A MARCH 17 HOLIDAY PETITION

Across America and around the world today, people will celebrate St. Patrick's Day - a religious feast commemorating a poorly-understood 5th-century missionary - by wearing plastic hats, vomiting, and pretending that they like Boston.  When you're young, it's a blast!  You get to dress silly, listen to loud music and drink heavily all day.  There are no other days of the year where college kids can drink.

Once you get past the point in your life where you think The Boondock Saints is a well-written movie, however, you may cease to find joy in this bacchanal of amplified stereotypes.  You may start to think things like "Guinness is wildly overrated" or "I'm only one-quarter Irish and it's the other kind" and "seriously, The Boondock Saints is a terrible movie and you were a stupid, stupid child when you thought otherwise but people can change and you were really into Incubus back then too, Jesus, Scott, how did you ever meet women?" *

*note: I didn't

I'm getting off track here.

What I'm trying to say is, St. Patrick doesn't have much relevance in modern American culture, and this "holiday" as it exists today is a horrible excuse for the worst people you know to be the most exaggerated versions of themselves, and we don't have to stand for it. We need a new holiday, and a new patron for it.

I suggest we take March 17th as a celebration of a modern American saint.

SAINT SAMMY'S DAY

Born March 17th, 1914, Slingin' Sammy Baugh was an inaugural member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  He is widely credited with popularizing the forward pass.  He's largely the reason TCU has won as many national titles as Auburn.  (Back in the 1930s, TCU played in a major conference and was allowed to compete for national titles).  At the same time that he was putting up passing numbers that would look gaudy today (in a much less passing-friendly game than ours), he would also lead the league in punting and interceptions.

Sammy Baugh did more for you than some possibly-apocryphal figure from 1500 years ago.  Still don't agree?  Let's review.

TALE OF THE TAPE: BAUGH VS. PATRICK

BEST KNOWN FOR:

Baugh: popularizing the forward pass

Patrick: driving snakes out of Ireland

I don't live in Ireland and I don't root for Georgia Tech.

ADVANTAGE: BAUGH

BUT WAIT, ABOUT THAT SNAKES THING:

"...all evidence suggests that post-glacial Ireland never had snakes... at no time has there ever been any suggestion of snakes in Ireland, so [there was] nothing for St. Patrick to banish", says naturalist Nigel Monaghan, keeper of natural history at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin, who has searched extensively through Irish fossil collections and records..." -- WIKIPEDIA

Tell you what, let's be generous and say we don't know if he did or not.  Let's also take two plots of land covered in snakes.  You hire some old Anglican missionary, and I'll hire a guy who grew up in a small town in Texas, and we'll see who has snakes tomorrow.

Enjoy your snakes, by the way.

ADVANTAGE: BAUGH

RECORD AGAINST BAYLOR:

Baugh: 3-0

Patrick: 0-0

You think Art Briles isn't reminding people of this today? Church of Ireland ain't played NOBODY.

ADVANTAGE: BAUGH

DID HE PLAY FOR THE NFL TEAM IN WASHINGTON:

Baugh: yes

Patrick: no

Well, nobody's perfect.

ADVANTAGE: ST. PATRICK

LESSER-KNOWN NICKNAME:

Baugh: The King Of The Texas Rangers

Patrick: The Patron Saint of Paralegals

If you're a paralegal, go nuts on that Guinness today.  You earned it.

ADVANTAGE: BAUGH

FINAL SCORE: Slingin' Sammy 4 - St. Patrick 1

I'm not going to tell you how to celebrate today.  If you still want to get out your best green t-shirt and drink dyed beer while listening to a Flogging Molly cover band, do you.

As for me?  I'm gonna wear purple and think about running up 73 points on the Bears.  It's what our American saint would've wanted.