As I tip my big toe back into the real world after taking an extended celebration of the Christmas/ New Year's Holidays....and not having much ambition or desire to get back in the political trenches for a while...its time for some (DRUM ROLL PLEASE) "Quick Hits"
(1)"Unreal World World of Sports, Pt1". I'm a fan of WFAN (New York) radio's Mike Francesa, even though he'll take a shot at a person or a sports team that I might might think as being fair. And, to be candid, I did refer to his show on these pages as being a "bully pulpit with bully being the operative word". That was probably after he slammed Rutgers for some reason- he can't help himself; it must be in his DNA.
But I find myself agreeing with Mike 95% of the time. Yesterday Francesa made a plea to the BCS and the NCAA- enough of stretching the BCS bowls past New Year's Day through the next week until the BCS Championship Game in the first week of January.
This year the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl were both played on New Year's Day, last Friday. There were several lower tier bowl games on Saturday (the International, the PapaJohn's.com, and the Chick-fil-A), and Sunday was the last day of the regular NFL season. The BCS games resumed on Monday with a great Fiesta Bowl won by Boise State over TCU, and Tuesday gave us the Orange Bowl, another entertaining game where Iowa beat Georgia Tech.
Sadly....few people really cared about those last two games. They were lost in the shuffle of the pairings for the upcoming NFL playoffs, decided on Sunday. These games were supposed to be showcase events leading up to Thursday's championship game between Texas and Alabama. The idea was to let these games stand alone as a reward- and a showcase- for the programs involved. Instead, the opposite has seemed to happen- apathy from the sports world with the exception of only the most die hard college football fans.
Back in the day the major bowl games were all held on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. By midnight on New Year's Day, we had an idea who the new champion of college football was going to be, even though they were unofficial titles bestowed by the Associated Press and United Press International (later by USA Today and by the Coaches' Poll). New Year's Eve and New Year's Day were all about college football- it was like a second Christmas for the college football junkie, it was the time we looked forward to all season.
And by tampering with this imperfect system, the Lords of College Football have managed to diminish the product they sought to extol. By stretching the BCS bowls past January 1 the NCAA and the BCS blundered badly. Playing major bowl games on the day after the day after the day after New Year's they managed to marginalize these games. There are 12 teams alive in the NFL for the post season, and January belongs to the NFL- college football becomes a footnote, with the exception of the championship game, which serves as a diversion for the NFL fans until Wild Card Weekend.
The BCS needs to return its four non championship games to their original home, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Play the Fiesta and the Sugar on December 31st, and the Rose and Orange on Jan 1st. Then play the BCS Championship game on the first Monday after New Year's Day, or the Monday after the Sunday the NFL season concludes. This would restore the tradition to the games that they have known for decades. If its all about TV ratings, and the greed and poor judgement of corporate sponsors...and I suppose it is...this will never be remedied.
And that's unfortunate.
(2) As far as the BCS championship game. I'm picking the Texas Longhorns to beat the Alabama Crimson Tide 27-17.
Why?
Very simply, I like Texas coach Mack Brown a lot. And I don't care much for 'Bama Coach Nick Saban at all.
Hey, if you want in depth analysis, go to ESPN.com.
Those guys are a helluva lot smarter than me.
(3)"The Unreal World of sports, Part 2"- Today on Mike and Mike on ESPN radio Greeny and Golic had a minor debate about fans and the craziness attributed to them. Golic, a former NFL player, didn't seem to "get it"....fans really think they can change the outcome of a game from their actions- and Greeny concurred.
What Mike Golic doesn't understand its about karma, or the Butterfly Effect, or alternate universes and quantum physics- I know this because I believe this myself. For example, if I'm at my computer while watching the Yankees on TV, I have to stay there until the conclusion of the game, because if I don't give them my full support from my seat in my computer room, the space/time continuum will be totally messed up, and they'll lose because I wasn't where I was supposed to be.
Yankee fans worldwide will be up in arms, and it would be my fault.
If I go to a Rutgers football or basketball game and they win, I must wear the same clothes I wore to the game to the the next game to keep the karma going. If the weather turns colder I'll wear the original clothes under a layer of outerwear. And if I do this and they lose, it can't be my fault....its because one of the 50,000 other fans didn't wear the same clothes from last week.
But just to be on the safe side, after each loss I'll change outfit, and repeat the process until we have an appropriate winning streak going.
Yeah, I know how weird it sounds. But it could be much worse. Take, for example, another WFAN personality, Joe Benigno. Joe B is an avid Knicks, Rangers, Mets, and Jets fan- and he has said on air there is a curse on him. He believes his love for his teams is the source of much of the agony he experiences on this earth.
If you're a sports fan, you "get it".
The Buddha once said "Life is suffering".
The Enlightned One must have been a Mets fan.
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