Eat My Sports: The bay of youth

Some cheese, like fine wines, only gets better with age. It may stink to high heaven and make you wonder why in God's name you are putting up with something smelling as atrocious as Jodie Foster in Contact, but at some point, it gets better. Except for Foster, you peaked in Silence of the Lambs, move on.

Maybe beyond the cheese though, it's something that gets into us. The high stinky cheese is the nastiest pitch in baseball, thank you The Sandlot. When you're at the top, you're The Big Cheese. Or, if you're like Chester Cheetah, cheese is your business, and you OWN it.

This past Sunday I was at one of the local watering holes in my hometown to watch some football with one of my buddies. This was one of the fortunate instances where the bar I was at had any game you wanted to watch. So, needless to say, there was quite the melting pot (no cheese pun intended, I swear) of NFL fans there, I even sat next to a guy who was wearing a denim long-sleeved Kansas City Chiefs shirt, yes, even I was surprised they made those. Those were probably leftovers from the remaining KC fans from the 80s. This shirt is so old that I literally couldn't even find a picture of it online, but I digress.

As I was perusing the games, I caught Donovan McNabb torching a Detroit secondary that looked more like they needed to be in a powder puff football league, or swiss cheese. I saw Tom Brady and Randy Moss hooking up more times than (insert "Paris Hilton and …" joke here). Then I saw Brett "Yeah, maybe I should retire, but …" Favre.

There was Brett Favre toying around with the San Diego defense like he was almost daring them to make him throw. He was playing reckless, yet poised, a la Jack Nicholson in The Shining, except way less creepy and a bit more hair. Yet still looking like a madman who will kill you at any given moment while asking an imaginary bartender for some booze. Sadly, or maybe poetically, the San Diego Chargers were the wife and child that couldn’t escape. Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Brett!!!!!!

This was the guy who was supposed to be creeping up to the line of scrimmage with a walker. The washed up quarterback, whose pronunciation of his last name STILL makes no sense was supposed to on his way back to Mississippi and moving from those Wrangler commercials to something like Centrum Silver. Instead he's the guy that’s going shred Dan "Einhorn is Finkle" Marino's last remaining passing records.

Now he's back and punishing even some of the most daunting defenses in the NFL. What sense does this make? None. There must be something in the cheese in Green Bay, because Brett Favre is playing out of his mind. It's definitely not steroids, for Favre looks just about the same (minus the gray hair) than he did when he came in the league, and his helmet hasn't expanded for no reason, Barry. Side question here: are there any gray cheeses? Someone please let us know.

Favre has found the fountain of youth in the NFL that seems to elude most players way past their prime. Look at Emmit Smith in an Arizona Cardinals jersey (melting cheese), or Jerry Rice stumbling his way in Seattle (wet cheese). The man is the William Shatner of the NFL, making his career end in a way he wants to, instead of in a punch line. Though Shatner is a punch line, the reference made sense, so I'm sticking to it. Deal with it.

The point of all this, if you’re finding yourself losing the touch on something you once handled. Order some cheese from Green Bay, no matter how your last name is pronounced.