The Dog Days of August

8.1.2018

If I asked you what the dog days of August meant, what would you answer be? Google would tell you “the sultry part of the summer, supposed to occur during the period that Sirius, the Dog Star, rises at the same time as the sun: now often reckoned from July 3 to August 11. a period marked by lethargy, inactivity, or indolence.” To me, it’s just when you kinda sink your shoulders, watch the Top 10 of baseball highlights or repeatable web gems, soccer games from 1,000 person arenas, and women’s cricket.

The Dog days is when our entertainment which leads to our hobbies goes in shut down mode. The players on the 100-yard field, and the best shoes around gliding up and down 94-foot courts, go invisible. These are the Dog Days. And this is how we get out of them. Groups like this.

Ironically (I’ve been using this word wrong a lot with my girlfriend Alex), this thread was started with a couple distinct groups:

- The Pike 2013 PC Fantasy Football League

- The Older Pike Vegas Savages Group

It then expanded to the 5 White Guys in Tucson, the other members of the Tucson poker crew, LA new friends, and then people we’ve met along the way who have all contributed to the fandom of my life – fans of friends and friends of fans.

These are the groups and the people who pick each other up during the dog days. When, on a slow day in August, set up a card game around a ping pong table in the playroom, and play hold 'em for hours on end for more money than you would think. Or go into the driveway and play 2 on 2, 1 on 1, 48 and everything in between to work up a sweat on the desert gravel.

The Dog days of August in New York and on the East Coast are different. People flock far and wide, to beaches filled with snooty lobster rolls, good legs, and fresh tattoos. People find ways to distract themselves, filling a void that for some reason is now available to fill.

The good news, boys, is that this void is slowly coming to an end. NFL preseason starts not this weekend, but next weekend, The Duke-Canada tour is this month, and you can smell the rest of what is around the corner.

Like, fuck fantasy, but I can’t wait for it to come back. To be in the thick of conversation with friends in this thread, to be following and watching along, hopefully not caring about the Yahoo or ESPN score, but smiling at a text from Tharp about the bull shit surrounding a 20 yard carry on 3rd and 3.

It took a long time to get to August 1st, and while we call it the Dog Days of August, it seems the definition of the summer dog solstice only runs until August 11th. That’s what it feels like. Summer pool parties, summer vacations, summer time-off, all of it. It’s over. We’re close to getting back to the routine. Back to the routine of FOX and CBS. To the routine of decent college ball on ESPN2. To Top 10s filled with the best athletes (yes, still holding strong to football and basketball).

Back to doing what we do best. And back to bringing the best out of this group. Let’s mentally prepare for mid-August and post-labor Day, because then, things will really get going. 

And we’ll be back.