In which I explain my sports mojo

I've written about this before, many years ago, but here's a refresher course for those of you who weren't reading then: I am a super duper lucky charm for a city's sports teams. Don't believe me?

In 1993, I moved to Tallahassee to attend FSU. They won the national championship. They played for the national championship four more times that decade, winning it again in 1999. I had moved away back then, and thus began a decade of awfulness.

The summer of 1995, I was back in Orlando (my hometown) working at Disney World for the summer, and the Orlando Magic made it to the NBA Finals in just their 5th year of existence. (They did get swept in the Finals, but I was only in Orlando for 2 short months so my lucky effect probably had not built up enough by then.)

In 1997, I moved to Boston for law school. The Red Sox were mediocre, the Patriots were mediocre, the Celtics were awful. It took a few years for it to kick in, but in 2002 the Patriots won their first of three Super Bowls championships in four years. In 2004 the Red Sox broke an 86 year curse on their way to 2 World Series championships in four years. And in 2008 the Celtics even won a championship, the culmination of a rebuilding that started while I was still there.

In fall of 2005 I moved to Georgia, just after the Atlanta Braves made the playoffs for the last of their amazing 14 year postseason streak. In February 2006 I formally moved to Atlanta, and slowly began switching my allegiances to Atlanta sports teams. The first to go was football, because I was really bothered by the Patriots' taping/cheating scandal. Then went basketball, because I liked the young, raw talent of the Hawks and their tremendous upside. But I'd been holding onto my Red Sox love, and had a really hard time giving it up. I had been through hell and bliss with my Sox, and I just wasn't sure I could root for any other team. Still, at the start of this season, I decided I had to do it. The Braves needed me, and I told everyone I was on board.

Needless to say, it's helping. The Braves just returned to the postseason for the first time since 2005 despite having the wheels nearly fall off due to numerous injuries to critical players. The Hawks have made it to the playoffs three years in a row, and should have a very good team this year again. The Falcons made the playoffs two years ago, broke the curse of never having back to back winning seasons with their 9-7 record last year (after Matt Ryan's injury), and look great this year--so great that they have become a very trendy sleeper Super Bowl pick. I have no idea when the championships will come, but within the next five years, I think any one of the Braves, Hawks or Falcons could win it all. Maybe all three.

When I moved to Atlanta in 2006, none of our major sports teams were in the postseason. The Braves were going into rebuilding mode, the Falcons were dealing with the Michael Vick saga, and the Hawks were still a young team that had been nothing to write home about for over a decade. Since then, all 3 have made the postseason at least once, and this year we should have all 3 in the postseason in the same year. Meanwhile, the Patriots have stopped winning Super Bowls, and the Red Sox failed to make the postseason this year. Boston's reign as supreme sports town is drawing to a close, while Atlanta's is just beginning.

You can all thank me later.

Cheaters Sometimes Win

As a diehard Red Sox fan, I was crushed to read yesterday that both Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz tested positive for banned substances in 2003. Manny wasn't all that surprising given his suspension this season, but Big Papi was a huge blow. Ortiz was the heart and soul of that 2004 team that broke the curse, and now everyone would assume it was fueled by the juice.

Jmac at Beyond the Trestle argues today that it's not really cheating if everyone's doing it. While I get the point he is trying to make, I still think it's despicable and worthy of punishment. I also think that trying to defend this behavior as "well, everyone was doing it" will only make Red Sox fans look like idiots willing to break that curse at any cost. It reminds me of this great Bill Simmons column that he wrote after Manny's bust back in May.

Yes, many of us who prayed we would see the curse broken in our lifetimes would probably gladly say, just like Bill's dad, "I'd do it again!"...even dirty. But we should hate ourselves for thinking that way. Really, does it matter that we "broke" the curse if we had to do it on the backs of guys who had career years under mysterious circumstances and who we now know were potentially still playing on the residue of 2003 juicing? If we found out that the entire team was playing with corked bats for the 2004 season, would we be OK with that too? Even though I love the New England Patriots and don't really believe they only won three Super Bowls because they taped other teams' signals, I still recognize that I can't defend that behavior to the rest of the league's fans. Similarly, I am not about to try and defend a juicer even if he happens to be my favorite current Red Sox player.

And as for the others who will now assert that the two Red Sox titles in this decade are now tainted, all Sox fans can do now is hope that enough information about other users comes out that EVERY title in the steriods era ends up tainted. Then, we can hopefully get baseball and its fans to recognize that we either have to accept that performance enhancing drugs are part of the game and have changed it forever, or get them to commit to cleaning up the game at any cost and start testing players religiously throughout the season. This crisis threatens to ruin not just the relief of Sox fans, but all of baseball if it continues on its present path.

Quote of the Day, Where Magic Happens edition

When I was a teenager, my hometown of Orlando, Florida finally got its first professional sports team. The Orlando Magic's first season was 1989, and like virtually all new teams they sucked for awhile. But the town embraced them, and after a couple years they sucked so bad that they managed to draft the superstar-in-waiting Shaquille O'Neal with the No. 1 pick. He instantly improved the team, but they just barely missed the playoffs in his rookie season. The Magic had just one little white ball in that year's draft lottery, but by a miracle that one little ball managed to find its way home for the No. 1 pick 2 years in a row. The Magic drafted Chris Webber but traded for Anfernee Hardaway, and suddenly we had two young superstars and seemed headed for greatness.

Just two years later, the Magic became the second-youngest new team ever to make the NBA Finals, led by Shaq, Penny, and Chicago Bulls veteran Horace Grant. We even beat those Bulls, with a recently-returned Michael Jordan, to get there. I worked at Disney World that summer, and the water tower usually topped with Mickey Mouse ears was covered with Grant's trademark blue goggles as a sign of Orlando's basketball fever. On the game nights that I worked in Mickey's Character Shop, we had a telephone tree set up throughout the store to pass regular score updates to all employees while the game was on. We had these two amazing stars, and all the hope in the world.

Then we played the Houston Rockets in the Finals and got swept. It was awful, and it was followed by a desert of bad and disappointing seasons. Shaq left for L.A., Penny left for Phoenix, we traded for Grant Hill and he promptly became perma-injured, we had some great players who underachieved, and we never seemed to get past the first round even when we made it to the playoffs at all. Orlando Magic fans grew weary and jaded, forgetting all that hope and optimism of the early 1990's.

That's why this year has been so special for those of us who were around back then and who remember the early days, and then stuck around through the drought that followed them. I was so thrilled to see my Magic beat the defending world champion Celtics, even though previously the Celtics were my team when I lived in Boston. I was ecstatic that they managed to dismantle the team with the best record in basketball, the Cavaliers, in dominating fashion. I had high hopes for this team, but I also had fear. I knew the heartbreak of the NBA Finals had left a deep and painful memory, and I was afraid it would return.

The first game was awful, and I stopped watching midway through the second half. The second game was an absolute travesty, one that even Phil Jackson said we should have won because of an uncalled goaltend at the very end. Instead we lost in overtime, and I walked out of the bar where I watched it on Sunday night completely demoralized. The heartbreak of 1995 was looming dangerously close again. I resolved not to watch the rest of the series, to preserve myself so that I would not be hurt that way again. Perhaps my years living in as a Red Sox fan taught me to do this, but it was almost instinctive. I would not watch even a second of Game 3.

Last night, the Magic beat the Lakers on a dazzling display of shooting. I didn't see any of it, and only read about it online this morning. My team is still behind, the odds are still decidedly against them, but they finally knocked that monkey off their backs and won their first ever NBA Finals game. As I struggled with what to say about this, I found this quote from an Orlando Sentinel sportswriter that sums it up better than I ever could:

Fine. The Orlando Magic won a game. In the Finals. I am proud. Trust me, that win, even if the vast majority of the folks celebrating on Orange Ave. do not realize it, means something. For the come-lately fans, it is one more reason to get drunk on Thursday. For those of us who have been living and dying with this team for decades, from losing Shaq, T-Mac and Grant Hill's feet, it means far more than that. It is a middle finger to the pezzonovantes in the national media who never gave this team a chance. We paid attention when they could not be bothered to flip their remotes to TNT. Whatever happens from here on forward, this Magic team, more than any other, has shown grit, heart and resiliency. Anfernee Hardaway and Shaq possessed gifts Dwight and Rashard will never know. But this current regime has shown something those superior athletes never even hinted at. That is, accountability in the face of superior adversity. Calm in the fist of a humiliating tsunami, something Shaq and Penny couldn't stomach even as an entire franchise existed only to fill their most menial needs.

Michael White, from "The Lakers are probably better, but I've never been prouder of a Magic team."

He's right. They probably won't win, they look outgunned by the Lakers. But I am so proud of my hometown team for not falling apart even after they could have easily rolled over and gotten swept. I'm so proud of them for showing the same grit and determination that got them this far. A better Magic team wilted in the face of adversity in 1995 and made all of us Magic fans feel a bit foolish and ashamed that we had believed our young team could win it all. Thanks to last night, that won't happen this year regardless of whether we win or lose. We can be proud to have believed in these guys.

(But because I'm more than a little superstitious, I won't watch the rest of the series because I'm convinced the Magic play better when I'm not watching. Yes, I am crazy.)

Wow

NASCAR legend Junior Johnson has endorsed Barack Obama for President. To those of you wondering why this matters...NASCAR drivers and their fans comprise probably the largest monolithic demographic group of Republicans left in this country. To see them break ranks is truly surprising.

Random

I don't have the mental clarity or time for mutiple blog posts, so some tidbits bouncing around my brain to tide folks over:

* Troy Davis dies in a week. I really want to go to protest outside the execution, but I don't know if I will be able to get out of town in time. If not, I will sit on my front step that night and light a candle, and pray. I encourage all who find the decision to execute this man without full consideration of the grounds for his appeal to do the same.

* Tonight I am going with a group of folks to try Taverna Plaka. I haven't had greek food in ages, so I'm very excited! Review forthcoming as soon as I find the time.

* This weekend, I'm going to the FSU-Virginia Tech game. Considering that we lost the Miami game I went to last year, and the 3 home games I went to the year before that, I am a little apprehensive about whether I might be jinxing the team. However, I bought new gear to wear in the hope of exorcising the old demons.

* My darling Red Sox are out of the playoffs, but they really overachieved in making it to game 7 of the ALCS given the injuries they were struggling with. Now I have to root for the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays, since I grew up in central FL. However, I suspect most Braves fans would be rooting against them because if the Rays win they will have eclipsed the Braves' "worst to first" record in 1991...when the Braves lost in the World Series.

* Pretty much everything I watch on TV these days is disappointing and doesn't seem worth the time. Grey's Anatomy sucks, True Blood is cheesy and porny (and badly written), Project Runway was a mere shell of its former self in this last season on Bravo, I lost interest in Fringe after 2 episodes, I couldn't get back into watching the Sarah Connor Chronicles or Pushing Daisies, and Heroes is clearly in the category of one-season wonders previously occupied by Friday Night Lights. Even Gossip Girl isn't as good this time around. Are there any shows that are lighting up your TV screens that I should be watching? (Excepting those on Showtime, which I don't have.)

* This weekend, I attempted Operation Convince the Family to Vote for Obama. It didn't go so well. My grandparents aren't going to vote at all (which is better than a vote for McCain, I guess), and my parents are both so afraid of Democrats having unfettered control of government that they won't be swayed. At least that is their reasoning, rather than fear of a secret Muslim or focus on his alleged relationship with William Ayers. But still, Habersham county is apparently McCain country.

* I bought Mario Kart last weekend for my Wii, and I can't stop playing it. The race that takes place in a shopping mall is so incredibly hard, I want to kill myself every time I try it. But I keep trying it anyway.

* Work is busy, but busy is good. Even though the tension in these parts is pretty thick right about now. Everyone's waiting for the other shoe of the financial crisis to drop, and wondering if it will fall on them. Not the greatest of environments in which to spend my days.

* The election cannot get here fast enough. I am officially sick of it, and ready for Obama to just WIN ALREADY.

Boys, take pity on me

This weekend, I am participating in my first fantasy football draft. Though I am more into pro football than most women I know, I have never understood the allure of the whole fantasy process. (I only agreed to do this because they were short a player to make a full league.)

I don't understand how scoring works, or what is important in ordering draftees. I don't have a sense of which players are the best performers. I know that we are picking offense on Saturday and defense on Sunday, and I think there are 10 rounds of each. I also know I have the 4th pick, but we are doing a "serpentine" draft so it will alternate between the 4th pick and the 9th pick in each round.

That's it.

Can someone who does this stuff all the time and understands it better than I do (and, ahem, is not going to be competing in the same league against me and attempting competitive sabotage) take pity on poor lil' me and direct me to a good site for draft orders and research? I will be forever in your debt, or something.