COVID-19 and the summer without sports

    It has been a long strange summer without sports to watch.  We haven't had the NBA playoffs.  We haven't gotten to ride the daily marathon of baseball.  Over the past few years, my sports watching has greatly decreased.  I have four kids and although I have watched a lot of youth sports, my time to watch live sporting events has greatly decreased long before the pandemic. (That is documented here in an earlier blog post http://mattferrellblogs.blogspot.com/2017/10/sports-juggling.html) 

    Some sports have returned.  NASCAR, golf, and UFC don't interest me. So I haven't spent any time watching those events.  What I have to ask myself is, "What have I done with the extra time?"  I have burned through shows that my wife and I had saved on our DVR that we said we would get to eventually.  Apparently the summer of COVID is that eventually.  I have spent much more time outside.  Many of the yard projects that I would said, I would get to when eventually, planting a garden, trimming trees and bushes, planting grass in formally barren patches of the yard, have been completed.  

    I have missed sports greatly, but it seems like my overall life has been better without them.  I have gotten many thing accomplished.  Such as writing this blog post because google informed me that if I didn't add new content that I would lose my sponsorship.  Speaking of which, please visit the companies websites that are supporting my writing and give their wares a view.  

    Despite the improvement of functionality, I can't wait for sports to return.  I want to hear the return of squeaking sneakers, the crack of the bat, the pop of the pads.  I know that seeing much of the data on COVID that we can't make sports return while this virus rages on, so if you like me, want to get back to sports and much less productive life, please socially distance, please wear a mask.  Think of the mask like a dress code rule.  The more this thing is contained before a vaccine is created the sooner we can have more sports and less yard work.  Do your part, if not for your own health or your neighbors, but so come fall I can watch sports on the weekend instead of raking leaves.  

PLEASE! I'm tired and want to watch somebody else physically work.  

Follow me on twitter @Ferrellcomedy  and post feedback below.  

Sports Juggling

We live in a great time for sports.   I can watch every single Indians, Cavs, and Browns game. I even have the ability to stream my alma mater Kent State getting their clocks cleaned if I so choose.  It's great.  I pay a large bill to the good people at DirecTV each month for the privilege.  There is only one problem with this.  Where do I find the time to follow all of my teams as much as I would like?

 I work as a teacher for students with multiple disabilities, I have four kids, two of which are teenagers with full calendars filled with their own sporting events and no drivers licenses, the other two are twin hyperactive babies under two years  old, who don't want to spend their Sunday afternoons watching the Browns fail to convert on another third and long, and a wife who on occasion has been known to want to spend time with me.

The King and I

Four years.  A man changes a lot over four years.  Lebron James said in his letter to the nation that he has grown and changed from “The Decision”, where Lebron himself has admitted that he made a poor decision to have a nationally televised special to tell me, all other Cavs fans, and for that matter the Cavalier organization itself, that he was, “Taking his talents to South Beach.”.

                I was twenty-eight years old and sitting on a futon in a basement, and watched the decision from a dark and angry place.  I had spent the entire week prior glued to Twitter looking for any information as to whether the best player that had ever played for my team was going to stay in town.  When news started to break that Lebron was leaving to join the Miami Heat, I couldn’t believe it, or more accurately didn’t want to believe it.  I was holding on to any shred of hope that the reports weren’t true.  I watched “The Decision” thinking that there was no way Lebron was going to go in front of the nation and stab us in the back.  So I was sad and angry when he left.  I did not sleep that night four years ago.  I was up all night reading anything I could. Wanting to find out why he left.  Cheering Dan Gilbert for writing the letter and telling the traitor where to stick it.  I seethed when I saw the firework show the Heat threw, where Lebron counted down the championships that he was going to win in Miami. 

                I was mad and I stayed mad for quite some time.  My stomach churned every time the Heat or Lebron were mentioned by anyone.  I did not watch a Heat game that entire first season unless they were playing the Cavs, I couldn’t bear to see it. I didn’t watch the Finals that year against the Mavericks.  Not one second.  The idea of watching Lebron win a ring somewhere else when he didn’t want to do it for my team sickened me.  I would check in on the score online and rooted for the number next to the Mavericks logo click up.  I celebrated that Mavericks title as much as the fans in Dallas.  

                I didn’t watch a single Heat game until the NBA Finals the following year.  I watched the closing moments of game 5, as the Heat closed out the Thunder.  The only reason I did so was because my girlfriend had her sisters over before we left for a Florida vacation and banished me to the basement.  So I found myself two years later with nothing to do but watch Lebron win a championship.  Two years later and life hadn’t changed that much for me.  I was still pissed off at Lebron James in a basement. Although I didn't sleep that night either it was because I drove my girlfriend and her kids to Florida through the night. I was starting to forget how I felt in July 2010.

                The next year went on and I wasn’t as mad as I used to be.  I was getting over “The Decision”.  I wasn’t rooting for Lebron to win more titles and MVP awards but I wasn’t angry with him.  I said out loud in conversations with others that I hated him but it wasn’t filled with actual hate as it had been before.

                In June 2013, I had surgery on my shoulder and was laid up during the NBA finals.  I watched ever second of every game of that 7 game epic series with the Spurs.  I loved it.  Yes, I was rooting against Lebron and the Heat, but I was also rooting for the Spurs because of their classy organization that built through the draft to create a winning team.  I was disappointed when Ray Allen hit that corner three to pull off a miracle escape in game 6.  I didn’t like watching Lebron play great in game 7 and the player that is in my opinion the definition of how the game should be played, Tim Duncan, come up short.  But I went to sleep that night easily even though the man I thought I would never stop hating was a back to back champion.   Maybe it was because I was on prescription pain medicine or maybe it was because my wife, who during the last Lebron title the previous year was my girlfriend, slept next to me and took care of me while I healed. 

                This summer, I watched Lebron lose in a rematch to the Spurs.  This time I watched the games as a basketball fan.  I loved watching the great team in the Spurs, beat the great individual in Lebron James, with my wife and stepson.  I loved explaining to my step-son the importance of help defense and the extra pass, that I had taught him as his basketball coach in the winter.  The Spurs did their part to make me look a genius.  This finals I was happy that Spurs won more than the Heat lost, because my priorities had changed.  I watched these games not in a basement but in the comfort of the new recliner that my wife got for me.  I watched with my son and used sports to teach life lessons.

I spent the past week on the South Carolina beach, checking twitter constantly, being on roller coaster of emotions with each rumor. The emotions of July 2010 started to come back. I thought Lebron James was just toying with me. As if the most identifiable athlete in America was personally messing with me just for kicks. I stressed. I ignored others. I searched for a basement to be pissed off in. 

After two days, I realized, with the help of my wife, that I was being ridiculous.  I was reliving the hate, the disbelief, the stress.  I was regressing.

  Today, I went to the beach with my wife and kids without my phone.  We played in the water and sand together for hours.  During that time I was relaxed and loved life.  I didn’t think about the “Decision 2” and enjoyed my family.  In Lebron’s letter to the fans of Cleveland, he talked about being with his family and how much he had changed over the past four years.  How his priorities have changed.  I get it Lebron.  I have changed too.  Welcome home, it is a happier place here for me than when you left and now my team might actually win.

Follow me on twitter @Ferrellcomedy

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What I am Thankful for in Sports

This time of year Americans sit down with family and friends and spend time to be thankful.  This is also the point in the sports calendar where there is constantly sporting events on television.  So it got me thinking what I had to be thankful for being an Ohio sports fan with a busy life and a wife and kids.

I am thankful that the 2014 NFL Draft is loaded with Quarterback prospects.  As the Browns head into the home stretch of another stink hole season ruined by bad quarterback play, Browns fans' attention turned towards the draft.  Fortunately this year is the deepest quarterback draft in a very long time.  Brandon Weeden, the Browns' first round pick in 2012, who came out of college at 28 as a project, is bar none the worst quarterback in the league.  Weeden is not just the worst starting quarterback, the worst quarterback period. He isn't the first terrible quarterback the Browns have tortured their loyal fans with.  Since the Browns returned as a cesspool in the NFL in 1999, they have trotted out the following collection of bums and mistakes at starting quarterback.


Ty Detmer, Tim Couch, Doug Pederson, Spergon Wynn, Kelly Holcomb, Jeff Garcia, Luke McCown, Trent Dilfer, Charlie Frye, Derek Anderson, Brady Quinn, Ken Dorsey, Bruce Gradkowski, Colt McCoy, Jake Delhomme, Seneca Wallace, Brandon Weeden, Brian Hoyer, Jason Campbell.

I had to take a shower after listing off that rotten collection of turds.  The Browns have the Colts first round pick after convincing them to take the corpse of Trent Richardson plus their own surely high first rounder.  I am not opposed to the Browns using both picks on quarterbacks in 2014.  I mean one of them has to not suck.  I mean right? It has to happen eventually.  If the Colts can go from Peyton Manning to Andrew Luck and the Packers can go from Bret Farve to Aaron Rodgers then the Browns can get one good quarterback every twenty years. I mean can't we catch a break?

I am thankful this is the last year of the BCS.  Ohio State seems locked into the 3rd slot and therefore outside of the championship game despite not having lost a game during the past two seasons.  I would love to see the Buckeyes get a chance to play for the national championship this year, however I am no dummy.  I have seen Alabama and Florida State and know that the Buckeyes are not in their class.  If this was next season in order to win a national title, the Buckeyes would have to beat both of them in a two week period.  Not happening.  You are just not putting together two perfect games back to back like that.  However since this is the last year of the BCS, if the Tide or Seminoles should happen to stub their toes in the last few games of the season, then Ohio State would only have to pull one upset.  They have an outside shot of doing that and I would love to watch them try.

I am thankful for the 2013 Cleveland Indians season.  It was a great season with tons of ups and downs like any good roller coaster ride season should be.  However I know this was probably as good as it is going to get for a few years.  The Cleveland Indians shot completely over their skis this season.  They hit gold with a few lottery tickets like Jason Giambi and Scott Kazmir.  However the mass exodus of players with talent that the Tribe can no longer afford has already begun.  Joe Smith a reliable middle reliever left for the Angels because a small market team just can't afford to spend 4 million a season on a setup man.  Ubaldo Jimenez who stunk most of his time in Cleveland finally turned it on the last two months.  Just in time to decline his player option and cash in big time.  Thanks for stinking for two years and then finally getting it together for a payday, Ubaldo.  This next season will be a disappointing one for the Tribe as they will take a step back in 2014.

I am thankful that at the end of this NBA season that Lebron James can opt out of his contract.  This will finally allow the closure that we Cavs fans need. There has been rumblings that Lebron may return to Cleveland after this season for a do over with the Cavs.  I know that would be great for the Cavs record and chances at a title.  But Cavs fans have been stuck in neutral ever since the Decision.  There were the two years of hate and the past year and a half as been hoping and pining for Lebron to return.  Cavs fans clapped and begged for Lebron to return when the Heat came to Cleveland to play on Wednesday and it saddened me to see what we have become.  It doesn't make me feel good to see my fellow fans turn into a jilted lover who is hoping for their ex to get divorced and come back.  It's pathetic.  I will be just be glad when the Cavs finally know that he isn't coming back and we can start actually moving on as a franchise.  That way we can build around the often injured Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson who after years of playing basketball realized he shoots better with his other hand, the black hole shooting guard who can't shoot Dion Waiters, Andrew Bynum who keeps talking about retirement, and Anthony Bennett who is on pace to be the worst number 1 overall draft pick since Kwame Brown in 2001.  It is only a matter of time until Bennett is a D-League all-star for the Canton Charge.  This team has some major issues and I doubt will seem all that attractive to Lebron so it seems like it will be another long, dark era for the Cavs.

What I am most thankful for this season with Cleveland sports teams is what they have done for my son.  He has learned that you love people unconditionally.  That you stick with them through the hard times even if you don't see good times on the horizon.  Being a Cleveland sports fans has taught him that you are loyal and hopeful even if you never get any sort of satisfaction in the end.  It has now been 50 years since a Cleveland team has won a title and he sees his friends, who obviously have no class or values and were raised by barbarians, pronounce their love of the Steelers, Heat, Yankees, Red Sox, and other teams just because they are winning currently.  He knows that is not how a person should be a sports fan.  People love sports for the escape that it allows from life, but I love sports for what it does for my life, how it teaches lessons, and how after every heart-breaking loss and devastating season that my son is becoming a better person through it.  I am thankful for that more than any championship my teams could bring. Although I feel that he has learned enough about perseverance and loyalty, so we could really use a Championship Parade.  I would be very thankful for that.

Follow me on Twitter @Ferrellcomedy


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