The sports pages are making me feel old and sad today

The phrase "end of an era" is something that gets thrown around a lot, but the sports world hears it all the time, which makes sense. So much of the emotion and loyalty that we put into sports has to do with what we've grown up with, even if it didn't make sense or was ill-advised at the time. These are the things you could depend on growing up and when they change it just seems wrong.

And so with that, here are two things that are pushing my "end of an era depression" button:

First, they go and all but ruin ACC's basketball glory.

I still can't get over the fact that Carolina and Wake Forest will only play ONCE this season. Competitive rivalries will come and go, but geographical rivalries are what keep divisions exciting over the years. I guess eras can end more than this one. At least there's a pretty strong resemblance to what it used to be. Don't think about it too hard and it's hard to notice. Not so with the official killing off of my summer days in Greensboro:

Hot: Insects. Not: Flying rodents.

It's not a terrible idea to change the name of the Greensboro Bats minor league baseball team, but those were really great memories of heading to War Memorial Stadium (which is at least preserved in Bull Durham) for Bats games, paying $3 to get in and then $20 for beer, hot dogs, peanuts and pretzels, sitting in those beautiful North Carolina summer nights with good friends, slowly getting drunk and barely paying attention to the game. The era starting its end when they switched their affiliation from the Yankees to the Marlins, continued when they announced the new stadium, and now is officially over.

We'll always have War Memorial Stadium.