I had to put this special post here to make quite a striking announcement: no one in the history of sports fandom has had such a wide spacing of his two favorite sports teams' fortunes as that of the author of this site.
For you see, I am a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco Giants. These are indeed my two favorite sports teams. Just point of fact, I was born about 100 miles west of KC, near where most of my immediate ancestors established themselves, and two years later my folks moved to the Bay Area where I grew up for the next 15 formidable years of my life.
If you've been paying attention to anything sportsesque, you'd undoubtedly see that in the span of a scant eight hours, the divergence of the talent and success between these two teams has never been matched in the entire history of sports fandom. It's a record!
To wit, last night the Giants finished off the Detroit Tigers in a brilliant display of baseball playing excellence, team commitment, and managerial skill. They swept them in four straight games, doing everything it took to win. They didn't dominate the scoreboard, but their pitching, defense, and timely hitting was so superb that the Tigers only looked like were in any of these games. Since their last loss to the Cardinals on Thursday, October 18th, the Giants were behind in any game only for a length of two innings total (last night when they were briefly behind 2-1), a span covering seven games (last three against StL and all four against Det).
Meanwhile, there is the Kansas City Chiefs, a team in such disarray that they themselves only look like they belong in the NFL. The record-making point is that while the Giants only barely allowed a team to be slightly ahead once over the course of 64 total innings of play, the Chiefs have not been ahead at any point of 28 quarters of regulation play. This, by the way, has not been accomplished by any NFL team since 1940, and I don't even want to know which team that was -- far too frightening even during Halloween season. The Chiefs have only managed to bumble, bungle, fumble, flambongled everything they've tried, just generally fouling up every place they've played.
Look at it this way. San Francisco Giants: See that bright glistening star in the northern sky? That's them, about 57 gazillion light years from the Chiefs, which is -- well, out of modest respect, I'll just complete the metaphor this way -- compared to the Giants up there, the Chiefs are that really unsavory thing there lying along the base of your backyard fence over by the patchy dirt part, you know that thing there... okay, now you can use your own imagination.
And what I'm seeing is not something unusual at all. It just looks so stark with such a yawning difference. The key is the management. It is the whole ownership/management package. I know. I remember when this was abysmally ugly for the Giants. But today they've got in place an ownership group who is really on-the-ball. A president who has nurtured this team for many years and established the organization as one of the best in the majors. A general manager who's been able to hone his skills and develop into one of the best, sometimes doing what seems to be miracle work to assemble the very best team for right now. And a field manager who is at the same time tough and gentle, understanding and calculating, earthy and cerebral, and above all phenomenally respected.
The Chiefs? I'm starting to get real scared about the real leadership ability of Clark Hunt. If this year is a reflection of Scott Pioli's abilities then I'm extraordinarily scared that we did indeed hire a Joe Thomas and not a Bill Walsh. And Romeo Crennel is an unmitigated bust. We actually have some fine players! But they look like they really don't know what they're doing out there, where they are going on the field, or even what planet they're walking on. This is all on management and coaching. Ouch.
Meanwhile, the Giants are making me very happy right now. I'm walking a foot above the ground today just reveling in the utter awesomeness of yet another world championship for my baseball team.
Plus, for me as a fan, I've set a record!
Largest Spread of Goodness Value Between a Fan's Two Favorite Pro Sports Teams.
Awwright! (Or "Ohh no" as the case may be...)
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