King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Appreciating USC-Notre Dame the old-fashioned way. Plus: White Sox win pennant. How's the weather in Hades?
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Oct. 17, 2005 | Since entering the world of digital video recorders, I've watched almost nothing in real time. I wait a while to start watching, so I can zip past the commercials and, you know, things like Scooter the talking baseball on Fox.
The downside of this is that it becomes impossible to watch two things at once on the same TV. You really can't flip back and forth when you're lagging behind real time. Stephen Hawking could explain this better than I, but take my word for it.
So I decided to go old school Saturday and watch the action live because I wanted to see Game 3 of the National League Championship Series and the USC-Notre Dame football game.
Ideally, I'd do what we used to do on October weekends in my house growing up. I'd drag the second TV over next to the main one and watch two things that way. But there are way too many cables and wires connected to a TV these days for that, and anyway the wife, who already thinks I watch a crazy amount of sports, would die of mortification, then have me committed.
I didn't think it would happen this way because the football game started an hour before the baseball game, but USC-Notre Dame managed to be four hours long.
So that amazing football finale, Matt Leinart sneaking into the end zone with the winning touchdown after the home fans in South Bend thought the game had ended on the previous play, coincided with the St. Louis Cardinals' ninth-inning rally against Houston Astros closer Brad Lidge, which fell short.
It brought me back. I'm glad I don't have to do it that way anymore, but there was something deliciously thrilling about bouncing back and forth between channels, watching a pitch, then a play, then a pitch. I felt like an artist, a Miles Davis of the remote control, timing my changes perfectly, improvising, taking chances, feeling the rhythm of the two games in my bones.
The wife is calling some sort of hot line right now.
It would take Tolstoy to tell the story of that USC-Notre Dame game properly, but I'll leave you in the hands of the Associated Press and of ESPN.com's Gene Wojciechowski, who called it "one of the greatest games ever played at Notre Dame Stadium (or anywhere, for that matter)."
The Web site's front page headline pointing to Wojciechowski's column dispensed with nuance and simply called it "The Greatest Game Ever Played."
Not having seen the whole game -- I did record it on the second TV and will watch it when I have time, around Thanksgiving probably -- and not having an encyclopedic knowledge of college grid history, I'm not in a position to argue. From what I did see and do know, I'm not inclined to.
But I do want to give props to USC coach Pete Carroll for playing for a win, not a tie and overtime