Bleacher Report - Articles by Dan Boone

NFL Halloween Week: What if NFL Teams Were Horror Movies?

Dan Boone — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:58:53 -0400

Its Halloween week, and Edgar Allan Poe just turned 200 years of age, so what if each NFL team had a Halloween horror theme?

Some are easy, some hard, but lets take a look at what tricks and treats we find.

Philadelphia Eagles: The Blob

One can make a case for Michael Vick being H.G. Well's Invisible Man but with a heavy, and bad, offensive line, an over the hill Jeremiah Trotter lead footing around, and Donovan McNabb's chunky soup extra belly chunk this team seems like a blob.

And did you check out the head guy in the giant green parka?

[ On the radio to Washington ]
Lieutenant Dave:I think you should send us the biggest transport plane you have, and take this thing to the Arctic or somewhere and drop it where it will never thaw.

Washington Redskins: Misery

Owner Daniel Snyder is Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes.

The Redskin fans are James Caan. Stuck, broken, and being tortured mentally and physically each week.

And to make it even more creepy Tom Cruise is having tea with Kathy Bates while the fans are in agony.

That makes the Saw fellow seem like a kind hearted soul.

Annie Wilkes: [Right after smashing Paul's ankles with a sledgehammer ] God I love you.

Dallas Cowboys: House of Wax

Jerry Jones could star in House of Wax ...as a figurine.

So could Tony Romo because when the heat is on Romo, like wax, melts.

And Flozell Adams plays left tackle like he is a frozen, very large, wax figure.

Jerry isn't Leatherface, maybe Plastic Face, but he has sure taken the chainsaw to the Cowboys since his old buddy Jimmy Johnson left.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre anyone?

New York Giants: Tremors

Suddenly, after being savaged by the Saints, something seems not right underneath the G-Men's foundation.

Time will tell if an angry beast sticks its head up from the ground, likely somewhere in the secondary, and starts tearing this team down.

Is that rumble below the ground?

Minnesota Vikings: The Hitcher

Brad Childress said he wants Brett Favre to play quarterback cool like a serial killer. Favre hitched a ride with the Vikings this year so how about The Hitcher?

And I'm talking about the original traveling serial killer slasher flick with Rutger Hauer, not the poor remake.

The Green Bay Packers: The Thing That Wouldn't Leave

Not a horror movie but a Saturday Night Live skit with John Belushi as an unwanted guest that just will not leave...the league.

Kind of like the Brett Favre ghost still haunting the Packers

Chicago Bears: Curse of the Werewolf

Curse of the Chicago quarterback? And wouldn't it be great to see stoic Lovie Smith, just once, go Oliver Reed Hammer film werewolf on the sidelines?

Lovie, while not a great game day adjustment coach, always at least remains calm.

He's calm even as his poorly prepared team is slaughtered by the Bengals.

Calm while his defense declines year after year. Calm as his offensive line sinks. Calm as the team trades away high draft picks.

If Mike Ditka was on the sidelines for them, Halloween movie picks would be endless.

The Werewolf, Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Psycho would all make a good start.

Has anyone really checked to see if Ditka isn't a werewolf?

Detroit Lions: Friday the 13 Part 7

A horror vehicle that started decades ago, seemingly runs forever, and gets worse each sequel. Doesn't that sound like Detroit?

When will it end?

St Louis Rams: The Descent

Always getting lower and lower. And always finding something worse each week.

Offensive guru Dick Curl might be the Freddy Kruger of the NFL.

Whereever he goes he haunts, and hinders, the offense.

Arizona Cardinals: The Mummy

Remember how mad the Mummy would get if he thought someone was messing with his moldy Mummy money and ancient jewels?

Well that's how it feels to negotiate a contract with Bill Bidwell.

San Francisco Forty Niners: Alien

When the Niners miss tackles and drop interceptions Coach Mike Singletary gets the look Harry Dean Stanton had just before the alien hatched out of his stomach.

Singletary could channel his old coach, Ditka, and go werewolf on his men but he would likely get fined by Roger Goodell.

The wildcat, not the werewolf, is the in thing now.

Seattle Seahawks: The Green Slime

How about those green slimy throwback jerseys?

They were almost as ugly as a JaMarcus Russell forward pass.

They were almost as ugly as the Oakland Raider offense.

The Green Slime are coming!!

What PR boy monster dug them up?

Tampa Bay Buccaneers The Blair Witch Project

A bad team built on a cheap budget, like Blair Witch, but not nearly as successful.

Expect more budget cuts for the Buc Witch sequel.

Atlanta Falcons: The Birds

These Dirty Birds have bite.

But will they last?

Carolina Panthers: Magic

John Fox and Jake Delhomme go together like Antony Perkins and that bad puppet in Magic.

They can not bear to be separated no matter how bad things get.

New Orleans Saints: Mars Attacks!

Ack! Ack! Ack!The Saints offense attacks like the Martians hitting the Earth in Mars Attacks.

The Saints attack from all angles.

Ack! Ack! Ack!

Will some defense come up with a Slim Whitman song to stop them?

Oakland Raiders: The Shining

Al Davis has made his Raiders into a haunted house. A big old broken house that was once brilliant and glorious but is now bad, mad, and sad.

Al Davis, like mad Jack Torrance in The Shining, walks the Raiders headquarters late at night stopping to talk and drink with ghosts of Raiders past that are only dancing, prancing, and passing the long ball in his head.

Coach Tom Cable does have that ax murderer mojo working so maybe he needs a Jason mask for meetings?

Maybe he already wears one.

And Al does have that Nosferatu look going too.

Does that make Tom Cable Renfield? Or is he Igor?

Fans know this line is coming from Al.

Dracula: Renfield, you have betrayed me!

That's how it always ends for coaches in Oakland.

The Raiders might be several horror movies playing at once.

In The Mouth of Madness anyone?

Denver Broncos: Ghostbusters

Kyle Orton and crew ain't afraid of no ghosts.

The Broncos are beating back the ghosts of Broncos teams past.

Can they rid haunted Mile High of the ghosts of Elway past?

Kansas City Chiefs: The Exorcist

Coach Todd Haley takes on the Regan with demon look when he begins screaming on the sidelines.

I'm not sure it's working out well as a motivational tool.

San Diego Chargers: Jaws

In every close game Norv Turner gets the look like he's in the ocean deep and he's just seen a big fin...and suddenly that Jaws soundtrack is playing in his head.

It's third and four..du du du du du....the shark is getting closer.

Swim, Norv, Swim...the fin is getting closer. Closer.

Everyone in the audience knows Norv ain't gonna make it shore.

Tennessee Titans: Invasion Of The Body Snatchers

Who are the bizarre, alien pods that have stolen the bodies of the real Titans?

Jacksonville Jaguars : The Pit and the Pendulum

Watching the dreadful Jags play each week is like waiting for the pendulum to drop during the Spanish Inquisition.

Do fans wants to pay to put under a pendulum?

Jack Del Rio as Vincent Price?

Nah....Price was much more inventive on offense.

Indianapolis Colts: Dracula

Peyton Manning is as cool as the other side of the casket. Maybe linebackers need some stakes in their hands in the two minute drill to stop Drac.

Houston Texans: Frankenstein

Gary Kubiak has been collecting parts for a long time in Houston but the monster never seems to get its act right.

Maybe it's the Doctors', not the monster's fault.

New England Patriots: The Island of Doctor Moreau

Bill Belichick has the secret mad scientist mix down pat.

And like Moreau he patches together an effective defense from a variety of strange parts.

Miami Dolphins: The Re-Animator

Isn't that what Tuna Parcells does for franchises?

Doesn't the big boy bring the dead back to life?

New York Jets: It

Is Rex a good Gotham clown or an evil one?

The Buffalo Bills: The Thing

Its cold, abandoned, and something is terribly wrong in the camp.

TO is too quiet. Is that really him or an alien?

Is Wilford Brimley building something wicked in the equipment hut?

Let's hope its an offensive line.

Pittsburgh Steelers : Dawn of the Dead

Pittsburgh's own George Romero has to get some Pitt props, and all those Steeler fans have a bit of the Terrible Towel waving zombie walk going on after a dozen Iron City beers.

Don't let them bite you.

Cleveland Browns: Quarantine

With swine flu, staph infection, and Mad Mangini disease who wants to step near a Browns game?

Cincinnati Bengals: Bride of the Monster

The Bengals are an Ed Wood horror movie type of NFL franchise.

Baltimore Ravens: The Raven

The only team named after a poem and a horror movie. The Poe poem, of course, is legend but the movie had Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and a young Jack Nicholson in it.

That's skill position players the Ravens could use. Still with Ray Lewis on the squad Slasher could be considered.

The Terrible Ten Of College Football: Week Five

Dan Boone — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:05:32 -0400

Go, Al Groh, go!

Al and his Virginia Cavaliers whipped Butch Davis' North Carolina Tar Heels much like Stonewall Jackson did Nathanial Banks in the Shenandoah all those kickoffs ago.

Groh went from win-less to tied for first in the wild Atlantic Coast Conference in a single Saturday!

Indiana's over them hills Virginia boys; give 'em cold steel!

And give Al the ACC title!

1] The State of Kentucky [Louisville, Kentucky, Western Kentucky 0-6 the last two weeks]

Kentucky, the state, was beaten respectively by Pittsburgh, Navy, and Alabama last week.

But as Sam Cooke sang, a change is gonna come.

Even the winless Western Kentucky Hilltoppers have a chance this week battling the winless Florida Golden Panthers in a shoot out only the brave, or the bored, could sit through.

And what sadistic SEC schedule maker gave the Kentucky Wildcats Florida, Alabama, and nasty trips to South Carolina and Auburn all in a row?

No wonder Rich Brooks looks like he is on the rack with a Joker grinning behind him.

Maybe next year Kentucky can squeeze the New York Giants in there somewhere.

2] Illinois [1-3]

After a blow out to Penn State that featured a passive defense and an offense utterly lacking in imagination, Coach Ron Zook said he lacked time to make adjustments.

Time is not on Zook's side.

But he did junk the Juice Williams.

After benching the Juice for Eddie McGee, Zook promised to at least entertain fans with a heart wrenching half time rendition of Me and Eddie McGee.

You know feeling good was good enough for me, Good enough for me and my Eddie McGee.

3] New Mexico [0-5]

Coach Cochise was a master of defense in New Mexico, so one would think the Lobos could win one game at home a year?

How about some Apache home field advantage?

At least Lobo Mike Locksley didn't Tom Cable any assistants this week with the feared Lock Knock out!

4] California 6-72 [the score of the last two slaughters of the Golden Bears]

The wheels have not flown off a contender so viciously since Mike Tyson demolished Mike Spinks on the Boardwalk of Atlantic City.

Mercifully that fight lasted just minutes.

Watching the Bears play the last two weeks was like Spinks having his shorts stuck on the ropes and getting pounded by Tyson for two hours straight.

Stop the fight!

Save the Bears!

4] Florida International-Atlantic [0-6]

Perhaps Florida has not only reached its real estate limit, maybe it over extended its football talent pool limit too.

5] Florida State [2-3]

Times are tough in the Sunshine State.

Look at Bobby Bowden: One week a legend, the next boosters want to chase him through the swamps like bank robber Jay Ashley.

Watch your back Bobby and keep that air boat ready.

6] Rice [0-5]

It was Tulsa time as the Rice got burnt again.

27-10 Tulsa Hurricane time, right over Rice

Livin' on Tulsa time
Livin' on Tulsa time
Gonna set my watch back to it
Cause you know I've been through it
Livin' on Tulsa time

7] Colorado [1-3]

Forty-four tons of Bison meet rotted in South Dakota last week.

It wasn't the worse smelling Buffalo in the west.

8] Ball State [0-5]

It's been a bad fall for both Ball State and its most famous alumni Dirty Dave Letterman.

But it seems at least Dirty Dave has game.

9] Memphis [1-4]

Wild Tommy West almost had Central Florida then luck, like Lucy with Charlie Brown, lifted the football right out from under him.

And there is no rest for Wild West for he has the suddenly vicious UTEP Miners to deal with Saturday.

Times are getting tough for Tommy.

But I'm as blue as a boy can be
Then I'm walking in Memphis
Walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale
Walking in Memphis
But do I really feel the way I feel

10] Miami of Ohio [0-5]

RedHawk coach Mike Haywood has been out scored 204-58 in his first five games.

Haywood says his team is getting better each wee,k unlike the cross-state Cleveland Browns..

In fact by the end of the year, Haywood is fairly confident his team will be able to beat the Cleveland Browns of Ohio in the "Winless in Ohio Crooked River Beer Bowl," which will be played on an old barge set adrift in Lake Erie.

The Terrible 10 Of College Football: Week Two

Dan Boone — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:52:53 -0400

"The more tribes, the more they'll fight, and the better for us."

-Daniel Dravot From The Man Who Would Be King

The BCS is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.

Or so they seem to want us to believe.

We hear tales of unbreakable conference entanglements and beloved traditions. But big cities and low politicians have bundles of bucks invested in the bowl system.

The the big conferences and their CEO money mad University Presidents want to dip their beaks too.

We hear cries of the academic cost of a playoff even though all other levels of college football have playoff systems. Somehow, since the Division I-AA players struggle through, perhaps the scholar athletes of the SEC and Big 12 could try.

A college football playoff seems harder to solve than Afghanistan. The tribes and factions in that old, bloody land seem to get along like the Brady Bunch compared to the factions in college football aligned against a football playoff.

But we must protect the traditions, or so the BCS big boys say while lining their pockets with bundles of Ben Franklins.

Not a team in a BCS favored conference?

Sorry Bubba, fickle fate doesn't smile on you. But enjoy that bowl trip to Toronto.

The golden rule is—as it always has been—that those who have the gold make the rules.

So the BCS isn't ever going to loosen its gold-fingered grip on the lucrative television contract and advertisement money. Nor is it going to give up its old boy network connections with the big bowl boys and their politico lap dogs.

No matter how often Houston, Utah, Central Michigan, Boise State, and BYU bring it to the BCS bullies, they are not going to give us a playoff.

A good portion of the nation's schools are locked out, looking in at the BCS boys, and longing for a playoff.

And the BCS boys like it like that.

Divide and conquer; protect your conference traditions at all costs. Watch the factions fight for the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl and skip the big playoff picture.

They like the ratings high and the natives restless.

And they like that extra $10 million for a sweet sneaker Rose Bowl deal with Nike or Reebok.

All we can hope for is more embarrassing upsets and thus, more upoar.

1] Virginia [0-2]

Who would have thought Thomas Jefferson's old school would ever be ravaged by a bunch of angry Texas Christian Horned Frogs?

Adios Al Groh, fired coach walking.

2] Colorado [0-2]

Just days after dropping the opener to arch rival Colorado State, the Hawkins father and son duo were downed savagely by Toledo.

How does the Hawk hold his job?

And how did the Buffs get this bad?

3] Michigan State [1-1]

After that scalping by the Central Michigan Chippewas, it seems the Spartans were staring ahead at Charlie Weis, who lost two seconds somewhere in Ann Arbor and wants them back.

4] Tulane [0-2]

After being beaten 91-16 in the first two games, Tulane coach Bob Toledo said, "You get worn down."

General George Custer, a Big Ten man, said something to that effect, as Crazy Horse, Gall, and the boys were preparing their final Little Big Horn blitz package.

5] Rutgers (1-1)

Forget Howard, how did that home opener Rutgers Red Out work out against Cincinnati?

Back-to-back opening game losses hurt Greg Schiano's possible quest for Joe Paterno's Happy Valley throne.

6] Washington State [0-2]

Unlike Washington, which had the easy fix of firing Ty Willingham, there seems no easy route to respectability for the Cougars. They do seem to be getting very good at turnovers though, as they gave up the pigskin seven times against the team that was formerly known as the Rainbow Warriors of Hawaii.

The former head Rainbow, June Jones, awaits the Cougars with SMU this week.

7] Tie: Memphis [0-2] and New Mexico [0-2]

Outscored 85 to 16 the first two weeks, all the New Mexico Lobos can say is "Ouch!" And look out above because here comes the Air Force angry after a Minnesota loss.

Wild Tommy West is about to catch the Last Train out of Memphis and hear that lonesome last Tiger whistle blow in the night.

8] Notre Dame [1-1]

Did they finally carry Charlie Weis out of Ann Arbor, or is he still staring, like a frozen giant rabbit, at the scoreboard searching sadly for his two seconds and wondering, like Steve McQueen at the end of The Sand Pebbles, what the hell happened?

{Since BT liked that one, I'll use it twice.}

If Machiavellian Lou Holtz still picks Charlie Weis to win the national title this week, Weis will finally know that evil Lou sees son Skip Holtz on the South Bend sidelines next year.

And Weis will know that Lou really does giggle like Doctor Evil every night before he goes to sleep.

9} Oklahoma State [1-1]

Those tough old Cougars sure took those wild young Cowboys for a ride.

The Cowboys must feel much like Roy Munson did in the movie Kingpin when he awoke with his cheerful Cougar landlady.

10} Tie: Illinois [1-1] and Nevada [0-1]

Zook zoom zam that first week slam still stings in zookland.

When they lost contact with the mothership, Nevada was losing 24-0 to Idle at the half this week.

The Terrible Ten of College Football: Week One

Dan Boone — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 22:52:22 -0400

I see the bad moon arising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightnin'.
I see bad times today

The bad moon, like the '60s moon Credence Clearwater Revival sang about, sadly rose, savage and red, over a few football programs on opening day.

Its never good to start a fight, or a football season, with a viciousl drop-kicked in the privates, but so it goes for a few programs every season.

So let's round up a few of the usual suspects.

1] Illinois [0-1]

Zook got zonked from the Top 25.

The Juice got squeezed.

The Illini lost at a neutral site, as favorites, beaten by a Missouri Tiger squad that lost much to the graduation.

The Zooks got zapped and scored just about zip points in the opener of a season with many high hopes.

If the season goes like this much longer, the Zook will be gone from the Illini zone.

2] Virginia [0-1]

Last year it was, at least, understandable for Tommy Jefferson's Virginia Cavaliers to get thundered by the USC Trojans, but to get a bad beat-down from Bill and Mary at home is an entirely different breed of bad Cavalier.

It looks like its gonna be gone, gone, gone for Al Groh because he has tough customers in TCU, Southern Miss, and North Carolina looming.

And the rest of the ACC looming....I hear a train coming....for Al.

3] Duke [0-1]

Duke was gonna do it this year. Duke was gonna dance at a bowl. Maybe a nice bowl, a breakthrough and some big upsets along the merry way.

Then they let a sneaky Richmond spider bite 'em badly to begin the year. Bite 'em in their own home, too.

Ouch.

4] Nevada [0-1]

Wasn't that a bad egg the Wolfpack laid in South Bend?

Charlie Weis, lose to Michigan. We miss ya around here.

But we know you'll be back.

5] The State of New Mexico [0-2]

Billy the Kid country was outscored 62-12 to start out another dismal year in the desert.

Someone call Pat Garrett.

6] Florida [1-0]

Big bullies, picking on poor Charleston Southern.

The last team to shut down the Charleston offense like that was wicked Blackbeard and his harbor blockade.

Or was it the dreaded Coach Tecumseh Sherman and his vicious zone blitz?

Either way, some folks would think Blackbeard, Sherman and the Florida Gators are all bullies.

7] Temple [0-1]

Neither the Owls nor college football in general can ever catch Philadelphia Football fever. But losing a 10-point fourth quarter lead, at home, to cross-town Division 1-AA Villanova is a new low.

This loss was enough to make a Philly Sports fan jump off a free-beer-and-cheesesteak wagon.

8] NC State [0-1]

Scoring only one sad, lonely field goal, as a favorite, in your nationally-televised home opener against the 'Ole Ball Coach wasn't the plan.

Was it?

9] Idaho State [0-1]

Sure, a 50-3 licking at the paws of Arizona State hurts, but at least the collapsing Oklahoma Sooners loom.

10] Oklahoma [0-1]

If the Idaho State Bengals beat up on the Sooners, perhaps it's time for Big Game Bob to find a new moniker.

Beaten Down Bob? Battered Bob?

The Original Bad Game Bob?

But witchcraft, double, double toil and trouble for Bob might have had an unexpected malicious effect on the opening of the brand new Dallas Cowboys scoreboard-impaired palace.

The rumors of an angry Jessica Simpson cursing the Cowboys, and her failed romeo Romo, might have an unexpected nefarious blow-back on any big-name quarterbacks playing in Jerry Jones' new $1.5 billion playpen.

Poor Sam Bradford got buried under the whirlwind of wicked Simpson spurned.

Though, to be fair to the brown-eyed blond, quarterback play down in Dallas has been pretty poor, sans witchcraft, since Troy Aikman rode out of town.

Will Brett Favre Drive the Brad Childress Car Far?

Dan Boone — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:18:42 -0400

Baby you can drive my car
Yes I'm gonna be a star
Baby you can drive my car
And maybe I'll love you

"Speaking of whether I ever punched a coach — I never drove anyone from the airport, either." John Madden, from the New York Times NFL blog The Fifth Down, on Brad Childress being Brett's chauffeur.

It seems Snake Stabler had to drive himself after all, eh?

Isn't the Brad and Brett bonding all a bit weird? The whole coach picking up the aging Hamlet like QB at the airport thing?

Didn't it seem strange?

It seemed almost a type of gleeful groveling. I mean, did the head coach clean his house and give him a back rub later?

Does Brett get breakfast in bed served by Brad?

If Favre gets such favors what does one do for Adrian Peterson? Carrying him around like a Caesar of old one hopes for the team success rests on his healthy wheels.

And what of Sage who blew up from the southwest? Has he been reduced to a foot stool?

Isn't it hard to picture a smiling Bud Grant picking Fran Tarkenton up at the airport, grabbing his bags, and shuffling him, a month or so late, to training camp.

Poor Joe Kapp likely had to run from the airport to the field in full pads—and like it.

Bud Grant was laid back about training camp but surely so laid back that he was a chauffeur.

Though maybe he should have driven Tommy Kramer around from time to time.

And I wouldn't joke too much with Fran Tarkenton, either. That old purple player sounds like he wants to challenge Favre to a duel.

They are both southern men so why not? It's tradition after all.

What about a grinning Tom Landry, the fedora would fit a well dressed driver, picking up Roger Staubach at the airport and driving him about Dallas?

A big Landry smile and a "Welcome to Dallas Roger your gonna love it here! Lily is fixing your room up right now!"

That's what the Cowboys have those cheerleaders for, right?

Jim McMahon would have loved to scream "Hey Ditka easy with those damn bags and don't tell me you forgot my beer cooler again! Ditka you dupe!"

Be careful driving with Ditka at airports though because he once got a DUI leaving the airport after the team returned from a rare victory in San Francisco. The coach consumed most of the victory wine, sang songs of victory on the planes loud speaker, and later ,as he was being handcuffed beside the highway by the police, listened to his players beep, beep, beep, their horns as they drove on by.

One wonders if Ditka's mentor, Papa Bear Halas, ever played chauffeur for his prized players?

"Halas get your old ass over here I'm in a hurry!"

And wouldn't Terry Bradshaw have loved to give Chuck Noll an easy Cajun grin and say "Coach can you slow it down a little. Road rage isn't good for your blood pressure and can we grab some take out quick? The airplane service sure sucks. Come on Chuck give us a chuckle. Put on your happy face!"

Bill Walsh once dressed as a hotel porter to welcome his players to their super bowl week hotel so perhaps he would drive a quarterback about but who would he pick up first Joe Montana or Steve Young?

Maybe Dan Marino could get away with shouting the airport "Come on Shula you pick me up in this piece of junk and I don't want your boy carrying my bags. You do it...he's just clumsy. I bet you never picked up Unitas in a junker like this."

How about Phil Simms shouting "Where in the hell is the Tuna? I told him nine and I mean nine not nine fifteen!"

Maybe it will all work out in Minnesota.

Maybe Favre will be like a lost Lancelot arriving from the mythical mist at the nick of time to save his King from doom and gloom and finally bring a Super Bowl banner to the land of the lakes at last.

Or maybe it's all a purple haze in Brad's brain. Maybe lately things don't seem the same. Maybe Brad's just acting funny and he don't know why.

Favre will likely fail.

It's all in time for Brad Childress now. Nothing less then an NFC Championship game appearance, and maybe even a Minnesota win there, will stop Viking owner Zygi Wilf from taking what's left of his coach's scalp.

But Favre worked best under a highly disciplined, big boss man coach, like Mike Holmgren, who controlled his turnover making recklessness.

Can a chauffeur by a coach like that?

And the quarterback was, of course, much younger then. Now he seems older and perhaps slightly insane judging by all his waxing and waning in the media spotlight.

Or maybe Favre just hates the Green Bay Packers that much.

Or loves attention, and the money, that much.

Or maybe he is Mississippi mad.

Or a combination of all three.

Either way I see a slowed by age and injuries old quarterback, who missed most of camp, struggling with a new team and his own fading talent.

That dome turf is a hard, hard bounce.

And next year at this time a bruised, but retired, Favre will be sitting on his porch in Mississippi sticking pins in his Packer voodoo doll.

Favre will be working his best Cajun ju ju to jinx the Cheese-heads.

And if his mojo is really magical maybe Jay Cutler will go down next year and maybe the Chicago Bears will finally call him.

Maybe the Bears will bring him back from the swamps like the NFL's Freddy Kruger for one more sequel.

One more shot ought to do it.

And Brad?

He'll be driving himself somewhere.

Maybe Utah or Idaho to coach tight ends or quarterbacks after what is known as the Favre fiasco comes crashing down round him like the Hindenburg.

Brett will need a different driver to catch the plane back to Mississippi come cold January.

Maybe Bud Grant's available.

Beep beep'm beep beep yeah
Beep beep'm beep beep yeah
Beep beep'm beep beep yeah
Beep beep'm beep beep yeah

Philadelphia Freedom: Mike Vick and the Fickle Fans of Philly

Dan Boone — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:21:03 -0400

"I once spent a year in Philadelphia. I think it was a Sunday." W.C. Fields

Mike Vick made the right pick.

He made the right read because Philadelphia could be his kind of town.

Sure, a few of the of the fans will be frothing mad, but if he leads the Philadelphia Eagles to the promised land of the Lombardi Trophy, crazed Eagle fans will be wearing dog chains and noses while calling themselves the Philadelphia Beagles.

If Vick takes them all the way down that golden ring road, past the point where Roman Gabriel, Ron Jaworski, Randall Cunningham, or Donovan McNabb flew the Birds, and wins the big bowl for the city of Brotherly Love, rabid Eagle fans will adore him.

Shepherd pies will take on a whole new meaning as the Linc's parking lot will be filled with the aroma of baking beagles and roasting rottweilers.

Spitz on a spit anyone?

Poodle pie?

Some pregame ghastly, ghoulish, golden retriever goulash any one?

It's that kind of town.

It's the City of Brotherly Love, not the city of puppy love.

Life is cheap at the Linc, just ask the shade of the fan viciously stomped to death outside a Phillies game.

And it was worse at Veterans Stadium.

The upper deck of the vet was filled feral fans overflowing with beer and longing for their weekly dose of the old ultra violence.

For the sake of America's children during Christmas time, the media never showed what really happened to Santa in the Upper Decks of the old vet.

Sure, they showed the sad Santa snowball shower, but they didn't show the real ugliness. Sobbing Santa, stripped, scalped, and hanging by his beard and boots, tar and feathered, in the upper decks.

That's pure meanness, especially near Christmas time, but it was playoff fever.

That was the reality of the old upper decks.

Philadelphia is Buddy Ryan and body bags.

It's Ben Franklin's home being threatened with fury and fire by fans angry over the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act was a forefather of the personal seat license scam, but done on a national level.

But how could even the most savage fan want to burn out old Ben the friendly Founding Father who looked like a mixture of happy, long haired version of Buddy Ryan and a smart Samwise the Hobbit.

Only the vicious red coats, an orc, or a sect of Philadelphia sports fans would enjoying hanging a smart happy hobbit like Old Ben Franklin?

Philly fans have no mercy. As Mike Schmidt once said, "If you're associated with the Philadelphia media or town, you look for negatives. I don't know if there's something about their upbringing or they too many hoagies, or too much cream cheese."

The streets, as Mayor Frank Rizzo once said are safe in Philadelphia, it's the people who make them unsafe.

The fans want to win and win badly that's all. They would climb over stacks of dead dogs to get a Super Bowl ring.

The ring, not rover, is their thing.

Eagle quarterback Donovan McNabb, liked but not loved, by many Eagle fans will feel their wrath in his first three turnover game.

Can you hear them...there off in the distance:

"No More Picks! We want Vick!"

Then McNabb's momma will be mad. McNabb will look sad. The offense will be playing bad and Andy Reid will look mad.

It ain't easy being Andy either.

I mean the late defensive whiz Jim Johnson pulled Andy's ample hindquarters out of many a football fire and he's gone and he's not coming back.

Neither are safety Brian Dawkins who be bopped to Denver, CB Lito Shepherd shuffled off to Gotham, and the big middle linebacker Stewart Bradley is down for the year.

Johnson, of course, will be missed most. The defense won't be as good and if the Birds wings are clipped the boo birds will be on the long running Andy and Donovan Show.

Don't ya hear them in the autumnal distance the ugly boos?

Say week seven against the New York Giants new five-man front which will be giving the Eagles offense fits. McNabb, coming off a sub par performance in Washington the week before and with three turnovers already against the Giants will be feeling the heat.

Andy will be sweating.The Brothers Andrews and Peters offensive line show, so very tired in training camp so far, will be struggling with the G Man's blitz.

And the beer besotted fans will be howling.

"WE WANT VICK!" "WE WANT VICK!"

The mostly beer drunk of the barbarians will be belittling and battering visiting fans and showering the field with milk-bones.

No peace and love there. It won't be like Woodstock—more like Altamont.

McNabb might be crying to his Momma over his Chunky Soap.

Andy will get that panicked, about to be eaten by a giant sea creature, look of ancient, nameless terror.

The same look of confused fear he sometimes gets during crucial moments in key games when the clock is ticking and a big call is desperately needed.

It's not a good game face, especially in Philly.

Quarterback controversies are always ugly things but Andy's in Philadelphia's will be even more vicious then most.

It's just the nature of the Philadelphia sports fan beast.

"We Want Vick!" While the fans woof woof woof to who let the dogs out.

Be careful what you ask for you just might get it...and Andy picked Vick.

And how did Squeaky Fromme do in her 40? Maybe she can plug that nickel hole Lito left.

The Not So Great Eight:The NFL's Worst

Dan Boone — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 22:48:45 -0400

"Well, how'd you like to kiss my sister's black cat's ass?"

—Crazy Lee cornered, and out of luck, in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch.

Fans in a lot of NFL cities feel much the same way as old Crazy Lee.

Detroit Lions fans feel like they've been kissing the butt of Bobby Layne's black cat for a long, long time.

The league is all about parity but it seems the bad teams are really bad, and stay that way for decades.

Perhaps it's poor quarterback development, the coaching carousel, or just a lot of bad luck, but some teams are missing their mojo.

Let's look at the worst as the 2009 season rolls around.

1. Detroit Lions

The winless team stays on top. How could they not? The city of Detroit is down and if the Lions don't come around soon, neither will the fans.

The new glory boy quarterback couldn't beat Alabama or Georgia Tech in his final year in college. But the Lions also have to overcome a bad offensive line and a terrible defense.

On the bright side, they can't get any worse.

2. Pro Football in Missouri

Just when Rams' fans think things might be looking up in St. Louis they discovered that the new coach brought the dreaded Dick Curl from across the state to be his assistant head coach and QB coach.

Don't know the dynamic Curl? He's the mastermind who helped Herman Edwards develop that dazzling Kansas City Chiefs offense over the last lost decade or so.

Who can forget the offensive excitement the Herman and Dick show brought to Kansas City? Now it rolls into St. Louis.

3. Pro Football in Ohio

It was a photo finish between Missouri and Ohio, and just when it looked like Ohio had them by a Bengal whisker, Curl jumps on the Rams' horse and rides it to the finish line.

But the Bengals and Browns are still very, very bad.

Carson Palmer is back for the Bengals, but sadly Marvin Lewis is still calling the plays.

And the Browns still own them.

Meanwhile, in the land that Modell forgot, the sad second act of the New Jet Magic Man act opens.

Like one of those sad depression-era traveling shows, the busted Mangini Magic Man Road Show washed out of the big city lights of Gotham and began a long lonely trek across the country peddling his exposed wares...until he found a town that falls for the fixed faro wheel again.

4. Seattle Seahawks

Did Mike Holmgren strip away all the copper and marble when he left too? Did he leave the team totally bare?

When the big man headed south he left little of any value in owner Paul Allen's cupboard.

Then again Allen doesn't care. He has a lot of cupboards.

And yachts.

And neat toys.

Now he needs a new offense and defense.

5. Jacksonville Jaguars

Head Coach Jack Del Rio wants a chance to reload and rebuild.

If everything goes perfect, Jags fans can expect a very boring team, one just good enough to drop big games in the fourth quarter, and in a dream season lose an early playoff game.

That's in five or six years if everything clicks just right.

6. Washington Redskins

The Bill Cowher, Mike Holmgren, Mike Shanahan, Joe Gibbs Part Three and the shade of George Allen watch is always on in DC.

The coaching chair is always hot on the Beltway, but the talent is not.

To raise team morale owner Dan Snyder fired four guys that wash the Redskins towels on Mondays and two bewildered groundskeepers.

He then signed several over-priced free agents and raised ticket prices for fans so they can experience yet another utterly underwhelming season.

Where have you gone Jack Kent Cooke? The hog nation turns its sad snouts to you.

7. Denver Broncos

What is the record for a head coach getting the Fredo coaching firing boat ride from an angry owner?

Remember the Godfather?

Michael, Fredo, the fishing trip, boom, boom...If things keep going wrong in Denver owner Pat Bowlen might take Josh the "Wonder Boy" McDaniels on a week five boat ride.

Would that be a league record?

8. Oakland Raiders

Al Davis has been heard mumbling madly while walking the halls of Raider Land late at night.

I don't care what it's done, I want it. Dammit, I've lost my mojo and, dammit, I want it back! Biletnikoff go catch my mojo...bring it back.

What if the Super '70s Pittsburgh Steelers Had a Salary Cap?

Dan Boone — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:08:54 -0400

"So Chuck, " Art Rooney said through a cloud of cigar smoke. "Who do we keep: Lambert or Ham?"

The small room deep in the Pittsburgh Steelers complex was silent as the smoke softly swirled around the ceiling and the solemn Steeler brain trust tried to make the painful decisions needed to bring their squad under the NFL's salary cap.

It was the day after Christmas 1977 and for the second year in a row the Steelers had been sent packing from the playoffs early.

This year the Denver Broncos beat them 34-21 on Christmas Eve in front of a riotous Mile High crowd.

The year before the hated Oakland Raiders had beaten the injury ravaged Steelers 24-7.

The back to back Super Bowls seemed long ago and now they were headed to salary cap hell.

"Both damn it. Chief, I want both." Chuck Noll looked tired. "How do you choose?"

"Have a drink Chuck and we'll talk." Dan Rooney pushed a double shot of scotch towards his coach and sat down and sighed. "Damn I wish we had a shot at Dallas this year...we are built to beat Dallas."

"Morton's never gonna beat Landry. You can bet on that." The Chief, Art, puffed slowly on his cigar. "Take that one to the bank. Down to brass tacks though boys we are way over the salary cap and some folks face a hard goodbye. Windows slam shut fast nowadays it ain't the game it used to be."

"God I hate to tear this team apart. We got a few more years in us. Our window is still wide open. If we get healthy and get a little damn luck..." Noll knocked back his scotch.

"God damn nutty Raiders and those Texas bastards spending all that damn oil money tearing apart my team...damn them.."

Noll clenched and unclenched his fist thinking of the Raiders, the Oilers, and the Broncos. Damn Denver heading to his Super Bowl.

"So coach who do you keep? We signed Bradshaw, Franco, and Stallworth to long term deals and your triplets ate up a lot of cash. We can't keep everybody. The Raiders have that big offer on the table for Joe Greene and, damn I hate to say this, but I don't think we can match it.

"And Mean Joe, I love him, but his tires are getting some wear. Joe's over thirty but his knees are even older." Dan Rooney poured himself a shot. "I just don't know..."

"You asking me to let Joe Green go to the Raiders?" Noll rolled his eyes. "A Hall of fame player? The guy we built the defense, no the damn team around, go to the damn Raiders? All because Al Davis is acting like an ass? I can't lose Joe.

"Hell we already let the Oilers steal LC Greenwood. Rocky Bleier is going to the Packers. And Swann everybody knows soon as his contract is up he's heading to the West Coast."

"Yeah Swannie wants to be a Hollywood star or Governor of California someday. We can't keep him that bird wants to fly. He wants to be a Ram." Art Rooney looked at the roof the smoke slowly being sucked up by the fan. Greenwood wanted too much money. It was Greenwood or White you picked White."

"And the damn Raiders threw all that money at Blount. We had to keep Blount. He's shuts down half the field." Art Rooney scribbled some notes. "Fats Holmes is going too he become too much of a damn pain in the ass. And he's overweight but still wants a new contract."

"So you want to let Joe Green go and Fats? Whose gonna play tackle? And how do you pick between Lambert and Ham?" Noll light a cigarette. "And what about Webster?"

"Look we keep who we can keep. Blount isn't getting any younger and the bump rules aren't gonna do him any favors. We got the Cole kid we can bump around at linebacker and, I hate to say it, but Ham's been getting nicked up. Banged around.

"He's older then Lambert. I mean we keep Lambert it plugs a hole in the middle even if Greene goes. Then we wrap up Webster and maybe Wagner if the Bears don't grab him. And we are looking at Big John Dutton to fill in for Joe Greene."

"John Dutton for Joe Greene my ass." Noll knocked an ash from his smoke. "You can't replace a Joe Greene."

"The graveyards are full of irreplaceable men." The Chief said. "Everyone's time comes. Look we are doing our best but when the Dolphins made that silly offer to Wally Chambers the defensive tackle market went through the roof."

"Halas never would have matched that. But he still raged about it. Then Ditka, half drunk down in Dallas, made that remark in some bar room that the Papa Bear shouldn't plan to take it all with him. Told him to spend some of those man hole covers he tosses around like nickels." Art Rooney laughed. "Oh that pissed the old man off. He swears he'll never talk to Ditka again."

"Some folks can't adjust. Look at the Cardinals and the Colts. They just want money, they don't care about the fans. Why they stripped those clubs of all their talent. Jim Hart sent to Washington. Wehrli to the Raiders. Metcalf to the Seahawks.

"The Cardinals don't care about anything, next thing they will want out of town too." The Chief shook his head. "Strange times. And Halas isn't adjusting to it either. When he saw those Saint fans bragging that Walter Payton was going to be a Saint someday he raged and raged at them. "

"Halas will never pay Payton when his contracts up. Never." Art chuckled. "No way. Payton just might be a Saint..and maybe add a few years to Manning's career."

"And the Raiders how the hell do they have the money to sign Bert Jones, Wehrli, and go after Joe Greene? Somethings wrong here...." Noll face was red. "What's that maniac doing out there?"

"Shuffling money, he'll pay the piper eventually. Look he got mad at Stabler, Tatum, and Casper and sent them packing and that opened up some money." Dan paused. "How do you suppose the Snake likes New York?"

"I'm sure he loves the nightlife and hates the Giants offensive line." Art chuckled. "Al tried like hell to trade him to Green Bay but New York is cold enough."

"Still bert Jones got a cannon for an arm and they got Branch. And the rumor is Lydell Mitchell wants out of Philadelphia and Oakland wants him." Noll said "How the hell do we compete? The Raiders are loading up and we are losing everyone."

"We do the best we can Chuck, We build through the draft. Young, fast, players. Sure Sometimes the old warriors go somewhere else for a big final contract. Its a fact of life in this game now. Its not the same game we grew up in..."

Art fired up another cigar. "Times change we dance to the tune. That's it. Look at Madden he got so frustrated by the cap he quit. And don't be surprised if Shula takes a college job soon. Bear Bryant isn't looking too damn well down in Alabama these days..."

"And don't worry about Mitchell playing for the Raiders. The Eagles just about ruined him and who doesn't want out of Philly. The Raiders would be stupid to sign him. But you know Al he likes the big splash. That's Al...And hell be damn proud we got two Super Bowls and just maybe, with a little luck and a hot quarterback, we can steal another one..."

"Look at least Ken Anderson is gone to San Francisco. Out of the division. Paul Brown pays less then we do...Next year the vultures will strip Denver and Dallas, that's the way it happens now. we do the best we can."

Noll shook his head.

The phone rang startling him. His nerves were shot with the Denver loss and this salary cap mess.

Dan Rooney, looking grim, spoke quietly into it.

"Your not gonna believe this the god damn Cleveland Browns just signed Jack Lambert to a massive contract. Those Brown bastards."

Noll swore smashed the table with his fist.

Art Rooney blew smoke and softly said.

"Looks like its Ham for us..."

The Boys of Baseball: Let 'Em Roid, Let 'Em Rage

Dan Boone — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 12:49:57 -0400

So baseball players take steroids.

Who really cares?

Let 'em roid up, let 'em rage out, let 'em play ball.

After all they ain't airplane pilots, brain surgeons or heart docs.

If while flying your plane your pilot appears angry and muscle bound, walks about the aeroplane flexing his biceps and menacing passengers, then intentionally lands the plane roughly with a bad bounce, bounce, bounce then, my friend, find another air line outfit.

Your pilot just might be in the midst of a steroid rage.

Or worse yet be worried about the air traffic controllers being baked. Remember "Airplane" and air traffic controller Steve McCroskey:

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinking.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines.

Worry about that.

But if Big Papi is popping steroids who really cares? His job is to bash a ball with a bat not operate on a brain.

Let' em guzzle race horse 'roids, wicked whiskey, cheap beer, high grade cocaine, and piles of amphetamines.

Add some firearms, some high grade party girls, a hair band soundtrack and you have the 1986 New York Mets.

I mean what's the problem? They play a kid's game for millions.

And if your kid really needs a role model and he looks towards a baseball player show him an astronaut or a staff sergeant.

Not Manny Ramirez. The wheels still turning but the hamster in his head is long dead. Skip A Rod and Madonna and google a Space Shuttle Captain.

Baseball players should run, hit, and make reasonable attempts at stopping a bouncing ball from hitting the ground or leaving a dirt field to roll into a grass field.

A frothing frost giant could play first, a steroid soaked silver back could swing a telephone pole as a baseball, or a bad ass bug bear could fire hundred mile an hour fast balls for all most fans care as long as their team wins.

What's the harm except to the players bodies and minds?

Did the Romans care about their gladiators or the barbarians and beasts they battled?

No the Romans did not. We are based on Rome so let the baseballs go out like gladiators.

The steroid screaming is nothing but sound and fury signifying nothing to paraphrase an old sports fan.

If they wish to trade healthy years, or decades, on planet earth for a few home runs and a million dollar contract let them.

Inflated batting averages have their price.

Some prices are worse then man breasts and shrunken man parts.

But if an adult male wants man boobs to place some speed on his fast ball or hit another dozen home runs who are we to stop them? Its a free country if a man wants man boobs well then Bubba go get them.

Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett died at the Alamo for the right of Americans like Roger Clemens to buy boobs, be free, and for liberty!

Worry about the mad eyed Texas truck driver wheeling for twenty hours straight, flying on meth and rolling tons of deadly steel down the highway, going ninety miles an hour with Hank Williams ghost wailing sadly about a lost highway.

Worry about the men with their hands on nuclear weapons or man wiring your house swallowing magic mushrooms by the score.

Cops on steroids are more frightening then shortstops.

Most infielders don't pack heat.

Worry about the drugged ferry captain, the tipsy bus driver, the rage filled steroid crazed cop with the hand cannon, or the tired train engineer trying to stay awake.

Remember that old train tune?

Driving that train, high on cocaine,
Casey jones is ready, watch your speed.
Trouble ahead, trouble behind,
And you know that notion just crossed my mind.

Take out train add Yankees and change Jones to Stengel and the song doesn't remain the same.

Because no one would have cared if old Casey Stengel had been driving the Yankee train while high on cocaine.

Fear not though Yankee faith-full Casey was driving that Yankee train high no bourbon and beer. But so were most of those Yankees.

Every time he pitched Whitey Ford sweated out a pint of pure Jim Beam. The Mick and Billy were beer besotted.

But no one really cared. Certainly not Casey who enjoyed tipping a few.

Steroids of course are different. Booze degrades your physical abilities steroids enhances them.

But so what baseball is after all just a past-time, right?. They are, in the end, just entertainers. Well paid ones but entertainers nonetheless.

The baseball purists will say what of the records, what of the game?

When, if ever, was baseball ever pure.

Steroids and speed have been in baseball a long time. Drugs, drinking, and baseball make up American past-time stew.

Still the records stand.

Pittsburgh Pirate Dock Ellis pitched a no hitter under the influence of LSD did baseball drop that record since Dock thought Dick Nixon was the home plate umpire and he was pitching at Jimi Hendrix swinging his screaming electric guitar as a bat?

"The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn't. Sometimes I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him. I chewed my gum until it turned to powder.

I started having a crazy idea in the fourth inning that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire, and once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix, who to me was holding a guitar and swinging it over the plate.

They say I had about three to four fielding chances. I remember diving out of the way of a ball I thought was a line drive. I jumped, but the ball wasn't hit hard and never reached me." From LSD and the No Hitter.

I'd wager Dick Nixon had a short temper and a savage strike zone...and pitching to a player playing Purple Haze?

All the Pirates needed was White rabbit playing through the stadium sound system for the entire game. Well maybe it was running in Dock's head.

But did baseball throw out the Cincinnati records because Pete Rose had the Reds and the over 7 1/2 runs parlayed most games?

No, neither did they drop those Met records from the eighties. The eighties, like Randy "the Ram" Robinson said, rocked. Ask the Mets.

Sure there are casualties like the fictional Randy the Ram and Darren Daulton patiently awaiting the Mayan End Times and a Doctor Strange like astral blast off from this wicked old world in 2012.

Everything has its costs. Buy the tickets take the ride like the good Doctor Gonzo once wrote.

So if baseball players want to fuel up on whatever floats their boat and raises their level of play why not let them.

It is after all just a game, not real life.

Do fans care what substances their movie stars, singers, strippers, song writers, and writers take?

Or what their clowns, prostitutes, porn stars, and politicians take?

Baseball players are mere entertainers on a stage not people involved in real life and death.

Play Ball!

The key word being play.

Eleven Reasons College Football Is Better Than Pro Football

Dan Boone — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:48:16 -0400

Doesn't pro football make you groan?

Do you roll your eyes and moan when you hear the billionaire owners and millionaire players playing in taxpayer-built palaces threaten a "work stoppage"? How about when the TV talking head talks intently about the gathering dark clouds of an ominously looming labor contract?

If the players want to strike, let 'em go. Since free agency, the quality of the NFL play has dropped dramatically, and teams only retain the majority of their players for a few years.

No more Steel Curtains, Fearsome Foursomes, Monsters of the Midways, Doomsday Defenses, or Purple People Eaters, no the turnover is too great and good teams are torn asunder.

As B.B. King sang, "The thrill is gone." Okay, the thrill may not gone, but it's fading in comparison to college football.

Let's check out how the college game, despite the BCS playing a playoff prevent defense to keep its paws in the money pot, is better than the pros.

1. The Quarterback Can Be Tackled, Sacked, Rushed, Touched, and Brushed.

He is a player. He is one of 11 guys who plays football just like all the other players.

The NFL has protected its perfumed princes of the pocket to such a degree that it has taken away from the quality of the game.

2. College Players Seem To Enjoy the Game More.

The NFL has become the look-at-me league.

Players, making millions, dance after every simple tackle or catch.

Some players call press conferences to air individual complaints after each loss.

Some very well-paid players do not try on every play. They say it's a business, just a business.

Some players seem like they could care less.

In college football, the players at least try on every play.

3. College Coaches Have Personalities.

Steve Spurrier says some stupid, albeit often funny, things.

Lane Kiffin came out verbally swinging in Tennessee.

Joe Paterno can be a grumpy old man.

Some college coaches appear mad or sad, angry or happy, sarcastic or mean, but at least, most coaches show a bit of emotion, unlike the coaching drones on the NFL sidelines.

The NFL coachbots are afraid to say anything the least bit interesting or controversial. They just drop the same staid sound bites week after week after week. Maybe the heavy hand of Goodell fills them with fear.

Or perhaps, like in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, they have all just been transformed into drones.

Different coaching personalities make for a variety of offenses and defenses. The NFL is a copycat league where innovation is seldom seen anymore.

4. College Teams Do Not Switch Cities.

Sure, sometimes they switch conferences, but it's highly unlikely that Penn State will suddenly relocate to Los Angeles, or the Alabama Crimson Tide will move to Cleveland or USC to St. Louis.

Although, Joe Paterno would be a hit in La La Land.

5. Natural Rivalries.

The NCAA has messed this up a bit.

Penn State doesn't play Pittsburgh, and Nebraska doesn't play Oklahoma every year, but generally, teams play their natural rivals annually.

Which begs the question, why doesn't the NFL have the New York Jets and Giants play every year? Why not these matchups: the 49ers and Raiders, the Steelers and Eagles, the Cowboys and Texans, and the Chiefs and Rams?

Well, okay, an annual Rams and Chiefs game would actually be viewed as cruel and unusual punishment in Missouri.

6. College Football Has No Greed-Driven Personal Seat License Scams or a Preseason with Full-Priced Games.

The personal seat license is perhaps the most vile, greedy creature ever spawned in the history of sport.

And the NFL and its twisted accountants bore the beast.

Then they added the full-priced preseason tickets to twist the financial price even further.

Have they no shame?

Nope, guess not.

Washington Redskins owner Danny Snyder just laid off four more groundskeepers to prove he is suffering in this economy, too.

7. Giant Egos.

The NFL seems overwhelmed with monster me-me-me ego men.

Look at Terrell Owens.

Look at Brett Favre playing "Mississippi Hamlet."

To quarterback or not to quarterback, that is the question?

Look at Ray Lewis doing the look-at-me pregame dance.

No, on second thought, don't look.

8. Tradition and Atmosphere.

College football has the more exciting traditions and rivalry games.

Since free agency has made the NFL a mercenary league, what little tradition some teams had has disappeared.

It's gone in a puff of smoke. It's musical chairs year after year. Players are as interchangeable as cheap car parts.

College football has mostly outdoor stadiums with better tailgating, student sections, bands, and mad-eyed mascots.

9. Defense.

In college football, defense is still allowed.

In the NFL, the quarterback is untouchable. The receivers are "unbumpable" and protected. Due to liberal holding rules, it's mostly wrestling on the line of scrimmage.

The NFL has become pass, pass, pass, and protect the glamor boy at quarterback at all costs.

Scoring, the NFL bigwigs believe, brings ratings which brings money, which makes them happy.

Soon, the offense will have 14 players, and the defense only 10. And the quarterback will have armed bodyguards.

10. Cheerleaders.

I've to go with the college cheerleaders. Some of the NFL ladies, while obviously striking, have had almost as much plastic surgery as Cowboy owner Jerry Jones.

Natural girls, like natural grass, are much better.

Some extremely cheap NFL teams, like the tightwad Chicago Bears banning the Honey Bears, have eliminated cheerleaders altogether.

Shame on them.

11. Rabid Refereeing.

Sometimes, in college football, some refereeing crews are extremely biased towards one particular team.

Sometimes, some crews, who work for conferences, seem determined to give one team a victory in order to better the conference's overall postseason hopes.

Some college crews just like home cooking.

Still, college football officiating is generally better than the NFL, where the zebras sometimes seem to want to be the stars of the game.

How many NFL games are interrupted by a constant flow of penalties?

How many times do you see the zebra more than you see the team's stars?

They want their faces on television, too. They want control of the game.

After all, the game is about the refs and the rules.

So what does the NFL do?

It adds more rules.

With more rules to protect the quarterback, the NFL gave the zebras a chance to make more game-making or game-breaking plays.

What fan wants the zebra to be the star of the show?

Final Perspective

If the NCAA could only bury the BCS, shed the greedy ties that bind conferences to bowls, and institute a playoff, then it would stand head and shoulders above the NFL.

So, come on boys, how about a playoff?

This playoff's ratings would make the NFL blush?

Life'll Kill Ya: Bizarre Boxing Deaths

Dan Boone — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:56:00 -0400

From the President of the United States
To the lowliest rock and roll star
The doctor is in and he'll see you now
He don't care who you are
Some get the awful, awful diseases
Some get the knife, some get the gun
Some get to die in their sleep
At the age of a hundred and one

Life'll kill ya
That's what I said
Life'll kill ya
Then you'll be dead
Life'll find ya
Wherever you go
Requiescat in pace
That's all she wrote

-Warren Zevon, "Life'll Kill Ya"

They go in threes, the old sages say.

Dead celebrities, fallen rock stars, debauched Hollywood stars, crooked politicians, aging sports icons; all parts of our celebrity obsessed culture, but a celeb's strange demise always lights the fire of the public, ravenous for every bit of gossip about their celluloid heroes.

Dirty laundry. Death voyeurs. Long dirt naps.

And of course everyone has that same human feeling, or failing, that I'm damn glad I wasn't doomed to die today.

Hang on to that ticket, sonny, don't worry, everyone's Styx is stewing. The train is coming round the bend for sure; just some tickets are punched quicker, and stranger, than others.

Boxing had its trio of "gone too soon stars" in the last few weeks.

Alexis Arguello, the man who battled the Hawk Pryor, died by suicide in Nicaragua.

But life and politics along the old Mosquito Coast can be nasty, brutish, and short, so it's whispered the shot through the heart which slew the Explosive Thin man might have been fired by another party, disenchanted with Arguello's politics.

Like the Ring, Revolutions are known to eat their own.

Arturo Gatti certainly met the reaper in a strange way. The fighter was found strangled by his wife's purse strings in a hotel room in Brazil.

The 21-year-old widow says suicide. The authorities say she is a Brazilian Black Widow. The man who gave us so many memorable fights checked out in a bizarre way, and when the police in Pernambuco put the puzzle together, it will surely get stranger.

Vernon Forrest, a champion who gave so very much back to his community, was in the end slain by members of it.

Robbed while fixing a flat, the fighter made a fatal choice and followed his thief down a dark alley. Gun in hand, Forrest chased the cretins.

Gunfire sliced the shadows of a dark alley. The Champ, Vernon the Viper, down and dead in an Atlanta alley. Eight shots in the back and head.

More than any other sport, boxers have met bizarre and savage ends.

The great Stanley Ketchel, perhaps the best middle weight of them all, was laid low by a single .22 slug in his back. Fired, as a sports writer said, by the common law husband of the women cooking him breakfast.

Ketchel had grown up hard and mean. Fighting in Montana mining towns and brutal western saloons before hard-eyed men with guns, but the "Michigan Assassin" was assassinated in Missouri, shot dead over his eggs at 24.

Both husband and wife were convicted of Ketchel's murder and many considered it a premeditated robbery, not a crime of passion. Either way, Ketchel was down for the count, dying, at last, on a final desperate train trip to find a miracle worker of a doctor to save the champ.

Harry Greb, the violent Human Windmill, was one of the greatest fighters in history. A middleweight, he was the only man to ever beat heavyweight champ Gene Tunney.

And he beat him viciously leaving, Tunney a bloody mess. Greb was a vicious attacking fighter who knew every nasty trick in the deep, dark black book of boxing and enjoyed using them. Combined with superior defensive skills that rendered him near impossible to hit, Greb truly was a man-eating windmill in the ring.

The frightening thing was that Greb accomplished all of his many feats, despite being blind in one eye after getting badly thumbed early in his career.

His blindness was only revealed after Greb died at the age of 32 in an Atlantic City hospital, due to complications from an anesthetic during surgery to repair his nose, damaged in his many fights and car crashes.

Planes take their toll on not only rock stars, but also athletes. Boxers are no exception.

Marcel Cerdan was a beloved French middleweight who won the title from Tony Zale and lost it to the Raging Bull, Jake LaMotta.

While Cerdan trained for the rematch with LaMotta, he decided to hop a plane from Paris to New York to hear his mistress Edith Piaf sing.

The plane went down in the Azores and the married famous fighter's ill-fated fling with the saucy songbird became world headlines, and later spawned a movie starring Cerdan's son as his own father.

Rocky Marciano retired as the only undefeated heavyweight champ and is considered one of the greatest heavyweights of all time.

The Rock, always on the lookout for more bucks, began a second career as a speaker and VIP for special appearances. This career would doom the man from Massachusetts.

On the eve of his 46th birthday, after a stormy fight with his wife, the Rock decided to book a late flight to Iowa to make a dinner appearance.

The weather was bad, it was night, and worse yet, his Cessna pilot had very little flight time and almost none at night.

The pilot's inexperience and Rocky's rush to Iowa would be a fatal combination. Low on fuel, confused by a night flight in stormy weather, the poorly prepared young pilot tried to make an emergency landing at a small airfield in Newton, Iowa.

The plane came up two miles short and was shattered by a tree. The Rock, who never lost his head in the ring, was decapitated and killed instantly.

Argentine heavyweight contender Oscar Bonavena, called "Ringo" because of his Beatles haircut, fought most of the great heavyweights of the Golden Era of the sixties and seventies.

Oscar also liked the ladies.

One lady in particular, named Sally Burgess, Ringo especially liked: 26 years older than the fighter, and the wife of Joe Conforte, who owned the famous Mustang Ranch in Reno, Nevada.

Ringo lived and trained, if eating, drinking and whoring are considered training, on the grounds around the brothel and circulated among the "guests as a celebrity greeter and meeter."

Sally soon become his manager and Bonavena bragged that soon the Mustang ranch would be his.

Mister Conforte begged to differ and banned Bonavena and Sally.

Bonavena raged and returned, roaring at the locked gate.

A shot rang out. A 30.06 shot straight through the heart dropped Ringo dead. The Argentine Strong Boy had a .38 in his boot, a bullet in his heart, and the Big Sleep in Argentina ahead.

A Mustang Ranch guard was convicted and served 15 months for the slaying.

Sally went back to Joe. Ringo was shipped south and laid in state as 150,000 sad-eyed Argentines shuffled passed the pugilists remains.

Then there's Battling Siki, the colorful Senegalese light heavyweight champion and French veteran of the Great War who loved to carousel the night clubs of Paris and New York with his string of women, a pair of revolvers, and two massive Great Danes trained to dance to the sound of their owners gunfire.

Battling Siki's last battle was fought in mysterious circumstances. After leaving a Gotham speakeasy, staggering drunk, Siki was found dead at 28 in an alley, two bullets in his back.

Many of the doomed fighters' ends were sudden and violent.

The last man to fight Muhammad Ali, troubled Trevor Berbick, was beaten to death with a lead pipe by his nephew and two friends in his native Jamaica.

Sergei Kobozev, the Russian Cruiserweight, was murdered by Russian mobsters in New York and buried in New Jersey.

Al "Bummy" Davis grew up on the same tough Brownsville streets that formed the infamous Murder Incorporated in the 1940's. Davis, who made the Ring Magazine list of the 100 greatest punchers of all time, was murdered when attempting to stop four armed men from robbing a bar he was drinking in.

Bummy took three bullets in the bar and was chasing the gunman down the street when the fourth and fatal one found the fighter.

And what of the mystery of the Night Train, Sonny Liston?

Did the Night Train check out from an accidental overdose? An intentional overdose? Or a hot shot of heroin stuck in his arm by men sent to murder him?

Liston was the last heavyweight champ in deep with mobsters and their seedy ilk. The Bear was also rumored to be involved with some very bad things in Las Vegas.

So what happened to the Night Train?

We will never know.

But his epitaph, carved in his tombstone, speaks for all those who checked out early.

"A Man."

Penn State, Paterno, and Pitt: How Did They Miss on So Many Pennsylvania QB's?

Dan Boone — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:18:34 -0400

Its 1943 and the Soviets are surrounding the beleaguered German Sixth Army at Stalingrad. US Marines are locked in bloody combat with Japanese Imperial troops on Guadalcanal and Penn State Head Coach Joe Paterno is tired.

Traveling, recruiting, old coach type of tired. The kind of traveling tired that's worse then old dog tired.

Old Joe has put many miles on his 1932 Ford Roadster trying to land his man but he just can't get Johnny Lujack, the great high school passer from Western Pennsylvania, to change his mind.

Can't Johnny just say no to Notre Dame and come play for Paterno at Penn State? After all Joe just took Johnny to see that new hot Hollywood picture called Casablanca and the kid really liked it.

Old Joe even patted the boy on the back as they left the theater and did his best Brooklyn Bogart growling.

Johnny, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

But it wasn't to be. Johnny went to Notre Dame and in the decades to come other great quarterbacks left just like Lujack.

Its a list that one can see at the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana, Joe Namath, George Blanda, and Jim Kelly.

Only the Pennsylvania high school all-century team has johnny Unitas as a backup and hall of famers Namath, Kelly, and Blanda on the bench with mere honorable mentions.

Other quality NFL players also fled the state including Jeff Hosteteler, Rich Gannon, Steve Bono, and Don Strock also struck camp and left the Keystone State.

The only Hall of famer to stay in state was Pitt's Dan Marino. Perhaps Paterno's best pair of quarterbacks, Kerry Collins and Chuck Fusina, were both Pennsylvania products.

But why did so many leave during Pennslyvania's football's golden years?

The years when the Pennsylvania steel factories and coal mines were booming was the prime time for Pennsylvania players. Today, with an aging population and young folks fleeing the economically depressed state in droves, the football pickings have become a bit slimmer.

But imagine Namath or Montana playing for Paterno?

How did Paterno, Penn State and the Pitt Panthers, miss on so many?

The lure of the Golden Dome was harder to resist then. Notre Dame grabbed Johnny Lujack and he won the Heisman. The Golden Domers gobbled up Joe Montana and, despite being misused by coach Dan Devine, gave the Irish a title during his tenure.

Joe Namath was lured south by a bear trap. A Bear Bryant trap that is. The Old Bear wanted a strong-armed QB to stretch the SEC. It was time to win with defense and the deep ball, so the Bear sent assistant Howard Schellenberger north to bring Namath south.

It's said Bear told his faithful assistant if you don't bring that boy back with you, well, you best keep on driving right to your next job. So Schnellenberger picked up Namath and Pennsylvania and drove south.

Slowly. And he kept a close eye on his recruit so he would not talk on the phone or in person to any other coaches or recruiters.

The wrath of the Bear was a fearsome thing, they say. A bourbon-soaked hurricane wind blown up from the hard-scrabble Depression0era fields of Moro Bottom Arkansas, but this time the hurricane could blow out to sea, for his man Schnellenberger brought him his Pennsylvania QB.

Namath left the north and headed south and never came back, except for a brief but famous Broadway run.

But what about the others?

Unitas was passed over by the Irish, ignored by Penn State, and fail to get into Pitt, so when Louisville offered, Johnny U jumped.

Blanda, a coal miner's boy, also went to the Bluegrass State and ended up playing for Bear Bryant. The young Bear, before Texas A'm and way before Bama, awed the young Blanda, who thought of Bryant, "This is what God must look like."

Quite an impression, and Blanda had two impressive seasons under Bryant.

Joe Paterno saw Jim Kelly's shoulders and thought he make a helluva linebacker. Kelly saw Miami and thought of sunny days, center snaps, and string bikinis, so the young man went south.

All the way to South Beach. Then on to Buffalo and Canton.

But don't blame Joe over much. Not everyone hits homers every time at bat and the old man has had his share of moon shots.

Still, imagine the Nittany Lions with some of these superstar names. Imagine a deep strike offense to go with all those great defenses and running backs.

If Penn State, and Pitt save Marino, has lacked one thing over the decades, it's consistent superior quarterbacking.

As a position that's priceless and with all the gold laying around their home states, one would think Penn State and Pitt would have made more big strikes instead of striking out so often.

But it was hard to compete with the Golden Dome, especially during its glory days of yore.

And it was hard to beat the Bear, on the field or in recruiting.

But if one would like to hear old Joe snap and growl one more time, ask the old boy how come Bear Bryant coached more NFL Hall of Fame Pennsylvania quarterbacks then he did.

Or perhaps not. For the press be not a favorite of Old Joe anymore, even though he used to share his stories and bourbon with them on Friday nights many moons ago.

Times change.

And as for the Johhny Lujack and Joe Casablanca tale?

Joe's old, but he's not that old.

Is he?

Don't believe everything you read.

Or hear.

But when Rick, Llsa, Captain Renault, and Sam were sipping drinks in the sand and Johnny Lujack was lighting up the football fields, well old Joe was just sweet 16 then.

Time sure does go by.

The NFL Sunday Ticket Tango: Greed Is Good

Dan Boone — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:52:53 -0400

"Greed is good." Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's Wall Street; still a motto in many parts of the land.

In these tough economic times, one would think businesses based on customers' leisure time habits would cater their products to retain their customer base.

Not so with the NFL and its long time partner DIRECTV. The NFL Sunday Ticket is around a salty $270 bucks. To get the high definition DIRECTV, it's another $10 a month on your bill.

But the big kick in the butt is some grotesque feature called Super Fan, which must be bought for another Benjamin to be able to view NFL games in high definition.

If one doesn't fall for Super Fan, and has HD definition DIRECTV and the Sunday ticket, my understanding is that your regular satellite channels carrying NFL games will be as scrambled as Lindsay Lohan's brains after morning mojito No. 5.

Doesn't the NFL and DIRECTV make enough money from fans?

The NFL is talking tough economic times all the while pushing $10,000 personal seat licenses and $10 beers. Roger Goodell rolled back his raise; fear not—me thinks he is getting by—and Washington Redskin Danny Snyder had 15 low level staffers thrown in the muddy Potomac, but I suspect those are just NFL flares fired to warn the Players Association the next contract won't be a piece of ice cream cake.

On Goodell's part anyway, Danny Snyder might just get his kicks by acting like a poor Potomac version of bullying Napoleon on a bad day. No scratch that Napoleon was much better at strategy and picking personnel then Snyder will ever be.

And Bonaparte won some big ball games a few times.

But back to DIRECTV and the NFL Gods. Why the extra costs at a time when most customers are cutting costs? Why add to the burden when many NFL fans are trying to lighten their economic load?

The NFL made more then many third world countries last year. The NFL is more stable than Honduras. The owners are billionaires, the players millionaires, and most of their play pens were paid for by tax payers, so why turn the screws on fans with vile inventions like the hideous Super Fan?

The NFL and DIRECTV recently signed a lucrative extension until the year 2014. Unless the Mayans are right and the world ends in fire, ice and space rock spice on the Winter Solstice of 2012, they both will make a bundle of bucks on that deal.

How much is enough?

After 2014, if the NFL doesn't leverage its NFL Network into a pay-per-view package with a $99 Super Bowl Pay-Per-View Special by then, DIRECTV will continue with its coverage.

But by 2014, the Oakland Raiders and Washington Redskins will likely have had seven new head coaches a piece and the Bengals will still be getting arrested. Al Davis will be confined in a cage like mad Ezra Pound, the Rams will be back in La La Land, and Michael Jackson's funeral games, hopefully, will have finally ended. Jimmy Buffett will be singing fins, fins, fins brought to you via Viagra from a walker at halftime of Fish games. Jessica and Jerry will have both dumped Tony and TO will still be unhappy somewhere. Brett Favre will be considering a come back. Tom Brady will have bad knees and a worse divorce. Peyton Manning will be winding up his career unhappily in Carolina and on cheap Burger King commercials chasing that creepy King around a french fried filled football field.

And of course all NFL quarterbacks will be protected in the pocket by armed Blackwater guards in expensive shades and carrying orders to kneecap any defender that gets within five yards of the perfumed Princes of the pocket.

Things change, but fans are the constant that keeps the massive economic wheels of the NFL spinning along.

Still they keep churning out ways to grind out more dollars. The obscenity that is the Personal Seat License, perhaps the single worse invention ever in sports, outrageous game day prices and parking, tax payer built palaces, $25 hats, $100 jerseys, $10 beers, so why do they have grab an extra Benjamin to watch games in HD?

At long last have they shame? Can the beast's appetites never be abated? Must it feed, feed, feed and want more, more, more?

Even Grendel was never this greedy. But that old boy had issues and could not beat the Vikings. The NFL is thriving, driving, and doesn't live, insane and lonely, in a cave with its mean Monster Momma.

Don't get me wrong; I love the Sunday Ticket. It's one of the world's greatest inventions, right up there with beer in a 30 pack, the Supermodel, the 46 Defense, the wheel, fire, free Internet porn, and the written word.

All things the Founding Fathers, but particularly the Buddy Ryan look alike Benjamin Franklin, loved or would have loved if he lived a bit longer.

The NFL and DIRECTV should give something back to the fans or at the very least not give something high, hard, and unwanted to the fans.

Throw the fans a bone baby, roll back the beast, pin back the price, and slay the Superfan.

Abner Doubleday: Father of Baseball, Hero of Gettysburg

Dan Boone — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:43:41 -0400

Abner Doubleday is remembered, if recalled at all anymore, as the "inventor" of baseball. Baseball myth says Doubleday invented baseball by tossing a ball around old Elihu Phinney's cow pasture in Cooperstown, NY in 1839.

That might be mere myth but what Doubleday, Major General Doubleday, did a bit south of Cooperstown on a very hot day in July in 1863 is pure, blood soaked fact.

It's a bloody tale beyond baseball lore. It's a story of war torn wheat-fields and gore covered orchids, not one of peaceful cow pastures and idle summer days at play.

On July 1, 1863 Robert E Lee's battle tested Army of Northern Virginia was invading the North to threaten Washington, destroy the Army of the Potomac, and end the American Civil War.

With the audacious Lee at its head, the Southerners had hardly ever lost and seldom even been stalemated. But now Lee's Army was strung out and its forward elements had stumbled, searching for shoes, into a tiny crossroads Pennsylvania town called Gettysburg.

The Rebels had also stumbled into the forward portion of the Army of the Potomac. The Southerners not only stumbled into the Union men they had struck them hard, struck the Yankees so hard they almost shattered.

The Union commander, General John Reynolds, was dead, shot by a sniper, on the field. His corps, which had held five violent hours despite being outnumbered two to one, was badly bloodied and in retreat through the steaming streets of Gettysburg.

The Rebel yell and blood was in the air. The Union army could be destroyed piecemeal; first the retreating corps then the rest of the Army of the Potomac as it marched in during the next days.

Washington and the War was there for the taking. Victory was just over those rolling green Pennsylvania hills.

The Union commander, replacing the dead General Reynolds, had never won much battle field acclaim before but now would be his finest hour.

General Abner Doubleday, mostly known as a slow moving, methodical general, replaced his commander and immediately stopped the retreat from becoming a rout. The man, who later famous for baseball, picked the perfect spot to make his stand; he reformed his tired men on the high ground just outside of town.

Doubleday rallied the remnants of his Corps on a place called Cemetery Hill.

It would prove to be very valuable real estate because the high ground commanded the battlefield. That high ground that would haunt the South throughout history.

Despite having only a third of his men able for duty Doubleday held the high ground south of town all night and until the next day when the rest of the Union Army arrived to reinforce that precious, precarious position.

The Confederates would run up a big butchers bill trying to take that valuable ground in the next two days. They never would. The high ground would hold.

The Union would hold.

The Southern high tide would roll slowly back until Appomattox.

The outnumbered Union Corps five hour stand blunted the always aggressive confederates early. It blunted the Confederates enough under Doubleday's able leadership the bloodied Union men were able to retreat through the streets of Gettysburg and hold the hot high ground south of town all night long.

It was Doubleday's finest hour.

The General should be remembered more for his stand, a stand that perhaps saved the Union, then for baseball but celebrity is a bizarre thing. Doubleday, disliked by his Commander General Meade, never received much credit for his actions on the First Day of the Battle of Gettysburg.

In fact at first he got only grief from Meade for his misunderstood actions that day. Misinformed Meade believed Doubleday's men crumbled and he replaced him with a subordinate.

When the fog of war cleared Doubleday was promoted for his actions. But events on the bloody second and third days at Gettysburg, especially Pickett's doomed Charge, overshadowed Doubleday's actions on the first day of the epic battle.

But Doubleday did become famous for baseball. A sport he may, or may not, have invented. As John Ford wrote in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, "When the legend becomes fact print the legend.", so the baseball foundation myth has become an American legend.

The Doubleday baseball lore might be more of of a myth but the bloody facts of Gettysburg are built on broken bones, bullets, and blood.

On the second day at Gettysburg Doubleday was wounded. The General recovered to serve through out the war, including accompanying President Lincoln from Washington to Gettysburg for his famous Gettysburg Address.

Perhaps when the pitches fly and the beers flow this Fourth of July one can toast the man who might have invented the National Pastime but who did make a big home-stand on a very hot day near the Fourth of July a long, long time ago.

The Mike Ditka Coaching Tree

Dan Boone — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:00:07 -0400

This article will be short and it will be sad.

It is the forlorn tale of a lonely tree that died.

Or never was planted.

Or watered.

Or worse, a tree that never was.

What's sadder then a tree that never was?

Where are the Ditka Trees?

Coaching trees are all the rage. The double Bills, Parcells and Walsh, have a weed-like, much talked about, coaching tree intertwined around the league. So does Sid Gilliam and Tom Landry.

Ditka was a Landry tree. Ditka was also a George Halas tree. Ditka's offense moved much like a redwood tree.

Papa Bear Halas wasn't much of a tree planter either. His best tree, George Allen, stormed out of the Second City like an angry ent after a drunk orc. And Allen took his defense with him.

Allen had a long, strange trip as a tree. From the Over the Hill Gang in DC battling Tom Landry and his Ditka tree in Dallas, only to be eventually doused to death in Long Beach by his players during a Tuna tree victory celebration.

The old coach caught cold and died. Slain by a Tuna celebration. Life sure is strange: an old Redskin slain by an insipid celebration inspired by a traveling Giant Cowboy man.

The poor Indians always get screwed by the Cowboys in the end.

If someone would have doused George Halas with freezing water, he might have killed them. Or had the Chicago Outfit off them.

Remember Al Capone? Scarface came to Bears games and Halas liked his bootleg booze.

At least Halas would have punched them in the mouth for a silly shower. Then he would have fired them or traded them to Philadelphia like he did with his Ditka tree.

Even Big Doug Atkins in the depths of a wicked Tennessee whiskey binge wasn't that brave or depraved. Not to pour water on Papa Bear, no Atkins packed a pistol and was 6'9 and three hundred pounds so he was not scared of Halas, no Atkins just didn't want to go to Philadelphia like the transplanted Ditka tree did.

Big Doug went to the Big Easy instead.

But back to the Ditka trees.

That crop looks like old Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl days. Yes, the water, sound and fury flies, Tom Joad tangos, but no tree grows.

Not one.

No he can't have Jeff Fisher. He's a Buddy Ryan boy through and through. Fisher followed Ryan all around like a favorite hound. Buddy gave him a bone and let him coach defense for him.

Mike Singletary you say? The Fat Man, Buddy, liked him better than Rex and Rob. Well at least better then Rob.

No Ditka coached the offense, except for McMahon's many anger inspiring audibles, and Ryan coached the defense.

At least until Buddy realized he, like WC Fields, would rather be in Philadelphia. So Buddy left and took Jeff Fisher and his twins with him.

Ditka got a pair of Tobins, Bill and Vince, to replace Buddy. The Tobins couldn't plant trees in Chicago either. Maybe its the weather or the owners. Maybe it's both.

I mean anyone in Chicago ever see an Abe Gibron tree? It be a big tree, a laughing redwood. A Dave Wannstedt development?

Despite Ex-General Manager Bill Tobin recently saying he built the Super Bowl Bears a quick check will show Jim Finks drafted 21 of the 22 players who started in the Bears celebrated Super Bowl victory.

Jim Finks could plant trees. Jim Finks could pick players. Jim Finks took his green thumb and ran from the roar of Papa Bear when Ditka came in the door.

But back to Ditka as a bad Paul Bunyan.

Ditka not only couldn't plant a coaching tree, he couldn't pick a quarterback either. Ditka paved over players and made them parking lots. Just ask Mike Tomczak's shrink.

But maybe Jim McMahon will someday coach Brigham Young and the tiny Ditka acorn will become a great oak.

A Ditka tree will grow and Jimmy Mac will grin and say Da Coach taught me everything I know. And the Devil will have ice skates because Hell will have frozen over.

Maybe Matt Suhey will replace Joe Paterno? Or Steve "Mongo" McMichael will leap into Lovie's vacated seat and with bad whiskey on his kerosene breath bring back the old Bears.

Perhaps Ricky Williams, who Da Coach picked in New Orleans, will be a tree, or at least a bud, for his old coach someday.

Or just to tick of Buddy Ryan back in Kentucky, Ditka can claim him and his boys as part of his coaching tree.

Or call him part of his coaching poison ivy plant. Buddy would be some type of wicked Oklahoma weed that bites and barks.

Still when Jim Harbaugh struggling at Stanford is your only tepid tree; it's enough to call the Arbor Day Foundation.

Plant a tree for Da Coach.

Because Ditka didn't have a green thumb.

Not like all these Belichick saplings springing up everywhere.

Maybe,in the end, Ditka was a tree planting type of person. The coach wasn't a tree hugger no the coach was a lumberjack.

Chop, chop, chop.

Timber!

NFL Wars: The League Duels Delaware On Gambling

Dan Boone — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:10:45 -0400

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. ~ Mark Twain

The NFL, like Clemenza in The Godfather, is going to the mattresses with Delaware over sports gambling.

Clemenza used a sawed-off shotgun but the NFL has more wicked weapons with its venal lobbyists and vicious lawyers.

Cranky Clemenza had his faults of course, but unlike the NFL he wasn't a hypocrite; jihading dear old Delaware, the first state, on the same week the league jumped into the lottery ticket market.

Believe me Bubba, a football bet isn't a great investment, then again what is these days, but trying your luck on a lottery ticket win is south of a slots spin.

The lottery is not far from a fixed faro wheel in the old West, except a smiling Doctor Henry Holliday isn't staring back at ye with a stacked pair of Smith and Wessons.

Still its your choice to roll the dice. Roll those bones with General Motors stock, a slot spin, or the Ravens plus four. Roll, its your right. America used a lottery to fund the revolution and to raise money for a broke Thomas Jefferson.

But today, as old bitter Bierce once said, the gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.

So the big billion buck boys that back, and own, the NFL can play the Hedge Fund Wheel of Fortune with our banks and mortgages, but still shake a disgusted finger if the great unwashed wish to wager on a football game.

Play that 401K away, but no action on Sunday football showdowns.

The rub here be that the NFL feels the need to try to legislate morals to the fans that feed its flames. The folks that pay the way for the stars of today.

So if Delaware's citizens, Governor, and government say they want sports betting, who is Roger Goodell to say no you can't do that?

Is Roger our Big Brother? Is the NFL more powerful then Delaware?

In most civilized nations, gambling on sports, and elections for that matter, is legal and taxed. Does the NFL think we be such soft brains, so feeble-minded, that a sports betting parlor at a Dover race track would lead to mass fixing of NFL games?

The integrity of the game is at stake Goodell will say, but gambling on games is available in Las Vegas and on countless Caribbean based Internet accounts, and the game survives.

So why not legalize and tax it. Is a sports bet worse than an NFL lottery ticket? Worse than Keno and Powerball? Worse then the racetrack or the dog track?

Who has the money to bribe an NFL player anyway? Even the backups make millions, so what type of monetary offer do you make to a key player to throw a game?

Maybe a multimillion dollar divorce would shake a player's financial base, but a person that can produce those type of blackmail pictures does not need to lay off bets at a racetrack in the Delaware countryside.

The folks that would gamble on sports at a racetrack are unlikely to be folks able to catch a Super Bowl quarterback in a compromising picture position with a playboy bunny, page boy Jose, or both.

That type of blackmail would affect the integrity of the game, not a racetrack football parlay by a run down Charles Bukowski type track fly.

The NFL can't be every player's watch dog and it certainly shouldn't be every citizen's Big Brother. The NFL should not lean on Delaware with its lecherous lobbyists and leech like lawyers.

Lobbyists and lawyers that are paid by funds generated by sweet taxpayer-paid-for stadium deals.

The NFL does not need to get in to the habit of reforming its fans' habits.

The NFL is here to entertain us, not rule us through its big dollar dogs in DC.

Fans should not be afraid of the NFL. The NFL should be afraid of its fans.

The fans have to send the NFL a message it can't refuse.

Don't dog Delaware.

Yo Philadelphia! Bury Rocky, Build a Joe Frazier Statue

Dan Boone — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:22:25 -0400

Philadelphia is a lot of things but its not phony. And Philadelphia doesn't like phonies.

So why does Philadelphia still have a statue of a Hollywood boxer, albeit a famous one, but not one of its most famous boxing son?

Why Rocky and not Joe Frazier? Why Sly and not Smoking Joe?

Sure Joe was a son of South Carolina but long ago he made Philadelphia his home and he fought with a Philadelphia fever and left hook that Philadelphia loved.

After Frazier was finished boxing he stayed in Philadelphia and ran a gym training boxers and established the Joe Frazier Foundation.

Stallone is a New Yorker spinning a Chuck Wepner inspired story so why honor a movie prop and not a real man?

Why does Philadelphia still have Stallone on those steps and no statue of Frazier who actually ran the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art while training?

Frazier had this to say about Stallone.

"But he never paid me for none of my past. I only got paid for a walk-on part. Rocky is a sad story for me

Frazier gave Philadelphia the Fight of the Century in Ali Frazier One and one of the best fights in history in the Thrilla in Manila. Stallone gave Philadelphia Rocky Four and Five. Stallone won Hollywood gold. Frazier won Olympic Gold.

Philadelphia fans are fickle but they do not like phonies nor giant egos.

The fans are tough. They pummeled Santa with snowballs. Jimmy Johnson with ice balls and tried to burn down Ben Franklin house because of the Stamp Act.

Philadelphia is a place where Buddy Ryan can be loved.

Its Concrete Charlie Bednarik standing over Broadway Frank Gifford.

Its where Jack Dempsey said "Honey I forgot to duck." to his wife in his dressing room after losing the Heavyweight Title to Gene Tunney.

Its Constitutional Conventions, Ben Franklin, and South Philly Wise Guys. Its Eagles, Phillies, Flyers, and Frazier.

Hollywood heavy Broderick Crawford came from Philadelphia as did that wicked clown WC Fields. Billie Holiday was born into the blues in Philly before being brought down by a bad part of Baltimore town.

Doc Holliday went to dentistry school downtown at the Philadelphia College of Dental Surgery. The good doctor's statue still stands, shotgun in hand, staring south of U Penn land.

South Philadelphia spawned Jim Croce the man who wrote Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown and You Don't Mess Around With Jim. Its the place where as Bruce Springsteen sang they blew up the chicken man last night and they blew up his house too.

Philadelphia isn't fond of phonies so it should not place a boxing Hollywood prop over real life boxing legend.

Its no place for a Sly statue but it should be a place for a Frazier one.

"Boxing is the only sport you can get your brain shook, your money took and your name in the undertaker book." Joe Frazier on boxing.

The 10 Worst-Run NFL Franchises

Dan Boone — Sun, 31 May 2009 11:52:00 -0400

In the NFL the owners ask a lot of the fans. The personal seat licenses extortion, 10-beers, seven-buck hot dogs, six-buck sodas, full priced exhibition game tickets, 25-buck Made in China team caps, $75 made in Indonesia game jerseys, $30 parking, and tax-payer-funded stadiums, to name just a few perks.

They ask for all that and more. Each year, every year, gang greed wants more...More, more, more. But fans of certain franchises always get less, less, less.

Some teams seemed doom. Whether cursed by the ghost of Bobby Layne, just destined to be team ruled by pettiness due to some rogue DNA rolling around the owners brain, or just plain incompetence and bad luck some teams always seem to be on the losing end.

So while the NFL and its billionaire boys club prepare to go the mattresses with tiny Delaware and its dreams of a state-sponsored sports betting, while the always hypocritical NFL rolls out lottery ticket games, let's look at the franchises that give their fans the worst bang for their buck.

1. Detroit Lions

It's been almost 50 years since Bobby Layne blew Motown in a huff and the Lions have been mostly lusterless ever since.

Beside George Plimpton, Barry Sanders, and the brief bright light of Billy Sims, there has not been much to excite Lion fans since.

It's beating a dead cat, but what have the Fords been worst at football or Ford Motors? Both seem dead in the water and Motown might be an American ghost town soon.

The Los Angles Lions? It has a ring to it. The Hollywood Lions?

2. Cincinnati Bengals

The Bengals broke into a pair of Super Bowls in the '80s but it's been a two-decade dead spell since. A dead spell broken by a string of spectacular arrests and failed teams.

Owner Mike Brown is considered to be one of the cheapest owners east of the Bidwells, and the Bengals always suffer from a short scouting staff and an inability to develop quality players or sign key free agents.

Superman used to have an enemy known as Bizarro who was an evil opposite version of Superman formed by a laboratory experiment gone horribly wrong. That is the Bengals in comparison to their division rival Pittsburgh Steelers.

What direction would the Bengals have taken if they had hired assistant coach Bill Walsh all those years ago? Would Ken Anderson be wearing a few Super Bowl rings right now?

Owner Paul Browns mania prevented the Bill Walsh hiring and Walsh always wondered why. So do the Bungle faithful.

3. Cleveland Browns

The city and franchise have not been the same since Marty Schottenheimer decided to play prevent defense against John Elway on what become known as "The Drive."

The there was the sad sequel "The Fumble" then the tragedy "The Modell Move" and since then team returned its been mostly flat line football.

The recycled New York Jet Wonder Child wants to can the franchise quarterback from South Bend before he has a chance to prove he's another bad Brown. It's a big bet by a magic man who should little magic on Broadway.

The team lacks direction and talent and its Super Bowl less streak will continue well into the twenty teens and beyond.

But the 1940s and the Jim Brown era were quite a run. And quite a long time ago. Best thing for Browns fans to do now is to block arch betrayers Art Modell's Hall of Fame hopes.

The Hall of fame isn't for rats, is it?

4. Arizona Cardinals

A Super Bowl appearance doesn't erase the curse of the Bidwells. Long known as one of the worst owners in any professional sports the fanatically frugal Bidwells won't let the Cardinals success stand long.

Like the Phoenix their city is named for, expect this bird to rise from the ashes only once every 500 years or so.

The Bidwell's would bring down any franchise in any sport in any country.

5. Kansas City Chiefs

While his Daddy HL Hunt was digging oil and talking John Birch blues and his brother Bunker was cornering the silver market Lamar Hunt was given the Chiefs to play with

And they played well in the 1970s. But its been a long sad, slow decline since the days of Lennie Dawson, Willie Lanier, Buck Buchanan, and Hank Stram.

Under the mismanagement of Herman Edwards and Carl Peterson the Chiefs ended up a very boring team, very losing team, with little talent and less reason to spark any hope in the hearts of Chief fans.

It's cold in Missouri at football games in winter time and Kansas City desperately needs to do something positive for its besieged, and worse bored, fan base.

6. San Francisco 49ers

Shopping mall Godfather Eddie Debartolo liked to try to bribe corruptible Southern Governors and to bet big on his team but at least he wanted very badly to win.

And win the big one. Never again will we see an owner willing to stockpile his team with so much high priced talent.

The salary cap won't allow an owner to import the entire starting defensive line of the San Diego Chargers as back ups or stash Steve Young on the roster after slipping a fellow owner a million in cash as Eddie D once did..

But at least Eddie D wanted to win the York's don't seem to care. The lack of Fast Eddie D has laid this once proud franchise low.

7. Oakland Raiders

I like Al Davis. He's done more for football then any modern era owner but the old pirate needs a first mate who can pick talent, pay coaches contracts, and negotiate trades.

Al has lost his magical mojo.

Me hopes he gets his mojo back but the pirate king is aging and the players he picks aren't playing at a high level anymore.

John Madden phone home? Help Mad Al find his mojo.

8. Dallas Cowboys

Like Lamar Hunt, old Dallas Cowboy owner was the scion of a Big Oil Dallas Daddy.

But Clint, unlike Hunt, was a wild one who loved his booze, pills, powders, cheerleaders, and Cowboys.

But unlike Jerry Jones, Clint hired Tom Landry, Gil Brandt, and Tex Schramm to run the football end of things while he funded the fun times until his bubble burst.

Jerry Jones thinks he is Tom Landry, Tex Schramm, Gil Brandt, and Clint Murchison Jr. ruled into one all knowing football being.

The Cowboys have not been the same since Jimmy Johnson left. When was the last time the Cowboys won a playoff game?

Jones seems like he has more fun running a free wheeling circus rather then a football team so Cowboy fans ought to enjoy Jessica Simpson new reality TV show which will feature their starting quarterback in a starring role.

Would Roger Staubach do that? What would have Tom Landry said about that?

Who knows? But the circus is in town and fans better pluck up the big bucks to see the show.

The last time fans in Dallas town were being held up like this was when Clyde Barrow was running about West Dallas with a wild woman, bootleg booze, and a trunk full of stolen guns.

Anyone want to buy any naming rights for the ball park?

9. Washington Redskins

Even in his 80s, old Redskin billionaire owner Jack Kent Cooke liked his wild, wind shield riding, drug toting, brown eyed South American ladies and he loved his Redskins.

He left his Redskins in the able hands of Joe Gibbs and Bobby Beathard. To current owner Daniel Snyder the Redskins are but a big toy to boost his ego and build his bank account by fleecing the Redskin faithful.

Failed coaches and free agent flops come and go quicker in DC then corrupt lobbyists these days and under Danny it doesn't seem like it going to get better.

But for the fans it will definitely get costlier.

Why pay more for a product so much poorer then it was two decades ago?

Well it is Washington.

10. Chicago Bears

Sure they signed Jay Cutler but its a shameful stain on the teams old name that all its passing records are held by Sid Luckman who retired 60 years ago before passing rules were liberalized.

The Bears owners have a history of cheapness and it all began with the Papa Bear George Halas.

Bronko Nagurski left the Bears in the '30s because pro wrestling paid better than the Papa Bear did. Mike Ditka, the player, once said that Halas threw nickels around like manhole covers. The great Dick Butkus' career was riddled with bad knees and worst contract disputes.

QB George Blanda was signed by the Bears for $600, a fee Halas hounded Blanda to refund when he made the team, and after long running money feud with Halas Blanda left the Bears for a Hall of fame career elsewhere. Blanda later said Halas was even to cheap to buy him a kicking tee.

The great Bear team of 1985 was dismantled by Halas grandson, Mike McCaskey, who refused to bring in a capable back up QB or USFL stars while releasing such stars as Wilbur Marshall, Willie Gault, and Otis Wilson over contract disputes.

With Cutler the Bears finally have a capable QB but it might have came four years after their defense peaked.

Don't expect a Bear to change its coat.

Will The Buffalo Bills Play In Canada Without a Backfield?

Dan Boone — Wed, 20 May 2009 12:04:42 -0400

Its tougher to cross into Canada from the United States.

Folks going fishing have been turned back by Border Guards if they have minor infractions with the law on their records.

It's going to get tougher too.

Which begs the question how is the NFL going to smuggle the Buffalo Bill's backfield across the border?

Running back Marshawn Lynch has been charged with multiple crimes and has a criminal conviction for carrying an illegal lorded hand gun, while loaded himself of course.

Bill's fullback Corey McIntyre was just charged with drunkenly fondling himself while staring through a women's window at night.

Whispers of the net say the Bill boss men might be interesting in signing convicted felon Michael Vick to play quarterback.

A team should consider whether Vick can pass through international borders before giving him a contract. What if the NFL moves the Super Bowl to Toronto in a few years and Vick can't make the trip?

Pity the poor pooches that would suffer pain and woe for that wrong.

The defense doesn't rest either as safety Ko Simpson was arrested for interfering with a police officer and captain and safety Donte Whitner was tasered and charged with aggravated disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

What is Ralph Wilson going to pay some rogue Mohawks to row his bad boys across Lake Ontario on a moon less midnight so they can sneak into Toronto?

Buffalo Bill Cody, the teams namesake, was handy with a gun, but does that mean the Bill's backs should be packing pistols?

Why not make it OJ Simpson in Canada Day and squeeze the juice free and take him along as a Bills mascot? Let the Juice go on the loose in Toronto.

But does the NFL and the uber rich get an exception? Do they, as usual, get a free pass?

Joe Fan can't go fishing for walleye in Canada because of a DUI a few years back, but bring on the Bills?

A man with misdemeanor can't hunt a moose, but a man with a felony for sadistically murdering dogs gets a free pass to play pass and catch?

Fair's fair, right?

The NFL is on its high moral soap box in its epic battle with tiny Delaware over gambling on parlay cards at state racetracks, but it will cut a dark deal to bring its bad boys north?

Some Bills fans with minor criminal records, lesser records, then some current Bill's players will be barred at the border, but the team will roll right in?

What if the Cincinnati Bengals or Dallas Cowboys want to play overseas? What if the Bills or Jets sign PacMan Jones?

I don't say ban the Bills, the border has become a bit of a bureaucratic overkill, but what's fair for the fisherman and the fans should be fair for the Bills.

But maybe we should start paying attention to what the bureaucrats are doing at the border and why not use the Bills as an example?

If Marshawn Lynch wanted to go fishing he wouldn't be allowed in, so should he be allowed in because he is bringing big bucks to Toronto?

Do we exist until two sets of standards and laws?

Joe Fan can't fish, but Lynch can run?

College Football: Throw The Fans a Bone

Dan Boone — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:24:46 -0400

College football is, of course, big business.

And big business sometimes leaves a bunch of fans feeling fickle or, perhaps, even a bit bitter.

So how about some fast fan fixes to make the game a better built event for the average fan?

A playoff system would be my ideal fan friendly event. The playoff system has many powerful enemies aligned against it. Entrenched enemies that include certain conferences and commissioners, certain cities and politicians, and certain special interests and businesses invested, or in bed, with politicians, power brokers, networks, and event planners that make bundles of bucks from bowls just the way they are.

It's a tangled web of politics, politicos, big money, big businesses, bigger greed, and special interests that would take the Warren Commission to unravel.

So a playoff system in the near future is about as likely as the Beatles reuniting.

But lets try a few fun easy fixes?

Bring back Penn State vs Pittsburgh.

One thing estranged Pennsylvania politicians and university football fathers should be able to agree on is the necessity to play this game every year for the mental well being of an increasing economically depressed state.

Penn State v Pitt why did they stop it? What were they thinking?

Speaking of unnatural stoppages why did the powers that be in the Big 12 halt Nebraska vs Oklahoma on Thanksgiving Friday?

Black Friday was a day where the womenfolks went shopping and the men devoured cold turkey, drank colder beer, and watched Nebraska battle Oklahoma.

Unless, of course, the womenfolks liked football and cold beer then they watched football too.

Why did they stop that? Why bring on the Colorado Buffalo's and trounce the traditional rivalry game? Why, Big Twelve, why?

How about Auburn Tiger traditions?

Why doesn't Auburn play Florida and Tennessee every year? Why play Furman and Ball State and not nearby long time rivals Georgia Tech or Clemson? Why destroy those traditions? Traditions the fans loved.

Why doesn't Florida and Miami play each other every year? Florida, Florida State, and Miami should play each other every year. Maybe South Florida should be thrown in the mix. Florida needs a state champ.

What muddled collection of athlete directors and misguided alumni thought ending the Florida and Miami matchup was a good thing? That pair and the Seminoles always played for the crown in the land of Ponce De Leon. Why disrupt it?

What genius did that? What the battle for one of the biggest hot beds of football talent didn't draw enough national interest? Enough intensity?

Teams want early season give me games but that's another gripe. What happened to the early season inter sectional rivalry games?

Why not Alabama vs Penn State? USC vs Alabama? Ohio State vs Georgia? Texas vs LSU?

Why not a weekend of Big Ten SEC match-ups? A Blue vs Gray weekend away? Why not?

Or a weekend of PAC Ten and Big 12 match-ups?

USC vs Texas anyone? UCLA vs Texas A'M? Oklahoma vs Oregon State?

Or the Big East vs the ACC?

The travel time would be short and some old bitterness over Boston College, Miami, and Virginia Tech jumping ship still lingers.

Why not an early season inter-sectional rivalry weekend? The fans, the players, and the network ratings would all love it.

The last week in September would be a fine time for Inter sectional Saturday.

Unless, of course, the Big Ten and SEC want to get it on each year on the mid September anniversary of the Battle of Antietam.

Make those big money season tickets worth it. Play some meaningful non league match ups.

Why not do something about the long, slow Big Ten December siesta? Why not add a conference championship game?

Split the Big Ten into east and west conferences, with the addition of a team, and have a ratings blockbuster in December? That would open up the early part of the schedule for a inter-sectional rivalry week or an in state rivalry game.

Penn State could play Pitt and old, but now faded, rival Syracuse every September.

Michigan could match up with Texas or Tennessee. Ohio State, like its son Sherman, could march south into the SEC.

If the Big Ten frowns on splitting into east and west why not tie itself into a Yankee Playoff Game in which the Big Ten plays the Big East champion every December. The Big Ten's Rose bowl birth would not be affected by the game and it would be fun. Sure the Big Ten braggarts will say why waste time with the puny Big East.

But why not? Ohio State vs West Virginia would make for an early, exciting Christmas present. Why not add luster for the fans and the networks? The Big Ten, a very staid, stale league should not be afraid of change.

Even old Joe Paterno, a conservative child of the Great Depression, knows something is amiss with college football, and the Big Ten in particular, constant resistance to change.

Why not start the change by rolling the dice and perhaps, at least, playing the Big East in December.

Folks will say schedules are made decades in advance. Things can't change. Some things must remain the same.

Cut the Gordian knot. Slice like Gale Sayers through the sludge and the drudgery. Feed the fans something fantastic. Or at least throw them a fun football bone.

Bye Bye Birdie: Borel and The Bird Breakup

Dan Boone — Sun, 10 May 2009 21:27:24 -0400

Mine that Bird and Calvin Borel might be breaking up.

Over a women.

Borel is going to ditch the Bird for a bitch, I mean for a fine fast filly. The filly is no slow she dog.

That's right the giant killing love story is being broken up. The usual sad story, a women has come between them Borel and his Bird.

A fine filly named Rachel Alexandria has broken the Bird's heart.

Being gelded wasn't bad enough, this poor bird had to be clipped again.

Can't a Bird get a break? Wasn't winning the Kentucky Derby enough?

Talk about being dissed. Talk about getting no respect. This poor pony has become the Rodney Dangerfield of racehorses.

When was the last time a jockey ditched his Derby winning beast of burden? Even if the Filly is mighty fine.

Borel betrayed the Bird loudly saying he'd ride that girl [Rachel Alexandria] all night long.

Borel made him a Free Bird. Borel belted out Bye Bye Baby its been a sweet love. Yeah, And though this feeling I can't change please don't take it so badly Bird because the Bird knows he's not to blame.

And the Bird heard. Horses have big ears. Horses have feelings. Farms and stalls are filled with gossip. Imagine all the neighing and the braying the bashing and the gnashing of snaky horse tongues wiggling and wagging.

All belittling the betrayed Bird.

Where's the love?

But beware the vengeance of a Bird betrayed. Beware the Bird scorned. Remember their wrath in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds? Well Jessica Tandy sure does.

Perhaps Borel will feel some that bitter Bird bath raining down on him?

Sebastian Sholes, fisherman in diner: Hell, maybe we're all getting a little carried away with this. Admittedly a few birds did act strange, but that's no reason to...

The sad Bird has to take the hit song from Bye Bye Birdie to heart and hum it as prepares for the Baltimore race with a broken heart.

Gray skies are gonna clear up,
Put on a happy face;
Brush off the clouds and cheer up,
Put on a happy face.
Take off the gloomy mask of tragedy,
It's not your style;
You'll look so good that you'll be glad
Ya' decide to smile!
Pick out a pleasant outlook,
Stick out that noble chin;
Wipe off that "full of doubt" look,
Slap on a happy grin!
And spread sunshine all over the place,
Just put on a happy face!
Put on a happy face
Put on a happy face

Rachel Alexandria's entry will drive the Bird back to the at least the third or fourth favorite in the Preakness. The Bird did have a miracle flight on that muddy Kentucky clay. Borel did ride that rail wonderfully to glory and flew his Bird perfectly.

It will be a hard act to follow. The Bird was a 50-1 longshot who was dismissed by most of the Handicapping professionals and horse gambling amateurs.

But the Bird flew fast and flew far that lucky day.

The Bird in Baltimore will be about 5-1.

The Bird likely will spend his day in Baltimore running behind that fast filly's fine behind.

But if you bite on the Bird again, and he flies fast and far, blasting by Borel and his new Babe it will be a sizzling payout in Charm City.

Not 50-1. No that lightening has already struck. But a winner would still bring enough Benjamens and Black Eyed Susans to do an Edgar Allan Poe like pub crawl of that old pirate place Fells Point.

Poe liked Birds, too. Remember that Raven rapping, rapping, and tapping at his chamber door?

Just don't check out like old Poe, a horse racing fan. Moderation in all things especially betting favorites like 2-1 Rachel Alexandria and the Preakness infield.

The Bird will either be a one hit wonder, a Bye Bye Birdie, or else the Bird will fly to the Belmont from Baltimore to do battle for the Triple Crown.

Maybe this generation's Seabiscuit, the Bird, is about to be born.

Perhaps you will be dancing at The Horse You Rode In On, the Fells Point Pub where a beastly intoxicated Poe was last spotted singed with laudanum, life, and strong spirits of the night.

But if the Bird battles back and bites Borel buy a round and do the Poe Shuffle singing...

A-well-a everybody's heard about the bird
B-b-b-bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a bird, bird, bird, the bird is the word
A-well-a bird, bird, bird, well the bird is the word
A-well-a bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a bird, bird, bird, well the bird is the word
A-well-a bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a bird, bird, bird, well the bird is the word
A-well-a bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a don't you know about the bird?
Well, everybody knows that the bird is the word!
A-well-a bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a...

Then book a trip with the big Bird to Belmont.

Or else rip up your losing ticket and say that damn Bird will win nevermore.

Babe Ruth and Billy Martin Talk Baseball in Toots Shor's Sky Saloon

Dan Boone — Sun, 10 May 2009 17:06:46 -0400

The scene: A saloon in the sky where the baseball boys of days gone by sit and scan ESPN while talking baseball. The smokey sky saloon has a big round bar and old oak tables scattered haphazardly throughout.

The decor is simple.The fare bar food. The drinks be beer and hard booze sipped mostly straight or with a shot of water or a splash of soda.

Smoking is allowed.

Step inside Toots Shor's Saloon in the Sky.

Ye never know who ye will find.....

Toots is standing, chatting, scrubbing the bar. A small crowd sits around the bar. A few folks sit quietly talking at tables. One man sits stoically alone, save for a single rose and two glasses of fine wine. One glass for him the other sits full above an empty chair. He stares solemnly out the window silently looking...quietly waiting for someone.

Toots: So anyways ya heard about the mess didn't ya? One hell of a mess I tell ya.

Billy Martin: Toots I was here when it happened. I..hey fill me up. [pushes a frosty mug forward]

Toots: I know YOU were, but Babe wasn't? Were ya Babe?

Babe: Of all the days to take a train across town. I mean any type of excitement up here is good. I mean it gets kinda of monotonous sometimes. Say them hots dogs soon done?

Toots: Yeah Lefty's cooking in the kitchen. A dozen be done soon for sure. Lefty loves the kitchen. Anyways I'm sitting here we have those clowns on ESPN on. Them guys can never shut the hell up. They never give a man a moment of silence to savor the game. Always babble, babble, babble.

So anyways, Teddy Ball Game, Ted Williams, is sitting right there talking mostly fishing but also bringing up the finer points of hitting. Pointing out how poor the players today and how over fishing is killing his Keys.

Everyone's having a good time and Ted's going on a bit when suddenly for no reason Ty Cobb yells from the corner that he forgot more about hitting then Ted knows.

Babe: That little ass. I thought you threw him out.

Toot: I did. Twice. But he begged back. This time no way. He's out for three hundred years. So anyways Ted just glares at him and Cobb grins and glares right back and says something smart ass about the Splendid sphincter and laughs loudly to himself cause you know mean old Cobb no one sits anywhere near him.

Babe: What an ass...

Toots: So Ted ignores him, like most everybody else does and I tell Cobb to knock it off and he tells me to go screw myself and calls me a fat ass to boot. I'm about to smack him myself when he yells Hows the Head, Ted? And howls with wicked laughter. Laughs so hard it looks like he's gonna piss himself.

I mean he's howling like a banshee. Ted's face goes beet red and Cobb howls Hell My kids hated my guts but at least they didn't chop my damn head off and freeze it. Teddy Vampire! The Mexican Magician...and then Ted grabs a shot glass and fires a fastball straight at Cobb Cracks him square between the eyes.

If he was alive he would of been dead.

Babe: What an ass..what did Cobb do?

Billy: He's a mean little bastard...

Toots: The little bastard fell right off his chair. Then after a moment got up and charged right at Teddy. Tore the whole damn place up they did. Oh it was a mess...see right before the shot glass and right after the frozen head wise crack.

Well Billy here...and his buddy Munson spit their beers up at the head joke which made Cobb cackle more. Egg 'em on didn't ya Billy? Still can't help yourself can ya?

Billy: Well it was damn funny. I mean Ted takes himself pretty damn serious still.

Toots: So Ted slams his beer down and says I don't need no shit from some dumb ass Yankee that can't fly a small plane correctly. And Munson gets mad. But then Cobb fires another Ted Frozen head wise crack and all hell breaks loose.

I mean Cobb's outside ranting and of all things he pulls a German Luger and begins waving it around like a lunactic...I mean how in the hell do you get a gun up here? How did Cobb the crumb do that?

Ted says he's gonna shove that gun right up his Georgia ass and then boom boom Cobb vanishes in a cloud of smoke. I expect he got himself in trouble with the big guy again.

Babe: Toots your cursing is gonna get you in trouble...I better go check those hot dogs.

[Babe drains his beer and exits into the kitchen yelling Lefty! Hey Lefty!]

Toots [filling Billy's beer]: So Ted stormed off too. Said the hell with this he was going fishing and that he can't stand watching baseball let alone talking about for eternity. You heard about Babe and Cobb didn't ya?

Billy: Toots I was here. I'm always here. Seen the Mick lately...

Toots: Nope not for awhile. Mick won't touch a drop. Says it just makes him sad and that he had enough to last a few lifetimes...He walks a lot.

Anyway Cobb was sitting there and the ESPN boys were babbling about these baseball players taking them lady shots, pills, and potions and growing them selves magnificent man boobs or something bizarre like that and Cobb yells to Babe. Look at Babe he got his man boobs the old fashioned way beer and burgers.

And Cobb just howls...even Dimaggio had to hide a grin. Babe goes red walks over and just starts strangling the son of a bitch. Jackie Gleason was sitting right here and he goes aw let 'em go they can't kill each other there already dead.

And Gleason says grinning it is fun to watch. But I can't have this stuff in here. I mean the old man will shut us down.

Billy [whispers and points to the man alone in the corner with the wine and roses] How's Joe?

Toots [whispering]: Aww the same. The poor guy got it bad. He's like a sick puppy just sits there and stares. She stopped once. Laughing and giggling but after awhile they got to fighting. Seems he saw her with those Kennedy boys and throw a fit.

A pure Sicilian rage. And she spat it right back at him. I warned him about her but he didn't listen. Hell he was stewed at me for decades and all I said was what do you expect from a Hollywood Whore? That's it! And Joe blew up...never came back in until he was dead.

Now he sits and sips one glass of wine...sometimes two and waits with that damn rose everyday. It's sad...Hemingway came in and tried to talk him into fishing, or fighting, or anything but he just shook his head no. Papa tried and tried to shake from his rut but no luck. He sits, he sips, he stares. He got it so damn bad its sad.

Babe [sitting down with half a dozen hot dogs]: Finally...another beer, Tootsie. This crap in here keeps up your gonna have to hire Dempsey as a bouncer. Its turning into some rough gin joint. I heard Hemingway was here? He leave any good Cubans?

Toots [pulling a box of cigars from behind the bar]: Here ya go Bambino. Just don't ask Papa about Cuba or about the snow melting off Kilimanjaro or about the fish and game disappearing or about this so called Me Generation or Boomers or what ever the hell they call themselves. I don't understand them.

But Pappa is pissed. He's despises them calls them whiners, moaners, cowardly self-centered complainers...I say Pappa have a drink lets talk boxing and that calms them him. Until he says boxing is terrible, too.

The heavys are horrible and the sport is greed diseased and I say Papa what about fishing and he says the fish are dying. True Sportsmen don't exist anymore and he rages on and on and on.

So I try women and I ask him about that Jolie dame and that calms him a bit. He likes her. Its that French fetish thing of his...Paris, the Lost Generation, and all that jazz.

Billy: Who doesn't like that broad? Another beer there Toots...I always liked that story of his where the lady that was banging this other big game hunter fellow blows her husbands brains out while hunting. Right after he was feeling good about facing that lion. Damn broads...the problems they cause.

Toots: Look at Jolting Joe. But Papa just ain't been right lately. Why he bashed John O'Hara right in the mouth behind the saloon the other day. Sure O'Hara was harassing him but still he's gonna get himself Cobbed by the sky cops.

Hemingway's been hanging with that Hunter Thompson fella too damn much. What a wacko...what a card that one is.

Billy: Cobb is such an ass. How about when he was railing on old Satchel the other day. About how he'd hit all day and all night long off him and on and on about how bad the Negro leagues were.

And Satchel says Listen you better look around because if you don't shut up something is gonna be gaining on your cracker ass and they almost went at it.

Toots: It's good Dempsey was here. He sat them both down. Even Cobb is cautious around Dempsey. And I don't blame him.

Babe [looking at the television]: Look at these bums in New York. Ten bucks a beer? Can you imagine? What the hell is a PSL? A hundred grand for a seat? The world's gone nuts, I tell ya. What would I make today?

Billy: It's George and his boys. The Steinbrenner's are a pack of vicious thieves...Criminals. Look at those wee wolves he raised. Soon as the old man goes for the dirt nap they are gonna be clawing each others eyes out. I can't wait.

Toots: To see George? Maybe he can hire ya up here to run a team one more time.

Babe: And fire ya.

Toots: And hire ya..

Babe: And fire ya..

Toots: And hire ya...

Billy: What a pair of comics. What Chaplin have ya in training or are ya natural clowns?

Babe: Natural.

Toots: It ain't just George. See its everyone. Look at the Mets, screwing the senior citizen ticket days. Look at football. That money hungry squirt in Washington. That greedy weirdo in Dallas. Charlie Conerly told me the other day that he won't even watch the Giants anymore with what they are doing to the fans in that stadium.

Billy: Everything twisted in Texas.

Babe:Everything twisted everywhere. Them folks that leave Yankee stadium I bet they bleat because they just been fleeced.

Toots: These fellas making millions and filling themselves with female hormones? Who the hell would have imagined that? I mean I won't even let them weirdos in my place. No way...shooting each other in the ass. Growing boobs bigger then Bridget Bardots.

Billy: She around, Bridget?

Toots: She ain't dead knucklehead...

Billy: Oh...

Babe: And they cheat. Look at that A-Rod fella signaling the other team what pitch is coming then having them flag him back. That's worse then what Pete Rose done. I mean at least he was betting on his team to win.

Billy: As a player or a coach if I caught a man doing that I would have punched him in the mouth.

Babe: Me too. The damn pretty boy...

Toots: Well he ain't getting in here I tell ya.

Babe: He's an uptown guy. Movie stars, Singers, social status, super stars red carpets, highlights, glitz and glamor like that Gatsby fellow. No ARod ain't coming in here. Hell I wouldn't even know what to say to them fellas.

Billy: It ain't even baseball anymore.

Babe: It ain't even like life anymore. Or any life I knew. Well maybe it is. Billionaires, millionaires, moral majorities, movie stars, crashed stock markets maybe things have not changed that much after all. Still sometimes It makes a fella feel good to be dead.

Billy:Don't say that Babe you give anything for one more swing. One last swat.

Babe: Sure, I guess, Sure. But they tore my house down you know.

Toots: Aw Babe it will always be your house.

Babe: Nah...change is the only sure constant. No, everything changes. Sometimes its just so damn sad.

Toots: Aww Cheer up you crumb. Your starting to sound like sick puppy Joe. And Al Jolson is coming in to sing later..if Al don't do it for ya well ya might as well be dead in the dirt..

Billy[looking out the window]:Damn that's Dom.

Toots: It sure is. Maybe that'll cheer up Joe. Drinks for the house. Drinks for Dom!

The Last Song Of Sonny Liston

Dan Boone — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:36:41 -0400

Heavyweight Champ Sonny Liston died in Las Vegas long ago. His tombstone says simply "A Man."

Liston, like Joe Louis before him and recently Greg Page after him, represents the dark side of sport. The dark side of boxing is seldom shown the light.

Below is a fictionalized account of Liston's last hours...

Not for children, nor for the faint of heart...then neither was Sonny. Nor, in its darkest, beating bleak heart, is boxing...

No one, except Sonny, knows exactly what happened to him...

And Sonny ain't talking....

After pulling a gun on stripper there. He was…where was he?

Was it here? Where was here? Was he there? Was he here or there? Or everywhere….

Where the fuck was he? Sonny slumped in his dirty kitchen fumbling for the half empty Seagrams stoned eyes red slits.

Slowly it came back to Sonny. The stripper. The Strip. The screaming. The gun.

Geraldine screaming. Your fucked upped again. Your drunk, Your drugged. Your doomed. Your damned. Your armed. Your a son of a bitch.

Fuck you and your whores and pimps and drug addicts. Your thieves, gangsters, and killers.

Your armed? You asshole. Your go to jail.

Geraldine screaming. Glass smashing. Sonny swinging. Walls cracking. Plaster crashing.

Geraldine gone. Sonny staring. Geraldine gone… and its almost New Years.

Sonny grabbed the bottle and knocked down a few pills. They burned. He burned. His heart thumped…thumped…thumped.

Or was its his head? Or his damn eyes?.

Another damn year dead. Another damn doomed year being born. Another doomed decade starting. He hated this motherfucking decade. He hated this motherfucking life.

A big ugly dancing bear. Dancing for fools, whores, thieves, drunks, motherfuckers, Muslims and mobsters.

The big, ugly bear, a fucked phantom famous for a phantom punch.

Fuck that fast cunt Clay. He never came up hard; he had it handed to him. A big fucking mouth pretty boy served everything on a sweet silver platter.

Sonny tap, tapped, tapped the needle. .

Sonny remembered the stripper screaming.

Sonny remembered the slick yellow toothed, pretty boy pimp pusher with the snub nose .38 in his red sashed waist staring.

“You got it?” The man licked his sharp yellow teeth. Slime slid past a pock mark. “You got, it?”

“You’ll get it. I got Chuvalo in Pittsburgh. I got Foremen, maybe that little shit of a Frazier…I got chances.”

“You got shit old man. Your shot. You pay. Or you fucking go.” The pimp leered and patted his gun. “Out of my office..your outta chances...”

“Sonny, you said?: A hollow eyed blond stripper said softly drunk.

“Shot the fuck up…”Sonny glared. “Now boy you give me that shit. Sonny’s good. You know that.”

“Get the fuck out….” The pimp sneered. “Old man.”

Sonny’s brain burned bad whiskey. His mind moved. His mind danced. Floyd Patterson stood in a shadow. Cleveland Williams too, now that fucker hit hard.

“No..” Sonny said and slapped him.

Yellow teeth flew. Blood stained a dead green peeling motel wall. The blond strippers screamed.

A horn blared and red lights danced across the back of the dirty motel wall. Somewhere outside on the Strip curses and mocking laughter echoed.

The pimp came back pulling that pistol. Sonny was surprised the slap usually did it. The boy has balls, Sonny thought, then slammed his ribs once, twice, ribs cracked, caved, split, splintered.

Then the liver.

Once.

Just a tap.

The pimp convulsed. He whimpered, rolled, and whined while gurgling yellow teeth and red blood.

Sonny grabbed the .38 from the floor as the pimp pulled himself fetal crying loudly.

A big man stepped from the bathroom. Shit stench filled the small stale room.

Sonny raised the .38. “You want some?”

“No man. Just that.” He pointed to the Baggies.

“No…” The hammer cocked. “Now go boy…”

“Go bitch…”

They left.

Sonny stared at the blinking strip lights. He took the pimp man’s roll and went rolling all night long like the Night Train.

Sonny popped some pills and bought some drinks spiked with white powder, pistol in his pocket, fire in his brain, loneliness in his heart.

At an empty seedy dive he tipped a sad eyed soul singer a twenty and sat sipping gin in a dark corner silently singing along.

“And I'm livin' in the city
Where the noise, it never stops
And there's poundin' on the pavement
With some strong traffic cops

Nobody looks you in the eye, yeah
Walkin' 'round with clenched fists
I've been searchin' for a simple place
Don't know if it exists

The sunrise out there calling my name
I can see her movin', I can see her movin'

Well at a certain time of night, now
I'll be comin' with the wind
Where there isn't a beginning
And there is no end

Oh and everything is floatin'
Everything is on time
And I know that we're all goin'
To the end of the line

Well I'm out here on my night train
Drinking coffee, taking cocaine
I'm out here on my night train
Trying to get safely home”

Sonny stumbled out still singing softly.

Then where?

Then here. Or there? Or was he everywhere?

A long way from Arkansas…

Vegas blurs. Vegas buzzes. Vegas bites. Vegas at night.

Strippers. Singers. Shouting. Pills. Powders. Booze. Music. Laughing, Crying. Moaning. Dying.

Bottles and powders in the street.

The long walk home. How?

Lost.

How long?

Long time.

Then later.

Geraldine blowing. Geraldine screaming. Geraldine leaving. Geraldine gone.

Another ghost gone.

Alone.

How long?

Gone long time.

The Night Train rolls along alone.

Now screaming, shouting, slow it done now…blood on the walls?

Was it his or the pimps? Pattersons’? Cleveland Williams’? Clay’s?

Blood on his hands. Blood in his mouth. Blood on the floor. Black pooling blood bright in the night..

Tired.
Was he down?

Knocked down by a clown?

Was he here? Was he there? Was he everywhere? Was he air?

Where was his air?

Get back up Bear.

Slow it down. Slow…

One more time….ten count. Eyes ache. Heart rate. Tired so damn tired.

Slow it down. Sit down. Slow it down.

One more time….

Find a vein…catch the Night Train.

One more time.

Giant Killers: Calvin Borel and Mine That Bird

Dan Boone — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:16:18 -0400

Horse racing, specifically the only loss of legendary Man-O-War to a pony named Upset, made the word a moniker for the underdog, the giant killer, slaying the heavy favorite.

Giant killing is an ancient hobby.

In the ancient Iliad, King Nestor brags how as a gangly youth he laid the club wielding, angry Arcadian giant Ereuthalion low.

Biblical David with that trusty sling shot fired a fast ball blast that blew away big boy Goliath's bullying brain.

Even old Thor, the Norse Thunder God, had a thing for smashing around angry Frost Giants. Then Thor's roar always indicated that he wasn't exactly a push over. Thor, on his worst day, was never 50-1 against anyone.

When Upset notched his win over Man-O-War he was damn lucky. The big horse Man-O -War had a very bad trip from a jock that kept jamming the hard charging horse up behind blocking horses.

Sometimes its better to be lucky then good.

It's always good to be both lucky and good.

Jockey Calvin Boreal was both at the Derby.

His rail running mudtrip was amazing. His second Derby long shot win in two years will put the Cajun in the Horse Racing Hall of fame.

And deservedly so. He brought that Bird hard along the rail. Hall of fame trainer Bob Baffert said he thought his horse Pioneer of the Nile had the race locked up.

Baffert admitted he had dreams of the Triple Crown. Baffert felt his Nile horse was that good. Then Baffert noticed Borel and the Bird blasting and weaving his way through horses.

Baffert saw the Bird hit the rail furious and fast, flinging the wet Kentucky clay hard and high, and Borel began to sense that it was his and the hard charging rail Birds day.

Baffert's belly dropped.

The Bird's head dropped. Borel and the Bird had the rail. Borel and the Bird were on a roll.

Borel and the Bird were running that rail. They were running that rail like a mud covered, mad locomotive.

In the cold Kentucky rain, rail birds were humming bird, bird, bird is the word.

The Bird had been driven from New Mexico to Kentucky. Twenty-one hours the Bird had traveled from the small tracks of Billy the Kid country in a pickup truck trailer pulled by his trainer to Old Kentucky.

Now this 50-to-1 Bird had flown.

Past the Sheik's UAE ponies bought for millions.

Past the Egyptian Sheik owned Baffert trained Pioneer of the Nile.

Past the British billionaires' million dollar horse toy Dunkirk.

Past the put out favorite Freisan Fire.

Past the pedigrees.

Past the pretty ladies in thousand-dollar hats and the million-dollar men in luxury booths.

Past the finish line leaving those who might be giants in the mud behind.

And into horse racing history with the perhaps the greatest upset in Derby history and the biggest margin of victory since 1946

The Cajun jockey laughed. The Cajun cried. The Cajun grinned. The Cajun swamp howled. The Cajun was happy.

And why not? Cause the Cajun, who has been horse riding since the age of eight, was a giant killer.

Calvin "Bo-rail" was king of Kentucky.

Again.

The Cajun didn't need a slingshot. He didn't need a sword nor Thor's roar.

No, the Cajun had killed these giants with a rail.

Again.

The New York Mets Bailout Palace

Dan Boone — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:27:45 -0400

April 28 (Bloomberg)—Citigroup fell in New York trading on concern the company may be forced by regulators to raise additional capital.

Citigroup dropped 8.5 percent to $2.81 after the Wall Street Journal said early results of the government’s so-called stress tests show the bank may need more capital. Company executives are meeting with regulators to dispute the findings, the Journal said, citing unidentified people with knowledge of the matter.

Bank of America, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, and Citigroup, the third-largest, have already received about a combined $90 billion in U.S. bailout funds after record losses from the collapse of the housing market.

April 27 (Yahoo Sports)—No. 2-ranked New York Mets rose 11 percent and are now worth $912 million. The team is in a sense a mini version of its cross-town rival. The Mets also moved into a new stadium, Citi Field, this year, and the team will get an average of $20 million a year in naming rights and related advertising from the bank. And a great cable deal brought in $52 million last season.

Gordon Gekko: "Greed is good."

Citi is into the New York Mets for $400 million. Well, make that you are into the Mets for 400 Million large.

Your into Citi for a lot more then $400 million. $50 billion and climbing, baby.

"One thing's sure and nothing's surer, the rich get richer and the poor get—children. In the meantime, in between time"

Maybe the Mets ought to play that Great Gatsby swinging jazz tune instead of Take Me Out To the Ballgame for the seventh inning stretch brought to you by your friends at CitiGroup.

Don't forget back in 1998 Citi fought bravely to deregulate banking. They valiantly battled, well their lobbyists and politicos they paid did anyway, to get banks more involved in insurance, stocks and vast world wide, wicked financial webs.

Citi cracked the credit card whip and jumped the fees and fought to keep them high and keep them hard.

Being just a bank, apparently, wasn't getting them enough jack.

Hey maybe the Mets are hurting too. Times are tough and $912 million just ain't what it used to be.

Ask anyone.

Ask General Motors. Ask Ford. Ask Chrysler. Ask AIG. Ask Bank of America.

Ask Congress.

Stop complaining citizen, after all what did the fat faced politician once say: "We are but a nation of whiners?"

$52 million for a cable deal? Peanuts. In the grand Ponzi scheme of things anyway.

And what kid doesn't want to catch a game at a field named after a bail out bank?

Sure Pops might have lost his job and his pension bailing the banker boys out but still, Citi Field has a ring to it.

That's snappy. That's catchy. That has an old school baseball ring that would even make old Yankee General Doubleday sing.

And it makes the Mets register go ching, ching, ching.

Surely that $400 million from Citi couldn't have been spent on a better thing? I know, I know, the Citi and the Mets sing that contract was already in before the bailout blues began to blow. And everyone knows the contract is the thing.

And what's $400 million anymore? Sure some roads, fireman, cops, education, veterans care, health care, or some money to help Gramps in the seniors home.

All that boring bad juju jazz.

But that's not the national pastime. Big bucks and baseball are. So tell them aforementioned folks to tune in and enjoy the shiny lights.

It's not just baseball of course, The Ford family of failing Ford motors just fired $81 million at a Georgia college kid who never played a down in the big leagues.

Hey have a hunch bet a bunch.

When the Romans provided the bread and circuses the Emperor or the Senate used to, at least, act like they paid for it anyway.

The idea was to keep the Roman rubes happy at their games and mellow in their minds.

Apparently the minds matter not so very much anymore.

So it goes.

Bankers, barkers, and baseballers need some change in their pockets too.

Like the old NYC Sports writer Bat Masterson once wrote, "every dog has its day unless, of course, there are more dogs then days."

Enjoy Citi Field, you paid for it.

Sit tight and sing along. And chip in a few bucks, just a few more billions brother, to clean up the mess and pay for that sweet glittering Citi sign in the sky.

"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money of their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."

—The Great Gatsby

"There are those who argue that everything breaks even in this old dump of a world of ours. I suppose these ginks who argue that way hold that because the rich man gets ice in the summer and the poor man gets it in the winter, things are breaking even for both. Maybe so, but I'll swear I can't see it that way."

—The final words of New York Sports Writer Bat Masterson. Discovered in his typewriter upon which he was slumped dead in 1921.

Come To Toots Shor's Place: A Step Back In Sports History

Dan Boone — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:33:05 -0400

Step on in ya crumb.

Everyone's welcome at Toots Place.

We ain't the Stork Club.

We ain't the El Morocco.

We ain't got bouncers picking and choosing only the rich and pretty people to come in and play.

Average Joes, as long as they like their booze and they ain't making damn pests of themselves, can come on in too.

Everyone's welcome.

Don't be bugging for autographs though. Don't be making damn nuisances of yourselves.

We don't serve nothing special, just bar food: steak and baked potatoes.

Complaints? Then go somewhere else buddy.

Everyone waits in line, first come first serve.

So do the the rich and famous.

This ain't no elitist joint.

See we got Frank Costello and Earl Warren here. That's Walter Cronkite at the bar with Charlie Chaplin and a smashed Jackie Gleason.

We got pictures on the wall with Dick Nixon and LBJ.

Ernest Hemingway was drinking doubles here last night along with Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis.

And the Duke sure had a load on.

The Yankees are in the back with that gin soaked Gotham Gang of sportswriters hoisting a few. The Mick has a snot full already, and Whitey and Yogi are on their way.

Jolting Joe is quiet at his table. Even Sinatra doesn't bother him.

A bunch of New York Giants are coming in later: Frank Gifford, Kyle Rote, Charlie Conerly, and some of the boys.

Maybe the Babe himself will spin in in for a cold one or four.

"Toots" is a documentary about Toots Shor's Place—one of the great saloons of a sporting era long gone.

Toots himself was an old time saloon keeper. A vibrant man with underworld connections and charisma that could charm movie stars, athletes, politicians, and average Joes.

Professional A athletes didn't exist on an elite plane then.

Today, the money and the media is so massive that players cannot comprehend how average folks live.

The financial and cultural divide in American society between it's fans and it's A athletes, movie stars, and sports owners is so monstrous that when personal contact is made, they view each other almost as aliens from another planet.

It wasn't always that way.

Frank Gifford and the other New York Giants were at ease mingling at Toot's place with sports writers and fans.

The great New York Yankee teams of that era, even the famously reclusive Joe Dimaggio, felt at home there.

At least until Toots accidentally angered Jolting Joe by insulting his beloved Marylin Monroe.

Toots, the documentary, contains interviews with many of the surviving customers of that hard living era.

Walter Cronkite, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, Frank Gifford, Mike Wallace, Bert Sugar, Pete Hamill, Bill Gallo, Joe Garagiola, Gay Talese, and others offer tales of the sporting life from another era.

The film has many amusing, and some very sad, snippets.

Ranging from Toots drinking and racing contestants with Jackie Gleason to Ernest Hemingway—who was sitting with Toots and Joe DiMaggio at a Heavyweight title fight, being asked if he was anyone famous.

Papa pointed at Joltin Joe and said, sure I'm his Doctor.

Whitey Ford says Toot's Place took five years off his career.

Gifford muses on the difference between athletes in his day and now. Whitey Ford wonders how ARod can make more in two weeks than Mickey Mantle made in a lifetime.

And some of the great old New York sportswriters question the massive gulf that exists between society and its sports stars.

One old sportswriter, who used to drink and talk with Yogi, Mick, and Whitey, wonders what do you say over a beer to a man making 160 million dollars?

A player who is often an egotistical star, always surrounded by an adoring posse, agitated agents, and armed bodyguards—its like talking to a man from another planet.

And on the other hand, have fans become so obsessed with sports that they are unable to control themselves around their "heroes?"

Sometimes it seems like a societal sickness.

After all Toots, a self made, South Philadelphia son of immigrants, was from a generation that survived the Great Depression and Two World Wars.

So sports, and sports figures and Hollywood celebs, did not create the shock and awe they seem to do in society today.

Toots, of course, was no angel.

Frank Costello and his ilk were always in the corner.

Toots, who started as a Philadelphia bouncer, loved the saloon sporting life.

He gambled, he drank, he comped, he lived large, and he lived loud.

Eventually, a Jimmy Hoffa Teamsters Fund Loan, and the ensuing tax man tango cost him his beloved saloon.

But he'd been broke before.

Once Toots dropped a bar breaking bundle on Billy Conn versus Joe Louis.

Toots loved spending money and having a blast. Toots, everyone testifies, loved life.

The last time, the final saloon shut down, was a back breaker though. A spirit slicer for a man who loved serving strong spirits.

Times had changed. Toots had not.

The older Outfit men, the "Boys" he had befriended, were replaced by a younger, less Toots friendly generation.

Frank Costello retired.

The old Yankees and Giants retired.

The new players lived in the suburbs and had different tastes in clubs.

Frank Sinatra gave way to the Beatles. Ali replaced Louis and Marciano.

Hair grew. Saloons shrank. Exclusive nightclubs sprung. The Yankees and Giants faded.

The Silent Generation meant the Me Generation. The World War Generation didn't dig Woodstock.

Don't even ask them about Disco.

Don't dare mention the Moral Majority.

Don't dwell on a societal swing from saloons to a sudden twist with Temperance.

The music changed to disco balls, DJ's, and Studio 54.

As far from Toot's Place as Jekyll was to Hyde.

The swinging sixties then the Me Generation seventies came.

Change, an old west saloon keeper once said, ain't looking for friends. Change calls the tune we dance to.

Toot's couldn't change his tune; Toot's didn't want to change his tune.

Toot's patrons dwindled, died, or disappeared to other haunts.

The city shrank. The suburbs grew. The seventies shook Gotham.

Crime and cocaine ganged up on Gotham.

Toot's business went bad, and he became a man without a bar.

The FBI whispered the place with a few trips, a few traps, a few bugs, give us a fellows and we will see what we can do.

Toot's said no.

Maybe I'm a rake, but I'm no damn rat.

So he became a saloon keeper sans saloon. A man without a country. A man with a massive tax debt.

Almost a man out of time. A man trapped in another era.

But what a time Toot's had when he was having the time of his life.

And that time was quite a good one. A long, legendary run full of ten lifetimes of fun.

Grab a brandy. Throw back a gin.

Sizzle a steak. Stick on some Sinatra.

Buy the boys a round of beer.

Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etfc-XUovU8

http://www.tootsthemovie.com/

Doc Blanchard: A Draft Day Salute

Dan Boone — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 13:12:14 -0400

Why a draft day salute to Doc Blanchard, an Army running back who never played in the pro's?

Well, Doc Blanchard was drafted, third overall by the Pittsburgh Steelers, but he dodged that draft and volunteered.

He volunteered for the Army Air Corps and later the United States Air Force.

Blanchard, "Mr. Inside" to his teammate Glenn Davis, "Mr. Outside," won almost every award a college football player could win. The Heisman, the first ever by a Junior, the Maxwell Award, and the John E. Sullivan Award.

During his career at West Point, Army football was the best in the nation. Their record during Blanchard's years under Coach Red Blaik was 27-0-1.

His teammate Davis won the Heisman the year after Blanchard. Army in the 1940s was football.

Army won three National Championships with the most dazzling backfield pair in college football history.

But Blanchard never played as a pro.

The War Department turned down his request and required him to serve his term of service.

Mr. Inside never looked back. Instead, he flew forward.

Blanchard flew fighter jets and bombers, serving in Korea and Vietnam.

Instead of parachuting out of his burning plane over a populated area near London in 1959, he piloted it the smoking jet down.

Blanchard flew 84 missions over North Vietnam in 1968 and 1969.

He later retired as a Colonel.

On April 19, Mr. Inside died at the age of 84. He was the oldest living Heisman Trophy winner.

A relic from another era when pro sports wasn't king, court, and jester.

Perhaps when you see a player complain about his draft status, whine that he wants traded, or moan about the team that's paying him millions to play a child's game, think of Old Doc Blanchard.

What did the Doc think of all that jazz?

Or maybe just raise a glass to Mr. Inside.

Perhaps lift the cold glass, if you can, when a glittering fighter jet cuts through the bright blue sky.

Toast the sparkling spring sky.

Toast Doc Blanchard.

Mr. Inside has said good bye.

Ten Red Flag Rules for NFL Draft Day

Dan Boone — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:30:24 -0400

The NFL draft has become a raging beast born in a bizarre ESPN lab in Connecticut and sent foaming across the land.

Its popularity and hype is amazing. And despite over half of the players that are drafted being wash outs and another quarter very average fans are obsessed with it.

Mel Kiper has become a monster, and mega rich off of a hobby he enjoyed. Cheers to Mel and his Elvis hair.

Chris Berman, like Doctor Frankenstein, has been there since the draft was spawned. No not in the twenties drinking bootleg whiskey with George Halas and Red Grange but with the draft since it became a media monster.

After eighteen straight hours of coverage even Berman begins to looked dazed and confusion. Perhaps Berman ponders what rough beast has slouched toward Gotham to be born.

Or maybe this year, after three dozen drunk New York Jet fans begin foaming and frothing after round three and no QB drafted, Berman himself will cave in and begin mumbling Mary Shelly wondering what he has wrought upon the land.

"But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be--a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself."

Cheer up Berman its not that bad.

But in order to help the bedazzled NFL front offices I offer a few humble tips.

And if they are accepted, and are a successful, tips or a job scouting in the Caribbean are always welcome.

1. If your favorite player has been in more shootings than occur in an average Sam Peckinpaugh movie skip him.

Pass.

Even if he pleads that it was all a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time all the time.

Your team does not need an ongoing Quentin Tarintino movie unfolding every training camp.

And if he shows up for his pro day interview packing a pistol and pointing at his crotch saying this is my pistol this is my gun one is for fighting one is for fun immediately send him to the Cincinnati Bengal table.

2. Hard drug arrests are no no's. but arrests for selling hard drugs is a bigger no no. If he wants to be Tony Montana, not Joe Montana pass.

Not matter how fast, strong, and productive he was at Florida just pass.

if he passes the drug tests but says he enjoys "the life" and it's just "bidness man." pass. Please pass.

Pot heads can be dealt with Pablo Escobar wanna can't.

3. Footballers who have been in fights can be dealt with.

Football players that have a 30-2 record against coeds, cheerleaders, aunts, sisters, female cousins, groupies, girlfriends, wives, waitresses, grandmothers, Mommas, and nuns should be avoided.

Those cruel cats don't change their stripes.

4. Players that are enraptured with themselves and show it by constantly referring to themselves in the third person.

For example if the player says " David A. Addington is happy to bring David A Addington to your city and I'm sure your fans are going to love David A. Addington as much as David A.

Addingtion is loved by all those who get to know David A. Addington. David A Addington, D ADD to his friends, can not wait to bless your club with David A. Addington's talent. Blessed it be to be David A Addington" And that player is in fact David A Addington please pass.

This man usually comes with a posse of thirty to fifty. Never draft a man with a posse of more then five.

Whatever happened to the days of Jack Dempsey when a man entered the ring alone and unadorned?

5. Don't take the magnificent guy that looks great, performs outstanding on all his physical tests, runs a 4.21 forty and bench presses 440 pounds but was mostly a dud except for that one wonderful week against Indiana when he looked like Lawrence Taylor.

Pass you can't coach him up. Your not that smart. He's not that good. He will be the same underachieving guy except he will have millions in the bank and you will be the assistant linebacker coach at Ciudad Juarez State South.

Country strong beats steroid strong every-time. Skip the posers.

6. Don't draft an imbecile. The guy doesn't have to be bright. He doesn't have to be smart. He can even be dumb. He just can't be an all the time imbecile.

An imbecile will kill you. He will constantly do stupid things in very public ways. Don't fall for the oh he is just immature line or he's a good kid that does moronic things line.

Let him do moronic things for Jerry Jones. Jerry craves that jive anyway. Jerry wants a circus not a team.

The mean moron is the worst of the breed. The mean moron will connive and try to do moronic things because he thinks its cool, funny, or he just craves attention.

Pass the mean moron no matter how fast or strong.

A guy doesn't need character as much as he just needs not to be a cartoon character.

7. Avoid the cash in, ching, ching, ching king.

The guy that's gonna grab that guaranteed money then grab the beer, the white bread, the donuts, triple bacon burgers and happyily hog down all day long and jam all night to old eighties hair bands on Guitar Hero.

This happy fellow says screw that football, dude. I got me a million bucks in the bank, the Budweiser is ice cold and Taco Bell delivers.

Life is good. I ain't running no forty yard dashes for no fascist football coaches no more.

That's nevermore. No nay never no more will I play the wild rover back, no nay never no more. Well maybe in my contract year I will.

Hey does Pizza Hut deliver beer and blonds, too?

8. Don't draft a madman.

Now sometimes madmen can come in handy rushing the passer on third and long or stuffing the run on fourth and one

Man Men can be handy in barroom brawls with bikers that is, of course, they are on your side. That's why the Vikings of old took drug addled, frothing Berserkers with on sea raids.

No not Jim Marshall and the Coach Bud Grant Minnesota Vikings of yore but Coach Harald Bluetooth and the Norway Vikings of Thor.

Today a total mad man can be very disruptive to a team.

Recall the insane in the membrane Big Ten defensive ends first round draft picks from the nineties?

Remember Demetrius Underwood and Alonzo Spellman? It's not a good thing when your mammoth first round draft pick hijacks an airplane.

How about Todd Marinovich? Driven mad by Dad by twenty one?

Richard Nixon and Al Davis both loved the madman theory in the seventies. It worked better for Al then it did for Dick but Al's madmen were football players first.

And the seventies were so much funner, in Nixon's defense Henry Kissinger wasn't near as good as John Madden.

Al Davis didn't cares if his players raged that being mad was a special pleasure that only madmen know if they could rattle Dan Fouts or intercept Terry Bradshaw.

Alas for Al the hey day of the madman has passed the NFL by.

Horseman, er Mad Stork on a horse that is, pass by.

Pass on the madmen. Remember the old rule don't sleep with anyone crazier then yourself? Don't draft anyone crazier then yourself either.

If your a coach like mad Mike Ditka that's an easy rule to follow.

The world is so full of simpletons and madmen one does not need to seek them for your roster.

But they did make the game much more interesting. And they sure could frighten the peaceful villagers storming off of those old Dragon Ships.

9. Don't draft a jackass. Known in San Diego as the Ryan Leaf rule.

10. If you have been hearing so much about a players potential problems or his off field issues or his problems with coaches or his Momma issues or he is just constantly in the media doing something stupid skip him.

Skip. Skip. Skip. Skip e doo daa have a wonderful day.

Who needs the stress?

Do you want to give a guy thirty million and suddenly every time you hear from him, usually well past midnight, he is living the lyrics from an old Warren Zevon song?

I went home with the waitress
The way I always do
How was I to know
She was with the
Russians, too?

I was gambling in Havana
I took a little risk
Send lawyers, guns and money
Coach, get me out of this, hyeah

I'm the innocent bystander
Somehow I got stuck
Between the rock
and a hard place
And I'm down on my luck
Yes I'm down on my luck
Well I'm down on my luck

I'm hiding in Honduras
I'm a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns and money
The shit has hit the fan

All right
Send lawyers, guns and money
Huh!
Uh...
Send lawyers, guns and money
Uhh!
Send lawyers, guns and money
Hyah!
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NFL Declares War on Poker

Dan Boone — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:11:47 -0400

The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.—Ambrose Bierce

Mark Twain once wrote that nothing needs reforming more then other people's habits.

And the NFL wants to reform your online habits.

The NFL, always a bright beacon of morals in a blighted land, has decided to self-righteously step into the public morals debate. The NFL does not want a bill allowing online gambling, that is a current bill legalizing poker, to pass.

The NFL behemoth is so against people playing online poker that they have hired a high priced Washington Lobbyist, opened a DC office, and set up a PAC Donation committee to help its noble cause.

So that's where ticket increase money goes. That's why the stadium beers are nine bucks and the exhibition games are full priced flops. Perhaps that explains the PSL's. The league needs just craves some spare change to pay some politicos for favors.

Nah, the PSL's are pure greed. Nothing more nothing less.

But give it to Roger Goodell, a senator's son, who knows the Beltway better then the ball field. And he does not want folks wagering on the internet on his football games.

The NFL has thrown its vast wealth and political power into the anti-poker fray.

The old battle cry, of course, is to maintain the integrity of the game. Online Poker will be the straw that breaks the NFL camel's back. Corruption will take hold across our fair land and shame our national game.

But the battle to set the public morals has made some mighty strange bedfellows for the NFL.

Fearing that the evils of online gaming are sapping its failing strength in a fading economy, the NFL has found a strong moral ally in North American and Native American tribal casinos.

Both casino organizations throw a lot of money, and junkets, at the politicos trying desperately block online gaming.

Online poker is, of course, a severe threat to the core values of America.

A sleeper cell buried on the internet.

And everyone knows the boys in Vegas and Atlantic City have always been men highly concerned with the moral makeup of American society...

The last gambling threat to so shake the foundations of the NFL were likely the frogmen who took Baltimore Colts/LA Rams owner Robert Irsay for his last swim or maybe the bookies that took San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie Debartolo's weekly massive 49er bets.

The politicians agree. The integrity of the scared game itself is at stake. It's time for a stand.

It's time for Johnny Unitas to go for six and the cover and skip the easy three and the win.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, a friend of the casino boys in Vegas, fights immoral online poker with one hand, and with the other, lobbies hard for a tax payer built Vegas Mob Museum.

The long awaited Vegas Mob Museum!

No poker on the computer in your basement, boys, but for $15, we will show the kids where Bugsy Siegal's brains were scattered in Vegas. Frank Costello says keep your mind off the showgirls, kids.

How about the real story of Tony "the Ant" Spilotro and the Stardust and Circus Circus? Child, did you ever hear of a man monikered Mad Sam DeStefano?

Look kids: This is where the bomb lifted Lefty Rothenstein out of his car. This is the very seat that saved him. Want to sit on it for a $5 picture?

Put in $5, press the play button, and hear the sad song of Sonny Liston.

Charming, eh?

Maybe.

I'd go to it. It certainly is no worse, morally, then online poker. But neither should be monitored or made by the government.

The old ale soaked scribe at the bar once scribbled that the government that governs best governs least.

Another odd NFL poker ban pal is the Christian Coalition.

The congressman most concerned about the effect of poker and football betting on the morals of America is the honorable Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, via Massachusetts.

Congressman Goodlatte, a member of the Christian Coalition, loves his cyber security task force, perhaps because they give him a secret Dick Tracey badge or watch. The congressman is a powerful member of the Agriculture Committee.

Oddly enough, he can combine his pair of politico power toys.

See, Senator Goodlatte also loves the slaughter of horses, but he denounces online poker as a threat to the very soul of America.

I guess he missed Gable and Monroe in The Misfits.

Goodlatte, after securing lots of donations from casino owners and their ilk, raged against internet gambling.

The same folks that sent Senator Bob piles of cash also have a vested interest in some racetracks and thoroughbred operations around the nation.

Some of those folks like selling their used up race horses to slaughter. Some of these same folks also do not want gaming competition for their casinos. Some of those same folks still have some skim and swag to spend to set their agenda.

So Senator Bob also became a key player in supporting horse slaughterhouses around the United States. He actually personally blocked a law banning slaughtering horses, while still leading the fight against internet poker.

And what would the the restless ghost of Colonel Mosby think of a carpet-bagging Yankee promoting horse killing and poker slaying in his home state of Old Virginia?

Goodlatte, in these trying economic times, is a man with serious issues on his brain and in his billfold. I mean, in this terrifying economic tempest, it's good to know a stern man of morals in Washington is bravely fighting to stop poker and start horse slaughterhouses.

Someday, likely outside a seedy second rate casino with a run down sleazy track, someone might build a bird shit-stained statue of the moral law maker.

Then sacrifice a healthly horse under it.

Still, the good senator has formed an odd alliance with the NFL, the Christian Coalition, Casino Owners, Donald Trump, Donald Trump's hair, and the gambling tribes of North America.

Who would have thought the linear descendants of Francis Lightfoot Lee, Cotton Mather, Elmer Layden, George Halas,Tecumseh, Neamathla, PT Barnum, Bugsy Siegel, Frank Costello, and a dead, dyed, rotting raccoon (the closest thing I could think of for Trump's hair) would join hands to battle online poker?

Granted, greed unites, politics have no relation to morals and, of course, the covetous are always in want, but that's still a strange brew to be passing the peace pipe and moaning about the loose morals of online gaming, or of anything for that matter.

Other politicos, with, apparently, not much else on their plate, have also stepped into the fray.

Iowa republican Jim Leach called online gaming "a double-whammy for society. It is so seductively habit-forming that individuals can in short order lose their homes and jobs and, indeed, their families and futures. And the effects on individuals redound into society."

At first I though Senator Leach meant crack cocaine or the stock market. Somehow I did not know internet poker or a football bet threatened the very fabric of the republic.

Currently, banks must regulate credit card transactions to assure that the money is not being used for online gambling.

Banks can't even regulate the billions of bailout bucks they have ravenously gobbled up, and now they are the online gaming morals cops?

And really, don't banks have enough to worry about besides bets on poker or football?

Sure, sweet Sir J. Allen Stanford, that crooked Texas banker man, stuck a lot of banks in Antigua. Offshore banks that handle a lot of poker and gambling action.

But is that gambling action worse then Wall Street speculation? Surely, Sir J. Allen Stanford dealt with some shady characters with Slavic accents, but perhaps Sir J. Allen will learn the meaning, at long last, of buy the ticket, take the ride.

Why not say good-bye to all that nonsense and legalize it and tax it.

States are desperate for revenue. What's the difference between betting on a horse or a numbers drawing and wagering on football or poker, except that your odds are better?

Sports gambling is accepted throughout Europe, Asia, and exotic Canada.

Why must Americans cling to Puritan morals and make it illegal? Why must we protect the cash flow of a cartel of special interests groups, Vegas, Atlantic City, tribal casinos, the NFL, and corrupt politicians?

Why not legalize it and tax it?

And why outrage over poker, which is the quiescent American pastime?

And why does Roger Goodell care if I play online poker? Why must the NFL interfere with our lives? Why is it using fan generated money against its fan base?

Presidents as diverse as US Grant, Warren Harding, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Barack Obama enjoyed poker.

At the funeral of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, jokes were made about his fondness for his monthly poker games and gambling with the other Supremos and select DC insiders.

The states run various lotteries, rip off tickets, race tracks, casinos, slot parlors, dice games, and keno.

All are worse bets then wagering on sports or playing poker.

Betting lines of NFL games are published in papers nationwide. Betting on NFL games is mentioned on most NFL pregame shows and on countless Web sites.

Poker and football betting are two of the most popular American pastimes. Well, they were anyway, when folks still had jobs.

Each year the Super Bowl is the most highly wagered on event nationwide.

Why not make it all legal?

And again, why doesn't the NFL and Goodell mind their own damn business about people's private poker habits?

Why doesn't a revenue starved state take a wild leap and legalize sports betting?

Delaware: I'm talking to you.

What's Goodell gonna do to Delaware, anyway? Take away its NFL Sunday Ticket? Invade and vandalize it with his Visigoth-like Cincinnati Bengals?

Or will the NFL just be outraged?

Folks are very good at outrage these days. But can't they find something else to be outraged about than poker?

And can't Roger Goodell find something better to do with his time and the fan's money?

But most of all, Mister Goodell, why don't you mind your own damn business?

Hypocrisy: Prejudice with a halo.—Bierce, still lost in Old Mexico.

Roger Craig, Terrell Davis Highlight Best NFL Backs Not in the Hall of Fame

Dan Boone — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:02:55 -0400

Running the ball is usually an easy route to the Hall.

A helluva lot easier Hall route than being a blocker or a tackler or, in the case of Ray Guy, a punter.

Unless, of course, an injury lays your career low, leaving you in Hall limbo.

Gale Sayers was one of the very few great ones able to slash through a shortened career and run to Hall daylight. But he was also an electrifying punt and kick return specialist besides being one of the most dazzling runners of all time.

Let's look at some old running backs looking to hit that last Hall hole hard and plunge to bronze-bust glory.

Terrell Davis: Denver Broncos

TD was the man who finally carried John Elway to Super Bowl glory. His career was cut short by a knee injury, but not before he had already won two Super Bowl rings, two Offensive Player of the Year awards, and one NFL MVP award.

Davis was on the All-Decade team of the 1990s, averaged 4.6 yards a carry for his career, and made three Pro Bowl appearances.

Roger Craig: San Francisco Forty Niners, Oakland Raiders, Minnesota Vikings

In 1986 Craig became the first player in NFL history to total over 1,000 yards rushing and receiving in a single season.

The ultimate Bill Walsh West Coast back, Craig caught a then NFL running back record 93 passes in 1988, the same year he was NFL MVP and Offensive Player of the Year.

Craig made the Pro Bowl four times as both a fullback and tailback, and was a key element on three Niners' Super Bowl champion teams.

The Nebraska product is on the NFL's All-1980s squad.

Allan Ameche: Baltimore Colts

Ameche, a Heisman winner at Wisconsin, scored the biggest touchdown in NFL history, the winning plunge in the 1958 Championship Game. Even without that score, the Horse had a Hall-worthy career on those famed Baltimore Colts squads.

A Rookie of the Year award, four Pro Bowls, two championship rings, and a member of the All-Decade team of the 1950s. Why isn't the Horse in the Hall already?

Rick Casares: Chicago Bears, Washington Redskins, Miami Dolphins

Casares, like Ameche, is buried in the deep seniors' committee swamp.

But the powerful Bear fullback, the toughest man Mike Ditka said he ever saw in football, made three Pro Bowls and in 1956 led the league in rushing with the second highest total, at the time, in NFL history.

Casares was the Bears' all-time leading rusher until Walter Payton came along. Pretty good numbers for a fullback.

Otis "OJ" Anderson: St. Louis Cardinals, New York Giants.

OJ revived his career by winning two Super Bowls, a Super Bowl MVP award, and a Comeback Player of the Year award with Bill Parcells and the New York Giants.

But before that, he was the Rookie of the Year and a two-time Pro Bowler with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Anderson scored 86 touchdowns and ran for over 10,000 yards in his career.

That's a lot of stuff on the mantle for a man who hardly gets a whiff from the Hall.

Eddie George: Houston Oilers, Tennessee Titans, Dallas Cowboys

The big back of the Titans' powerful attack won Rookie of the Year and made four Pro Bowls while rushing for over 10,000 yards. George also accounted for over 2,000 yards catching the pigskin.

George totaled 86 touchdowns and made one Super Bowl appearance.

Note

This article does not include men that are not yet Hall eligible. The addition of stalwarts Curtis Martin, Jerome Bettis, and Marshall Faulk will surely create further back backlog.

Ameche and Casaras need to land on the seniors list to make the cut. With Faulk a sure thing and Martin almost one, it seems like Davis, Bettis, and Craig will jostle for a slot. For some reason though, Craig doesn't generate much interest from the voters.

Anderson and George are longer shots to bust a Hall run, but one never knows. Doak Walker has just over 1,500 career rushing yards and the old Lion landed in the Hall of Fame.

But old Doak kicked too.