Bring on the Winter

 

So that’s it. The Boston Red Sox swept the Colorado Rockies to win the 2007 World Series and another baseball season comes to a close. You’d think that, as such a big fan of the game, I’d be sad to watch the year end, but to tell the truth, I’m glad to see the back of the ’07 season.

           
The year didn’t start well (if you look back to my post on the Oakland A’s off-season from the spring) for Oakland, and just never got on track. As an Athletics fan, I was used to slow starts (I can’t remember the last time the A’s entered June with a winning record), but I was also used to the team rallying in the second half of the season. For weeks after the All Star Break I kept watching A’s games, waiting for the team to catch on to their season plot, start winning games, and come back to take the American League West. I kept waiting, and waiting… and waiting. Then, out of nowhere, it was August and the A’s were still a losing team.

 

This was the year that the A’s stopped “getting good” in the second half. An inexperienced coaching staff and a steady stream of devastating injuries made sure this team didn’t mount their traditional comeback, and it left Oakland fans wondering where it all went wrong. For next season, all that fans can do is hope the A’s stay healthy (which has been a problem for a few years) and pray that they remember how a season is supposed to go in Oakland – start slow, get hot, and fade in the playoffs. 

 

Of course, the playoffs weren’t much better. A string of disappointing early rounds led to possibly the most boring World Series I’ve ever watched. From the time the playoffs started, most of the baseball world knew that the fight for the National League pennant was just teams trying their hardest for the honor of losing to whoever won in the AL. The Boston Red Sox simply demoralized the Colorado Rockies in four games, which were, for anyone other than Sox fans, painful to watch. In the end, I would guess that I watched about four total innings of the World Series, and I think that was plenty.

 

This hasn’t been a great year, for A’s fans or fans of Major League Baseball in general. Thankfully, the Red Sox put a mercifully quick end to this year by sweeping the Rockies, and we can look to 2008 with hope of a better – if not more entertaining – season. Our long national nightmare is over. I’m such a nerd…

My First Win

I haven’t seen my teams win very much. Sure, I’ve watched my Oakland A’s advance to the playoffs and, one glorious time, to the American League Championship Series, and I’ve watched my California Golden Bears upset USC and win some minor bowl games. But I still have yet to see my favorite team – in any sport – be crowned champion. That is, until October 21^st.

 

The weekend of the 21^st hadn’t gone well for me. On Friday night, I was led on by the promise of In-n-Out burger, only to get lost somewhere near Pinole. And on Saturday Cal lost to UCLA – their second loss in a row, after their narrow loss to Oregon State . To add insult to injury, my favorite Formula 1 driver, Kimi Raikkonen, qualified third for the Brazilian Grand Prix – the final race of the season, which he needed to win for a chance at the 2007 title.

 

Then came Sunday. I set my alarm for the un-Godly hour of 8:30 in the morning so that I could see the Brazil race. Two hours later, I was cheering my head off and celebrating not only Kimi Raikkonen’s first championship, but the first time I had seen one of my teams win the top title.

 

Formula 1 fans will know that, as a Ferrari fan, I should know a lot about winning at the top level. From 2000 to 2004, Michael Schumacher cruised to victory for the Ferrari team, an era of domination the sport had never seen before. But I haven’t been watching F1 that long. I only began my obsession with it in 2006, when Schumacher and Ferrari narrowly lost to Fernando Alonso and his Renault team, the second straight year that the Spaniard won.

 

So in the final laps of the Brazilian Grand Prix, with Kimi Raikkonen leading and his rivals far behind, I was more nervous than I had ever been about a sporting event. I knew that in order for Kimi to win the title and complete his amazing comeback this season, he needed something he’d never had – luck. Raikkonen not only had to win, but rivals Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton had to finish far enough behind (3^rd and 7^th, respectively) for Kimi to win the championship. And that’s just what happened.

 

So when Kimi took the lead as the laps wound down, I could feel the first win coming. And when Raikkonen crossed the line to win his first championship, I am not ashamed to admit that I went crazy. I clapped, cheered, shouted, and sang along to the Finnish national anthem (a tune I thought I didn’t know). All of this for a motor race happening a continent away. But it was my first championship, so I feel my actions were justified – you can’t hold a fan to how he reacts when his team wins at the highest level. So, congratulations and thanks to Kimi Raikkonen, 2007 Driver’s Champion, and Scuderia Ferrari, 2007 Constructor’s Champions.

Collie

A while back, I was about half-way through a blog entry about why I wasn’t happy with Formula 1. I planned to finish it up, include some details about the spy scandal, and then post it. Then came the news.

 

I received a text message from a friend that morning, telling me that one of my favorite racing drivers, Colin McRae, was dead. My initial feeling was disbelief, but soon it sunk in that the finest rally driver there ever was had been killed. He died in a helicopter crash along with his son and two family friends.

 

Let me preface this by saying that I rarely got to see Colin race. He joined the World Rally Championship five years before I was born, and won the WRC title in 1995, when I was all of four years old. My only time watching Colin live was at the 2006 Rally Turkey (when he was standing in for a hurt driver Sebastien Loeb) and the 2006 and 2007 X Games Rallies. But from just one moment of one event, I knew that Colin was a true champion.

 

Coming into the final stadium Super-Special stage in the 2006 Rally X Games, Colin was right on the tail of leader Travis Pastrana. By the time he entered the final jump and turns of the stage, he was almost two seconds in front of Pastrana, and was well on his way to the gold medal. But when he landed his car at the end of the jump, it dug into the ground and rolled. In true Collie fashion, though, the next second he was on all four wheels. Colin was back to racing, coming around the corner for second place.

 

That was the spirit I always admired and loved about Colin McRae. No matter what, he always fought for the win with every fiber of his body, and wouldn’t settle for anything less. Colin had the drive to fight for every bit of speed. He was also a hero to many, including me. That’s what has made his death so hard.

 

He may have just been a racing driver who made his name 6,000 miles away from where I am, and a person I never met, but I looked up to Colin McRae. Motorsports will never be the same without him, and I send my condolences to his family and all of the people who, like me, continue to be inspired by Colin.

 

Rest in peace, Collie.