No one can tell me what my remorse is

Dear Readers,

The last few years I always felt like writing a “Life is Good” post, celebrating how long it had been since the New York Yankees won a World Series or were a serious threat to: it had been nearly a decade. I suppose they were a threat to win it in 2003, when I didn’t watch the Florida Marlins whoop ’em, but the Arizona Diamondbacks’ seventh-game win in 2001 didn’t just knock off the Yankees’ aura, it made the team seem utterly vincible. After a few years, though, I felt most of us had forgotten how awful it had been in the late-90’s and 2000, when the Dynasty of Inequality crushed the hopes of baseball fans everywhere else, which is to say of real fans. (Those same fans had the pleasure of being insulted every time the team’s front-office and managerial savvy were praised on TV. Oh, that huge financial advantage inherent to playing in New York? I’m sure it’s nothing! Salary cap? That sounds like communism, and what kind of all-American sport would agree to such blatant loss of freedom?) It pains me to say that I did not write that post on time, for as you know the Yankees were “finally” back on top last year after a soul-searing ten-year absence.

Now, my friends, my regret is not doing the same for the Blue Devils of Duke, who are back in the national championship game tomorrow night for the first time since 2001. Screw Duke, I hate Duke, Duke sucks. You know me as an unnaturally-occurring fan of Duke’s main rival, the North Carolina Tar Heels, but that’s not my motivation here. Duke, in the grand tradition of the Yankees, New Red Sox, and Dallas Cowboys, is overhyped, overpraised, and overappreciated. But, you say, at least I have to admit that Coach Shursheffski has done a marvelous job with the ol’ program, don’t I? Actually, I don’t. I’m more than happy to ignore any changes in the game over several decades and instead compare him unfavorably to, say, John Wooden at UCLA. And hey, at least Kareem did a thing or two in the pros. (But seriously, is Coach K. really as far ahead of every other marquee de laffay-coach as they say he is? I think not.)

Let’s go Butler!

And whatever happens tomorrow night, at least we’ll always have this year’s Super Bowl,

Mike