Hit By a Pitch

Airfare?! Don’t talk about airfare. You kidding me? Airfare?

One of the great truths of the universe is that my love of John Madden is vast and powerful. I’ve loved John Madden ever since that one time that might have involved weed, Monday Night Football, and ordinary household objects being subjected to a stiffarm. To be fair, it’s not just John Madden — I love commentators who talk crazy shit and don’t always make sense. (See also Hawk Harrelson, my all-time favorite.)

Because I love John Madden, I was excited to hear about the Madden Tracker while watching the Saints/Colts game. I went right over to nbc.com and clicked on the Madden Tracker icon, and I’m so in love with this — it’s like geocaching for the lazy sports fan who doesn’t want to get off the couch, with a lovable sports goofball at the end.

Well, it’s not quite that exciting, but you do get to guess how long it will take Madden and his entourage to get from Indianapolis to Dallas. Oh man, that’s awesome — now I have good reason to plot out Madden’s trip through the middle of the country, taking into account food breaks and everything. I wonder where Madden eats when he’s on the road. Does he stop at a roadside diner and eat key lime pie? I don’t know, but I will carefully consider whether to allow time for dessert.

But wait a minute. The winner of the Madden Tracker game wins a VIP Sunday Night Football experience, which is awesome, right? You get two tickets to a game and, uh, airfare? Airfare? What? This doesn’t make sense.

I don’t know about you, but part of the reason I love Madden is that I am deathly afraid of flying and just don’t do it, period (I have flown before, but I don’t plan to ever do it again unless I’m heavily drugged and probably not even then). I about died the other week when he and Al were talking about hot-air balloons and Madden was saying that no, that didn’t look like fun at all. I hear you, buddy. I feel your air-travel pain, let me tell you.

I love the idea of winning the VIP SNF hookup, complete with a tour of the Madden Cruiser — I might die of awesome if I got a tour of the Madden Cruiser. It’s one of my favorite things, like, in the world. But man, I don’t want airfare. As awesome as the whole thing would be, it’s not going to get me on a plane any more than you’re ever going to get John Madden on a plane.

So the thing that makes me love John Madden will be the thing that keeps me away from John Madden. I hope if I do win, I’ll have the chance to let John know that it would be really sweet if he just brought that cruiser through Denver and picked me up for a trip to the game. How awesome would that be? I’d bring pie.