MMBSD: My Waking Nightmare

Last night I had the most horrible of nightmares. My sports dream world had become a living hell. The Baltimore Dirty Birds (even in my sleep I dare not pronounce their dastardly name), scourge of Cleveland, seducer of football teams had run over my beloved Browns. They pounded them with steady diet of Jamal Lewis and Chester Taylor as a dancing Ray Lewis laughed in the background.

I saw a Cardinals offense slumbering. Its batters rendered more impotent than Bob Dole. Somehow the Cleveland Indian's anemic offense was passed on to the Cardinals. The result a bunch of fat Houstonians and Yankee castoffs stand at the brink of ruining the last stand of a stadium named for a beer maker. Somewhere umpires, whose strike zones changed with every pitch, laughed alongside Ray.

I saw Michigan clutching victory out of the hands of defeat on the last play of a game despite its valiant efforts otherwise (throwing over the middle multiple times with no time outs and time running isn't dumb. Throwing down field over the middle for 5 yards multiple times is. See Michigan's QB on how to run the 2 minute drill in 5 minutes). I saw myself sympathizing with a plucky Irish team (is any other team besides Notre Dame every described as plucky?) Hadn't arrogant Hollywood stars better known as the University of Spoiled Children been cut down to size when the clock turned to 00? Hadn't Charlie Weiss and the boys in green done old Rockne proud? But its my nightmare so the ball is placed on the one foot line and the soon to be Heisman winner Reggie Bush pushed a semi-conscious Matt Leinart across the goal line.

Worst of all the images shift and the nightmare of anyone who watches baseball comes into focus. Somehow the team that should never win has kept winning. Not since the year before the devil made a deal with eight men had the Southern Side Sox really threatened to steal the sacred trophy. But the barbarians are now at the gate. I see myself muttering what the last Roman emperor must have said as the Visigoths were climbing the seventh hill, "it can't end like this?" The White Sox can't actually win the World Series? But it’s my waking nightmare and as much I as I try, the images remain despite my waking.