IT Insights Blog — convoluted sports metaphors

Sometimes in professional sports there's a moment so exciting that it transcends mere fandom. And in the information age, you don't even need to be there to appreciate the drama and the chills. Such a moment was bequeathed to us all at the end of yesterday's game between the New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins. Here at the IT Insights Blog, we don't really even follow the NFL (except for on Super Bowl Sunday), and we still got chills watching it this morning.

Hey, everybody! Who had a fantastic Thanksgiving Day dinner with lots of turkey, potatoes, pie, and stuffing? We can tell you who didn't: Colin O'Brady and Capt. Louis Rudd. One guy (Colin) is an American extreme sports athlete. One guy (Louis) is a battle-hardened British soldier. Both have an insatiable appetite for adventure. And right now, both men are probably bitterly cold, hungry, and likely not planning to feast any time soon.

The dog days of summer are about to be replaced by the cool nights and changing leaves of autumn. The baseball season, however, is still rolling forth, with games continuing through the end of September. The Boston Red Sox have more wins (93) than any other team in baseball at the moment, though the rival New York Yankees are hanging in there and actually have more wins (82) than any team but the Red Sox.

Fall is just around the corner, meaning that it's almost college football season. Some people question why that matters to anyone. Other people spend hours driving and walking to and from large outdoor stadiums so that they can sit cheek-by-jowl with strangers for up to three hours and yell at slightly-more-than-teenaged young men who are running around on grass plowing into each other at full speed.

July is here, and we're getting very close to the Final Four of the biggest sporting event in the world, soccer's FIFA World Cup. Believe it or not this thing has only been rolling for 88 years — the first World Cup was held in 1930 — and two tournaments were skipped on account of World War II. So there have only been 21 World Cup titles, and Germany (4 titles) and Brazil (5 titles) have almost half of them. These guys are like the Celtics and Lakers of soccer.