The Sports Curmudgeon®

News broke this week that ESPN, the NFL and a company called Andell Entertainment will join forces to make a movie about Vince Lombardi. The screenwriter for this undertaking will be the same guy who won an Oscar for Forrest Gump and who also wrote The Horse Whisperer. That’s impressive. Equally impressive is that Robert Di Nero will play Vince Lombardi in this film. The timing for the work calls for the film to be released on the weekend between the NFC and AFC Championship Games and the Super Bowl in 2012. So far, everything points to a successful enterprise – - except for one nagging minor point.

ESPN is involved in this production and I will summarize for you in two words why that has to make you cautious about getting too excited about this movie:

Junction Boys

Anyone who has read more than a few of these rants understands that I have an extremely low regard for the 535 members of the Congress of the United States. Nevertheless, I want to offer them some advice here regarding a way that they can make a simple and positive contribution to the Nation in a totally bi-partisan way. The bi-partisanship they exploit here might be the basis for further cross-aisle agreements on key issues such as whether or not the sun rose in the east yesterday or how to fillet a cod.

The leadership – - and I use that term very loosely here – - in the Congress need to get together this afternoon and pass a piece of legislation that should immediately garner a minimum of 510 of the possible 535 votes. [Remember, five per-cent never get the memo.] Once passed and signed by the President – - in about four nanoseconds – - this new law would be called:

The Banishment of One Shining Moment Act Of 2010.

Immediately, the world would be a better place…

There was an announcement recently that Yankee Stadium would host a college football bowl game starting this year and it will be called the Pinstripe Bowl. The date will be December 30 and it will feature a titanic struggle between the third place team in the Big East against the sixth place finisher in the Big 12. Be still my heart…

Lest anyone believe the thought that went into creating this monstrosity is revolutionary or groundbreaking, I need to inform you that this happened before. I remember the farce of previous Gotham Bowls held in NYC – - but they happened 50 years ago so many folks would not know they ever existed. I had to use Google to get the details, but let me give you the rich and proud history of the Gotham Bowl – now the Pinstripe Bowl:

In 1960, they were supposed to hold the inaugural contest. They ran into one minor problem. They could find only one team (Oregon State) who would accept the invitation to come and play a December football game in NYC. The game was cancelled.

In 1961, the Gotham Bowl matched Baylor and Utah State – - in NYC. Really… Amazingly, they actually got some folks to show up for that game, but not very many. Attendance was announced as 16,000 but you know they “papered the house”.

In 1962, the pairing was Nebraska and Miami (Fla) and 6,000 folks turned out to watch. After this game, the Gotham Bowl died a merciful death.

Here is a fact of life. The big cities of the East Coast (Washington, Baltimore, Philly, NYC, Boston) are major sports markets, but they are not college football hotbeds. Other than Boston College, look at that list of cities and name a single major college football power in or near any of them. [Do not try to convince me that Maryland, Rutgers or UConn fall in that category; they do not.] So, the Pinstripe Bowl organizers are going to need a lot of alums and fans from the rival schools to travel to NYC in December to watch a football game or you will be able to count the house during the telecast.

Presumably, that is why the NYC folks got the Big East involved in their Pinstripe Bowl game. If they get Rutgers or UConn finishing third in the Big East, people could drive to NYC for the game to see the lads play one last game. If Pitt or Syracuse is the Big East representative, there will be some folks who travel to see the game. Perhaps there is a Big 12 school out there that will “excite” the NYC fan base to come out for a cold weather football game? However, here is the disaster scenario:

South Florida versus Iowa State

Marginally better might be:

Louisville versus Baylor.

Chalk this game up as just one more event you can ignore when it comes to scheduling your time between Christmas and New Years Day. You are still free to schedule your hemorrhoid surgery on 30 December…

There was a minor kerfuffle a few weeks ago about Jimmy Johnson (the football coach not the NASCAR guy) endorsing a “male organ enhancement” product. I count myself fortunate that I have only seen the ad one time; “Smiling Bob” was a better ad campaign and pitchman for that kind of product than JJ is. There is always something about these male enhancement products that confuses me:

If these products actually worked, wouldn’t the drug companies that make Viagra and Cialis be making them too?

Moreover, wouldn’t just one of the product development folks at Viagra and Cialis also come up with the idea of putting “male enhancement product” in a single pill along with “low dosage Cialis or Viagra”?

So … why do you think they have not come up with that idea? [No pun intended.]

Finally, Scott Ostler of the SF Chronicle summed up the situation regarding the civil lawsuit filed by Raiders’ coach, Randy Hanson, against Tom Cable and the Raiders:

“Randy Hanson, the reports say, won’t call off his civil lawsuit against the Raiders and Tom Cable unless he gets an apology. No problem. I’m sure Al Davis will call a press conference and beam his apology via overhead projector.

“The civil trial likely will feature the see/hear/speak-no evil testimony of the three Raiders assistant coaches who were in the room when Hanson unobtrusively and mysteriously flew across the room and busted his jaw. And you wonder why Raiders’ coaches can’t spot flaws in team execution?”

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