Travelogue

I write a blog early so I can go travel to the South again and what happens? A whole heck of a lot. 

Besides worrying myself a bit about the Nor’Easter, which slammed New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine, and how it would affect my driving plans (it didn’t), I hardly watched televised sports during the last 8 days. 

Sure, I saw Rutgers come from behind to outlast Nebraska, once more raising their faint NCAA hopes. Which may have come tumbling down in a stupefying overtime loss at Northwestern on Tuesday. I wish I could have seen Paul Mulcahy’s out-of-the blue 31 point outburst and the Knights roaring back to outscore the Wildcats 42-18 in the second half. But I would have been angry if I had seen Caleb Mc Connell and Geo Baker go scoreless for the entire game. 

I watched the Warriors win at home versus Kyrie Irving (boo, hiss!! for his vaccine stance) and the Nets, which played without Kevin Durant and James Harden. It wasn’t pretty, but Golden State concluded its homestead with 6 straight victories after an OT loss to Indiana to start the time at the Chase Center. 

Hey, even F&M won on Saturday. The Diplomats swept the season series from Washington College, taking down the Shoremen in Lancaster. 

A rear trifecta for me. My teams actually winning on the same day was cause for a mini-celebration. Except I had to go to sleep, to be adequately prepared for the grueling road trip ahead. 

Sunday dawned bright and cold. Did I say cold? We are talking in the low teens when we left the driveway. With 7” of snow deposited on our property courtesy of the aformentioned storm. 

Thankfully traffic wasn’t overbearing down to Baltimore. I still have visions in my head of summertime trips with Fan X, where he somehow maneuvered his way through the hordes of cars and trucks on Interstate 95 in Maryland to miraculously get us to our seats at Oriole Park at Camden Yards just in time for the first pitch. (For the record, we made it to Exit 53 in a shade over 3 hours, as we had two bathroom breaks and chowed down a quick lunch)

My wife and I made a stop at a strip mall in Columbia, Maryland to see my college roommate and a devoted reader. Can you believe that we didn’t talk about sports at all?

The road trip was uneventful even around Washington. I did remorsefully see the signs for Capital Center Drive, a shout out to when the Bullets and Capitals played in the namesake arena out on the I-495 Beltway. Of course, there were Metro signs for Nationals Park, and we passed nearby Fed Ex Field, the home of the-then Washington Football Team, now known as the Commanders. Couldn’t ownership have thought of anything better than to glom the nickname from a video game? I won’t even mention how they screwed up the logo with incorrect dates of the franchise’s three Super Bowl wins. Wait, I think I just did. 

Traveling down I-95 through NOVA, it seemed like the D.C. Metro area extended for miles beyond the southern side of the Beltway. The traffic southbound was fairly strong, but heading northbound, it was even heavier. 

Suddenly, everything came to a halt. We were mired in a 5 mile, 45 minute back up due to an accident which caused two lanes to be shut. Our travels hadn’t reached Richmond and my thoughts of seeing the end of the Cincinnati-Kansas City AFC title game seemed to be dashed. I had a long way to go to Rocky Mount, NC, and darkness would become my old friend. 

My wife kept tabs on the game on her cell phone. At first it seemed like KC and Patrick Mahomes II would run away to another Super Bowl appearance. Except that Joe Burrow and crew had other ideas. With the game coming to an end, I finally gave in and located Westwood One on Sirius XM and caught the call of Ian Eagle along with Tony Boselli. 

The Chiefs tied the game with a field goal, then won the coin toss. Would history repeat itself? Could Mahomes lead his team down the field to a score and deny the Bengals a chance to have the ball?

Not on this Sunday. From the radio play-by-play, it seemed like Mahomes gave the game away in his last two passes, the latter being intercepted in good scoring position for the Bengals. And that’s what happened. A few minutes later, Cincinnati punched its ticket to So-Fi Stadium with a game-clinching field goal. 

I wanted the Chiefs to win and be recognized as a dynasty. But I also recognized that Burrow is every bit as good as the hype coming out of LSU with a National Championship. Don’t count this young Cincinnati team out, even if the Rams came from behind at home to down their nemesis, the San Francisco 49’ers. While LA is quite good, I believe the AFC is better than the NFC, and Cincinnati will not be giving up much playing in the Rams stadium on Super Bowl Sunday. 

At least the game was over early enough for us to get some sleep. We caught the game on the Raleigh FOX affiliate at the end of the first quarter. It just didn’t have the pizazz of the other games preceding it, including the Rams-Bucs game the week before. 

Or as it might be called, Tom Brady’s final game. For on Saturday, the rumor that Brady was retiring was stated as fact. Then promptly denied by Brady and his associates.  The outpouring of love for the G.O.A.T. was nice to see. The Jets were sure glad he was gone. By Tuesday morning, the oft denied rumor became fact—he was really retiring. Which led to another swell of love and affection for TB12. 

Brady went out on a high note, even in defeat. He was top gun this season. He owns so many records that will be difficult to break. He was the ultimate competitor at quarterback.

I don’t know if there will be another like him. There has never been anyone like Babe Ruth. Or Michael Jordan. Or Wayne Gretzky. And now there won’t be anyone like Tom Brady. 

We continued our trip on Monday through  North and South Carolina, into Georgia. We stayed overnight in my birthplace, Albany, Georgia. Who knew that I shared Albany as my first home with Ray Charles, not just Ray Knight? 

On Tuesday  we departed from Georgia into Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and into Louisiana. When we passed through Mobile, I thought of Henry Aaron, a native of that city and I also thought of the upcoming Senior Bowl to be held there on Saturday. The Jets coaches are leading one side. 

Seeing the Superdome with the Caesar logo and red and green lights made it look as cheesy as the Smoothie King Center next door. I saw a lot more Alabama stickers and colors on cars than any other SEC school during our trip. 

Tuesday was also the day Brian Flores had had enough. Fired from the Miami Dolphins despite getting his team untracked was uncalled for (but within the right of team owner Steven Ross), Flores had been embarrassed when his mentor, Bill Belichick erroneously texted him instead of Brian Daboll, to congratulate Daboll on becoming the head man for the New York Giants—BEFORE it had been announced. 

This showed what a sham the Rooney Rule had become in terms of hiring black head coaches. As of today,  Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin remains the only man of color leading a team in a league dominated by players who are of color. 

Flores was never given enough of a chance—he was a token interview in a stacked deck for the Giants, as the new GM sought someone he was familiar with from his former team, the Buffalo Bills. Flores felt the same way in Denver, which has adamantly denied the fact. 

So he chose to expose the NFL by way of lawsuit. Even if this hurts him in his quest to be  a head coach in the league—he is still in the running for the openings in New Orleans and Houston. 

Some of the things he related—tanking games at the request of the owner in exchange for $100,000—were abhorrent. Flores also indicated that he was being forced to recruit star-crossed Deshaun Watson to come to Miami, despite the allegations of so many women against the quarterback. 

The NFL is a dirty business. It gets what it deserves. A lawsuit of this magnitude has been necessary for a long while given how black head coaches are always short-changed in terms of few hirings of deserving men and earlier than usual firings of those who get to lead a team. 

The NFL coffers still get richer in spite of their glaring employment deficiencies. NBC has announced that all Super Bowl commercials have been sold for the tidy sum of $7 million per ad. People will party heartily on February 12th, which used to be known as Lincoln’s Birthday. I wonder how he would ruminate and opine on the goings on in the NFL and the country? And how does Ryan Tannehill feel about the news that Aaron Rodgers is building a home nearby Nashville, where Ryan is the quarterback for the Titans—for now?

Anyway, we are back in New Jersey, in the comfort of our house. This travelogue is over. I can return to watching sports on TV.