Tom Brady is Dreamy

I’m not afraid to admit it.

The hair.

The arm.

The receivers.

The number 12.

Dreamy.

Or maybe, it’s just the fact that football is in the air again. The plastic crunch of helmets on pads. The slip and glide of a runningback jetting through the line, busting through the holes. The subtle grace of a five-step drop. A quarterback deftly bobbing on his feet, scanning, scanning, scanning for Randy Moss striding deep past double coverage. And for a moment, when that ball is heaved, spiraling up and out, breath is held until the ball lands safely in hands. Endzone. Touchdown.

This summer the world was a buzz about another football - the real football that people here call soccer. Don’t get me wrong, I have all the respect in the world for guys who run around like that. They are great athletes. But after watching one mind-numbing game, I couldn’t help but wonder why? All that running. All that kicking. And if you’re lucky, maybe you score one goal.

One goal?

Is it worth it?

I don’t know. I played soccer, excuse me futbol, when I was a kid. Our team won one stinking game and that was only because the opposing team forgot to show up. Nope. That was the summer of running around for nothing. Well, not nothing. We ate a lot of oranges in soccer. At one point, I got more excited to have the oranges than to play soccer.

When fruit becomes more important than your sport it’s time to move on I think.

Then there’s basketball. The bipolar opposite of futbol.

Has anyone noticed how terribly pointless that game is?

I once went to a Timberwolves game and I sat there watching and then Wally Szzerbieriakatchas or whatever scored the first basket and the crowd went nuts. Then the other team scored and the crowd booed. Then Kevin Garnett went down and dunked and the crowd stood up and clapped. Then the other team. Then the Wolves. And so on and so on, until I had tried every snack on the concession stand menu and resorted to talking about literature to my friend.

Yeah, literature during a sporting event.

If your sport averages 90 pts per team per game, it might be high time to start thinking about making it more challenging. Maybe move the hoop up another five feet. I mean Quidditch has more respect as a sport and it’s fictional.

I like hockey, but it’s just goofy. Here are dudes skating around like Disney on Ice and to make them feel better about gliding around, they try and beat each other up. But they get extra credit for wearing weapons on their feet.

Baseball. I enjoy baseball too. It’s got a good mix to it, evenly distributed between offense and defense, hitting and pitching. Unlike soccer, basketball and hockey, baseball has a feel about it. Beer, hot dogs, peanuts, fresh air, sunshine and the crack of the bat. When Thome punches out a walk off home run, it changes the actual air your breathing. It stops time. A whole stadium shares an intimacy that just can’t be duplicated.

Just like the deep bomb in American football.

I think it is those brief instances of magic that makes those sports shine.

Or it could just be Tom Brady’s hair.