the #13 having such a hallowed record seems wrong.  But, that seems a bit moot since his body is breaking down at an alarming rate.  So, in the end, it appears the number will have/is having its way with poor A-Rod after all. 

Not pictured: Omar Vizquel (zero championships), Edgardo Alfonso (zero championships), John Valentin (zero championships), Lance Parrish (one championship), Don Maynard (one championship), Glenn Robinson (zero championships), Steve Nash (zero championships), and of course, Ralph Branca (gave up the Shot Heard 'round the World).

I am now going to go crawl back under the covers until tomorrow morning.  Better safe than sorry.