The online magazine Grantland featured a farewell essay to Candlestick Park, where the San Francisco 49ers played their final game on Week 16 before winning three more games on the road to earn themselves their third straight trip to the NFC Championship Game. The essay, titled “Closing the Cave of the Winds,” is notable not just for its eloquence but also for its author, Khaled Hosseini, whose bibliography includes a book known to most of us, The Kite Runner, which spent a very long time on the New York Times best seller list.
Much as I enjoy sports, I often do so with a trace of guilt, knowing that in many ways they represent a colossal waste of time and resources, mostly to enhance the portfolios of franchise owners, and encourage people to care far more about the trivia of wins and losses on playing fields than about events that are far more important to their lives once the game clocks run out. However, when I read Hosseini’s story of becoming a 49er fan almost from the moment he got off the plane after fleeing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan with his family in 1980, it reminded me of one of the more positive aspects of sports which I have experienced on many occasions: the community and friendship it fosters among fans who otherwise might have little in common with each other. For me, I think of walking on the University of Oregon campus during the 2010 World Series with my Giants sweatshirt on and being greeted with “Go Giants!” several times by total strangers. For Hosseini, who otherwise has amply demonstrated a healthy perspective on what is important in life, being a 49er fan has made him feel at home in America in a way that no school or social agency could ever have accomplished. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this benefit of sports outweighs the detriments, it at least suggests that there is a lot of good to being just another fan of the hometown team.
Here are a few notes on today’s 49er victory over the Carolina Panthers:
As expected, the game was something of a slugfest, at least in the first half. The broadcast crew did a good job of picking up on a lot of the pushing, shoving, and trash-talking that went on after the whistles. One of the chief perpetrators was Niner receiver Anquan Boldin, who somehow managed to induce a Carolina defender to draw a penalty for a head butt in the first quarter while avoiding one when doing the exact same thing in the second.
Speaking of Boldin, he acknowledged after the game that his performance—8 catches for 136 yards—owed much to the double coverage that the Panthers kept on Michael Crabtree. That being said, Boldin appears to be the same dominating beast on the field that he was in last year’s playoffs with the Ravens, and the Seattle coaching staff is going to have a fine time figuring out how to keep both Niner wideouts under control.
Good as his overall performance was, Kaepernick tended to be a little scatter-armed, missing wide-open receivers on several occasions even as he managed to thread needles on others. He also nearly threw a pick-six deep in Niner territory in the second quarter that was dropped in the same incredible fashion as on the final drive in the Packer game. Undoubtedly this is what Grantland editor in chief Bill Simmons means when he talks about how Kaepernick amazes and terrifies him at the same time. As for me, I would say that luck is an essential ingredient to winning championships, but it would be better if Kaepernick didn’t rely on it this much.
Overall, I like the 49ers’ chances in Seattle next week—they played much better than the Seahawks against an opponent that was clearly superior to the Saints team that came to Seattle. The Niners, however, need to figure out a strategy to deal with the noise at Century Link Field, which is all the more difficult given Kaepernick’s apparent need to yell instructions to virtually all of his teammates in the formation before every snap. In the past, teams have used hand and body signals in loud environments, but for some reason they don’t appear able to rely on them nowadays. Go figure.
As always, the best thing about having your team win a playoff game is that you get to watch another one next week. I won’t be going without spiritual nourishment this time—kickoff is set for Sunday at 3:30 PM on the West Coast.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvB5mcIsbko
