Sports in L.A.

As I write this at 2:30 p.m., it's less than 3 hours until the start of Monday Night Football - tonight, when I head to a neighborhood bar, I'll be able to catch my Packers play. It is strange getting use to the NFL kickoff times out here. Yesterday morning at 10:00, while eating breakfast, I was watching the Giants/Dolphins game - and the late games were over by about 4-4:15. So Sunday evenings could be productive - though I guess they haven't really been so far - but the point is: they could be...

On another note, I don't have any TV stations yet (gotta love Time Warner, incompetence at its finest -- at this rate though, I may just skip cable all together) which means I listen to a lot of sports radio out here. And out here there are really just two sports: 1) USC Football 2) the Kobe watch. I guess since L.A. doesn't have a pro team, USC kind of falls into that spot, but it's absolutely nuts! They've got more pre-game and post-game coverage for USC games than Milwaukee/Green Bay has for Packer games. They have coaches shows, call-in shows, strategy shows - you'd hardly know a school like UCLA has a team, and I do believe the Bruins are actually ahead of the favored sons in the conference standings.

As for the Kobe watch, it's a daily soap opera of "will he go?" "will he stay?" with everybody from celebrities to former athletes to talking heads putting in their two-cents. I think he'll stay, and once again be a dominant force. But, one thing is certain, if the Lakers do trade Kobe, and do not get another absolute superstar in return, there will be an angry Laker fan mob roaming the streets of Beverly Hills looking for team owner, Jerry Buss.

Go Pack Go!