Football is Americas sport. Baseball is America’s pastime. So what does that make basketball? Not as boring as baseball, maybe? Perhaps. It can be said that there is at least action going on in basketball as opposed to baseball. Seriously, all they do is stand around and spit, with the occasional running around and sliding. Add in a water slide and it’s your standard children’s birthday party. But this isn’t about how mind numbingly boring baseball is. This is about…da da dum..March Madness!
Yes, March Madness. It happens every year at some point. I’m guessing March, but I’m not a betting man. However, apparently many of you are. It’s estimated that every year, tens of billions of dollars are dropped in illegal wagers. That’s billion. With a “b”. This amount of money attracts seasoned gamblers that religiously follow the games all year, as well as those casual betters who are placing wagers on teams that match their high school colors. Of course there are places to gamble legally, like Las Vegas. But I’m guessing all that money just goes to the Corleone family, so that doesn’t count.
All this excitement starts with the beginning of the college basketball season, when the several thousand college basketball teams engage in a classic battle of man vs. man, good vs. evil and the desire to throw an orange ball through a small netted hoop, without regard to the fact that many of these players will never see the inside of a professional teams locker room, their dreams of stardom dashed by someone else whose speed, hand eye coordination and tactical skill exceeds their own. Also, eye of the tiger probably. The multitude of teams eventually whittles down to just over sixty, in a single elimination tournament called March Madness. Teams like the South Carolina Gamecocks, the Syracuse Orange, the Nebraska Cornhuskers and South Dakota Lemmings will all compete for the top spot. By the way, only one of those teams is made up. Can you guess which? (And what the fuck is a gamecock anyway?)
Once the tournament is on the way, anyone who has even a passing interest in the sport is expected to complete what’s known as a “bracket”. Even Obama fills one out, because if he doesn’t, then he gets attacked by Fox News for not being one of the people. Of course, once Obama fills it out, he gets attacked by Fox News for not taking the presidency seriously. I don’t like Fox News.
But I digest…I don’t know much about “bracketing” except what I’ve seen on TV. It seems like it’s a lot of lines on a board and you write team names on the lines based on your own system of determining which team is likely to beat another. Now, there are entire websites devoted to complicated systems and statistics and averages and probably magic to figure out the winners, I don’t know. So for some reason people take this very seriously. They spend hours with friends, both real and internet/imaginary, arguing in favor of one team or another, until they proudly present their bracket to the world. And then the comparisons begin. If one more person asks me if I’ve completed my bracket or how is my bracket doing or bracket bracket bracket…I don’t know. I might murder someone. I feel like I could do it. I’ve seen all six seasons of Dexter and I think I’ve picked up some good tips.
Anyway, that’s all I know about March Madness. Considering the fact that I know absolutely nothing about basketball, this was pretty impressive, huh? Come back next time, when we discuss more things I know nothing about, like not murdering people who annoy me with sports talk.
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