Annual Pilgrimage

Last weekend I went to the Denver Broncos / Oakland Raiders game in Oakland with Maggie, a friend of mine from high school. We're both die-hard Broncos fans. Maggie's family had season tickets in the nosebleed section when she was growing up, and despite the frequent sleet and snow, they all used to fight over who got the two seats for each game. My parents are fans, too, but I trace my devotion to the years in elementary school when I collected football cards and decided Sammy Winder (tailback for the Broncos) was the cutest player in the NFL. Anyone remember him? At any rate, Maggie is the perfect accomplice for this annual tradition because a) she's witty and can talk smack with the best of them and b) she's a girl and therefore we are less likely to get beaten up.

Oakland is notorious as the NFL stadium with the craziest (and by this I mean seriously deranged) fans. This is the third year in a row that Maggie and I have gone to the game and we never cease to be surprised at what we see there. Year one highlights include narrowly escaping having beer tossed on us, running into some Raider fanettes who wanted to fight us despite Maggie having a cast on her leg, and venturing into the famed "black hole" (in disguise). Year two started off even dicier as I accidentally cut off an enormous line of Raider fans waiting for the porta-potty and barely escaped being tipped over inside it.

We were braced for the worst this year but are glad to report we had very little trouble. Maggie was disappointed - people were actually polite to her! One fan said "excuse me" when he bumped into her! We suspect this is because they are an absolutely dismal team this year - there isn't any trash to talk when it is a forgone conclusion that your team is going to lose. Still, it is kind of sad to see how broken they are. We were at the stadium early enough to see Al Davis (the Raiders' owner) getting out of his limo and going into the stadium. He looked awfully old - he was using a walker and didn't have any of his trademark "bling" on. He barely responded to the fans all around him. That was kind of an interesting experience as a Broncos fan - he has been the guy we love to hate and the epitome of a Raider as far back as I can remember, but our rivalry will lose a lot of its vibrancy when he steps down. Our seats happened to be next to the father of the Raiders middle linebacker, Kirk Morrison. His dad was a very well-spoken guy who managed to take Maggie's exuberance in stride. It was cool to hear about one of the lesser known players (although apparantly he was defensive Rookie of the Year last year) and what he was like growing up. His dad was equally proud of his other two kids - a teacher and a social worker, which was cool to hear.

Anyway, the Broncos are 3-0 since Maggie and I have been going to the games so we owe it to them to keep up the tradition. Go Broncs!