Do you go to live sporting events? Do you paint your face or do you do your nails?

-- Anonymous, November 30, 1999

Answers

i guess there aren't many jocks/jock lovers out there.

-- Anonymous, December 01, 1999

I've been to two Packer games. One in November where I wore long- johns, sweat pants, jeans, t-shirt, sweatshirt, large winter jacket, two pairs of socks, and my Sorels. The second time was in August I wore the bare minimum and still thought I was going to die of heat exhaustion. There's no middle so I don't go anymore.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 1999

Wow, I'm glad this didn't go TOTALLY ignored.

-- Anonymous, December 01, 1999

Live sports fan? Oh, just a bit. I just went to five games of the Rugby World Cup, it cost a fortune, and my team (the mighty All Blacks) didn't even win, despite being strong favourites.

I love live rugby, and even go to watch Tristan's dreadful team play in the weekends. If you understand the rules of a sport then live sport is great.

The best sports event to attend is one day cricket. It's always a whole day out, it's only held in summer so the weather's usually good, you sit in the sun, watching cricket, drinking, and eating picnic food. Fantastic.

Of course, if you're American you may have no idea what I'm talking about when I say 'rugby' and 'cricket', but if you're a Kiwi, an Aussie, or English, you'll be nodding your head round about now.

-- Anonymous, December 02, 1999

I've been to 5 Toronto Maple Leafs home games, when they played out of Maple Leaf Gardens. My wifes workplace used to have season tickets and we'd occasionally get leftovers. We'd sit up in the greys (nosebleed seats) behind the Leaf bench, where you'd hear a conversation from the other end of the arena more clearly than the action down on the ice.

We also went to 2 other sports events at the Gardens - an NHL oldtimers game and the final figure skating performance of Underhill & Martini.

-- Anonymous, December 02, 1999

Let's see:

Been to see Carolina Panthers in Charlotte, the Bills in Buffalo

Detroit Tigers in Detroit, several Cleveland Indians games at Jacobs Field, saw lots of Pirate games when I lived in Pittsburgh

love to go to Durham Bulls games (our minor league team, ala the Costner/Sarandon vehicle)

Can't wait to see a Carolina Hurricanes Hockey brawl, probably later this month

Love the live sports event. Let's paint our faces and gooooooooooo!

-- Anonymous, December 02, 1999

I've been to countless baseball games, including several spring training ones in Florida. I love the Yankees, but I don't limit myself to them.

I can't stand watching hockey on television, but I went to a junior league hockey game once and the experience was very cool. I love how the crowd got drunk and rode the officials.

Attending sporting events in person is the best! It's kind of a rush to feel the crowd roar and bustle as the game goes along.

I don't paint my face or do my nails, but I do have a small sports tattoo on my arm. :o)

-- Anonymous, December 03, 1999

I've been out-of-town for the past week and am now catching up on a week's worth of Squishy...

I've been to very few big league type sporting events... a few Yankee games when I was a kid and a Celtics game about ten years ago... but I really enjoyed minor league sports. I used to live in Binghamton, NY, which was home to minor league hockey and minor league baseball.

The original hockey team there was the Broome Dusters (Binghamton is in Broome County)... Have ever seen the Paul Newman movie "Slapshot"? That was set in a fictional league based on the league the Dusters played in. Most of the hockey players in that movie were actual players in the real life league, many of them were Dusters. The three brothers on the team really were brothers and they played for the Dusters. A few years later the Dusters moved and were replaced by the Binghamton Whalers in a higher level league, just one step down from the majors, and then the Whalers moved and were replaced by the Binghamton Rangers, which served as farm team for New York. I enjoyed going to their games.

Even better, Binghamton then got a double-A baseball team, the Binghamton Mets (yeah, a farm team for the NY Mets). They played in a brand-new stadium. It was great! I loved going there on a summer evening to watch a game, usually with my daughter, sometimes with the whole family. They played good baseball. Mostly young players, playing with enthusiasm and hustle, not a collection of spoiled multi-millionairs. They always signed autographs for kids before the game and seemed genuinely thrilled to have kids clammering for their autographs. Good times.

I must confess that although I've been living in Rhode Island for four years now, I have yet to get to a PawSox game (Pawtuckett Red Sox, AAA baseball team) nor to a Providence Bruins game. I keep meaning to, but never seem to get around to it.

I almost never watch sports on tv. I have no idea what is going on in major sports unless it involves a New England area team like the Red Sox or the Patriots because then it appears in newspaper headlines and on the radio news so I can't avoid it, but I don't care at all. Sunday night I got to my hotel in NY... there was a choice between two restaurants in the hotel, one was a fancy place with reservations suggested and the other was called the Battery Park Tavern and boasted that it had a 60 inch television. So I got something to eat in the tavern (a pint of Guinness, caesar salad with grilled chicken, a very small slice of cheesecake, and a cup of cappuchino)... there was a football game on tv... of course the sound is off so I can't hear what the sports babblers are babbling about... and I realize that I have no idea what teams are playing. When the score appears on the screen, the team are identified as ATL and CAR... I can figure out that ATL probably means Atlanta... but what is CAR? I cannot think of any city that begins with those letters... Carthage? Later the thought came to me that sometimes teams are named after their state, so CAR starts Carolina but there's a North Carolina and a South Carolina, so that doesn't work... So I have no idea who the Atlanta whatchamacallits were playing. In fact, I obviously have no idea what the Atlanta team is called. I associate the word Braves with Atlanta, but that's a baseball team. (Are they still there? Teams move from city to city so often that it would be hard to keep track even if you cared.)

I do, however, sometimes watch running events and also track and field meets on television...

-- Anonymous, December 04, 1999

We are hockey monsters!!! The minor league team here in town -- Chicago Wolves -- play great hockey and have very affordable seats. Took my friend to her first ever game there...she'd never watched hockey before much lesss seen it live and by the third period she was on the edge of her seat shrieking "Shoot shoot shoot motherfuckers!!" Funniest damn thing I've ever seen!

Also...extra bonus at the Blackhawks games (if you can get past pricey seats and crappy hockey -- don't get me wrong, I love my Hawks but they suck!): Get yourself seats in the Club level -- section 230 to be exact. WE HAD A WAITRESS!!!!! Holy hockey heaven.

-- Anonymous, December 13, 1999