Pro Athletes are to fucking young

The mighty slugger Moe Vaughn of the Boston Red Sox hitting a 450ft blast causing the 35,000 people at Fenway Park to leap in an explosion of cheers.  Steve Young keeping the legacy of great 49er Quarterbacks alive by leading the 9ers to a 5th Super Bowl.  The only team in the NFL with a perfect record in the annual match.  Ray Bourque of the Bruins finding the back of the net with a blast of a slap shot from the blue line.  The only ones in a packed Boston Garden that were not cheering were the rats that famously took residence in the old building.  All those loud bursts of applause had them shitting their pants all fucking night.        

These were the sports memories of my childhood.  From my first trip to Fenway Park, to my first day of peewee football I wanted to be a Pro Athlete.  I would put my football gear on in the middle of the day just so I could get use to doing push ups with the added weight.  I wanted to be the best.  For a lot of kids (including me) Pro Athletes were hero's.  In my eyes they could do no wrong.  Even if they had a bad night at the plate it did not matter.  I would still cheer for them just as loud and could not imagine booing a player from my favorite team.  But what a lot of kids don't realize, is that most of the players standing on the outfield grass of Fenway Park or taking the Face off at TD Garden are still "kids" themselves.  This does not register when you're 8, 9, 10 years old.  You see these fuckers growing mustaches and beards and you think "These guys must be in their 30's or 40's!  I could be that good at baseball by then!!  I'm gonna go play little league and pretend to be Nomar!!"

As time went on I began to realized that a lot of things had to fall in place if I was going to play ANY sport in the pros.  I slowly started to register that when you're a kid these guys were pro's because they were older than me.  Once I got older Lebron James entered the NBA a year after I graduated High School.  It was then that I fully came to the conclusion that these guys were pros because they were better than I was at life.  Even though most Athletes got to where they are today by working their asses off, they were still blessed with insane genes that allowed them to grow bigger, run faster and lift really really heavy shit.  I myself was blessed with typical American dude genes.  I grew to a towering 5 foot 10, could run at a blazing fast average speed and on a good day I could bench press my weight 8 times.  It was respectable... but nowhere NEAR what I needed to be if I was going to sack the shit out of Tom Brady.

Now a days it seems like the older I get, the younger they get.  The prime of my life means being able to run 5 or 6 miles, while the prime of their life is getting bulldozed by a wall of defensive lineman, getting up and doing it all over again.  I'm dulling the hell out of razor blades with my thick Irish beard and these baby faced little fuck nuts are hitting home runs left and right.

Fuck you...

While I still consider myself a fan I don't let it consume me the way I use to when I was younger and the constant struggle of life was not getting in the way.  Booing guys on my favorite teams use to be out of the question.  Now I'll boo a player till my throat hurts.  Call it jealousy, call it.... well I guess jealousy is the only word needed here.  Fuck'em though, at the end of the day these guys have the life.  If I'm lucky I'll work till I'm around 70 years old and retire to a respectable house somewhere in Maine where I will live for 5 to 10 years before I either die, or end up in a nursing home.  These guys will play a game for 10 or 15 years, make millions of dollars while they do it, then retire in their late 30's or early 40's with plenty of time left to enjoy the fruits of their "labor."

All I know is that Spring Training starts in February...  Go Sox.