Oh, bloody hell. 59-57 it is. "Half of what I say is meaningless..." The Beatles. Ok, probably a little more than half in my case.
My pal Fred has played on the same hockey team with me since 1999 and is a long-suffering Eagles fan (and all things Philly). He had an extra ticket (free!) to last night's Redskins-Eagles game and I was up for it. All things were pointing to a fun game, at the very least: home game, after a bye week, great pre-game atmosphere, and the cherry on top should have been the news that Donnie Mac had signed a deal to stay in DC..
Of course, as the kids say these days, Epic Fail.
Wow. I picked the Eagles to win but never expected the epic-ness of the epic loss to be quite as epic as it epically turned out to be. Offensive line? Who needs that? Defensive competence? Nah, over-rated. Commence smacking palm to forehead, forehead to keyboard, and grinding one's teeth at night.
Or, get over it. Just a damned football game.
OK, I get the fan anger. You spend $$$ on tickets. $$$$ on parking or Metro. $$$$ on jerseys and hats and all that crap. $$$$$$$ on stadium concessions. If the Redskins Board of Directors consist of actual Redskin fans, it's not a pretty sight.
We took the Metro option to The Godawful Field Formerly Known as Jack Kent Cooke Stadium in Raljon, Maryland (TGFFKJKCS, for short). The train ride's not bad, the walk to the stadium bearable.
Let me digress for a moment: I had a Johnny Rockets burger that seemed to be exactly ONE year old. There was, ostensibly, "special sauce" on this burger. NOTE TO A Messr. DANIEL M. SNYDER: your burger joint makes decent burgers and shakes. Why are you allowing Fedex Field to call those hockey pucks "Rocket Singles" when the only rocket they should bring to mind is the food on Apollo 11? It was, bar none, the worst $10 burger I've ever forced myself to eat simply because I paid $10 for it like a jackass. I guess this proves my father's assessment of my brainpower to have been correct all along. JACKASS.
So. Good seats in Section 114 which is corner end-zone but high enough we could see everything. I can see the Monday Night Football guys, we wander down and say hi to Matt Millen, Mike Tirico, and Steve Young. But ignore Stuart Scott. The Stadium DEEJAY keeps blasting the opening bars of the MNF theme at higher decibels than jet air-o-planes, and the anticipation is palpable - the air gets all excited with the yelling and cheering, and "oh man this is gonna be great." This is only amplified when the two teams appear to air some bad blood before hitting the locker room.
Great idea. Get the Eagles all scared and sh%t. Whoops.
OK, the first 28 points were for practice, then the Redskins got serious. Well, semi-serious. Then the rain started and never stopped. Oh, how fitting. There was a second half of the game, wherein footballs were thrown and caught primarily by Eagles and tackles were made. By the Fourth Quarter the place was empty (note for the record that the 200 level club seats were empty by the end of the Second Quarter - the Washington Redskins corporate motherf-ers....best fans in professional footballllllll! Who leave at the first sight of a lousy game.
Fred sported his Philly Flyers sweater (in hockey you call a jersey a sweater) and was high-fived by every green-sporting moron in attendance (there were alot, they all yelled "EEEEEagles! or Flyyyyerrrrs!). Fred was practically Mayor of Raljon, Emperor of TGFFKJCKS everyone left was his best friend, and I trailed behind him like the ugly, chunky gal he'd taken out on a date but was embarrassed to acknowledge in my Redskins jersey. I think the colloquy went : "Go Flyers!" Fred gets high-fived. "Oh, he's with you, sorry about those Skins, man."
Skins fans, with little to brag about, fought amongst themselves like cannibals living at the end of days. Guys were being egged on to fight by heavily-smoking girls, and were alcohol-fueled enough to accept this as good advice. I counted two such incidents. On the way back to the Metro two Skins fans were wrestling each other on the road leading to Fedex. Not a pretty sight. As a parent, I had to ask a couple ninnies who liked screaming profanities to shut their mouths - since I noticed a few kids who appeared to be 7 or 8 year-olds right in front of them. Guess I'm an old fart but they complied without starting yet another altercation.
De-evolution, I guess. In the world of the dumb, there are no winners.
Hail to the Redskins, indeed. Barf.
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