So the Sabercats lost yesterday to the Arizona Rattlers, 66-49. Ah, well. This means the Rattlers will head to Tampa to take on the Storm in ArenaBowl XVII in two weeks. I’ll be rooting for the earthquake.
“Rooting for the earthquake” is one of those concepts in sports that everyone understands, but I don’t think it ever had an official name, until I gave it this one. See, for much of my life (well, until Rupert Murdoch bought the team and basically blew it up), I was a HUGE Los Angeles Dodgers fan. And in 1989, the Oakland A’s (who I had a hatred for ‘cuz the Dodgers had just faced them in the previous year’s World Series, plus I was never a big fan of Jose Canseco) and the San Francisco Giants (who I had a hatred for because they were the San Francisco Giants, and dammit, that’s good enough for a Dodger fan) ended up meeting in October to play in the World Series.
Now, there are times when you don’t particularly care about the two teams playing for a sports championship, but even then you can find a reason to root for one team or the other. But I HATED the A’s and Giants. HATED them. No way in HELL could I throw my support behind either team. The same thing would happen today if, say, the Dallas Stars and the Toronto Maple Leafs were to play for the Stanley Cup. Just disgusting.
So I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be great if a giant sinkhole opened up underneath the stadium and swallowed up both teams and put an end to this crap all together?”
As you know, at 5:04 P.M. on October 17, 1989, right as Game Three was about to get underway in San Francisco, an earthquake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale struck the Loma Prieta area, about 45 minutes south of both teams’ home stadia. The Series was postponed ten days.
I was ecstatic. (My folks tell me I was also in shock, but what the hell.) This was, and is to this day, the closest thing I have ever had to a religious experience, the closest thing I have seen to bona-fide proof of a benevolent God. This was Someone in a Position of Power telling the planet that this World Series was never meant to happen. Tommy Lasorda was right. God, if there is one, is a Dodger fan.
So, long story short, whenever a Super Bowl or Stanley Cup Final or World Series or what have you rolls around, and two teams are playing that I really dislike, I root for the earthquake.