vs.
If you’re a regular Bulletin reader, you probably already know I’m a huge Green Bay Packers fan. It’s really the only professional sports team I have any loyalty to whatsoever. I have rooted for other teams in other sports, but the Pack has been my number one team since I was literally for years old. So on Sunday, of course, they’re playing the New York Giants in the NFC Conference Championship Game, which will decide which team will play the New England Patriots (probably) in the Super Bowl on February 3.
It’s obviously a big game for both places where the teams are located and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Green Bay Mayor James J. Schmitt have placed a friendly wager with one another on the outcome of the game. The bet has been reported in both New York (in Newsday) and in Green Bay (on WBAY Channel 2).
If the Giants win, Mayor Schmitt will send Bloomberg a gift basket from “World Cheese Champion” U.S. Specialty Cheese, featuring 10 pounds of assorted cheese spreads; 20, 16-ounce aged natural strip steaks from Smithfield Beef; 3 pounds of chocolates from Beertsen’s Candies; and a pair of cheese wedge sunglasses.
If the Packers win, Mayor Bloomberg will send a specially made 10-pound New York-style cheesecake from Carnegie Deli in Manhattan; a case of Brooklyn Lager from Brooklyn Brewery; and 20 pounds of Porterhouse steak from Peter Luger Restaurant in Brooklyn, along with six bottles of Peter Luger steak sauce.
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It’s nice to see Brooklyn Lager representing New York, but where’s the Wisconsin beer? Titletown Brewery is right there in town. How about a couple of growlers of Titletown’s Mediator, a Belgian Dopplebock. Hell, my friend Todd Ashman, who’s now with Fifty Fifty Brewing used to be the brewer there. There beers are decent, at least the few I’ve had a GABF. And I love their name.
If not Titletown, even though it seems the most appropriate, there are even three other breweries in Green Bay. There’s Green By Brewing, with their Hinterland Beer, also on Dousman, and then there are two Legends Brewhouse & Eatery locations. In the end, it probably won’t matter because hopefully Green Bay will win the game and Mayor Schmitt (with his great beery name) won’t have to pay up at all, instead receiving a nice care package from New York City. Fingers crossed. |
The Titletown Brewery on Dousman Street is located in an old Chicago & Northwestern Railroad Depot.
Being a NY bordering Canadian relatively new to this part of the country I have declared for the Giants this year by buying a shirt. I have a rule about supporting the nearest team if you do not have a hometown team or a family connection to the team. So it will have to be some good NY state brew for me this weekend. Maybe that bottle of Southern Tier Oat.
Now see, I have the opposite rule. My obstinate nature makes me never want to take the easy way and root for the home team. I rarely ever do that. I grew up nearly but almost never cheered for the Eagles, Phillies, 76ers or the Flyers (well, maybe the Flyers). Now that I’ve been in California for over 20 years, I now like to see the Philly teams do well. But I have a hard time being a fan of any of the Bay Area teams. I think I just hate irrational loyalties. Teach them young enough (as we do with school rivalries) and you create dangerously jingoistic citizens who will not only support the drum beat for war but willingly follow whatever politicians tell them, and that’s at least in part because of irrational loyalties that wherever you live is simply a better place by virtue of your being there.
That is why Green Bay is going to LOSE! Your theory is all backward and that bad karma is enough to totter them over. You are the butterfly that cause the tidal wave – how many times have you been told that!
They downside of my theory is it means I collect teams that suck. I like the Syracuse University NCAA football, Toronto Maple Leafs and the Scottish soccer team the Greenock Morton. For vast parts of my life the Red Sox sucked, too. I follow the Watertown (NY) Wizards summer baseball even. So I may get a bit of homerism but I avoid the bandwagoneers. But I entirely agree that school should teach about being a fan. That is a rule I have argued in favour of for some time. Teach them that when your team sucks you stick with it. Life is not all about winning because you will not win all the time or even much of it.
You can read the secret embedded code for “I bet you a case of beer, Jay” right. It’s in there. Trust me.
Sure it is …. But in the interest of good will, I’ll bring you at least a bottle of something yummy next time I’m north of the border.
Snap!