Fall = Full Sports Heart

Fall is such an amazing season.  The changing leaves, the pumpkin-flavored treats, the Honeycrisp apples (still waiting on those) and the cooler temperatures.  For me, it's also the time when my two sports loves collide -- baseball and football.

Baseball is first in my sports heart.  Easily.  

As you all might know, I'm a huge Texas Rangers fan.  

My best friend, Nikki, and me at Rangers Ballpark during Opening Weekend 2012.

 I fell in love with the team in 2005, so I saw some ugly games in those first few seasons.  They spoiled me in 2010 and 2011 with back-to-back American League Championships.  I don't get to as many games as I would like, but I pay lots of money for subscribe to MLB Extra Innings on DirecTV so I don't miss a game.  And I rarely do. I even author a blog about my boys (Baseball is My Boyfriend) and write a post-game rant/gush/wrap-up after almost every game. Baseball players are often referred to as the "boys of summer," but for me, they're the boys of spring, summer and fall.  And I sorely miss them in the winter.

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My second sports love is football.  I prefer college and root for the Iowa State Cyclones.

Me and my friend, Alicia, after the Cyclones' 2011 triple overtime victory over in-state rivals, the Iowa Hawkeyes.

I spend many hours each Saturday from September through December watching all kinds of games.  I used to have season tickets at Iowa State with my parents.  We dropped that this season, but I plan to pick it back up at some point in the future.  There's nothing better than college football -- the atmosphere, the rivalries, the upsets.  Ahh. I love it all.  I also have a few NFL allegiances -- the Kansas City Chiefs and the Green Bay Packers.  I really don't know when I became a Chiefs fan, but I watch them every chance I get and going to a game in Arrowhead Stadium is on my bucket list.  My parents are lifelong Packers fans, so I was raised watching Packers games.  I have extra incentive to cheer for the Pack as long as they have Graham Harrell on their roster.  One of my Texas newspaper jobs was in Graham's hometown, and I watched him play in high school.  I will continue to cheer for him no matter what uniform he's wearing.

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So, yes, I love when these two loves collide in the fall.  Sure, it takes up my weekends and tests my attention span sometimes, but I look forward to it every year.  The other night, my Twitter feed was filled with a mixture of NFL an MLB tweets.  It was a beautiful sight.

Of course, there were plenty of people complaining about the intrustion of football on their twitter feed.

To that, I have a few things to say:

1)  If you started following people who are baseball fans, you should not be terribly shocked that they like other sports too.  I'm betting NBA and NHL tweets are ahead (if NHL works out their problems), so you might want to learn to deal with it.

Or ... if you don't want to do that ...

2)  Unfollow.  Mute.  Filter.  Complaining will not change your feed, I promise.  But it clogs up mine, so stop.

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Meanwhile, I'll be over here, watching my teams with a very full and happy sports heart.