Monday, 21-Oct-2002
Spurious
thoughts and idle musings from the sports week just past ...
All tied
up at 1-1 in the North American Series as The Barrys struck first with a 4-3
Game 1 win followed by a wild 11-10 Angels victory in Game 2. Bombs galore as Bonds, Reggie Sanders, Troy
Glaus and Tim Salmon each have a pair of jacks while David Bell, J.T. Snow and
Jeff "Easy Rider" Kent each have one dinger apiece. Next up are Games 3, 4 and 5 in beautiful
Pac Bell Park, home of sushi stands, garlic fries and instant lawsuits between
fans fighting for keepsake home run balls.
More
baseball ... I'm sure every team selling post-season tix does this but the Damn
Yankees and Tomaflops both took some heat last week for pocketing the service
fees they charge for playoff tickets.
Yes, both the first-round losers refunded or credited the face value of
tickets for their unplayed games but they both kept the $5.00 per seat
"handling charge" instead.
Big deal, right ??? Try about
$1,000,000 each. Man, that's some
"service" they got going there.
NFL Week
7 ... Funny how the Saints were supposed to sip after last year's late-season
meltdown. Funny how much better the
Ramjets play when Marshall Faulk gets the ball. Funny how Da Bears' mojo had a one-year expiration date. Funny how much smarter Mike Holmgren was
when he had Brett Favre rifling laser beams.
Funny how Tony Dungy must not have been the reason the Bucs can't score
after all. And funny how not enough top
shelf talent and zero depth can sink a team like my Panthers. As if this was a shock.
Don't
look now but my Cavaliers are kicking ass and taking names ... This time around
it was the hated Tar Holes who coughed up a 21-0 halftime lead before losing
37-27. And yes, as much as I love old
John Bunting from his Iggle playing days, I sure did enjoy his collection of
grimaces, frowns, sighs and snarls on the Baby Blue sidelines as the game got
away from him. Of course, the best is
yet to come as the Chapel Hill faithful will now fry the phone lines into my
local Charlotte sports talk radio station.
Either that or not a peep out of 'em.
Either way I'm giddy.
Here's
another award-winning entry in our Hall of Fame of Poor Choice of Words ...
Green Bay FB Najeh Davenport reached a plea deal in Miami to settle charges he
took a dump at 6 o'clock in the morning inside the closet of a Barry University
coed's dorm room back in April.
Commenting on the community service agreement, his attorney, Richard
Sharpstein, spat out this gem ... "It's an embarrassing event that Najeh
wants to leave behind him."
Unquote.
And from
our Sick Joke Department, the NBA is moving rather quickly to put a new
expansion team back in Charlotte to replace the Hornets who bolted for Nawlins
this past May. If all goes well, the
new team will begin play in 2004-05. Of
course, a lot still depends on the committee the league has put together to
oversee the expansion process. The same
expansion committee with Hornets owner and resident slimewad George Shinn
sitting on it. And the official reason
given why Lemonhead is on the panel is because ... and I quote ... "He
knows the Charlotte market very well."
Yeah, and John Wilkes Booth knew a little about acting.
Speaking
of my alma mater, seems that once again they're cracking down on the school's
notorious Pep Band. For those not
familiar, Virginia doesn't have a big band with the fancy threads, precision
marching and 76 trombones. Instead, we
have one of those smartass "scatter" bands same as Stanford, Rice and
most of the Ivy League schools. And
they got in trouble last month when South Carolina was in town and they played
"Live And Let Die" in honor of old Senator Strom Thurmond. So this past Saturday, the Pep Band sat
while the Ohio University band played.
Yes, you read that right ... The Ohio University marching band was the
halftime show at the Virginia-North Carolina game. Boy, those MAC schools will sell anything and everything for the
right price.
Hello,
you have reached the desk of Marty Schottenheimer, head coach of the San Diego
Chargers. I'm sorry but I'm not here to
take your call right now. If you're
calling about our 6-1 record, best in the AFC West, please press "1'. If you're calling about our star players
especially Drew Brees and LaDainian Tomlinson, please press "2". If you own an NFL team and you fired me last
year even though I won 8 of your team's last 11 games and now you and your
wonder boy are stuck in last place in the NFC East, please stay on the line and
someone will be right with you. Have a
nice day.
Given
that Disney wants out of the baseball bizness which is why the Angels are up
for sale, isn't this a perfect marketing opportunity for their amusement park
competition ??? Tim Salmon, you just
won the World Series. What are you
going to do now ??? I'm going to Sea
World !!! And then to Busch Gardens
!!! And then Universal Studios !!! Hell, I'm going to ... Wally World !!!
Final
grades are in for Terrell Owens' controversial but hilarious MNF signature move
... Originality: A+, Creativity: A+, Timing: A+, Class: F, Dignity: F,
Sportsmanship: F. But see here's
the thing ... Tee-Oh is all upset now cause everybody's on his case for
carrying a pen in his sock, signing his touchdown catch and handing the pig
over to his "financial advisor".
But just imagine, if you will, that Owens does everything the same ...
pen, catch and sign ... and then runs over and gives the ball to an FDNY
fireman or a US Marine or his loving grandmother or his 4th grade teacher or
his old high school football coach. Or
maybe he gives it to a sick little boy named Timmy sitting in a wheelchair
wearing his favorite red No. 81 Niners jersey.
Any guess what the reaction would be then ???
Once more
on scatter bands ... Back when I was maybe 10 or 11 years old, my dad took me
to see Columbia and Penn play up at Columbia's famous but decrepit Baker Field
in New York City. And I'm sitting there
in awe taking everything in like any little boy would do. Including the halftime show when the
Columbia band came out ... And the first thing they did was shout out a
cheerful two-word welcome to all the visiting fans there to see the Penn
Quakers. I believe the first word
rhymed with "Duck" and the second was definitely the word
"You". Whereupon I believe I
spent the rest of the halftime show with my father's hands covering my ears.
See ya
nexted week ...
Robert E Hunt Jr
Copyright ã 2002 by Robert E Hunt Jr. All rights reserved.