Join Me in Snarkville

You have to know that we are not a sports household here.  Oh, yes, we love a good baseball season — though Prince and I have fundamental differences in what team* to cheer for.  We prefer to go to a ballpark to watch a game than watch on TV.  We never seem to have any sort of game on TV.  So, you can imagine Prince’s shock that I watched the final two games of the NCAA tournament on TV this week.  Oh, yes, but I had a reason…

My beloved Memphis (State) Tigers were actually there.  (I’m not sure that University of Memphis should have changed their name from Memphis State — and I’m hard pressed to not to call them Memphis State.)  The last time Memphis was in the Final Four, I lived in Memphis — over 20 years ago.  Memphis had never been to the finals until this year.  Better than that, when they won against UCLA (great game by the way) they did something that no team in the history of college ball had ever done — won 38 games in one season.  Seriously, wow.

So, Prince had to work last night so Duke and I watched the game together.  The problem is that Duke had no idea who to cheer for, what to cheer for, or why we were watching this game. So the conversations went like this:

“No, we aren’t changing the channel now — the game is still on.  This is just a commercial.”  There are ENTIRELY too many commercials in college basketball.

“No, Buddy, we are cheering for the guys wearing white, not red.”

“Yes, he did get the ball in the hoop, but that was the other team — we don’t clap for that.”

Duke: “Go Birds! Go Birds!”   Me: “Sweetie, we are cheering for the Tigers.  You know Tigers eat Birds?” Duke: “I like the birds.”  (We so need to chat.)

In the second half, Duke crawls up in my lap (now the second half was awesome for Memphis) and he and I are chanting together….”Go Memphis! Go Tigers!” and he stops and looks at me and says…”What’s the Tiger’s name?” “Tony” “Oh.” “Go, Tony! Go Tony!”

I sent Duke to bed before the end of the game, he didn’t even ask me about it this morning.  I’m hoping it won’t be another 20 years until I see Memphis in the finals, but who knows.

*Prince tends to say he’s for the Mets, but he’ll be for the Mariners given the chance.  I’m a Cubs fan and thus used to disappointment.