The salad days of sports are upon us, just stay away from iceberg

A nd so now the calendar turns to October. This is both joyous and treacherous for sports fans, the blessing and the curse.

Blessing: the greatest sports watching month of them all.

Curse: the greatest sports watching month of them all. So do we go, “yay!” or “oy vey?” Here's what we mean: October brings the baseball playoffs. College football, pro football. Hockey begins. Basketball very soon. There's something on every night. And with the blessing that more sports watching brings us comes the curse of what accompanies it: eating more comfort food. This perhaps leads to your bathroom scale, as the old line goes, soon reading, “to be continued” when you step on it.

Take Sunday, for instance. Fox 61's act of treason — showing the Patriots over the Giants — meant that many loyalists of Big Blue had to go to a bar. I was invited to Buffalo Wild Wings. I didn't go because I knew I'd pick wings and PBR (don't judge me) over a nice salad.

This just in: I need to eat more nice salads.

But even nice salads have me confused. Like the other night. I was out doing that thing where you study the menu, pretending like you're reading it, but already know what you want.

I'm simple. I like what I like. But I am working on trying new things. I decide to veer from my usual Caesar salad — lots of calories there, right? — and to my surprise, I hear the words, “I'll take the iceberg salad wedge.”

Iceberg. Salad. Wedge. I don't even know who I am any more.

Iceberg is a type of lettuce. Must be un-fattening, right? But of all the lettuces out there, really? Iceberg. It is crunchy, tasteless and not even a pretty green. Salad, to me, means that there is a mix of veggies. Nice tomatoes, cucumbers, onion.

Here's the part that I really don't

get. A wedge. A big hunk of lettuce. Like a mountain of lettuce. When the server puts it in front of me, it sits on the plate and sort of smiles at me as if it is taunting me. There's bacon. And bleu cheese dressing. And, even though I am paying top dollar, I have to wrangle this mountain into smaller bites, while making polite conversation and trying to not stab myself.

So I can't eat it. I feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Slippery little sucker. But if I do eat it … Holy Caloric Intake, Batman.

As I am trying to conquer Mount Lettuce, I actually begin to sweat. At this point, I can't even taste the so called salad, because all I want to do is win. I want to shred that thing and declare myself the winner.

I'm waiting for the server to give me a participation award. Think about youth sports now: Everybody gets participation awards. But I've never wanted a medal for surviving this experience more. Not only is this salad not low calorie, but how does one eat it? Why would anyone order this?

If you are one of the people who routinely order this foothill, please know that I stand an applaud you. Yep. I will be the weird guy off in the corner clapping, as if you just finished a marathon. And the minute my finish line celebration is over, I will sit back down and enjoy my Caesar. Calories and all.

So back to the original premise: What are we to do this month? There's sports on every night. It makes me want to eat. But even when I order salad, I get the wrong one.

If there are any nutritionists (or skinny Minnies) out there, please help. I need snacks for the Yankees and their playoff game Tuesday. And don't tell me kale. I hate kale. Kale is icky.

It's got to be simpler than a wedge salad, right? This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.