I AM Enjoying the Excitement, Thank You!

. . . in answer to the eternal question that haunts us all (when I'm feeling awkward and have nothing pseudo-clever to say, anyway).

Friday's post was a spur of the moment quickie, so here's a little more detail. There are 162 games in the Major League Baseball regular season. The Phillies -- my dearly beloved Phillies -- trailed for the first 158, tied for the division lead at 159, and now -- just 2 hours ago -- after game 160, they lead by one full game. Seriously, unless you're a real baseball fan, you have no idea how epic this will be if they hold on. Click here to read an article from a New York newspaper who declared the Mets winners and the Phillies losers on August 26 (a full two weeks before I changed from Phillies to Lions colors, for those of you who may consider me to have been of little faith). The Mets led by a massive seven games with only 17 remaining -- EVERY team in history to have that large of a lead with so few remaining games has won out. The Mets collapse (I'd really like for you to click that one) -- which is very, very nearly complete, will literally be historic. And they've been playing baseball for a very, very long time. Am I giddy? Yes, yes I am. Seriously, we have a magic number!

How does it get better? The Mets play early tomorrow, and they'll probably lose (that's all they've been doing lately). Then the Phils play on broadcast tv, and I stand a VERY good chance of seeing them celebrate their first playoff birth in fourteen LONG years at roughly 6:30 EST on Saturday the 29th. Wow.

For what it's worth, I'm not convinced that they have the pitching to have a great shot to win the Series, but at least they'd have a shot, and just to be playing in October would be, as I said, fourteen LONG years in the making. Again, wow.

Ok, but it gets better. The Sooners also start Big XII play at Boulder. West Virginia lost to a directional school Friday night, so an OU win should move them at least up to #3 in the national polls and set up fantastically phenomenal Red River Shootout for the 6th. Get ready, Jeremy. I mean get REALLY ready. The Crimson and Cream look GOOD for '07 (and '08, and '09, and . . .). and we're no Arkansas State or Central Florida.

Then, after missing my first service ever last week, I get to go be a part of Life Pointe. I LOVE Life Pointe.

And now here's this -- on Sunday, the Lions get a chance to go to 3-1 with a home game against the Bears. Now their defense did give up 42 first-half points last week and I'm not sold on them yet -- to be honest I think they probably drop this one -- but who knows? Maybe they'll surprise me just like the Phillies. And even if not, they've already won nearly as many games as last year (note -- setting the bar low can be helpful).

So am I enjoying the excitement? Like you wouldn't believe.