There are certain things you can count on when it comes to Thanksgiving week: Turkey, football, Couples (as in either Freddie, or your second cousin and his new girlfriend, who he met the night before at the local hole-in-the-wall and invited over for another awkward Thanksgiving meet-and-eat) and Tums.
Columns from sports writers who begin each sentence with “I am thankful for...” are also a Turkey Day ritual.
Call me Scrooge (or whatever Thanksgiving Day equivalent you can come up with – in my house, it’s “Drunk Uncle Jimmy”), but I just don’t feel like jumping in that cart.
I’d rather watch Lucy pull the football away at the last second from Sergio Garcia another 200 times.
Or is that Charlie Brown?
Don’t get me wrong: I am a very thankful person, even though I can’t afford one of those virtual golf simulators for my living room. I also have perspective: While furiously munching on jumbo shrimp and grilled lobster tail a few weeks ago at Doral, I turned to one my colleagues and said: “I probably wouldn’t appreciate this as much if I were Donald Trump.”
I am thankful for sarcasm.
I am also thankful that good journalism requires balance, which leads me to this: My first “I am unthankful for” column.
(Happy Thanksgiving!)
• I am unthankful for playing golf (I’m round-to-round on this one. Get back to me in a week.)
• I am not as thankful for Tiger Woods as I am for his video game.
• I am not as thankful for Phil Mickelson as I am for hospitality tents.
• I am unthankful for those new high-tech scoreboards at PGA Tour events, which display every statistic you could ever want to know. I’m worried we are heading to this:
“Hey Joe, who’s in the bunker?”
“Vijay, I think.”
“OK. Scorebard says he gets up-and-down 67 percent of the time on Saturdays from 1:30-2 p.m., when wearing blue a shirt and white visor. He also just spent 10 minutes, 13 seconds in the Port-A-John behind the 12th tee, which is a Players Championship record.”
• I am unthankful for Lorena Ochoa taking so much time to sign autographs for so many children. That is
killing my Ebay auctions.
• I am unthankful for the 50-year-olds who hang around autograph tents and don’t think the previous sentence was a joke.
• I am unthankful that NBC shows “The Incredibles” on Thanksgiving night nowadays instead of “Jurassic Park.”
• I have been a Celtics fan since birth, but I won’t be thanking anyone for this nickname given to Boston’s new Big Three: “PGA Tour.”
That’s
Pierce-
Garnett-
Allen, coming soon to a city near you. I’m guessing this has something to do with a future FedEx Cup commercial.
• I’m unthankful that I haven’t been excited to watch a Ryder Cup Sunday in years.
• I am unthankful that with all the Ty Tryon’s who have come and gone over the years, some of golf’s best teenagers are still convincing their parents that turning professional is a better idea than going to college for free.
• I am unthankful that most PGA Tour fans can’t name this year’s NCAA champion.
• I am unthankful that Michelle Wie was the most popular topic in golf this year, at least according to this Web site’s hits.
• I am unthankful for people who truly, in their heart-of-hearts, believe that the American version of “The Office” is better than the original British version.
• I am unthankful that when you order an “Arnold Palmer” from a server at Bay Hill Club & Lodge, they bring you the one that comes in an Arizona Iced Tea can.
• But I know I speak for almost everyone when I say, thank God for iced tea and lemonade, especially in the same glass.
• Thanks for reading.
Posted: 11/25/2007
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