Butch Leiber's World

I love football. I love the Cardinals. I love the Eagles too but not against the Cardinals. I love to watch the game and I can sit for hours on a typical Sunday and watch three games right in a row. Even as far back as when I was in college. I’d sleep on Sunday until about 11:30, get up and walk over to The Campus Store (I think that’s was it was called) for a couple of hoagies, soda or beer and head home and plant myself on the couch for a day of football. Ah, time. Now I work on Sundays. Usually I work 3:30 PM until midnight so no late games and yesterday I did an overtime shift and voila, no football at all. It’s painful. I wait all summer for the games to begin then have to miss 6.25% of the season at work! Priorities, right?
Thank god for DVRs (man’s finest invention since air conditioning). I set the DVR to record the Cardinals game and turned off my radio and hoped to avoid hearing any score about the Cardinals game. I tried this twice already and both times was thwarted in my intention to stay in the dark. I watched the game I heard we won and promptly deleted the game I had heard we lost. Why stay up late to watch a losing effort. Last night I was successful and settled in with my remote, my diet Fresca and my DVR at 1:00 AM to watch the Cardinals game and I had no clue as to the outcome. Bliss.
The Cardinals have not performed so well at home this season and I guess in an effort to shake things up they decided to dress in their pajamas for the game. The all red uniforms were mildly offensive to the eye although not as ugly as some of the throwback uniforms some teams are wearing this season. The team obviously stayed in bed and quickly fell behind by two touchdowns. At 2:00 AM there’s really no one to complain to so I grabbed a snack and hoped things would improve. Then they did. Cardinals rookie Beanie Wells came alive and so did the Cardinals, turning it around and winning the game 31-20. It was fun. The Cardinals have a running game. The Cardinals have a new star. It was great watching this guy play like Larry Centers (the last great Cardinals running back) and score twice to seal the victory. Except, at 3:00 AM, there’s no one to cheer with. No one to call and scream into the phone with. Plus, most of the people who cared probably had seen this hours ago.
What’s my point? Well, once I again, I thank the great engineers at TiVo for the DVR so that we mere mortals can shift time and enjoy our hobbies at 3 AM or whenever we want to watch them. A three and a half hour football game can be condensed to less than two with a remote control. I’m also excited to watch Beanie continue his rise towards rookie of the year – it’s been a while since I was actually this excited about the Cardinals at this point in the season. They may just be who we thought they were. But, please lose the pajamas.
And lastly, it’s odd living after midnight. It’s just after noon right now and I’ve been awake for an hour. I feel like I’ve missed half of the day (I guess I actually have). I get home from work close to 1 AM but usually don’t go to sleep until 3 or 4. I wonder if anyone else is up at that hour? I need someone to watch pre-recorded football games with early on Monday mornings.
Go Cards!