To be a true sports fan -- and you know who you are -- you have to sit through loads of dreck. Boise State-Tulsa, as a example, or the NFL preseason, or the backend of blowouts year-round in every sport.
But the good news is every now and again you are rewarded for your patience as never before. So it was for me Saturday night when the Yankees beat the Angels in extra innings in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series (ALCS) -- and when your Colorado Buffaloes upended #15 Kansas in Boulder just when they looked like they might blow it again.
Driving back from New Mexico with a new doggie named "Cinderella," I was able to get the Buffs radio broadcast on a faltering signal from KOA in Denver. Could it be true? The Buffs up by more than 20 over the explosive Jayhawks and all-world QB Todd Reesing? It was true all right--but my signal did not hold as we headed toward Independence Pass.
Then: the first miracle of the night.
The Avis rental had Sirius satellite radio, and when I hit the Sirius button the Buffs-Jayhawks game miraculously appeared on the very channel Sirius was tuned to out of hundred of radio channels. Like I said: a miracle. (And an omen.) We were able to listen to the game with perfect clarity -- and the near-perfect play by ply of the mellifluous Mark Johnson -- until we made it home and I could watch the final moments of the game on television.
The only problem was the Buffs were blowing it just like they did against an even better Texas team last week. For four years now, I have been pulling for Colorado coach Dan Hawkins, and I was convinced that if they lost to Kansas at home he would be unable to dig out of a 1-5 hole and would surely be fired even with time left on his contract. Somehow, miraculously, the Buffs didn't quite blow it: when the game came down to the final play, the Kansas receiver dropped the ball in the end zone and Colorado had upended a great team.
Coach Hawk would live to fight another day.
Meanwhile, the Yankees. My Bombers and the treacherous Halos were immersed and enmeshed in a 2-2 tie that went into extra innings when my guys fell behind 3-2 only to be saved by a tying dinger off the bat of Alex Rodriguez, of all people, who set the stage for a 4-3 Yankees victory in the 13th stanza -- not to mention a 2-0 lead in ALCS. A classic, in other words.
For good measure, a final drink for the sports fan drinking deeply, how about this? I flipped to the very end of the Washington-Arizona State game to see the Sun Devils complete a Hail Mary pass that went completely and inexplicably uncovered by them Huskies. One of two players were completely open as the Washington of new coach Steve Sarkisian, late of USC, showed it was not quite ready for prime time.
So fear not, sports fans. For every one hundred clunkers, you just might get the reward of a lifetime. The Buffs win! The Yankees win! Life is sweet for the sports fan in a satellite world.