TERRY: Football on its way

As much as I love summer, it’s dragging on.

Of course it does this every year. The biggest culprit isn’t the heat, or the crowded roads, or even the company policy against wearing shorts to work.

It’s football.

That’s right football.

Summer was moving along just fine when baseball season was staring down the All-Star break. The World Cup ended, the Tour de France came and went, some of the world’s best horses and riders showed their stuff at the Event. Things were going smoothly.

Then football had to happen.

First it was just whispers. Rookies were reporting to various NFL camps to pick up playbooks and other rookies partying in Las Vegas.

It was background noise. I could ignore it and focus on other things. More important things like where LeBron was going and hating myself for caring about where LeBron was going.

I calmed myself. I started to get into mid-season baseball. I remembered my hometown Detroit Tigers are a tease with innumerable talent and no bullpen whatsoever.

I was getting into the playoff chase with other teams. The Mariners look decent when they can get out of their own way. The teams the Mariners play also look pretty good, maybe because they’re playing the Mariners, I wasn’t watching that closely.

But, I was excited for cool out and watch baseball season. It’s arguably one of the best times of the summer. Nothing more important happening except for relaxing, enjoying hot dogs, peanuts and cold refreshments and watching baseball.

It’s nice and simple, unlike the hectic rest of the year when playoffs bounce off of regular seasons of various sports that are always changing. This part of the year is great.

Then college football had to get involved.

Media days began and all of a sudden there was something actually happening. Practice strategies were getting cooked up. Last season’s rosters were being pored through and strengths and weaknesses pointed out. Schedules came out and imaginations started to run wild about what teams would be able to do in the upcoming season. Predictions started to roll in and, inevitably, counter-predictions to those predictions.

And big time college football started a playoff. A real life playoff with more than two teams, though still much smaller than any sane person would ask for. Nonetheless real.

That format has brought about conversation and speculation and consternation.

And all of a sudden, when no one was looking, the NFL came back. And preseason games started. And when I looked at the calendar, the most important thing of all was written in bold in the last few weeks.

High school football is starting. Schools are sending in information, things are starting to happen.

And as football season is upon us — shouting at the top of its lungs for us to pay attention — it’s nowhere close.

Football season, real football season, with games and plays and whistles, is three weeks away. The high-pace of fall sports, with all their excitement, passion and pageantry, are far enough away that they’re ruining all that good, slow, relaxing cool out and watch baseball time.

It seems slow and boring in comparison.

So I’ll wait and try to enjoy what is left of summer and the slow season.

Summer will drag on for a few more weeks, but the wait only makes the fall that much better.