Bleacher Report - Articles by Janean Marti

A Good Golfer Broiled: Tiger Woods Just Getting Started

Janean Marti — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 06:28:51 -0500

Has Whack and Hack been taken?

Scrambling headline writers are getting desperate in the contest to score big in the Tiger Woods pun contest.

Right now, reporters all over the world are duct-taped to chairs, roped to desk legs, super glued to their computers, all in an effort by headline writers world wide to win the golf/Tiger pun-a-thon.

“More Woods. More Woods,” editors scream as they frantically try to churn up the fire, flailing on their reporters to just please find something new.

“Can we get a story that justifies using ‘belly putter’? How about ‘Dew Sweeper’ or ‘Die in the Hole’? C’mon, people, this ain’t no 19th hole, ya know...heh, heh!”

In the Saturday Washington Post, a story by John Feinstein, who, it is noted, has written 25 books, is headlined “A Rough Tiger Can’t Escape.” Get it? A “ROUGH” Tiger.

Ewwww...I bet that one only has been used about 256 times. Nice.

Of course (get it:? “COURSE”), Feinstein, who wrote a book about the PGA, believes the Tiger Woods story ranks as one of the most important of all time.

“This isn't Paris Hilton going to jail or some Hollywood couple breaking up and reconciling every other month,” he writes. “ It isn't even the governor of South Carolina disappearing for several days to be with his mistress.”

Hmmm. The South Carolina governor can order the National Guard into the state to insure domestic tranquility or order evacuation of the state in cases of natural disasters like 1999’s Hurricane Hugo.

According to Feinstein, Woods’ importance trumps that of a man who could order thousands of National Guardsmen to march in, heavily armed, and, perhaps, even question whether one had put one too many sticks in his golf bag.

Turns out, Feinstein even believes children from every corner of the world believed they were Tiger Woods.

“Michael Jordan (Woods's role model in many ways) once did a commercial that urged people to "Be like Mike." The Woods version was an ad in which children around the world looked into a camera and said, "I am Tiger Woods,” Feinstein breathlessly writes.

FORE! Don’t look now, Mr. Feinstein, but I believe those children probably didn’t just stroll up to the nearest camera, in Darfur or Jamaica or Mexico City, to proclaim their new identity as da Tiger man.

There are, like, um, these guys, who according to the television series “Mad Men” frantically suck down Scotch and cigarettes all day (if not ascertaining whether their mistresses got...well, ahem...a bikini wax recently), and then make up slogans and jingles and pretty pictures to convince you to buy a product.

Yeah, I really liked it when the whole world got together to warble about how they would like to buy the world a Coke, but then I figured out if the whole world was slurping Cokes and singing about how they’d like to buy the world a Coke, who was left to buy for?

Mr. Feinstein duffs it when he says the “I am Tiger Woods” commercial message “was simple: Everyone should aspire to grow up to be Tiger Woods.”

If everyone tried to be Tiger Woods, then who would be like Mike? Or buy the world a Coke to keep it company?

Wasn’t the “I Am Tiger Woods” message also about a teeny, tiny check mark into the account books of a certain shoe company?

Of course (double lie, folks, double lie), Feinstein says all those chil’ren ‘round the world who stepped and shouted those candid messages about being Tiger Woods don’t want to be Tiger anymore.

“That’s over now. Oh sure, the kids will still want the athletic talent and the money, but they won’t want the legacy created in the past week by Wood’s admission...” Feinstein writes.

Yer joshing us, right, Mr. Feinstein? For hundreds and hundreds of days before the first tournament Tiger Woods announces he is playing in, ESPN, and hundreds of other of their ilk, will splay it from end to the other.

Analysts, psycho-analysts, mistresses, wanna-be-mistresses, celebrity attorneys, celebrity mistresses’ attorneys, marketing gurus, ad men (no cigarettes and Scotch for those boys now days...gotta keep healthy for the trips overseas to ratchet up the workforce), and even just plain ol’ golf announcers will prove terrorist attacks are nuthin’ compared to a man with a stick trying to get a ball in a hole after he was pilloried for doing just about the same thing in his off-duty hours.

Kids posting on Facebook will ask “How do I become Tiger Woods” and whip up You Tube videos posturing as Tiger Woods.

A golf announcer might just resurrect an ol’ bikini wax reference because, after what we’ve just seen in ‘golf analysis’ and journalism, what’s a few split hairs?

Jeepers, Mr. Feinstein, you’ll probably write another bestselling book. May I suggest a working title of "A Good Walk Soiled?"

Favre Gunslinger 101: It Ain't About You

Janean Marti — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:27:31 -0500

Getting ready for a Minnesota Viking game used to be easy. Don a few fake golden braids, use them to beat your chest in rhythm to the incessant question of why, why, why are the Vikings are 0-4 in Superbowls, and then ask the wife if putting a few rhinestones in the braids make you look too fat or too 'you know.'

Now, the player Vikings fans abhorred, hated, criticized, threatened, and spent 15 years abusing in the stadium stands, the bars, on the Internet, and the newspapers is their hero.

I pity da fools.

The pity is not because I think Brett Favre can't get the Vikes to a Superbowl. I predicted the Vikes would win the NFC North last year with Tarvaris Jackson (you can look it up). The pity is not because I think Favre can't win the Superbowl with the Vikes.

As a Packer fan who lives 90 minutes from the Minneapolis Metrodome and spends every day interacting with Viking fans, I know the churning upchuck Vikes fans had to face about Favre. Before Favre was signed, a poll indicated a majority of Vikings' fans didn't want him.

No one could possibly measure the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years after years Viking fans have wasted labeling Favre as an interception machine, a drug-addicted player, a “product of the system,” a “stupid hillbilly,” "trash when compared to Montana, Elway, Tarkenton," etc., etc.

Bears fans were tough on Favre but admitted some respect. Vikings fans trashed him for many endless minutes and days and hours and years. Many of the Viking bloggers who trashed Favre for 15 years now adore him. Twin City newspaper columnists who pronounced Favre "average" or "not as good as Tarkenton" or "unable to deal with the Metrodome noise" or "unpredictable" now praise him to the high heavens, in part because saving football in Minneapolis also means saving their jobs and their newspapers.

Favre was smarter than the Vikings fans who mercilessly trashed him for 15 years.

Favre knew what he was doing moving to the Minnesota Vikings: play eight games in a climate-controlled environment with no wind, no chill, no snow, and great offensive and defensive lines. (Vikings kicker Ryan Longwell, also a Packer product, paved the way in that department: any savvy kicker knows 8 games inside a controlled-environment like a dome will really pad the stats and extend the career.)

The sad reality for Vikings fans is they root for a quarterback they spent so much time, and energy, and heart hating. The Vikings are made up of Wisconsin football products: the aforementioned Favre and Longwell, plus head coach Brad Childress, an offensive coordinator with the Wisconsin Badgers for seven years, and offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell, a Wisconsin Badger quarterback and former Packer quarterback coach.

True Vikings fans know the taxpayers will have to pay for a new stadium or a renovation of the Humpty-Dome in order to keep the team in Minnesota. Team ownership wants about $700 million from the public to get it done.

That's a pretty scary number when considering the infrastructure issues Minnesota has faced in the recent past and will likely face in the future. (And, yes, it's a different economic climate than some teams recently faced when building or renovating their stadiums).

I hope the Vikings play the New Orleans Saints in the NFC championship game and lose. Why lose? Because the hype for a new stadium will be even more fervent if the team gets to one game of the Superbowl and loses. Then the bandwagon fans who jumped on this year will be hyped to keep the team for another year. Most Packer fans would love to see the Vikings, their little brother expansion team, continue in Minnesota.

Of course, even if the braids don’t make you look too fat or too girlish, Viking fans will always have a little burp in the getup—a little indigestion. Vikings fans will always remember all the years they hated, and protested, and jeered Favre, criticized him, thought he was a bad quarterback and spent millions of hours posting about his foibles and "lack of talent" on the Internet.

No matter what Favre does for the Vikings, he’s no Bud Grant (Wisconsin native), no Kirby Puckett, no Joe Mauer. He's not one of your guys no matter how you try to make him so.

Favre's a hired gun and, no matter how hard they try, Vikings' fans ain't the posse. They're just like those bankers in the old-time Western movies: weaselly, cross-eyed, writing the checks but always just sitting on the sidelines.

No matter what happens, a tiny piece of a Vikings’ fan’s purple heart will always connect with the term “Green Bay Packers West.”

Hey, you look real nice in those braids. And No, they don’t make you look fat at all!! Especially since your wallet is about to be stripped.

Demand a retractable roof on the stadium you are about to pay for!! Do you think Longwell or Favre would have played for you in real weather??

Packers West Forever!

Go forth and tax thyselves.

I'm a Fan of the Green Bay Packers, but Don't Call Me Cheesehead, Whitey!

Janean Marti — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:33:52 -0500

Still pondering ESPN college football analyst Bob Griese’s one-week suspension for saying NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya was “out having a taco.”

I’m a Packer fan, born and bred in Wisconsin. Never saw a purple cow. Never wore a foam hat in the shape of a wedge of cheese. Never hope to do either.

But I’m called a “cheesehead” over and over and over again by game analysts, whether on air or in print. I don’t know whether that makes me a blockhead, constipated, or with a Swiss-cheese flow of holes bleeding thoughts from my brain.

I do know, as a Packer fan, I’ve been labeled a “cheesehead” practically every day in print or in broadcast for the past two decades. It started when some Chicago White Sox baseball fans labeled Milwaukee baseball fans as cheeseheads, and some guy with a lot of foam rubber and a lot of yellow paint laying around the garage started his own economic stimulus plan.

We’ve got thousands of sports analysts and writers labeling thousands of Packer fans as “cheeseheads”.

What if there were suddenly several thousands no-shows at a Packer game at Lambeau field and a broadcast analyst said “They’re still in the parking lot snorting bratwurst and Limberger.” Would the analyst be suspended for an insensitive, ethnic-profiling remark?

When John Madden spent years upon years circling offensive linemen’s bellies with his ‘telestrator’, was he profiling and calling out persons who may have had glandular or other heritable/ethnic issues which were no fault of their own? Did they have “pre-obesity issues” linked to their height, weight, age, or ethnicity?

Griese’s supension came when he was working a Minnesota-Ohio state football game and one of his broadcast partners asked why driver Juan Pablo Montoya was out of the top five drivers. Griese replied Montoya, who is Colombian, was “out having a taco.”

If John Madden was still broadcasting NFL Thanksgiving day games, circled an offensive lineman’s belly, and said he missed the block because he ate too many mashed potatoes, would it be a cause for suspension? Or would it just be another tired reference to a lame, mid-America ethnic holiday in which the ‘winner’ of the Turducken drumstick agreed to pretend to chew it down while wishing for a spicy taco with verde salsa instead?

If thousands of sports analysts can label me a brat scarfing cheesehead, why can’t Brian Griese imply Montoya is a taco eater? How is my ethnicity less important than Montoya’s?

The Tiger Woods Tragedy

Janean Marti — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:37:26 -0500

A tragedy has visited the world in the form of the world believing a man who wields a stick to hit a ball into a hole is an idol, a saviour, a hero, and a villain.

The man, golfer Tiger Woods, drove his SUV into a fire hydrant and a tree, was injured, and now lives and is healthy enough to issue “official statements”.

No one died in the accident. Property damage was limited to a fire hydrant, a tree, an SUV, and Woods’ body.

But rumours are rampant Woods’ accident might have been the result of an argument between he and his wife. His wife, a Swedish beauty, told police she heard the accident and used a golf club to smash out a window of the SUV so she could pull Woods to safety.

The problem, of course, is Woods makes millions or billions by using one of several sticks to push the ball into the hole. He does it better than all the other men who are paid millions or billions by corporations and the media to use their sticks to try to get their ball into the hole.

The fury over Woods’ traffic accident centers upon an issue few, especially sports reporters and sports fans, will admit harboring. ... Why is Tiger Woods paid millions or billions to swing sticks to try to hit a ball into a small hole in the ground?

And why, as corporations, media, and fans, do we continue to so highly value Woods for his stick and ball ability?

Frenzy over Woods and his recent traffic accident is really a manifestation of the question; if you can use a stick to hit a ball better than other men, should that entitle you to a hot wife, a mansion, fame, and billions of dollars?

The answer is, of course, that’s the way the world works right now.

Hoping Tiger Woods will win or fail is what you made it. Woods is only reaping the whirlwind.

If his wife, Elin, had used a chainsaw to cut the SUV into a million pieces and pulled Tiger Woods out safely, if she has marital property rights to the SUV, it’s not a crime.

If Tiger Woods smashed into a fire hydrant, so what? He pays a fine for property damage and/or careless driving.

The problem with the Woods’ accident frenzy is the refusal of sports reporters and fans to acknowledge the real reason for their frantic interest in the story.

Why can’t Tiger Woods, a man who is handsome, charming, makes billions playing a game, has a hot wife, the cherished daughter and son, and seemingly has everything everyone wants, be happy and perfect?

Many have called for Woods to answer numerous questions about the accident and his marriage.

The real questions must be asked of the men, the corporate leaders, the media leaders, the average man as to why a small accident is so important. And whether the frenzy about Woods is actually a tragedy about what we have decided is important.

Brett Favre Cult Culture: The Decline of America

Janean Marti — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:37:00 -0500

The saddest sight at the Lambeau Field Favre-apalooza was the slightly chubby chick and her balding male counterpart holding up a sign proclaiming their undying love for Brett Favre.

Apparently the couple believed leaving the community of Packer fans for a declaration of undying love for one NFL football player would somehow connect them with the celebrity of the player.

One imagines the chubby chick would see herself as 10 pounds lighter in the mirror tomorrow if only Favre would acknowledge her love and devotion as displayed by her sign.

Perhaps her undying Favre love will somehow connect her to Favre’s $12 million Viking’s contract and Favre’s expressed wish tonight in a post-game press conference to win a Super Bowl for the Vikings.

We are a warring species. Even as we admire the truth of Plato: “Only the dead have seen the end of the war,” we contend we mount the cannons only because we have seen the future. And aren’t cannons always part of man’s future?

Professional and collegiate sports allow us to participate in pretend wars and hone our fierce instincts to protect all of that which we perceive as us. If our warring sports teams fail, few, if any, will die today in our phony war.

We wear certain team colors and chant mantras in support of certain teams as a way to declare war on those who would slap the milk from our thirsty lips.

When we cry “DEE-FENCE”, “DEE-FENCE”, it is in the nature of all hymns: We come to give praise to what we believe, disparage the enemy, and, give up all our prejudices and quirks as long as we can voice our cheers along with other community others in honor of this fake war between us and whoever is them.

In various stadia like Lambeau Field, our collective voices stamp us as us, and us as community, and us as part of whomever us is.

But then come men like Brett Favre, who says my us isn’t you. Favre’s community is a lot smaller than Packer Fan nation: his community is him and his wife and his kids. Favre was never a warrior for Packer Nation. He was a warrior for his nation.

Now he pretends to war for the Viking nation, but, in the end, he wars for the GreenBack nation; nothing less, but maybe something more if he gets a percentage ownership in a new Vikings stadium?

When popular talk show hosts wish failure for U.S. Presidents, when professional athletes remind you again, and again, and again “It’s a Business,” when two U.S. political parties spend more time raising money than debating policy just to stay in power, and when despots are given lifetime rule, we understand the Packer chubby-chick Favre fan is recognizing we can’t even come together as a community in the pretend war of sports.

One can excuse Favre. He has extended family to support financially and he has never pretended to be anything other than a guy who believes the world is about him.

Poor Chubby Chick. She hitches her star to a celebrity by virtue of a sign. The sign proclaims love for a celebrity Chubby Chick's community now abhors.

Chubby Chick believes Favre might actually notice or even care about her sign. She hopes a quarterback who left the Packers after 16 years, played for the Jets another year, then signed with the Packers' arch enemy the Vikings for $12 million annually, would give a crap what Chubby thought.

It's likely Chubby Chick gave money to various Favre charities, defended Favre when he threw interceptions in a few playoff games, and believes Favre would actually care about who she is if he actually knew who she is.

Of course, there are hundreds of Chubby Chicks wearing purple and hunkering down in the Metrodome for every Viking home game who believe the same thing now that Favre is playing for the Vikings.

The celebrity adulation of one player on a team isn't anything new but has vaulted to extremes in the past decade. Brand it one manifestation of the continued dumbing down of America.

Some folks can't select a favored player without the incessant hype machines of sports media, and others lack the intelligence to understand the games and the reasons the guy who scores the most points might not be the most valuable player on the team.

Favre wants to win a Super Bowl this year but anyone who believes he wants to win it for the Vikings, or the Vikings fans, or Favre fans, is naive. He wants to win it for him.

Favre is the ultimate celebrity for celebrity worshippers: he worships himself. He is of the new American culture, which idolizes self.

Football IS like war: lots of idiots on the sidelines and in the stands.

The Dilemma of First Round Money: A. J. Hawk and The Green Bay Packers

Janean Marti — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 02:56:10 -0400

First, he has a name fans love: HAWK, HAWK, HAWK.

He played on a college team always in the mix and in the running.

But Green Bay Packer linebacker A. J. Hawk just does not have the sideline to sideline speed and instincts demanded of a top linebacker.

Hawk, drafted No. 5 overall by the Green Bay Packers in 2006, and given a $37 million contract, doesn't have the abilities required of a first round draft pick. He is another of Packer GM Ted Thompson's draft mistakes on defense.

Hawk should not start for Green Bay this year because current backup linebackers Brandon Chillar and Desmond Bishop are far superior in coverage, speed, instinct, and smack power.

Thompson appears to draft defensive players purely on stats. Like many average football fans, Thompson looks at tackles made and seems to translate that into ability.

The problem, of course, is understanding how more talented teammates can crush a pocket or blow up a running play while not being the player who makes the tackle. The most talented defensive player on a team may not even be in the top five tacklers on the defense, particularly in college where defenders may face odd offensive schemes seldom seen in the NFL.

A. J. Hawk benefited greatly in college when he played on an Ohio State team with a great defense. Hawk has never had great sideline-to-sideline talent: he made tackles because they were there for him to make. Defensive lines that can stop or slow a running back are setting up tackles for linebackers. Linebackers who chip and slow a running back or who can cover tight ends and receivers out of the backfield set up tackles for other linebackers.

Why Thompson drafted Hawk fifth overall in the 2006 draft is a question astute Packer fans have been asking since the pick was made. A. J. Hawk is a good player: getting him in the third round would have been a steal. Drafting him in the second round would have been a good value pick.

But there are other linebackers, namely Chillar and Bishop, who deserve to start in Green Bay over Hawk. If Hawk starts, it is only because Thompson believes he has to start Hawk to justify Hawk's draft choice and salary.

Hawk could be a stellar starter on another team who has a front four that can rush the quarterback and stuff the line of scrimmage. Green Bay does not have defensive linemen who can rush the QB. Green Bay will rely upon a lot of blitzing and stunts from linebackers and defensive backs this season, meaning the players on the field who aren't blitzing will need to have speed and instincts to cover running backs and wide receivers. Hawk does not fit that mold.

Thompson's defensive player drafts have been horrible. Hawk does not have the talent to have been drafted fifth overall. Justin Harrell, another of Thompson's first round draft picks, had a history of injuries but Thompson selected him as the first overall pick of the Packers in 2007. One of Thompson's first round pick this year, USC linebacker Clay Matthews, is injured.

Thompson just doesn't know or understand defensive players.

Green Bay fans are all excited about the Packers 2-0 preseason record. The Detroit Lions went 4-0 last preseason and look where that got them.

Ted Thompson is a general manager who believes in building by the draft. He is not active in the free agent market. I agree with his philosophy as long as the person making the final decisions on the draft knows what he/she is doing.

Thompson has failed on most of his first round draft choices. He also failed to understand the revenue stream Brett Favre meant to the Packers: whether you love or hate Favre, he generated bucks for the franchise.

Generating revenue dollars for a small, publicly-owned franchise like Green Bay is imperative. Thompson failed to understand whether Favre was a superstar, a dickhead, or a superstar dickhead diva, he generated bucks. Had Thompson resigned Favre, thePackers might have gone 6-10 with Favre, instead of Aaron Rodgers, at the helm and still generated lots more dollars.

For the good of the Green Bay Packers, someone needs to take control of the franchise and understand sports is about generating dollars. The Packers need new voices in marketing and public relations. This old Ted Thompson grumpy, bad PR crap is killing a franchise that must be front and center in terms of marketing and PR, if not winning, every single year to survive.

Brett Favre Makes It Official: Sports are Only a Business

Janean Marti — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 01:30:37 -0400

Looking for a hero for your kids? How about yourself?

Looking for a great charitable cause? United Way, Goodwill, your local food pantry, your local school district.

Looking for something to cheer? A high school football team, a cheerful grocery store checkout person, a doctor who saved your child's life?

Looking for new clothing? Goodwill, a t-shirt you designed for your family reunion, a United Way t-shirt that says "I gave to my Community".

Whether all the pundits, the sports fans, the celebrity followers, the sometimes football fans want to admit it or not, the Minnesota Vikings' signing of Brett Favre was like the final nail in the coffin of folks who believed there are heroes still left in pro sports.

Pro sports consist of team owners who enjoy special monopoly laws endorsed and enforced by the U.S. congress. Pro sports team owners and players don't give a crap about who wins the championship this year: they just want to get paid.

No pro athlete or team owner (except publicly owned teams) cares about you. As long as the team and athletes are raking in the money, they wish you would go away: they want to live in their gated communities, buy shoes and cars, and spend more on jewelry in one day than you make in a year.

Most pro athletes hate fans. After all, you might recognize them on the golf course, or in the grocery store, or at a team facility, and ask them for the dreaded autograph or an opinion on the team. Just because they make more than the president of the United States and play in publicly-funded stadiums or reach their locker rooms via publicly-funded infrastructure, or played at your publicly-funded university in preparation for their million-dollar pro careers is no reason to think they should deign to speak with you.

Brett Favre needed to do what his family needed for perhaps another pair of shoes or a new refrigerator: he went to yet another team willing to pay him $25 million. His new team, the Minnesota Vikings, is hoping to parlay Favre's play into $700 million in taxpayer funding for a new stadium.

Favre's old team, the Green Bay Packers, got taxpayer funding for stadium renovation. (The difference between the Packers and Vikings must be noted, however: the Vikings are a private, for-profit corporation; the Packers are not.)

Favre is not to blame here. He is just a mercenary: a pawn for far richer men. He'll play if you pay. But isn't that what we all do? You bought all those things at discount stores who outsourced all the manufacturing and jobs to other countries just to save a few dollars. You paid but, of course, fewer U.S. citizens can play because there aren't as many jobs as there used to be. If a country whose economy is based on buying things doesn't make anything, how long does that last?

Favre is just like you: he goes where the money is.

Of course, in Favre's situation, his profession is covered by special U.S. anti-trust and monopoly laws which include very prohibitive employee laws. In your case, tough luck: Congress allows your manufacturing or service job to be outsourced. While Congress will honor and protect the restrictive employee laws for major sports teams, they don't care about the sports fan. Your jobs and profession are not protected.

Good luck trying to find health coverage and job protection like Congressmen get.

The Favre situation is a microcosm of life in the United States: if you work in a profession specially protected by Congress, you will thrive. If not, it's time to eat your young or at least feed them your Favre jersey.

Looking for a hero? Probably outsourced: after all, the U.S. only buys and pays for things. We don't really manufacture anything anymore, including heroes.

Brett Favre and Minnesota Vikings: A Pass From the NFL To the Taxpayers

Janean Marti — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:37:14 -0400

What's the Internet for but great conspiracy theories? Like whether the NFL got involved in negotiations for Brett Favre to become the new Vikings quarterback so taxpayers jump on the bandwagon for a new stadium?

We know from the Michael Vick situation the NFL will get involved in helping players sign with new teams. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's involvement in appointing an official NFL mentor for Vick and then allegedly being involved in getting the Eagles to sign up Vick says for the integrity of the game must be left for another time.

We know the NFL is a business whose primary goal, like all other businesses, is to reap profits. In the NFL's case, the business is entertainment in the form of football.

So we have the interesting case of the Minnesota Vikings: a franchise frequently mentioned as a candidate for moving out of Minnesota unless state taxpayers pony up part of the money for a new stadium.

Does the NFL, a league who has repeatedly tried and mostly failed to expand into foreign countries, want the Vikings to move? Hell, no. The NFL wants to expand, not contract, the number of teams.

So how does the NFL attempt to aid the Vikings in their pursuit of taxpayer money for a new stadium?

1. Award the team one of the easiest schedules in the league despite the fact the Vikings won their division in 2008 and made the playoffs.

The Vikings' schedule is skewed because they play in the same division as the 0-16 Detroit Lions. However, ESPN's Kevin Seifert points out that even if one throws out the Lions record, the Vikings still play the 24th easiest schedule in the NFL. How does a division winner/playoff team get rewarded with the 24th easiest schedule in the NFL?

2. Award the team two Monday Night Football Appearances.

The Vikings appear on ESPN's Monday night schedule twice. The two teams in the last Super Bowl, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals, are slated for just one appearance a piece on Monday night.

3. Disallow tampering charges made by the Green Bay Packers.

The Packers filed tampering charges against the Vikings last year—alleging Vikings' coaches improperly contacted Brett Favre while he was under contract to the Packers.

Of course, the Vikings denied the charges. Last month, Vikings head coach Brad Childress said Favre was going to stay retired. Yeah, those Viking coaches always tell the truth—just ask Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels.

4. Assist a team who often has vacant seats.

Earlier this year, the Vikings were in danger of a local TV blackout for their PLAYOFF game against the Eagles. Getting Favre immediately gives the Viking franchise a buzz and more ticket buyers.

The NFL is a business and not a sport. Big-pocket owners, especially those looking to finance new stadium deals, are extraordinarily important to the NFL.

Brett Favre is a businessman whose primary business is playing football. He gets $12 million guaranteed if he takes one snap for the Vikings—what else do you need to know?

When a big business can help a businessman and vice-versa, it's all good. Favre owes nothing to the Packers.

The Packers and their fans owe nothing to Favre. Favre owes just one snap to the Vikings. The Minnesota taxpayer bill: who knows?

Caveat: Packer fans might want to avoid the Favre restaurants in Green Bay. Who the heck knows whether he's serving up old pigskins or baked excuses to unsuspecting patrons.

Gambling and the NFL: Permission Granted! Welcome Back, Mike Vick

Janean Marti — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:52:21 -0400

The NFL purports to be adamantly opposed to gambling, even going so far as to try to stop U.S. states, like Delaware, from allowing betting on single NFL games.

In essence, the NFL embraces gambling as long as they control their part of the gambling game and the gambling revenue distribution.

Admitted dog abuser, strangler, electrocutor, and torturer Michael Vick was welcomed and escorted back into the NFL this week by Commissioner Roger Goodell, Vick mentor and former NFL head coach Tony Dungy, and the Philadelphia Eagles' owners. The former Atlanta Falcons quarterback was convicted of financing and abetting an interstate dog fighting ring and served nearly two years in custody, starting in prison and ending in house arrest.

A crucial part of the interstate dog fighting ring Vick financed, supported, participated in and cheered on was the gambling.

Vick not only admits to killing, strangling, hanging, drowning, and violating dogs, he also admits to being the venture capitalist of the whole sorry interstate gambling affair.

Way back in 1963, the NFL suspended Green Bay Packer running back and NFL MVP Paul Hornung and Detroit Lion All-Pro Alex Karras, a defensive tackle, for an entire year for betting on NFL games.

Players who bet on games in the very league they play in, are inherently dangerous to the pure joy and entertainment of all sports and should be suspended or even banned permanently. Why? Because most so-called professional sports teams in the U.S. are really quasi-public teams, financed with taxpayer money in stadium and infrastructure costs and protected by special antitrust laws which are designed to prevent competing leagues from establishing a foothold.

Vick, a gifted athlete and scrambler—although a merely pedestrian passer—supposedly excites football fans. Ticket sales and revenue drives the NFL, just as revenue drives any business.

But the question is why the NFL fights against state government-regulated betting on NFL games, but spreads arms wide for a convicted felon who financed not only an illegal activity but gambling on that activity?

Folks say even convicted felons deserve a second chance after they have "paid their dues to society;" those dues often being prison time.

Yes, but if a medical doctor intentionally killed patients by administering lethal doses of a drug, was convicted, and served prison time, should he have his license to practice reinstated and get his job back immediately after getting out of prison?

Give Vick his second chance—by starting him out as a ball shagger or snow shoveler at minimum wage.

The NFL closely monitors and is allowed to run a monopoly in which football players are prohibited from being drafted by any NFL team until three college football seasons have passed since their high school graduation.

Yes, the NFL is allowed, via special antitrust laws, to prevent any player playing NFL football under anything other than NFL rules about age.

Apparently, the NFL also wants special antitrust protection regarding gambling. While NFL lawyers are paid millions to fight state-governed gambling on games, the NFL believes it is a moral, ethical, and financial imperative to give all sorts of love to a man who started his own gambling ring.

The message sent to NFL players is pretty clear: As long as it isn't a betting ring on NFL games, you will have a place and a multi-million dollar contract in our league.

NFL players: You have a few weeks to get your bets down on college football. Georgia Bulldogs anyone?

Can All NCAA Athletes Have Sex Ala Louisville Coach Rick Pitino?

Janean Marti — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:47:02 -0400

If an athlete in any NCAA-regulated program has sex in a McDonald's restaurant bathroom and is caught in the act, would he/she be subject to an NCAA penalty?

Well, there are laws about public indecency, indecent exposure, etc. But maybe not.

Najeh Davenport, a University of Miami player, was charged with a felony for breaking into a dorm room and pooping in a laundry basket. (The charges were later reduced in a plea agreement.)

Rick Pitino, a University of Louisville basketball team coach, admitted to having consensual sex with a woman on a restaurant table and then providing the woman with money to get an abortion.

Incredibly, most sports reporters have centered their stories on whether Pitino's outback activities will affect Louisville basketball recruiting. Few sports reporters have asked whether Pitino's admitted activities should have any impact on the NCAA requirements for "student athletes."

If the middle-aged, married, millionaire Pitino was so driven to have sex on a restaurant table but, has, according to University of Louisville President Dr. James Ramsey
"been a role model for countless young people and a positive influence on this community", then what is the standard for NCAA athletes?

You remember those NCAA athletes, right? The kids who generate the big bucks for the athletic progams so universities like Louisville can make coaches like Pitino millionaires?

If a middle-aged man like Pitino can cheat on his wife, have such little control he has to have sex on a restaurant table, get a woman pregnant and then pay for an abortion, what behavior in 18-year-old NCAA-approved athletes won't be tolerated?

The NCAA will stomp on your head if you, as coach, text messages a recruit out of season. There is apparently no out of season per the NCAA for extramarital diddly in restaurants or paying for abortions for those accidental children.

If the NCAA allows Pitino to continue as coach, his behavior is the new guideline for EVERY NCAA athlete, even those 18-year-old kids some people think should be held to a higher standard than their middle-aged coaches.

You go NCAA boys.

Steve McNair Is Dead: Lower Your Voice an Octave

Janean Marti — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:02:19 -0400

We all know the routine by now: Prominent athlete dies, ESPN anchors must lower voices, somber music plays with a photo of now deceased athlete with birth and death year dates.

TV Anchors speak in hushed tones, pretend to be grieving, and then trot out all the "he said, she saids" as reported by some other "news" source and, therefore, we can quote it legally as long as we mention it was FIRST brought up by that media, NOT, in any way, shape or form, by us.

"Us" are too way too cool for that: we just reach for our "someone got killed today so we have to use our "hush" voices and find some somber music and his stats."

Until, of course, 12 or 18 hours pass, we get the salacious and exceedingly juicy details from local newspapers or national celebrity gossip sites, and then we can get on with our gleeful reporting of all the crap. Except, we will certainly lower our voices an octave and speak in soft voices as we go to the photo and, once again, birth and death dates of the beloved athlete right before the commercial break.

Print journalists are about the same. Mike Lupica, New York Daily News reporter, uses McNair's death as some manifesto against gun violence.

And yet Lupica admits when he tried, in January 2000, when McNair made it to the Super bowl, to find out where McNair came from. Lupica called the town hall of Mount Olive, Miss.

Mount Olive was McNair's hometown. Lupica obviously thought calling up the Mount Olive town hall would give substantial insight to McNair's youth.

"When I called the town hall that year, I asked the woman who answered the phone how long downtown was in Mount Olive," Lupica wrote.

"Eight blocks," she said. "Ten if you stretch it."

This somehow constitutes understanding where an athlete grew up, according to many sports journalists. You don't actually have to visit the town. Just call up the town hall and get an opinion from someone who answers the phone.

There are places in the U.S. where, if you own a tiny dog like Paris Hilton does, and it takes a very tiny crap in a very tiny yard you don't own, you could be facing a beating or worse.

Journalists love Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan because, so far. Knock on wood and be hushed, and could you get it to that low of an octave would your voice have to be—Woods and Jordan haven't gotten into a major scrape.

Journalists love the stories about the homeless kid or the gang kid turned great athlete. Then, when guns or drugs or domestic violence enter the story, the journalists are surprised or pretend to be surprised, or use the opportunity to practice low-octave voices or protest against gun/domestic/drug violence.

Stop the phony TV and newspaper stuff.

When an athlete gives the old "One day at a time" or "I gave 110 percent", sports journalists get all upset because they heard it all before. But, given a popular athlete's death, it's the same old, same old at the networks and newspapers: "Oh, how did this young athlete die?!!!" "Oh, how could someone who seemingly had everything to look forward to do this?"

The real reason most sports journalists don't ask the hard questions is because the extraordinarily wealthy owners of most sports franchises won't countenance those questions.

The owners want fans to buy into the continued concept that sports are just games. And they are: The reason people love sports is because, in the end, the score of any sporting event is meaningless. You can love sports, and sports scores, and sports events because, in the end—all such things basically have no real impact on the world.

Except, of course, if you are a sports franchise owner, then you get cities and states to enact taxes, build infrastructures, and do favors for you.

For his next hundred columns, Lupica could be exploring and explaining the financing of the new Yankees stadium instead of calling some town hall to, wink, wink, illustrate what a podunk town some athlete came from.

Easy to say an athlete's death is due to a gun culture. Harder to explore the culture of rich men building stadiums on the backs of working people.

It's time for sports journalists to explore the rarefied air rather than concentrate on the mean streets. In the end, only men can stop other men from being enslaved.

Imagine There's a Hero: Jim Brown, Tiger Woods, and the Challenge

Janean Marti — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 05:29:30 -0400

The first time I heard John Lennon's song "Imagine," I scoffed, spit, and pronounced it "Ono Pap." Just a dream like one of those things we had for Martin and Bobby, both dead, just frankly, irreversibly dead. Dead, dead, dead.

Who cares about impossible dreams? Someone will plant a bullet in them. Bulleted, slashed, sliced, dashed, nuked: this dream too will die.

Jim Brown's dream is sort of like Lennon's dream: a bunch of crap on fleeting review. Lennon penned a song asking people to think about a world without countries.

Jim Brown, the NFL Hall of Famer, and the greatest (there is no "arguably" about it) NFL running back ever, believes high-profile black athletes like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods could, by stepping up and speaking, help prevent black-on-black crime, teenagers from carrying guns, and mothers from mourning sons.

Maybe it was because I got older or because I traveled to a few countries outside the United States, but I kind of got a sort of signal in my brain from Lennon's Imagine poetry.

Why can I be driving or boating in Minnesota and then suddenly be in Canada? How come one of the wisest, greatest men I ever met was a Mexican tourist hustler?

How come the lines on a map mean so much but we can't even see them when we walk, drive or fly over a border? What is a border except just a line on a map?

Imagine if Michael Jordan, the former Chicago Bulls star, went to the worst corner in Chicago and said "Stop it. Guns aren't cool. They'll kill your brother, your sister, your cousin, and ultimately your mother."

Would it make a difference? We still have countries and lines on a map which, for some reason, make us fight each other.

But, on the other shoe, if you can show up to film a commercial for Nike, Buick, or ESPN, can't you go with a ton of body guards, a film crew, and speak a few words to try to stop killing in Chicago?

More people were murdered in Chicago last year than American soldiers killed in Iraq.

Yep, the war of whatever men war over was worse in one American city than in a foreign country designated as a U.S. war zone.

Could or should Tiger Woods speak about the war zones on the city streets of America?

Brown told HBO Sports he believes Woods has a "terrible" record when it comes to social activism.

Woods responded by noting how many children his foundation has helped, not only in the United States, but in his mom's Thailand homeland.

"And you know, I want to do it right and not just do it, but do it right," Woods said.

Many people give Jordan and Woods a pass, saying just because a man is a superstar and makes hundreds of millions of dollars does not obligate him to advocate for, let alone become personally involved in, social issues like the killing fields of Chicago or L.A.

Great wealth and athletic celebrity doesn't obligate one to make any difference in the worl.

Martin Luther King never did a Nike or Buick commercial I know of. He never hoisted an athletic trophy displayed on TV or in a commercial.

He was just a preacher; just a man who had a dream of evaluating people not by skin color or money earned but by the mere content of their character.

Jordan and Woods are just athletes. The argument they could be great men, rather than men who merely raise a trophy or shrug on a jacket, imbibes them with a content of character they may not possess.

Jordan and Woods should not be criticized for refusing to recognize King's content of character or Lennon's no countries philosophy. Jordan and Woods are athletes who have earned great riches because they believe the greatest conquest is putting that ball into that hole.

If you had a choice of making a $100 million for putting a ball into a hole as opposed to standing against prejudice, or speaking on the killing fields of some American inner-city corner, or facing explosive devices in Iraq or Afghanistan, you'd take the millions for putting the ball in the hole and being touted by millions of journalists for doing so.

You lose your life in pursuits like those pursued by Martin and Bobby; and by those soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan; and, come to think of it, by outspoken poetic revolutionaries like John Lennon.

Jordan and Woods only have to put their lives between the lines, not on the line.

Brett Favre and Chad Ochocinco: Bad As Mike Vick?

Janean Marti — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 06:47:51 -0400

So when did indecision about retirement or legally changing your name become equated with manslaughter charges, felony convictions and prison terms?

Today.

Mike Florio, that talented and snarky attorney who has given lots of NFL fans years of great entertainment and opinions on his website ProFootballTalk.com, lists his NFL offensive and defensive "NFL Bad Boys" on the Sportingnews.com website.

Florio lumps together former Packer/Jets quarterback Brett Favre, Chad Ochocinco (formerly Chad Johnson) the Bengals receiver, and Bears quarterback Jay Cutler with the likes of recently released prisoner Michael Vick, and Donte Stallworth who has pleaded not guilty to DUI manslaughter charges, and former Jaguars wide receiver Matt Jones who has spent time in jail.

PFT gained a fair amount of its fame from a meter tallying the days without an arrest of an NFL player and appears to have a lot of prosecutors and cops as tipsters.

Curious, though, this jumble of players as offensive and defensive bad boys named on Florio's Sporting News list.

Florio writes, "In past years, my primary online hangout has grouped together the NFL's bad boys under a distinctive name that isn't quite ready for the main stream.

"This year, we're exporting the list to SportingNews.com, under a more palatable title.

"But the spirit is the same—guys who create trouble off the field, on the field, in the locker room, or some combination of the three."

He then goes on to deride Ochocinco for creating a team distraction, Favre for "imploding his legacy," and Cutler for, among other things, "refusing to sign autographs."

Florio believes Cutler, Favre, and Ochocinco are to be criticized and labeled as "bad boys" and put on a list with Vick, Stallworth and Jones. The PFT pundit also has an NFL defensive Bad Boys list with some of the same egregious labeling.

Patriots Wide Receiver Randy Moss and Baltimore Ravens Linebacker Ray Lewis are left off the lists.

Florio does mention 2008 NFL Defensive Player of the Year Pittsburgh linebacker James Harrison as a bad boy, in part because of domestic abuse charges but mostly because of "one of the all-time dumbest quotes when explaining the decision not to accompany his teammates for the traditional White House trip taken by the Super Bowl champs."

How does the NFL, who has advertised on Florio's website and employed him as an NFL Network analyst, explain this type of list from one of its partners?

Hey, I'm just one of those Joe-average NFL fans who sometimes complain about the million dollar salaries and the NFL guys "who just don't get how good they have it."

But not signing autographs or trying to complain enough to get traded or unretiring an infinite amount of times is not the same as driving drunk and killing someone. Or even raising dogs so you can bet on whether they can kill another dog, or lurching around so inebriated you can't even keep yourself out of jail, even with a million dollars in your pocket.

Poor James Harrison.

Here is a man, an NFL player, who said he didn't believe the invitation to visit the White House because his team had won the Superbowl was "all that special." Harrison said if the Arizona Cardinals, instead of the Steelers, had won the Super Bowl, they would have had the meet and greet with President Obama.

Harrison was not only right, he was speaking a truth few admit. Why should a president take the time to exchange lame jokes and arm pit sniffs with a professional sports team who just won a championship?

How about take that time to meet with 52 soldiers who just got home from Iraq? And do it time after time after time for each plane load of soldiers?

Of course, no networks or media are going to televise or write about the guys who play the game of war for the U.S.

Old hat—been there, done that and what if the guy had his arms or legs blown off?

How could he present the President with his "game jersey" and give the old pat on the back?

As far as pats on the back, Florio gets a big cuff on the back of the head to knock some sense into him.

Lawyers who goof around with ludicrous NFL bad boys lists are a distraction to the judicial system.

The King is Dead, Long Live the King

Janean Marti — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:17:21 -0400

When the Eastern Sports Programming Network twitters a Brett Favre fart, who can blame them? Though they might want to check their spelling - a bonafide superstar’s fart is spelled Phooowmmm, right? - those major-network media guys know that if you attach a few words to superstar's fart and then yank it out into day-to-day stories of thousands of words, you’re safe for another day.

To stay employed, most NFL media types must mention Favre every 48 hours or so. Otherwise, their bosses will think those danged reporters are going out and actually gathering news.

The latest twist in the Favre farts-and-we-write, -tweet, -talk, -blog, -text, and -smell it-saga is to criticize Green Bay Packer fans.

The current clichéd story is Favre owes nothing to Green Bay Packer fans and, in fact, raised a once moribund franchise into glory, glamour and a Superbowl winner. He gave the fans the best days of his life; played every down like it was his last; played like a kid out there; and played until he puked.

Green Bay fans have somehow become the villains in the 'Favre Farted Frenzy'. Green Bay fans are said to “have made it personal” or “turned on the old gunslinger” or “fail[ed] to realize what they had in the future Hall-of-Famer.”

How can the Packer fan base not understand what they owe to Favre?

Yes. Favre doesn’t owe the fans anything, but according to the reporters who must file Favre stories or probably lose their jobs, the fans owe Favre.

Apparently, Green Bay Packer fans owe Favre their undying devotion, adoration, and worship. No longer can a fan root for a community-owned team in the smallest market in professional sports or for the team their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents paid for and nurtured.

Nope. You have to root for Favre no matter which team he suits up for.

Part of this attitude by most of the major NFL reporters, particularly those Boston Red Sox fans who now work for the biggest monopoly in sports, is because they want, seek, beg, and pant for Favre in a Vikings uniform.

What else would they write or talk about? Whether the President of the United States should earn less than the third-string quarterback of an NFL team? How much money each taxpayer pays in infrastructure costs for each new NFL stadium? Why the majority of so-called expert NFL reporter/analysts can’t ever pick the right Superbowl winner? Why the NFL, an entity supported by the ticket, tax, and buying power of the U.S. fan for more than a century, can even think about moving the penultimate game of the league to a foreign country? Are NFL stars given harsher or lesser sentences than the average citizen? Would any NFL star ever consider entering the U.S. military like Pat Tillman did? If Brett Favre farted in the woods and no one twittered about it, would it still make a sound?

Lust is too puny of a word when it comes to the image of Favre in purple and gold as envisioned by certain reporters and certain television networks. If a network could soil itself, it would do so in purple boas, leather, limbo contests, and “He Looks Like a Kid Out There” tattoos. (Mandatory for all employees.)

Figuring out Favre owes nothing to Packer fans while not figuring out Packer fans owe nothing to Favre is like saying Boston Red Sox fans must hoist the banner for Babe Ruth as the greatest that ever was, like writing French folks have to cry Viva Le Lance every day, tweeting Chicago Bulls’ fans must dye their Jordan jerseys Charlotte Hornet blue, and no one should care about their local high school football team because the players puking into the spit bucket are not ranked on rivals.com.

Somehow, because some Packer fans will jeer and sneer if Favre treads on Lambeau Field ground in a Vikings uniform, Packer fans will be called unfaithful, unworthy, bad, unknowing fans who don’t understand Favre was and is the best thing that ever happened to Green Bay.

Nope.

The best thing that ever happened to Green Bay was a bunch of folks who got together and said we are gonna have us a football team and, when money gets tight, we are gonna pony up among ourselves and keep this ol’ football team going. And we are gonna believe. Hell, and high water, and wars, and free agents, and big pocket owners in cities a hundred times our size aren’t going to smite our faith.

Kings in sports are like kings in history: praised while they live and reviled as soon as they fall or are perceived to fall. Remember the summer of Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa in baseball? Remember the stories about Michael Vick as a quarterback who would forever change the essence of NFL football? Remember the proclamations of this man or that man as the greatest sports player ever, until he proved to be a mere man?

As a Packer fan, I owe nothing to Brett Favre. He was paid an extraordinary salary, his family—especially Big Irv—were embraced, cherished, and nourished by Packer fans, his charities supported, his completed passes cheered, his interceptions explained away.

Favre was the most prominent Packer for a lot of years, beloved, in part, because he was like us: he had great days and bad days, good and bad habits, had to take care of his family, liked being the life of the party, and liked being wanted.

If I root against him if he becomes a Viking, it is not because I’m unfaithful, or turncoat, or disloyal or don’t understand football.

In fact, just the opposite is true.

I support my community-owned, tiny-market Green Bay Packers like a rock against time.

I don’t root for individual players, I root for my team. It’s sort of like the U.S. — I might not always like it, but I’ll always love and stand by it, no matter the president.

Former Packer General Manager Ron Wolf, the man who made the trade with Atlanta to bring Favre to Green Bay, said, after the Packers lost the 1998 Superbowl, the team was a one-year wonder, “a fart in the wind.”

Favre’s moved on. He isn’t a Packer anymore. To me, he’s just a Ron Wolf metaphor.

Manny: This Bud's For You

Janean Marti — Fri, 08 May 2009 00:43:59 -0400

How is it that Major League Baseball players can't find medical doctors who know what constitutes a banned substance?

Look, I realize people like me who are restricted to certain insurance approved doctors will never, for instance, get any approval for payment for any treatment other than the common cold, except, of course, having eight kids at a time or a plastic surgery lip pump.

But Los Angeles Dodger Manny Ramirez, who has been paid more than $162 million in his career, could not find a medical doctor savvy enough to steer him away from the banned substances of Major League Baseball. Even this year, with his paltry $15 million annual guaranteed salary, Manny couldn't find a doctor to help him. Manny had to take a banned substance because, apparently, Major League Baseball's kajillion dollar HMO plan can't find doctors who were given or understand the banned substance list.

Look it: I understand being part of an HMO. Talk about untalented: my three pregnancies resulted in miscarriages, I think a fat lip is what defeated boxers get, had a few rounds of chemo in my day, if I had be on the Dr. Phil show day after day I would drown six of the eight kids, and I can't hit a fast ball.I understand why my HMO wouldn't pay me for nothing: I'm one of the great unwashed, untalented, and can't throw a curve ball.

But how the hell do superstar players like Manny Ramirez get treated by physicians who don't know what a banned substance is? This confuses the hell out of my non-fat lip. Would it be at all possible for Major League Baseball to provide to a list of medical doctors who actually have read and understand the MLB banned substances list?

Naw. The Major League Baseball Player's Association, the union representing all those savvy baseball players getting loose and enjoying the juice--of contracts, of course--wouldn't allow that. Privacy issues and all.

After all, baseball has reaped a lot of benefits on the backs of juiced players. We all know who they are. That's part of the sadness: we all know who they are.

And MLB Commissioner Bud Selig? Well, would you buy a used car or used syringe from that guy?

If the Major League Baseball Player's Association won't provide it's own members with a list of substance savvy doctors, one can hardly expect baseball owners' to do so.

Let's face it: Major League Baseball is like the Octo-Mom: if you can do it, flaunt it.

Yeah, yeah, I know some little-lipped, fast-ball whiffing, old-school guy will be flailing from the bottom of the dung heap: "It ain't right. It ain't right."

Tough. MLB has anti-trust status, billions of dollars in taxpayer money from infrastructure costs, and, oh dew upon the rose, access to doctors who apparently have not read or fail to understand what constitutes a banned substance.

The MLB Player's Association prides itself on being the most powerful in professional sports.

I'd hate to be represented by a union who couldn't find me a doctor to tell me which drug was banned. Of course, the union may measure CCs vs. home runs vs. dollars. I'm only saying...

MLB owners? Aw, c'mon, you all don't think the pimp is gonna suddenly pour Comet on the cash machine, do ya?

Coach K. Addresses "Coach" Obama's Bracket; Duke Not In His Final Four

Janean Marti — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 03:45:45 -0400

Let us now gag famous men. Please!

We have a man who makes $1.5 million to teach young men in shorts and tennis shoes to put a round bladder into a hole calling out another man who happens to have been elected as president of the United States.

The bladder-hole teacher is one Mike Krysssibeahewski, or some such name which would likely get him arrested and imprisoned in some countries, who is coach of a basketball team at Duke University. Coach K, as he is known by most sports reporters who are afraid they will be blacklisted by internet bloggers if they admit to knowing the correct spelling of his last name, earns $1.5 million plus several millions more per year in "leadership skills".

Coach K directs young men in how to twist and turn their bodies in a proper manner so as to have a higher percentage when directing an inflated rubber sphere into a round basket with macrame fringes.

(In the late 60's/early 70's, this was known as throwing your mother's overdone easter ham into that really ugly art-thing your sister made. In the late 30's/40's, this was know as "Well, TV ain't invented yet, so what else do we have to do but throw a ball at a hole in the sky." In the latest years, this is known as "I don't have Wii basketball yet so I have to watch these other fools play it while I bitch on Facebook about how cheap my parents are.")

Coach K is a superhero because, faced with young, energetic men who tower over most of us and who wear strange clothing marked with some sort of strange symbols, keeps us safe by convincing said young giants to concentrate on "putting the inflated bladder into the hole." Whew, thank you, Coach K!!!! Let's increase your pay!!

Coach K did call out Coach Obama because, according to Coach K, Coach O has to concentrate on the economy (apparently Coach K isn't garnering enough donut holes). Apparently, Coach K thinks he's got the young giants under control and believes Coach O isn't living up to his $400,000 per year salary if he actually has time to fill out an NCAA basketball bracket.

You go, Coach K. How dare anyone, like some President of the United States who makes $400,000 a year believe bladders in holes is important or worthy of one's time? Does this piker of a President really believe he is WORTH $400,000 a year in view of your paltry salary as master of the bladder?

Yikes, next thing you know Mrs. O will take it at half-court, create her own shot, and throw down on you.

A-Rod Owes Us More Steroids

Janean Marti — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 03:42:34 -0500

As a $28 million a year salary man in 2009, A-Rod owes us more steroid use, not less. Gulping, ingesting and injecting steroids to enhance performance after being paid millions of dollars to play a game should be applauded.

Sports, especially professional sports, are like the dozen roses you bought your girlfriend on Valentine's Day. Those roses are slowly withering and turning brown. After about a week, those cut roses and all the money you spent on them, will die.

But that was the point of the roses, wasn't it? Buying a dozen cut roses, knowing they will ultimately turn into some mouldy, drooping, sickly bunch of garbage within a week, is the ultimate declaration of love.

One spends money on roses, knowing they won't last, as a way of saying "I love you so much, I paid a lot of money just to brighten one week of your life."

Sports is a bouquet of roses. Sports don't really matter and a game score lasts about as long as that FTD-delivered flower bundle.

If athletes like Alex Rodriguez want to use performance enhancing drugs to hit more home runs and validate the unearthly amount of dollars major league baseball owners heap on him, we, as fans, should welcome that.

Should society worry about the long-term affects steroids have on A-Rod's body? Hell, we don't even worry about U.S. soldiers in Iraq who must rumble the killing fields with inadequate armor and protection.

Do we care about how Black Lung Disease affects the coal-miners who provide some of the electricity you are using to read this? Are there many news articles complaining about that every day?

Oh, A-Rod using steroids will send our youth the wrong message. But sending young men to kill or be killed in Iraq for $50,000 a year while A-Rod earns $27.5 million that same year doesn't?

Athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs to justify multi-million dollar salaries should be applauded. We all know there are just as many, if not more, athletes who are toking and smoking weed, and going the Screaming Yellow Zonkers route in which they bong, get lazy, and move like molasses on the field and off. Most sports leagues and sports reporters seem to accept that.

Several generations ago, athletes like Ted Williams went to war. Modern day athletes are like a Valentine's Day Rose Bouquet: pretty for the moment but, ultimately, frail and destined for the trash.

More athletes should take performance enhancing drugs to justify their salaries. Salaries ranging in the millions demand what ever lotion, potion and cream modern day athletes can heap upon their bodies to justify what they get paid.

As a sports fan, I don't worry about what these potions do to the athletes body. If you don't want the dime, then don't do the crime. Otherwise, juice up, boys. After all, it could be worse.

You could be using your speed, reflexes and your muscle to dodge bullets in Iraq for $50K a year.

Voters Drive BCS, Not Networks

Janean Marti — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:51:32 -0500

Aw, c'mon: I know some of you are wearing thongs wedgied too tight, but blaming the BCS fiasco on ESPN is like finding a FOX who knew and was having at it with a hen in the hen house.

This is how the BCS works: A bunch of reporters who have, perhaps, seen one local college team play vote on whom they think will be the top teams for the season. The voters don't see every team in the country; in fact, they seldom see more than one team. They then vote and, if you are No. 1, if you have just one loss, you will likely still be in the mix for national championship consideration.

Every year, the voters and the networks watch teams voted in the top 10 "fall out" of consideration. Instead of saying the voters were wrong, the voters say "This team (we voted as a top ten team) "disappointed" or "failed to live up to expectations."

The voters NEVER say: "I've never seen this team play even in scrimmages. I was wrong. I overrated this team and I, frankly, have never seen 24 of the top 25 teams I ranked ever play."

WHY are the rankings this way? Because part of the rankers' salary comes from pretending to know how to rank a zillion college teams even if they have never seen a zillion college teams play. Or even one college team play.

The stupidity of the BCS doesn't come from some television network. (Yeah, right, a television network is going to say: "We won't televise or talk about the top ranked teams.")

The stupidity of the BCS comes from preseason rankings from a bunch of folks who have never seen any of the teams they are ranking play a game.

A way to partially resolve this, as has been suggested numerous times before, is to rank a team only after it's third game of a season. And don't get your thongs in a knot all around your eyes!!!

Why We Loved Him: A Fan On Brett Favre

Janean Marti — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:42:38 -0500

Sports are so precious because they are truly meaningless.

Your son won’t die today because of a sports score; your daughter won’t get uglier; there will still be whatever chips and dips you bought to stuff your mouth.

We love sports because, in the real end-world scheme, they don’t mean a thing.

So it is with Brett Favre.

Lots of folks with lots of time on their hands compile stat upon stat, trying to come up with meaningful comparisons for who was best when under what circumstances where in what venue against what opponent.

Other folks just choose to wallow in sports’ meaningless and, therefore, wallow in the glory of enjoying the moment.

Favre gave us those moments. Draped with a Warren Sapp or a John Randall, heave it, Brett, just heave it. Chased by Brian Urlacher or Jason Taylor, just fade, fade, fade across the line of scrimmage and throw across your body. Almost be sacked and do the pigeon-toed run for a first down.

Seeing every game, except two, in real time Favre ever played for the Green Bay Packers, I can tell you my totally meaningless devotion to the Packers was thrilling when Favre played.

He could make something out of nothing and nothing out of something. But I always knew he was on the field, he was in the game.

TD pass to Kittrick Taylor? Yep. Six interceptions in a playoff game? Yep.

You kind of had to been there, year after year, game after game, play after play, to understand we loved the split seconds, the moments, the hope.

Peyton Manning? Check. Tom Brady? Check. Joe Montana? Check. Etc. Etc. Etc.

But quarterbacks behind good offensive lines who stand there waiting for receivers to get open are just that.

Favre, under four different coaches, flung it.

There is a reason folks other than Packer fans fell in love with Favre. Yeah, Manning, Brady, and Montana stood behind stalwart offensive lines in familiar offensive schemes waiting for receivers to clear.

Favre flung it and slung it. In the end, some of us admire folks who sing a different tune, march to a different drummer, and sail the universe just to check the possibilities.

As a Packer fan, I’ll never regret Favre the Quarterback.

Can It Get Any Worse for Green Bay Packer Fans?

Janean Marti — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 12:05:18 -0500

True Packer fans were rooting for the Pack to lose to the 0-15 Lions and for Brett Favre to oil up his old, tired, cranky arm and actually reverse his late season interception rate.

True Packer fans want GM Ted Thompson fired. True Packer fans don't want Thompson fired for the Favre fiasco but for his lame drafting of Justin Herrell, do-nuttin' off-season moves, and for drafting QB's when the Pack needed DL and OL help.

(Oh, and give Ryan "I gonna move here, folks, just gimme a second to get my legs movin" Grant some stupid millions.) And leave Michael Turner the Burner to go to Atlanta.

Ted Thompson's record as Packer GM is a loser. BUT, if only the Pack had lost to the Lions today, the move might have been an avalanche to get rid of Thompson. Instead, we hear state reporters and broadcasters giving Thompson a pass.

Thompson cut the player (Favre) who meant more to bringing money to the Packer franchise than any other player in history. Thompson drafted A.J. Hawk with the fifth draft choice IN THE FIRST ROUND.

Here's a little lesson: when a college player plays surrounded by fabulous players, one has to study whether the player is good or whether the players surrounding him are so fabulous, it makes the player look good.

Thompson drafted Justin Harrell, a player plagued by injury, in the first round of the 2007 draft. Harrell has back problems. Knee problems are easier to get over than back problems in the NFL.

Thompson did nothing in the 2008 off-season to address the defensive line or the offensive line. By trading cash-cow Favre, Thompson can't say he was just protecting the Pack financial line by doing virtually nothing in free agency. (Credit to Thompson for signing Brandon Chillar—could be a real player.)

Thompson failed to understand whether Favre fired a zillion interceptions because of his tired arm in the last six games of the season, Packer women fans who talk during games and don't understand what an offensive lineman is, would still buy Favre clothing because of their love of Brett and Deanna as celebrities.

Keeping Favre was all about keeping money for the franchise. Thompson never got it because he never understood that, with Favre, the 50% of Packer fans who are women and WHO DRIVE THE HOUSEHOLD/GIFT PURCHASES, would just keep buying Brett/Deanna clothing even if it was the Packers who went 0-16.

Favre loses to Miami and the Packers don't get to move up on the draft choice list. The Packers beat the 0-15 Lions in a meaningless game and don't move up on the draft choice list.

Moving up on the draft choice list doesn't matter as long as Ted Thompson is Packer GM because he doesn't have a clue.

Fire Ted Thompson NOW!

CC Sabathia's Arm Pounded in Game against Brewers: Will He Have Anything Left?

Janean Marti — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:59:18 -0400

Yes, we all know the small market Milwaukee Brewers won't be able to afford to re-sign their pitching aces CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets, so some say they should force and wrench every pitch they can get out of the two guys.

But shouldn't the Brewers try to save at least some of their arm strength for the postseason?

The Brewers are playing the San Diego Padres in San Diego. It's the bottom of the seventh inning, the Brewers are leading 7-1, and they still have Sabathia out there.

CC doesn't look as sharp as he has in previous games even though he is ahead 7-1.

Sabathia and Sheets lead the NL in complete games. Hey, once upon a time, pitchers threw nine innings. But that was a long time ago.

The Brewers don't care about the arms of Sabathia and Sheets long-term because the Brewers won't be able to sign either after the end of this season.

But when your ace pitcher is leading by six runs in the bottom of the seventh, and has pitched four complete games in the last two months, couldn't you save some of that power for the playoffs instead of sending him out in the bottom of seventh when your team has a six-run lead?

This isn't old school baseball anymore. You pay middle relief and closers for a reason. Part of that reason is saving your aces' arms for the postseason.

Will The NFL "Award" Brett Favre To The Vikings For a New Stadium?

Janean Marti — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:50:55 -0400

The Minnesota Vikings have been trying, for quite some time, to convince the Minnesota state legislature and other governmental entities in Minnesota to provide economic aid and development for a new stadium. The Viking franchise has also been frequently mentioned as a candidate to move to L.A.

If Brett Favre played for the Minnesota Vikings and got them within sniffing distance of the Superbowl, Viking fans would be all hyped up. A hyped up fan base translates to votes for a new stadium. And we all know a politician in pursuit of votes can run a 4.2s 40m and jump higher than LeBron James.

Brett Favre wants to play for the Vikings. The Vikings want a new stadium. The NFL wants the Vikings to stay in Minnesota (why move a team if you have a re-energized fan base?)

If Vikings' owner Zygi Wilf wants to offer Favre a chance of a percentage of ownership in a new Vikings stadium deal and the NFL wants that too, why should any football fan stand in the way?

This is just a conspiracy theory with no basis in fact. (Except for the fact Favre wants to play for the Vikings.)

As a Green Bay Packer fan, I know our unique franchise ownership is probably as dead as the dodo bird. We have no deep pockets owner, no financial sway within the NFL brotherhood, and really no standing in the NFL except for the history, mystique and popularity of the Packer franchise.

No professional sports league is going to throw out the opinions and wishes of its millionaire and billionaire owners in favor of a team owned by bunch of fans.

The Packer franchise has been "saved" four times by an infusion of money from the fans, the most recent in 1997 via a stock sale. Residents of Brown County (the Wisconsin county where Lambeau Field is located) also are charged a sales tax for the 2000 renovation of Lambeau Field.

The 1997 stock sale and the 2000 Lambeau Field renovation would probably not have been as successful (although the stock sale was likely less successful than Packer Executive Committee members anticipated) without the Brett Favre-led success of the team in the last 16 years.

As a Packer fan, seeing Favre in a purple Viking jersey would be very, very difficult. But, in the end, I believe if the Packer organization can't or won't, because of time constraints or reluctance to adopt such a radical idea, allow a shareholder vote on the matter of Favre's return, Favre should just be released and allowed to go to his preferred Viking team.

Divorces happen all the time and people live through the process.

Just let Favre go to the team he wants to play for, even if it is the Vikings. People change, fall in and out of love, get old, mature, and finally believe there is no such thing as true love or a hero.

Let him go but, please, please, please. When he is inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, don't let him wear the green and gold of my grandfather and father's team. The green and gold is only for people who understand there is no such thing as true love or a hero, but hope there might be one day.

Brett Favre: We Want to Quit You

Janean Marti — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 19:27:41 -0400

How do we hate thee? Let us count the ways:

1. Trotting out your 70-year-old-or-so mother to fire the first salvo in this war. Instead of acting like a man, you trotted her out what seems like a hundred years ago to state how the Packers didn't want you back and how the Packers were not respecting you. Respect? How about respecting your mother and not requiring her to launch the first missle?

2. Your Brett Favre Foundation, supposedly a charitable foundation, has the same address as your business agent James "I'll throw anyone under the BUS for money" Cook. Hmmm, there are about 1,000 Freedom of Information requests pending on THIS supposed charitable foundation.

You know what they say—charity begins at home OR in the offices of my business agent. Or, as James "Bus" Cook allegedly says, "I need more money, so I need to get Brett another two- or three-year contract OR I'll need to Cook the charitable books a lot more."

3. Your pick in the 2008 NFC Championship game. Guess what, Brett? You were all constipated there. Cold, wasn't it? There were actually other teammates there who have families, talent, and even charitable foundations. But, you wanted a warm tent and, when it didn't happen, you just decided to try to stick it in somewhere. (Is your poor aim the reason your current wife Deanna threatened to leave you in the 90's?)

4. Trotting out your family once again in the recent Peter King SI statements. What a man you are, Brett, saying Deanna and your family said you should stop letting the Packers play you for a fool. Are you so in love with Bus Cook that his face morphs into Deanna's every time you talk to him?

You keep hiding behind your mother and Deanna. What's next? The Brett Favre-Bus Cook Cookbook in which you pretend to bake chocolate chip cookies from a secret recipe? Here's a recipe! Greatest Green Bay QB: take NFL championship and SB wins, mix, and the result is—BART STARR.

5. Once upon a time, books were written about you with titles such as Greatest NFL Quarterback, or, Beloved: The Brett Favre Story. Now, the titles will be: American Tragedy: A Man, His Agent, and Money, or The Favre/Cook Cookbook: Cooking Up Money While Hiding Behind Your Mother and Wife's Apron Strings.

6. We want to quit you, Brett Favre. We, the fans of a tiny team in a tiny city with tiny pocketbooks, want you to go away. We defended you through the addictions, the wild craziness in certain Northern Wisconsin bars, and ALL the interceptions in playoff games in which, despite your disclaimers, we knew the TEAM, not just you, got us there.

We, the fans of the Green Bay Packers, want to quit YOU, Brett. We want your mother and wife to be released from taking all the crap. We understand what hard work is and, frankly, it must be hell to have to point at women for all the crap just so you can pad your stats.

To Bonita and Deanna Favre, I can only say that women are the toughest and you two have certainly proved that. Sure, you are the benefactors of the money from Packer fans, some who make $10 an hour, and the benefactors of the Packer fans support (including making Brett the first $100 million NFL player) and Packer fan excuses for Brett over the years. But, it still must be tough to be the point-women who have to take the bullets for Brett and Bus. I'm just hoping you have a contract with Brett that pays you as much as Bus Cook is getting.

Will Brett Favre's Legacy Destroy the Green Bay Packers?

Janean Marti — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:44:30 -0400

If you were an NFL free-agent, would you sign with the Green Bay Packers after a future Hall of Fame quarterback labeled the Packers' GM and head coach as liars?

If you were a player for the Packers whose contract was coming up for renewal, would you re-sign with the team after one of the most popular players of one of the most storied sports franchises in history called out the team and complained of "untruths" and mismanagement of the franchise?

Brett Favre's true legacy to the Green Bay Packers is stabbing hundreds of thousands, and generation after generation, of Packer fans in the heart.

The dagger Favre has wielded is not his, "I'm retired, No I'm not" mantra, or his, "I want to be released or play or something" whining.

Favre picked up a pitchfork to deliberately pierce the franchise, and then twisted and turned, twisted and turned, driving the pitchfork deeper and deeper, saying the Packer franchise couldn't be trusted.

In his desire to unretire, Favre has decided to tell the world the Green Bay Packers' franchise is populated with bad management (GM Ted Thompson), an inept coach (Mike McCarthy, instead of Favre's preference of Steve Mariucci), poor talent at wide receiver (Donald Driver, Gregg Jennings, James Jones instead of Favre's preference of Randy Moss), and poor talent in the offensive line (Favre apparently wanted Marco Rivera and Mike Wahle instead of the line that protected Favre enough for the Packers to earn a 13-3 regular season record and then lost the NFC Championship game when the Giants kicked a field goal after Favre threw an interception.)

The Green Bay Packers gave up a first-round draft choice to get Favre from Atlanta and made him the first $100 million NFL quarterback.

Packer fans made him one of the most popular professional athletes of all time, supported his charities, embraced his family and forgave his drug addiction and his innumerable, untimely interceptions in playoff games in exchange for his innumerable, brilliant plays and his personality.

We just liked Brett Favre. It wasn't just the winning. Packer fans, perhaps more than any other in professional sports, support their team. Not only do we support them, we, for the most part (television and shared NFL revenue aside), pay for it. We just liked the way Favre played. Is that so wrong?

Now, Favre's accusations of the Packers' franchise lying, cheating, backstabbing, and mismanagement may have destroyed the Packers' franchise.

Facing $5 a gallon gas, $4 a gallon milk, mortgage foreclosures, layoffs, and the general decline of the U.S. economy, it will be hard for Packer fans/owners to pony up the money the big-pocket NFL owners can pay for players, stadium renovations, and quarterbacks.

Imagine how hard it is going to be when players cite Favre's comments to forego playing for Green Bay.

Packer fans' children and grandchildren might one day know Favre, not as a sports icon, but as the man who destroyed the only non-profit professional sports team in America.

Brett Favre's most lasting legacy may be to toss all of our grandparents and great-grandparents, in an effort to keep an NFL team in tiny Green Bay, Wisconsin, from turning into a blazing inferno.

What would big Irv Favre think about that?

If Dogs Ruled Sports

Janean Marti — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:33:53 -0400

If dogs ruled the sports world, a few rule changes would be in order.

1. All “ball” sports (and we all know there are “balls” and “BALLS”—more about that later) would be played with yellow, slimey, slightly chewed tennis balls.

2. Major League Baseball players would be required to sniff the butt of the home plate umpire before stepping into the batter’s box.

3. Those sexy female sideline reporters planted in televised games just to capture the young male demographic would be replaced by those sexy Westminster Dog Show poodles. (Hey, different strokes for different folks. If male sports fans can have obsessions over Erin Andrews, the average Labrador Retriever can drool over those Westminster poodle babes.)

4. If a squirrel, seagull, rat, or other critter runs onto a field of play, the game must be stopped until the “athletes” run it down and retrieve it.

5. Every time a player adjusts his crotch, every dog in America gets a Milk Bone.

6. Speaking of crotch grabs, Roger Clemens must be wondering if his wife has noticed the shrinkage of peanuts.

7. Speaking of snacks like peanuts, the sausage races at Miller Park in Milwaukee will hence forth be the Snausage races.

8. Speaking of Snausages, why are dogs forced to eat foods named to attract their humans? Instead of Kibbles and Bits, why not names that will attract dogs, like "Big Hunks of Raw, Bloody, Fat-Laced Meat Just Hunked Out of a Cow."

9. Speaking of Meat Just Hunked Out of a Cow, why is John Madden, a man afraid to fly on airplanes, allowed to judge whether a football player is tough?

10. Speaking of tough, dogs swim, run, retrieve, and poop OUTSIDE without the protection of—ahem—athletic protectors. Hey, how many pro athletes would be playing if they had to do it with their family jewels hanging out in the elements?

DOGS ARE COOL! DOGS RULE!

Brett Favre, Jimi Hendrix, Mark McGwire: Journeys, Joys and Ends

Janean Marti — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:27:56 -0400

When Jimi Hendrix cranked up his guitar, he could shake those mystical threads connecting your head, heart, belly, and soul into some live, throbbing, writhing mass of electric emotion. Hendrix' wild chords blew a fire into your body that couldn't be extinguished even if your mom and dad and the U.S. government screamed Hendrix' take on the National Anthem would destroy us all.

Even in a time when listening to Hendrix' music might mean intense scrutiny by parents, the Narcs police, or even the U.S. government, a person tattooed by Hendrix' music was tagged forever.

For Green Bay Packer fans, Brett Favre gave us some of the same sort of journey Hendrix gave his fans. Hendrix was the best ever at what he did. Favre is not, but the Packer quarterback gave us a lot of joy in the journey. With Favre there was always the hope of an incredible riff, a moment of 'did you just see, hear, witness that?'

Some national sports reporters and NFL fans believe Packer fans deify Favre. Most of these folks think all Packer fans wear cheeseheads, want Favre to play, dare I say it, 4-Ever, and believe Packer fans didn't exist before or can't see beyond Favre.

Many of these same sports reporters worshipped at the font of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa during their 1998 MLB battle to pass Roger Maris' home run record.

Sports reporters and fans got caught up in the web of McGwire and Sosa during that season but, now, get all snarky and upset because they believed in the joy of the journey, the sheer lightness of being and belly-fire of the riffs of history and then were disappointed their heroes were just some hormone-injected, non-organic imposters.

Favre is just like the sports reporters who worshipped McGwire and Sosa. Favre believes, just like the McGwire/Sosa worshippers, that history ends that moment and no one will ever finger a better riff.

He believes he is the glory of the Packers. He believes Packer fans don't remember Don Hutson, Arnie Herber, Johnny McNally, Bart Starr, Ray Nitschke, Jimmy Taylor, Forest Gregg, and Reggie White. Favre doesn't understand the artistry of music, sports or life and that the Green Bay Packers' fans will live on, with or without him.

Hendrix died of vomiting, drug use, or whatever you want to believe but you can't take Hendrix away from anyone who heard his music. You can't take the journey of McGwire and Sosa from anyone who lived the magic of that summer. You can't take away Favre's many improbable moments and his connection with the fans.

This moment, this life, this day, however, screams out new riffs, new music, new art, new magic. We all said good-bye to Jimi, Mark and Sammy a while ago. Good-bye to you, too, Brett. It was a joy to know you. Some of your riffs will always play in my heart but I'm a Packer fan and know there are always new songs to sing.

Burning the Brett Favre Jersey: Not If, But How

Janean Marti — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:24:35 -0400

My dad taught me NFL football. His favorite player was Green Bay Packers running back Jimmy Taylor. But, my dad told me Jimmy had heart even he couldn't run without a good offensive line.

The day of my dad's funeral wake, my mom sat us all down to watch the Green
Bay Packers game on TV. It was the 1970's, a decade in which the Packers were awful. That didn't matter because we were always a Packers family. Somehow the Packers got a lead that day and my brothers were all hollering. And, one of them said, "How dad would love this."

I once worked in a plastics factory. The sweat there would pour down the skin, and the production workers would breathe in the tiny plastic chips which were exploding in the air and then vomit them up the next morning. They worked for minimum wage and bought their clothes at what were called thrift sales, but were usually referred to as garage or rummage sales.

A T-shirt might cost 50 cents at a thrift sale, but a Favre or a Packers T-shirt cost a lot more. They gladly paid triple the price to wear a Packers/Favre T-shirt. They were working for about $24,000 a year, raising kids, and building a life on that salary, and wearing second-hand Packers/Favre shirts.

T-shirts kind of serve as our Bill of Rights these days. In Wisconsin, a Packers/Favre t-shirt labels you as someone who has common ground with other Wisconsin residents and your Bill of Rights is pretty tame—Go Pack Go!

So, now all of us Packers fans, whether rummage sellers or not, are facing a dilemma.

Brett Favre, a man we built into a superhero, has said he couldn't give a crap about the Packers, and Wisconsin, and the fans. He wants his unconditional release.

Ted Thompson, the General Manager of the Green Bay Packers, couldn't give a crap about Packers fans. He never said one word to us, even though we own the team and pay his salary, about the Favre issue. Thompson apparently believes he IS the Packers.

Mark Murphy, the newly appointed CEO of the Packers, never said a word about whether or not Favre asked to come back and play. Murphy never said anything pertinent.

We understand Favre's posture. He just doesn't give a crap about the Packers or the Packers fans. That's okay. He's just an employee who has given us the finger and believes he will be loved by any fan base, even if he throws six or four interceptions in a playoff game.

But, the silence of Thompson and Murphy? They also gave Packers fans the finger. But, unlike Favre who has trashed Packer fans because he thinks he can get another high-paying job, Thompson and Murphy need to address the PR issue or get fired.

Burning the Favre jersey? Won't happen for a while. I've decided to let my dogs wee-wee on it to duplicate what Favre did to Packers fans. And then, send it to Thompson and Murphy, so they can sit on it for a while and smell the future.

Shame, shame, shame on all of you for taking millions of dollars from people who work so hard to make milk, and veggies, and meat, and everything else you grab so greedily for your families.

Favre and Thompson are men who believe they are important. They are men who believe playing a game makes them heroes. They are not even farts in the wind because neither could even step up in public to make a statement. Both Favre and Thompson are scared to fart in the wind.

Favre and Thompson are of the same ilk—just two cowardly guys who were too afraid to speak in public. You two deserve each other.

Every Packer Fan Deserved Better: The Green Bay Packer PR Nightmare

Janean Marti — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:20:10 -0400

As a team owned by the fans, every Green Bay Packer fan deserved better than what the franchise has delivered in the past week.

When fans wanted information about the Brett Favre situation, the franchise said and did nothing. The franchise has lots of resources to dispense information, including their own website, hundreds of media outlets, and even emails to Packer shareholders.

But the Packer management said nothing about the Brett Favre situation for days on end. When Packer fans wanted some sort of direction, Packer management declined to address the Brett Favre situation with even a cliche-ridden press conference.

Packer management declined, in even the smallest amount, to address the issue. Packer management refused to respond to the fan base, allowing others to drive the issue, while leaving the fans, who are also the Packer owners, hanging.

Instead of keeping their fans informed, the Packer management decided to act like silent idiots. Instead of telling fans management was in contact with Favre, Packer management said nothing for a week.

Something is wrong in the Packers' PR office when they refuse to inform their owner/fans of developments of one of the most popular players in team history.

Even a daily press conference in which Packers' management said they were in contact with Favre would have been better than this stoic, we-don't-give-a-crap-about-keeping-the-fans-informed attitude.

Shame on the Packers. They don't care about their owners. It's time for changes in the PR department at Lombardi Avenue.

Fixing The MLB All-Star Game: Our Time To Whine

Janean Marti — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:45:56 -0400

Let the whining begin. Oh, you know the routine, every year, 'official' sports writers just say the fans don't get it and the dang fans just keep voting in old favorites, instead of this year's wunderkind or players who "deserve it more."

Guess what? We buy the tickets, build the stadiums, support the advertisers, and support the TV networks who broadcast the games. We, the fans, pay for the game.

If we want to vote for proven or popular players year after year after year, we have the right to do so.

But the voting does need tweaking and not in the way most 'official' sport writers want it changed, which is to just let the 'official' baseball beat writers and game managers, coaches and players vote.

Nope. Here are the ways to change the all-star game to make it must-see:

1. Get rid of the AL vs. NL scenario. Does any baseball fan really dwell on whether the AL or the NL will win the all-star game? No, baseball fans want to see all the great players even if some are in the twilight of their careers. Don't separate the balloting into AL and NL rosters.

What's the point except for the trumped up and obviously idiotic rule to reward World Series home field advantage to the All-Star game winning league? That's just unfair and stupid.

Allow fans to vote for a roster of players without separating the players into AL and NL rosters.

2. Let's get it on. If 'official' baseball writers and other insiders, like managers, coaches, and players, think they know more about baseball than fans, let the fans choose their starting lineup by popular vote.

The players may be NL or AL players. The players who get the most votes at each position via fan balloting are the starters for the fans. Then the insiders get to vote. (Why do the fans get to choose their players first? Because we pay for the game.) It's the fans' roster versus the 'insiders' roster. Bring it on....

3. Changing the issue of home field advantage should be easy. Use the tie breaker rules from a variety of sports. Start with overall record. Then head-to-head, road record, etc., etc. It would be easy to come up with rules for deciding who has home field advantage in the World Series.

There are lots of issues to be tweaked but voting for players shouldn't be limited to whether they play in the AL or NL. Year after year, deserving players are eliminated from All-Star consideration because they play a position which has a lot of great players in the same position in the same league that year.

That is why I propose the fans versus the 'insiders' all-star game. The All-Star game should start with voting for the best 22 players at each position no matter whether they play in the American or National league.

The 11 players with the most votes from the fans at each position start and play for the fan team. (The 11 player roster would include eight field position players plus three pitchers.) The 11 players with the second-most votes from the fans at each position are "free-agent" all-stars.

The 'insiders' can choose to take some or all of the 11 "free-agent" all-stars voted in by the fans or they can choose a player they vote in as more deserving. If the 'insiders' don't choose a fan-designated "free-agent" all-star, that player automatically stays on the fan team.

Can you imagine the TV "free-agent" selection show, in which the 'insiders' decide whether to select one of the 11 "free-agent all-stars" selected by the fan voting or select another player? Oh, this would be a great reason to tune into the all-star game coverage a few hours early!

Of course, the idea needs reworking. More pitchers, more players needed.

(Why 22 players selected by the fans? Eight position players for each team and three pitchers for each team.)

Favre's Itch, Rodgers' Bitch, Fans' Ditch: Green Bay Packers Soap Opera

Janean Marti — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:25:57 -0400

Excuse me, but could we get some time to get some summer chores done? After all, summer in Packerland is just slightly shorter than Gene Upshaw's remaining tenure as the NFL's player-union guru.

The options for a Green Bay Packer fan this week are:

1. Support the projected starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers, even though he just told us to shut up. Rodgers told Sports Illustrated that Packer fans should jump on the bandwagon and keep their mouths shut.

Sure, Rodgers' proclamation to the Green Bay Packer fans (who also own the team and are, therefore, Rodgers' bosses) isn't quite as rude as the Kansas City Chiefs' ban on fans standing up, but it's still going to be interesting to see Lambeau Field so silent you could hear a quarterback drop.

2. Allow Brett Favre to come back. This would have been a neater option if Favre hadn't intercepted several Green Bay playoff victories by throwing interceptions. Hey, Brett, the adulation and money Packer fans have thrown at you is legion and legend. We love you. We will always revere and adore you.

But if you want to come back to Green Bay, you have to agree to play two more years. Rodgers will likely not want to come back after this year, and Brohm or someone else will have to carry the clipboard while you do your preliminary farewell tour in a Packer uniform. Play it or lay it, Brett!

3. Gas will be $5 a gallon very, very soon, with milk at $4 a gallon to follow. Congress might be in session this year for more than the 96 days they worked in 2007, but still should be required to knit mittens for kids because that's about all they are likely to accomplish.

Fans could be ditching tickets, jerseys, and all kinds of spending on sports. Athletes involved in pro sports need to say things like this: "I just want to play hard." "I just want to represent the team well." "I got 4.3 speed and I want to try to catch Osama Bin Laden." "I'm signing this contract because I realize the gravy train means the gravy is going to cost about five times more next year, and I am intelligent enough to know to get mine NOW."

Boys, the gravy train is about to leave the station. If you aren't on board, get ready for a real rough ride. If you want to stand up and proclaim your genius to get more money, shut up, sit down, play, and the fans will decide. Unless you have a plan to for real change, stumble, mumble, and accept your checks gladly.