{"id":10,"date":"2007-07-01T10:40:05","date_gmt":"2007-07-01T14:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/2007\/07\/01\/open-letter-to-ticat-fans\/"},"modified":"2007-07-01T10:48:44","modified_gmt":"2007-07-01T14:48:44","slug":"open-letter-to-ticat-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/2007\/07\/01\/open-letter-to-ticat-fans\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Letter to Ticat Fans"},"content":{"rendered":"

MEMO<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

To:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hamilton Tiger Cat Football Fans<\/span><\/p>\n

From:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jason Maas<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Subject:\u00a0\u00a0 June 30th game vs. Calgary Stampeders<\/span><\/p>\n

_________________________________________________________________\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Um.\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t know why I did it.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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I mean, I know<\/em><\/strong> it was second and ten and I was standing in my own end zone, which meant that the guy who was a few yards directly to my right, well he ALSO had to be in our own end zone.\u00a0 <\/span>Simple geometry.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>And he wasn\u2019t even really \u201copen\u201d, either \u2013 not in any real sense.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cOpen\u201d maybe in the sense that nobody really thought that anyone with two neurons to rub together would throw that far across the field to a guy in his own end zone \u2013 when there were two defenders standing a few yards in front of him \u2013 maybe that kind of \u201copen\u201d, but not \u201copen\u201d in the sense that he\u2019s going to catch it and make a first down.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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My point is, I knew all that stuff.\u00a0 <\/span>Heck, I\u2019ve played in the CFL for like 8 years.\u00a0 <\/span>I passed for more than 5000 yards during one of those years.\u00a0 <\/span>Five thousand!\u00a0 <\/span>That\u2019s like 4 and a half kilometres.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s not like I haven\u2019t proven in the past that I know what I\u2019m doing.<\/span><\/p>\n

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But here\u2019s the thing:\u00a0 <\/span>I still threw that pass.\u00a0 <\/span>Standing there in the middle of my own end zone, facing a second and ten from the shadow of my own goal post at a critical juncture in the game and (it must be said) at a critical juncture in my personal football career (let\u2019s face it, new o-line and untested receivers or not, the pressure is on me to SHOW the fans that I can still play this game after a miserable 2006) \u00a0<\/span>and I still, incomprehensibly, chose to throw that<\/em><\/strong> pass.\u00a0 <\/span>From all of the infinite options in the universe of possibilities \u2013 I somehow eliminated all other alternatives and chose to throw that<\/em><\/strong> astonishingly unintelligent pass.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The box score will say that Brock Ralph lost a fumble in our end zone and that the Stamps recovered for a touchdown.\u00a0 <\/span>But you<\/strong> know that\u2019s not true.\u00a0 <\/span>You\u2019re a football fan \u2013 you know that this thing, this mistake, this abortion of a play \u2013 it was my fault.\u00a0 <\/span>Sure, Brock made a dumbass move later in the game, when it was well out of reach \u2013 you know, after I spent almost the entire second quarter and most of the beginning of the third throwing passes 0 to 5 yards up the field, or fumbling the snap from centre, then got pulled for Timmy Chang \u2013 Brock went offside and cost us a meaningless, but somehow hopeful, touchdown with a dumb penalty. But we\u2019re not talking about later in the game after the Calgary defense had gone home, safe and secure in the knowledge that they had a 20 point lead, we\u2019re talking about the moment in the second quarter when everybody in the stadium simultaneously said \u201cwhat the hell was he thinking\u201d and I threw tha<\/em><\/strong>t <\/em>pass.\u00a0 <\/span>And I know that you\u2019re too much of a fan to actually sit there thinking, for the entire week, that \u201cDammit, Brock Ralph cost us a touchdown by fumbling the ball in our end zone.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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You know that it was my fault.\u00a0 <\/span>You know that somewhere deep inside my alleged grey matter, something went seriously wrong there, like when you plug your tape deck in to the \u201cphono\u201d input of the stereo and the music is suddenly all garbly and distorted or one of the channels like completely fries and there\u2019s a small puff of very acrid, vaguely toxic smelling smoke, and suddenly the left channel of your amp doesn\u2019t work at all anymore.\u00a0 <\/span>Yeah, you know it was like that, neurologically speaking, for me \u2013 you know that when I was standing there with the ball and the decision making process ought to have been underway in my head, instead my synapses had doused themselves in mai-tais, formed a conga line and cha-cha\u2019ed out the metaphorical doorway, drunkenly swinging their hips and burping up funny coloured bits of rum-flavoured slushy mix.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>And I can\u2019t even deny it.\u00a0 <\/span>That is basically what happened inside my head when I did that thing.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Um.\u00a0 <\/span>So, I\u2019m uh, sorry.\u00a0 <\/span>About that.\u00a0 <\/span>And, um.\u00a0 <\/span>The fumble on the snap from centre.\u00a0 <\/span>And, um, well most of the other stuff I did (and didn\u2019t do) in Calgary last night.\u00a0 <\/span>Because you know, even the one long pass that Nate Curry caught wasn\u2019t really a good throw.\u00a0 <\/span>It kind of hung up there like a duck, quacking away.\u00a0 <\/span>I was sort of surprised that it didn\u2019t get shot down by four guys wearing orange hats and carrying shotguns.\u00a0 <\/span>It was a good thing the Calgary defender was off buying popcorn when I threw it, never believing that I was actually going to chunk the ball downfield, or he might have made a better play on that ball.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>You know, come to think of it, even ol\u2019 Nate had a kind of look on his face, a kind of\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cJeez, maybe I shouldn\u2019t have had shotgunned those six beers at halftime but really I had no frickin\u2019 idea you\u2019d be actually throwing it \u2013 well not exactly \u201cto\u201d me, but like in my general direction\u201d \u00a0<\/span>kind of thing.\u00a0 <\/span>So, um.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Anyway.\u00a0 <\/span>Um.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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I\u2019m sorry, and I thought it would be best if we could just get this out in the open, you and I.\u00a0 <\/span>So there it is.\u00a0 <\/span>If we run in to one another on the street, you don\u2019t have to kind of stare at your shoes, shuffle your feet and mutter something about the \u201cnew playbook\u201d or \u201cbreakdowns in the offensive line coverage\u201d or anything.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>And for my part, I don\u2019t have to wear that kind of \u201ccrying puppy\u201d expression on my face, looking for sympathy to displace reason – because I want us to be good, you and I.\u00a0 <\/span>You know that I fucked up, and I know that you know it, so we can just be adult about it and nobody needs to clear their throat and idly muse about some dipshit thing like \u201cbad breaks\u201d or whatever.\u00a0 <\/span>Because they weren\u2019t \u201cbad breaks.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>I fucked up.<\/span><\/p>\n

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So now that we have that straight, everything is cool, nobody needs to worry about anything, and you and I are good.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>You\u2019ll support me as the quarterback of this team, and I \u2013 in explicitly recognizing and taking responsibility for my own farcical shortcomings \u2013 have demonstrated to you that I know what\u2019s wrong and I am going to fix it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Right?<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sincerely, <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Jason Maas<\/span><\/p>\n

Future Former Ticats Quarterback<\/span><\/p>\n

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p.s. oskee wee wee and all that jazz<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MEMO<\/p>\n

\n

To: Hamilton Tiger Cat Football Fans<\/p>\n

From: Jason Maas<\/p>\n

Subject: June 30th game vs. Calgary Stampeders<\/p>\n

_________________________________________________________________ <\/p>\n