Great moments in sports

I was out for a while this afternoon and so when I got back I was watching the last few innings of the Phillies game on the DVR. It was fun and exciting and surprising, but I felt really weird sitting here, rooting for something to happen that had actually already happened 2 hours ago. What exactly am I rooting for? Is it any different from rooting real time?

Then, I start watching the Giro d'Italia, the biggest cycling race aside from the Tour de France- all the same riders, equally difficult, and almost as prestigious. Today they were supposed to ride through the mountain passes, but they had 6 inches of snow and had to reroute the riders on the morning of the race. Even the lower parts of the mountain are in thick fog, so the helicopters are grounded and the mobile satellite dishes can't work, and none of the cameras had been set up on the new part of the course. So the announcers have literally be watching and talking over video of the finish line (where it was also snowing) since the riders hit the rerouted part of the race for an hour and a half. Every once in a while a motorcycle or some team cars come by and the crowd gets excited. But nothing happened.

Then the announcers started raising their voices and excitedly relaying information about what was probably happening just our of sight. Finally, two riders appeared out of the fog and dueled to the finish. It was one of these races where the finish is a steep uphill, and it seemed endless, but ultimately two Italians won the day's stage (the championship is based on total time over 21 days of racing) and one of them leads the overall race.