Columnist tosses final darts at Super Bowl
Darting here and there …
Maybe they should just put all the Super Bowl players in a pool and draft them like the NBA All-Star Game. There has to be something we can do to inject some excitement into Patriots-Eagles in Minneapolis.
Or here’s another idea: How about letting Justin Timberlake perform for four quarters, then let Philly and New England duke it out at halftime?
OK, yeah, that might just be a tad too much Timberlake. He’d probably be pulling material from his ’N Sync days.
This has to be the most boring Super Bowl matchup since Browns-Lions. Right. Of course. Neither franchise has ever made it to the Super Bowl, just testing ya. What’s amazing, though, is those two teams killed it in the 1950s, playing each other four times in the NFL Championship Game.
A couple of those games were really boring, too. The Browns beat the Lions 56-10 in 1954. In 1957, the Lions beat the Browns 59-14. But at least there weren’t a dozen Budweiser commercials in those days.
We still can’t believe the Vikings gagged a chance at a home Super Bowl, and badly. The 49ers still come the closest to that, playing Miami at Stanford in 1985’s Super Bowl XIX triumph.
Yes, the 1979 Los Angeles Rams did play Super Bowl XIV in their home market at the Rose Bowl, but the distance was greater to their home stadium, the Coliseum … plus, they lost, to the Steelers.
We’re already getting into Super silliness: ESPN. com is sizing up Tom Brady vs. Michael Jordan in some kind of Greatest of All-Time team sport tale of the tape. What? Seriously?
If we want to play that game, we’ll still take Babe Ruth – he won seven championships, three as a pitcher and four as a hitter, and was the greatest baseball player ever covering a time span of about 170 years. If you’re going to judge all-time, you’d better go back farther in time than 1990.
There’s that Wayne Gretzky guy, too. He might have a say in that GOAT size-up.
In the final Hall of Fame accounting, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens didn’t emerge very Chipper. We predict 2022 for both, their last shot through the BBWAA. Coincidentally, 2022 is also the year Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz become eligible. That’ll be, er, juicy.
Baseball Gods At Work Dept.: Tough for Edgar Martinez to miss by 19 votes, but look at it this way. He’ll go into Cooperstown next year with a guy he owned: Mariano Rivera. Martinez’s career numbers vs. Mariano: 10 for 16 (.625) with 3 doubles, 2 homers. Best by anybody.
Then again, there was former Giant Aubrey Huff against Rivera: 8 for 19 (.429), also with a couple of homers. How could the Huffster not get a single vote in his first and last appearance on the Hall ballot?
Perhaps it’s best that Bonds waits to go in the Hall with Jeff Kent, who continues to gain steam with voters. Would be rich, for sure.
Who cares that the Giants traded for Andrew McCutchen and Austin Jackson. They’re bringing back Chris Heston and Hector Sanchez! Maybe they should put in a call to Timmy, too? Come on, Bobby, back-end rotation.
Time warp dept: Roger Federer playing on Sunday, and Tiger, too.
We can’t wait for the season in which the Warriors wear a different uniform style for every home game. They may be close this year, having added “The Town” and now “The Bay.” The latter is a classy addition, we must say.
Just once, though, before they bolt to San Francisco, we’d love to see them wear one that says “Oakland.”
The A’s, meanwhile, unveiled their 50th anniversary uniform top that got 12 people excited.
The Warriors haven’t played all that well at Oracle Arena this year but that 3-point extravaganza against Minnesota may be a prelude to a real Boston beatdown on Saturday. They seriously owe the Celtics, who have won the last two meetings, three of the last four and the last two at Oracle, a thorough whipping.
We support the Warrior players’ desire to end day-of-game home shootarounds. It’s always seemed pretty dumb to us, shooting around nine hours before a game in a practice facility where you don’t actually play the game.
If only Russell Westbrook had really been one of the last picks in the AllStar draft. That chip on his shoulder would have turned to a log.
LeBron James definitely went for size with Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, DeMarcus Cousins and Kristaps Porzingis. The King is going to look like the Munch-king playing with that group.
Finally, thanks for reading the darting column for the past 30-odd years or so. We’ll be darting out of here with this one, but we’ll find a way to keep in touch.