It’s all abut NBA basketball. I love NCAA basketball (growing up in central Kentucky and then going to the University of Louisville will do that to you) and NCAA football. I’m not terribly athletic, but I’ll never pass up a game of Ultimate (Ultimate Frisbee isn’t the correct name, btw) and I play ping-pong better than anyone I know. When I was a foreign exchange student in Hong Kong, they had me play a match against the best player in the school, with about half of the student body watching. I’m proud to say that I . . . only just barely lost.
But I only follow the NBA religiously, and my team is the Dallas Mavericks. I’m no Johnny-come-lately, either. They’ve ben my team since the mid-90s when they were certifiably awful. But now, as you might have noticed, WE’RE IN THE NBA FINALS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY! And we’re playing a team on which Antoine Walker is a vital cog. It’s a great time to be me. We are all Nowitznesses.
Obsessed with: Giants football and Mets baseball (and for once I am not crying)
Follow: International Soccer, College Basketball
I will watch any sport that I come across including golf and bass fishing. Of course, I will not sit there for very long watching bass fishing but I do admire the struggle.
Good to see all the Giants fans in the thread. Makes sense, as Big Blue was by far the most watched team in the NFL last year.
In descending order of how invested I get, along with who I root for:
NFL Football (Giants, Jets)
Men’s Tennis (Federer, Baghdatis*)
NHL Hockey (Rangers)
Women’s Tennis (Hingis, Sharapova)
Olympic Hockey (USA, plus any team with a Rangers goalie - Lundqvist wins gold!)
World Cup Soccer (USA)
Women’s Beach Volleyball (Never seems to be broadcast, though.)
I don’t care a whit about any other sport, and am actually antagonistic toward many of them. While I would like to see the Mets and Knicks do well, I find watching either MLB or NBA games painful after only a few minutes. I loathe college sports with a passion, as the uneven playing field offends me on a visceral level. (Much like MLB.)
I don’t consider curling a sport, but I’m a big fan when the Winter Olympics roll around. I watched a lot of it in 2002, and then way too much this year. Similarly, I don’t consider racing in any form to be a sport, but I am a huge fan of downhill skiing, and not just limited to the Olympics.
Have you seen this guy’s girlfriend? Holy shit, she might be the hottest woman on the planet! Sadly, he’s already been eliminated from the French Open.
There are two things I despise about Yankee games. First is the warbling of “God Bless America” in the seventh. When there are two outs, it’s time for a bathroom / beer (last call!) run, just so I miss this song.
Second is an announcer trying to steal thunder away from the team’s accomplishments with his own catchphrase. Mel Allen didn’t need it. Phil Rizzuto / Bill White / Frank Messer didn’t need it. John Sterling doesn’t need it. Someone should cut his mike after the last out in a Yankees win, or just let them pipe in Sinatra, like at The House That Ruth Built (and coming soon, The House That Jeter Rebuilt).
There’s superhuman and then there’s superhuman. Cricket’s a fun game for people of no more than average size to do great deeds; for instance, Don Bradman stood five feet seven and could have spanked anything you or I bowled at him off the park all day without effort, while Malcolm Marshall, a West Indies quick bowler about four inches shorter than you, could probably nominate which one of your ribs he was going to break with a quick ball. (A slight exaggeration but a pardonable one.) Mere stature isn’t all of where it’s at - there’s also speed of arm, flexibility of wrist, and hand-eye coordination. Bradman’s boyhood amusement was to knock a golf-ball against a water-tank and hit the rebound with a round stick the thickness of a broom handle - and he got to be able to keep that up for hours, which makes clear the dearth of amusement for a young lad in Cootamundra in those days, and explains why when he actually stepped on a cricket field the ball looked about the size of an airship to him.
I used to play rugby but am too old, fat and slow for it now; still enjoy the occasional game of cricket; enjoy but make no claims to be any good at table-tennis; and will watch football if there isn’t any sport on TV.
I’ll steal Ellis’ method – In descending order of how invested I get, along with who I root for:
Football: Die-hard Giants fan, Dolphins fan-by-proxy. Will watch any any game at any time, however (hell, I followed the entire NFL Europe season this year)
Basketball: Nets/Knicks fan. Will occasionally watch a regular-season game, try to attened at least one game each year. Will watch the playoffs pretty religiously until my team(s) are eliminated. Then I usually lose interest. I’ll try and catch a deciding Finals game if I can, though.
Baseball: Three or four Lakewood Blue Claws games each summer. I’d rather watch just about anything before watching baseball on TV, but live games are fun. I’m not about to go up to the city to watch a game, so I root for the local Triple-A team.
I like the stat, but I’m curious as to where that info comes from?
Minor Nitpick:
The Blue Claws are a single A team for the Phillies. Trenton is AA and will probably be your clsest team soon. Bonus is the Thunder are a Yankee Farm team and the Quality of play is much higher for AA over A.
Rodeo; specifically calf roping and team roping, but I’ll watch any of it. I’ve been background support for competitors, I’ve announced and helped put on Junior Rodeo, I watch it in person whenever I can, and I watch it on TV whenever it’s on.
And if hunting’s considered a sport, that too. I hunt deer and bear and the occasional upland game bird. I fish too. I don’t watch much of either of those on TV, but I read up on them a lot. And spend a LOT of time bullshitting with various other fanatics about it.
I’ve played soccer (and miss it) and martial arts. I’m still marginally involved in martial arts (between schools at this point).
In order of preference, I’ll watch: Hockey, baseball, basketball, soccer. Even those, I generally just have it on in the background. Everything else just bores the crap out of me.
I take my kids to one or two Pirate games (baseball) each year. This year it will be Father’s Day. During football season, if my kids wanna watch the Steelers, we do that in front of the TV. If someone gives me tickets for the Penguins, I am happy to go.
My son (12 years old) is a bowler, so I go to his tournaments. I like to canoe, sail, and kayak.
Play: Ice hockey. I still have no idea why I started in the first place, in my 30s–but it looked like fun, I tried it, and now I’m addicted. I do a little mountain biking too, but I need to get into better shape to do that anything like seriously.
Watch (obsessively): Nothing. The closest I get is following the Sharks, but even then it’s not obsessive. I watch games if they’re on and I’m not busy. The thing that separates it from the category below is that for the Sharks I actually pay attention to when the games are on, instead of just discovering them while channel surfing.
Watch (casually): Hockey in general (NHL). Again, if it’s on and I have nothing better to do, I watch it and enjoy it. American football, same. I also like to watch the Olympics when they’re on. Sumo wrestling is fun.
Dislike: Just about all professional sports except hockey and football. No offense to fans, but I find soccer, basketball, baseball, auto racing, tennis, and golf to be mind-numbingly boring. Some of them are fun to play (softball and tennis come to mind) but watching somebody else do them–no thanks. Got more interesting things to do.
Dude, I went to school in New York and had to watch some Knicks games. They suck. They suck bad. They suck for the forseeable future. You have my condolences.
Trevor- a Pistons fan
I follow college football and college basketball religiously. And I’m lucky enough to be a Florida Gator fan, the only school in my lifetime to win outright national championships in both sports.
I’ve been watching a lot of the NBA playoffs this year. I’ll usually watch the NFL postseason as well. My interest in hockey has declined dramatically this year. I watched the baseball playoffs back when I had a DVR, but it’s not worth it if I can’t fast forward.
I am very excited about the World Cup, but that’s about the only soccer I ever watch.
I found it memorable because the Giants were #1, but unforgettable because the Jets were #4. The Jets?! They sucked so bad that not only did I literally fall asleep during at least half their games last year, but my buddy the Jets fan didn’t even watch them at all after Thanksgiving.
How in the hell did the Jets come in at #4 during a season when they demonstrated by far the most ineptitude of any team in the league? Don’t talk about QB injuries; everyone was healthy on opening day and they looked like Keystone Kops out there getting shut out by the Chiefs. How many snaps sailed right over The Chad’s head? Pathetic.
On an unrelated note, booooo on Hingis getting knocked out of the French Open. Federer, OTOH, looked almost superhuman against Ancic yesterday. Can’t wait for the inevitable Federer - Nadal showdown in the finals.
Play: Rally. I also bowl some, bike some, hike some, I’ll basically do whatever. I have no aversion to sports. Watch: Rally, and any other form of auto racing where people turn both left and right (sorry NASCAR, though the road races are interesting). I am also very, very interested in figure skating.
