Packers @ Giants

8:30 pm NBC.  A more familiar kind of Throwball.

I’ve often wished these two teams would play in the Super Bowl every year since they are my favorites, but that would make it too hard to root.

Unlike most of my neighbors I’m definitely a New York market fan and have little use for the Sox or Patsies and notwithstanding Broadway Joe, Gang Green has always been flashy feckless collection of not quite good enoughs too lowly for even a Mets fan.

Woody Johnson and Tim Tebow are no improvement.

The Giants on the other hand have very, very occasionally put together a team that actually knows how to run and pass and control the clock so their usually ordinary Defense doesn’t look so bad (I remember LT with great fondness).  As one of the originals it’s a storied franchise that remembers its traditions of greatness.

They are my team of proximity.  The Packers are the team of my heart, The People’s Team.

I defy you to read their story and not get a little misty eyed about much better things could be if we had a system that rewarded its professed values of hard work and sacrifice for the collective good instead of Mammon worship in pursuit of a new feudalism.

I seldom notice Throwball until the last lingering leaf is brown on the ground.  Should, as frequently happens, the Giants not be a part of the post season at that point I sigh a little sigh and say- wait ’til next year.

If the Packers are not in the hunt I am reminded of the wisdom of Moonlight Graham.

(F)or five minutes you came within… y-you came this close. It would KILL some men to get so close to their dream and not touch it. God, they’d consider it a tragedy.

Son, if I’d only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes… now that would have been a tragedy.