The Sports Curmudgeon

It’s official - - and the news is bad. So to speak, … The Lingerie Bowl will not happen this year. You will not have the opportunity to tune into scantily clad attractive women playing indoor football on a pay-per-view basis at halftime of the Super Bowl. Your choices would seem to be limited to watching the halftime excess put on by the NFL or you can go and stand in line to get rid of the first half’s liquid libations and make room for the consumption of the second half.

This makes two years in a row that the Lingerie Bowl has been touted and then canceled at the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute. The organizers say that they could not acquire a “proper venue” for the event and that is why it will not happen. Call me cynical, but that really does sound somewhat like, “…but I didn’t inhale.”

But never fear; there is a halftime viewing option for those of you who just cannot stomach the nonsensical Super Bowl halftime extravaganza. Animal Planet – that’s one of those channels on your cable system that you probably do not have on your “power rotation” – will have “Puppy Bowl” on during halftime using puppies as participants in something that is supposed to mimic football. Are you ready for this? Puppy Bowl will be in Hi-Def this year so that you will be able to see every fur ball and drop of drool generated by the participants. For those of you who really did want to see Lingerie Bowl, you can take solace in the fact that the puppies in Puppy Bowl will be even more scantily clad than the models would have been in the Lingerie Bowl; the puppies will wear only helmets…

The whole concept of Puppy Bowl makes me wonder:

1. How come there isn’t a huge PETA protest over this exploitation of animals for the pure amusement of humankind?

2. Will Michael Vick be tuning into this at halftime of the game thinking that this is what he should have been doing with dogs in his spare time?

3. Is Patti Page still exchanging oxygen in the biosphere so that she can sing How Much Is That Doggie In The Window as the lead-in to this event?

By the way, despite what you have probably heard 50 times already from the talking heads on TV, a Patriots win will not be something that cannot be exceeded in future NFL times. Just as the NFL expanded its season from 14 to 16 games between the Dolphins’ perfect season in 1972 and the Pats’ perfect season this year, there could be another expansion of the NFL season in the future. There could also be an expansion of the playoff format eliminating first round byes in future years.

In addition, it is mathematically possible for a team under the current scheduling and the current system of playoff rules to play 20 games in the season and therefore win all 20 of them. That would surpass the Patriots’ accomplishment if they win on Sunday. It is so unlikely as to be virtually unrealistic; but the situation does obtain. By the way, it is also possible for a Super Bowl champion to finish out the season playing 20 games with a combined regular season record and playoff record of 8-12. Both extremes can happen. Before these possibilities are dismissed as impossible, please recall that every “unbreakable record” was thought to be unattainable until it happened…

Does anyone recall the stories from last spring and summer about how everyone in the Dallas Cowboys’ organization and team was so thrilled to be out from under the yoke of Bill Parcells and how difficult it was to work with and for him in Dallas? Parcells was portrayed as demanding and curt; the change to a Wade Phillips regime was welcomed because of its fundamental humanity and more casual approach to the business of football. That all sounded good at the time – particularly before up until Thanksgiving when the Cowboys were dominating all their opponents – but ask yourself this:

If Bill Parcells was such a pain in the ass, why has he been able to get so many people from the Cowboys’ organization to come and work under him again in Miami?

With Parcells gone and with the folks he took with him, you have to wonder if there is anyone left in the Dallas organization who can/will tell Jerry Jones when he is off on a fool’s errand. Who can/will tell the emperor he is buck-naked? If there is no one around to do that, will that mean the re-signing of Quincy Carter is just around the corner? That is precisely the kind of thing that happened the last time Jerry Jones did not have anyone around to tug on his leash…

An arbitrator has ruled that Terrell Owens owes the Eagles another $769K – over and above the fines and suspensions that cost him income in Philly a couple of years ago – because of what the arbitrator characterized as his misbehaviors when he was with the Eagles. Owens says that he is disappointed with the NFLPA who represented him in this grievance adjudication because he thinks they did not represent his case very well. Whatever. Here is the statement by Owens that caught my eye:

“I’m not going to really worry about the money, money doesn’t really make me. I’m very fortunate to be where I am, and I’ll leave that in the past.'’

Excuse me, but it was all about the money that got him away from the Ravens and to the Eagles when he forced his way out of SF and it was all about the money that got him signed in Dallas. Remember his goofy publicist who explained away his “suicide attempt” saying that T.O. had “26 million reasons to live”? By the way, the reason he isn’t “really worried” about paying this money is that the Cowboys owe him a $3M roster bonus rather soon and he will make another $4M for the upcoming season. It would take a lot more than a statement from T.O. or his horse-holder, Drew Rosenhaus, to convince me that the money is not important…

With regard to the game on Sunday, here is something to think about:

The Patriots have had two weeks to study the field and to set up the camera angles and logistics for getting video information to the booth and to the sideline coaches. How can the Giants overcome that?

Finally, here is syndicated columnist, Norman Chad, with a view of the intersection of sports and politics:

“Has anybody had a better year in Congress than Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry? He worked tirelessly — tirelessly! — to get Major League Baseball to offer its Extra Innings television package to more homes. Then he worked tirelessly — tirelessly! — to get the Patriots-Giants game [on NFL Network] into more homes. Just think — if this guy were president, we’d be out of Iraq and we’d have more hockey on TV.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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It doesn’t happen all that often and it almost happened this year. When the Giants beat the Packers to advance to the Super Bowl, the Giants prevented a game in which the opposing teams would both start quarterbacks who had previously won the Super Bowl. Unless I have miscounted, that has only happened three times in the history of 42 Super Bowl contests. Terry Bradshaw’s Steelers played Roger Staubach’s Cowboys in 1976 and in 1979; in both of those games the quarterbacks were previous winners. Then in 1984, Joe Theismann’s Redskins met Jim Plunkett’s Raiders. I do not think there were any other games with that kind of match-up. We came close to seeing one this year, but it was not meant to be…

Trend players wish it would have happened because that would have given them the key to the game. When games involve two quarterbacks who have previously won the Super Bowl, the AFC team has always won. Ergo…

The wagering record in Nevada – the only place where there is an audited total – on a Super Bowl game was two years ago (Seattle/Pittsburgh). That game handled $94.5M in the sportsbooks in Nevada. Based on early wagering and the intense following that both the Giants and Patriots bring to all of their games – let alone a Super Bowl – this one projects to blow away that record. One “expert” said that a handle of $110M was possible this year.

You would think that with a handle that large, the point spread would be very stable; in physics, that is called inertia. However, the early money came in on the Giants in great preponderance and dropped the line. A group called Las Vegas Sports Consultants Inc. suggested a 14-point line when the betting opened; most books opened there or at 13.5. When the tsunami of Giants’ money came in the line dropped to 12 in most of the places that I looked last week. At the moment, the line is 11.5 just about everywhere.

For those folks who took 14 points last Monday, there ought to be a small temptation to try to “middle” the game by giving 11.5 points now. If they did that and the game winds up with a Pats’ win by 12 or 13 points, they would collect both bets. If it winds up with a Pats win at 14 points, they win one bet and push the other. All other outcomes mean that they win one and lose the other – meaning they lose the 10% vigorish. Middles are difficult to come by with two target points in any game. I do not recall a Super Bowl where that was a possibility.

The Super Bowl is an economic engine well beyond the wagering “industry” in Nevada and the wagering “underground” at your local watering hole. According to the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, the Super Bowl will generate $10B in sales this year. Take a moment and think about that for a moment. That is almost 7% of the “economic stimulus package” that the Congress and the White House are trying to put into effect while each one claims the credit for taking action over the dead bodies of their political opponents. This single football game will generate 7% of that economic action despite the action or inaction of those politicos. So, how come none of those geniuses who have all the answers to everything has thought to pass a law mandating more Super Bowl games as a way to stimulate the economy? Now there’s “change” I could get behind very easily…

According to the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, the $10B in sales is not just beer and chips and salsa and guacamole (although this weekend does have to be the high water mark for the avocado growers of the world) and chicken wings. According to these folks, there will also be an upswing in sales of big screen TVs and furniture in anticipation of /preparation for the game and its associated parties. Another organization – BIG Research – projects that as many as 4 million people plan to buy a larger screen TV this year in time to watch the game.

By the way, the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association generates the acronym RAMA. Do you think they have ever had the urge to merge with some other organization to create something known as RAMA-LAMA-DING-DONG? Probably not…

Of course, there are the new advertisements that will roll out during the Super Bowl game. For the past few years, I think the “creative folks” at lots of ad agencies have gone off the deep end and tried excessively hard to be edgy. They seem to be “creative for the sake of creativity” and not entertaining or memorable. At the moment, the Budweiser folks are using a set of ads where this annoying dude – the Budweiser Lager Man – lectures us about how difficult it is to make an American lager. Yeah, right; it used to be made in bathtubs…

I might actually start drinking one of the Budweiser products if they would bring back Louie the Lizard and his frog buddies. Those were the most entertaining commercials that came out of the Super Bowl as far as I am concerned.

So, as the sporting world ramps up to the Super Bowl game, out there on the horizon something called the AAFL is about to begin. This is the All American Football League and it will be a pro league that plays in the spring. The concept behind the league is interesting. All players must have graduated from college; that means Joe Namath is now eligible to play here because he just got his degree from Alabama last year. Additionally, teams are located in areas where college football dominates the sporting scene and many of the players on the teams will come from colleges in those areas. For example, one team from Florida will play its games at The Swamp and hopes to have Florida alums, Chris Leak and Chris Doering on the field – among others.

In a related note, Peter Warrick was recently cut from the Las Vegas Gladiators of the Arena League. Were he to be drafted by the AAFL, that might provide an insight into the current pecking order of pro football:

1. NFL

2. CFL

3. Arena League

4. AAFL

The AAFL initial draft will be 50 (that is fifty) rounds long and each team has 18 “protected players” from their local areas. Training camp will begin in March and the opening kickoff to a 10-game season will be in April. And so, come the summer the AAFL will have a championship game. If the league succeeds, maybe this is the start of “another Super Bowl” to provide another economic stimulus in the early summer months? If so, you can be sure that the politicians will take credit for the economic benefits it might provide.

Of course, history is not on the side of the AAFL. The USFL, the WFL and the XFL have all tried to find a niche in the football landscape but it hasn’t worked. I like the AAFL concept of “local interest teams”. If they can avoid the temptation to try to compete with the NFL – even by overlapping the NFL Exhibition Season – they might survive. If they decide to “big time it” and play in the fall, they are doomed.

Finally, with the Super Bowl game approaching and with all the hyperbole that is associated with the teams and the game, it is appropriate to put the game into perspective. Duane Thomas was a very good running back with the Cowboys and Redskins back in the 1970s. He was also a person who saw the world from a perspective of reality and spoke his mind. Just prior to Super Bowl VI, Duane Thomas said:

“If it’s the ultimate game, how come they’re playing it again next year?”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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Allow me to pause for a while in the omnipresent assault of Super Bowl “news” to focus on some other things today. There are plenty of strange doings in other areas of the sporting firmament. For example, Donald Sterling – owner of the LA Clippers – has gotten into a pillow fight with Coach, Mike Dunleavy. Even though the Clips are saddled with injuries to two starters, Sterling expressed his dissatisfaction with the team’s record this year and said he expected more from the coach. Dunleavy did not take that kind of news quietly and said that if the owner thought someone else could do better, then the owner should go find that person. Dunleavy has about $18M left on his contract so he is not exactly going to be “down and out” if Sterling fires him. But there is a strange aspect here:

The Clippers GM for the last 22 years has been the same guy, Elgin Baylor. In that time, the Clippers are almost 500 games below .500; Elgin Baylor’s face is as recognizable at the NBA Lottery Draft as Dick Clark’s is on New Year’s Eve. So, how come Elgin Baylor is not now and has not been a source of “dissatisfaction” and “disappointment”?

The San Francisco papers have been saying for about ten days now that the Warriors will sign Chris Webber. That would be such a strange move that I didn’t even think to write about it, but now it seems as if it is about to happen. Why is it strange? Let me count the ways:

1. Chris Webber used to play for the Warriors about 12 or 13 years ago. His coach there was Don Nelson. They had a huge – and public – parting of the ways. Now Nelson is back with the Warriors and they are going to sign Webber?

2. The Warriors play run-and-gun basketball. Chris Webber cannot run anymore. He is almost 35 years old and his legs are shot.

3. Last year with Detroit, a team that plays a methodical/controlled game, Webber was marginally useful at best

4. The Warriors need someone to play tough interior defense. That’s what Chris Webber cannot – or will not – do; that is a big part of what the “parting of the ways” was all about in his first incarnation with the Warriors.

5. The Warriors say they want to use Webber’s strong passing skills. True, he is an excellent passer. Now if the Warriors only had a way to incorporate more than two passes per possession into their repertoire…

About two weeks ago, I said that I really thought the Portland TrailBlazers were building something out there and that just as they would be peaking as a team – an a few years – the other Western Conference powerhouses might be in decline. Well, here is a comment on that topic from Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe in his blog. Great minds run in similar channels - - and all that stuff:

“Now I am not a betting man, but if you are, and there is such a thing as a futures wager, put a wad down on the Trail Blazers to win it all in 2010-2011. In that season, Greg Oden will be in his second year, Brandon Roy will be in his fourth, Steve Blake will be in his sixth, Martell Webster will be in his sixth, LaMarcus Aldridge will be in his fourth, Jarrett Jack will be in his fourth, Channing Frye will be in his fifth, James Jones will be in his sixth, Travis Outlaw will be in his sixth, Sergio Rodriguez will be in his fourth and Joel Przybilla will be in his ninth. And he will be the only one of this bunch over 30.”

The LA Times had a report on court documents filed in the Shaquille O’Neal divorce proceedings. Frankly, I don’t care at all about the proceedings here or who gets what at the end of the day, but the report in the LA Times did catch my eye with these items. These are the monthly expenses that Shaq claims to have as part of his lifestyle:

$22K - - maid services. Must be one sloppy family.

$17K - - clothing. I realize he can’t buy off-the-rack, but c’mon…

$23K - - gasoline and oil. No Toyota Prius in his fleet, evidently.

$1.5K - - cable TV. Say what? Does he get the Jupiterian channels?

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the inconvenient truth of women’s sports - - that most sports fans do not follow them closely. Obviously, I do not have a large readership in Lubbock, Texas because if I did, someone would have pointed out the following statistic to me. I found this in Charlie Walters’ column in the St. Paul Pioneer-Press:

“At Texas Tech, the men’s basketball team (10-7), coached by Bob Knight, is averaging 6,338 spectators a game while the women’s basketball team (13-5) is averaging 8,599.”

Similar to the Chris Webber return to the Warriors, there is another “rumor” floating around in the Bay Area that makes me wonder if someone had put hallucinogens in the water system out there. That rumor is that Barry Bonds is going to get an offer from the Oakland A’s to be their DH next year because - - get this - - the team realizes they will field a young squad this year and they think Bonds can be a “mentor” to the young players. This is the guy who demanded two lockers and a Barcalounger in the Giants’ clubhouse and reportedly remained aloof from the rest of the squad while increasing his body mass at an astronomical rate. Can someone tell me how that leads to the conclusion this guy is “mentor material”?

In realistic terms, Barry Bonds is a 43-year old free agent whose only realistic position on a baseball team at the moment is “batter”. He has the legal version of the sword of Damocles hanging over him in light of his Federal indictment and there is a small possibility that the Commish could suspend him “in the best interests of baseball” pending the outcome of that Federal legal proceeding. In case you do not recall, there is precedent in baseball for just this kind of thing. Judge Landis ordered all members of the 1919 Black Sox team banned from baseball for life even after a jury acquitted Shoeless Joe Jackson of any wrongdoing in the betting scandal. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t had to beat away suitors for his services next season and why this rumor of him going to the A’s as a “mentor” is so discordant.

It is definitely time for Spring Training to start. The baseball “hot stove league news” has just about run its course and all that is left are Congressional hearings and other legal wranglings. Elliot Harris had the same thought in the Chicago Sun-Times:

“Sammy Sosa wants to play baseball more than the Texas Rangers want him, so the former Cubs slugger is looking for work. It’s just a thought … but maybe Sosa can start a pro league in Ireland. He’d be a natural for a Cork team.”

Finally, a bit of baseball history from Bob Uecker:

“I signed with the Milwaukee Braves for a $3,000 bonus. My parents couldn’t afford that, but they paid it anyway.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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It’s countdown week to the Super Bowl. That means there will be lots of silly stories and lots of arcane trivia thrown out there this week in amongst incessant “game analysis”. So, let me join the fray.

If you go to bodoglife.com, you can find this interesting proposition wager – among the multiple dozens of prop bets they offer:

Whom will the MVP of the Super Bowl thank first?

God 2-1
Family 2-1
Teammates 3-1
Coach 4-1
No one 6-1

Just a hunch here, but if Michael Strahan happens to win the award, he won’t be thanking his orthodontist…

It looks as if FOX will have a six-hour pre-game show next Sunday; and for some unfathomable reason, Ryan Seacrest will be the emcee for part of it. The actual kickoff for the game is supposed to be 6:17 EST. If you do not want to be well past the stage of “numb” and on your way to “catatonic” at kickoff time, I suggest you leave your TV off until about 5:30 EST. If you watched that entire bloc of programming and actually retained the info that came out of the TV box, you would probably know what brand of motor oil every player on each team prefers to use in his car. The human brain was not designed to retain that kind of nonsensical information.

During the regular season, football telecasts tend to be about the games. For the Super Bowl, the telecast is more about the commercial enterprise of the Super Bowl than it is about the game on the field. I submit that one piece of evidence for that assertion is the inordinate length of the halftime break just so they can stage a useless “extravaganza” to attract viewers who could care less about football. I’ve already said that I would not know Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from Richard Petty and the Coronary Bypasses, but I have yet to hear anyone convince me that these folks have any greater linkage to NFL football than does Paul McCartney - - who had none whatsoever.

And one other thing about the halftime waste of time - - how pathetic does someone have to be to participate in the program as one of the mindless mouth-breathers who crowd around the makeshift stage and jump up and down as if this were the best moment in the history of mankind? I have this suspicion that these folks are hustled off the field after the performance, go in the bowels of the stadium, and change into uniforms because they are the ones who clean out the lavatories in the stadium and the luxury boxes. Why else would they do this? Was Up With People not hiring this year?

Here is a bit of pre-game analysis that you will probably not hear all week long or at any time during the interminable TV run-up to the game.

This will be the first professional football game in Arizona where there will be two professional football teams on the field at the same time.

During this week of football excess, ESPN will stage multiple “head-to-head” debates among their stable of football analysts regarding who will win the game and what the “X-factors” will be. If I gave you 49.5 as the number for such debates, would you take OVER or UNDER? I would be inclined to the OVER.

If you have watched any football at all this season, you have to have seen the GEICO ads where they hire a celebrity to tell the woeful tale of a real customer who is not a celebrity. I happen to think the best one is Joan Rivers where she complains that she cannot feel her face and asks the “non-celebrity” if she is smiling. The interesting juxtaposition with that ad would be Tom Coughlin from the game in Green Bay a week ago. Do you think he can feel his face yet?

And speaking of that game in Green Bay and the “challenging” weather conditions, there was a comment made on ESPN Radio that seems to have slipped under the radar of the “People Spring-Loaded To Be Pissed-Off About Just About Everything” (PSLTBPOAJAE). Scott Van Pelt said to Mike Tirico – on Tirico’s daily program:

“We’re not talking about polar bears or Eskimos. We’re talking about human beings. And I don’t think anyone enjoys being in that kind of weather.”

It would not take my eleventh grade English teacher long to parse those sentences and arrive at the conclusion that Messr. Van Pelt had just declared that Eskimos are not human beings. Do I think that is some kind of ethnic slur that demands some kind of retribution? Hell, no! However, it is interesting to note that it seems to have slipped past the people who have assigned themselves the role of being society’s nerve endings when it comes to statements that might offend someone somewhere. I believe it was H.L. Mencken who said that a Puritan was someone who lived in fear that somewhere someone was having fun. Today’s PC worshipers seem to live in fear that somewhere someone might be offended.

Finally, two comments from sportswriters about Chicago Bulls’ hopeful, JamesOn Curry:

“Chicago Bulls guard JamesOn Curry, farmed out to the Development League’s Iowa Energy, was arrested in Boise, Idaho, and charged with urinating in public.

“And to think, they wanted him to work on his outside shot.” (Dwight Perry, Seattle Times)

“The Bulls recalled rookie JamesOn Curry, which apparently fills the void at public urination.” Steve Rosenbloom (Chicago Tribune)

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

Comments(1)

Lord knows; I really wish this story would die. But this story seems to be like the vampire in all those old movie sequels from the 30s and 40s; someone keeps pulling the stake out of the vampire’s heart and that allows him to go around and terrorize the neighborhood for about two hours until someone sticks the stake back in his heart. Of course, I am talking about the Tiger Woods/lynching in a back alley story…

Tiger Woods was the direct object of the sentence that has offended so many; if you doubt that, go back and diagram the sentence that Kelly Tilghman uttered. Tiger Woods has said that this is over and done with as far as he is concerned and it is time to move on. Amen and amen to that! However, some people will not let it go; and now, Jim Brown has decided to make his thoughts known – weeks after the fact – on the subject. Naturally, he thinks Tiger Woods should have been more angry and said so more forcefully and more proximal to the event.

Let me set the stage here. Jim Brown was probably the best football player I ever saw play the game; he has been a social activist and a positive force in poor black neighborhoods for the past 40 years; he is a larger contributor to society than 99% of the folks out there. Having said that, this is not Jim Brown’s fight and his criticism of Tiger Woods is as ineptly phrased as was Kelly Tilghman’s original statement.

What Jim Brown means is that he – Jim Brown – would have reacted to this differently and more vociferously than Tiger Woods did. That does not make Jim Brown right and Tiger Woods wrong; that means Jim Brown and Tiger Woods have different opinions on this matter. But saying something along those lines will not garner nearly as many headlines and so Jim Brown takes a cheap shot and goes for the headlines.

I am a male of the Caucasian persuasion. If I were to say what Jim Brown said in the way Jim Brown said it, someone should call me “racially insensitive” for my remarks. After all, what I am doing is telling someone of a totally different racial and ethnic make-up how he ought to think about a remark that I find offensive. Translate that for just a moment and you should realize that I would be telling Tiger Woods that he is not smart enough or mature enough to have his own mind on this subject and that he needs my assistance. I try my best not to do things like that; would that Jim Brown and Al Sharpton and a few other minority spokespersons might do likewise.

And speaking of Tiger Woods, he remains the only reason that the sport of golf continues to command any meaningful attention in the US sporting firmament. The numbers from last year have been crunched and here they are:

On CBS, the ratings for tournaments where Tiger Woods finished in the top five averaged 4.6. When he was not in the field or out of the running for the championship, the ratings averaged 1.7. Almost two-thirds of the TVs were turned off or were tuned in elsewhere when Tiger Woods was not a factor.

On NBC, the effect was less dramatic. With Tiger Woods in the top five, the ratings were 3.5; with him “out of it”, the ratings were 2.2.

Ratings on The Golf Channel are not available because ratings on The Golf Channel are about as meaningless as wondering if a homeless person has Wednesday afternoon clear on his calendar.

Here is a Quick Quiz for the golf aficionados out there:

Which tournament has the largest purse value? [Answer below]

The NHL just extended its TV deal with Versus Network for 3 years. I am sure there are sports fans who get Versus as part of their cable package and do not even know it is there. I get it; but if you ask me what channel it is on my cable system, I have to go and look at the program guide. It is not even close to being in my “power rotation”. Here is the really scary thought – if you are a hockey guy:

Maybe Gary Bettman and the rest of the NHL braintrust did not have any other offers when it came to acquiring the rights to televise NHL games outside Canada. That would be a sobering thought, would it not?

Many people talk about how things were “back in the day”. I can tell you this for sure; “back in the day”, no one said things like “back in the day”. Nonetheless, I am old enough to remember a time when cable TV did not exist; it was a technological curiosity that had been demonstrated in laboratory environments but had exactly zero commercial footprint. When the Congress was called upon to hold hearings to figure out how to license and regulate this upstart “industry”, I remember that there was talk of cable TV being a medium that could be commercial-free; that is why everyone would have to pay a small monthly fee to have it in their homes. That fee was supposed to offset the revenues from ads that would clutter up the over-the-air networks.

So, how is that working out for you? Do you have loads of commercial-free networks on cable? No? Then of course, you no longer have to pay that “small” monthly fee, right? How did all that happen right under the noses of those ever-vigilant Congressional overseers?

Quick Quiz answer: The British Open has the largest purse value of any tournament on the PGA schedule this year.

I hope you noticed that I took an entire day off from any reporting of silly-stuff related to the NFL at the middle of the hiatus between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. I think I deserve a medal for that.

Finally, here is an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“John Daly withdrew from the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic on Saturday, citing a rib injury.

“So does that mean he injured a rib, or got injured trying to swallow one?”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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Yesterday, I suggested that good scouting of players to be taken in the draft was extremely important for NFL teams. I used the example of whom the Raiders drafted in exchange for Randy Moss to make that point. A friend sent me a note asking a question that he said would reinforce the point that good scouting is a foundation piece of NFL success. He asked me to name the two WRs taken before the 49ers took Jerry Rice in the NFL draft.

For reasons that I could never explain, I actually knew one of these two WRs. I guess some synaptic links just never let go…That player was Al Toon from Wisconsin and he was taken by the Jets. Toon was a fine player whose career was shortened by head injuries. With regard to the second WR taken before – read “instead” – of Jerry Rice, I could have guessed for a very long time without coming up with the name. How long, did you ask? Well, let’s just say that Michael Vick would have been invited to be the guest judge for Best-In-Show at the Westminster Dog Show before I got the answer.

That second WR was Eddie Brown from Miami and he was taken by the Bengals. Eddie Brown was the Rookie of the Year; he went to the Pro Bowl. Both of these players were outstanding in college and both had productive pro careers. However, it was the 49ers who had found the gem of the draft and who traded up to be in a position to take him. Snagging a Jerry Rice is what makes a scouting department worth their keep.

The Chargers fired James Lofton – their wide receivers’ coach – and Matt Simon – their running backs’ coach. Excuse me, but is there a municipal ordinance in San Diego that demands their football team fire coaches after successful seasons? Last year, Marty Schottenheimer and his staff took it in the shorts after a 14-2 record. Now the Chargers go to the AFC Championship Game and lose to a team on the brink of a historically outstanding record and they fire two assistant coaches. Did I miss something here? Did the WRs and RBs for the Chargers stink out the joint all season long?

In another coaching move that serves to make me shake my head in an attempt to get the cobwebs out, the NY Jets just hired Bill Callahan as their assistant head coach. Excuse me, but can someone tell me just what Bill Callahan did in his tenure with the Raiders or during his regime at Nebraska that would indicate this is a good hire? What other candidates were on the short list for that job? Ray Handley, Richie Kotite, Bobby Petrino and Dave Campo?

Speaking of the NY Jets, these next two weeks have to be a preview of Hell for Jets’ fans. These fans will be bombarded with news of the hated NE Patriots and/of the hated NY Giants. In addition, there is that other bit of inevitability they have to deal with - - one of those hated rivals will be hoisting the Vince Lombardi trophy; there is no way around that one. It would be interesting to note next month whether or not sales of Prozac spiked during this two-week period in the NY/NJ area…

Ads for the Super Bowl game will cost $2.7M for 30 seconds this year. As of the first week of January, 67 of those ads had been sold and everyone fully expects the rest of them to be full prior to game time. In what has seemingly become a ritual for this time of year, godaddy.com buys a time slot and then produces an ad that will not make it past the network censors/arbiters of good taste. Then the company runs the ad on its website after it gets the publicity from the ad’s banishment from TV. Reportedly, this year’s ad involves Danica Patrick and a beaver. No, I have not gone to see the ad on the website but I am certain that there is an appearance by an aquatic mammal known for building dams in streams…

Jerry Greene reported in the Orlando Sentinel that Victoria’s Secret would return to the Super Bowl as a sponsor after an eight-year absence. That news should be welcomed by the National Association of Voyeurs. Taken at face value, there is nothing really interesting here. But then, we had to hear from the Chief Marketing Officer for Victoria’s Secret, Jill Beraud:

‘’Valentine’s Day is an important holiday for the brand, and with this year’s Super Bowl being positioned so close to Feb. 14, we had a unique opportunity to use one of the year’s highest-rated television programs as a vehicle to launch our efforts surrounding Valentine’s Day.'’

Really? The Super Bowl game is on Sunday February 3. Since the NFL seems to have settled on the first Sunday of February as the target date for the Super Bowl, that means this year’s game is on one of the days furthest from Valentine’s Day. At least half of the Super Bowl games in recent past and in future times will be closer to Valentine’s Day than this one is. Why do marketing weasels feel the need to fudge the truth? Victoria’s Secret is advertising on the Super Bowl simply because there is a huge audience of men and women staring at the TV set. Victoria’s Secret is a brand that garners sales from both sexes. The question is not why they are advertising on this game; the question is why they have not done so for the last eight years. Ask those marketing geniuses that question and be sure to remind them that all of the Super Bowl games are proximal to Valentine’s Day.

If you go online to check for Super Bowl tickets, you can find them in the $4-5K range. This is not what I would call a “family friendly event” from an economic perspective - - unless you are part of the Warren Buffet family.

Finally, here is a note from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald about a guy who might be one of the buyers for Super Bowl tix at $5K a pop:

“A Patriots fan from New Hampshire, Victor Thompson, has had a Patriots helmet tattooed across his entire shaved head. Thompson has not yet decided whether he wants to be very lonely, or buy lots of hats.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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It is already upon us. We are now officially eyebrow deep into Super Bowl Stupid Season - - and there are still eleven days to go until the game. It is bad enough when some reporter from MTV asks a stupid question of the players on media day; it is bad enough when a magazine such as People tries to be “Super Bowl relevant” for a week without any clue as to what is relevant/irrelevant; but we are beyond all of that already. Here we are with an article in the Boston Herald informing us that both QBs in the Super Bowl have blonde girlfriends. This is in a Boston newspaper; Boston is one of the two epicenters of interest for this game; there are days upon days to go and a Boston newspaper has to dip that deep into the pot for a story angle? Oh my, we are indeed awash in the Super Bowl Stupid Season.

Let’s try to get some of the other highly predictable Super Bowl Stupid Season items out of the way quickly. What would be the over/under on the number of players from the 1972 Dolphins that will be interviewed in the next eleven days. Remember, those were 40-man rosters back then so I would put the number somewhere around 23. If the media starts on this angle too early, it might run out of steam well before game time and that would be bad because then we might have a feature article on how many 1972 Dolphins had blonde girlfriends as compared to the 2008 Patriots. That would make my teeth itch.

You know that there will be “game analysis” on TV and on sports radio to such an overwhelming extent that your ears will bleed if you hear any more. I will give you the basic keys to victory and defeat here for both or either team. Listen carefully to a few of the expert analyses and see if most of their verbiage doesn’t boil down to this:

Keys to Victory: No turnovers, avoid sacks/third-and-long situations, play good special teams, pressure opposing QB, be efficient in the red zone.

Keys to Defeat: Turn the ball over, fail to protect the QB/too many third-and-long situations, poor special teams play, no pressure on opposing QB, allow TDs when opponent is in red zone.

Please notice, you can substitute the name of any team into those keys to victory and defeat. You can save them and check out their utility in next year’s Super Bowl Stupid Season if you would like…

The Giants enter this game with a ten game road winning streak; that has never been done before in the history of the NFL. Please understand that I am not trying to minimize that accomplishment. I am trying to put it in perspective.

Six of those road wins were against Atlanta, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Miami and Philly. Atlanta, Detroit and Miami were just plain bad football teams last year; Chicago wasn’t anything all that fearsome either; Buffalo and Philly were good but hardly great teams.

The other four road wins came against playoff teams – Washington a long time ago – and then the three playoff games against Tampa, Dallas and Green Bay.

The Giants are definitely the NFC team playing the best football at the moment and their prowess away from home is what fueled this run. I do think it is reasonable to point out however that the meat of the road winning streak is the Giants’ very recent run in the playoffs because the regular season road schedule for the Giants after the second week of the season was not all that big a deal.

There cannot be any doubt that the re-emergence of Randy Moss as an elite WR in the NFL was a major part of the Pats’ success this year. I think I have gotten this right. I recall that the Pats traded a 4th round draft pick last year to the Raiders to acquire Moss and I believe that the Raiders used that pick to draft a CB named John Bowie from the University of Cincinnati. If I am right that he is the guy the Raiders got in exchange for Randy Moss, this might be one of the more lopsided even-up trades in NFL history. According to the Raiders’ website, Bowie appeared in two games last year and made one tackle.

If you are going to trade an established player in the NFL – even if he has been a pain-in-the-posterior and you really want to move him out – for a draft pick, you really ought to have a college player targeted on the board that you believe will be a contributing member of your team. If not, you can just cut the putative pain-in-the-posterior and achieve your end of moving him out. That would save you time, energy, and stomach-acid. If indeed the Raiders made that move with the idea that this was the pick they needed to make in order to have some kind of impact on their team, then Al Davis needs to have a chat with the guy on the staff that does the personnel evaluation. Oops, it’s probably Al Davis who does that…

Bill Belichick has certainly received more than his fair share of negative publicity this year. There was that whole “Spygate” thing; the Pats “ran up the score” on hapless opponents; he was reticent almost to the point of being curt with the media in his mandatory press conferences; he didn’t shake hands with opposing coaches after games in a sincere way; he wore that ratty hooded sweatshirt on the sidelines. There are people who dislike him for his image in addition to those folks who dislike the Pats because they are 18-0 at this point. He even earned the moniker, “Darth Belichick” in some circles even though he never did show up at a press conference in a smoky glass visor and a helmet. So, that leads me to pose a question.

Will you root for the Pats and “Darth Belichick” to end the season 19-0 or will you root for the Giants and watch the creaky and cranky 1972 Dolphins and Don Shula do their silly celebration?

Just a snarky observation here for a moment. Don Shula is now a spokesperson for a diet/weight loss “system”. Given that fact, I hope the company provides him with a girdle for any of his TV appearances. When last spotted in the ESPN MNF booth, it looked as if he might have put back a few pounds. Or maybe he was wearing a girdle in those ads for the weight loss “system”…?

Now for a far more serious question. Assume for a moment that the Pats win the Super Bowl. Would that be the biggest victory in Super Bowl history - - or would that honor remain with the NY Jets win over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III? Frankly, I still think the Jets’ win would be more significant because that game was a watershed event in the march toward the merger of the NFL and the AFL. Nevertheless, I would be happy to hear arguments from the other side of the table.

Finally, here is a note from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:

“Dan Marino has come out with a new charity wine, with proceeds benefiting his foundation. The signature wines will be called ‘’Vintage 13.'’ Notably, when you have finished the wine, there’s no ring in the glass. (Ouch! Sorry.)”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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Last weekend, I watched about half of the Trailblazers/Heat game because I had not seen the Blazers play since November and I wanted to see how well they were playing. It was difficult for me to focus on that aspect of the game, however, because I was mesmerized by Dwayne Wade. Wade is like Allen Iverson was on the 76ers; he’s a one-man band with no reliable help around him; the supporting cast around him in Miami is so non-descript that I’m not sure they could make it to the Final Four next March. Shaq is so slow that I really wonder if he is in agony when he moves. If he is playing uninjured and that is the full extent of his ability to move/run/jump on the court, then it is time for him to take up that second career of his as a police officer.

In Los Angeles, the Lakers hold an annual seminar called Basketball 101 for the fans. The LA Times reported that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Phil Jackson were among the seminar participants this year and that the subject of Kwame Brown came up at one point in the discussion. For those of you out there who still hold out hope that Kwame Brown may find himself one of these days and accomplish something in the NBA to become anything but an embarrassment as an overall #1 pick in the draft, please ponder these two statements about Kwame Brown:

“It’s hard to get through to him.” (Kareem, saying how he had tried to work with Kwame and teach him the fundamentals of playing center in the NBA)

“I’ve called him a knucklehead from time to time. You’ve got to lead him to water; then, force him to drink.” (Phil Jackson)

I was listening briefly to sports radio in the car yesterday and heard a short discussion about the fact that the Chicago Cubs are not yet sold and that it now looks as if they will not be sold until after the 2008 season. I understand that selling an asset as valuable as the Cubbies is more complicated than selling a box of broccoli, but they have been “on the market” for about a year now. There is at least one billionaire – Mark Cuban – who says he is interested in seeing the books so he can make a business decision about what the team might be worth to a purchaser. Presumably, there are other interested parties because I really do not see MLB owners accepting Cuban as one of their own. So, why will it take another year to put a deal together?

Speaking of MLB, the steroid/HGH mess remains a major issue. I have a question for everyone here:

As more information unfolds, do Brian Sabean (GM of the Giants) and Peter Magowan (owner of the Giants) appear to be taking on the characteristics of weasels?

Baseball has suspended owners in the past. Marge Schott and George Steinbrenner come to mind from relatively recent times; one owner in the 1940s was ordered to sell his team or lose its franchise. Could Magowan be the next owner to suffer a major sanction/censure?

In the aftermath of the NFL Conference Championship games on Sunday, the Pats opened as 13.5-point favorites against the Giants in the Super Bowl. That line went up to 14 points and has now dropped to 13 points. Less than a month ago in the final game of the regular season, the Pats beat the Giants by only 3 points. If those data confuse you, there may be even less clarity in your choice when you ponder:

The Giants lost to Dallas twice in the regular season but beat them in the playoffs.

The Giants lost to Green Bay in the regular season but beat them in the playoffs.

So, now you may be tempted to get down on the Giants on the money-line where the odds are +490 or +500 depending on where you are looking. And if you believe in cosmic closure, please recall that the start of this whole New England Patriots “dynasty-thing” began in the Super Bowl where they beat the St. Louis Rams - - and the Rams were 13-point favorites that day… Cue Rod Serling.

Charlie Walters had this item in the St. Paul Pioneer-Press relative to three former Vikings who might make it to the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year. While arcane, this is an impressive statistic:

“Randall McDaniel, Cris Carter and Gary Zimmerman, the three former Vikings who are among the finalists for election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, played in just five losing seasons during their combined 42 seasons in the NFL.”

By the way, yesterday was National Hugging Day. Did you get to celebrate? Just asking…

A couple of days ago, I wrote about an inconvenient truth related to women’s sports - - there isn’t much of a following for most women’s sports. Dwight Perry had an item in his column in the Seattle Times that reinforces the soundness of that inconvenient truth:

“The University of North Dakota, seeking to boost attendance for women’s hockey, held a drawing for free tuition at Saturday’s game.

In other words, the student-loans office lets you skate for a semester.”

Finally, Oregon State has just fired Jay John as their basketball coach. Obviously, this man needs to look for a job and in an outpouring of goodwill here in Curmudgeon Central let me proffer some guidance:

There is a John Jay College in Queens, NY.

John Jay College plays intercollegiate basketball in the CUNYAC.

Could John Jay have a more aptly named coach than Jay John?

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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Recently, I wrote that I hoped we had gotten to the point as a society where a slip of the tongue and an offensive/inappropriate phrase could engender a punishment and then we move on. No longer need it be “career-fatal”; Kelly Tilghman would serve a two-week suspension and then go back to her status as an anonymous talking hair-do on The Golf Channel. Would that it were so…

Golfweek magazine decided to prolong the agony and up the ante by putting the picture of a noose on the cover of their magazine last week. This was not a slip of the tongue; this was a deliberate act. So, now what should happen? The editor of Golfweek lost his job over this; and frankly, when I heard the magazine’s explanation/rationalization for the decision to put that picture on the cover, I think it may have been the right decision. I do not think the editor was/is a racist; I do think it was a dumb idea based on the magazine’s own explanation. The stake was driven into the heart of his tenure at the magazine when advertisers threatened to pull their ads from the publication. The surest recipe for failure in the newspaper/magazine world is to create a social maelstrom and then have advertisers cancel their deals with your newspaper/magazine.

The intention – nominally – was to foster a discussion of race relations in society. I have no quarrel with that intent; done outside the intrusive focus of television and without the hyper-politically correct presence of that segment of the society that always tries to kidnap such discussions, it would probably be a useful and constructive thing. But to think that Golfweek magazine is to become the vehicle for such an emotional and intellectual exchange is either stupid or megalomaniacal on the part of the magazine. There are precious few minorities who are professional golfers of any note; golf is a game played at private clubs that are not completely segregated but the racial homogeneity of private golf clubs around the US is probably not all that different from the racial homogeneity of the NBA. This magazine and this sport are not going to carry forward such an exchange of ideas and emotions to any positive end. Here are some conclusions one might get from a Golfweek-moderated exchange on race relations in the US in the year 2008:

There ought to be more opportunities for minority kids to learn to play golf at a young age.

There should be a way to provide instruction/coaching to young and aspiring minority kids who are close to being able to compete as pros.

Lynching people is a bad idea and not very nice – particularly to the person being lynched.

Wow, maybe I was wrong. Maybe there are some important and valuable lessons to come from a Golfweek-moderated discussion of these issues. Or not…

Over the weekend, Roy Jones, Jr. beat Felix Trinidad. That would have been a major boxing event in the year 2000. In case you have been in a coma for a while, it is no longer 2000. This event now makes Roy Jones Jr. a major player in boxing’s growing Geezers R Us tour. It’s just sad…

Obviously, the big sporting events of the weekend were the NFL Conference Championship games. Allow me a six general observations:

1. Did you notice the absence of fantasy stats constantly assaulting you from a crawl on the bottom of the screen? I did. And I loved it.

2. People say Phillip Rivers showed how tough he was by playing on such a damaged knee yesterday. That’s fine; but acknowledge that Rivers did not play very well on that bad knee. QB Ratings are overblown stats, but his was 46 yesterday and that’s not good under any circumstances. Oh, and the Chargers did not exactly wear out the grass in the Pats’ end zone either.

3. Tom Brady and the passing game were not the heroes for the Pats. With a slim lead in the second half, the Pats took over the game by handing the ball to Laurence Maroney and having him gash the Chargers’ defensive line where bigmouth, Igor Olshansky, was stationed. The Chargers punted the ball to the Pats with about 9 minutes left to play in the game; the Chargers’ offense never saw the field again.

4. Were there three consecutive plays in the Giants/Packers game where players didn’t engage in some kind of display of macho nonsense? Who needs that crap?

5. Some stat freak came up with the fact that Eli Manning’s completion percentage was less than 50% when the game time temperature was less than 40 degrees. This person has far too much time on his/her hands.

6. I heard someone on TV (was it Chris Berman?) refer to the “New York football Giants”. Is that really necessary? The New York baseball Giants left town 50 years ago and there is no indication they are thinking of coming back.

Finally, Greg Cote had this analysis of the “Randy Moss situation” in the Miami Herald:

“Parting thought: A South Florida woman has accused the Patriots’ Randy Moss of battery, a major distraction as New England strives to complete a perfect season and match the 1972 Dolphins. The woman has not been identified, but is said to bear an eerie resemblance to Don Shula in an ill-fitting wig.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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Full disclosure: I have never been employed by the Washington Post or by any of its subsidiary companies. I have never owned stock in The Washington Post Company. My only longstanding association with that newspaper is that I have had it delivered to my home for the last 38 years.

On 19 January 2009, the Washington Post published a Letter to the Editor from a woman living in Brattleboro, VT. This woman had visited the DC area about a week prior to the publication of the letter and she was displeased with the Post’s sports section in the 13 January 2008 edition. She was “shocked to see that the 14-page Sports section had not one photo of a female athlete, coach or team.” When she did find a small story on one of the inner pages about a female high school track athlete that day, it did not assuage her feelings because she concluded her letter thusly:

“I guess no other female athlete, team or coach did anything deserving of coverage on Jan. 12. The unthinkable, alternative conclusion is that in 2008, the patriarchy is alive and well and everyone in The Posts sports department was interested in or unaware of any sporting event in which women competed. Sad.”

I have to admit that in a 14-page sports section in a major metropolitan area of the US, there ought to be something more than a single story reporting on a female high school track athlete that is worthy of consideration. However, the author of this letter did not seem to be able to think of yet another “alternative conclusion” in her quest to “understand” how this could happen. So, with all of the emotional warmth shown by Mr. Spock in the original Star Trek episodes, let me attempt to provide another “alternative conclusion”.

The Washington Post is a business. It does not publish newspapers for any grand altruistic reason; it publishes newspapers and sells them to the public as a means to generate more revenue than the cost of publishing and distributing those newspapers. That’s not very touchy-feely, but it happens to be reality.

As a business, the Washington Post allocates resources – in household terms, it sets a budget – related to what will receive attention in their pages. Once again the resource allocation processes are not altruistic; the paper will spend more time, money and space on those things that its readership finds interesting than it will spend on “other stuff”. That allocation model helps them retain circulation numbers in these economic times when newspapers around the country are looking at declining numbers of readers. By retaining those circulation numbers, the paper continues to receive steady flows of advertising revenues because here is another piece of economic reality: advertisers do not spend lots of money to advertise in newspapers that no one buys and reads.

Continue to think of newspapers and the people who make decisions within those newspapers about what will show up in the newspapers and you may begin to see the dawn of another “alternative conclusion”. Read the political coverage in the Washington Post; you’ll find coverage of the minute details of candidates’ activities in the Democratic and Republican Parties; you won’t find much at all about the fundraising events of the Libertarian Party or whatever the American Vegetarian Party morphed into after its demise about 3 decades ago. The reason is simple. A far larger number of readers care about what is going on within the Republican and Democratic parties than care about all of the other parties combined. That may not be the way someone might wish it were; it is merely reality.

So, back to the sports section… Obviously women play sports; many women excel in athletic endeavors. Anyone who wants to assail either of those points is either a hermit or a sexist - - or both. The problem when it comes to coverage of women’s sports is not nearly so gently stated. Far fewer people who regularly read sports pages care even a little bit about women’s sports than the number who care about men’s sports. Once again, this is a dose of reality.

If the Washington Post spent half of its sports page space on women’s sports – that would be roughly proportional to the overall readership of the paper as a whole – they would lose the majority of the people who turn to the sports section. If those people went to another paper for their sports news or found it online, a fraction of those people might stop subscribing to the Post or stop buying it from a newsstand on their way to work in the AM. That would decrease revenues and you need to go up a few paragraphs to check out the first reality of the newspaper business, which is to have revenues exceed costs. Anyone who is angry enough at the fact that coverage of men’s sports swamps coverage of women’s sports to write to the paper to complain about it is either a hermit or a sexist (in reverse) - - or both.

Of all the sports where women and men compete in the same events, I can only think of three where the women’s version of the sport is more popular than the men’s version: tennis [this was not always the case but certainly is now], gymnastics, and figure skating. While each of these sports has its loyal following and each is far more popular than the fringe sports, none of them could rightfully claim “major” status in the US in 2008.

In every other instance I can think of, there is no contest in terms of following, attendance, TV ratings and participation between the men’s version and the women’s version of the same sport – although I’m sure someone will point one or two out to me pretty soon. It matters not that women competing in many sports do so at a high level nor that their games are highly competitive, most women’s sports do not capture the interest of sports fans. Until they do, the reporting of their games and events in the sports pages of US newspapers will be very small – like the coverage of a Libertarian Party rally in a non-election year.

ESPN did a poll recently that may have some bearing here. And I think it is interesting to note that ESPN would benefit from increasing popularity in women’s sports because such increasing popularity would give them new programming properties to pursue and new ways to generate “revenue streams”. Make no mistake; ESPN is no more altruistic than the Washington Post.

ESPN Sports Poll asked folks to name their favorite female athlete. The top four athletes receiving votes were:

Serena Williams 8%
Mia Hamm 4%
Venus Williams 3.8%
Anika Sorenstam 3.2%

These results are shocking. The percentage of votes garnered by these top four finishers is awfully small; the total here is only 19% of the votes. The reason that total is so low is that over 60% of the respondents said that “None” was their favorite female athlete. If in a political primary election, “None of the Above” got 60% of the vote and the best showing by a living/breathing candidate was 8%, that would be front-page headline news. For the ESPN Sports Poll, that result was not important enough to generate a headline or any significant discussion. I submit that is a measure of the public’s indifference.

If someone wants to engage in the philosophical “chicken/egg” argument here and ponder if the lack of coverage of women’s sports is what prevents women’s sports from becoming widely – and wildly – popular, have at it. Mr. Spock deals only with data and reality. In 2008, the newspaper business is in a siege mentality; cost containment and revenue maintenance are the paramount concerns. In that environment, coverage of women’s sports would engender increased costs – if there were not a concomitant decrease in the coverage of men’s sports – or it would jeopardize revenues via lost readership. In the siege mentality of the business, that’s just not gonna happen.

By the way, that siege mentality and the fear or alienation of readers is also precisely why the Washington Post would not run anything akin to this response to this woman’s criticism in their pages. They print her letter; the writer feels as if she has scored a point; people of a like mind with the writer get to nod their heads and say, “Right on!”. Meanwhile, the regular readers of the sports pages probably don’t even notice this petit contretemps and continue on with their lives.

I know that the woman from Brattleboro VT who wrote her angry letter to the Washington Post will not read this. My suspicion is that if she accidentally did read it, she would not like it. Nevertheless, I hope that I have provided those of you who did take the time to read it with an alternate conclusion beyond her assumption that all the folks in the Post sports department were “uninterested in or unaware of any sporting competition in which women competed.” An inconvenient truth is that most – not all to be sure – of the sports page readers are indeed only marginally interested in any sporting competition in which women competed.

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…

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