What a Week and How We Enjoy Games

What a wonderful, weird, and wild week it has been for past and present North Carolina Tar Heels

June 11, 2013; Chapel Hill, NC, USA; North Carolina left fielder Parks Jordan (8) shakes hands with South Carolina left fielder Graham Saiko (26) after the Tar Heels victory at the Chapel Hill Super Regional of the NCAA baseball tournament at Boshamer Stadium. The Tar Heels defeated the Gamecocks 5-4. Mandatory Credit: James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports

It started about a week ago with the baseball team’s epic performance. I picked up the movie “True Grit” expecting it to be about the Tar Heels and their 13 inning roller coaster ride of a game. It was a good movie, but needed more baseball. It also didn’t mention Carolina once. Weird. It was also weird seeing John Wayne play Coach Fox. Admittedly, I may have missed something, as I was only half paying attention, because on my computer screen was game 3 of the Super Regional’s against TOC (The Other Carolina).

That game had a good amount of drama in it as well, though just your routine drama (like the potential tying run on base in the top of the 9th). My nerves had been severely frayed after that 13 inning ridiculousness. I mean ridiculousness in the best possible way. If I wrote a screenplay where the victorious team overcame a grand slam in the top of the 9th, and a three run shot in the top of the 11th, I’d have been laughed out of Hollywood for being unbelievable (note that’s the same town that gave the green light to Starship Troopers and anything Ben Stiller has ever done).

Omaha bound. Well then.

One of my favorite things was watching the Twitterverse (a word I hate and I hope you’ll forgive my using it. I had to try it once. Won’t happen again) as these games unfolded. Speaking of Twitter, follow @keepingitheel. Basketball players tweeting left and right about the game. Past players tweeting from the game. Future players tweeting about the game. Some guy who won a karaoke contest getting in a spat with one of the UNC baseball players. I enjoyed it for two reasons. One, the karaoke guy made a “you have no followers” joke. Then UNC’s Michael Russell followed with what was essentially “Scoreboard”. (I only have 350ish followers, so I’m dead sure karaoke guy has no idea who I am. Which brings me to my next point, @strayunc. Help me out) So while I’m not watching “True Grit” (which should get hate mail. I encourage that) and watching UNC on my laptop and monitoring public thought through Twitter, I realized there are a million ways we experience sporting events now. I can follow a game through Twitter. I can watch it on my computer. I can stream it to my phone (not that I would boss. Just saying I could.) If I’m feeling particularly old-school about it, I can even watch it on television. To get a shared experience, we used to have to go to the game. Then TV came along, and we could go to a sports bar. Now? I can yell my thoughts 140 characters at a time while simultaneously posting to the Keeping It Heel message boards while streaming a game to my device du jour.

My point is, I was planning on giving “True Grit” the attention I’m sure it deserved, but then Danny Green started doing amazing things last night. And off to Twitter I went, because he’s one of us, and I couldn’t wait to make a Greg Paulus joke.

So here’s to the Men’s Baseball team. Have a safe trip to Omaha and save a seat for Gio Bernard..just in case. And here’s to DG…Keep on getting it done. We are all proud of you.