Magic Gloves and the GOP Race

This has been an ongoing conversation in our home. No doubt it's raging in yours as well. My job? To give voice to the insanity.

Once upon a time there was a game called football. No reason why it was called football, since feet play a minor part in the game. But football it was called.

Now, for a long time, people just ran around chasing the person with the ball. Then came passing. Passing allowed the garnering of greater yardage (important in the concept of "moving the ball"), and at least gave  hope to the "receiver" (also known as a "catcher" not to be confused with a baseball player of the same name) that he might skedaddle into the "end zone" (the place where everyone wants to be) with nary a bruise to his precious skin.

Soon receivers became diversified into tight ends and split ends (not to be confused to anal personalities or the horrors of bad hair)."Wide" receivers (not obese mind you) "spread" the field. This required those who oppose them and attempt to steal the ball for themselves and their posterity, also get specific names such as safety and cornerback, though what these had to do with feeling secure or not being under a dunce cap, is harder to discern.

A particularized problem of said "receiving corp" is how to "hang on" to the ball. Now this in and of itself leads to misdirection, since there is nothing by which one can "hang". The ball being a strange configuration, neither round nor oval exactly nor rectangular. As such, it infuriates the most ardent player/observer with it's (the ball's that is) propensity to go off in all sorts of directions and bounce precariously on the head of a pin before "dying" or tumbling, or ricocheting backwards at the most inopportune of times.

Thus magic gloves.

Well, there were other things before. 

First, back in the cave man days, there was of course one's God-given hand, palm, and fingers which did the job. Said hands suffered as one might expect from exposure to the elements (dishpan hands!), and being stepped on, bitten, and spit on all for good measure.

Balls continued to fall from eager fingers onto the turf.

What to do?

The NFL is about money, and fans like catches not drops.

Enter gloves.

Gloves now, were initially just that, gloves. Designed to do what all gloves do, or should do I imagine... Keep the patties dry, warmer, and free from irritations. And no doubt they worked as expected.

They did not however, enhance in any great way, the ability to catch the oddity known as a football. By now, one hopes you are clear that this football is not what the world knows as football, which is really soccer as EVERYONE in America knows, and given that we are the biggest baddest ass on the block, our definition always holds forth.

So, receivers of all sorts continued their search for ball security.

Stick um.

Yes, I know. I mean seriously couldn't you even call it Miracle Goo?

So they used that until the damn balls got so blessed sticky that even the refs (whom everyone knows come from an island noted for it's care of the blind) said, "hey what the hell is on this ball?" and got another one. Forcing more stick um use, and more sticky balls (don't you DARE go there), and more confused referees.

Now everyone is actually in favor of confused referees, because they are such a humorous lot generally, but the damn stick um was starting to seep through gloves and players said their hands were stuck to steering wheels going home, and they had to sleep all night gripping the car keys because they couldn't let them go. So it was becoming a bit of a problem. (Don't even get me started at all the wide receivers who were being arrested for shoplifting!)

So stick um was declared verboten.

Enter the magic glove.

Channel the Gecko lizard. Think of his tiny little feet.

Each little rib acts as an individual "gripper" (not gipper you fool). Thus if even a finger touches the pigskin (doesn't work on penguin skin I'm told, but don't rely on me on this point), it sticks like glue until peeled off.

Allowing the most phenomenal "catches" which is sorta like this:

Or we could call them "snatches" (DO NOT GO THERE EITHER). Or "picks" but to be fair, picks are not pictures at all but the thing that happens when the QB fails to throw the pigskin near enough to the magic gloves of the receiver to enter into the field of magnetism drawing the ball to the finger tips. With such failure, the ball may pass too near the magic gloves of the "safety" or "cornerman" and be captured for the other side.

What does all this mean?

Nothing much. Or everything, depending on where you lie on the "football is necessary for my life" spectrum.

So, if this means nothing, well, get ready to be really pissed.

This post has nothing to do with the GOP race. But it made for a catchy title no?

Anyway, I don't count these "catches" of much account any more. I just yell "magic gloves" when another amazing, can't be done, sorta catch is seen. I don't like magic gloves.

Now that you mention it, I don't care for the day-glo colors, the "tights"worn now instead of socks, and the fanny packs which seem de rigeur these days so one's lipstick and powder are always available for those touch-ups after a particularly feisty tackle.

I wanna go back to men in leather helmets and no teeth grunting and gouging, spitting, and biting. No more inventive dance routines in the end zone, no more "hey look at me, I did my job of tackling that dude, for which I'm paid 17 million dollars. Aren't you impressed?"

Can you just play the stupid game?