Sports - Its A Way Of Life

This is a great time of year, March Madness wrapped up with a Kentucky win, baseball is in full swing, and Memorial Day weekend is on the radar for many of us.  Unfortunately living abroad in Sydney, Australia means you miss out on all of this.  All US sports are played live here at very strange times, football and baseball schedules are turned upside down.  Gone are the Sunday mornings in the fall and winter, waking up, enjoying some breakfast, hydrating from the previous night out, and then making plans to watch the 1 o’clock and 4 o’clock football games.  Bar crowds cheering on the Yankees, Jets, or Giants, pints of beer, wings and fries.  This is a sports fanatic’s ritual Stateside and something I had been a part of since I was a little kid. 

Having the first pitch of a Yankees game thrown at 4am Friday morning doesn’t do much for me, even worse off is the NFL timing, the Sunday 1pm games kick off Monday at 4 in the morning and the 4pm kicks off at 8am, just in time for the start another work week!

To make matters worse X-Pats like me are inundated with a myriad of terrible Aussie/Euro trash sports all year round. 

Soccer…  I can deal with soccer due to the fact that not many pubs put it on the TV’s and its usually English Premier League so it’s not like watching washed up guys like Beckham taking dives on the field for the LA Galaxy.  The worst grade of soccer on TV would be the Aussie League, everyone would agree that Aussie League soccer is like the Canadian Football League, it serves a purpose, but no one really has a clue as to what that purpose really is. 

Rugby…  Rugby is alright but after you watch one game you’ve watched them all, it shares a violence factor similar to Football but the lack of ingenuity in the game really comes out and makes it repetitive.  Watching Rugby is similar to watching a peewee football game where the 4^th graders just run around mindlessly bumping into each other and falling down. Rugby League players in Australia have a worse arrest record then NFL players and that in itself is an embarrassment.  Standout Rugby guys are making 300k a year and driving around in a Ferrari worth $750k (AUD), being more fiscally irresponsible then NFL players should earn you a 5 year stretch at a super max prison on principle alone.     

Cricket…  Just take a deep breath and get ready for this one.  Possibly the most boring sport on the planet, Cricket makes Curling look like the NCAA Football National Championship game.  Pitchers in Cricket are called Bowlers (needs I say more) and take about a 15 yard run-up to “Bowl” the ball overhand at speeds that 8^th grade little league pitchers can hit.  Batters known as Batsmen look more like escaped Hockey Goalies that ditched their skates.  The bat is about 3 feet wide and missing the ball should be a career ender for any player.  Any sport where the National team from India can take you behind the woodshed and give you a beat down is as ridiculous a Men’s Field Hockey (don’t laugh) which India holds the most Olympic Gold Medals in.  This information alone should be the nail in the coffin that Cricket so desperately needed.  I can go on forever but I think you get the point. 

The only positive thing I can say about Aussie sports is that fans are passionate about their teams and there is more than enough drinking involved at the stadium, pubs, and at home.  Thank God for ESPN and Fox Sports which routinely show American sports live (at terrible times) and on delay which is the only reason I have survived so long Down Under.