12:15 PM A man who was arrested for streaking across Busch Stadium during a St. Louis Cardinals game Thursday night said he did it because he lost a bet.
11:30 AM Amid rumors that he bought Lawrence Taylor's Super Bowl XXV ring in an auction, Charlie Sheen tweeted Friday: "As much as I would be honored to own such an important artifact ... I had nothing to do with the acquisition."
It’s not quite the postgame classic that “I’m going to Disney World!” is, but across recent years, Cadillac has steadily made its delivery of the Super Bowl MVP’s Cadillac of his choice an annual staple, in both the Super Bowl and World Series. Well, this year the postgame car delivery service was conspicuously absent, and there may be a perfectly legitimate conspiracy theory behind it: GM just doesn’t want to be shown giving away free cars with the taxpayers’ bailout money.
(Cadillac may downgrade to toy Escalades for future MVPs.)
It’s been a few days since the whole Michael Phelps bong-gate exploded onto the scene, and the reaction has been overwhelmingly this: So?
(”Dude, I think I’m seeing robots”)
Well, now some people are wondering why it is exactly that everyone is giving Phelps a pass, especially the sponsors who pay him millions to represent their brands. This is a guy who was arrested for DUI in 2004 and now has been shown in public using an illegal drug (whether or not the drug should be illegal or the level of outrage that pot use should inspire is not the issue here). And it’s not like sponsors were overly harsh about this. If anything, they’ve been downright supportive.
The WASHINGTON POST’S Michael Wilbon isn’t really having it, and wrote a column critical of Phelps’ defenders that, to his credit, wasn’t filled with hyperbolic overreaction to the pot use itself:
There should be zero tolerance for (drinking and driving), and Phelps doesn’t get a pass for that, nor for his bong hit. The latter, in and of itself, certainly isn’t heinous. But it is stupid, given what’s at stake. And everybody excusing it, Sally, doesn’t help Phelps get the message that he’d better be careful and vigilant. Being granted a pass at every turn usually breeds a sense of being bulletproof, as we saw in the much more serious case of Michael Vick, who actually squandered $100 million or more. And Phelps isn’t cast in the role of bad boy or tough guy. His marketing representatives have set him up to be the guy who walks the straight-and-narrow.
According to the police report, Holmes was cooperative and contrite. He wasn’t belligerent. He readily owned up to his mistake.
Holmes admitted to the Miami Herald a few days before the Super Bowl that as a teenager he sold drugs on a street corner near his Florida home. He thought it was time that he publicly acknowledged the poor decisions of his youth.
Maybe it would serve as an example to others at that age doing the same things because they don’t believe there’s a lawful alternative to changing their lives.
Applying the new Phelps standard for decorum when busted, shouldn’t Holmes get a free pass because he has fully acknowledged his sins and appears repentant?
A couple of months ago, I made the now ridiculous claim that North Carolina might win all of their basketball games this year. And even though I was off there, why have the Heels suddenly fallen off the radar? Sure, they lost two games, but there’s no indication that they are no longer the most talented team in the country. They’ve fought their way back up to the #3 ranking again and blasted Maryland 108-91 last night at the Dean Dome. UNC and Duke play their first of three games (because, let’s be honest, they’re playing each other in the ACC final) a week from tonight.
Manny Ramirez has turned down the Dodgers’ one-year offer of $25 million. Frank McCourt says he still wants Manny back, but concedes that eventually they’ll have to move on (perhaps to Adam Dunn and others). If talks fall through in L.A., who’s left? San Francisco seems to be the only other team willing to enter the discussion, now that Brian Cashman has said that the Yankees are done spending.
• The DAILY MAIL says that David Beckhamneeds to stay in Europe to have any chance of playing for England in the 2010 World Cup, because coming back to MLS would apparently make him regress as a player so much as to become completely worthless in international competition.
(This Milan fan might be willing to convince Becks to stay in Europe)
• IT’S METS FOR ME congratulates Omar Minaya for bidding against himself to sign Oliver Perez for $36 million when it looked like nobody else was prepared or willing to offer him anywhere near that much. In other news, the Mets are out of the Manny Ramirez sweepstakes.
At least the Mets still have all that money Bernie Madoff’s been taking care of for them.
• If you’re going to come out of the stands to attack a referee, you probably should make sure the guy isn’t also a state trooper. Patrick Rempala didn’t do his homework, and now is charged with battery and resisting arrest after attacking the trooper/ref at a high school game in Indiana, so says the AP.
• A Manchester United supporter riding a bus home from Man U’s road win over West Bromwich really needed to pee, so he decided to go to the bathroom in the back of the bus. Unfortunately, he didn’t know the lay of the bus very well, because he opened the emergency exit, fell out, and then was hit and killed by a car. The guy was drunk, of course. UPI has the story.
If you thought Super Bowl XLIII was exciting on its own, you should have seen it in Tucson.
(Hey! That’s not Larry Fitzgerald!)
According to the ARIZONA DAILY STAR, viewers in Tucson, right in the heart of Cardinals country, had the climactic moments of Sunday’s Super Bowl extravaganza co-opted by a cable porn network called CLUB JENNA, the pay-per-view TV station started by porn star Jenna Jameson. But wait, there’s more: The 30-second clip that ran over Pittsburgh’s fourth-quarter heroics showcased a woman unzipping a man’s pants and then, you know, some very athletic moves of a different sort.
“I just figured it was another commercial until I looked up,” said Cora Kingof Marana.“Then he did his little dance with everything hanging out.”
“I was in a state of shock,” said Jeanene Piek, who was watching the game with her granddaughter. “I am totally disgusted.”
Before you think this was a freak cable-crossing that only hit a few homes, check out the Comcast data. The overlay affected all viewers in the cable provider’s reach that were watching the game on its regular definition feed (the HD version wasn’t effected, perhaps as another incentive to go buy a better set). Comcast provides cable to at least 80,000 homes in the Tuscon area, so it’s safe to say that some 40,000 Super Bowl parties got an pretty unhappy ending, both on the screen and then on the field.
(Yup. Still Jenna Jameson. Not Fitzgerald. Thought we’d check.)
Not surprisingly, Comcast has already dispatched customer service reps to handle a huge influx of calls. And what’s the company line right now?
The company had “no idea” at the time it happened how the porn may have gotten into its feed, said Kelle Maslyn, a Comcast spokeswoman.
Might want to get on that, Kelle. The word is out, and Comcast is about to have some explaining — and probably some firing — to do.
For the rest of the country, there was no porny ending to overshadow a terrific game. And for the second-straight year, the Super Bowl was an instant classic, handing the lucky American public a game will be remembered for an unbelievable, final-minute catch by a wide receiver.
A year after Plaxico Burress easily pulled down a game-winning grab moments after David Tyree pulled in the catch heard ’round the world, Santonio Holmes did his best Tyree impression, grabbing a fading ball in the corner of the end zone for the game-winner, capping Pittsburgh’s NFL record sixth title.
It was an amazing catch, yet even if he’d dropped it, a catch still would have defined Super Bowl XLIII. As Adam pointed out last night, Larry Fitzgerald Jr.’s heroics will likely be overlooked 50 years from now, thanks in part to a questionable call on the game’s final play. That doesn’t mean his fourth quarter was anything short of transcendent. That he and schmoopy-with-Jesus quarterback Kurt Warner stuck to their crossing pattern guns all game and eventually got the result they wanted and expected is a testament to them and their game plan (Editor’s note: Where were all the trick plays? What happened to that story line?).
Put it all together, and there’s a fascinating trend developing. Maybe, rather than hyping quarterbacks forever in the playoffs, we should really be focusing on wide receivers. Sure, qb’s have to get them the ball, but it’s no coincidence that the Giants, the league’s best team throughout most of ‘08, collapsed after their star pass catcher shot himself in the leg. It’s no surprise that the Cardinals really emerged when Fitzgerald became a world beater after an embarrassing loss in New England. It’s no surprise that the biggest factor in the Steelers’ Super Bowl win — for the second straight Pittsburgh Super Bowl, at that — was an overlooked wide receiver.
So, while there will be plenty of attention lavished on Holmes in the aftermath of Super Bowl XLIII, it’s important to reflect back on the ante-game, a time when people hardly talked about Santonio Holmes being a key receiver full stop. Maybe next year we can all look a little harder at the wide out depth charts when diagnosing what’s really going down.
Of course, the game is always only half the story with the Super Bowl. In fact, sometimes it’s the lesser half. If the game gone the way it looked like halftime, with Pittsburgh rolling to a rout, we might be spending a lot more time right now bemoaning the lack of decent commercials. Because as good as the game was, that’s how bad the record-setting expensive — $3 million for a 30-second spot — ads actually were. There was one pretty clever ad, the punching koala bit for CAREERBUILDER.com, but that would have been a mid-tier commercial in a funnier year. At best.
So what’s happened with advertisers? That’s a good question. It’s always possible that many have cut back on their creative budget, opting to save the money for one or two Super Bowl commercials rather than cleverly crafting their campaigns. Other firms, like Gatorade, launched their new ad campaigns earlier, targeting the BCS as a start date rather than the Super Bowl.
Nonetheless, something needs to be done to make the ads a heck of a lot more watchable. Where are the clever creators of cat wrangling when you need them? Where’s this year’s “Wassssuuuuuuuuup!” The answer, dear friends, is nowhere to be found.
In fact, this year’s ads were nowhere near as interesting or cool as the halftime show. For once, a performance lived up to the hype, with Bruce Springsteen attacking a miniature four-jam set with much of the gusto and zest that he’s been known for throughout his career. You could feel it coming from the moment our fearless leader leaked the Boss’s set list earlier in the day and there was no “Born in the U.S.A” to be found on it. Clearly, this was the act Springsteen wanted to do. He was going to rock the Super Bowl, but he was going to rock it on his terms.
The lesson, as always, is to trust in Bruce. Not only was Springsteen so captivating that you couldn’t take your eyes off him, he transmitted the energy from his live shows over to TV. That’s quite a trick. And nothing can top his half-stage power slide right into a cameraman, a move which decked an unsuspecting film crew member without slowing Bruce for a second.
Now for the bad news: That’s probably the last we’ll see of Bruce in a Super Bowl. The NFL had begged him to steal the league’s biggest halftime stage for years, and he took a solid decade to accept the pulpit, and only grabbed it then (in all likelihood) to pimp his new album. You know what? With Bruce, we’ll take it. Still, with the E Street Band rapidly reaching their golden Metamucil era, it’s unlikely Springsteen and co. will be willing to take such public jaunts in the spotlight in the future, which just means everyone should try to commit as much about yesterday’s halftime to memory as humanly possible. Hey, we know that we will.
The game hadn’t even started before the first free agent rumors and rumblings got going, and not surprisingly one of the hot names was Kurt Warner. So what will the near two-time Super Bowl champ be asking for? Try a two-year deal with a cellar of $18 million. Ouch.
There’s suddenly evidence that UFC champion Georges St. Pierre, coming off a truly dominant win over Brian Penn, may have gotten an edge from his trainer to win the bout. What did the cut man do? Slather him with vaseline. That’s gross, unsanitary and illegal. Ewwwww.
Does anyone understand this Jack In The Box ad? We didn’t, and neither did FANHOUSE.
The campaigns have already begun: Please Cardinal fans, don’t be the new Seahawks. It’s not worth it.
Remember the magician who almost drowned at an Oklahoma City Thunder game? Here’s the video of the near disaster.
The mainstream American media delay on the Michael Phelps bong hit? Yeah, it was only a single day. Oh, and according to THE WASHINGTON POST, the swimmer won’t face any sanctions, despite basically admitting he smoked. Seems like a double standard, doesn’t it?
If there was any question that the Barcelona-backed Miami entry is your clubhouse leader for MLS expansion, here’s your proof: the team already has a logo.
Speaking of soccer, today is the official finale to the transfer window in England. Think of the trade deadline, except 10 times more random and expensive. Good times. You can follow all the craziness here.
Well, those last 10 minutes were some kind of insane, weren’t they? In a game that went from snoozefest to slugfest down the wire, the Steelers were the last team standing, winning 27-23 after a last-minute touchdown grab by Santonio Holmes that will undoubtedly rank among the best plays in Super Bowl history.
Holmes’ grab, seen above, came with just 35 seconds on the clock, wiping out a remarkable comeback by the Cardinals that had been capped by an insane 73-yard touchdown pass from Kurt Warner to Larry Fitzgerald Jr. Now, we assumed that would be the final score, since we and the Warners always thought that comebacks were kind of Jesus’s “thing,” you know. And really, the comeback card was still in play… until game officials took it off the table with just five ticks on the clock. Read more…
Deciding to listen to Tim McCarver blather his way through World Series commentary on TV or turning the sound down and listening to the dulcet, confused tones of Joe Morgan on the radio is like choosing between swallowing broken glass or sliding down a razor blade hill - both choices hurt. But I went with the radio guys for Game 2, mainly because of Jon Miller. And as usual, Morgan got stuck on a mantra he kept repeating over and over throughout the game, this time about the Phillies’ not being able to hit with runners in scoring position.
Unlike many of his obsessions, he actually was right about this. But it doesn’t take a Hall of Famer to know that hitting 1-for-15 in a game (and 1-for-28 for the Series) is bad. And while they were able to find a way past the Rays in Game 1, they couldn’t on Thursday, as Tampa Bay held on for a, frankly, uninspiring 4-2 win to tie the Series at one game each.
Anyone who kept claiming that this was going to be the most entertaining Series possible can shut up now - of course Red Sox vs. Dodgers would have been more fun, and it couldn’t have been played at a more average level. This Series is less sizzling through two games as it is melting. At least we have things headed over to Philadelphia, where I’m sure the fans will be in fine spirits. Enjoy the trips, Rays!
Meanwhile, Auburn was busy just plain fizzling against West Virginia, as Noel Devine made “SEC speed” seem like a stoner going 20 miles per hour on his way to Taco Bell for some munchies. It was big run after big run, as Devine wound up with 207 yards rushing as the Mountaineers throttled the Tigers 34-17.
Think the fact that a supposedly “quality” SEC team just got waxed by an underachieving Big East squad will lead anyone to start questioning the conference’s credentials? Nah, didn’t think so either.
The BOSTON GLOBE has a new online Adidas ad featuring Kevin Garnett taking a group of kids on a tour of the Garden and the city. It’s a good thing several people happened to have video camera to record this clearly spontaneous event.
San Jose State with a piece of college football history? The LOS ANGELES TIMES says so, as the Spartans’ “Nacho Brothers” are the first siblings to lead college football in statistical categories during the same season (in this case, tackles for loss and interceptions).
ESPN says that Florida has exonerated EliteXC of any wrongdoing in Kimbo Slice’s loss to Seth Petruzelli. I’m sure the owners will be thrilled once word reaches them in the poorhouse.
It’s the end of the road for Allan Houston’s comeback, as the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS says he’s been cut by the Knicks and offered a role in the front office. Because he knows a lot about how to watch out for ridiculous contracts.
