many a tear has to fall

I was walking home from the 7-11 in Woburn Center when the Patriots won Superbowl XXXVI, I couldn't bring myself to watch the game; memories of 1986 and 1997 were still fresh in my mind. After Adam Vinatieri sealed the Pats' win with a field goal in the last seconds of the final quarter, a massive triumphant roar rose from the row of houses along Main Street. It was the sound of bucking the odds and accomplishing the impossible, louder than an oncoming Red Line train even from my sidewalk vantage point.

It's a good memory, and why I can't fault Giants fans for savoring that same feeling after last night, especially when their team gave it their all...while the Pats, well, I have no fucking clue what the Pats were thinking on the field yesterday. It seemed as if there was some kind of mass amnesia affecting the team, causing them to somehow forget the second half of the season -- where the rest of the NFL copped on to the Pats formula for lopsided wins, thus leading to a late-season war of adaptive tactics -- and place their faith in historic destiny. Destiny, sadly, is a poor substitute for an intelligent offensive strategy, even more so when faced with an exceptionally determined defense.

So the Patriots had a (multiple) record-breaking season, and the Giants pulled off an epic upset victory. Such are the vagaries of sport, and apart from some minor aches stemming from bruised regional pride, it ultimately means very little in the grand scheme of things where my life is concerned. I've still got a pile of work in my inbox, I've still got to decide between two eminently unpalatable choices in tomorrow's Democratic presidential primary, and the CD player in Super Lumina is still broken.

(Boston area FM radio is utter crap, by the way. The "oldies" station, traditionally a safe bet, has taken to playing Billy Joel songs in recent years. My Zune car adapter can't arrive soon enough.)

Granted, I'd probably feel differently if I had money riding on the outcome (an aversion to gambling is the only bit of vestigal Protestantism that has stuck with me over the years) or was one of those curious sorts whose sense of self-worth is enmeshed with the fortunes of the local team (Pal Ken has an interesting piece on that phenomenon up on his site today).

Or, you know, if it had been the Red Sox losing to a New York team. My graciousness does have its limits.

Tommy Edwards - It's All in the Game (from The Complete Hits of Tommy Edwards, 1995) - One of the songs you will NOT hear on the the local oldies station, as it has dropped its catalogue of 50's music from its programming list in favor of disco and easy listening material from the 1970's and early 1980's. (Billy Fucking Joel, for Sheol's sake. "Old" does not equal "oldies," people.)

A side note: The melody of "It's All in the Game" was composed in 1911 by future vice-president Charles Dawes. The instrumental version, titled "Melody in A Major," made the swing orchestra rounds before lyrics were added to the piece in the early 1950's. Thus was an oft-covered pop standard born.