It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!

Maybe you were hoping for a column about Christmas, right?  Actually, it is meant to be a facetious reference to what is probably the least productive and slowest part of the sports calendar.  Picture it this way - what do we have?  Pitchers and catchers reporting, the Daytona 500 (which ain’t what she used to be), college basketball, the NBA and NHL all in their slow days, football is over and it is still cold and dark most of the day (at least it is where I am in Maryland).  Forget July and August.  February truly has the dog days of the year.

What to do then, becomes the question.  This time of the year (February 1-March 15) functions as a detox for me.  This is when I can stretch out and watch some of my favorite sports movies.  Most of them are baseball-related, and I am running a series of reviews of those on my own blog, so I don’t want to rehash those, but here are some that are certainly worth watching.

1) The Mighty Ducks - even if you aren’t a hockey fan, this movie ought to warm you up in a way that only Disney can.  I like the first one the best, and although the sequels aren’t terrible, they are formulaic in a way that even a five-year-old retarded chimpanzee can tell what is coming.

2) Caddyshack - Golf, crudeness, and double entendres make this a classic, although it is somewhat dated.  It is also one of the few films involving Chevy Chase that I can tolerate (the others being Fletch and Christmas Vacation).

3) Blue Chips - a film that ‘exposes’ the practices of college recruiting, and while it is heavy-handed at times, it has produced some golden lines, such as when one student is asked why he is failing TV class, he says ‘but coach, it’s more than just watching the tube!’  Unintentional comedy from Shaquille O’Neal and Anfernee Hardaway also infiltrate this one as well.

4) Rocky I and IV - I appreciate any movie in which the underdog actually loses.  I made this same point in my review of The Bad News Bears.  It is a surprise and there is something special about pushing the favorite to the brink even in defeat.  Rocky IV I like because Rocky beats the evil steroid-pumping Commie.  Makes me proud to be an American!

This isn’t an all-inclusive list, but this is part of what gets me through the 6 weeks or so between the Super Bowl and the first couple of rounds of the NCAA tournament.  It should help quite a few of you out there too, especially if you fall into the general malaise that is known as February, but I guess that is why God made February the shortest month.