The Month of February

T. S. Eliot was wrong. (I rather like that beginning to a newsletter!) April is not the cruellest month. Au contraire. After all, April features the culmination of March Madness, the beginning of the baseball season, and the start of the NBA and NHL finals. And it includes my favorite Jewish holiday (if it’s not inappropriate to put it that way), Passover.

 

No, it’s clearly February that is the cruelest month. (I’m reverting to the American spelling. Eliot used the British double “L.”) College and pro football are over. Baseball’s spring training is yet to begin. College and pro basketball and ice hockey chug along toward the playoffs in a seemingly endless series of games that only a real fan can relish.

 

There are, to be sure, occasional bright flashes of lightning that relieve February’s tedium. For example, last Monday’s amazing Wizards-Cavaliers game, tied by LeBron with an unbelievable shot as time ran out in regulation and won by the Cavs in overtime. Here’s an account of the game and a highlight reel that you’ll surely enjoy. Fred Barnes was at the game, and had a spring in his step in the office the whole rest of the week, despite rooting for the Wizards. As he said, it was a noble defeat.

 

But it doesn’t make up for the fact that it’s February.

 

And one last word on the Super Bowl. I give it to Sally Jenkins, who had a fascinating column in the Washington Post Monday. Here are the first two paragraphs, which I reproduce just to torment the Belichick and Brady haters among you!