Network television has become a wasteland and the movie theatres aren’t much better. While you can count on a few premium cable shows to hold your interest and give you an hour of entertainment once a week, those appointment shows come and go in the span of 10-15 weeks (on average), leaving you counting down the days until they return each season.
But the one constant on a week-to-week basis, the one thing that you can turn to for almost guaranteed entertainment is still live sports. Whether you’re watching the pros or the college game, hockey, basketball, football or whatever, chances are that you’re going to catch at least one game (or one fight) that gives you that “This is Why I Love Sports” feeling every time.
Wednesday’s Blue Jays game exemplified that to a tee. It had all the elements of a Shakespearean play: high stakes, drama, a tense, dramatic moment in the Second Act and an amazing resolution that left you marveling at what you just watched.
Playoff sports are always – always – better than their regular season counterparts and elimination games are the cream of the crop, but that was just the starting point for the “win or go home” showdown between Toronto and Texas in the middle of the week. From a rare miscue that looked like it was going to be the turning point of the contest to an error-fueled comeback capped by an absolute bomb (and Joey Bats taking a beat, styling and tossing his bat halfway to Brampton), the ebb and flow of the 53-minute seventh inning was everything that makes you love sports.
Maybe not if you’re a Texas Rangers fan, but chances are even they’ll admit that was an amazing inning… once the pain of losing subsides.
The rub (there is always a rub) is that you never know when those moments are going to pop up. Sure, the consensus was that Wednesday’s game was going to be a tight, tense affair, but no one expected what happened. The drama, the chaos, the comeback; that bat flip. It’s why we watch and games like Wednesday’s series finale are the payoff for the average games and the completely uneventful ones alike. They remind us of how thrilling and nerve-racking and exciting and enjoyable sports can be and hook us in.
And it’s why everyone will be tuned in to Sportsnet on Friday night to see the Jays take on the Kansas City Royals in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series.
