Superbowling

Well, yesterday I posted a moan and groan on how overwhelming all the Super Bowl "stuff" can be if you live in a place (e.g., Boston) where the SB matters. And here I am, at it again, writing about the Super Bowl...and my relationship with football and the NY Football Giants.

I will be the first to admit that, when it comes to professional football, I am a complete fair weather fan, a true and total frontrunner.

I watched the pro's as a kid - in those days, people in New England followed the NY Giants, by the way - but gradually became unenamored with a sport that I felt was too militaristic and violent, and had a troubling right wing , muscular religiosity about it.

I stopped watching - including the Super Bowl, which I don't think I'd ever seen until the Kraft-era Patriots starting appearing in it.

In fact, when the pre-Kraft Patriots were threatening to move to Connecticut, I was all for it. Good riddance!

And then....

I started watching an occasional game when Drew Bledsoe was quarterback, and witnessed the still-incredible transition to Tom Brady as THE STAR.

I kept watching, and while I don't have the emotional attachment to the Pats that I do to the Red Sox - I can shrug off a big Patriots' loss a lot more easily than I can a major Red Sox defeat - I enjoy watching for their team approach, intelligence, focus, and all round general excellence.

So, fair weather front-runner that I am, I will be watching the Super Bowl this coming Sunday.

And I will be rooting for the Patriots. The perfect season is just too good a story-line to ignore. And they are, after all, my home town team.

But I won't be completely bummed if the NY Giants win.

After all, I did come of age as a Giants fan. Well after the Patriots (and the old American Football League) opened up shop (in the early 1960's), the Giants were the team of record in this neck of the woods.

They were televised on a real station - Channel 5.

The Patriots were shown on Channel 6, a weak-signal station located in New Bedford that we could only get if we piled encyclopedias on the floor in strategic locations in front of the TV set. (For whatever reason, this helped the reception.) Also, the kids in the family had to take turns holding the rabbit ears just so to make sure the game came in. Even then, the reception was grainy and, on our black and white TV, it always looked like the Pats were playing in the snow.

They also lacked a stadium, variously playing - if I recall correctly - at Fenway Park, BC, BU, and Harvard Stadium before getting their own stomping ground in Foxboro.

One thing we did like about the Patriots, however, was that they used a lot of local football players from Holy Cross - guys who probably couldn't make it in the National Football League, guys whom we'd seen playing at Fitton Field. Tom Hennessey. Pat McCarthy. Bob Dee. Jon Morris. Al Snyder. Joe Bellino. (OK, Bellino played for Navy, but he was a local kid - not Worcester local, but Boston local.)

Mostly, though, we rooted for the NY Football Giants - which they were called, even though the NY Baseball Giants were long gone from the scene. Y.A. Tittle - is that a great name or what? The Y.A. stands for Yelberton Abraham, as I recall. Frank Gifford. Rosie Brown. Pat Summerall. Kyle Rote. Andy Robustelli. Sam Huff. (Speaking of great football names: Robustelli and Huff!)

The announcer always introduced the Giants as wearing "Honolulu Blue". Since we only had a B&W TV, I had no idea what color "Honolulu Blue" was - presumably, it's the color of their current helmets, which is a very nice blue.

Helmet color aside, I also wouldn't begrudge the Giants a win because they were an underdog, come-from-behind team this season.

Because they have a receiver with the wondrous first name of Plaxico.

Because little Eli Manning is such the poor relation to his big brother Peyton (quarterback for the Patriots' arch-rival Colts) - especially, it seems, in the eyes of his Oedipus Rex of an old man, former football player Archie Manning.

Now, if the Giants were called the New York Football Yankees, it would be a whole other story. But much as I want the Patriots to win, it won't be a toss and turn night if they lose.

That said, GO PATS!

(Thanks to getting a free Patriots t-shirt at a Red Cross blood drive the other day, I even have something to wear.)

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If you want to read what I had to say about last fall's "Spygate Scandal", go here.