The Super Bowl was a great football game. Forget who won and who lost and all that stuff; it was a well-played game between two excellent teams that was never a two-score game. One can lament the outcome if one is a Pats’ fan or if one had a significant amount of money on the Pats or the OVER or for various and sundry other reasons, but it was still a good football game.
A few quick observations about the game as it appeared on TV:
Jordin Sparks sang the National Anthem. Until yesterday, I had never heard the name Jordin Sparks. Yesterday, I learned that her mother was “spelling-challenged”.
Gatorade’s slogan, “Is it in you?” is not particularly appropriate for the Super Bowl. In that game the key question about Gatorade ought to be, “Is it ON you?”
Someone in the FOX game production/direction hierarchy made a quick and excellent association. After what turned out to be the winning TD, they went back and called up tape of that exact play in practice before the game. Kudos to the person(s) who made that happen.
For a game that was close all the way through and one that meant so much, could there have been less crowd noise? I think the peak decibel level yesterday has been matched at WNBA games.
In one way, Eli Manning and Plaxico Burris saved the sportswriters for the NY tabloids a whole lot of grief. When the Giants won that game, it took those sportswriters off the hook for what was going to be a very difficult assignment. If the Giants had lost, think about the contorted logic those folks would have had to go through to find a way to blame all of this on Alex Rodriguez. After all, he is the cause of just about everything else that goes wrong in NY sports that does not have Jim Dolan’s DNA on it…
The month of February is one of the “slow times” in sports. Spring training baseball isn’t happening yet; college basketball is on the rise but most folks haven’t paid nearly as much attention to it so far in the season as they will two weeks from now; the NBA and NHL are midway through their eternal regular seasons which are mere preludes to interminable playoffs; football is over [the Pro Bowl is a farce and not football]. But to the rescue – seemingly – comes the US Congress. They have already begun to depose witnesses who will then be heard in open – translation: televised – sessions soon. And those hearings will provide stuff for commentary. It is a rare day indeed when I offer up even a morsel of positive commentary regarding the US Congress but today is one of those days…
I read that this year’s baseball Hall of Fame Game will be the last one. According to MLB, the game will have to yield because of “large scheduling difficulties”. OK, I’ll even suspend my disbelief and accept that as a good, sufficient and even factual reason for canceling the game. Nevertheless, let me point out that the Tampa Bay Rays have – throughout their existence – found it largely difficult to schedule a playoff game. And you don’t see MLB falling all over itself to cancel the playoffs.
The LA Lakers are now a credible contender in the NBA Western Conference. I do not want to try to make out that Pau Gasol is the second coming of Michael Jordan; he is not. However, Pau Gasol is a top-shelf player, that gives the Lakers two of those commodities along with a handful of very good players, and those are the ingredients for serious contenders in the NBA chase. In addition, the Lakers unloaded Kwame Brown whose only real value is that he contract expires this year.
Understand that the Memphis Grizzlies are up for sale and the owner there has to be cutting payroll/expenses to make his books look more attractive to that one person who will take this team off his hands. Frankly, I believe that Memphis’ problem as a cash-flow generator is Memphis itself. Even with John Calipari’s Memphis team atop the college rakings at the moment, Memphis is not a basketball hotbed. Go back to the days of the old ABA and recall the Memphis franchise – one that did not do well at the gate at all – was called the Memphis Tams. That name was not intended to evoke an image of a tightly fitted Scottish cap; “TAMS” was an acronym. The TAMS were supposed to belong to and to draw support from people in Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi. The TAMS did not then and the Griz do not do that all that well now.
Trading Pau Gasol for Kwame Brown and draft picks will make the books look good in the immediate term but the gate problems for the team and any new owner will not change all that much.
In college basketball, Dick Vitale is going to return to ESPN in time to do the UNC/Duke game this weekend. Vitale has been “on the shelf” this season due to surgery on his throat to remove “non-malignant ulcers”. Look, I have no idea what that kind of surgery entails but it does call to mind an old definition that is surely correct:
Minor surgery: Any surgery performed on someone else…
Dick Vitale did so many games in the past that he became annoying because you could not get away from him. Part of his “rehab” reportedly is an instruction from his medical team that he not work on consecutive days. That might be a huge blessing to ESPN viewers. They will get to hear him some of the time and get to be part of his exuberance; at the same time, they will get to watch at least some games where the decibel level is below the “tornado imminent” level.
For those folks who just love Dick Vitale and hope for him to be back at full strength one of these days, there is hope. I read that the doctor who did the surgery on Vitale – Dr. Zeitels – has also treated William Jefferson Clinton. And we do know that President Clinton still has the ability to talk – and talk – and talk – and…
Finally, here is a comment from Scott Ostler in the SF Chronicle:
“Paris Hilton and Matt Leinart. Now Romo and Simpson. It’s part of the NFL’s new program, No Bimbo Left Behind.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…