Monday, 10-Dec-2001
Spurious
thoughts and idle musings from the sports week just past ...
If you
had told me 10 years ago that MLB would go on ... To fire the commish and hire
Bud Light instead. To cancel an entire
World Series. To add four new teams,
two of which would actually win rings.
To pay a shortstop $252,000,000.
To have Selig testify before Congress that the Twinks and Spos must be
killed. And that the most intelligent
person at that very same hearing would be Jesse Ventura, the governor of
Minnesota ... Well, I would've asked you for some of that killer weed you were
so obviously toking.
Clearly
the one person least enthused about Be Like's comeback has gotta be Courtney
"Tin Man" Alexander last seen rusted stiff on the Wizards bench. And so last week Courtney finally popped off
... "I'm not Courtney right now on or off the court. I dunno, it all happened kinda quickly. What I have to do now is get Courtney back
to being Courtney." Simple enough,
Courtney. Just have Courtney follow the
yellow brick road. And don't forget
Courtney's oil can.
If you
listen to the US national soccer team, players and coaches alike put on happy
faces when their Group D draw for next year's World Cup over in South Korea and
Japan was announced last weekend.
"It's not bad. It could have been a lot worse." "We're quite relieved. The draw gives
us some optimism." "It's a
good situation for us. We definitely have an opportunity to advance." Yeah, and Poland was just thrilled with
living right smack in the middle between Hitler and Stalin. Have fun, fellas.
Jeff Van
Gundy. Coached on Monday. Won on Tuesday. Traveled on Wednesday.
Fumed on Thursday. Exploded on
Friday. Quit on Saturday. Home on Sunday. This is the end of Jeff Van Gundy.
NFL Week
13 notes ... Bay of Green pack-smacked Da Bears to grab the NFC Central lead
while the Rams applied an ironic and rather painful dose of finesse football on
the young trash-talking Niners. Also,
the Pokes made the Jints feel tiny, the Fleurs De Lis dined on Falcon gumbo and
Meshawn rescued the Bucs with his first sniff of six this year while the Iggles
held serve over the Fluties and the Steelers defied the SI jinx by
fuamatu-ma'afala-ing the J-E-T-S. And
in a massive upset, Randy Moss actually played like he might've wanted to.
Kaintuck
79, Death Star 59 ... I've got to admit it's getting better, a little better
all the time. Getting so much better
all the time.
Speaking
of the Falcs, looks like the Rankin Smith family is finally cashing in as
Arthur Blank, former top suit at Home Depot, offered $545,000,000 for the
franchise. Yep, over half a billion for
a squad with just two division titles, one Supe blowout loss and zero
back-to-back winning seasons in 36 years of thoroughly mediocre pig. Wait, it gets better ... Just three months
ago, Forbes Magazine valued the team at a mere $338,000,000 which is a
staggering $207 million dollars less than the Blank check Arthur's
writing. Gulp.
Coach
Fullmer, I have the Pasadena Hilton on the line. They want to know if you still need all those hotel rooms you
reserved for the Rose Bowl. Um, Coach,
I know you're upset and all but I don't think my pastor would approve of me
putting it just like that, sir. Besides
I'm not sure that's biologically possible, Coach.
Yes
indeed, yet another No. 2 college football team played like No. 2. First, Nebraska then Texas then Florida and
now Tennessee who graciously volunteered to cough up their shot at the mythical
after an all-too-real Saturday night gagjob against Looziana State for the SEC
champeenship. And so now the Bogus
Championship Series has the first real crisis on its Pentiums as the
Cornhustlers somehow edged out the livid Colorado Ralphies by .05 of a point
... And a rose by any other name would still smell like BCS.
Caught
this little beauty in the Transactions section of Saturday's sports section ...
East Coast Hockey League -- Trenton Titans -- Traded a player to be named later
to Columbus in exchange for future considerations. I guess they'll get back to us on this one.
Speaking
of Nebraska, Husker QB Eric Crouch won The Trophy Formerly Known As Important
in a close vote over three other signal callers ... Rex Grossman, Ken Dorsey
and Joey Harrington. And for all the
good the Heisman will do them at the next level, they might as well have been
named Gino Torretta, Andre Ware, Danny Wuerffel and Charlie Ward.
Well, the
Rudys sure didn't waste much time filling The Coaching Job Formerly Known As
Coveted by tapping Georgia Tech boss George O'Leary as their new Knute. Anxious Irish fans may not know much about
ol' George but he made life fairly miserable for the ACC's middle-tier squads
so I know my Wahoos ain't sorry to see him heading for South Bend. Although George's wife might wanna hold off
on visiting nearby Chicago until she's sure they've gotten over the last time a
Mrs O'Leary was in town.
Seriously,
is there a group of people more clueless than the baseball owners ??? Baseball had record attendance and revenues
this season. Think about it ... More
people are paying more money to see major league baseball than at any time in
history. The Damn Yankees gave a middle
reliever $21,000,000 last week. The
Braves gave John Smoltz $30,000,000 and his elbow is all but trail mix by
now. And Jason Giambi is actually
thinking about not taking Phineas T up on his $122,000,000 offer. Madness.
Note to
BYU ... If you're gonna threaten to sue the BCS bozos cause you think you're
gonna get boned despite your 12-0 record with one game left, you might wanna
think about going 13-0 instead of getting waxed 72-45 by Hawaii. Just a thought.
From our
"You Gotta Be Kidding Me" list ... Each year, Planned Parenthood of
Pittsburgh holds a contest to design its new condom package. And this year's winning design is the new
Three Rivers Stadium Condom featuring a black wrapper with a color photo of
last year's spectacular implosion of the old ballpark with a caption of
"It Contains The Explosion!" below.
Now maybe it's just me but I gotta question the wisdom of marketing this
particular type of product using an image of something big collapsing like
that. Not good.
"Professional
baseball is on the wane. Salaries must
come down or the interest of the public must be increased in some way. If one or the other does not happen,
bankruptcy stares every team in the face." --- Chicago White Stockings
owner Albert Spalding, 1881.
Rest in
peace, Sir Peter Blake. You too, George
Young.
See ya
nexted week ...
Robert E Hunt Jr
Copyright ã 2001 by Robert E Hunt Jr. All rights reserved.