My mother and I have a little ritual when it comes to professional sports, recycled every time my dad puts a game on the tv for any length of time. It goes something like this:

Mom: "I don't care about sports. Who could? The players move around so much, you're not really voting for your own team anymore." (Mom grew up in Brooklyn before the Dodgers played chicken with Robert Moses)

Me: "But it's not the players you root for, it's your team. It's a pseudo-replacement for the community we don't have anymore."

Mom: "but how can you feel like a part of the community when all the players are strangers?"

Me: "The players are like the employees of the community. The team is Rome, they're the slaves. We're gods, they're peons. We're generals, they're the grunts. So we're really rooting for the fans. Ourselves."

Mom: "but that makes no sense. Why would you bother with the team and sports to begin with?"

Me: "good point."

Both of us: "well, at least it gives people an avenue to vent their frustrations about life and society in a safe (usually) manner (unless you're wearing a g-men jersey to the linc). Boy, those fat dudes in philly must have a lot of angst in their lives."

Hi mom, and go Eagles! Congrats on making the playoffs despite doing everything humanly possible to avoid the overtime.