I recall several personal highlights. First and foremost was the screeching line drive I hit in a sixth-grade game that tagged a foppish field umpire square in the back, collapsing him like a piñata. A close runner-up was the time that my mom caught my little sister in a lie, read her the riot act and sent her to her room -- at which point I informed my sister that our mother was so mad she didn't want her living with us anymore, helped her pack a suitcase and slammed the front door in her face. Seeing my four-year-old sister on the porch with that bag in her hands, crying her eyes out and ringing the doorbell, was worthy of any top-ten plays of the day. I don't care how Chad Johnson celebrated in the end zone.
And then, of course, there was the 1991 AFC Divisional Playoff Game against the Houston Oilers. While some still argue that I had nothing to do with that victory, I'm vain enough to believe my presence at Mile High on that cold January Saturday was absolutely vital.
With 2:07 remaining, Broncos down 24-23, Elway and the boys got the ball on the two. Bam! -- a 22-yard gain on the first down. But three plays later, fourth-and-six on the 28, Elway ran for a first down. Three straight incompletions later, on a do-or-die fourth-down moment again, Elway hit Vance Johnson for a 44-yard gain. Steve Sewall ran for ten, then toothy Treadwell kicked the field goal. Broncos win.
The crowd was electric walking down those shaky ramps that night. We'd just defeated the same team that had trounced us earlier in the season, Elway had notched off "The Drive 2," and anything was possible.
Then we lost to Buffalo ten days later.
While What's So Funny doesn't want to curse the current team, I'm picking up the same sense of possibility this year -- i.e., losing in the second round of the playoffs. Which means it's time to send an important message to Broncos fans. Well, one fan. To the moron who sat behind me at the two games I've attended this season, a most sincere and heartfelt "Fuck you."
No, really, fuck you.
I could reveal exactly which seat you sat in, but I feel it's to the far greater good to describe your type so that others might recognize similarly ugly behavior in themselves and put a stop to it as we strive toward a stronger Bronco Nation. And I will do this in stream-of-consciousness poem form, because I just snorted two huge pills I found in the break room and I'm flying.
Screaming, screaming, always screaming, right into my delicate left ear. Hoarse in the throat, this obviously hurts him, yet screaming, screaming into my delicate left ear. "ALL RIGHT, DDDDD! C'MON, DDDDD! STOP THEM, DDDDD!" into my poor left ear. Thank God he's here, this squat waste of flesh. How else would the defense remember? Heads turning toward him, he ignores them, ignores them, talks about tailgating in Invesco lot. How many beers? Really, eleven? Please, tell more details of your sad plebeian life. Wait a minute, the other guys just got the ball back. Is he going to remember to tell them to play D? "ALL RIGHT, DDDDD! STOP THEM, DDDDD!" Cheers to consistency for this deranged lunatic fuck! Speaking of cheers, here comes the beer guy. Does he need another one? Of course he does! So do all his buddies, pass them along, whoops, one got away, right down What's So Funny's back. So sorry, he says, so sorry indeed, but hey, these things happen, at least we're both Broncos fans. Sure, that makes it all right, left-ear rapist, consider it settled, beer under the bridge. Now he bashes the crowd for not screaming like him, for they are not true football fans. They like to watch the game intelligently; he curses them for rationing their highest of fives. Hey, can he and his friends talk about college football? "Mark my words, mark my words, USC takes it all." Great Caesar's ghost, the man is a prophet! "Mark my words," What's So Funny thinks to himself. "I hope your drunk ass wraps your car around a tree."
Or at the very least, takes a baseball to the spine.
