My Watch Worried About My Heart During the Steelers/Lions Game

And this is why we love sports! A trip to Detroit brought me to one of the wildest, most fun events I've ever attended.

I questioned \the wisdom of flying to Detroit to see my beloved Steelers play the Lions in the days ahead of the game. So much to do, so much effort and money expended for a few hours of football… then I saw old friends in Ann Arbor, spent meaningful time with my son Eli, his girlfriend Hannah and her family - and witnessed from the front row one of the greatest, wildest sports event of my life.

That game is why unpredictable live events matter, and why every network and streaming service is competing to outbid one another for contracts to air sports. The game was won by the Steelers 29-24 after a wild and crazy last second stand and mass confusion as the refs huddled and the Detroit crowd hummed in anticipation, and the Ford Field scoreboard operator roused a cheer by incorrectly making the Lions 30-29 victors.

And then, as if he wanted to start a riot, the ref made the worst announcement of the play not counting you could possibly imagine: “The ruling on the field is a touchdown,” he began, prompting a celebration in the stands that was Super Bowl worthy and drowned out the real point: “However, pass interference, No. 14 on the offense. By rule that penalty is … is not enforced, and there is no replay. The game is over.”

Confusion reined. Water bottles and other projectiles were hurled. Today I got this message from Apple Watch:

I wasn’t really surprised by this warning - though being 13 hours after the event in question, I’m not sure it would have been helpful if I really were having a cardiac event! It was wild and wooly. It was real and unpredictable, and that’s why we love sports. You have to slog through a lot of boring affairs and waste hours only to have your heartbroken, but then you get something like this. Kind of like going to Grateful Dead shows! The magical ones keep you coming back. It’s why improvisational music is so exhilarating, and it’s why live sports will keep drawing us in.

A special shout out to my host Tom McGraw, who showed Eli and me and his daughter Hannah a fabulous time with his remarkable seats. We were in the first row behind the end zone where all the wildest plays happened - the final goal line stance, the Kenny Gainwell touchdown that was one of the greatest plays I’ve ever seen, a couple other touchdowns by the Lions, a fumble - and this safety, which I filmed just because I figured something amazing might happen right in front of my face.

I am not sure when I’ll have that kind of view again, but I know I’ll be back at another game, before too long. Maybe even back in the homeland of Pittsburgh in a few weeks, because this kind of dopamine hit is what keeps us coming.

Have a wonderful holiday season everyone!

Squad heading out.

The paperback edition of my fourth book, Brothers and Sisters: the Allman Brothers Band and The Album That Defined The 70s, was recently released by St. Martin’s Press. It was the third consecutive one to debut in the New York Times Non-Fiction Hardcover Bestsellers List, following Texas Flood: The Inside Story of Stevie Ray Vaughan and One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band. My first book, Big in China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising a Family, Playing the Blues and Becoming a Star in Beijing, about my experiences raising a family in Beijing and touring China with a popular original blues band, was optioned for a movie by Ivan Reitman’s Montecito Productions. I am also a guitarist and singer with two bands, Big in China and Friends of the Brothers, the premier celebration of the Allman Brothers Band.

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