No Place Like Home

 Let's fact it: There are lots of reasons to be upset these days. If you're sitting down to read the "news," you might get caught up in what the kids call "doom scrolling." I call it my morning read. I would love to tell you that this news comes primarily from the world of politics, but as we know now the weather can be just as depressing as anything coming out of Washington. Please feel free to insert your own "ill wind" joke here. 

Unfortunately, I feel that I must now remind you that the sports desk is not free from their own painful updates. 

Let's begin with the reality I have been facing myself: Aging. Most fans of professional sports will find a point in their obsession when they had a golden era in which the team they cared about most had at least a player or two that formed the nucleus of a playoff run or two. Even a championship. I have been fortunate enough to live in the Bay Area during a time when Steph Curry and his teammates were rewriting record books and were familiar fixtures when it came time to hoist the NBA championship trophy. Now at the ripe old age of thirty-six, Steph is beginning to show signs of being somewhat more human than he used to be. This has allowed the naysayers to pop up across the basketball world, insisting that it is time to trade him away. Oakland already lost the team to that other city by the bay. The potential of losing one of the greatest shooters to ever play the game would probably be enough to make me start watching more professional indoor soccer. 

That is not the only recent item that has left my sports blood running cold. A recent hype piece promoting the upcoming Major League Baseball season suggests that the team formerly known as the Oakland Athletics were on the brink of putting together a team full of home run hitters that could potentially make a playoff push this summer. Add to that an ownership group that seemingly feels the need to loosen their pursestriings to pay more free agents and veterans to come in and bolster that lineup, and you've got the rumors of a contender. Unfortunately for us in the city currently known as Oakland, this is not where all that potential baseball glory will be experienced. 

So forgive me if I turn something of a blind eye to the run up to the Super Bowl, with its hyper focus on the Lombardi Trophy. If only they were going to have Tower of Power playing the halftime show.