i love football. i love everything about it.after the super bowl , i am usually a little depressed and bored, but luckily i have quite the affinity for college basketball as well. after march madness the NFL draft comes around and i usually watch the first couple hours then check in every hour or two. after the draft i have enough new football information to last me a couple of weeks, then the slow period begins.
in the end of june beginning of july ,the fantasy football magazines start coming out.fantasy football geeks are among the hardest of the hardcore NFL fans. i am not an ff geek but i am definitely getting closer to it each and every year. i usually buy four or five magazines and pore over every word that is printed from cover to cover. i make notes in the margins and compare the numbers and rankings of each magazine,devising systems that and formulae that calculate the best of the best at each position , or each team . who has the hardest schedule , streaks , slumps, jinxes , curses , etc,etc...giving me plenty to do until late july comes around.
then... free agent signings , training camps and exhibition games begin. players hold out and get injured , traded or cut. my fantasy football drafts and the beginning of the college season, which i watch to see who will be coming to the NFL,ushers in the regular season of the NFL.
the first weekend happens so fast that it's just like christmas-you wait so long for it to get here that when it finally does , it is over so fast that you wonder if it really happened.
i used to gamble on football and was pretty good at it , it was like having an extra bank account only sometimes i put money in, and couldn't take it out.
my week would start on tuesday, i'd spend the day with the spread sheets, combing over them looking for the cracks that would lead to the money .thursday , i'd pick a college game, one on friday ,three on saturday ,and then three on NFL sunday for each the one o'clock and four o'clock games , the sunday night NFL game , then monday night NFL. on tuesdays i'd add up my winners and losers ,then either paid or collected on friday.i collected more often than not ,but i gambling kind of ruined watching football for me.i no longer rooted for my teams, i rooted for the spread.one day my boss told me that he thought i had a gambling problem and i said "how much you want to bet that i don't?" and then it happened,i told myself that i wasn't going to bet on the super bowl. fifteen minutes before kickoff i walked over to the phone and placed my bets . i stood outside of myself watching the machine i had become and was helpless.although i won, it was the last game i ever bet on.
i remember this one weekend , i lost 1800 dollars! on tuesday, after i had added up my bets, i looked at the number and was in shock.i reached into my pocket and pulled out my money... i had three hundred and fifty dollars-one thousand, four hundred and fifty short of what i needed! i was physically sick.i didn't get off of the couch for two days,and now it was thursday-24 hours away from collection.i went and picked up my pay check for 500 , now i was at least a little closer to half way there.the phone was ringing when i walked in the door, it was THE BIG MAN ,"HEY CREEP, " he yelled into the phone "YOU'RE DOWN 18 LARGE",like i didn't know that already,"I'M JUST CALLING TO MAKE SURE YOU'RE COMING DOWN TO THE GRILL TOMORROW." i assured him i would be there and then hung up.
the grill was just one of the three places he won from degenerate gamblers,people that can't cover their bets.i was definitely not going to be one of those-once you are there ain't a bookie around that will take your action .
i went to the Hill to get some pot, i called in an old favor and got two on the cuff,that's credit ,for four grand . i offered it to a friend for a one-time-only 2750,which would get me completely out of this mess, but he was broke.he could only take a quarter pound off of me , so i sold him one for 800,i was now over a thousand-1150 to be exact , just 650 away from getting out of this hole.
i went back home exasperated,i threw my hat down on the table and wondered, what the fuck am i gonna do? i called in my thursday nighter , texas tech giving 14 points for a hundred and fifty bucks, and opened a sam adams. i woke up to knocking on my front door the west ender-a gambling' buddy of mine-knocked on my door. he handed me a coffee and said he was on his way to turning stone, an indian casino a couple hours north , to play some black jack. i saw that the sun had come up, it was friday -payday-doomsday.i grabbed the paper from him and looked up the Tech game, it wasn't in the paper-damn late games.i grabbed my jacket without even thinking about the ramifications of losing and left with him.i looked at the clock it was 830 in the morning-i had nine and a half hours to come up with the 650.
west ender and i got the casino at 11 .we hit the black jack tables and in fifteen minutes i was down to four hundred, i was getting sick. told me to take a break and get some fresh air. i walked around for a bit ,the thing about casinos outside of vegas and atlantic city is that there isn't anything else to do but gamble. it was around 1 in the afternoon when i finally took my pathetic ass back into the casino.
when i found westy he was laughing and carrying on having a good old time . he was up about 1200. i sat down and lost another two and a half .now i was really fucked i ran to the toilet and vomited.on my way back to the table a die from the crapshooters hit my foot , i picked it up and handed it to the croupier.i had 150 in chips left. i said fuck it, and put the whole 150 on the pass line.i didn't know shit about craps.i prayed to the gambling gods and watched the woman roll the dice.
they bounced off the wall and a guy watching yells "SEVEN!" and my 150 doubled.smiling i picked up two fifty and put another fifty on the pass line, she rolled again ,this time getting an eight. chips began flying all over the place . guys were yelling ten on the hard eight ,thirty on six ,fifty on the come. i looked at the old man next to me and said what do i do, i never played this before, he looked at meas if i had asked for money. a dealer told me a quick explanation of the game . i looked around the table for the most chips and started copying his every move at a ten percent cut.he was betting with the green 100 dollar chips , i used the red tens. my money began to grow.
i was really starting to have fun when i got the dice.i had a basic idea of what i was doing, and i started rolling .i made about eight passes before i lost.next thing i know west ender is at my side " i've been looking all over for ya , we gotta go,its 430.i had already placed my bets, i told myself last roll, win or lose i take my chips and go.the woman who hit me with the die had the dice,she rolled a nine. i had chips on five , six and eight,the pass and below the pass all in all about 114 dollars.she started rolling. she hit my five,i collected and pulled my money off of five. she hit the eight,i collected and took the eight pile. she rolled a few more times the hit my six, i pulled the six. now all i had was the pass , and below it. she rolled and rolled and rolled -eleven i collected the rest and picked up my chips.i threw twenty to the dealer that helped me learn and split.
how much you win , creep? asked old wester as we were cashing out.i counted....1650!i was only 150 dollars off!there was light at the end of the tunnel!
on the way home ,west ender kept telling me how lucky i was.that never -neeeeeverrrrrrr happens my friend.you never win when you're down like that.i told him i was a quarter cherokee and that it was my reparations , we laughed like loons .west ender had got the indians for 2500. he kept saying "we scalped 'em!" we listened to espn radio on the way home, when i learned that texas tech had covered, i screamed so loud westy almost crashed ."i covered , i covered, i'm in the clear!" i felt as if i had just gotten out of jail ,like a huge weight had been lifted.
i walked into the grill a little after six, THE BIG MAN says-"YER LATE CREEP" i smiled as i handed him a fat wad, 1650,texas tech covered last night. his fat face never changed as he pocketed my money . for a second he looked like jabba the hut"GIVE THE CREEP WHAT EVER HE WANTS" i got a double shot of jaegermeister and a pint of sam adams , i slammed them both and doubled up , repeated and got one more."HOW YA FEELIN CREEP?" jabba asked, "i feel no pain" i said .i climbed off the stool and stumbled home into the cold darkness wondering who i was gonna pick tomorrow.