September 02, 2010

the sport of kings, better than diamond rings

It's like getting a new puppy. You tell yourself you remember how awful the last puppy was, but you don't. Not really. If you did, you wouldn't be considering another puppy.

Every year is the same. I get excited when the first NFL preseason games come on, but within 10 stupefying minutes of the first quarter, I'm wondering why on earth I fall for this every single year. Tonight will be more of the same. Ohio State kicks off their regular season, Dirt and I shall commemorate it with a lovingly prepared pizza, and before that pizza is gone I will already be renouncing my Ohio State alumniship. Normally my disgust with the Steelers would follow a week later, but this year is special. The revulsion started in March.

Thus today, along with the ritualistic pizza party, I obey another fine tradition: I've reset the countdown clock. Only 364 days until next football season.

posted by john at 09:35 AM  •  permalink

August 26, 2010

if adolf hitler had lived to hire ben roethlisberger's media handlers

Today we’re going to do a mash-up of two things that annoy the hell out of me:

• comparing people to Hitler
• Ben “cuts, bruises and vaginal bleeding” Roethlisberger.

Because genocide and rape are just that funny.

“Dear God…what were you thinking?” I imagine Allie saying in a couple of hours.

• • •

Reporter: “Adolf, how did it feel to be out there strolling the Champs Elysées today?”

Hitler: “Good, real good. Conquest is what I like to do, it’s who I am, and it feels good to be back out there doing what I love.”

Reporter: “Adolf, you were away for quite a while. What did you miss most?”

Hitler: “My boys. I missed being out here with my boys. I love and support my boys. We’re a band of brothers.”

Reporter: “Wasn’t the Band of Brothers on the Allied si—“

Hitler: “Also my fans. I’ve been really touched by how the fans have responded to me. I see lots of SS jerseys out here today, and I won’t lie to you, that feels good. Especially here in Paris. The warmth of my Parisian fans means a lot to me. I want to settle here, raise my kids here.”

Reporter: “So—“

Hitler: “Did you notice how many freaking autographs I’ve been signing?”

Reporter: “Not to mention how suddenly, you give the local media the time of day.”

Hitler: “Right. This is the New Adolf. All that other stuff is behind me. I turned the page. It’s time for a new chapter. I’m just happy to move on.”

Reporter: “New Adolf, is there anything you’d like to say to the families of the 20 million people you ki—

Hitler: “Just, you know, lesson learned. I’m moving on. I’m the new me, and I hope y’all will give the new me a chance to show how new the me is on this new page, or chapter if you will, ha ha ha, in my life. I’m excited by the opportunity to prove myself.

Reporter: “So in Warsaw today—“

Hitler: “TURNED. THE. PAGE. Notice the past participle. I’m told that means ‘what happened three months ago is such, such old news.’”

Reporter: “You’ve spoken about being caught up in the ‘Big Adolf’ persona. Can you explain how that happens?“

Hitler: “Sure. When all the media and fans are telling you how great you are all the time, you start to believe it, maybe you start to act like it a little bit. So even though I’ve turned the page, I want you to know that really, the preceding pages were more your fault than mine. If you stop and really think about it, it was like it was you pouring drinks down that co-ed’s throat and following her into the bathr—er, invading Poland. But hey, I’m not here to point fingers. Because—“

Reporter: “You’ve turned the page?”

Hitler: “For annoying media turds, you catch on fast.”

• • •

Allie, upon reading this: “You forgot the end of my sentence. ‘Dear God, what were you thinking when you created John?’"

posted by john at 09:26 AM  •  permalink

August 17, 2010

great moments in coordination

My recent conversations have had a distressing theme lately: "You think this is uncoordinated? One time, I..."

I was 25 and in the best shape of my life. Through hard work and innumerable natural gifts, I had elevated my basketball game to "not always a liability." We were playing four on four on my old asphalt court with the threads of chain nets hanging from dunk-proof cast-iron rims. This was a brutally rough court. Blood flowed freely, not all of it mine.

On this day, I was leading a fast break.

Ahhhh. Let me type that sentence again.

On this day, I was leading a fast break.

One more time. Pardon my indulgence.

On this day, I was leading a fast break. I passed back and forth with the guy on my wing (who I'd like to say was d'Andre, but let's face facts: the guy was invariably gasping behind me, hands on his knees, lest he keel over). I decided to lay it in myself. I beat my guy off the dribble, leaped for the rim, and for some inexplicable reason thought that I was remotely capable of changing hands while mid-air. I was going for exactly this:

What actually happened was that I sort of schlubbed the ball in the general direction of the rim and, still at full sprint, rammed my extended knee into the solid iron pole. It didn't make the resounding GOOONG! sound a hollow aluminum pole would make. It made the exact same sound as a cantaloupe being dropped 20 stories on an anvil.

I could not stand, not that I tried very hard. The boys carried me and my broken patella home, depositing me on my couch unceremoniously and returning to their game.

"Did I make the shot?" I asked, hopeful.

Such a cruel, cruel laugh ensued. I had hit the bottom of the backboard, and the ball had ricocheted off and hit my head.

posted by john at 12:48 PM  •  permalink

July 30, 2010

training camp

Steelers training camp starts today, and as the players drove from Pittsburgh to remote Latrobe, PA, they were greeted with this roadside sign:

WELCOME BACK ALMOST ALL STEELERS

(Only it was phrased "almost all yunz Steelers," but I didn't want non-Pittsburghers to stumble over what the locals use as a second-person plural pronoun.)

And nope, I haven't chosen a new team to follow. I have 4-6 games of following the Steelers, and I'm gonna savor that even if they lose. After that, I have no idea. Maybe Dirt's Vikings. I'm sure they're gonna be on every week at my house anyway. It would save time.

posted by john at 10:25 AM  •  permalink

June 24, 2010

i bet

Snippets from this morning's AP article:

MARS, Pa. (AP) -- Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has run the camp at Mars Area High School the last two years, but begged off after offseason legal problems that saw him accused of rape at a Georgia nightclub in March, but not prosecuted.

Camper Bethany Carcaise, of Illinois, says she misses Roethlisberger "because he used to play with us more. He acted like a kid."

posted by john at 10:10 AM  •  permalink

May 26, 2010

bail, bail, on michigan

This cracked me up. From the AP.

The University of Michigan admitted Tuesday to a series of violations by its storied football program and said it had reprimanded seven people, including third-year coach Rich Rodriguez. Another staffer was fired and the school released more than 150 pages detailing a breakdown in communication within the athletic department as well as self-imposed sanctions that include two years of probation.

The school now has to hope that its explanation and sanctions will satisfy the NCAA, which will hold a hearing on the case Aug. 13-14 in Seattle. A final decision isn't expected for 6-10 weeks later, perhaps sometime during the Big Ten season.

Athletic director David Brandon said he doesn't believe the problems related to practice time and coaching activities are enough to warrant the loss of scholarships or extreme disgrace.

"I don't think this is a black eye," Brandon said. "This is a bruise."

Right. And Dex isn't a Portuguese Water Dog; she's a mammal.

A quick check confirms that the erudite Mr. Brandon is indeed a proud graduate of the Harvard of the Midwest.

posted by john at 07:12 PM  •  permalink

May 14, 2010

roethlisberger and me

The short version
There is no Roethlisberger and me. I will watch no game in which he starts. Period. This could well mean not watching my team for the next six years, but considering that the point of football is for me to have fun, it won't be that much of a sacrifice to not watch that unrepentant, sexual-predating lump of yak shit wear my beloved childhood team's uniform.

The long version
I may have started rooting for the Steelers because they drove my Browns fan dad insane, but I soon fell in love with the team and the town. I'm not from Pittsburgh. I have scant Pittsburgh ties. Yet I aspire to be considered a Pittsburgh guy: honorable, generous, unpretentious—everything but hard-working. There, we have to agree to disagree.

The Packers are largely owned by their townspeople, who pass stock from one generation to the next. This is unassailably cool. The Cowboys and Seahawks and Patriots and Redskins and 25 other teams are owned by titans of industry who bought themselves a football team to park between their Lamborghini and their Rolls. I suppose this is cool, in its way, to someone. Here's what's cool to me: I'm on my third gray-haired Mr. Rooney. The team is still run by the same family that started it, nearly 80 years ago.

The first Mr. Rooney was a league and local legend. Using $2500 he won at the race track, he started a football team in his hometown in the nascent NFL. The Steelers sucked horribly for forty years, winning absolutely nothing. But Art Rooney otherwise took care of his own. He couldn't resist a hard-luck story, and he invented bogus team jobs for neighbors down on their luck. Steelers player had his career cut short? Get him a job in the front office as a scout. Get him something, anything. The players and community adored him, and he them. If a parking attendant from three decades earlier died in obscurity in Oregon, his widow wouldn't be at all shocked to see Mr. Rooney show up alone at the funeral, without even being told of the death. "Your letters meant the world to him at the end," she'd tell him.

I cannot capture the magnificence of the man in just these short paragraphs. But when he died, the stories erupted about the thousands of lives he'd touched. Even his sons had no idea of all his efforts on behalf of others. To this day, they are stopped by strangers in strange towns and told what their father had done for the person at a key point in his life.

I love this about my team.

I love that the Steelers finally put it together in the 70s, when their fans needed something, anything positive in their miserable lives. The steel industry collapsed, and Pittsburgh lost 40% of its population. The economy crumbled, jobs vaporized, and neighbors and families were ripped apart. But Pittsburghers got four shimmering Super Bowl trophies as a distraction from their considerable miseries. And focus they did. The Steelers just mean more to their fans than other teams do to theirs, and I don't necessarily mean that as a compliment. The attachment borders on scary codependence. Pittsburghers scattered across the country, permanently resettling. They are a nation in the truest sense of the term--a displaced people from a common point of origin, now with only a common team binding them. And I love that they're raising their kids as Steelers fans in every corner of the country. Show me a list of Patriots clubs like this. We've got 11 in freaking Alaska.

I also love that there's a fraternity of players across the generations. Players seemingly never leave the community. Franco Harris and Jerome Bettis played 13 years apart, but they just called the Steelers' new sixth round draft pick to tell him about the mantle he'll be carrying. Players from all across the country never leave. Black or white, famous or not, from southern Georgia or southern Cal, they want to live in Pittsburgh with decent Pittsburgh folk, raise their families among them, start businesses and charities and ministries there, run for governor there.

So, so special.

If it's starting to seem like my choice of football teams has as much to do with my values as it does football, then I have succeeded.

Which brings us to Ben.

He had better pray that I never need to brake in order for his ass to live. Already reviled in Pittsburgh for his sneering rudeness, now he's, at best, a moronic sexual predator. I hate the guy. I hate him personally, and I detest that he's wearing Rocky Bleier's and Mel Blount's colors. Will the rapist stink ever come out of the uniform?

"As soon as he throws five touchdowns, this will all be forgotten," says some douchenozzle on the radio, causing me to wonder just how many rapists there are in the world. Forget this? Bet me. This isn't Kobe or Vick. (Quick: define Lakers or Eagles integrity. What's an L.A guy?) This is a serial creep who's sullied everything that mattered to me about my team. Everything. Including his two championships. Tell me, if I'm such a whore, how come I now recoil away from footage of Ben's two Super Bowl victories? It's like trying to enjoy childhood photos of my girlfriend's molester.

Aw. He was so cute once!

What's next
Beats me. I'll watch the Steelers' first four games, during his suspension. After that, I'm going to wander the football landscape. I won't root for another pro team, but I think I'll pick one to follow. Maybe I'll watch the Browns reboot. They're in the division, at least.

As for the Steelers, I understand why they didn't cut or trade him at this point. The boy has a 10 year, $100M contract, and that's a lot of value to just write off on principle's sake. I would have done it, but I can see why they didn't. My dream is that after he serves his suspension, his trade value will rise, and we can get a blockbuster Herschel Walker-style trade for him. I realize that elite quarterbacks are rare, but let's face it: the boy had 5 concussions by the age of 27. At 50 sacks a year, he's not going to last the 10 additional years another QB might. And the defense's average age is 33, so we're going to be struggling soon anyway. So my dream for next spring: get a boatload of picks for the creep, rebuild in a hurry, restore the honor of the team, and tell a nation it's safe to come home.

posted by john at 07:39 AM  •  permalink

April 27, 2010

she said no

The televised NFL draft gave Ben Roethlisberger a sneak peak at the much-deserved rest of his career. When it was announced that the Steelers were about to pick, the crowd began chanting "SHE SAID NO! SHE SAID NO!"

It's hard not to approve.

Except when they were yelling it at the cancer kid whose Make-A-Wish wish was to announce the Steelers' pick.

Stay classy, Jets fans.

posted by john at 04:36 PM  •  permalink

April 16, 2010

holier than thou

Of all the feedback on yesterday's Rothlisberger post, the guy who called me "holier than thou" was my favorite. He was a Steelers fan. But I guess that goes without saying, since it's hard to imagine anyone else going to the mat for this lowlife.

I ain't exactly nitpicking, pal. I'm not going through Ben's trash and looking for recycling fouls, here. I'm not holding forth about how I could never root for a golfer who cheated on his wife. Hell, I'm not even pissed about electrocuting dogs. I'm saying I am ashamed of, cannot forgive, and will not root for the man described in that uncontested police report. I don't know why you follow football, but I do it for fun. Rooting for my QB to be a mere sexual-predating moron instead of a serial rapist is not fun for me.

But hey, I'm glad it is for you. Jealous, even. Carry on. You are indeed whorier than thou.

posted by john at 07:22 AM  •  permalink

April 15, 2010

him or me

Steelers fans have their panties in a bunch like never before, and for a two-time champion who hasn't been indicted, let alone convicted, Ben Roethlisberger has damned few friends.

Occasionally some fan will point out that our star quarterback is a future Hall of Famer, that charges haven't so much been brought against him. Both points are true. It's not like the rest of us are somehow unaware of these facts. I wonder, though: is this reasoning any sort of comfort to Bills fans when they gaze upon the Hall of Fame bust of unconvicted murderer O.J. Simpson?

Given how queasy the thought of pulling on a Steelers jersey currently makes me, I bet not.

No, Ben has not been charged. But neither has he contested the following best-case facts: he bought shots for a 20 year old and her sorority sisters; when she could barely stand, he had his bodyguard take her to a tiny bathroom; he joined her in there, alone, while his bodyguard stood outside and prevented her friends from interceding; and several hours later, when the hospital gave her a rape exam, she had genital bruising and bleeding. All while Ben was already being sued for rape in Nevada.

I would really like you to deny this, Ben. Pick a part to deny, any part. I would really like to hear anything but you commending the investigators on a job well done and pronouncing this issue behind you, bring on the season.

Really would like to hear it. Won't.

I will not cheer for a team with, at best, a stupid, remorseless sexual predator under center. I will not wear their colors. I will not buy their tickets. Mr. Rooney, I will suffer another 25 years in the football desert, if necessary, but please jettison this disgrace to my team and my gender. I'd rather be ashamed of how my team plays than of who they are.

It's him or me.

posted by john at 01:43 PM  •  permalink

March 22, 2010

the devil went down to georgia

I've had several requests for my thoughts on Ben Roethlisberger and his rape charges.

Short version: I want him gone. And among Steelers fans, I am not alone in that sentiment.

Long version: Yes, he's innocent until proven otherwise. But even assuming the best of all possible circumstances, my 28 year-old star quarterback, already being sued for rape in Nevada, saw fit to go bar-cruising for Georgia college girls, one of whom blew him in a unisex bathroom, then "hit her head." In other words, the best possible outcome is that my QB is a moron so drunk on hubris and entitlement, he put himself—and more importantly to me, his team—in this position.

And that's the Ben I know. I love his game, but god help me, he's a selfish twat. He's always milking injuries for attention. He's notorious in the Burgh for demanding special treatment and being a poor tipper. He can't compliment anyone without somehow insinuating himself. ("Santonio felt bad for dropping that first pass and then I said 'Don't worry, I'm coming back to you,' and then I did and he made a great catch just like I knew he would.") He famously wrecked his motorcycle while not wearing a helmet, despite his coach having asked him to wear one.

I find myself not exactly rushing to his defense. You will only hear "until proven guilty" come from my lips grudgingly, because in my book, he's already been convicted of being a gigantic prick. I'm finding that Steelers fans across the country feel similarly; Ben has built very little goodwill. Actually, that's a misnomer. We've wanted to love our future hall of famer. He's just been unlovable. How does a two-time Super Bowl winner build so little goodwill that he's called a "twat" and a "prick" in one short post?

Practice.

posted by john at 08:42 AM  •  permalink

February 28, 2010

i believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows. i believe that somewhere in the darkest night, a candle glows! i believe for everyone who goes astray, someone will come to show the way! i believe, I believe!

Ozzie Guillen now has a Twitter account.

Ozzie. Freakin'. Guillen. Unhandled, unfiltered, unspellchecked. For the first time in my life, I 1) believe in God and 2) say the following without a trace of sarcasm: I can't wait for baseball season to start.

posted by john at 10:43 PM  •  permalink

February 02, 2010

saints nation

I hear an announcer say it at least eight times a year: "No one's fans travel like Steelers fans do. I think the Steelers fans might actually outnumber the home fans, Vern!"

This is, of course, complete bullplop. Steelers fans may travel well, but a good many of those fans woke up in their own beds on game day.

Is this because they're front-runners? Sure, some of them. More likely they're displaced Pittsburghers. There are large pockets of them in every major city. The numbers are truly astounding: when the steel industry collapsed in the 80s, Pittsburgh shed 150,000 jobs and over half (!) of its peak population. They scattered across the country and raised families. They are a "nation" in the looser meaning of the word: a body of people of common origin who may or may not be in the same location. They are, in other words, the lost tribe of Pittsburgh. And what connects them are the sports loyalties of their forbears. That's why their provincialism about the Steelers can seem a little...much sometimes. The ties run deeper than merely football.

It is unique. Or rather, it was.

As I look at the Saints prepare for their first Super Bowl, something looks familiar. A different sort of calamity hit New Orleans, a far faster and more devastating one. Its people scattered across the country and haven't returned. And now you see it: the lost peoples of that particular nation are stirring. They're seeking one another out and gleefully commiserating. They finally have something happy to share, the word "share" being more operative than even "happy." They're returning home, figuratively if not literally.

It's wonderful to see. I don't know that anyone could be as happy for them as this Steelers fan. I suspect that I know just how deep this joy is running.

You dat.

posted by john at 08:11 AM  •  permalink

January 25, 2010

who dat?

If Haiti or Indonesia had an NFL team in the Super Bowl, I'd root for them. But they don't, so New Orleans it is.

Thank god it's not my team against the Saints in the Super Bowl. Who outside of Indy can morally root against that town getting some good news?

posted by john at 10:46 AM  •  permalink

December 08, 2009

just do it

Has anyone made this seemingly obvious Tiger Woods joke? I keep waiting for it, but...

posted by john at 01:17 AM  •  permalink

December 03, 2009

citius, altius, fortius

If Pablo Picasso depicted Lisa Simpson pleasuring her brother, it would look a lot like this logo.

posted by john at 09:29 AM  •  permalink

November 30, 2009

what i'm really, really stankful for

I received an email from Dirt Glazowski. "Can we watch this on your TV?" he asked. It seems that his old football teammate (who had himself gone on to be an all-pro in the NFL) had sent him a link. The link was to the teammate's son's high school championship game. Thus did I make ribs, and Dirt and I sat and remembered how quick and boring high school football games are.

That, I'm not stankful for. Well, maybe for the "quick" part.

No, what I'm stankful for is that email Dirt forwarded me. His buddy had sent it to a lot of people. I recognized a few players' names. "I wonder...?"

And there it was. Mike Tomczak's email address.

Life, I love you. I shall use my powers only for evil.

posted by john at 08:56 AM  •  permalink

October 28, 2009

male bonding

Two more Pittsburgh stories.

First of all, the gas pump woman never sent me a bill. Whoever she is, depending on her age, I want to marry/adopt her and/or have her read me a bedtime story.

• • •

I was waiting in the lobby of my Pittsburgh motel when a line developed behind me. The guy two places back was wearing a brand new, vintage Mike Webster jersey. My having recently failed to locate just such a jersey, this caught my eye. As before, I wondered what the deal is with black Steelers fans and white players' numbers. I wondered if he put as much silly thought into making a statement as I did. Surely not.

Outside the window, the motel manager was awkwardly strapping on some 6' stilts, which consisted primarily of his teetering like a drunken baby deer on ice while hanging for dear life off the second story deck. This wasn't merely for our entertainment. He was also painting the exterior of the building. As he lurched toward oblivion, I found myself rooting for gravity. That's when Mr. Mike Webster Jersey called me on it.

"What does it say about us that we're rooting for him to fall?" he said guiltily. "We're not exactly rushing outside to help him get upright."

We laughed, and I'm pretty sure one of us even felt bad. I invited him and his buddy to join our tailgate later that day.

When they showed up, I handed them beers and brats and introduced them to my brother-in-law. I saw no outward signs of discomfort from him, but as they shook hands, I felt an electric pulse of childhood memories flooding back, memories of him telling racist jokes. Particularly vile jokes, from what I recall. But maybe he's changed. People mellow, learn. I hoped so. And then he shot me a glare that said, at least in my imagination, You didn't tell me they were black.

I failed you, sir. A thousand pardons. I'm afraid I'm not as well-versed in retard as my sister.

But the evening progressed smoothly enough, with my sister's husband contributing from time to time as the rest of us swapped stories. Eventually I asked the question I'd wondered about earlier.

"Mike Webster? You don't see a lot of black fans wearing white players' numbers around the NFL. What is it with Steelers fans?"

He looked genuinely confused. "Huh?"

Stammering, I explained how I deliberately didn't choose a white player's number because I can't stand how 75% of white fans wear those 5% of the players' numbers.

"That's really...interesting," he said, visibly taxed by the thought that anyone gave this crap any thought whatsoever. "What's the difference?"

He looked at my brother-in-law pityingly.

posted by john at 09:29 AM  •  permalink

October 14, 2009

corked

"YOU FUCKING SUCK!" yelled the 20 year old, at me, in the parking lot. I was wearing a Steelers jersey, he a lovely Bengals frock. He was trying to impress the friends with whom he'd come, I suppose, and he continued to berate me, my team, and my manhood as they followed me into the restaurant.

"C'MON, PUSSY! I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME! I -"

That's when he saw 250 Steelers fans. End scene.

posted by john at 09:57 AM  •  permalink

September 21, 2009

dream girls

I saw exactly one pink Steelers jersey when I was in the 'Burgh, which is fairly amazing given that every single citizen seemingly wears Steelers garb on game day.

That pink Jersey, I might add, was worn by a homeless woman, so even she gets some slack from Stank.

"Is it just me," I said to Nelson, "Or is every female from 4 to 94 incredibly good looking when she puts on Steelers garb?"

"I'm pretty sure it's just you."

posted by john at 08:55 AM  •  permalink

August 21, 2009

hey hey, goodbye

When the Steelers drafted Plaxico Burress, I was wary. His college coaches had said that although his gifts were many, he had a me-first attitude. Sure enough, I quickly grew to dislike him. Most of us did. He blew off meetings, once publicly damning his coach for having the audacity to hold camp on Mother's Day, just like the other 31 teams did. His mother was long dead, mind you.

He further ingratiated himself by dropping passes, refusing to go over the middle, and once, gloriously, celebrating his catch at midfield by spiking the ball. He hadn't been touched by a defensive player, so the spike was a fumble. A lost fumble.

And thus was a nickname born.

His tenure in Pittsburgh was marred by underperformance, skipped practices, arrests, whining to the media, and general dickitude. And when the Steelers gladly let him go to New York, he flipped the race card at our faces.

“I mean, I wasn't liked as a person. I was seen as a black kid, young African-American, cornrows, drives fancy cars, wears diamond earrings, things like that. They just kind of based their perception off of what I drove and what I did and things like that. All those things were never a part of any other player on that team but me. I fit New York more than what I fit Pittsburgh. Nobody's worrying about my big truck or my Rolls-Royce or what I have on. That makes me feel good. People just accept me how I am instead of looking at me and judging me."

Yeah. How'd that work out for you, Spike?

Buh bye.

posted by john at 12:31 PM  •  permalink

August 13, 2009

27%

If you didn't see it, a visiting outfielder was catching a deep fly ball when a Cubs fan, timing for when the ball arrived, dumped a beer on the outfielder. Security then ejected a bunch of fans, but at this writing it's unclear whether the guilty party was thrown out.

You can see the clip here. The fan clearly endangered the safety of the player. What throughly depresses me, though, is that when ESPN asked its readers whether they would turn in a fellow fan who did this, a whopping 27% said no.

I wouldn't have thought it possible for me to think even less of my species, but here I am.

posted by john at 02:59 PM  •  permalink

August 12, 2009

training camp

32 pro football teams are in training camp now, and it's a good time for fans to refine their practices, as well. Especially fans who intend to watch games with me. The cardinal rules follow. We'll start with how to dress and end with post-game etiquette.

Pretty in pink. There are two schools of thought on women wearing pink versions of team uniforms. The first school of thought is that this is patronizing to women and unsupportive of the team for whom they purport to root. The second school of thought is asinine.

Women, believe me, there is nothing hotter than you in my Steelers jersey. (We shall skip all discussion of any autohomoerotic overtones in this statement.) I mean, who's hotter here, the famous beauty wearing her quarterback boyfriend's number, or the everyday beauty wearing an offensive lineman's number? Who's the real fan here? Who is more likely to be able see a holding non-call? You can guess my answer.

Thou shalt not disrupt my sight line. We all need to use the bathroom and refill our drink, especially during the playoffs. But in a three hour football game, there are only 12 actual minutes of action. This leaves you 168 other minutes to walk between me and the action. Look at the bloody game first. Are the little men lined up in a row? Are they running full speed? Yes? Hold your bladder another two seconds.

Attention, Steelers and Bills fans. Buffalo wings as a stadium food? Seriously? What exactly do you expect to do with the bones? No. No, no, no. You will not drop them where our feet are. You simply won't. No one would be that disgu—

Jesus H.

Shut the fuck up. You may talk about non-game related matters during commercial, injury, or replay time-outs. Otherwise shut the fuck up. And if it's the Steelers in the playoffs, you will only speak when spoken to.

Seriously, shut the fuck up. When I snap at you mid-game for saying the Steelers get all the calls, this is not the time to discuss my myriad temper problems. Not unless you want to experience them at full intensity.

Excuse me again. Sorry. I promise...this is the last time. Excuse me. When I go to a football game in person, I never ever have to leave my seat mid-game. Why? Because I'm there to see a football game. Which brings us to you. I can't see the game. I see only you. Sit down. If you must get up, kindly time your exit and entrance for the aforementioned 168 minutes. I know you won't.

Seriously, sit the fuck down. Do you like the feel of gnawed chicken bones ricocheting off your head? It's easy to come by. Repeatedly stand up in front of me during exciting plays in progress, blocking my view of critical event after critical event.

Look! Up in the stands! It's a bird! It's my bird! Directed at Superfan! Hi, my name is John, and I root for the same team you do. This does not give you a mandate to be my leader. I will not join you in chants, song, or the infernal Wave. Contrary to what you will doubtless say through your slurred speech, this does not impugn the sincerity of my fandom. It confirms it. We're here to see the game, not to validate you. Now turn around and sit down so you can see at least one play before you leave.

Hosts, make your guests feel welcome. Visitors, take your shoes off before entering. Collegial ribbing is fine, but Superfan, if you set out to ruin the good time of a visiting fan, I will personally strangle you with your Terrible Towel. And on the road, you shall not antagonize enemy fans. You shall represent the Steeler Nation honorably, because I'm certainly not taking a punch for you.

Act like you've been there before. When your 12-4 team waxes a 5-11 team, don't rub it in opposing fans' faces. You were supposed to win. Do you masturbate after sex, too?

posted by john at 09:17 AM  •  permalink

June 10, 2009

it's the sport of kings, better than diamond rings

This is just about the sexiest thing ever. Or maybe that's just me.

posted by john at 09:01 AM  •  permalink

May 19, 2009

numbers game

I recently bought my first authentic Steelers jersey. They ain't cheap. In fact they're insanely expensive. So it was with utmost gravity that I selected the player to immortalize on my back.

I can't wear Roethlisberger or Polamalu or Parker. Half the shirts out there are one of those three.

I could get fellow Ohio State alum and Super Bowl MVP Santonio Holmes, but I would look pretty ridiculous in his jersey. That goes for all of the little speed guys. No receivers or defensive backs' jerseys. My square build requires at least a linebacker.

No white guys. It bugs me when 80% of white football fans wear the number of the same three white players. Sorry, Heath Miller. You're out.

No one on the offensive line, which in the interests of greater accuracy will now be pronounced with a long o.

The defensive line is 2/3 white, and the third third's nickname is Big Snack. I don't need that in my life.

This leaves the linebackers. Woodley and Foote went to Michigan, and there's no way in hell that's happening. This leaves Farrior, who could retire any year now, and Super Bowl hero James Harrison. It's Harrison. Got to be Harrison.

And thus did I so very carefully choose to purchase the jersey of a man who would, mere weeks later, make headlines by declining to visit the White House with the team. Said he:

This is how I feel -- if you want to see the Pittsburgh Steelers, invite us when we don't win the Super Bowl. As far as I'm concerned, Obama would've invited Arizona if they had won.

If I'd set my money on fire, at least it would have generated heat.

posted by john at 07:26 AM  •  permalink

April 14, 2009

emptiness

Have you ever watched a sporting event on TV, seen vacant premium seats, and wondered how on earth they remained unused? I know I have. And now I understand the reason.

Tonight at the Mariners' home opener, when on TV you see two empty seats immediately behind home plate, consider it a monument to my worth. I know I will.

Ditto the empty reserved table at her favorite restaurant, which never, ever takes reservations. And the empty limo that would have driven our inebriated selves home. And the empty space in my head that paid for these things in advance.

posted by john at 07:04 AM  •  permalink

February 06, 2009

super bowl xviii photos

Pictures of Santonio Holmes' and James Harrison's catches abound, so I wanted to immortalize some more unusual pics.

Yes, that's his wife.

How Ryan Clark spent the celebration

I know it's futile to hope that I'll never be an old white man, but if I ever dress like Mr. Rooney, kindly put a bullet in my skull.

Make that two bullets.

This geek sold drugs as a kid?

"Upsies, coach, upsies!"

Wow. Just wow.

It's his prerogative.

Man, do I know this feeling. I call this the "I just spent two grand per seat to have my dick kicked in" face.

Obligatory parade shot. Clark again.

This is my absolute favorite photo making the rounds, but I think you have to be a Steeler fan. If any other lineman in league history has more "not being lined up on the line" penalties, I'll be stunned.

posted by john at 08:16 AM  •  permalink

February 02, 2009

six appeal

Wow, what a game. My thoughts as I watched my team hoist the Lombardi for the sixth time in my life:

• When I fly to Pittsburgh in September for the ceremony, Ben Roethlisberger's two starting receivers will both be Super Bowl MVPs. That will never happen again. Now let's get Heath one.
• The MVP was the only Buckeye on my team. I'm not sure, but I think that may well be the first Ohio State alum so named.
• My nickname for The Touchdown: "Big Ben Strikes 10."
• This played out like half the Steelers' games this season. Last minute, come-from behind drive, Ben tossing the winning touchdown, linebackers forcing a fumble to end the game. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen that scenario unfold this year.
• The astonishingly, truth-defyingly whiney Seahawks made exactly as many plays in this Super Bowl as they did in the previous 42. Zero, bitches. Don't like that number? How about 21-0? Or 4-12?
• Does anyone else taunt Kurt Warner's image when he screws up? When he plays well, he shoves Jesus into every sentence; I think it's only fair to shove Jesus into every sentence when Warner's sucking.
• Quite in contrast with two years ago, I didn't much hear Tomlin's race mentioned. And afterward, I didn't hear one member of the media state that "Tomlin is the second black coach to win the Super Bowl." I thought "Good, that's progress" until they began harping on Obama being the first black president to congratulate the winning team. Sigh.

posted by john at 05:27 AM  •  permalink

January 30, 2009

super blow songs

Anytime the Steelers make a deep playoff run, fan-created songs instantly appear, like rats during a carnival. ("Where did they all come from?") And considering that the Steelers played in 7 of the last 15 AFC championship games, this is alarmingly often.

On the one hand, it's kinda cute. I'm glad I'm among fans who are so enthusiastic. It's impossible for me to imagine, say, Seahawks fans doing this, not unless they composed The Ballad of Darrell Jackson Didn't Push off on Chris Hope and That's Really Our Super Bowl Trophy Bitch Bitch Bitch.

I jest, of course. Seattle fans couldn't actually name the players or the penalty or its context. Which reminds me of how obnoxious they've been this week. God, I love this clip.

On the other hand...well...I am not a gifted enough writer to convey the sheer awfulness of these songs. I despise them, yet I cannot stop listening. I can't even pick which one to share. It's a 37-way tie for last place. (Closing my eyes and pointing at my screen) Okay, I give you the Tomlin Bunch.

posted by john at 07:59 AM  •  permalink

January 22, 2009

super blow xliii

No, I haven't bought a ticket. My official reason is that there are layoffs at Microsoft this week and it'd be pretty reckless of me to drop a few large on a ticket. The real reason is that the experience and game kinda sucked last time, and the bad taste remains in my mouth. I keep fondling the trigger, but I haven't been able to pull it.

In other news, how cool is this satellite photo of the inauguration?

posted by john at 08:43 AM  •  permalink

January 19, 2009

george, ray ray, don't let the door hit your asses on your way out

Am I vibrating because it's—finally!—Bush's last day in office? Or is it because my beloved Steelers are going back to the Super Bowl? Yes.

Yes we can!

I can't wait to hear the Ravens' players boast about how, the three losses notwithstanding, they're still the better team. I hope my 180 pound wide receivers weren't too rough on their ferocious linebackers this time.

posted by john at 02:30 AM  •  permalink

December 08, 2008

relativity

When the announcer said that "the Steelers have just scored 14 points in the last 22 seconds," I heard the same sound I did back in Astronomy class, when Dr. Newsom introduced me to the fine print of Relativity and my brain made a rusty-gerbil-wheel squeak. My mind groaned in protest Sunday night, too. This announcer's stopwatch was as rubbery as the spaceship's ruler of yore.

He spoke in football time, of course, which is famously relative. I went back and timed the 14 points. That 22 seconds actually lasted 10 minutes, 12 seconds. And there wasn't even a time-out or a review.

And I wonder where my Sundays go.

posted by john at 08:09 AM  •  permalink

November 18, 2008

still The One

Turns out I'm not a fan of college football. President-elect Obama so decreed, in no uncertain terms, on 60 Minutes. Anyone who disagrees with his desire to create a college football playoff is "no serious fan."

Wow, was I ever mistaken. I thought it was my favorite sport. I am chagrined. Dismissed. Humiliated. I'm going to toss all those ticket stubs from the two dozen college football stadiums and two championship games I've visited.

I don't know what I'll do on Saturdays, now. I guess I'll cling to some guns and pray for the price of arugula to drop.

posted by john at 06:44 AM  •  permalink

November 14, 2008

and with this, my shitty week redeems itself

I have no idea how Dan Rooney scraped up half a billion bucks, but news that the Steelers won't be sold outside the family that created them is great news indeed.

And thus will there be no cheerleaders anytime soon. Thank the Maker.

posted by john at 06:03 PM  •  permalink

September 22, 2008

the quotable troll

Longtime Stank troll (and fellow Steelers fan) John, who wants you to know that working with flowers all day doesn't make him any less of a heterosexual, said the following of the Steelers' performance yesterday:

The offensive line sucked so bad, they created a vacuum that drew the opposing D linemen through the holes.

posted by john at 12:10 PM  •  permalink

September 17, 2008

used trojans

I went to the Ohio State/USC game Saturday, the ticket for which I bought long ago, before it became clear what a lousy game it would be. Sigh. On the upside, I changed over Sarah's New Year's Eve plane ticket in order to fly there, so there's still some level of satisfaction.

USC has a great football program, and its star players' parents' free houses are second to none, but what a lousy gameday experience. I couldn't find a parking lot within two miles of the stadium. Not a parking space, mind you. A lot. Not even a full lot. And thus did I drive through gridlock for two hours and end up at the Staples Center, where I waited for a half hour for a free shuttle, which dropped me off a mile from the stadium, where I stood in line for another half hour, jockeying with 95,000 drunks to enter through one of two gates. It's as if Cal Poly suddenly had 95,000 people attend a game. They would be totally unprepared for it. I'm not sure what USC's excuse is.

Not surprisingly given the parking situation, the tailgating is bush league. The USC band is pathetic. The fans have no traditions and are utter football illiterates. ("Go Stanford!" yelled a Buckeye fan. "GO LSU!" a Trojan fan yelled back to applause, because losing to a great LSU team in the championship game is clearly worse than losing to pathetic Stanford at home.) The stadium is woeful. Therein they proudly claim to have won LSU's 2003 national championship, about which, if I were LSU, I would file an injunction. But at least they retired an enormous orange AT&T logo right next to where they retired O.J. Simpson's huge orange number, so at least there's a touch of class.

Oh, and the free shuttle that was to take me back to my car? Never showed up.

posted by john at 12:41 PM  •  permalink

September 01, 2008

happy breakup day

It started as a coincidence. When I broke up with Steph, it was my second Labor Day breakup in a row. Then it became three. And then last year, I set a secret Labor Day deadline when it came to my waiting for Sarah.

Labor Day has become my dumping day. But why? The traditional end of summer? School being back in session? A salute to trade unions? Allowing her a third day for listing my faults?

It could be any of those things, I suppose. But as I watched Ohio State's football opener Saturday, I wondered if my heart simply doesn't belong to another.

posted by john at 09:09 AM  •  permalink

August 25, 2008

the dumbest generation

Did anyone else notice that during the post-event interviews of Olympic medalists, the American athletes sounded unfathomably inarticulate compared to their peers from around the world?

As soon as a microphone was shoved into a Yank's face, my thoughts returned to what I thought when my mom tried to be "cool" around my friends: please don't say anything please don't say anything please don't say anything shut up shut up shut up shut up.

posted by john at 11:26 AM  •  permalink

August 18, 2008

olympic spoilers

I've pretty much given up watching the Olympics; have you? Between the time difference with Beijing, the time difference with New York, and the time difference between when an event occurs and when it actually airs, my margin of error for turning on the TV at the correct time is is +/- 2 days. And a half-day before my event airs, I accidentally read the results online.

Click.

posted by john at 08:43 AM  •  permalink

July 10, 2008

i have nothing for you people

So watch this instead. It's been cheering me up all week.

posted by john at 08:11 AM  •  permalink

June 13, 2008

kobe beef

Remember when Michael Jordan, playing at home, allowed the visiting team to come back from 24 points down in the NBA Finals? No? Me neither. In fact, it's unimaginable.

May we kindly, pretty please, officially stop mentioning Kobe in the same breath as Jordan now?

posted by john at 06:27 AM  •  permalink

May 27, 2008

fratricide: cheap shots i have thrown, part v

I received a last-minute phone call that a pickup soccer game needed players. And so I drove the haul to Chillicothe, OH, and I inserted myself at right fullback. We were a full half-hour into the game before the ball came into my hemisphere. The other team's left wing looked familiar. Really familiar. Wow, what a coincidence.

If you ever meet my brother, Russ, you will come away with the impression that when I was, say, 8 and he was 17, I beat the crap out of him and not vice-versa. The fact is that there were exactly five times I ever got the best of him. This is the story of the last.

He was surprised, too. And then we realized the significance of the moment: this was the first time we would ever compete against each other as adults. This man was once the boy who drove tomato stakes into the back yard so that I could practice ball-handling by weaving through them. Now, he was weaving through me.

He beat me badly the first time. Completely pantsed me and got an easy goal. And then I got a couple of stops. But in the scintillating scoring system that is soccer's, one goal is an enormous lead, and as such Russ could claim to be leading our personal contest. Another goal and he would achieve immortal bragging rights.

To aid his quest for immortality, his team started funneling him the ball on every advance. Eventually, inevitably, he got behind me again. I slipped. He drove toward the goal. The goalie slipped. Russ drove to point-blank range and stopped. He was going to make the net really billow. This was for immortality! And so my showboating brother selected his shot, cocked back his leg, and...

He doesn't remember what happened next, but I do. I hit him so hard from behind that I knocked him a few yards out of bounds. His skinny body made a wet celery sound. The ball remained where he'd left it. I was yellow-carded, of course, and he was awarded a penalty shot. He staggered to the ball and weakly kicked a roller. The goalie had no problem stopping it. Russ took himself out of the game and remained out for the next, oh, 15 years.

He blames me for the end of his glorious career. And for his subsequent battles with back pain. I may or may not be responsible, but what I will not concede is that I had somehow made an improper play.

"YOU TOOK ME OFF THE BALL, JOHN!" he'll snarl angrily.

"I'm sorry, did you score?"

I'd show more of the conversation, but those are essentially the only two sentences we've spoken for the last 15 years.

posted by john at 07:39 AM  •  permalink

May 22, 2008

dirkicide: cheap shots i have thrown, part iv

When one enforcer type happens upon another, no matter the sport, it becomes a game within a game. Actually, that's a lie. The larger game—the one with teammates and a score—ceases to matter. It becomes a primal battle. It becomes you against him. It becomes, in a word, stupid.

Dirk was the other goon in my neighborhood. He was built roughly like a washing machine. And frankly, I'd rather hit the latter. We got along fine outside of the field of play, but once the first hip-check was thrown, it was balls-out.

I threw the first hip-check during a pickup basketball game, knocking a sprinting Dirk ass-over-teakettle into some empty risers beside the court. Unlike mortal men, he gathered himself and returned to the game. He didn't even attempt to stop bleeding first. He only paused to pull a long, thin shard of steel out of his arm. It was like the end of a Terminator movie.

I was a dead man walking.

Dirk could touch the rim, which is pretty amazing feat for someone 5'6" and 225 pounds. I don't know if he could dunk. I couldn't take the chance. ("No one has ever dunked on me," I still stupidly boast.) When Dirk came charging down the court toward me looking for all the world like he intended to dunk, I defended him. He leapt into the air, knees up, toward me and, roughly, the basket. He drove one knee into my throat and the other into my nose.

I do not know if he made the shot. The next thing I remember was waking up face-down on the court, my nose broken and the game continuing at the other end. Thoughtful.

posted by john at 08:15 AM  •  permalink

May 21, 2008

phuongocide: cheap shots i have thrown, part iii

Because it wasn't game-related, this is perhaps my worst ethical infraction. You have been warned.

The scene: gym class in high school. In that I had previously seen a soccer ball, I was arguably the best player on the field. A Korean exchange student, Phuong (pronounced "Foong"), was modestly talented but figured that when it came to soccer, he was culturally and genetically better equipped than Americans. He played with an aggression that exceeded his talents. He hogged every ball, took every shot, and lectured us about strategy and rules.

He also cut Stephanie down. Steph was a friend, a sweet girl and talented athlete who happened to get caught between Phuong and glory. When I was serving my time as goalie, she was playing fullback and had the temerity to impede Phuong's progress toward the goal. He tackled her hard, clamping his legs around hers and wrenching her knee perversely—and bloodying her face when she kicked her own lip. We had to help her off the field. As we did, she asked us for a favor. She asked for a little playground justice.

She needn't have asked. I was very much in the mood for a little Korean.

I inserted myself at center fullback. I cleaned the dirt off my cleats. Nothing would impede their progress. And Phuong came. And I checked him brutally, not even making a pretense of legality. And no one helped him off the field as blood erupted out of the two perfect holes in his calf.

I saw him a few years later, and he still had noticeably symmetrical scars there. He didn't speak to me. Bonus.

posted by john at 10:10 AM  •  permalink

May 20, 2008

patricide: cheap shots i have thrown, part ii

I was about 19. I was playing in a pickup basketball game in my father's neighborhood when, for the first time in my life, he decided to attend one of my games. Sigh. It would have to be in basketball.

Still, I appreciated his encouragement. "Move your ass, John! Jesus Christ, it's like you're running through sand! Stop passing, you pussy! Shoot! Shoot! Ha ha ha. What a brick."

After 20 minutes of such scintillating wit, we lost several players. I pointed to my 50 year old father, standing on the baseline. "Him." Everyone agreed.

Because everyone but Dad knew what was coming. (Perhaps if you had come to one of my games, Dad, you too would have known better than to whip off your shirt and trot on to the court without a care in the world.) He insisted on guarding me, naturally, and it wasn't long before I was going up for a rebound and felt him trying to go up my back.

"MY EYE!" he screamed, cupping his face like his eye might fall out of its socket. "MY FUCKING EYE!"

In his haste to leave, he left his mangled eyeglasses lying on the court. My elbow felt better the next day. His glasses and cracked eye socket, not so much.

Dad never went to one of my games again.

posted by john at 08:49 AM  •  permalink

May 19, 2008

cheap shots i have thrown, part i

On any playground, I was always about the fourth guy picked. There were always more talented athletes, and those guys went first. But after that, we dogsbodies were allocated. I was a top-drawer enforcer. I never thought I was a particularly dirty player; I simply thrived in contact sports. I loved being able to use my physical "gifts" to jar a more talented athlete off the ball. Toughness is part of sports, or so I told myself, and my efforts were usually within the rules.

Venture outside the rules once in a while, though, and a merely aggressive player gets a "dirty" tag. This was me. And it was a different era. I'd be taking a rest on the sideline of a soccer game, and some uppity opposing player would start shredding our defense, and our coach would glare at me. "Get in there and maim that motherfucker."

One minute (and a legal slide into the ball) later, the player was helped off the field. A different era, indeed. And for my accumulated efforts, I earned a reputation. Where some kids made All-State, I got yellow-carded at the pre-game handshake.

This week, I shall chronicle the worst cheap shots I ever dispensed.

posted by john at 08:39 AM  •  permalink

April 16, 2008

the beautiful game

"I could never date a sports fan."
—Lilly, Seattle native

• • •

Seatards are very proudly not sports fans. You're just not a local until you whine endlessly about the public funding of the football stadium. That the "public" part of the stadium's funding comes exclusively from taxes on sports stuff is immaterial. We're good electric-bus loving liberals here, and the utter imbecility of our argument is immaterial, too.

Sports taxes paying for sports? Poppycock. That Seahawk jersey surcharge could be better spent on biofuels.

At work, at dinner, at parties, on the street, pretty much everywhere but in the stadiums, you have to hear these preening twits hold forth about the immorality of sports. There is one especially irritating exception.

"I only watch soccer," they sniff with superiority, as if they're reading Tolstoy to my Dave Barry. "It's a beautiful game."

"Name two players. Any in the world will do," I reply.

It's a good thing no one's ever tried to answer, 'cause I sure wouldn't know if they were lying.

posted by john at 06:53 AM  •  permalink

April 04, 2008

the week in whining

Now that the Colts and Giants have each been crowned, it's time to revisit three Super Bowls ago.

I once called Seahawk fans "spiteful, whiney bitches." I stand corrected.

posted by john at 06:56 AM  •  permalink

March 24, 2008

the champ

I was peripherally aware of them. There was the guy who got into dental school at Case Western, the guy who was a stud running back in high school, the guy who might have slept with a local celebrity, the guy who was going to be heavyweight terror Mike Tyson's next bum-of-the-week. I didn't meet any of these neighborhood guys, but I heard plenty about them on the basketball court. Mostly, I heard their modest claims-to-fame mocked by their friends.

"Interest in this fight is so intense," they said of the impending Tyson beat-down, "They had to move it from Trinidad to Japan."

I wasn't even sure when the fight was. Judging by the increasing intensity of the sneering, I figured it was soon.

One morning, I groggily opened the front door and looked down for my newspaper. There between my feet, in 4-inch type generally reserved for headlines like "CONGRESS DECLARES WAR," was instead this headline:

BUSTER'S THE CHAMP!

"No. Way."

And wow, did Buster ever have a lot of friends in the neighborhood. Stories about the man they'd not-long-ago called "Meat" suddenly abounded. He's one of us. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. We were best friends in grade school. He dated my sister. Say, how much you think he'll get paid for his title defense?

I only met him once, a month or so after Buster shocked the world but still a few months before he would vanish into obscurity. It turns out we had the same favorite nearby restaurant, Cooker's, and the same favorite dish, the meatloaf with drop-biscuits. We nodded to one another—I'm not one who bothers celebrities when they're eating—and for the rest of the evening I stole glances at a man eating his way out of the championship of the world.

posted by john at 07:07 AM  •  permalink

March 04, 2008

funeral for a friend

I remember the moment that Favre became Favre for me. I was aware of the Green Bay quarterback with the cannon arm and unspellable name, and I'd seen him play, but he hadn't yet blown me away. It was 1995, and my Super Bowl-bound Steelers were closing out their season in a meaningless game against Fahv-rah's Packers. The Packers were overmatched. The Steelers pounded Favre in a way that no QB could ever survive. Just pummeled him. Yet time and again, this guy got up off the turf, shook the sod out of his ear-holes, and fired away into the teeth of my defense. By the third quarter, blood poured forth from his face and his jersey turned a dark maroon. Jesus Christ, I said to Allie. This guy has seen "Rocky" a few hundred too many times.

And then he won the game.

And his hulking lineman leapt into his arms, in celebration.

And from then on, I watched him as often as I could, fearing that if I didn't, I would miss something that I'd never seen before and would never see again.

And now he's gone. Retired.

And the game I love most, I love less.

posted by john at 11:55 AM  •  permalink

February 06, 2008

reader mail: the golden boy

Distinguished Stank troll Amit writes of a Super Bowl experience far worse than a "we-ing" girlfriend.

I was watching the big game the other day at a friend's house when I realized something that may interest you--all the girls in the room were rooting for the Patriots because Tom Brady was "so cute" and "dreamy" and "a hunk" where all the guys were going for the Giants b/c the Patriots were cheaters and Tom Brady is a douchebag that (probably) cheats on his girlfriend and leaves her for a supermodel when said girlfriend gets pregnant. The girls looked right past these obvious flaws. It was quite an interesting dichotomy, one I wonder if was present at Super Bowl parties across the country.

Amen on the cheater douchebags, Amit. Meanwhile, did anyone else find this repugnance to be true? I'd call it ugly gender stereotyping except that I've seen it more often than not at Super Bowl parties.

Not to mention that the day a woman is actually attracted to the virtues that she says she's attracted to, I'll feel bolts of pain in my left arm and keel over. Sorry, ladies, it's the one gender bias to which I subscribe. Oh, there's two: I don't think most women should have jobs where they have to make announcements into a cheap P.A. system, either. Absolutely piercing. But that's it.

posted by john at 06:56 AM  •  permalink

February 05, 2008

we

I am, like most, delighted that the Giants spoiled the smug Patriots' tainted bid for perfection. It's God's work they did.

I was explaining the nature of the Pats' evil to Sarah when, resigned, she uttered, "I don't think I'll ever be the fan of a team. I'm just not wired that way."

Then we talked about the nature of developing fandom. She suggested that people don't start following a team at her age. I disagreed. As a challenge, she asked how I'd feel if she suddenly became a Steelers fan. I chuckled. There is no such thing, I said. You can suddenly start watching games. You can suddenly wear a lot of team-themed crap. You can suddenly start using "we" to refer to the team, as in "We won big today." But none of that makes you a fan. Girlfriends, especially, have seem predisposed to that route; I've always looked away in utter disgust.

"When they break you heart and you come back for more, and then they break it again and you come back for thirds, and then they break it again and you come back for fourths, then maybe you can use 'we.' Until you suffer, until you put in your time, not so much." I said. On the other hand, when they're good and advance deep into the post-season, you don't much enjoy that either. It's just nauseating, really.

She didn't see the upside. Smart.

posted by john at 07:09 AM  •  permalink

December 13, 2007

things i learned from reading jerome bettis' book

1. Books seem less heavy if you lower your arms below the surface in the hot tub.
2. If you're on page 12 and you grab 45 pages and turn them all at once, you avoid a bunch of really boring crap.
3. For someone who doesn't mean offense, Bettis sure says "No offense to so-and-so" a lot.
4. Bettis set a Super Bowl record for bear hugs given and received.
5. Books seem even less heavy if you lower them into the water altogether.

posted by john at 08:24 AM  •  permalink

November 28, 2007

no, really, it’s okay!

Spittake-inducing lead from an article in the Pittsburgh Trib:

Steelers apologize for skipping anthem
By Karen Price

The Steelers apologized Tuesday for omitting a performance of the national anthem by Motley Crue lead singer Vince Neil before the nationally televised game against the Miami Dolphins at Heinz Field.

Yep. That's my team.

posted by john at 05:21 PM  •  permalink

November 19, 2007

what’s wrong in this picture?

Now that's blocking. Thanks go to longtime Stank troll Amit for the screen capture.

posted by john at 09:35 AM  •  permalink

November 17, 2007

goodbye, lloyd

We here at Stank would like to graciously congratulate the Michigan Wolverines for cracking 90 yards of total offense today.

posted by john at 04:34 PM  •  permalink

November 06, 2007

squish

The modern age is a queer thing. Here I sit in my Seattle home, my Terrible Towel hanging next to me, drying from the rains in Pittsburgh last night/this morning.

Rain notwithstanding, the evening was pure bliss. Another person might have wished for a more competitive game. A better person, specifically.

In other news, if all goes as planned, d'Andre returns home tomorrow to find, God willing, my underwear stashed at the foot of his bed.

posted by john at 12:40 PM  •  permalink

October 28, 2007

classless, defined

As I type this, the Patriots lead the Redskins 38-0 in the fourth quarter. Not only are the Pats still playing all their starters, but they just went for it on 4th and 1.

Touchdown. 44-0 now. They should definitely go for two.

posted by john at 03:41 PM  •  permalink

October 08, 2007

steelers 21
seahawks 0

Oh heavenly father,

Today, I praise your name. I thank you for my many blessings. Like, when my team committed stupid penalties, their having the mettle to stop the Seahawks from scoring anyway. I thank you, too, that when questionable penalties were called, the Steelers had the wisdom to convert 3rd and long instead of whining to the media, that they quietly mounted a 110 yard drive from their own 20. Thank you for rewarding the virtuous and smiting the deserving. Thank you for providing me a team about which I can be proud and not ashamed. Thou art most wise.

xxoo,
john

posted by john at 09:47 AM  •  permalink

September 28, 2007

count 'em, twelve

When I was a kid, I tried to explain to a 7 year old that buying a group of ten candy bars for $4.00 would in fact be cheaper than his practice of buying 10 individual candy bars for 50 cents each. But he dug in his heels. He was insistent his way was the less expensive, for 50 cents was a lot less than $4. He was defensive. He was absolutely sure that he was correct. We were both flabbergasted by the other's stupidity. And only one of us was right.

• • •

"Wow. That's...stupid," Amy said after I pointed out the "12th Fan" flag hanging in a Seattle bar. She also seemed surprised to hear that in the couple years since she'd left Seattle, the locals had reinvented themselves into The Best Fans in Football. Just ask them. When she was here, you see, Seahawk games were still being blacked out because of poor attendance.

"What do they say when you point out they got the whole 12th Man thing wrong?"

Nothing. They say nothing. There is no conception of what the convention really is or why their error is hilarious to outsiders. They dig in their heels, absolutely sure that they are right. We are both flabbergasted by the other's stupidity. And only one of us is right.

posted by john at 07:01 AM  •  permalink

September 07, 2007

alma matters

Much as I, in a fit of gratitude, posted the Appalachian State fight song after they beat Michigan, so too are my brethren in Columbus loving the Mountaineers this week.

And talk about your bad fits. Here, the former university President complains about Ohio State's art scene. "When you win a game, you riot. When you lose a game, you riot. When spring comes, you riot. African-American Heritage Festival weekend, you riot."

Just outrageous. Let's go flip the bitch's car and set it on fire.

posted by john at 08:09 AM  •  permalink

September 01, 2007

holy. crap.
and thus does football season get off to the best imaginable start

You know the words! Sing with me now...

Hi-Hi-y-ike-us
Nobody like us,
We are the
mountaineers,
mountaineers,
mountaineers,
Always a-winning
Always a-grinning
Always a-feeling fine
You bet, hey
Go Apps!
Fight Apps!
Go, fight, kick ass!

#5 Michigan lost their tuneup game. At home. To a I-AA school. I can die now.

Michigan might not be the Princeton of the midwest, but I'll be damned if they didn't play like it.

posted by john at 04:00 PM  •  permalink

August 31, 2007

vote ozzie in 2008

I'm not a baseball guy, but anyone with co-workers can appreciate the White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen's gasket-blowing before the media after his underachieving club lost yet another game. Of his team, he said:

"They're killing me. They're killing my family. They're killing my coaching staff. Killing the White Sox fans. They kill the owner. They kill everyone. I hope they feel the same way we feel. I hope somebody out there cares the way we care. Good guys or nice guys finish fucking last. I'm tired of seeing that shit, day in and day out. And I don't want to spend a miserable September seeing the same shit. If I have to see the same shit, I told Kenny, 'Bring somebody up. Fuck it.' If it's my fault, I should be moving out of here then. If it's my fault, fucking fire my ass and I'll be fine. I have the job to do, and I get paid a lot of fucking money to make this club work, but it's not easy to work with people like that. It's not easy."

At a press conference. Lovely, just lovely. Sir Charles can be his Secretary of State.

posted by john at 07:05 AM  •  permalink

August 29, 2007

jesus still has some seriously heavy lifting to do

One of my greatest regrets in this history of this page occurred yesterday, when my laziness denied me an "I told you so."

Over the weekend, I'd intended to predict that Michael Vick would soon, and very publicly, find Jesus. It's on page two of the Millionaire Athlete Revealed to Be an Irredeemable Piece of Shit Playbook, right after claiming victimhood and right before crying racism. And yesterday, he did just that. Yes, kids, Jesus recently helped Vick realize that his torturing, drowning, and electrocuting dogs on an ongoing basis for at least seven years was an "immature act," a "mistake."

Spin, spin, spin. Jesus has a lot more work to do.

And why does Jesus only appear after your friends have ratted you out to the government, anyway? He's the ambulance-chaser of deities.

posted by john at 09:33 AM  •  permalink

August 20, 2007

foresight defined

News of Michael Vick's imminent jail time makes me think back to 2001, when the San Diego Chargers had the foresight to trade away his rights for a second round pick, a third round pick, Tim Dwight, and someone I like to call LaDainian Tomlinson. And then they snagged Drew Brees in the second round.

Best trade ever.

posted by john at 07:11 PM  •  permalink

no race mixing

I first noticed it at the Seahawks game in Chicago last year. The number "54" was being burned into my retinas. "Is there some law that every last white Bears fan has to wear Urlacher's jersey?" I wondered, looking for the telltale placard.

All Bears fans must wear the jersey of someone who's the same color they are. - Mayor Richard M. Daley

I could find no exceptions, black or white. This fascinated me. I've since kept an eye on this.

Seattle fans are overwhelmingly white, of course, and they wear the jerseys of one of the three Seahawks players they've heard of: Hasselbeck (white), Alexander (black), or Tatupu (Samoan). I can't recall ever seeing black fans in the stands in Seattle, but I'm sure they'd wear something ultra-defensive. In Atlanta, white folks wore black folks' jerseys—especially Vick's—but there aren't exactly a lot of white stars on the Falcons. And apparently there haven't been for 21 years, as I did see Steve Bartkowski's jersey several times. Black fans uniformly stuck to black players' jerseys. Ditto in Charlotte.

It was in Charlotte that I saw the trend broken. Seated in front of us was an entire family from Pittsburgh. They were cloyingly all dressed alike. Mom, Dad, son, and toddler all wore Roethlisberger's jersey. They were black. Roethlisberger is white. I was surprised by how surprised I was.

A quick scan of the 20,000 Steeler fans who'd made the trip revealed no pattern whatsoever to jersey selection. Oh, a few more fans wore white tight end Heath Miller's jersey than his production merits, but I attribute this to political protest more than racial insight. The Steelers never throw to their tight end.

I remembered tailgating in Pittsburgh. There are the usual Pittsburgh demographics present: Italians, blacks, Irish, and especially Poles. I remembered no racial clustering, though, outside of families. The only other place I've tailgated in an integrated fashion is Oakland. Everywhere else, complete segregation.

During a long drive yesterday, I listened to a podcast from Pittsburgh. I was struck by how this black fan integrated a dreadful, Steelers-themed polka into his broadcast. And I was struck by how oddly affirming I find that.

posted by john at 06:54 AM  •  permalink

August 07, 2007

i got yer steely mcbeam. i got yer steely mcbeam right here.

First, I thought it couldn't get any worse than the Steelers naming their ugly new stadium "Heinz Field." Then they added the moronic ketchup bottles, and I stood corrected. But now, I thought, surely the worst is behind us.

I was wrong. They decided to get a mascot. Now it couldn't get any worse, right? But I was wrong again. The new mascot would look like Satan's childhood rapist. Now it couldn't possibly get any worse.

Today, they announced the thing's name: Steely McBeam. We have officially bottomed out. Until they hire cheerleaders.

posted by john at 02:22 PM  •  permalink

July 27, 2007

burgh humor

Much as with the mental collateral damage inflicted by girlfriends, thanks to Steelers fans, I know way, way too much about the Pirates. I don't care about the Pirates. I don't really care about baseball, for that matter. Yet there they are, taking up increasingly rare neurons.

I've come to appreciate the gallows humor with which Pittsburghers regard their truly lousy baseball team. The start of football training camp in July is annually hailed as the end of baseball season. On a report from training camp the other day, a reporter spoke of the scrimmage that the Steelers would hold in a local high school stadium. There's going to be a fireworks display afterward, he said, "And you don't even have to watch a Pirates game to see it."

The day before that, the Pittsburgh sports channel had about 20 minutes of coverage of the Steelers' camp in Latrobe, went to commercial, and then came back. The anchor's transition: "And now it's the part in the show where we must discuss the Pirates and their nine-game losing streak. But we don't want to, so let's go back to Latrobe."

posted by john at 06:36 AM  •  permalink

July 09, 2007

invincible

During my Week of Phlegm, I used up my personal stash of unwatched DVDs and forged on to the video store. There, among other things, I rented "Invincible." I knew that it starred Marky Mark and was about football, and that's about where my bar was, so I grabbed it. Had I noticed that it was yet another Disney sports movie, however, I would have passed. I've already seen it. Many times.

Our hero is generous, kind, beloved. He is nevertheless dumped on by society. He's too poor, too old, too black, too something. His life is systematically reduced to rubble before our eyes. He's left with only his dream. His dream involves sports. At first, he gets no respect. People mock him. Only a good woman believes in this loser. She is improbably hot. He thinks about quitting, but he doesn't, because the dream is all he has left. And wouldn't you know, he succeeds. In a brilliant musical montage, he earns his detractors' respect play by play. His onetime critics hoist him up on their shoulders.* Fans cheer. Our hero basks in applause, his good woman by his side. We learn in the American Graffiti–style end titles that they lived happily ever after.

Unwatchable.

*If our hero is black, this is replaced by "One-time hate-spewing racists, suddenly seeing the light, now cuddle him."

posted by john at 06:22 AM  •  permalink

April 10, 2007

tressel hayes

Finally, a miraculous baby.

posted by john at 06:33 AM  •  permalink

April 02, 2007

rematch!

You heard it here first, on December 3:

"Ohio State and Florida are 1 and 2 in football and 3 and 4 in basketball, so a rematch in March is even possible."

I suspect that my boys are in for another butt-kicking at the hands of the Gators tonight, but ya never know. I've been waiting for them to lose all tournament, and they outlasted 63 other teams. At one point, I had them at 1-2 in the tourney. Quite the feat.

posted by john at 07:50 AM  •  permalink

March 30, 2007

higher lerning

posted by john at 07:01 PM  •  permalink

March 16, 2007

experiment

It's always amazed me how the same post can offend seemingly opposing groups. Why, it's almost like people troll the Internet for offense, viewing words through the prism of their own biases!

So I decided to do an experiment.

In my post two days ago, I took care not to mention Kobe's legal troubles or the fact that the league seems to be targeting him alone. I stated no thesis. I didn't say the league was targeting the guy because he elbowed white players. Nor did I say Kobe was racist for elbowing 'em. Yet somehow, readers saw both arguments. They eviscerated Kobe, the NBA, me, all for the hobgoblins of their own imaginations.

Fascinating.

posted by john at 10:27 AM  •  permalink

March 14, 2007

kobe beef

A funny thing happened while I was listening to Phil Jackson defend Kobe Bryant. They showed clips of Bryant throwing his elbows into three different faces, acts for which he was suspended. They looked flagrant enough to me, but they could have just as easily been no-calls. What really caught my eye, though, was that it was three white guys' faces. If I remember probability theory correctly, the odds of that happening are 82-1. Same odds as getting Ace-King before the flop in a single hold'em hand. Or of Cleveland winning Super Bowl XLII.

Fascinating.

posted by john at 05:09 PM  •  permalink

February 22, 2007

rest in peace, d.j.

See: Stuff that apparently only I like

posted by john at 03:04 PM  •  permalink

February 09, 2007

why i don’t watch the nba anymore

Participating in the slam-dunk competition next weekend: Gerald Green, Dwight Howard, Nate Robinson, and Tyrus "I'm just going to go out there, get my check and call it a day. I'm just into the free money. That's it. I'll just do whatever when I get out there." Thomas.

Judging the contest: Dr. J., Dominique Wilkins, Vince Carter, Kobe Bryant, and Michael Jordan.

Attention, judges—please bring white-soled shoes.

posted by john at 12:34 AM  •  permalink

February 06, 2007

super bowl notes

The media, God bless 'em, waited until the second question after his Super Bowl victory to ask Tony Dungy how it felt to be black. I'd feel worse for him if his response wasn't basically That's not important. What's important is that we're the first Christian team to win it. And as you can see in the final score, the Lord took care of his own. How graspingly sad. How tasteful. I'm sure the non-Christians on his team appreciate it.

I think last year's suckfest has skewed perceptions. This wasn't a particularly good game. Stop saying it was. While I typed this sentence, three more balls hit the ground.

In the BCS championship and Super Bowl this year, both the opening kickoffs were returned for touchdowns. Both teams eventually lost.

Rain good.

I congratulated an Indiana native friend yesterday. "Thanks," he said sheepishly. "I sure could have done without all the jesusing, though."

If Philly fans want Garcia over McNabb so much, I can think of a team on Lake Michigan that could really, really use McNabb.

posted by john at 08:24 AM  •  permalink

February 02, 2007

company loves misery

I'm a little ashamed. It's not like me to take eleven years to notice that people are steaming sacks o' crap. But here we are.

When my Steelers lost Super Bowl XXX, I heard from everyone. E-v-e-r-y-o-n-e. Acquaintances and a ex-girlfriends came out of the woodwork to say they'd watched the game and thought of me, and I must be really miserable, huh?

Cut to:

When my Buckeyes won the championship in 2003, I heard from no one.

Cut to:

When the Steelers finally won in 2006, I heard from no one.

Cut to:

Present day. It's been almost a month, yet several times a week, some dimwit from some peripheral crevice of my life will go out of his way to remind me that the Buckeyes just got thumped.

"I don't even watch football," says the ninth-place trophy wife instead of taking my order. "And I was all, like, 'GOD, they SUCK!'"

"Ha, ha. Thanks."

Yesterday, it was the UPS guy. He spotted the Ohio State decal on my Jeep.

"Ohio State?!?" he said incredulously. "Ohio State?!?"

I nodded. "I'm an alum."

"Whoa!" He shook his head gravely, yet his tone bordered on delight. "They just got their asses kicked!"

I glared at him. Is this because I didn't tip at Christmas?

"Really? I hadn't heard. Say, where did you go to school?"

The answer was both mumbled and untypically complicated. He petered out and backed toward his truck.

I grabbed my box and went inside to seethe. Enjoy backing down my driveway, motherfucker.

posted by john at 07:13 AM  •  permalink

January 24, 2007

picking a horse

As I was munching popcorn and watching the excellent AFC championship game, I couldn't help but note how much more I enjoy football when my team's been eliminated. It's the difference between your wife and your mistress. Yeah, you love your wife, but on the other hand you never have to hold a bucket for your mistress when she's got the stomach flu. She's just about the quickie. Meaningless, yes, but pleasant.

So says the man with neither wife nor mistress.

With the evil teams having been dispatched, I really didn't have a rooting interest in the final four. So is it with the final two.

So here's my case for rooting for Indianapolis.

• Tony Dungy is a long-suffering member of the Steeler family tree, and he finally made it to the Show as a coach.
• Mouthy Mike Vanderjagt is sitting at home while Peyton and Dungy, now liberated from "Shank" Vanderjagt, finally got to the Super Bowl. Coincidence?
• People said KC would shred the Colts' running defense, and KC got stuffed.
• People said that the Ravens' physical defense would pound the "soft" Colts, and the Colts didn't flinch.
• People said that Manning's longtime nemisis Belichick would, as always, get in Manning's head. Manning prevailed.

And here's the case for the Bears:

• Every football whore for whom I have no respect is rooting for Indianapolis.

Go Bears.

posted by john at 08:39 AM  •  permalink

January 21, 2007

my sporting world in a nutshell

Looking for news of the Steelers' coach search, I went to Steelers.com today.

Noticing with approval a large photo of unglamourous offensive lineman Alan Faneca on the home page, I chuckled smugly and went to see whether the Seahawks' home page featured their quarterback or their running back.

I was wrong. Dead wrong.

It features Chantale.

She did four years of high school cheerleading, she loves the eliptical machine, and when asked what she likes best about being a SeaGal, she replied "Everything!"

Gotta respect the twelve fans.

posted by john at 12:07 PM  •  permalink

January 18, 2007

trade ya my ohio state diploma for a six pack. and it doesn't even have to be cold.

Historically, I'm of one school of thought when it comes to NFL halftime shows. Three words: frisbee catchin' dogs. I don't need anything else. I don't want anything else. Frisbee catchin' dogs. Sadly, they seem to have fallen out of fashion. Perhaps the dogs unionized.

On Football Weekend this year, in Indy, they fielded something quite close in entertainment value. While the Colts and Bengals retired to the locker rooms, various mascots from around the league played a quick game of football. While in full costume. There's something oddly thrilling about a guy in a giant foam dolphin head catching a 10 yard slant and getting laid out by someone in a foam bronco costume. Yes, this feels good. It feels right.

I had the opposite feeling at the BCS championship game last week. Normally, I enjoy watching Ohio State's band humiliate the other team's, but this time it was me who was hanging my head in shame. You tell me. They set up a lean-to along the sideline, about 120 feet long and 20 feet wide. It had waves painted on it. The band, meanwhile, was out on the field playing the theme from "Titanic"—how hilarious is that bit of foreshadowing?—and forming a giant outline of the ship, which "floated" on the water lean-to. Okay. Stupid, but okay. But then the ship split in two, and we watched first one, then the other section disappear under the lean-to.

We sat speechless in our seats. Finally I gagged out "Um. People. We just re-enacted the deaths of 1500 people as halftime entertainment."

I was utterly appalled and embarrassed. What do you have in mind for an encore, Ohio State?

"The Hindenburg Follies"

"Oh, Guyana!"

"A George Gershwin Salute to the World Trade Center Collapse"

The mind reels.

posted by john at 06:55 AM  •  permalink

January 10, 2007

fan DOs and DONT’s

Even when Ohio State still led—hence before I was questioning my very birth, let alone why I was at the championship game—I wondered if I should really be attending games in person anymore. The bigger the game, the more deplorable fan conduct is becoming. I spent most of the Super Bowl and BCS championship wishing I could see the game. Thanks to my fellow fans and their underdeveloped senses of consideration, I would guess I saw maybe 70% of the Super Bowl and 40% of the BCS. When you're shelling out this kind of bank, those percentages inspire murderous daydreams. Visions of shivs, specifically.

Because of the overwhelming evidence that football fans are not born with this knowledge, I hereby bequeath to fandom this primer.

DO	DON'T
Stand and jeer when the opposing team is on offense, especially on third down.	Stand the whole time. See the fans behind you? See how some of them are short, old, handicapped, or lazy? They cannot see through you. While you're still turned around, please also note the nice seat the team provided for your use. See how they didn't provide risers?
Stand and cheer after great plays.	Leap up in the middle of the great play. I'd like to see how it turns out, thanks.
Get front row seats. I sure wish I had.	Inexplicably stand up so that the 5000 dominoes behind you all must do likewise.
Sit the fuck down. Seriously.	Argue with people when you're politely asked to sit down. For example, "It's the Super Bowl!" is not really a compelling argument for impeding a crippled 70 year old's view of the Super Bowl. (True story. He'd just had knee surgery and was on crutches, yet he was told off for very nicely asking someone to sit down.)
Proudly wear your team's colors.	Wear an oversized rainbow afro that completely eclipses your neighbors' view of the field. If you must get on TV, paint your chest like a man.
Proudly wear your team's colors.	Wear those asinine "ladies' versions." Your team's colors almost certainly do not include pink.
Make comments to your neighbors. That's what fandom is all about.	Yell comments to players and coaches 2000 feet and 40,000 fans away. Amazingly enough, they cannot hear you.
Bitch about our mutual team. That's really what fandom is about.	Attribute player/coach failings to race, sexual orientation, etc. I didn't shell out good money to be slimed, thanks.
Participate in team chants. Here we go, Stillers, here we go!	Drunkenly inform your fellow fans that they suck because they don't join your theatrics. Double-penalty for ignoring the game in order to lecture "inferior" fans.
Say hi to friends at the game.	Call them on your cell phone, stand up, and wave. See "shiv," above.
Good naturedly needle opposing fans. Buy them a beer, while you're at it. We're all one fraternity.	Ruin the game for them and everyone else. The right to unleash your pent-up hostilities and ruin someone else's good time is not included in the price of your ticket.
Root for your team at road games.	Clamor for everyone's attention. This is about the game, not about you.
Bring signs	Hold them overhead during plays. This really needs to be said? Jesus Christ, people. And by "during plays," I don't mean "lower it a millisecond before the snap." To those of us without rainbow afros and "Romo is a homo" signs, watching pre-snap shifts is an integral part of the game.
Urinate as needed.	Walk in front of me during a play. During a 3 hour football game, there are 2 hours and 48 minutes of down time. Use that.

posted by john at 02:07 PM  •  permalink

conjuring a silver lining

Many thanks to Allie, who thoughtfully calculates that on my BCS trip I spent $28.90 for every yard of offense Ohio State mustered. I suppose I should be grateful not to have gone to the Michigan game, which at that rate would have cost me $14,037.

posted by john at 09:41 AM  •  permalink

January 08, 2007

not that i’m saying they phoned it in...

A sign at the championship game:

Alternate headline: Tell them I'm not here.

• • •

As much as I'd like to do a satire of Hurricane and Seahawk fans' bitter ungraciousness in defeat, I liked the Florida fans too much to shit on their moment. Fact is, their team earned it. We didn't. And to win both basketball and football championships in the same year...wow. I applaud.

posted by john at 10:05 PM  •  permalink

gak and double gak!

GLENDALE, AZ - The Fiesta Bowl and championship game were moved this year from Arizona State's Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe to the Cardinals' new stadium in Glendale. I haven't been inside the latter yet, but I already miss Tempe. Its shops and restaurants cluster around the stadium, providing a lovely and natural meeting place for fans. In Glendale, not so much. Not even desert surrounds the ghastly stadium exterior. Only dirt. The stadium itself is Kingdome-quality ugly. A big, featureless gray pimple on mud flats.

I've seen thousands of Ohio State fans, which is no surprise. I've also seen thousands of Florida fans, which is a welcome treat after the dozen or so Miami fans who showed four years ago. There's no animosity between the schools, so the fans are mixing amicably. There's none of that nonsense I saw at the Super Bowl, with punk-ass fans looking for fights. We Buckeyes are more playful about it, often breaking into song. The Florida fans and local media are amazed at how quickly we devised (and all learned) songs like "We Don't Give a Damn for the Whole State of Florida," not realizing, of course, that all we did was substitute "Florida" for "Michigan." In Ohio, our mothers sing us that song at cribside.

The superstition survives: my game ticket is in my 2003 championship sleve, with my 2003 and Super Bowl tickets.

posted by john at 08:23 AM  •  permalink

January 06, 2007

hail no

Stank Troll Jim baits me with news that the University of Michigan marching band greeted the arrival of President Ford's corpse with a rousing rendition of "Hail to the Victors."

I have no comment. This situation is sufficiently self-mocking.

posted by john at 04:47 PM  •  permalink

January 05, 2007

immortal

Maybe the sexiest thing I've ever seen. In 11 months, anyway.

It's starting to dawn on me that in my dotage, I'm going to remember these last eleven months as a golden year. In February, I traveled to Detroit to watch my boys win the Super Bowl. This weekend, I travel to Phoenix to watch my other, younger boys play for a championship of their own. In between those momentous trips, I took in football games in Iowa City, Chicago, Indianapolis, Atlanta, Charlotte and Seattle. Hell, I even saw two Gonzaga home basketball games.

Every once in a while, you're blessed to know that you're in the good old days while you're still in 'em. For the rest of my life, I'll never come close to duplicating this year. I won't even try.

Good feeling.

posted by john at 11:29 AM  •  permalink

December 27, 2006

football weekend xi rollup

I can't believe anyone cares, but for the purpose of completeness, here it is.

SEATTLE
The weekend started in a downpour, but we didn't much mind. Donning his Seahawks jersey, Bubba met me at Qwest Field, where we watched the Seahawks continue their ungraceful moonwalk into the playoffs, against the 49ers. Qwest is easily the loudest stadium of this or any weekend. Attribute that to canny fans and an even cannier architecture. Imagine two Sydney Opera Houses pointed at one another with a field in the middle, and you have Qwest. Even an idly chattering, one-third capacity crowd can reach a distorted din. A full crowd during the opponent's third down? Otherworldly.

Quest is among my favorite stadiums. Architecturally, it's magnificent and unique. The seating's comfortable, the sight-lines are perfect, the excellent food's distinctive (local restaurants, chowder, etc.) and the giant scoreboard is visible to most. Major demerits for navigation, though—up the stairs, down the stairs, up the stairs, down the stairs, you don't need signs, do you?—and for a lack of tables at which to eat the $9 hot dogs. We ate off a trash can. Even Spokane Arena has tables.

During the course of the game the guy behind me, to illustrate how much he hates the 49ers, said that he hates only the Steelers worse. They should be ashamed of themselves for "paying off the refs and buying a championship," he said to no one in particular. The weight of his evidence and sagacity of his argument made be feel very ashamed indeed.

"I wish I had a camera" Award: with the Seahawks ten points and six minutes away from winning their division, thousands upon thousands of fans filed out, right under the enormous "HOME OF THE TWELFTH MAN" sign.

ATLANTA
"Now I know why they put the South so far South," I grumbled as I drove from mall to mall the week before Christmas, trying to find a Verizon store employee who knew how to issue me a replacement phone. It's a testament to how hectic this FBW was that neither Bubba nor I ever had a chance to stop at a cigar store or liquor store. Thanks to the hurricane-force windstorm in Seattle, we were in damage-control mode almost the entire trip. His Canadian flight landed in Atlanta a few minutes before kickoff, and he joined me at our seats, first taking a moment to wriggle into his Falcons jersey. We watched a very impressive Dallas team trade blows with Atlanta. Michael Vick continued to not impress me. Terrell Owens spat in DeAngelo Hall's face. The usual. The Georgia Dome is merely okay. Good sound, good displays, but oversized and its seats are much too far from the field. Ludacris performed at halftime, including my favorite in his library, "Move Bitch," which when sanitized for a family venue is really not much of a song at all.

After the game, we ate burgers at the Varsity, then chased Bubba's luggage to his parents' house in SC on our way to Charlotte. We checked into our Charlotte motel at 5:30am.

"I wish I had a camera" Award: After I dealt with the exceedingly useless employees at the Verizon store in the North Dekalb Mall, I blundered into the office of one of my personal heroes: Rep. Cynthia "The Capitol Police stopped me when I didn't have an ID because they're racist" McKinney. I asked if she was there. She wasn't. Can you guess how many non-blacks she employs? Can you? Can you?

CHARLOTTE
After four hours' sleep, we sped to another of my favorite stadiums, now called Bank of America Stadium. It's only a matter of time before two stadiums in two different cities go by the same name, isn't it? BofA is ten years older, now, and it needs some updating. The video and sound systems are subpar. The actual experience in the seats, however, is second to none. What a lovely, intimate setting. Not a bad seat in the house, and the sight-lines are utterly perfect.

Flying a Steelers flag on my side of the rental car and a Panthers flag on Bubba's, we managed to gag down some tailgate in the spare hour before the game, and Bubba, wearing his Panthers jersey, even swung a brats-for-beer trade that required that he down three beers in rapid succession. So he was fairly useless as company during the game. That didn't matter, though, because some 10,000 Steelers fans showed up to keep me company and root the good guys to a ludicrously one-sided victory. The Panthers fans, true to their rep, were lethargic from word go.

Bonus points to the Panthers for not hanging lame "Division Champions" banners everywhere like they did in the other three venues. Nothing screams "Losers" quite like a banner attesting to your one-time also-ran status. It's the sports equivalent to bragging that your buddy let you sniff his sister's panties. It's just sad.

INDIANAPOLIS
We landed at the Indy airport in the same concourse from which I departed for Washington 14 years ago. I quietly regarded the very spot from which Maddie had watched me board my plane, ending our life together. We hopped in a cab, and I instructed the cabbie to take us to our hotel by way of the White Castle's drive through. I ended up buying the cabbie lunch there; Bubba, perhaps still reeling from his gas station experience a year before, declined. And so we sat in our room watching ESPN highlights of Sunday's games, me eating sliders and him eating boiled peanuts left over from Charlotte. That was fitting. For the record, having tried Crystal's hamburgers while in Atlanta, I can say that they're similar in size only. White Castles are steamed and, to my palette, tastier.

We left for the district surrounding the RCA Dome, where a bartender told a craving Bubba, now wearing a Colts jersey, where he could find a Scottish egg. The bar was five blocks away, we were told, a fact made significant by a mysterious and quite painful injury to my toe that was causing it to bleed. I mention this only because the walk ended up being 14 blocks. I wish an excruciating death upon that bartender. The Scottish egg, however, was quite fantastic, and if you ever find yourself in Indy, before you run screaming for the airport, I highly recommend MacNiven's scottish pub.

With all due respect to the Meadowlands, the RCA Dome is the worst venue in the NFL. Hideous, narrow concrete tunnels pass for a concourse. Half the seating is on aluminum bleachers. The jumbotron was apparently made around the time of the league merger. The worst seats are absurdly high. I could go on, but since they're replacing that upholstered toilet, I see no point. The Bengals did not show, and Peyton and Marvin put on an absolute clinic.

The Colts fans were distinctive in one regard: whereas the stadiums in Seattle, Atlanta and Charlotte were sterile and corporate and utterly interchangeable, the Colts' stadium looked like the Colts' stadium. Hand-made signs were draped from seats, each supporting a favorite player or exhorting the team to victory. After the franchise-produced, professionally made, utterly hollow signs ("Hasselbeck's Heroes," "Stevens' Soldiers," etc.) at the prior three venues, it was refreshing to see the genuine article.

"I wish I had a camera" Award: The best sign of the weekend was in Indy and directed at the Bengals' Chad Johnson: "OCHO CINCO MUCHO STINKO."

posted by john at 11:24 AM  •  permalink

December 14, 2006

football weekend xi

Tonight, Football Weekend begins its second decade. Unfathomable. What began as a mere one-off, my conspiracy to rescue a buddy from his raving psychosis of a wife, has become a tradition that's outlived both relationships. As it should be.

Logistics are such that FBWs must be selected well in advance, and these games are evidence of that. Consider, for example, how good Carolina-Pittsburgh and Cincy-Indy looked five months ago. Let us not speak of how much we paid for those Carolina tickets. Rounding out the weekend are Seattle-San Francisco and Atlanta-Dallas. Not bad, but not a great slate either. At least the Monday night game will feature two desperate teams. As for tonight, if you have the NFL Network, tune it in. They're forecasting 100 mph wind gusts. I'll be the guy in the stands.

Thanks go to Jen and Jeff, who will squat in my house and watch Ed's increasingly bizarre leg-kicking antics in my absence.

posted by john at 06:08 AM  •  permalink

December 03, 2006

mailbag: gridiron edition

Far too many Trolls have written me to ask a variation on this question: "I haven't seen any Steelers games this year. What happened? I mean, seriously, what the fuck?"

My standard answer: "Nothing that a heart transplant wouldn't fix."

Sometimes your team isn't very good, and you learn to live with that. This year is something new, though. At the midpoint of the season, the Steelers were 2-6 and the only team ranked in the top six in the league in both offense and defense. This cannot happen without serious stupidity, bad luck, or bad breaks, and the Steelers had plenty of each. The way they were losing games was no less epic than the way they won them last year. They routinely outplayed opponents, then gifted them the game in the most moronic way imaginable. Even if you tried to predict the worst possible outcome of a crucial play, they'd snap the ball and show you how much more imaginative than you they are. Picks for touchdowns, ricochets for touchdowns, fumbles for touchdowns, penalties that nullified touchdowns. Roethlesberger had three interceptions that bounced off receivers' hands in one half, two of them returned for touchdowns. That stuff happens in football, yes, but not every week, and every game is turning on some such fluke. Their concentration is poor, the coaching ineffective. Theories about causes abound, from Roethlesberger's offseason accident and surgeries, to a lame duck coach, to a Super Bowl hangover. I believe them all. The team is an embarrassment to themselves. They play with no pride. Heart donors wanted.

• • •

Stank Troll Gretchen asks if I wanted a rematch with Michigan in the championship game. Hell yes. We can't beat Michigan enough. Alas, now I'll be rooting for them to eviscerate USC in the Rose Bowl. For once, the Wolverines are on the side of good and light.

A hearty congratulations to the University of Florida, who won a much-deserved shot at my Buckeyes in the championship game. I wish their fans luck finding tickets. Tempe is going to be quite scarlet. Florida, meanwhile, has a chance at doing something that I don't think has been done in my lifetime: championships in football and basketball in the same year. (Further, OSU and UF are 1 and 2 in football and 3 and 4 in basketball, so a "rematch" in March is even possible.) Ohio State, meanwhile, already the only team in history to have beaten two #2 teams in a season, will now try to beat a third. History will be made either way.

Which, I might add, is two more #2 teams than USC and its media sweethearts have faced in their three-year "dynasty" period. Yes, yes, I know, they had to face the mighty Cal-Berkeley every year. Truly terrifying, they. They should start calling that game "The granddaddy of them all."

As much as I would have liked to have seen Ohio State paste USC 55-3, I'm delighted that the media conspiracy to hype them into another undeserved championship scenario was thwarted by (chortle) UCLA. I watched the ending of that game over and over, just to see the look on Pete Carroll's face. "Fire my publicist!" the look said.

posted by john at 06:18 PM  •  permalink

November 26, 2006

how to make your tv lower-def for only a few thousand dollars

Enough people have asked me about this, so I might as well post about it—knowing what I know now, would I switch to HDTV again? No, I wouldn't. It's little bang for a considerable buck, but worse, the net result is that I watch the vast majority of programming in lower definition than before.

Actual high def programming looks, of course, spectacular. Football is utterly gorgeous. When teams line up to kick a field goal, I can make out the facial expressions of the crowd in the stands. Unfortunately, this constitutes a small fraction of the programming I watch. Most of the shows on the major networks aren't available in high def, and the cable networks? Forget about 'em. You're watching low-def shows on a high-def display, which looks slightly worse than it does on your low-def TV.

Worse, though, is the aspect ratio. You're forever dicking with it. Most programming requires vertical letterboxing, so you have black bars on either side of the picture. But since the bars will permanently burn into a plasma display, you have to distort the picture such that it takes up the whole screen. What was 1 pixel is now smeared across several. Yeah, this is why you drop a few grand on HD: to distort the picture and make it even lower def.

• • •

The Cocksucker of the Year award (and I mean that in the non-gay-slur way, thank you very much) goes to DirecTv. They charge me $10 a month for HD programming. They charge me $250 for the NFL package. And when the season started and I went to turn on the Steelers game, I was denied access to their HD channel. "Oh, you have to pay another $100 to get NFL games in HD," DirectTv helpfully said.

Already several billion dollars invested, I cursed and paid the extortion money. And then the next week, I looked for the Steelers on HD, and they weren't among the selections. "Not all of the games are available in HD," DirecTv helpfully said.

It's happened three times now. Fills me with all sorts of warm tinglies inside.

posted by john at 07:15 AM  •  permalink

November 18, 2006

embarrassment of riches

If you need to find me January 8, I'll be in the fourth row behind the south goal post.

This has been quite a year for me, sports-wise. After the Super Bowl and this, I'm not sure where I can possibly go from here. Oh! Yeah! Ohio State's basketball team is ranked #4!

posted by john at 04:54 PM  •  permalink

postscript

Thanks to Stank troll Dana for this link. The band does intend to break up.

posted by john at 11:30 AM  •  permalink

dead schembechlers

"Dead Schembechlers" is the longtime name of a Columbus band, paying homage, of sorts, to the now-late Michigan coach Bo Schembechler. It was amusing enough in life, but can the band's name possibly survive Bo's death?

In a game that's too close to call any year, Bo's dying yesterday is the real x-factor. Word from Columbus is that there's a pall over the whole town. If this translates into a subdued crowd, that negates a considerable advantage. It also remains to be seen what effect Bo's death will have on the Michigan players. Will they be defeated and flat? Inspired? Do they even care about this guy who coached before they were born?

My prediction two days ago was that Michigan's defensive front would be strong early, then fade by game's end due to OSU's running quarterback and rotating offensive lines. I guess I'll stick with that.

• • •

Further proof, as if further proof were needed, that 1) there is a God and 2) He hates me: with scant hours to go before kickoff, I got a call that orcas were heading toward Metamuville. "How many?" I asked. "All of them," she replied.

This has never before happened.

Chained to the TV like on no other day of the year, I glumly watched them through my binoculars instead of from the boat. But I blared my Ohio State CD while I did. It was perversely thrilling to watch orcas breach and cartwheel to the strains of "Le Regiment" and "Buckeye Battle Cry."

posted by john at 09:57 AM  •  permalink

November 17, 2006

one last shot

A random sign at last year's Fiesta Bowl game between Ohio State and Notre Dame

posted by john at 09:11 AM  •  permalink

November 16, 2006

musings at the urinal in the johannesburg of michigan

Men do not typically converse when standing at urinals. The same is not true at urinal troughs, however. The ritual blending of excrement serves to break down otherwise insurmountable social barriers. Urinal troughs are rare in modern times, having been replaced by the more distinguished personal urinal and indoor plumbing. Except at Michigan Stadium, of course, which is where this story took place last year.

The man attending to his business beside me was about my age and wearing Ohio State colors, complete with a 5-foot buckeye necklace that put my own to shame. I asked him when he attended; we were there for some of the same years. We joked about OSU, but we saved our real venom for the Michigan fans. He asked me if I'd noticed anything about the racial composition of the crowd.

Of course not. White guys are oblivious to such sensitivities. I hadn't noticed the racial composition of a crowd since I was lost in in East St. Louis in 1999. "Check it out," said my black fellow buckeye. "It's like you're at the opera in Scandinavia. And we're what, 30 miles from Detroit?"

Michigan fans, lily white all, just stared at us, not knowing quite how to refute this.

Let's take another look at the photo from the other day, shall we? It'll be like "Where's Waldo?" only with uncomfortable these-people-just-voted-to-ban-affirmative-action? overtones. See if you can find the black guy a half hour from Detroit.

posted by john at 07:30 AM  •  permalink

November 14, 2006

an especially clever sign at the oxford of the americas

At last year's game in Ann Arbor.

Can someone explain this to me? It afraid it sailed right over my head.

posted by john at 06:43 AM  •  permalink

November 13, 2006

Harvard, Stanford slapped with restraining order

ANN ARBOR, MI  (Stank Press) - This weekend, University of Michigan president Delores LeChanel filed a restraining order against Stanford University and Harvard University. "As president, I must protect our brand," LeChanel said in a statement. "While we're flattered that these institutions and their alumni are referring to themselves as the Michigan of their respective coasts, it ultimately diminishes the value of a Michigan diploma and creates confusion in the consumer's mind."

Michiganders are quick to point out they're not heartless and that she's not asking for a total ban. "Harvard and Stanford can confuse black recruits all they want," said Cooter P. McNugget, leader of the recently-passed Michigan initiative to ban affirmative action. "Go Blue!"

 

posted by john at 08:48 AM  •  permalink

November 12, 2006

michigan week

Always a big week, Michigan Week is on steroids this year, as for the first time in history #1 and #2 will meet in their last game of the regular season. Time to get my game-finger on.

posted by john at 02:30 PM  •  permalink

October 30, 2006

sports bigamists

An old girlfriend had a system in roulette. It primarily consisted of her sitting at the table and looking beautiful until some rich dolt tried to ply his way into her pants by placing an enormous bet on her behalf.

"Dinner's on me!" she'd say later, clutching fistfuls of cash.

Until the dolt materialized, she had another system. She bet on everything. For any given spin, she'd have a dozen stacks of chips out there. Some on odd numbers, some on numbers outright, some straddling numbers, some on rows of numbers. The idea, she explained, was to hedge her losses by betting on as many outcomes as possible. She never won big, but it also took her a long time to go bankrupt. And she had the satisfaction of winning on nearly every spin.

I think of her whenever someone tells me that they're a Seahawks fan and a Rams fan, with a side bet on the Dolphins, and they grew up a Colts fan, so they claim them too, especially when they're winning. This fan, too, is someone who bets on as many outcomes as possible. This fan wants to win on nearly every spin.

Bubba is like that. He's a sports polygamist. A renaissance fan. This Football Weekend, we're seeing no less than four teams he claims as his very own: the Seahawks, 49ers, Falcons, and Panthers. I wanted to get window flags for our rental car. My window would fly the Steelers' colors, of course, but I had no idea what to get for his side. Does the whole NFC conference have a flag?

I don't get it, and he doesn't get my not getting it.

Those of us who marry a team during childhood—and stand by them faithfully, for better and (mostly) worse—have little regard for sports bigamists. We're content to let them exist as inconsequential background noise, but invariably, these people want to talk trash. When the Steelers lose, the gloating mail comes in.

This is exactly as meaningful as a guy who pays for hookers, then brags—to someone married for 30 years—about how much he gets laid. Um, yeah, that's kinda what hookers do. Congratulations on getting laid and all, but what about this transaction entitles you to call the hooker "my girlfriend?"

posted by john at 08:09 AM  •  permalink

speaking of calling a fig a fig...

I'm embarrassed by Steelers owner Dan Rooney's alarming Mike Holmgren impersonation after the Steelers' recent loss to Atlanta. Critical to the loss were an unending streak of crucial penalties, about which Rooney later held forth to the media, concluding his tirade with "these officials should be ashamed of themselves."

I was feeling a lot of shame myself after that game, but it had little to do with the officiating. I was ashamed of each of three fumbles that resulted in Atlanta TDs. I was ashamed of the celebration penalty, which gave Atlanta a short field, which resulted in another TD. I was ashamed of atrocious special teams, which sucked all day and led to the kicker's very necessary tripping penalty, a call Rooney inexplicably derided. I was ashamed of a right guard wearing a welcome mat as a cape. I was ashamed of Washington's illegal motion that put the game into overtime. And now I'm ashamed of Rooney for being a whiney-ass bitch.

Thanks, Dan. I was running low on shame there for a second.

posted by john at 07:47 AM  •  permalink

October 19, 2006

truth in slogans

Commenting late last season on the expertise level of instant Seahawks fans (by which we were suddenly surrounded), Bob made a joke about "Hasselhoff" being their favorite player.

That was satire. The following, delightfully, is not.

When football fans want to celebrate their own vainglory, they often call themselves the team's "12th man." Football teams are composed of 11 players—get it? Similarly, baseball fans call themselves the "10th man."

In this as in all things football, these Hawks fans don't quite understand. It's been my enormous guilty pleasure to see the following evidence perpetuate around town in and on local media, t-shirts, signs and conversation.

Um. People. The Texas A&M registered trademark you're trying to infringe is "12th man." What the hell is "12th fan" supposed to mean? Perhaps there were only 12 fans in 2002, but certainly no longer; after the Super Bowl trip, there are at least a baker's dozen.

posted by john at 08:42 AM  •  permalink

October 16, 2006

monday morning practice-squad long-snapper

"Monday morning quarterback" just isn't appropriate for someone of my skill level.

It occurs to me that if Ohio State wins the championship, they'll have defeated three #2 teams. Has anyone done that before, I wonder?

posted by john at 11:46 AM  •  permalink

worst. mail. ever.

Esteemed Stank troll and Chicago Bears fan Shelley writes to say: enough about the stadium and parking, what did I think of the Bears game and fans? My reply:

The Bears fans were fantastic. Very knowledgeable and respectful, passionate and loud. The knew more about the Hawks than I did. They're very studious fans. And yeah, it was electric. There was an aura of "pinch me, we're better than we'd dared dream!" to that crowd. The Stillers aside, I'm pulling for da Bears this year. They're most deserving.

And how did Shelly repay my kindness? By telling me that she found my site by googling her teenage crush. She writes:

Yep. Mike Tomczak. Your “unspeakable bastard” was my 15-year-old-hormone-riddled-brain, cute football quarterback fantasy. Hey. I will admit that he was LESS than spectacular as a quarterback, but you have to admit to a 15 year old girl he was ever so cute. He was a model for god’s sake.

I don't have to do nothin' but stay white and die. There will be no such admission. And doesn't the Bible teach us that the antichrist will be handsome? That would make sense, 'cause it's suddenly feeling like the end times.

posted by john at 07:52 AM  •  permalink

October 15, 2006

the Year of Nausea continues unabated

It turns out there's something worse for my stomach lining than Ohio State being #1.

Sorry, Tempe, but the national championship game will be played in Columbus this year.

You heard it here first: the winner will play Texas.

posted by john at 12:17 PM  •  permalink

October 09, 2006

yankees, media fail

DETROIT (Stank Press) - The New York Yankees failed to win their opening round series against an unknown opponent this weekend.

"We suck," Alex Rodriquez read from a 3x5 card. "Sometimes I have to look in the mirror and admit that we suck."

The Yankees' failure to advance has led to speculation about the fate of manager Joe Torre, who had one less hit in the series than the .071-hitting Rodriquez. It's also led to speculation about what the media will do if the New York Mets, too, fail to win the championship.

"We have a contingency plan," said an evil media magnate on condition of anonymity. "I can't say what the plan is, but let's just say that there's no way the World Series will fall to a small market. It would be unconscionable for the championship to not go to a major media center."

USC football coach (and noted Calvinball ace) Pete Carroll stopped short of denying that the media might award his team an imaginary share of the World Series title. "That's interesting to think about, and one could certainly argue that there's a precedent for a retroactive split championship, but it would be unseemly for me to campaign for it," he said. "Hint, hint."

posted by john at 09:27 AM  •  permalink

October 04, 2006

natural selection

CHICAGO - When you leave a game in Seattle or New York, you have 1) your car within a half-mile or 2) buses immediately outside the stadium, waiting to shuttle you directly to your car or train station. In my travels to 37 different stadiums, those were the best transit experiences.

The worst is Soldier Field in Chicago. Nothing else comes close. Forget parking; there are only a few thousand spaces. You must take some form of mass transit. Cabs, trains and buses may come no closer than two miles to the stadium, so as a reward for walking two miles to the game, after the game, you and 65,000 of your closest friends trek two miles, en masse, to the same corner, where you compete for a ride. It's as fun as it sounds, especially in a thunderstorm.

So to summarize: and fuck you as well, Chicago.

• • •

The new Soldier Field is an abomination. Who thought combining these architectural styles was a good idea?

You know you ruined it when your National Historical Landmark status is being taken away.

• • •

I'd previously observed that Raiders fans in Oakland bore no resemblance to Raiders fans I'd previously met in other cities. Whereas the Raiders fans I'd met in Ohio and Washington were uniformly boisterous cretins spoiling for fights, the fans in Oakland were all kind to me. Sweet, even. I'm seeing a similar effect with Seahawks fans, but from the opposite angle. I have no problem with the fans who attend games in Seattle; however, the fans who make road stops are singularly boorish. In Chicago as in Detroit, traveling Hawks fans made a point of obnoxiously antagonizing other fans.

Some of that always goes on, of course, but it's not so uniformly hostile. When I went to Michigan last year, for instance, I wore my Ohio State colors proudly. But I also befriended the Wolverines fans around me, shaking their hands and wishing for a good game. I cheered. They cheered. I razzed. They razzed. Any conflict between us amounted to good-natured ribbing amongst sports relatives, and frankly, it made the game more enjoyable. When the good guys won, they grudgingly congratulated me.

I'm thinking that these Hawks fans, in their pristine new jerseys and hats, are new to the playground and have no idea what the rules are. They want acknowledgement, and they'll go to any length to get it. They scream in people's ears. When the other fans scream back, the Hawks fans instantly escalate into profanity and even shoving. It's a scene from middle school. When before the game, you inject yourself into a group of singing Bears fans—minding their own business and ignoring you, which is of course an insult to your sensibilities—and you start pointing to your jersey and screaming "CHICAGO FUCKING SUCKS," you should expect to get your ass handed to you. Which is what happened, much as in Detroit. I suppose that eventually, these morons will be weeded out and the problem will take care of itself. May it happen soon and before they procreate.

posted by john at 11:38 AM  •  permalink

October 02, 2006

that snapping sound this morning was all my friends doing a double-take at once

Got many emails about this headline in today's paper: Man wanted in shooting at Ohio football game arrested in Washington

posted by john at 02:43 PM  •  permalink

hi, i'm nobody of any consequence whatsoever

CHICAGO - Dirt Glazowski and I are wrapping up our Midwest swing. On Saturday, we descended upon tiny Iowa City for the Ohio State/Iowa game. It dredged up a lot of torment for both of us. Although we've chosen to live elsewhere, we both pine for the midwest every single day. I'm not gonna turn this into another Seattle rant, so let's just say it's been melancholy.

Dirt was a captain on Iowa's football team long ago, and as such, his experience at home games is nothing I recognized. Everyone knows him. Everyone feeds and houses him. Women 20 years his junior draped themselves on him, or tried to. Me, I shook hands with so many 300+ pound, testosterone-laden NFL players that I reinjured my elbow.

When I was shoving a bratwurst into my mouth and watching the early games on a plasma literally coat-hangered to the side of an RV, a random guy strolled up to say hi. "Hi, I'm Jay Hilgenburg," he said unnecessarily, torquing my elbow ligaments into paste.

"Where's your ring?" I managed not to reply, even though my every cell wanted to.

Dirt chimed in like he would a hundred times that day. He told me a player's Iowa credentials and concluded with "And John here went to Ohio State. He tutored Alonzo Spellman."

The players were even less impressed than you are. Some commented that given Spellman's mental breakdown that ended with him running around naked in the streets, I'd done a particularly impressive job.

Dirt skewered me thusly all day long, but I didn't mind, 'cause it's not often you drink with All Pros, All Americans, and world champs. The day concluded as I knew it would, with the good guys quieting the drunken Iowa crowd in short order.

Like all fans, Iowa folks think they're the best in football. They're certainly top tier in enthusiasm, but they leave a lot to be desired when it comes to actually watching the game. When Iowa held Ohio State to only four yards on 1st and 10, they cheered. When Iowa passed for 8 yards on third and 15, they cheered. When Iowa was driving for a score, the players repeatedly had to tell the crowd to shut up. Got the idea? Throw in that drunks formed human pyramids on the bleachers and that I saw, in fact, maybe six plays the first half, and you have a pretty irritating experience. After considering, at length, how to make a shiv out of my polarizer lens, I left at halftime to go watch the game on TV.

Not seeing the first half and watching the second half on TV in Iowa instead of in my living room cost me $1500. Good times.

posted by john at 07:57 AM  •  permalink

September 27, 2006

go away. go far away.

With as much as I bust the chops of the droves of instant Seahawk fans—who, with television blackouts due to poor attendance still a fresh memory, now celebrate themselves as the best fans in football—I can't let this one go. The Steelers now top the "Americans' favorite team" polls. Ick.

If there's an upside to starting 1-2, it'll be shaking these dregs from our ranks. If you didn't suffer the Stoudt/Woodley/Malone/Brister/Tomczak/Stewart years, you're not wanted. Beat it. Scram.

Everybody wants to get into heaven, but no one wants to die.

posted by john at 07:40 AM  •  permalink

go away. go far away.
part ii

Terrell Owens hospitalized after suicide attempt

Do five pills even give you a buzz?

posted by john at 07:35 AM  •  permalink

September 07, 2006

the sport of kings, better than diamond rings

In honor of football's illustrious return, I give you my favorite Football Weekend trivia questions. Click and drag over the text to see the answers. (And in honor of Charlie Batch's start, I've reset my football counter at right.)

What two-sport athlete is accredited with inventing bump-and-run coverage?

NBA hall of Famer KC Jones

Who caught Brett Favre's first NFL pass?

Brett Favre. A defensive player batted it back to him, and the play went for a huge loss.

As players, what do Peyton Manning and I have in common?

We've both won championships at every level except Pop Warner, little league, high school, college and the pros.

In what championship game did a former NFC team play a former AFC team?

Super Bowl XL, Seahawks vs. Steelers

And finally, the question no Steeler fan has ever been able to answer correctly: who caught Terry Bradshaw's last touchdown pass?

Calvin Sweeney

posted by john at 07:09 AM  •  permalink

August 31, 2006

the last super bowl post ever

I keep a list of topic ideas for this page. As time has passed, I've plucked out all the easy ones. Remaining are ideas like "write a post about your history with profanity, but don't use any profanity in the post" that seemed like a good idea at the time, that I've even attempted to write, but that have never made it to this page. Among those dregs is one last Super Bowl post. It ain't exactly getting more topical, so lemme slip it in before the next season begins.

• • •

Even before kickoff, the Super Bowl was my worst time ever at a football game. I missed the fans. The people of Detroit were lovely, but they weren't there to cheer for their team. Yeah, there were scads of visiting fans, but it's not the same. They didn't tailgate. They didn't focus on any traditional hubs. With nowhere to go, they hung out in the dozen or so downtown bars. For five days. If you were lucky enough to get a table, maybe it was fun, but I was never so lucky.

Worse, the fans were outnumbered by merchants and media. Think about the effect of that on pre-game buzz. They didn't care about us or the game; their focus was elsewhere. There was little atmosphere, nothing that suggested that even a high school game was about to be be played, let alone the biggest game in American sports.

I went to the NFL's main event, FanFest. I paid $15 admission and waited outside for an hour, only to discover that most of the exhibits inside were merely selling memorabilia. (Thanks. Most of the people outside are doing that, too.)

On game day, I got to my seat early because I wanted to see the ballyhooed Stevie Wonder/Joss Stone pregame concert. And there they were, standing around the 40 yard line. They stood there for a good 20 minutes, chatting with Teamsters. Strangest concert entrance ever. And then suddenly some music started, and they were introduced by the TV announcer, and they took to the stage to frantically play one song. The one song. When the one song was over, they abruptly stopped and strolled off the field as the Teamsters tore down the stage used for the one song. There was no applause from the 70,000 people present, nor did it seem like there should be. We were not there. It was a strange sensation, being ignored, but there was no denying that we were merely onlookers, an incidental audience at best.

When the game ended, the Teamsters rushed out on the field and constructed a celebration podium. 50 yards away from it, massive amounts of confetti soon fell from the ceiling. "Good planning," I thought. And then I saw the result on TV, and I thought it was the perfect microcosm of my experience being at the Super Bowl.

What I saw in the stadium:

How it looked on TV:

Moral: if you want to be a part of the experience, stay home and watch the Super Bowl on TV.

posted by john at 07:38 AM  •  permalink

August 26, 2006

oy vey, maria

I humbly submit that Maria Sharapova forfeited the right to make proud substance-over-style commercials the day she covered herself with sand and posed with her elbows back for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Pity poor, misunderstood Maria. Truly a victim of us all.

Not that this ad can't be made—it just can't be made by an athlete who's shilled her own prettiness in Maxim. Michelle Wie or Sue Bird comes to mind.

Plus the kid in the elevator creeps me the hell out.

posted by john at 10:26 AM  •  permalink

August 24, 2006

i completely forgot this travesty

No list of things I dislike about the Steelers could be complete without their hideous, asinine scoreboard. First of all, just look at the thing. That might look like the side of a Hoboken League race car, but it's a giant rectangular jumbotron, surrounded and dwarfed by ads. This colossal eyesore dominates the stadium.

It gets worse. Much worse. See the stupid ketchup bottles? Whenever the Steelers cross the 20 yard line, the bottles' caps open, the bottles tilt, and "ketchup" "pours" into the jumbotron, which fills with red and welcomes you to the "Heinz Red Zone."

Egad. Someone posted a clip of it.

posted by john at 06:23 PM  •  permalink

August 21, 2006

who’s on first?

It started with an innocent question. She asked me why the announcer had referred to a player as a "nickel back."

"Well, on defense there's ordinarily four guys in the backfield, which is what we call the players who cover the other team's receivers. In situations where they figure the other team is going to pass the ball, they'll often add a fifth guy to the backfield. That's called a 'nickel' defense, and we call him the 'nickel' back. Five...nickel...get it?"

She got it.

"So a 'dime' defense is 10 players in the backfield?"

"No, no, they never play 10. A 'dime' defense is 6 guys. And a 'quarter' defense is 7 defensive backs."

"That makes no sense."

No, I suppose it doesn't. "So anyway, the sixth guy is called the 'dime back.'"

"Right. And the seventh guy is called the 'quarter back.'"

"No, he's only on offense. The seventh guy is just called the seventh defensive back."

"The nickel and dime backs are on defense, but the quarterback's just on offense?"

"Right. Entirely different position."

"That makes no sense. The quarterback's not in the backfield?"

"Yes, but he's in the offensive backfield, with the halfback and the fullback."

She sighed. I braced for the inevitable. "Is the halfback half as big as the fullback and twice the size of the quarterback?"

She's right. This makes no sense.

posted by john at 08:39 AM  •  permalink

August 07, 2006

offseason conditioning

While football teams have sweated in training camp, I've begun my own conditioning for the season. Coach John is unmerciful. "Even though the Steelers won it all last year," he tells himself, "They were more hot than good. They didn't even win their division. They had to win four games at the end of the year just to get into the playoffs. Hell, even at 11-5, they still needed Kansas City to lose. And then once they were there, they won two games on two plays—Carson Palmer's knee injury and Mike Vanderjagt's slice."

"You don't know that Carson Palmer would have helped. The Steelers thumped Cincinnati on the road earlier in the year. And Vanderjagt never should have been kicking that field goal."

"Shut up, Logical John. There is no room for you here. Anyway, like I was saying, with Kimo and El and Hope and Bettis all gone, this marginal team didn't exactly get better. And everyone else in the division did. Face it. There's no reason to expect the Steelers to even make the playoffs. Start lowering expectations. Way low. Brace for them to break your heart."

I told Katrina about my preseason thought process.

"You're psychotic," she snarled. I find that Seahawks fans, especially, aren't receptive to my whiney-assed kvetching.

So after spending Thursday night tossing and turning and mercilessly lowering my own expectations for my pro team's prospects, Friday morning I spied my alma mater on the cover of USA Today:

"OHIO STATE FAVORED TO WIN NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP."

No. No no no no no no no. I can so not deal with this season. Paxil might help. Maybe striknyne. Yeah, striknyne.

posted by john at 09:41 AM  •  permalink

August 06, 2006

hall of fame

Certain things please me far more than they should. Like when I'm racing down rural Metamuville Road and glance at my Seattle traffic gauge and I see all the blockages my friends are dealing with—that pleases me enormously. Whenever Brian Griese breaks a metatarsal by simply walking down his driveway. Pure gold. When my former boss Ernest's wife leaves him and he starts to go blind. Money. When trolls write to tell me that I'm stupid, and they manage to misspell the insult. Thanks for that.

This list has a new member. When John Madden was being inducted into the football Hall of Fame, right before he was to be introduced, he and everyone else had to watch a clip of the Immaculate Reception. My grin was so huge, it was audible.

• • •

I was also struck by the contrast between two moments. When Raiders owner and all-around asshole Al Davis was introducing Madden, he boasted about how Madden and the Raiders were "color-blind." It didn't matter what color you were. "The Raid-ahs are about winning! And we wanted the best play-ahs!" Clap. Clap. Clap. Yay, you! Clear a spot on your mantle for an NAACP Image award.

Meanwhile, when former Giants linebacker Harry Carson gave his induction speech, he did something I've never seen before: he thanked an owner other than his own. Specifically, he thanked Steelers owner Dan Rooney for his efforts to make the league more diverse.

The contrast in substance and egoism was striking. (Just in case Al Davis googles his own name and finds this: egoism is when morality stems from self-interest.)

posted by john at 09:02 AM  •  permalink

July 23, 2006

“twin” ain’t bad, either

I'm not a golf guy. The only thing less appealing to me than standing in a field and baking in the sun all weekend is watching other people bake on TV. Besides, there's something vaguely disturbing about a sport in which fans applaud missed shots.

"Whoo-hoo! His degree of failure is marginally less than the other guy's!"

Here's how I watch golf. For majors, I'll skim the headlines on Thursday and Friday. Maybe. Saturday night, I'll check the leader board. If Tiger or a renowned choker is in the mix, on Sunday morning I'll try to catch the back nine. By about the 14th hole my interest will really flag, and I'll start browsing the phone book in order to help pass the time. As I keep one eye on the TV, here's my thought process:

Tiger, not Tiger, not Tiger, not Tiger, choker, not Tiger, Tiger, Tiger's wife, what's the hotter trait—Swedish, twin, or au pair?—not Tiger, not Tiger, not Tiger, choker choked right on schedule, Tiger, Tiger won.

Au pair. Definitely au pair.

posted by john at 11:22 AM  •  permalink

July 16, 2006

right now is my favorite part of football season

This belated pic is dedicated to Bob, who has rooted for the Colts and Colts alone for each of his four decades on Earth, who had Minette IM me that "Wow, the Steelers really suck" during the first Steelers/Colts game last year.

• • •
I'm presently eatin' pizza and listening to the radio broadcast of the Steelers/Indy playoff game. Life is good. I'm enjoying it a helluva lot more than I did the first time. No one enjoys winning in the post-season less than I do.

My Seattle friends generally react with confusion or amusement to this. I find late-season football to be utterly nerve-wracking. And the better my team does, the more frayed my nerves become. I never want them to lose, mind you, but winning streaks make me positively twitchy with anxiety. The longer they win, the longer I'm living with the certainty that they're about to break my heart again. Which they will.

"Jeez," someone will doubtlessly write. "Ohio State and the Steelers have each won a championship in the last three years. Shut up already." True enough. But before those championships, they went a combined 61 years without one, and I remember all 61 disappointments. In sports as in love, heartbreak is cumulative. As the Steelers advanced last year, friends would call and offer a shoulder. "I'm sorry your team won. I can only imagine how rough it must be for you."

"Gah!" I would reply.

But right now, things are all still pleasant promise. Only 54 days until the ulcers kick off.

posted by john at 02:03 PM  •  permalink

July 15, 2006

perhaps we’d watch if soccer were played by puppies

I don't care about horse racing. You don't care. Two months ago, I'd never even heard of Barbaro, and I still haven't seen him race. But like many, I'm keeping one eye on his condition. It's amazing to me that networks do live broadcasts of press conferences about a horse's hoof—and that so many people watch. I do not. I get my daily update on PTI, but I still don't skip past it like I do the soccer stories.

Here, for the benefit of international readers, is one more theory on why Americans do not like soccer. It is not, as many of you say, because Americans don't play it as children. We all do. I, myself, was once yellow-carded during the pre-game introductions, contributing to my nickname of "Yellow Card." But then I turned 14 and moved on. I consider soccer to be the sport of my youth, like kick-the-can or Jarts.

No, the reason many of us yawn at soccer is the flopping. If you could get a star basketball player ejected and suspended by simply writhing in mock pain as if he bit off your testicles...well, Michael Jordan might not have any rings. His opponents' entire strategy would have centered on pretending to be assaulted by him, on getting Jordan disqualified for the next game. Any other strategy would have been foolish. So is it in soccer. The disqualification rules in soccer are so aggressive, it'd be idiotic to adopt any strategy other than targeting your opponent's star with fakery. The rules subsidize dishonorable histrionics and handicap offense. If you scored as often as you flopped, we'd watch.

posted by john at 09:30 AM  •  permalink

July 06, 2006

cheney is steeler country

Long before Mark Cuban charged that "rigged" officiating cost his Mavericks the NBA championship, long before every nation but two bitched about how lousy officiating denied them their rightful World Cup championship, there was Mike Holmgren. He whined before whining was cool.

You remember Holmgren. The guy who called clock-killing running plays and drive-killingly late timeouts at the ends of each half in the Super Bowl? Yeah, him. As recently as last month, he was still at it. I know this because Seahawks instafans keep sending me links to stories about his continued whining. The fans make compelling arguments like "See?" Well, Holmgren convenes his training camp this month in tiny Cheney, WA, and as luck would have it, I'll be there. I'm thinking a proper greeting is in order.

I could erect something like this, an old Steelers fan road tradition.

More pointedly, I could fly these colors.

Or I could simply hand out these.

Or these.

Whatever I do, I won't be in danger of physical harm, as that would require that there be Hawks fans in attendance. In my time in WA, I've joined the crazies at three Steelers camps, but I've never been able to get a Hawks fan to go to their own. But I'm sure the attendance difference is just because Pittsburgh's so much closer to Detroit than Seattle is.

• • •

Fact: on the Seahawks' web site, the link to player information is buried in a menu, but the link to cheerleader information is at the top-most level.

posted by john at 08:52 AM  •  permalink

June 25, 2006

pat riley does the funky chicken

This isn't Supreme Moment in Whiteness-worthy, because Riley was goaded into dancing and surely knew he looked like an idiot. But it's still amusing stuff.

Meanwhile, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and U.S. soccer fans are all still whining about officiating. Cough.

posted by john at 09:56 AM  •  permalink

June 21, 2006

worst jobs of sports acting

If I were to make this an award, I'd name it after Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham. (An aside: I loathe this actress. Why she bewitches so many men confounds me; I find her utterly revolting. I always have.) In Bull Durham, she plays baseball groupie/guru Annie and supposedly coaches Kevin Costner on his swing. There was a bump on the road to .400, however, as Susan Sarandon in a batting cage is as fluid and graceful as a little old lady swatting at drunken hornets with a 30-foot broomstick. Or Susan Sarandon reading poetry. Whichever. It was utterly preposterous and made me roar in the theatre.

Robert Redford, The Natural. God, I love baseball! Sorry. This isn't about cringe-inducing dialogue; it's about cringe-inducing sports acting. Did creaky 48 year old Redford pull off playing athlete Roy Hobbs at 19 and 35? Let's just say he grounded into a double play.

Jennifer Aniston, in the football episode of Friends. I've long thought Aniston to be America's greatest living actress. After all, this woman woke up next to Brad Pitt every morning and then went to work and convincingly pretended to be attracted to David Schwimmer. No small feat. Alas, her runs and "catches" here betray someone who has never, ever been outside in her life. If there were a rule that you must catch passes with your eyes closed and use your elbows, not your hands, the game would look something like this. I wonder how many takes it took.

Kiera Knightly, Bend It Like Beckham, and Janet Jones, American Anthem. The exact same performance. Pay attention to how long we're permitted to watch their ball-handling/gymnastics skills in a sustained shot. The record is .72 seconds straight, I think.

Mr. T., Rocky III For me, half the fun of watching this film is seeing Mr. T's head snap back four times when Rocky throws two jabs. Pathetic.

Vlade Divac, center, Los Angeles Lakers Worst. Sports Actor. Ever. His theatrics would make soccer players blush.

posted by john at 08:40 AM  •  permalink

June 14, 2006

anti-piffle

My Inbox has been filled with piffle this week.

It turns out that I'm an anti-choice freedom-hater. And I'm also anti-Freedom of Choice. I'm not sure if there's a difference, 'cause, well, it's all so much meaningless marketing piffle masquerading as philosophy.

I blame the abortion debate. I'm sure the Piffle Wars predated the abortion dialogue (dueling monologues, really, but I digress), but if in modern times there were ever an issue in which everyone hid behind meaningless euphemism, that's the one. I, myself, am both pro-choice and pro-life. I like choosing, and I sure as hell like living.

At any rate, as soon as I hear such a slogan invoked, I tune out. "Use your words," I say in my imagination.

Which brings us to this "Freedom of Choice" nonsense with regard to motorcycle helmet laws. How noble that makes vainglorious stupidity sound. How heinous someone must be to oppose "Freedom of Choice." Bravo.

Alas, merely casting helmetless motorcycle riding as a civil liberty does not make it one; it is a privilege, not a right, and as such it is reasonably regulated by the people who issue you a license and ultimately pay for the roads and your reconstructive surgery.

In the spirit of compromise, though, I'll ally myself with helmet "Freedom of Choice"... just so long as that freedom extends to my health insurance company choosing whether or not they'll pay for repairing the fruits of motorcyclists' vanity.

Hell, I'll even support this imaginary civil right as soon as I hear women assert its existence, which would disprove what I really think: helmet "Freedom of Choice" isn't so much a moral stance as a vain, unimaginably stupid penis thing. Somehow I doubt they'd protest as much if, say, bad-ass leather jackets were required.

posted by john at 11:49 AM  •  permalink

June 13, 2006

why i love sports fans, part ii

Steelers fan Nichol Mitchell, tailgating outside Ben Roethlisberger's hospital

If there are indeed football gods, Steeler fans just might be their most beloved children.

posted by john at 01:44 PM  •  permalink

June 12, 2006

blame ben, yes, but let’s not forget to blow kisses their way, too

In 2003, the following Pennsylvania legislators voted to repeal the longtime helmet law.

Why? Because helmets aren't cool. No? Helmet hair, then?

The jagovs in question:

Source - Remember, "Freedom of Choice wins!"

posted by john at 01:51 AM  •  permalink

June 10, 2006

interest: nil

Distinguished Stank troll (and Godless hate-America-firster) Tamara declared this morning that the reason most American men would rather listen to mold grow than watch a soccer match is that fat Americans prefer similarly rotund football and baseball athletes to "HOT guys who can go for HOURS." Because, you know, svelte American women and gay men are flocking to soccer stadiums.

In honor of the World Cup, which I'm told is is a soccer something going on somewhere sometime soon, here's an alternative take on the subject.

posted by john at 07:35 PM  •  permalink

June 09, 2006

why I love sports fans

Did you see this clip on the news? During a single-A game in Buffalo the other day, an unlucky seagull flew between the pitcher's mound and batter's box. The bird was hit by the pitch but (apparently) lived. As the grounds crew carried the bird off the field of play, the scattered fans accorded it the honor any injured player receives: they stood up and applauded the fallen.

posted by john at 07:33 PM  •  permalink

June 05, 2006

reporting to the nearest counter

Dorkass coined the expression when I was agonizing just-a-little-too-much about the intentions of the girl I was dating. Dorkass had seen enough. She was disgusted.

"Report to the nearest counter and turn in your penis," she sneered.

We were both immediately delighted with the expression. We use it all of the time now, whenever we see some guy being weak, needy, simpering. "Report to the nearest counter, pal," we'll chide.

"Huh?" he'll reply.

• • •

I am less than a man.

This realization hit me Saturday night, when I sat on Dirt's back deck and listened to Dirt and his cousin trade stories. Both are former star college athletes and former pro players, one in football and the other in hockey. So right. What can I possibly offer this conversation? The Hunkering story? The Best Pass I Ever Made story? No, I decided to just shut up and smoke Dirt's expensive cigars and drink his '77 tawny and listen.

I listened to tales of their grisly injuries, both those they inflicted and those inflicted upon them. About the insane, testosterone-crazed characters they met. About the many, many teammates' little sisters they boinked. About border runs after bed-check. About what it's like to play against the best athletes in the world.

I spent college studying literature and going home every night to my girlfriend and setting picks on morbidly obese guys and having sex with one woman, I thought. Hmm. Perhaps it's best not to share.

The story that sent me over the edge follows. Dirt's cousin took a 100 mph slapshot in the eye, shattering his eye socket and leaving hamburger-like tendrils of meat where his face used to be. The state of New York determined that the injury entitled him to $10,000 in workman's comp funds, to be put toward plastic surgery. What did he do with the money? He smeared Vitamin E oil into the facial hamburger and bought his girlfriend an engagement ring.

"Report to the nearest counter," Dorkass said in my imagination as I drove home. "That is a man."

posted by john at 09:31 AM  •  permalink

June 04, 2006

my god, they were right. i feel all...empty inside.

Wait; maybe that's a violent spasm of pride I'm feelin'. Yeah. That's it. My bad.

Yep, the Steelers got their rings today. Or to put it in terms with which you're more familiar: today Jerome Bettis, the future hall of famer whose parents never missed a game and who concluded his storied career in his hometown of Detroit, received his Super Bowl ring. Him and several dozen of his closest friends, who may or may not have also been from Detroit.

True story: when Chuck Noll received his ring for Super Bowl XIII, he joked that if you pressed a button, it flipped open and you could "hear a recording of Tom Landry bitching about the officiating."

posted by john at 10:02 PM  •  permalink

June 02, 2006

will work for tix

I forgot a Dirt anecdote. When I told my buddy what his pseudonym was, he blinked and asked how I knew his nickname during his playing days was "Dirt." How's that for nicknaming accuracy?

• • •

Dirt is strong-arming me into going to see Ohio State play his alma mater, Iowa, at Iowa City. That would make a third trip back east for a sixth huge game. I'm not sure what percentage of this year's income is devoted to seeing football games, but I know I really don't wanna know.

posted by john at 08:44 AM  •  permalink

June 01, 2006

99 bottles of ’roids on the wall

Note to my fellow gridiron fans: only 99 days until our long nightmare is over and football supplants baseball once again.

posted by john at 07:12 AM  •  permalink

May 15, 2006

but i’m sure it was just because pittsburgh is so much closer to kosovo than seattle is

A delightful read about a Seahawks player's visit with overseas troops. Too bad I only have three Steelers fans in my known readership.

posted by john at 11:39 AM  •  permalink

May 07, 2006

the ballad of greg biekert

A note for non-sports types: this will seem like a football story, but really it's a story about smiting a celebrity. So keep reading.

• • •

tomczakian [tom-ZAK-i-an] adj. - said of a moronic act of intense granduer and cruelty.

Mike Tomczak was a quarterback at Ohio State when I was a kid. He had his moments, but he also had an uncanny gift for idiocies like taking modeling jobs that violated NCAA rules and, worse, throwing untimely interceptions. On a throw to the sideline (called an "out" pass), he would loft the ball so high and so slow that a moth could alight upon it mid-flight. Tomczak got to the point where I would see him begin to throw an out and the world would click into slow motion. "NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..." I would yell in an otherworldly baritone. As soon as the defender intercepted the ball and began his sprint toward the end zone, the world clicked into double-time.

Every sports fan has That Guy. That unspeakable bastard. That irredeemable fucker clearly put on this earth just to torture you, only you, in repayment for some atrocity you committed in a previous life. Tomczak was mine.

He cemented his status during a crucial game against Purdue. Down by a touchdown with something like 30 seconds left, having driven Ohio State the length of the field, Tomczak dropped back to pass, surveyed his options, and, not liking what he saw, calmly threw the ball out of bounds to end the play.

On fourth down.

Purdue ball.

Game over.

When he graduated, I breathed a sigh of relief. Still, it pained me that during his rookie year in the pros, he got a completely undeserved Super Bowl ring as a backup on the Bears. But I let it go. Live and let live. Mike "Out" Tomczak was someone else's problem now. And then my Steelers signed him.

"NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO..."

Astoundingly, he hung those out passes in the air even longer in the pros. In the time it now took those passes to complete their arc, defensive players could stroll under them, choreograph their touchdown dance, make their grocery list, do their taxes, and complete half a crossword puzzle. Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! went the interceptors the other way. Every year, I kept waiting for someone, anyone else to secure the quarterback position. Every year, I heard those damned whooshes!

On Football Weekend '97, we went to Jacksonville for the city's first Monday Night Football game ever. In a game that was blissfully Tomczak-free, my Steelers and the Jags battled all night long, and finally the game came down to the Steelers needing to make a chip-shot field goal with only two seconds left. The field goal team took the field. Through my drunken haze, I noted Tomczak trotting out to hold the ball.

"TOOOOOOOOM-zak!" I bellowed. "TOOOOOOOOM-zak! "TOOOOOOOOM-zak!"

He bobbled the snap. The kick was blocked. Jacksonville scooped it up and took it 80 yards for a touchdown. Game over. My buddy stared at me. "Maybe you shouldn't have said anything to him."

I sobbed into my hands.

Tomczak lost a few more games for the Steelers before the owners finally sobered up and cut ties. He signed with the Lions and on August 18, 2000 suffered a career-ending broken leg. Most fans didn't take notice—the player, game and team were just too insignificant—but not me. For doing God's work, Raiders linebacker Greg Biekert—my new hero—received some fine cigars.

And that, I toasted anyone within arm's reach, is the end of that.

And then he got a job on the Pittsburgh Sports Tonight TV broadcast, and he was preening for the cameras in my living room every night. I shook my fist at the heavens. How is this prick still in my life six teams, 2500 miles, and nearly two decades later?

At 6am on September 11, 2001, my girlfriend and I were sitting on a plane, on our way East for a trip that would culminate at the Steelers' opener in their brand new stadium. The trip and the game never happened, of course, but I was determined to see the new home opener in October. She declined to get on a plane, so I went alone. In a very sober affair, I watched my boys beat the Bengals, and then I adjourned to a bar near my suburban motel. I walked inside and immediately heard Tomczak on the radio. Shit. He's got a local radio gig, too. I took a seat at the bar and nursed a Long Island, staring absent-mindedly straight ahead...at Mike Tomczak.

He and his partner just happened to be doing their post-game broadcast from the bar that just happened to be nearest my hotel after the game that just happened to be the makeup home opener. Jesus, what are the odds? Sigh. About 1:1. I sat there and glared at him, and then I told the other patrons about my Tomczak curse. When leaving, I decided to hit the bathroom first. I opened the door with some urgency.

WHAM!

I clobbered Tomczak on the ass, knocking him into the paper towel dispenser. He had been talking to his broadcasting partner, who was still at the urinal. "Wham!" laughed the partner. "Nailed by a blind-side blitz!"

I apologized, a reflex for which I despise myself to this day. Tomczak left, and I assumed the urinal next to his partner. He made more blitz jokes. "Actually," I said. "That was a long time in coming."

"How's that?"

And then I spilled my guts. I told the whole tale. The partner was delighted and couldn't wait to get back to his microphone. On my way back to the hotel, I tuned into the radio station.

"Jerome Bettis passed 10,000 career yards rushing during today's game, but before we get into that, Mike, I want to talk about something that just happened in the men's room. Some guy burst in and clobbered, I mean really walloped, you in the backside with the door. At first I thought it was just an innocent accident, but now I'm not so sure. After you left, he told me how he feels that you've victimized him his whole life, first at Ohio State, and then with the Steelers. He even said he considers you some sort of karmic punishment for something horrible he did in a previous life."

"What?!? What did I ever do to—"

"Well for starters, he said that at the end of the game against Michigan, you threw the ball out of bounds on fourth down."

"IT WAS PURDUE! If he's gonna call me out like that, he should get his facts straight."

"Oh that's right, he said Purdue."

"Oh."

And on it went. He completely humiliated Tomczak. He publicly flogged my longtime persecutor with the weapon I, myself, had crafted and handed him. I laughed myself to the point of near-unconsciousness. I didn't even care if I had a heart attack. I could die in peace now.

Not long after, Tomczak disappeared completely from my life, never to return. Coincidence? Perhaps. Or perhaps I'm his karmic punishment for some horrible things he did in a current life.

posted by john at 04:46 PM  •  permalink

April 24, 2006

media and race

It's officially time to retire using "the Arab guy" as a red herring in entertainment. No one's falling for it. It just wastes our time.

In Flightplan, when Jodie Foster is searching the plane for whatever nefarious person abducted her daughter, and her eyes linger on a bunch of pissed off Arabs congregating around the bathroom door, did anyone in America not think "Well, obviously they didn't do it. In a movie 10 years ago, sure, but not today. But which WASP did it?"

It's ineffective and hypocritical. What is intended, I'm sure, to play upon prejudice and teach us all an important moral lesson, fails. Instead, the filmmakers lazily practice prejudice—toward Arabs, toward us—and the only lesson we're taught is that the filmmakers think we're profoundly stupid bigots who haven't seen a movie in the past five years. Our would-be enlighteners would do well to examine whether cheaply using ethnicity as a red herring is itself offensive. You know my vote.

I knew it had gotten bad when I saw the trailer for United 93 and my dominant thought was not "Too soon" but "Wow, they actually cast Arabs as the Arab terrorists." I was expecting Mexicans.

• • •

While I'm on the topic of media and race, can we also get a moratorium on race-based "nexts?" You've heard them. When young black Phil Ivey won a few championships in the predominantly white poker world, he was immediately hailed as "the Tiger Woods of poker." When young white Adam Morrison established himself in the predominantly black world of basketball, he was predictably christened the next "the next Larry Bird."

The Woods comparison is simply insane. They have nothing in common except skin color. Ivey is presently one of the best poker players in the world. Tiger is merely immortal. The Morrison comparison is slightly more defensible (small school, great shooter, hick, soft on defense), but not when you consider the pantheon of "the next Larry Birds" to have come and gone over the years, the only common denominator again being hue. Where you at, Chris Mullin and Rex Chapman?

Repugnant, lazy reporting.

But just how shocking would it be to hear Morrison called "the Tiger Woods of basketball?" It's ludicrous, yet oddly no more so.

posted by john at 07:05 AM  •  permalink

April 12, 2006

white smoke

Football Weekend XI has been decided. This year, Bubba and I are heading south for Christmas. Four pro games in five days, including all four conference championship teams. First, we see a complete dog of a game (San Francisco getting pummeled here in Seattle) on Thursday night. Next, we travel down to Atlanta for Michael Vick and the Cowboys. Then we head up to Charlotte to see a great matchup between the Panthers and my Steelers. And last, we fly to Indianapolis to see a shootout between the Colts and Bengals on Monday Night Football.

This is gonna be spendy. Especially on the heels of my solo Ohio State/Texas, Steelers-opener trip. Yikes. I'll try not to think about what percentage of my 2006 income I'm devoting to football.

I've always thought that incorporating Thanksgiving and doing a 9-day trip would be the ultimate FBW. Unfortunately, I've thought of a new "ultimate." Five BCS games in seven days: Tempe, Miami, New Orleans, Pasadena, Tempe. The game tickets alone would cost at least four grand. Man, I wish I hadn't thought of it. Man. This must be done some year, of course.

posted by john at 03:46 PM  •  permalink

April 09, 2006

pros vs. joes

Pitting average guys in athletic competitions with pro athletes, this show (Spike, Mondays at 10pm) is a gem. Oh sure, all the "Joes, you can call me the Bus Driver, I'm gonna take you to school!" crap is deathly dull, and I'll die happy if I never again have to see pros pretending to be outraged and motivated by the Joes' audition tapes. But where else can you see mortal men try to cover Jerry Rice? Or try to pass-protect against Kevin Greene? Or try to get hits off Jenny Finch or rebounds against Dennis Rodman? This is great, funny stuff. I've only seen three episodes, but I can't imagine I'll ever get tired of seeing couch potatoes race Dan O'Brien or try to return Misty May spikes. And where else will you ever see Clyde Drexler pointing out the irony of John Rocker pitching to a sportswriter?

posted by john at 09:05 PM  •  permalink

football 050

Arguing doesn't get better than this.

For the bazillionth time in two months, a Seahawks instafan complained about poor officiating in the Super Bowl. You remember the Super Bowl, the game the Hawks lost only because of the refs? This time, it was the offensive pass interference that briefly created a touchdown. "He barely touched the guy!" the man snarled, irritated that I said it was a good call.

"Let's go to the tape, shall we?" I purred. We were on the ferry, and in in my car I have a bunch of DVDs, one of them containing Super Bowl lowlights. Until the moment I showed the man footage of Jackson shoving Hope backward a couple of feet as Jackson broke to the ball, the man remembered Jackson committing no foul.

"Yeah, that's the popular version of events," I said.

The comforts of delusion are difficult to unclench. "You sure that's the right play? Everyone I know says that was a horrible call."

"Of that I have no doubt. And yeah. I'm sure."

It didn't take me long to imagine the utility of breaking down each of the controversial calls, or of refuting mythology by simply citing rules. So welcome to Stank's second special edition: Super Bowl XL officiating.

posted by john at 12:11 PM  •  permalink

March 25, 2006

kismet

The football gods came to me in a dream last night and whispered into my subconscious what turns out to be true: the Steelers get their rings in a game two days before Ohio State plays national champ Texas in Austin. Hello, road trip!

• • •

Two hours later: done and done. Thank you, football gods. I shall now sacrifice an Ohio State Final Four banner in your honor.

posted by john at 10:53 AM  •  permalink

March 23, 2006

spade! spade!

With the NCAA men's tourney presently between rounds and the Ohio State women taking it on the chin, I'm left with watching the NFL Network while I work. It turns out that Paul Tagliabue is a great man, and that the NFL is a totally bitchin' league. Who knew?

When it comes to offseason programming, they're clearly reaching. Yesterday, a documentary about—I am not making this up—the Dolphins' cheerleader tryouts aired. I was only tangentially aware of the show, so I can't give a whole review, but I managed to catch this moment on tape so that I could transcribe it. The scene: Ashley is summoned before two grotesquely artificial-looking Barbie dolls, who would look quite natural spritzing wrists in the Nordstrom perfume department, or perhaps working the front desk at a disreputable car dealership, or simply shilling peroxide. Ashley is a veteran cheerleader, and the narrator gravely tells us that no one—no one!—is above the lofty standards to which those who simulate masturbation for drunks are held. Or words to that effect.

Ashley sits down. Dorie Grogan, the Dolphins' Director of Event Entertainment and Ashley's pimp, immediately begins chiding:

"We're going to have to let you go. I mean, your weight is just too big of a problem. Um, I honestly was extremely upset when you came back, with the weight like that, um, it's not only, it's a disappointment to your teammates, it's a disappointment to the Dolphins"—at this point, Grogan's disgust and outrage are swelling, and she can't chide fast enough without stuttering—"i-it's-it's-it's it's disrespectful of the organization, everything that we stand for, that you would come back and not want to respect it enough to come back at your best you know, you know it's just gonna have to end here."

I pause now to show you a photo of the morbidly obese cheerleader getting up to leave after having been fired, probably the least flattering pose imaginable. Note the telltale folds of waist fat.

Ashley leaves. The other Barbie grins.

"Poor thing, she was about to...she was tearing up! Did you notice?" The grin widens to beaming proportions. "She was trying to hold it back."

That the NFL pimps and denigrates the women in its employ is hardly a surprise. That vacuous, heinous women like Dorie Grogan exist is hardly a surprise, either. Nor it it surprising that the Dorie Grogans of the world utter unintentionally hilarious things like a young woman's alleged weight gain being against "everything we stand for." Great stuff, that, and no doubt honest, although a better verb choice might have been "gyrate" or "kneel." What does surprise me is that this aired. The NFL isn't even pretending not to objectify these young women, anymore. The girls' evisceration along the shallowest and unhealthiest of lines is now good reality TV fodder. I'm surprised the cameras didn't follow Ashley to the bathroom to show her sticking her finger down her throat.

Where's your self-awareness, NFL? Where's your shame?

posted by john at 07:47 AM  •  permalink

March 21, 2006

march madness

__DirecTV's NCAA basketball tournament package
+ Working from home
__Bliss

When the NBA first allowed high school kids to enter the draft, I joined the chorus that feared for the future of college basketball. Surely, the talent drain would be lethal. Ironically, what actually happened was the opposite of what I expected. The quality of college ball has gone up, as actual scholar-athletes remain to improve their skills and shake bad habits, and NBA play is mining new depths of dreadfulness, as lunkheads with unshaken bad habits roam the hardwoods.

I am now an enthusiastic proponent of the new age rule.

Not that lunkheads with bad habits don't remain in college basketball. Anyone who watched Ohio State fail to execute anything resembling a set play can attest to that. They got where they are on sheer muscle, and it shows. Their eventual conqueror, Georgetown, was the antithesis of that. John Thompson coached the socks off of whoever the Buckeyes' coach is. You'd think my boys had never seen a pick, screen or give-and-go in their entire lives. They were absolutely bewildered, helpless. They looked exactly like my dog, Ed, when I do the fake tennis ball throw. They were vexed by sorcery. Georgetown, meanwhile, is my new tourney favorite. Athletic, disciplined, and very smart, they're thrilling to watch.

posted by john at 08:15 AM  •  permalink

February 23, 2006

sports porn

Is there an American female athlete today who could pose for Maxim magazine and hasn't? Not necessarily Maxim—Stuff, FHM, a boudoir calendar, or that great pipeline of softcore porn from my youth, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, will suffice. As soon as they're legal, the clothes seemingly fly off. Danica Patrick: check. Natalie Gulbis: check. Et tu, Maria Sharapova?

Now, I'm no prude. I likes me some hot women. My objection has every bit as much to do with sports as it does with feminism. I'd understand if Jill Snowboarder cashed in—when else is she going to wring money out of her sport? But Danica, Maria, et.al.—these women are millionaires, among the best in the world at what they do. Unless eight year old girls endlessly smashing tennis balls against the wall are dreaming that one day, if only they practice hard enough, they might achieve enough stature in their sport that men will pay five bucks to see them in a baby-oil soaked thong, I don't get it. But I'm apparently alone, because it's nearly automatic. I suppose their managers steer their careers that way. "Congratulations on Wimbledon! As soon as you turn 18, you're guaranteed a Playboy pictorial!"

It's disappointing. It denigrates them, their sport, and the male fans who are assumed to objectify them. Well. Guess again. I might want to meet Maria Sharapova, maybe shake her hand, but I decidedly don't want to see her covered in sand, posing with her elbows back. I remember when she was a preteen up-and-comer and during an interview recoiled at the mention of Anna Kournakova doing the same. I liked that Maria. I miss her. I'm embarrassed for her.

posted by john at 06:42 AM  •  permalink

February 13, 2006

zagtacular

Over the weekend I jetted to Spokane to take Sue to the Gonzaga-Stanford basketball game. I was kinda dreading it, to tell you the truth. After the Super Bowl, the last thing I wanted was more airports and lines, but a promise is a promise. It turns out to be just what the doctor ordered. Being with college students at a big-time college basketball game is pretty much the opposite experience from the Super Bowl. They were boisterous and fun, lively and imaginative. I defy anyone not to enjoy themselves.

ESPN College Gameday was broadcasting from the arena, and during a timeout I watched as the ubiquitous makeup babe touched up the anchors' faces. Using the same pad. Ew. How much money would it take for you to have Digger Phelps' sweat smeared all over your face? I decided I'm well into four digits.

posted by john at 09:02 AM  •  permalink

February 09, 2006

why the steelers

"You're from Ohio. Why the Steelers?"

I've been asked this quite a bit lately. After the fetid turd they laid the first half in Detroit, I even asked this of myself.

I haven't lived a day in Pittsburgh, but my childhood choice is not, as many speculate, merely a matter of their being a great team when I was a kid—although that never hurts. My Polish family all lives in Western PA. Those are two pertinent variables. The Steelers are as much the choice of Poles as the Raiders are the choice of bikers. I also love that the fans don't need or want cheerleaders. I love the ownership; they're the rare family-owned team, and the family is composed of loyal, civic-minded Pittsburghers who routinely defend the integrity of the league. I love the blue collar mentality that comes from the blue-collar fans. I love that the coach is a local boy. I love that Steeler players from all over the country routinely remain in Pittsburgh when they retire. And I love that when the bitter rival Browns summarily abandoned Cleveland, Steeler fans wore orange armbands and frightened Art Modell with their anger.

Which brings us to by far and away the most important factor in my fanship: my dad, who hailed from western PA, was a diehard Browns fan. I watched with thrilled fascination as these men in black and gold repeatedly drove my father insane with rage and frustration. Oh, how he hated them. I didn't know football, but I knew this was a very good thing. I liked them. They were my secret friends.

And thus did six years of pure bliss ensure, followed by 26 years of insane rage and frustration.

posted by john at 09:46 AM  •  permalink

February 08, 2006

go go super-hawk hearing!

Every time, I say to myself "This is the last Super Bowl post." Sigh.

I've been inundated with mail this morning from hysterical Hawks fans claiming that on Letterman, Big Ben admitted he didn't get into the end zone. Talk about hearing what you want to hear. He did nothing of the kind. In recounting the story of that moment in the game, Ben said that during the officials' review, he walked up to Cowher and said he didn't think he got in. During the review. As in before he saw the footage. After he saw the footage, he's said many times he thought the ball broke the plane.

Me, I can't tell with any certainty. Unless you're a Hawks fan and you're blessed with special super powers denied the rest of the world, you can't really see how he's holding the ball. Maybe he got in. Maybe he didn't. You'd need a laser to tell.

Thank you for your attention. You may now go back to jerking one another off.

posted by john at 10:41 AM  •  permalink

February 07, 2006

return to fantasyland

METAMUVILLE - I was planning on writing about the whiny maggots running their bitch-holes unremittingly since Sunday night. About how on the flight home to Seattle I enjoyed many a "this is a confirmed fact!" as to why, in the name of all that's holy, the refs felt compelled to call untimely penalties that the Seahawks did, inconvenient though this detail is, actually commit. "Steeler fans sent death threats to the refs" was my second favorite. Number one with a bullet: with the game ending at 10pm on the last night of Super Bowl week, the NFL wanted to ensure that the Steeler fans stayed to drink and thereby bring extra riches to the proprietors of Detroit. So they fixed the game, you see.

There's little sense in arguing with these fans. They're not conversant about the rules or the plays in question. Their idea of evidence—and something I've heard three times today alone—is that "everyone I know says this." Of that, I have little doubt. I've heard nothing but the creepy low moan of mass masturbation since I arrived at Sea-Tac.

That the Hawks' receivers were pushing off all night and finally got flagged—thank Christ—in the red zone is immaterial. (I blew my voice out screaming about all the offensive pass interference.) That there's really a rule that on an interception return, you can't hit a non-ball-carrier below the waist is immaterial. That the holding was so flagrant that Clark Haggans was leaning backward as he ran to the ball-carrier is immaterial. What the rest of the world calls "calling it tight," Seattle fans call "cheating." What the rest of the world calls "not being able to finish drives within the rules," Seattle fans call "a dominant performance thwarted by the refs." And what the rest of the world saw as self-destructive sloppy play, as an inability to put away an opponent that was playing very poorly, Seattle fans saw as a world championship denied.

I was planning on writing much more, but I see the petulant whining has become a national story, so I'll leave you with a link. Moral: those who complain about not getting respect might try granting it.

posted by john at 03:21 PM  •  permalink

February 06, 2006

where’s sea-d’oh?

DETROIT - A few thousand Seattle fans arrived over the weekend and made it their business to start as many confrontations as possible. I saw it again and again. Steeler fans would be off celebrating, perhaps chanting "Here we go Steelers, here we go," and a couple of Seahawk fans would enter their space and shout alternate lyrics, often profane. Words would fly, then often fists. I guess the Hawks fans think this is what fans do. The existence of fans for the opposing team is an affront to their belief system, so those fans cannot be allowed to exist uncorrected. Or perhaps being outnumbered 20-1 made them feel compelled to ratchet up the obnoxiousness, much as a puffer fish inflates to simulate greater size. Regardless, I've had my fill of the whole scene.

Sports fans that celebrate themselves instead of their team annoy me. Sports fans who think teams who don't want cheerleaders are somehow worthy of abuse flabbergast me. Sports fans who point to my Terrible Towel and mock the Steelers for copying the Seahawks' newly minted Derivative Diapers ("Ripoff Rags" was the alternative) leave me speechless. Sports fans who high-five when an opposing player is injured and scream "He's afraid to face us! What a pussy!" appall me. Sports fans that blame everyone and everything—instead of, say, the field goal kicker who missed two, the tight end who dropped three, the linebacker who had contain on the opposing qb yet let him rush for three first downs, the same linebacker for getting crushed by a pulling guard on a 75 yard touchdown run, the coach who mismanaged time at the end of both halves, or the cornerback who got torched in the end zone—annoy me even more. For that matter, "fans" who correct my observation that their cornerback bit hard on play action by saying "Duh! The defense is on the field. This stupid Steeler fan thinks the quarterback is on the field! Ha! Ha! Steeler fans are so stupid!" in my opinion merely occupy a seat that might be enjoyed by a higher primate.

It is without the slightest twinge of guilt, then, nor the slightest doubt that I'm returning home to a self-feeding chorus of shrill whining, that I indulge in showing you Seattle's famed 12th Man in action. See if you can spot him. It's the sports equivalent of "Where's Waldo?" I called it "Where's Sea-d'oh?"

There's Sea-d'oh! He's leaving at the end of the game. By the way, this is the Seahawks' season ticket holder section.

posted by john at 06:52 AM  •  permalink

February 05, 2006

finally!

DETROIT - I get to leave Detroit! But not before several parting buttfuckings. Being made to walk post-game in bitter cold for 30 minutes, only to end up back at the stadium, was their warmup act. Then I got to walk the two miles (!) to the park-and-ride pickup point, where I found...no busses, only a thousand shivering Steeler fans ahead of me in line. So like many, I walked the five miles to my car. Into a blistering wind, on icy sidewalks, through Beirut. Thanks, Detroit. Excellent job. What crack-baby did you elect to run this town?

And oh yeah. The Steelers won. Well, they didn't lose. In a game where the Hawks, Steelers, refs, and Rolling Stones all competed to see who could suck the least, the Steelers barely won. I'm so very proud.

This is my last Super Bowl. I didn't particularly enjoy myself. It's a sterile, deathly dull, made-for-TV event in which I felt like neither participant nor audience. "Antiseptic" is the word that comes to mind.

• • •

The dull game notwithstanding, it's worth noting that my boys did something that will surely never be repeated in our lifetimes: they beat the #1, 2, and 3 seeds on the road, then beat the other conference's #1 seed in the Super Bowl. A more difficult path is not possible.

posted by john at 10:44 PM  •  permalink

gaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Ticket: check
Camera: check
Binoculars: check
Ticket: check
Terrible Towel: check
Flags on car: check
Gracious text messages programmed (both outcomes): check
Ticket: check

I'm ready to go, I guess. In a nod to superstition, I've put my Super Bowl ticket in my Fiesta Bowl sleeve.

Prediction: Steelers 31, Hawks 21

posted by john at 06:57 AM  •  permalink

February 04, 2006

pre-game blues

DETROIT - Man, does it feel like the Steelers are poised for an ambush tomorrow. The only thing worse than all the fawning "Jerome Bettis! Bettis Jerome!" stories last week is all the "Why is Seattle so overlooked?" stories this week. My team plays best with a chip on its shoulder. In fact, I'd go so far as to say they've only won when they've had a chip on their shoulder. Seattle is too solid for anything less than my boys' focused best, and I have a sneaking suspicion "anything less" is precisely what's forthcoming. I hope I'm wrong. I hope this is just the bad day talking. I hope the statistics Seattle amassed at the expense of the league's worst division are as misleading as I hope. Yes, I hope for my own hope, now. That's how nervous I am.

My affection for its people notwithstanding, there's no way Detroit should be hosting a Super Bowl. I'm not unaccustomed to such events. A quarter-million Buckeye fans descended on Tempe in 2003, but at no point did it feel utterly out of control like Detroit does. I love my fellow Stiller fans, but they have overwhelmed Detroit. Everything's clogged. There is no organized mass-transit to the stadiums. You can't eat. You can't drink. You can't get out of the freezing rain. Blowing your nose requires a 30 minute wait. It is, in one made up word, unfun. Win or lose, I'm looking forward to leaving.

posted by john at 08:38 PM  •  permalink

crap on a stick

DETROIT - This was as shitty a day as yesterday was wonderful. I drove the 80 minutes to Detroit so that I could attend the NFL Experience. If you've ever been to the Hall of Fame and an NFL game, you have already exceeded the sum of the fun here. Yes, there are a couple of exhibits from the Hall of Fame. Yes, there are "throw the football through the hole" type booths. If that's fun enough to justify waiting 30 minutes for each, then this is the event for you.

Yawn. Nothing affiliated with the NFL has been anything better than dreadful. All the fun I've had, I made myself.

A few hours later, I attended the Motown Classics concert. I left after five songs. Between the "Nelly and John Legend won't be performing as scheduled tonight. No refunds." sign, the utterly moribund crowd talking during songs and holding up their cell phones, ushers completely obstructing my view of the stage, and singers so obscure that they weren't even introduced (the band, the Funk Brothers, was), I got the distinct feeling that I'd rather be in my hotel. A criminal waste of $200. And a day.

• • •

I got into the same aggravating discussion three times today.

"I saw on TV that it's really snowing there!"
"No, it's not snowing at all."
"Yeah, right!"
"I'm looking out the window. It's not snowing."
"Yes it is."

"I saw on TV that there are tons of Seahawk fans!"
"Uh, no. I've seen maybe 20."
"Oh come on. The local news is showing them!"

"I read that the Stones t-shirt is the #1 selling item."
"Uh, no. I've never even seen one."
"Why would they lie?"

So odd to have my first-hand observations refuted by couch-jockeys 2000 miles away. Not helping my foul mood.

posted by john at 08:01 PM  •  permalink

where did our love go?

DETROIT - Yesterday I also went to the Motown Museum. (Yeah, I know. Yesterday was quite the transcendent day. I wish I'd spread it around, but at least I had one great day in Detroit.) It was interesting to see the Temptations' sequined suits and the Supremes' 35-pound gowns, and it was gratifying to touch the Platinum Record awards for What's Going On? and Ain't No Mountain High Enough.

But walking into humble little Studio A was, here's that word once again, chilling. This is where it all happened. These are the instruments and mics and mixing boards used by the Funk Brothers, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Jackson Five, and so many others. There's a picture on the wall of Stevie standing right where I'm standing, playing the very piano I'm creepily fondling. Goosebumps.

posted by john at 07:37 PM  •  permalink

rosa parks

DETROIT - Foregoing the giant tire and the world's largest ball of twine that the NFL recommends I check out while in town, I instead ventured to the Henry Ford Institute to see the Rosa Parks bus. Why is it here? Because she moved here later in life. But yeah, I too think it belongs in the Jim Crow south.

The Henry Ford is a bizarre place. A single level-building vastly larger than Costco, it's a bizarre collection of classrooms, cars, and exhibits that range from cutlery to looms to locomotives to, well, the Rosa Parks bus. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what the museum was trying to be. I walked in the side entrance and asked the assembled security guards where the bus was. Following their directions, I wandered, alone, through exhibits to the bus. Not a soul was in sight. "That's sad," I thought. "With all the tourists in town...?"

There are a few moments in my life where being in a certain place gave me chills. Normandy. The Ford Theatre. The Air and Space Museum, looking at Spirit of Saint Louis and the various space capsules. Yesterday, I added the Rosa Parks bus to the list. I sat in her seat. I had the bus all to myself for 15 minutes. It vibrated with history.

I tried for a while to find an exit, and finally I came upon a security guard. "WHERE ARE YOUR CREDENTIALS?!?" he demanded in accusing all-caps.

"Huh? I don't have anything."

"YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED IN HERE WITHOUT CREDENTIALS!" He got on his walkie-talkie and talked to his boss.

"There was no sign, just an open door. And the guards waved me in. But this works out. I'm done, and I'm not sure where the exit is. Can you show me out?"

"YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED IN HERE WITHOUT CREDENTIALS! I'M GLAD I CAUGHT YOU!"

"Caught me? I came to you!"

And then, instead of leading me out of the building, he led me to the security manager, who proceeded to interrogate me and talk in terms of my presently being "detained" and perhaps some day "released."

"Allow me to explain something," I growled, barely containing my rage. "I'm here because I'm being polite. To help you understand how your security is as invisible as your policy. But make no mistake. My politeness is very nearly depleted. And when I want to leave, no geriatric rent-a-cop is going to 'detain' me."

"YOU WILL LEAVE WHEN I—"

And then I left.

Odd that the custodians of the Rosa Parks bus want so badly to violate the civil rights of people who come to pay homage to it.

posted by john at 06:35 AM  •  permalink

is this heaven? no, it’s detroit.

DETROIT - This town has its problems, but its people are not among them. They've been uniformly kind, even sweet to me, and I'm not just talking about the well-scrubbed white folk the NFL has working the tourist area. Leave the NFL quarter and you are embraced. In my case, literally. Two parting hugs so far. I've had more great conversations with strangers (residents, not tourists) in the past two days than I have in the past 10 years. I'm ashamed to say that those skills are severely stunted in me. I'm still not back into the rhythm of being regarded kindly, or at all, by strangers. But I like it.

The ease and good humor with which local blacks discuss race with a white stranger is particularly welcome. There's none of the bug-eyed discomfort to which I'm accustomed. They talk; they listen; we laugh at the absurdities we have in common. The mutual respect and warmth are palpable. I miss this too.

posted by john at 06:19 AM  •  permalink

February 03, 2006

how now, chad brown?

See Chad last summer.

See Chad reject his last team, the Seahawks.

See Chad reject his original team, the Steelers.

See Chad instead join the champion Patriots, figuring that they're his best chance at a Super Bowl.

Cry, Chad, cry.

posted by john at 09:38 PM  •  permalink

uh oh

DETROIT - Troy Polamalu has tweaked his ankle. He's still probable for the game, but this is potentially enormous. If it affects his play in the least—and how could it not?—the Steelers' defensive lynchpin has gone from difference-maker to liability. I'm very concerned. All the folks on ESPN changing their picks to Seattle is not helping.

posted by john at 07:41 AM  •  permalink

February 02, 2006

now i too hate on bettis

DETROIT - As recently as this morning, I was planning on attending Jerome Bettis' enshrinement in Canton in five years. As of this evening, I wouldn't deign to brake if he stepped in front of my car. A timeline:

7 days ago - I see a Bettis-hosted Super Bowl party listed on Ticketmaster, theme TBD. I buy an $80 ticket on faith.

5 days ago - The theme is chosen: bowling. Ew.

Today, 4pm - I depart my Toledo hotel for the hour drive to Detroit so that I may attend his stupid bowling party.

5:30pm - I pay $25 to park.

6:30pm - Just in case, I buy a $50 autograph football (the unthrowable ones with the slick vinyl panels). Unable to find a Sharpie earlier, I give the clerk five bucks for hers. Who knows when I'll ever be able to get Jerome's autograph again?

7:30 - Bored and sitting in my car, I kill time until the 10pm stupid bowling party.

9pm - I arrive at the location of the party to find a ludicrously long line for Will Call. Rather than wait in an unmoving line in a driving rain in 35 degree weather, I hole up in a cafe. I'll wait out the line.

10pm - The party is officially supposed to begin. The line hasn't budged, at least not in any good way. It now extends two city blocks. The freezing rain is falling harder, pelting us all. Several hundred people are very cold, very wet, and very angry. I'm told that Jerome arrived in a limo with a police escort.

10:35pm - Thinking about the hour's drive home, and observing that the line has moved about 10 feet and has gotten even longer, I decide that Jerome can keep my eighty bucks. I also pointedly decide where he can keep them.

10:40pm - I'm across the street, walking to my car, when a motorcade pulls up—a gleaming white limo and a bunch of cops. "Cool," I think. "It must be Roethlesberger or Polamalu." I watch in shock as Bettis exits the building and ducks into the limo, and I listen to the invective being shouted as the limo passes the furious crowd, still waiting in line for no apparent reason.

posted by john at 09:54 PM  •  permalink

things to do in detroit

DETROIT - I'm presently sitting in an Internet cafe, impatiently waiting out the long line for the stupid Bettis bowling thing. In killing time, I came across the Detroit Free-Press' article on things to do in Detroit. "There are things in Detroit that you can't experience anywhere else, so this is your chance." Highlights:

"The Detroit Zoo" - Only in Detroit!

"Holocaust Memorial Center" - Only in Detroit?

"Meadow Brook Hall: Eminem got married here" - Words fail me.

"Gibraltar Trade Center" - Hold me back.

"Giant tire" - I'm not making this crap up.

"Big Beaver Road: We can't imagine why, but out-of-towners find the name of this thoroughfare amusing." - I can't imagine why, either.

Curious that they don't mention that the Rosa Parks bus is in this town.

posted by john at 07:12 PM  •  permalink

planting my terrible towel flag in detroit

DETROIT - I'm getting ready to head into town for Bettis' stupid bowling thing that I'm still bitter about. Before arriving in Jerome's hometown, though, I stopped in Ben's. Findley, Ohio is a prototypical small midwestern town about 100 miles south of Detroit, smack in the middle of Cleveland Browns territory. They still love their Browns, but I dare say they love their boy even more. The whole town is swathed in black and gold. Every business seemingly has black and gold "GO BEN GO" signs in its window. After walking my quarterback's high school field (just so I can say I did, which now I have), I stopped to take a picture of the Nike billboard downtown. An old woman saw me and, in the manner of places not named Seattle, engaged a stranger in friendly conversation. After expressing amazement at my story—a guy from Columbus via Seattle rooting for the Steelers who's in her backwoods little town?!—she gushed. "We sure are proud of Ben! So very proud." I don't have the heart to make fun of her. She was that earnest.

posted by john at 11:00 AM  •  permalink

January 30, 2006

i’m outta here

Thanks to:

• John for the tickets


• Josh for house-sitting


• Readers in advance, for tolerating a whole week of football posts from Detroit


• Justifiably insecure, excuse-flinging, whiney maggot Seahawk instafans who've scolded me nonstop today because the world thinks they're lame, for making it easier to root against "them"


• The ghost of Art Rooney for, well, everything

posted by john at 06:51 PM  •  permalink

January 29, 2006

gutter ball

When I saw that Jerome Bettis was throwing a Super Bowl party the night of my arrival, theme TBD, I snagged a ticket on faith.

The theme has now been determined. Fuck you, Jerome. Your parents too.

Bowling? Bowling?!? You've gotta be yankin' me, Bussie. I ain't bowling in Detroit. Oh and pretty please, can I watch Steeler players incur wrist injuries by bowling days before the game?

posted by john at 08:07 AM  •  permalink

January 28, 2006

call orkin

I figure I'm allowed to take one shot at Seattle instafans for every five instances of "we're gonna kick your ass!" I have to endure. Today's Seattle Times has the definitive observation:

At the Sideline Sports Bar in Bellevue, a regular haunt of Steelers fans, managers are expecting a Super Bowl crowd with a strong contingent for each team. "We've never seen anything like this," assistant manager Steve Hunt said. "The Steelers fans have been coming here for years, and now we're seeing Seahawks fans coming out of the woodwork."

Even more remarkable than the fans this quote describes is their utter lack of self-awareness. They will not read this quote and be embarrassed. They will have an explanation. "Well, before now there was nothing to cheer, was there?" they'll point out helpfully.

posted by john at 12:42 PM  •  permalink

January 26, 2006

XL itinerary

The Steelers might well lay an egg, but I'm confident I'll still milk Detroit for all the fun it's worth. For the convenience of those who want to avoid me, my schedule thus far:

• Thursday: Jerome Bettis' party. I bet you didn't know Detroit is his hometown.


• Friday: Patti Labelle's gospel show


• Saturday: The NFL Experience by day, Motown review by night. John Legend, Nelly, The Four Tops, The Miracles, The Contours, The Dramatics, The Former Ladies of the Supremes, Freda Payne, Brenda Holloway, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, The Velvelettes, Paul Hill, and (god only knows why he rates) Jamie Foxx.


• Sunday: Super Bowl XL. Steelers. Seahawks. Stones. Stevie. Aretha. Leave it to her to break up the alliteration.


• Monday: therapy

Somehow I didn't manage a ticket at Eminem's or Diddy's parties. Not for lack of availability.

posted by john at 01:33 PM  •  permalink

January 24, 2006

dial 313!

The other Seahawks fan just called me. In the lottery of season ticket holders, he won the right to purchase a pair of Super Bowl tickets, and he wanted to know if I wanted them. DO I WANT THEM? DO I FREAKING WANT THEM? I just got a $3500 ticket for cost!

If you'll pardon me, I have no choice now but to put on the Isley Brothers and dance, dance, dance.

posted by john at 10:06 AM  •  permalink

January 23, 2006

three seahawk challenge

Katrina, read no farther.

In deference to the two Seahawks fans I’ve met in my 11 years in Seattle, I've refrained from ranting during the Hawks' playoff run. I'm rooting for them, actually. It's Katrina's team, and I'm delighted for her. Besides that, it's a fine franchise with admirable ownership and players. I'm hoping that success will bring the support they deserve. It's hard to believe that not too long ago, Ken Behring nearly moved them to L.A., only to be thwarted by the NFL and paid to go away by local hero Paul Allen. I opposed that move, voted for their stadium, and rooted for their success in the playoffs. I'm obviously pulling for my boys against them, but if someone else has to win, I hope it's the Hawks. So what's my beef?

Poseurs. They're everywhere now.

To understand how bad the poseurism is, you first how to understand how apathetic this community is. Was. It wasn't hyperbole when I say I've met two Seahawks fans in 11 years. I can't name another soul who's gone to a game, who's worn a sweatshirt, who's died inside when they ultimately lost. That's not what we do in Seattle. Oh sure, there's a stadium full of fans; I just don't know who they are. Sports are just not a part of the consciousness around here. Walking the streets, you'd never even know there was a game that day. Waitresses and clerks don't wear colors on game day, and they sure don't think to ask if you're going to the game. If you make a Seattle sports reference out of context, you're blinked at. There's little appetite for local sports media; there isn't a tenth of what I watch/listen to from Pittsburgh and Columbus, and the local reporters are barely conversant about the sport or the team. When there's a game on, the stores and restaurants and roads are every bit as crowded as when there's not. And last year when the Hawks made the playoffs, the Seattle Times ran a full page spread on how to pretend you've been a Hawks fan all along, right down to memorizing phrases about famous plays of the past.

Why the apathy? Theories abound. There's little history, which is true enough, but it's more true in better sports towns like Charlotte and Jacksonville. People here are largely transplants like myself, and they brought allegiances to other teams with them. Very true. And then there's my personal favorite theory: people here are soulless, joyless fucks who only get excited when they can talk publicly about whatever pretentious trend they're most recently into. Sports are gauche.

Until now. Seattle's going to the Super Bowl, and everyone's suddenly referring to the team as "we." People who voted against stadiums at every opportunity because the tax revenue from sports apparel sales would be better spent on kabbalah-based mass transit are suddenly "we." For some reason, a few have even seen fit to antagonize me about the imminent game between the Steelers and the newly minted "we."

"Name three Seahawks," I'll say.

Right now "we" is a perfect 0-6 on the Three Seahawk Challenge. Not one person who professed to be a huge Seahawk fan has done it. Worse, there's no shame. I asked an unreasonable question.

• • •

I heard this delightful bit o'punditry on local radio yesterday:

"So the Seahawks just missed a touchdown. I'm told it's second and goal on the two," he said shakily, like I would say I'm told it's 'the quark-gluon structure of hadrons.'

"Which I guess is pretty close. But once again: we just missed a touchdown."

Welcome to my world.

posted by john at 05:46 PM  •  permalink

foreboding

What's a worse omen for the Steelers: Aretha Franklin singing at the Super Bowl, or Ed puking on my Terrible Towel this morning?

"The Seahawks are gonna win!" Katrina squeals at the news.

posted by john at 10:30 AM  •  permalink

January 22, 2006

yoi and double yoi!

posted by john at 03:23 PM  •  permalink

January 20, 2006

family is not a hate value

I always figured if I had a son, I'd say, "Boy, I've got one hyphenated word for you: long-snapping. You're only on the field for punts and extra points, you never take a hit, you don't have to shower after the game, and the NFL rookie minimum is $650,000 a year. So let's go. Throw Daddy the football from between your legs. That's it. Now try not to bounce it."

I still think that's a mortal lock of a retirement plan. Specifically, my retirement.

If I had a daughter, I have no less of a lock in mind. "Girl," I'd drawl like Robert Duvall, or maybe Solomon Burke, "You'll never go broke if you make your living telling people what they already believe. And if you tell them everyone who disagrees with them is a bona fide idiot, you'll be obscenely wealthy."

Hopping around the web tonight, I came across the Top Ten Conservative Films of 2005. A conservative film is not, as I would have thought, a documentary about textiles that was made on-time, under budget, and released slowly, perhaps opening in Des Moines.

Conservative cinema does more than entertain; movies that do no more are visual candy. It instructs and inspires. Conservative films celebrate virtue. They tell timeless tales of individuals overcoming all manner of adversity to achieve true greatness. They’re about honesty, loyalty, courage and patriotism. They’re concerned with conservatism’s cardinal values – faith, family and freedom.

I've carefully combed every dictionary I can find, but no definition of "conservative" includes words anywhere close to instruct, inspire, celebrate, virtue, timeless, overcoming, adversity, greatness, honesty, loyalty, courage, patriotism, cardinal, values, faith, family, or freedom. It's almost like the author made all that crap up. Other than that, though, he's spot-on. The dictionaries use many of the same prepositions.

While I'm itching to speculate as to what the author would consider the characteristics of liberal cinema—how much does "cowboy" mitigate "gay?"—I'm far more interested in defining Stank cinema. Stank cinema trumpets my pleasing appearance and soothing natural odor. It celebrates me and those who celebrate me, of whom there should soon be more, if the movie is truly Stank. It instructs others to think exactly like me, to share my values, to hate the same people I hate. It's about cardinal Stank virtues, namely how honesty, loyalty, courage, patriotism, faith, family, and freedom are all somehow inextricably tied to me. Dishonesty, disloyalty, cowardice, America-hatin', godlessness, orphanhood, and slavery? Those are Michigan values.

posted by john at 01:26 AM  •  permalink

January 19, 2006

hit of the day

I don't know why, but this cracked me up. Someone in Indiana found my site by googling "Peyton and Dungy stink."

Okay, I know why.

posted by john at 12:46 PM  •  permalink

January 15, 2006

if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with

I live near a lifelong NY Giants fan. Rather, he was until he moved to Seattle, when he promptly exchanged navy blue for turquoise, or whatever that dainty-ass color is. He seems happy enough with the trade, but I'm appalled. I couldn't do it. Sure, there are days when I want to hunt down and vivisect all 53 Steelers, the coaches, the conditioning staff and the kid who coils the coach's headphone cable, but I would never cheat on them.

posted by john at 10:49 PM  •  permalink

vanderjagt shows manning and dungy how it’s done

Remember the winter of the Idiot Kicker? When Mike "Shank" Vanderjagt thoughtfully informed the media that Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy lacked the mental makeup to win? Oh, sweet irony. Memo to Tony Dungy—when he was calling you out, your errant kicker also said:

"Coach Dungy, he's just a mild-mannered guy. He doesn't get too excited, he doesn't get too down and I don't think that works, either. ... I think you need a motivator, I think you need a guy that is going to get in somebody's face when they're not performing."

To me, that's pimp-slappin' carte blanche. Slappity slap!

posted by john at 04:48 PM  •  permalink

January 13, 2006

Vick arrest delights hate-mongering fool

ROANOKE (Stank Press) - Virginia Tech quarterback Marcus Vick—fresh off expulsion from college because of drugs, multiple arrests, and his deliberately trying to injure another player—has been arrested yet again, this time for threatening people with a gun at McDonald's. Philadelphia NAACP chief and aspiring Nobel Laureate J. Whyatt "Jerry" Mondesire issued a statement of general approval. "Now that's what I'm talking about," he said. "Keep it real, baby."

posted by john at 08:36 AM  •  permalink

January 11, 2006

one, pete

This, this is what the Internet was made for.

It turns out I'm not alone in my annoyance with USC claiming an imaginary "share" of the 2003 title. An enterprising LSU fan—whose team won the championship according to the criteria everyone, including USC, agreed upon prior to the season—plans to post this billboard near the USC campus. Donate to the cause.

(Thanks to Bob for pointing out this site.)

posted by john at 01:25 PM  •  permalink

January 04, 2006

public service

A special thank you to the very deserving national champion Texas Longhorns, for beating media (and self) darling USC tonight. It's God's work you did. Those who erroneously and obnoxiously claimed two will not claim three. Say it with me now: USC—one time national champion.

Did anyone else see Matt Leinart's snotty post-game interview? "We're still the better team," he sniffed with appalling haughtiness. Enjoy the Saints, golden boy. You deserve them.

posted by john at 11:38 PM  •  permalink

January 02, 2006

Charlie Weis single-
handedly hangs 20 points on unknown team

TEMPE (Stank Press) - Offensive genius and new Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis, wearer of four Super Bowl rings and architect of the world champion New England Patriots' offense, personally scored 20 points in the Fiesta Bowl tonight. "If this offense looks familiar, it should! That's the Patriots' offense! He's got four Super Bowl rings," said commentator Brent Musberger. "So he knows a thing or two about playing in big games!" Musberger pointed out that while Weis' unknown opponent needed to amass 617 yards of total offense in order to score 34 points, Weis' team required only 348 yards to score 20. "Now that's an efficient offense!" Musberger gushed. "They only needed to gain 12 yards per point, whereas the other guys needed 18 yards per! That's why Charlie Weis has four Super Bowl rings!"

"Four Super Bowl rings!" added Gary Danielson.

"Patriots!" concluded Musberger.

posted by john at 07:40 PM  •  permalink

December 28, 2005

harrison. james harrison.

No word yet on the inevitable lawsuit.

I wish they'd included the ovation that the Browns' fans gave Harrison. Not to mention all of Verron Haynes' (#34, the one who got out of the way) teammates mocking his cowardly move.

posted by john at 02:44 PM  •  permalink

December 26, 2005

turn out the lights, the party’s over

John Madden still maintains to anyone who'll listen that on the Immaculate Reception, the ball hit Steeler Frenchy Fuqua before Franco Harris caught it. The officials (not to mention a detailed study by a physicist) determined that the ball hit Raider Jack Tatum. The difference? In the rules of the day, the ball hitting Fuqua would have rendered illegal the most famous play in football lore. Madden and other Raiders cling to the Fuqua myth with the same irrational ferocity that W. clings to his appointed cronies and that Michigan alums cling to their "elite school" fantasy.

The first time I saw Madden was on Football Weekend VII in Miami. We staked out the Maddencruiser after the game, and we watched from 10 feet away as the big lummox boarded his bus. "THE BALL HIT TATUM!" I yelled.

I next staked out the Maddencruiser in San Francisco a year later. "THE BALL HIT TATUM!" I yelled.

Later that year in Pittsburgh: "THE BALL HIT TATUM!"

The next year in Kansas City: "THE BALL HIT TATUM!" Only this time, Madden stopped his ascent into the bus, turned around, and squinted into the crowd to look for the face of his cross-continental, cross-annum heckler. "YEAH, YOU HEARD ME! TATUM, MOTHERFUCKER! YEAH!"

Duly cowed by the magnitude of my evidence and the sagacity of my argument, Madden shook his head and retreated into his bus.

• • •

And with that, I note the passing of ABC's Monday Night Football. Some of the best moments of my life have been on Monday nights at the only game being played in the world, and I will miss it. Oh sure, there will be some bush league variation on ESPN next year with, God help us all, Joe "Nobody in the game of football should
be called a genius. A genius is somebody like Norman Einstein." Theisman in the booth. All the more reason to mourn.

"Yeah, Johnny, Daddy's dead, but look! Mommy remarried! Your new daddy is Joe Theisman! See, everything's fine. Here, listen while he prattles on about himself. You'll feel better."

- Click -

posted by john at 09:18 AM  •  permalink

December 24, 2005

wanted: a better firewall

A wondrous thing about the Internet is that people from all walks of life whose paths would never otherwise cross get to share their views. The horrendous downside to the Internet is, of course, that people from all walks of life whose paths would never otherwise cross get to share their views. It's for this latter reason that I resent the Internet. Before the Internet, I'd never met a white supremacist or a Ravens fan. I'd never been told I have severe psychological problems; been condemned to eternal hell for my non-beliefs; or called a racist, sexist or homophobe, at least not to my face. Before the Internet, I had no idea how hateful poor spellers are. Perhaps it's a lifetime of corrections that make them that way?

This morning, though, it's my fellow Steeler fans who have me staring at the knife drawer. There's no way around it: they're morons. At least the fans streaming into my home are. Listening to a call-in show from Pittsburgh, if inflicted on a prisoner of war, would be a violation of the Geneva Convention. The fans make the same dumbass assertions, over and over, unabashedly flaunting their ignorance. And the DJs patiently make the same corrections, over and over, though surely they'd rather distribute open-handed slaps instead.

Fans of other teams—same thing?

posted by john at 08:00 AM  •  permalink

December 22, 2005

this just in! (about 31 times, in fact)

Kobe put up 62 in three quarters the other night, personally outscoring the entire Dallas Mavericks 62-61, but I didn't hear about it until it was over. Just like I didn't see Emmitt Smith rush for 316, Boomer Esiason throw for 522, or Randy Johnson's perfect game. What we have here is a grotesque failure to communicate. Someone needs to start an email system for alerting folks about breaking sports news. And when I say someone, I of course mean someone else.

posted by john at 09:37 AM  •  permalink

December 02, 2005

the cry list

Saintly Steelers owner Art Rooney had just died, and I was watching Frank Deford's benediction on TV. Maddie walked into our living room and stared at me.

"What. The. Fuck."

"Hmm?"

"You're crying."

"I am?" I wiped a tear or two from my cheek. "Oh. It's been known to happen, you know."

"Amongst warm-blooded animals, yeah."

"Get off my back. I'm watching this."

Pacing so as to gather momentum, she waited for Deford to wrap it up. Then she let me have it. "I was there when your relationship with Celeste fell apart. Absolutely no tears. When you told your family to take a flying leap? No tears. When you got fired? No tears. All the rough times we've had? Bupkis. When you broke your leg and severed your pinky? Nothing. Did you even cry when you took your mother off life support? Or when she died?"

"No. That was a good day."

"But when the old fart owner of the Pittsburgh fuckin' Steelers dies, look out, here come the water-works?!?"

"But he was a great—"

"AAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!
AUGH! AUGH! AUGH! I am so not in love with this man!"

• • •

Since that afternoon, my every conversation about crying has been a variation on that theme, so I tend to avoid them. It's not that I don't cry easily. It's actually frightfully easy—I could be crying in five minutes, if I wanted to be. All I'd have to do is pop in the Walter Payton edition of "SportsCentury" and watch the last twenty minutes, where poor Walter is dying and having to defend himself from vicious tabloid rumors. Or watch Magic Johnson's devastating 1991 press conference. Rips me up every time. And nothing triggers a response as reliably as anything to do with Ohio State's 2003 championship game. It was emotionally exhausting. I was there. I cried there. So did everyone else. And when I see the footage, I'm transported back to that feeling. Hell, I even teared up when the now-seniors left the field for the last time three weeks ago.

It's odd that sports figure so prominently in my Cry List. Even I know that's rubbish. It's not exclusively a sports-related list, though. Pretty much anything about the WW2 generation also gets to me. A sure tear-jerker: a videotaped interview with an elderly Frenchwoman who's describing Nazi occupation. She was under the porch, terrified and hiding from Nazi troops, when American GIs appeared. Her account gets me every time. If I read the part of my will that addresses what should be done with Ed in the event of my death, cue the tear ducts. And if I pick at Cheney scabs, that's guaranteed to do it. Which brings us to what inspired this discussion: me-sa going home. Commence scab-picking! Any trip to Spokane requires a full week of emotional bracing and is followed by a full week of emotional detox. I wonder if it would make Maddie love me more or less to know that a girl can, in fact, make me shed tears. Just not her.

posted by john at 12:40 AM  •  permalink

November 24, 2005

guest columnist:
my ex-point guard

Before I abandoned the idea of guest columnists, unbeknownst to me, d'Andre (1 | 2) had already written his "ex–point guard" piece. As his making verbs agree with subjects is equivalent to the rest of us relocating an entire mountain range—not the Himalayas, maybe, but certainly the Andes—he's rather insistent that I publish this. I yield to the eldest. But I'm gonna bury this fiction on Thanksgiving day, when I have two readers. Him and his wife.

• • •

I met Egger's fat ass this last June. The rest of him, I met in the early 90's. I remember the day clearly. It's not often I make the sort of mistake in judgement about someone that I made that day. (Background: We all lived on Cleveland Ave in Columbus. It wasn't the blackest neighborhood I've ever lived in...but only because of Egger being there. You know how light can't escape a black hole's gravity? He's got the opposite effect. He's a white hole. You can feel him sucking the blackness straight out of you. Soon I was enunciating "mu-THIR-fu-KIR" like I was at the Queen's tea. It's a good thing he left when he did, before we were all country line-dancing.) We were all gathered on the neighborhood basketball court, maybe 12 of us. The court was small so we usually played four on four. We shot free throws to see who picked teams. This cube-shaped, appliance-looking white guy I'd never seen before makes his first three free throws. He had perfect form...nearly motionless. Little did I know that described his WHOLE game. I ended up being one of the two guys to pick teams. With my last pick, I committed my great mistake in judgement.

"And the white guy to shoot jump shots."

You have never seen a white guy less able to make open jump shots. Never. Remember Will Perdue? Lights out by comparison. And was Egger ever sloooooow. God almighty, was he slow. You know how TV announcers say that some plodding white dude has "a quick first step?" I used to tell Egger that he's got "the quickest 12th step out here. But that's because it only takes the rest of us 9 steps." To Egger's credit, he knew he stunk, and he passed the ball like it was radioactive. Between that and his proclivities toward violence, he was someone you wanted on your team and not the other. Yes...I said violence. This guy sets picks the way tire spikes stop cars. His picks don't merely disrupt the flow of the game. They disrupt continence. You're covering your man, and you hear someone start to call out "pi-" and then you see white spots, black out, and wake up in a puddle on the ground. Worse, he set illegal moving picks, too. You'd be backpedaling on defense, minding your own business, and then WHAM! Puddle. This was his genius. His great equalizer. He had players of superior skill with their heads on swivels, frantically looking for him instead of following the ball. He'd tell you it was out of respect. I tell you it was out of self preservation.

When I visited Egger this last summer, he spun a tale about the greatest pass he ever threw. I remember it well because it was to me. He was at the top of the key with his back to the basket, and I cut baseline behind him. He threw a no-look bounce pass behind his back. Then he turned around and saw me reverse-jamming it in. This is all true. What does Egger leave out? He sprayed it. The pass missed me by a mile and bounced off another player's leg. It was pure, blind-ass luck that it came anywhere near me at all. Too bad he didn't call "bank." He's right about one thing though. This was definitely his career highlight.

posted by john at 07:33 AM  •  permalink

November 23, 2005

football weekend x:
hail to the victors, indeed

An IM exchange yesterday with Carla, whose beau is a Michigan alum.

john says:
So. How was your weekend? Did you have a good turnout at your party?

c says:
it was actually lovely. the party was great fun.

c says:
i already know how your weekend was.

john says:
Yes yes, mine was delightful, but I'm attempting to show a modicum of class.

c says:
really?

No. That was just hysteria from sleep deprivation talking, boss.

My notes from the road follow.

Day 1: Friday
Bubba and I take in the Illinois prep football semi-finals, where we see Morris easily handle Crystal Lake South before moving on to the championship this Saturday, which I'll watch via the Internet. Morris running back/safety/linebacker/returner/kicker John Dergo is the stud to watch. He has 2200 yards rushing and 41 touchdowns this year. So far.

Malnutrition notes: We drank Maker's and Captain Morgan's out of the trunk of the rental car. I smoked a cigar and ate a "meat sandwich" of indeterminate content.

Exhaustion notes: Having awakened at 4:30am in Seattle and flown to Chicago, we drove from Crystal Lake to Ann Arbor after the game. We got three hours' sleep Friday night.

Day 2: Saturday
Munching on White Castles, we wind through Ann Arbor while blaring the "Buckeye Battle Cry" CD I've had since I was a kid. We pay $30 to park, a new Football Weekend record. We drink and throw the football, then walk through the acres of RVs to the Big House. Although at 111,000 plus it holds a few thousand more fans than Ohio Stadium, the worst seats are vastly better—the merits of a bowl shape. The concourses are wide, the bathrooms abundant. And trough urinals sure do make for fast friends. The sight-lines (from the seats, not from the urinals) are god awful. I'm 20th row and can't see the near half the end-zone because of people's heads. That's what you get for using a Michigan engineer, I suppose—probably the same modestly endowed gentleman who drops his pants and waves at me after Michigan scores. The game itself is a thriller, featuring Troy Smith engineering two touchdown drives in the final seven minutes to lead my boys from behind. I have excellent views of both drives, especially Antonio Pittman's final score. When he pointed in triumph at the stands, he was pointing straight at me.

Troy Smith's stats for his two starts against Michigan: 723 yards and 5 TDs. He'll never have to buy his own drink again.

I need to mention the Michigan fans seated behind us, who were great fun to commiserate with during the ebb and flow of the game. We met when the Buckeyes took the field and one of the guys tried to embarrass Buckeye fans by chanting pariah Maurice Clarrett's name. I turned around and yelled back "Chriiiiis Web-ber!" It could have gone either way, but to his credit, the guy just laughed, shook my hand, and said "You win." And then three hours later, he did it again.

After the Ohio State kicker missed an extra point, then made a 50 yard field goal, the same guy yelled, "What are you, far-sighted?!?"

Exhaustion notes: No rest for the weary, as we head south for Cincinnati immediately after the game. We pause in a Damon's in Lima to take in Bubba's Clemson-SC game. I am getting downright woozy.

Malnutrition notes: I smoke two more cigars, eat a half-dozen Sliders, and toss down about two dozen buffalo wings. My colon lodges its first protest, which I drown in a half bottle of Maker's.

Day Three: Sunday

We somehow awaken in Cincinnati. Miracles do happen. Since both the Bengals and Colts have black head coaches and white quarterbacks, I'm unsure who I'm supposed to root for. Tony Dungy's slightly lighter skinned, so I go with him. The game's been bumped to 4pm, which means I can watch the Steelers suck at 1pm, so I buy a TV at Radio Shack. We find parking and, after bribing the lot attendant with promises of brats, tailgate. This is delightful. In the shadow of Paul Brown Stadium, I'm drinking, eating brats and watching my boys suck on TV. Next thing I know, I'm in my seat watching the game. Truly, it's the next thing I know; I have zero recollection of walking to the stadium or finding my seat. Thank you, Bubba. I hope you didn't have to carry me fireman-style. What I see next terrifies the holy bejeezus out of me, as Payton Manning plays my Steelers next week. He dissects the Bengals, leading them to touchdowns on their first five drives. His passer rating at halftime is perfect. The halftime score is 35-27, en route to a 45-37 defensive classic. Paul Brown Stadium is lovely, and its fans louder than most. Who Dey?

Speaking of attention whores, Chad "touchdown dance" Johnson scores a touchdown, runs to a cheerleader, flips off his helmet so SportsCenter will show his face, and mock-proposes. Yawn. Do it during a victory.

Exhaustion notes: with a drive to Green Bay looming tomorrow, I yield and go to bed early. I get a whole six hours sleep.

Malnutrition notes: Nutty Bars make their first appearance. I eat about 12. I finish off the pizza from Giordano's in Chicago that's been sitting in the trunk since Friday night. More cigars, brats, wings. I start the second bottle of Maker's and dip into Bubba's rum. Caramelized onions are surprisingly easy to make on a hibachi.

Day 4: Monday
Do we ever fly through Indiana. I pass the Indianapolis airport, from which I departed on a one-way ticket to Washington more than a decade ago, thereby completing a round-trip of sorts. This is where one life ended and another began. I think about Maddie and our life together a lot, about my summer alone in Bloomington. Whoop, I'm in Chicago. Pay attention. Chicago passes without incident, and soon we're 100 miles north of Milwaukee, driving to what is surely the end of the earth. I put on the Music of NFL Films cd Katrina gave me a few years ago, back when she was cool. Lombardi is talking. Perfect. I haven't been to Lambeau in six years, and man has it changed. The exterior doesn't look like it does the footage from the 60s anymore. It looks like...well, Safeco Field. Which is lovely, but it ain't old Lambeau Field. We tailgate with some Packer fans. One tells me that he's going to the Ohio State game next year on September 4. "Jesus!" I say stupidly. "What tune-up game are you going to?" It's his alma mater, Northern Illinois. Nice job, John. Soon we're in our box seat, another Football Weekend first, protected from the bitter cold and having cocktails and nachos brought to us.

On my way to the suite, I stumble into the players' wives' lounge. I know where I am even before I see the sign. I'm amidst the finest collection of women I've ever seen, each positively dripping ice. They look me up and down like, well, like I'm stinky and lost. Deanna Farve is there. I resist the temptation to bother her.

Exhaustion notes: Thanks to my letting Bubba make the flight arrangements, we have to check in at O'Hare, 200 miles away, about five hours after the game ends. We catch a nap in the 20 degree car and get our butts back to Seattle. Fellow passengers report that we snored obnoxiously the whole way back.

Malnutrition notes: Vegetables sneak on to the menu, as we grill kabobs and stew. I don't know if it's nutrition related, but right before we drop off the rental car, I get the most voracious nose-bleed of my life. An hour later, it's still gushing. This is nearing a crisis. I can't get it under control, and all my best efforts have failed to get blood out of my beard. We worry that I won't be allowed on the plane or worse, that I will be, and that the altitude will cause something even ghastlier to happen. It all works out, though, and my vampire-who-just-killed look keeps people from looking at me. Bonus.

Random stats
Days: four
Games: four
Miles flown: 3400
Miles driven: 1535
Times sex mentioned: also 1535
Wings: 60
White Castles: 16
Nutty Bars: 12 pair
Cigars: 9
Fifths: four

posted by john at 06:39 AM  •  permalink

November 22, 2005

i’m still working on the ballad of troy smith

I'm back. I last slept in a non-chair in Cincinnati on Sunday night. You'll pardon me if I skip the recap and check myself straight into Betty Ford for much needed "rest."

Many thanks to Katrina for holding down the Stank fort while I was gone. And who says parents have nothing interesting to say? Certainly no one here.

posted by john at 02:08 PM  •  permalink

November 17, 2005

say yes to michigan

And this is when they won.

posted by john at 10:00 AM  •  permalink

November 16, 2005

ann arbor is a whore

Not an original line, to be sure, but it did destroy me one time. It was 1997, and Football Weekend was in Columbus for Ohio State-Michigan, and we were seated in front of a wretched old coot with a voicebox. We were feeling great pity for the man, until he won our hearts forever by blaring, in a terrifying electronic monotone, "ANN AR-BOR IS A WHO-zzzcrackle-ORE." It had to hurt, but now he's immortal.

posted by john at 01:09 PM  •  permalink

November 12, 2005

michigan week

With Northwestern's scholar-athletes now dispatched, attention in Metamuville ("West Columbus") now turns to Michigan. To help get myself—and any of the other 450,000 living Ohio State alumni who read this page—in the mood, I'll be indulging in some OSU media this week.

posted by john at 01:46 PM  •  permalink

November 09, 2005

why the packers are 1-7

Much is made of the fact that they've lost their top three receivers and running backs, and justifiably so. That's crippling. But when Troy Polamalu ran back a fumble 78 yards, only his fellow Steelers crossed the goal line with him. That's the trademark of a team that's given up.

posted by john at 10:16 AM  •  permalink

September 18, 2005

sunday mornings

I discovered the pleasures of this ritual last football season, my first without romantic complications. I get up at 7am and, via the Internet, tune into Pittsburgh sports radio for three hours of Steelers talk. I bake while I listen. Yesterday, I made wheat bread, and I pulled pizza dough out of the fridge and chopped ingredients while listening to my fellow fans. At 9:40, the pizza slid on to the stone. At 10am, I tune into the televised game and ratchet the sound way down so that I can listen to the local announcers instead, and then I munch on whatever food I had just prepared. Including the post-game wrap up show, it's a glorious eight hours of me-time. And it's over by 3pm, so I still have considerable day left for them-time.

When I was back east, I had no understanding of how wonderful it is to watch sports on the west coast. Sure, I knew that 1pm football games started at 10am there, and that sounded weird and wrong, but now I know better. My games end by 1pm. There's a whole day remaining. Baseball games and Monday Night Football wrap up promptly by 11pm, so they don't cut short your night's sleep. Bliss.

posted by john at 01:12 PM  •  permalink

September 09, 2005

the sport of kings, better than diamond rings—football

In honor of this weekend, the glorious beginning of football season, I will address a serious personal shortcoming. It has come to my attention that Jen reached the quarter-century mark of her life without understanding the concept of downs. That this occurred on my watch is inexcusable, and for failing her I humbly apologize to Jen, her various boyfriends, her cats, and all the women in building 24 (the men being a miniscule subset of "her various boyfriends"). As my punishment, I'm going to create a football FAQ for novices. The first installment follows.

• • •

Although simple, downs are not at all transparent. As a child, it took me years to sift through the confusion and "get" it. I could have asked my father, but I intuitively understood that to do so would be akin to asking him why I had no penis. Not prepared to do that, either, I lumped it and tried to figure it out on my own. Let no reader of mine undertake this thankless enterprise.

Understanding downs

Before you understand downs, you have to understand the bigger picture, and since you're still reading, odds are good you don't. From goal post to goal post, a football field is 120 yards long. The 10 yards on each end are called the "end zone," and the 100 yards that separate them are what the whole game is about. Football is essentially a tug-of-war using a ball. A team tries to advance the ball to its own end zone, and if its progress stalls, it must give possession of the ball back to the other team, who will advance the ball the other direction. The progress of the advancement is measured in the dread "downs."

Downs are almost-but-not-quite synonymous with "plays." Think of a down as a chance to execute a single play. Each possession of the ball begins with four downs. If you don't advance the ball ten yards in four plays, the ball goes back to the other team. If you advance the ball ten yards (cumulatively) in those four plays, you're given a fresh set of four downs. This is when the ref says "First down!" and the crowd cheers. It's a minor milestone: progress has been made, possession of the ball has been retained, and we're that much closer to scoring. So a touchdown drive, then, will usually consist of several sets of downs, or in the vernacular, several first downs.

The jargon

To illustrate, let's say my beloved Steelers take possession of the ball on their own 20 yard line. It's first and 10, which means "first down in this series of downs, ten yards to go until we get another first down." We may have 80 yards to go before we score a touchdown, but we only need 10 yards to achieve a new set of downs. The quarterback, who you will not identify by commenting on his physical beauty, completes a 15 yard pass. The ball is on the 35 yard line. It's now 1st down and 10 yards to go again, or in the vernacular, "1st and 10 from the 35." He throws an incomplete pass. It's 2nd and 10. Duce Staley runs the ball for six yards, pulling his hamstring in the process. He'll miss six weeks, but it's now 3rd and 4 from the 41. The quarterback runs for 7 yards. First down! It's 1st and 10 from the 48. Got it?

If you're watching on TV, the first down is often represented by a bright yellow line superimposed on the field. If the team advances the ball to that line, it's a first down. Some network genius thought this made the games easier to follow, but personally, I find it distracting.

The confusing stuff

Punts. Say the quarterback was stopped for no gain on that last play. It's 4th down and 4 yards to go. If we don't make those four yards, the other team gets the ball right here on the 41, which is a disaster. For this reason, teams usually elect to punt (kick) the ball to the other team on fourth down, which moves the ball an additional 40 yards or so—in this case lengthening the distance they have to advance the ball from 41 to 81 yards.

Penalties. If a player breaks a rule, the refs assess a penalty that adversely adjusts the down and distance. For example, if an offensive player illegally grasps a defender, that's called "holding." The penalty: you replay the down, but the offense has ten more yards to go than before. So if Plaxico Burress is caught holding on 3rd down and 1 yard to go, it's now 3rd and 11 and Steeler fans are building a Plaxico effigy. The penalty adjustments vary wildly; just listen to the ref.

"...and goal."If the team advances the ball to within 10 yards of the end zone, sometimes no first down is possible. This is indicated by the announcer saying "and goal" instead of the distance to the next first down. So if the Steelers run the ball 20 yards to the 9 yard line, it's 1st and goal from the nine. After they run for one yard, it's 2nd and goal from the 8. And so on.

The orange stakes. If you look on the sideline, you'll see two failed jocks holding orange stakes, which are connected by a 10-yard chain. One stake denotes where the set of downs began, and the other stake denotes where the team has to advance the ball to achieve a new first down. So the team is always playing between them, right? Wrong. This is perfectly true...until penalties are applied and the team backs up so far that they're playing outside the two stakes. It confuses people, but now you know what's happening.

Next week: making insightful comments during a game

posted by john at 06:22 PM  •  permalink

August 17, 2005

for terrell owens haters

Man, you have to love the ingenuity of football fans.

posted by john at 07:04 PM  •  permalink

July 20, 2005

of poker and poseurs

Milhouse, to his classmates, on their excitement over Bart having brought his dog to show and tell:

I knew the dog before he came to class!

We've all been there. You were the one who was watching Seinfeld in 1991, when it was ranked 85th in ratings and in perpetual peril of cancellation. Or it was some other trend you were in front of, a trend whose subsequent wild popularity you came to resent. I, myself, was watching Dave Chappelle from word go and have no need to borrow your Season One DVD, thank you very kindly, fucking poseur, sir.

But nothing prepared me for poker becoming a fad. Just three years ago, poker was my secret shame. It was just me engaged in battle with a bunch of smelly old coots in some smoky back room, while my friends were flirting with skanks over the roulette and blackjack tables. If another player under the age of 40 sat down at the table, we would silently nod to one another. It was that rare for there to be two of us. Poker was lethally uncool. No one understood the url of this web site, let alone asked me to sell it to them. I couldn't scare up a game. Casinos were closing my favorite poker rooms for lack of interest. And then along came TV poker.

You know the rest. It's everywhere. But there's a catch: as TV pretty much only televises no limit hold 'em, this is the only game young poseurs ever want to play. These are the Nobel laureates for whom "No Limit Hold 'Em Poker Chips" are marketed. No, there's no difference in chips whatsoever, but they don't know that. They just throw 'em in their carts next to the "Zero-Carb Beef." There's a great psychological study to be found in the monkey-seeism of all this, but for me, I mostly care that a game I don't enjoy enough to play all the time has taken over the poker universe. Worse, though, are the new players. Three years ago, if an old coot beat my hand, he'd growl something wry and funny and maybe even self-deprecating. "Son, you didn't lose to me. You lost to seven weeks' worth of due." It was like something out of a Clint Eastwood movie. No more. Now we have whoops, hollas, high fives, choreographed dances, and moronic smack talk about the intelligence of other players. There goes the neighborhood. They disrespect the game and its players, and I can't stand to play anymore.

I was out on my boat, also named the CheckRaise, when I was boarded by a state wildlife officer. Odd, considering that I wasn't fishing. Crew-cut, young, stupid, and eager to be liked, he spoke in excited all caps. "ARE YOU A NO LIMIT HOLD EM PLAYER, TOO? I'M A NO LIMIT HOLD EM PLAYER! I LOVE NO LIMIT HOLD 'EM!"

Uh-huh. Say, would you be a dear and hand me that filet knife?

posted by john at 07:45 AM  •  permalink

June 23, 2005

spurs win!

I'd like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to San Antonio Spurs fans. I'd like to, but I don't know any.

posted by john at 09:55 PM  •  permalink

January 01, 1800

egger and d ride again

Originally published April 12, 2005

d'Andre contacted me last week. He's coming. And I'm increasingly nervous.

If we talked more than twice a decade, I'd call him one of my oldest friends. But we don't, so I won't. He was my neighbor several lifetimes ago, in an apartment complex far, far away. None of us had any money. That was a given. We were all on the downside of advantage, yet that was easily the happiest, tightest-knit neighborhood in which I've ever lived—even for the polka dot, the piñata, the prematurely balding white guy saddled with the nickname "Egger." I'm not going to repeat them here and just give friends ammo, but trust that I am among the leading authorities on "cracka" jokes in any hemisphere. The unremitting verbal abuse I took was never hostile—it was affectionate, even—yet I'd be lying if I said I was completely at ease with my status.

Which, if I might digress, was a growth experience for me. I've tried many times to articulate this, and I don't know that I've ever succeeded. It begins with there being no "white experience" comparable to the set of unifying common experiences that members of a minority group share. A wealthy Vietnamese-American man in Fresno will have a base set of experiences in common with an impoverished Vietnamese immigrant girl in Louisiana; for all their differences, they deal with the same stuff every day of their lives, and they understand that they have this link. They're of the same tribe. People outside the tribe can achieve acceptance, but the very nature of tribes is such that they'll never achieve inclusion. (A nested digression: for my money, "8 Mile" was pure fantasy. If I'd tried to co-opt a black identity like that, scoffing rejection would have been the best response I could have hoped for. Acceptance starts within; your only hope for acceptance is to be who you were born.) Anyway, for whatever reasons—being in the majority probably chief among them—white Americans don't have that unifying sense of identity, of tribe. We don't think of ourselves or each other as white unless made to. It just isn't naturally a part of our self-image. It flat-out doesn't cross our minds. It doesn't come up. Where the growth came in, then, is that for better and worse, I became hyperaware of my racial identity. It's healthy business for someone in the majority to taste being a minority, and during this time I saw myself as white, as excluded, as different, morning noon and night. And I had lots of help with seeing that. Lots and lots. My chops were busted, my chain yanked, my buttons pressed, my goat gotten, my balls busted, and my place, um, me, um, put in.

Wrote myself into a corner, there.

Now I don't mean to say that I was targeted for exclusion, or verbally abused more than anyone else, or a victim who didn't himself dish out abuse. Trust me; I wasn't. We were gleefully unemployed young men with too much time on our hands, and in the grand tradition of that species, we invested more energy into not working than any job has demanded of me since. We watched girls. We watched one another's girls. When there were no girls, who oddly enough seemed to have jobs that occupied much of their time, we talked about watching girls. We balled, of course. We held great socially conscious debates like Terminator vs. Predator and Magic vs. Michael. We repaired one another's junk-heap cars, each of us having our specialty. (I was the "repairing brakes without paying to have your rotor turned like it really should be" guy.) We swapped car parts freely, the theory being that between us, we owned a single functional Frankencar. We played chess and dominoes, we schemed about how to earn money by playing basketball poorly all day, and after playing basketball we watched cartoons while eating cereal on my girlfriend Maddie's new couch juuuust as she was coming home from work. (How many times do I have to say I'm sorry?) But mostly, we sat around and crafted insults. Nothing was out of bounds; no little difference, no wart, was above public examination. The sober guys insulted the stoners. The stoners insulted the crackheads. The taller guys insulted the shorter ones. The guys who were going to college insulted those who didn't, and vice versa. The guys who didn't live with their mothers insulted the guy who did. The guy who was fired by UPS insulted the guy who was fired by USPS. The guys with acne insulted the fat guys. The young guys insulted the old guys. The white guy insulted the Mexican guy. And everyone insulted the white guy.

Yes, d'Andre is coming.

About five years older than most of us, he gradually assumed a role of elder statesmen. The perks of high office: no one ate more of my cereal, no one made more cracka jokes, and no one else decided that Egger'd taken enough abuse for today. He might publicly and mercilessly skewer me, but he'd be damned if others did, not on his watch. I was his boy. Or maybe just his personal punching bag. I'm not sure there's even a difference.

The single funniest ad lib I have ever heard spilled from his lips.

"Hey Egger, can you put on a hat?" he says as we jog back on defense.

"Why?"

"The glare off your head is really messin' with my jump-shot." Much snickering ensures.

"Baldists," I shoot back pathetically.

When d'Andre feigns offense, he always asks a question twice.

"Baldist? Baldist?!" He puts his hands on his hips and affects an exaggerated white dialect. "I am nothing of the kind."

More snickering. He continues.

"I like bald people."

The laughter builds.

"There's good ones."

The crowd roars its approval, waiting for the kill.

"I have bald friends."

Complete pandemonium.

I honestly don't remember finishing that game. I do remember grown men propping one another up as they laughed and flicked tears off their cheeks. Hell, I'm still tearing up, just writing about it. This was fairly typical of our dynamic, which is to say he generally got the best of it.

Until.

One glorious day, we climbed into his car, he turned the key, and the CD player resumed playing what he was last listening to. Realizing simultaneously the significance of the moment, we listened and stared straight ahead at crows picking through a dumpster. Finally I spoke.

"D?"

"Yeah."

"Is that Careless fuckin' Whisper?"

He started backing the car out of its parking space.

"I wish I was dead."

And thus was my go-to punchline born, a veritable nuclear warhead added to my arsenal. Andrew Ridgley and wake-me-up-before-you-go-go jokes would soon abound. Once I'd beaten him to death with it, I dug him back up and beat him some more.

The last time we talked, I called him after five years of silence and asked for a favor, a monstrously unreasonable favor.

"Hey, d. It's John."

[Complete silence]

"We ran at Mesa Ridge?"

[uncomfortable fidgeting]

"You know," I cringed. "Egger."

"SNOWFLAAAAKE!"

"No two are alike! Still, I'm touched you remember me," I said through grit teeth.

"Remember? Remember?! Man, we still  talk about the time you blocked a brother's shot."

"Hey, it wasn't just—"

"Damndest thing I ever saw."

"— the one ti—"

"We never let that sorry sumbitch play again."

What, did he have this material on a legal pad next to the phone for five years, just in case I called?

And thus did I lose control of the conversation. Just like old times. But in the end, the man followed my now-ex Maddie's sleazy boyfriend for two days, confirming suspicions that he was not only cheating on her but with her—he was married, with kids, and even had another girlfriend on the side. d'Andre didn't even consider not performing this garish favor. He remembered Maddie being kind to him, and that was all the incentive he needed. What a sense of honor, of loyalty. Can you imagine? After five years? Hell, my current friends groan about getting on a ferry to see me once a year if I pay.

d'Andre is coming. Yeah! No! Excitement and anxiety.

Yes, this summer my old friend and antagonist, the man after whom I named the older brother character in my screenplay, is visiting Seattle. I'm excited to see him, but man, are my old excluded-outsider insecurities ever getting inflamed. Those little differences I used to be ridiculed over?

They've grown. A lot.

I think it's safe to say that no one from that old neighborhood has seen their lifestyle change as much as mine has, which does not bode well for when ol' Egger is put under a microscope this summer. Every square inch of my life is packed with ripe comedic fodder. Katrina did not exactly help my anxiety level.

"What's he going to say when he sees Metamuville?" (white population: 104%)

"[unintelligible groaning]  Probably something with 'saltine-assed' in it."

"What about your gay man's kitchen and all the doilies in your guest room?"

"Holy crap. I am so toast."

"If he breaks your designer speckle-glass soap dispenser," she giggled, "Will you make him pay the $130?"

"Oh sweet christ."

"Will you tell him you accidentally gave Bill Russell the finger in traffic last winter?"

"Hell  no."

"Don't forget your purebred English Springer Spaniel on her princess bed."

"Right. I'll kennel her."

"And Percy."

I hadn't thought of that. d'Andre is going to meet Percy. Yep, death would be so sweet right about now.

In the meantime, I'll continue to fervently pray that sometime in the last 13 years, d'Andre sold out, too.

posted by john at 12:00 AM  •  permalink