Tuna Time

I don't know whether Dick McPherson had weekly press conferences when he was head coach of the Patriots. I do know when Bill Parcells succeeded McPherson in 1993, his sessions with the press immediately became appointment radio. Each week we wondered how long the Boston Globe's Ron Borges could poke The Tuna with a stick before the coach lashed back with "That's a STUPID question!"

Thirteen years later, Parcells is still battling it out with the press, and the reporters do their part by continuing to poke him with sticks. Yesterday's scheduled press conference with the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys happened to come the day after the most bizarre incident yet involving The Player, and The Tuna responded with a slightly subpar performance capped off with a flashy dismount. He tried to get though the media frenzy by giving evasive non-answers, but after nine minutes of inane, repetitive questions he finally ending it the way he should have ended it much earlier.

"When I find out what the hell is going on, you will know," The Tuna snapped as he set sail for the exit. "Until then, I am not getting interrogated for no reason."

While I was driving home last night, one of the update guys on ESPN Radio came up with the following: "TO's status for this weekend's game at Tennessee has been updated from 'Suicidal' to 'Probable.'" I started laughing so hard that I nearly drove off the road.

I felt a twinge of shame for laughing at such a tasteless and gratuitous remark, and my sense of revulsion apparently is quite a bit higher than all the folks who helped Jackass II top the box office charts last week. But I'm not going to apologize for celebrating a good Tuna Tirade. Tuna, please never change.

Frankencats

"Allerca has produced the world's first scientifically-proven hypoallergenic cats," the company has announced. "The cat allergen is a potent protein secreted by the cat’s skin and salivary glands. Allerca has focused on naturally occurring genetic divergences (GD) already present in cats that do no harm to the cats in any way."

In other words they use selective breeding to eliminate the undesireable trait. This brings to mind so-called Frankenfood such as genetically-engineered corn which liberal weenies think will lead to the end of civilization. (I belong to several liberal weenie organizations. It's a term of endearment.) Of course Allerca claims that selective breeding is different from genetic engineering, so is perfectly natural and safe.

What about thoroughbred horses? 95% of all thoroughbreds can be traced back to one stallion born in 1700. In New Scientist, Matthew Binns of the Royal Veterinary College in London says many negative traits are associated with inbreeding in the diminutive gene pool. "The selections we've made for fantastic beasts have had some detrimental consequences."

One tenth of thoroughbreds suffer orthopaedic problems and fractures, 10% have low fertility, 5% have abnormally small hearts and the majority suffer bleeding in the lungs, says Binns. His solution? Even more selective breeding to get rid of the negative traits. Even if it's not considered to be genetic engineering, I think it is alarming.

Ask yourself a simple question: What if we were talking about selectively breening humans instead of cats or horses? I'm sure the name of Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele would come up during that discussion. Let's just say NO to creey GE Frankencats!

Actually, the truth is I don't care about how cats and horses are bred. I just don't like irresponsible cat owners. Every once in a while I see one of their little killers lurking under my bird feeder. I read something in the Milwaukee newspaper a few years ago that supposedly-domesticated cats kill millions of birds each year – just in the state of Wisconsin. In my opinion, all domestic cats that kill wild birds are Frankencats, and anything that encourages more people to own cats is bad, in my opinion.

Country singer murders bear

I've gotten up in arms a few times about people thoughtlessly killing bears (Richmond murders, dumps bears, New Jersey sentences bears to death), so I can't let this story pass.

Please don't fill me with arrows!

Some country singer named Troy Lee Gentry has been indicted in Duluth on charges of buying and killing a tame bear. The bear was tagged with a Minnesota hunting license and reported to the state as a wild kill. AP reports:

Authorities allege that Gentry purchased the bear from (Marvin) Greenly, a wildlife photographer and hunting guide, then killed it with a bow and arrow in an enclosed pen on Greenly's property in October 2004.

Gentry's lawyer said Wednesday that the federal indictment was misleading.

"Number one, the bear was not killed in a cage," said Minneapolis lawyer Ron Meshbesher. "The bear was roaming around in a fenced area of several acres, and my client spent almost two hours in a tree stand before he got a clear shot with a bow and arrow."

Oh well, that makes it better. The bear had a chance of dodging a few shots before being cornered and brought down.

Meshbesher said Gentry "is extremely distraught about these allegations. He prides himself as an environmentalist and an avid hunter who respects the fish and game laws of the United States."

I'll bet the proud environmentalist/sportsman told his buddies that he had to track the dangerous beast for 40 miles through thicket and swamp before finally prevailing in a hand-to-paw death struggle. The truth is the pathetic crooner sat up in a tree and took potshots at a tame animal named "Cubby." Yep, he must be real proud.

Even though it's not something I would do, I have nothing against hunting. In particular, a lot of areas would benefit from a culling of the deer population. But cornering a tame bear or blasting hand-raised pheasants as they bolt out of a cage is not hunting. It's just killing, and it's sick.

Update: Gentry pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, paid a $15,000 fine, and was on a whole three months probation. He also lost possession of the stuffed bear. Gentry died in a helicopter crash in 2017. The owner of the property where the bear was shot, Lee Marvin Greenly, pleaded guilty to two related felonies.

Doctors, Lawyers in Deadly Shootout

With the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in full swing this week, I often read quotes that are similar to what I used to hear back in the day. It goes something like this: "You would be surprised to find out how many of these grungy bikers are doctors and lawyers back home."

I don't see the fun in pretending to be a dirtball, but to each his own. People can do whatever they want in their spare time as long as they don't hurt anyone. However, the play-acting got a bit out of hand yesterday in Custer State Park. The vacationing medical and legal professionals (apparently disguised as members of the rival biker gangs Hell's Angels and Outlaws) shot it out at Legion Lake. There were six wounded and two arrests at last report.

Sodom and Gomorrah

In the 1980's, two small western South Dakota towns were faced with tough economic choices. Business leaders in the fading tourist town of Deadwood (population 1,300) hoped to revitalize their Main Street by legalizing low-stakes casino gambling, and in 1988 managed to get the necessary constitutional amendment proposal on the statewide ballot. It's hard to remember now with the explosion of "gaming" (a more digestible term than "degenerate gambling") throughout the country, but back in 1988 only Nevada and Atlantic City had casinos.

The vote went in favor of the amendment, and Deadwood's gaming establishments opened Nov. 1, 1989. I had moved out of the Black Hills five years earlier, but I happened to be back in the area on a work assignment. A group of us headed up to Deadwood that first night, and I remember the temporary tables set up in the Franklin Hotel basement and defunct hardware stores along Main Street. I lost my customary quarter in a slot machine, and watched the others lose at blackjack for the rest of the evening.

Since then permanent facilities have been built, and the town gained free publicity when the foul-mouthed TV series "Deadwood" began airing on HBO. So today Deadwood is a community thriving on gambling and its colorful history of murder, mayhem and prostitution.

Fourteen miles east of Deadwood is the second town that faced a choice: Sturgis (population 6,400), which saw violence flare in 1982 during the annual motorcycle rally. The drinking and debauchery got really crazy in the city park that year. The toilets (which were made of wood) supposedly weren't getting pumped out because the city employees were afraid to go in there, which resulted in the drunken campers rioting and burning all the toilets. A town vote was held to decide whether to continue with the event. I was with the Sturgis newspaper from 1979-84, and before the vote I opined in my weekly column that the event should continue because it was what made Sturgis unique. The referendum narrowly went in favor of continuing the rally.

But to prevent another outbreak of violence the city council decided to prohibit camping in the park, site of the toilet fires. Private biker campgrounds sprung up in dusty pastures outside of city limits. Since then these temporary campgrounds have evolved into the scenes of week-long parties with big-name entertainment. (I guess Sammy Hagar and Alice Cooper are big names.) In my day the motorcycle rally crowds were estimated by the Highway Patrol at 50,000, which in my opinion was overstated by a factor of five (i.e. 10,000). Now the estimate for the Sturgis Rally (which starts next week) is 500,000 bikers; I left Sturgis more than 20 years ago so I don't know if the 5x fudge factor still applies.

This summer, a guy from Arizona developed 600 acres six miles northeast of town into a camping facility called "Sturgis County Line" that will include a huge biker bar and an amphitheater that will seat 30,000 concert goers. (By "seat," I'm sure they mean seated on the ground. It's a pasture 51 weeks out of the year.) You can tell he's from out of town because there is no Sturgis County; it's Meade County.

Native Americans are upset because the campground is within sight of Bear Butte, a solitary mountain just outside the rest of the Black Hills. They say Bear Butte is a sacred site, and the partying bikers will disturb their religious observances. USA Today reports:

"In the past, all the partying was done near town, but now they're going to surround our sacred mountain and desecrate it, drink on it, and leave their trash when they go back to where they came from," says Vic Camp, 31, a Lakota from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

I don't know if religious observances at Bear Butte date back to prehistory as some claim, but they do date back at least to my reporting days. Most of the mountain is a state park. When these observances were revived (or initiated) in the early '80's, the local townsfolk didn't quite understand what was going on, but the Native Americans were left alone to conduct their activities and other visitors were advised not to disturb them.

This year the Meade County Commissioners voted to issue a liquor license to the new campground. There is no zoning in that area, so liquor licenses are one of the few forms of control that the county has over what is done on private land. The Native Americans (and the disturbingly-earnest white people who are their allies) protested issuance of the license, to no avail.

I attended more than my share of Meade County Commissioner meetings, so I claim some understanding of the thought process that went into the decision. Back in my day, most of the commissioners were old ranchers. Although the members changed once in a while, there were always four Republicans and one Democrat. One day a young man with a ponytail walked by the meeting room in the courthouse, presumably on his way to apply for welfare benefits. One of the commissioners commented on the long hair, "I would like to take my pocket knife and cut that thing off." But surely the lone Democrat objected to such insensitivity? No, he was the one who made the comment! These guys were conservatives no matter their party affiliation.

Most of the ranchers I ever met believe they have the right to use their property as they see fit. The commissioners I knew were not proponents of the Rally; to them it was an annual annoyance that meant extra expense for the Sheriff's Department. But to them, zoning was more objectionable than a few drunken bikers, and the current-day commissioners apparently agree. They didn't see any legitimate reason to deny the landowner the right to use his land in the proposed manner, so the liquor license was approved.

The Native Americans have spent (according to the AP) $1.3 million in the last 20 years to buy 2.6 square miles of land around Bear Butte. Under the system of private ownership that the majority of Meade County residents apparently believe in, that's the way for the Native Americans to solve the problem. But the chance to make money by building giant biker bars is bringing in opportunists and driving up land prices. If liberal celebrities are looking for a cause, maybe they should buy up land near Bear Butte and donate it to the Native Americans.

In the '80's and since then, choices have been made in the northern Black Hills. In Deadwood and Sturgis, the course was steered toward gambling, debauchery and biker bars, and a certain level of prosperity has resulted. I doubt my little opinion column in the Sturgis newspaper back in '82 swung any votes, but sometimes I wonder. If a few people had voted differently, next week Sturgis would be a sleepy little town at the turnoff to Deadwood instead of the scene of the wildest party on the face of the Earth. These days, peace and quiet are more appealing to me than drunken partying, so I might write that column differently if I had to do it over.

Eurobutting

What's going on in Europe? First, Frenchman Zinedine Zinane delivers the "Head Butt Heard Round the World" in the World Cup final, then a British jockey head butts a horse. (I won't say what the jockey's last name is but I emphatically deny that I am related to him.)

I blame soccer. Headers are an encouraged tactic in that sport, and it's a short hop from there to head butting. It's obvious that we need to snuff out soccer in the USA before the epidemic of head butting reaches our shores. Here we have a time-honored American way of taking out our frustrations on the field of play – by rifling fastballs at the opponent. Yep, Ozzie Guillen is mad at someone again.

Please children, don't use your heads as projectiles. Throw inanimate projectiles with your arms, as God intended.

Antisocial Golf

There are two kinds of folks in the world – those who golf and those who have better things to do. Although I owned clubs for more than 30 years and occasionally used them, I never had the mindset of the typical golfer. And now there's no doubt that I'm a non-golfer – I gave away my clubs today. They were quite lame clubs, a half set of Spaldings that probably were the cheapest available at the local K-Mart in the mid-70's.

I liked golfing either alone or with my Dad on a rural course with greens fees of $2 a day (Tomahawk Country Club near Deadwood circa 1974), and with no people around to go "tut-tut" if you hit a bad shot and took a mulligan (or three). Such circumstances exist only in memory. My Dad is no longer with us, greens fees are a bit more than $2, and on today's crowded courses only Bill Clinton dares to take three mulligans.

On a typical uncrowded day, my Dad (who took up the game at the same time I did) spent as much time looking for lost balls as he did golfing. Even if he hit it straight down the middle, he would detour into the Black Hills forest to see what he could find. Although he got more fixated on his scoring later on, at first his definition of a successful day on the course was ending up with more golf balls than he started with.

Sometimes even the Deadwood course got busy and we had to form a foursome with strangers. On such a day on a par 3, I skulled my tee shot and it bounced to a stop about halfway to the hole. Since that is what I usually did with my short irons and since it hadn't gone into the woods, I considered it a semi-successful shot. However, one of our new friends decided I would benefit from some of his coaching. I decided that he needed to mind his own business. I'm fairly sure that I'm not coachable.

Later when I lived in Sturgis, I avoided such people by never golfing at the country club. Instead I whacked the ball around the abandoned sand green course at the Fort Meade Veterans Hospital. They mowed the fairways (or maybe "hayed the pasture" would be more accurate) a couple times a year, and the sand greens were completely neglected. It was free, I never saw more than one other person at a time, and I loved it.

A few years later when golfing with my boss on a real course in Sioux Falls, I hooked a drive into the weeds and the urge came over him to attempt some coaching. After imparting his wisdom, he stepped up and hit a shot twice as bad as mine. Ah, memories! I consider that one of the top moments of my golfing "career." When golfing with my co-workers, if I was having my usual bad round I would just stop keeping score. I knew I was awful and would never participate in any wagering. Because of this (and my complaints about being forced to get up before dawn on a weekend) they didn't invite me very often.

When I moved East, the sticks came along but the only use they ever saw was a couple of trips to the driving range. I never invested the time and money necessary to become a better golfer. (I never owned a pair of golf spikes!) With the cost of equipment, ugly lime green pants, silly shoes, gambling losses and travel, it can quickly add up to serious cash. Paying to play poorly in front of other people with more people waiting impatiently behind is not my idea of fun.

Being a cheap, antisocial golfer hasn't been easy, so now it's a tremendous relief to officially join the ranks of the non-golfers.

Pedro Classic

Pedro returns to Fenway this evening to pitch for his new team, the Metropolitans. Everyone who saw Pedro at the height of his powers with the Red Sox has their favorite memories, and mine are two games I attended during his monster season of 1999. I wrote about them on my web site, named at the time Squeezebunt.com. (I gave up that domain name when I was able to get BaseballArizona.com.)

The first game was on a weekend in April 1999 when I happened to catch a Cubs game at Wrigley on Friday before returning home to see the Red Sox host the Indians. Pedro was matched up against Bartolo Colon and was leading in the ninth inning:

After Martinez gave up a run with two outs in the ninth inning to make the score 3-2, Manager Jimy Williams made a visit to the mound but decided to let his ace finish the game. With closer Tom Gordon on the disabled list, it seemed like the right decision. With cheers of "Pedro, Pedro" echoing through Fenway, Dave Justice whiffed on strike three to end the game. High fives all around.

Varitek congratulates Pedro

My second game was Pedro's last start of the 1999 regular season, his 23rd victory. The victim this time was the Orioles, 5-3:

A Pedro game at Fenway is different because most of the excitement comes in the top of innings when the visiting team is at bat. After every strikeout, the "K" signs go up and the running total is chanted in Spanish, "unos, dos, tres...." (Unfortunately I can't count past three in Spanish and I don't even know if that small sample is spelled right.) After getting a few early runs, the Fenway fans kept themselves amused during the bottom of innings by taunting right fielder Albert Belle. A perfect night at the old ballyard.

Pedro's 1999 postseason featured the epic six perfect innings in a relief appearance against the Indians, and a win head-to-head over Roger in the next round against the Yankees. However, that was only only win against the Yankees in that series. The Red Sox had to wait another five years to kill the Yankees and The Curse, and Pedro was a part of that. A win in Game 3 of the 2004 World Series was his last appearance in a Red Sox uniform.

Postgame: Pedro got shelled by the Red Sox. Good thing we got rid of that guy. Pedro '06 with an 88 mph fastball is a shadow of Pedro '99.

Twinkies moving outdoors

Word comes from Minnesota that an outdoor stadium has finally been approved for the Twinkies. From the numbers I've seen, county property taxes will provide nearly $400 million of public money. The state also is going to be paying $248 million for a new Golden Gophers football stadium. That leaves only the Vikings playing in the HumptyDome. I always thought the dome was a horrible baseball "park" but an adequate football venue.

Of course the Vikings do not agree. They want $675 million for their own new stadium, but that proposal did not get through the legislative process this time around.

I'm a sports fan and have some connections to Minnesota. The first major league game I saw was at old Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington. I've been to baseball, college football and a Final Four in the dome, and I would vote it the worst stadium anywhere. But why should a Hennepin County property owner pay higher taxes to provide a better place for the Twinkies to play?

Massachusetts is legendary for the shenanigans perpetrated by its elected leaders, but at least in the state where I currently reside there has been very little response to attempted blackmail by major sports teams. The hockey/basketball arena in downtown Boston is owned by the Bruins and rented by the Celtics. Anytime the Celtics even think about asking for public money to build their own arena, they are quickly told to shut up. Fenway Park is owned by the Red Sox. Plans to build a new ballpark have been abandoned and the new owners are sinking money into improvements. The Patriots squeezed out a few public dollars for infrastructure improvements, but bore the cost of their new stadium privately.

I know the situation in each locale is unique, but if I were a Minnesota taxpayer I would be angry about so much money being confiscated from me to pay for stadiums.

Dwarf Returns

ABC is providing ample evidence this week of why the so-called "major" TV networks are no longer worthy of notice. Tonight there is a special featuring David Blaine holding his breath for nine minutes. (For some reason this will take two hours of TV time.) Tomorrow there's a button-pushing, panic-inducing movie about the bird flu. (Another wasted two hours.) Neither is on my reminder list.

The only network shows I watch these days are NFL Football and Lost. The former is out of season, and after last week's episode I'm starting to wonder why I bother with the latter, which also happens to be on ABC. "Hey I've got an idea, let's drop the ponderous pace for a few seconds and gratuitiously shock everyone by shooting a couple of the gals."

The eighth and final Red Dwarf series on DVD has finally arrived on these shores, seven years after it was produced for the BBC. After watching it, I thought the story lines were pretty good (what could be better than a T-Rex stomping around inside a spaceship?) but the writing of the individual scenes didn't always rise to a high level. I agree with criticisms I've read that the final series was not as good previous years, but any Red Dwarf is far more interesting than watching David Blaine hold his breath.

Airline Pretzels

Keeping a blog is a somewhat public way (is there anybody out there?) to jot down things that I want to remember. I just got back from a trip to Denver and there is something I want to preserve for future reference.

Memo to self: Avoid United Airlines.

United's "Economy Plus" program is a way for the bankrupt airline to try to squeeze a few more dollars out of customers who have already paid for a ticket. Instead of going along with the extortion and paying extra for a better seat, I ended up wedged into a middle seat in the back of the plane. I haven't been so miserable on a flight since coming back from Chile, and that flight took three times as long as this one. Hopefully the jabbing pain in my shoulder blades will go away within a week or so.

Unequal Swap

I had just started my drive home last night when the news came over WEEI-Boston that Adam Vinatieri had signed with the Indianapolis Colts. The reaction of the sports talk hosts and callers can be summed up as "panic stricken."

There was sure to be gloom in Patriot Nation if/when The Greatest Jackrabbit left, but there were several factors that made yesterday's annoucement more traumatic. It appears the Patriots are not trying very hard to keep their veteran players, Vinatieri was lost to a key conference rival, and the leading candidate for the Patriot placekicking vacancy seems to be goofball Mike Vanderjagt.

The Patriots have let receiver David Givens, linebacker Willie McGinest and Vinatieri escape in free agency this winter. There have been no acquisitions of note. Regarding a replacement for McGinest, I'm sure Bill Belichick's plan is to find some underappreciated and undersized defensive end, coach him up at linebacker, and rotate him in with five other guys. The philosophy around here is it's better to pay middle-class wages to six OK linebackers rather than a king's ransom to one big-name guy. But you can't replace one great placekicker with six mediocre guys! Ask the Cowboys whether that works.

Everyone figured if Vinatieri left, he would be on his way to the NFC, either Green Bay or Dallas. Having Indy sign him was a thunderbolt. There are five teams in the AFC that Patriot fans have enjoyed tormenting recently: the three division rivals, the Steelers, and the Colts. With the Steelers winning the Super Bowl and Miami appearing poised to challenge for the division, having the Colts steal Vinatieri has introduced another little bit of doubt about whether Belichick still has his genius cap. The biggest nightmare for Patriot fans would be to see Vinatieri kick a game winner for the Colts in Foxboro in an AFC playoff game.

Still, the Pats apparently have a chance to sign the most accurate kicker in the history of the league, Vanderjagt. What's wrong with that? Maybe the superstar quarterbacks for the Colts and Patriots can explain.

Peyton Manning, 2003: "We're talking about our idiot kicker who got liquored up and ran his mouth off."

Tom Brady, 2005: "Adam is the most clutch kicker in the history of football."

When last seen, Vanderjagt had an ugly failure on an attempt that would have sent the playoff game against the Steelers into overtime. He sliced it so badly that it reminded me why I gave up golf. A few days later he was yukking it up on Letterman, which greatly irritated Colts management. That's why the black cloud stuck in the minds of Pats fans can be summed up thusly: "They got Adam and we're stuck with Vanderjerk."

Patriot safety/nutcase Rodney Harrison came up with the "Vanderjerk" nickname when the idiot kicker said something stupid before a playoff game two years ago. I think Vanderjagt is still expecting a beat-down from Harrison so I doubt he will be seen on the practice fields in Foxboro this fall. Maybe Belichick could get back some of that genius status by going with an undrafted free agent out of a Division II school. It worked spectacularly last time.

The Greatest Jackrabbit...maybe

The greatest football player ever to come out of my alma mater South Dakota State is a placekicker, which you may consider pathetic if you went to a Division I-A school such as (for example) Colorado. But oh, what a kicker: Adam Vinatieri, Class of '95.

I have lived 10 miles from the New England Patriots' home in Foxboro since 1991. The first few years the Pats were awful and it didn't bother me when they got blacked out on TV because it meant a game involving better teams would be shown instead. But along about 1996, I started becoming more interested in the local team because (a) they were getting much more competitive under Coach Duane (Bill) Parcells and (b) they had an obscure kicker who happened to be from South Dakota State.

The kicker is no longer obscure. Vinatieri pulled off perhaps the most famous kick in NFL history four years ago during a blizzard. He followed it up with famous kicks #2 and #3 to win Super Bowls. He had a field goal that won a third Super Bowl but it doesn't qualify as all-time famous because it wasn't of the last-second variety. (Ho-hum.) Last season he set the team career scoring record, passing original Boston Patriot Gino Cappelletti. The South Dakota State guy is forever a New England hero even if he ends up playing for someone else this fall.

If the announcement comes that Vinatieri is leaving New England, no doubt the TV stations will play an assortment of his historic kicks again, but one play I wish they would show more often is from early in his career when he caught Herschel Walker from behind on a kickoff. Perhaps the tape shows something different, but in my mind's eye I see him coming from five yards off the pace and running down the swift former Heisman Trophy winner. Some say that's the play that convinced Parcells to keep Vinatieri on the team, and the rest is history.

The stereotype about kickers is they are little European soccer players who yell, "I keek a touchdown" after making a field goal, but Vinatieri was a real football player in high school. He played quarterback and linebacker for the Rapid City Central High School Cobblers, and kicking was just an additional chore. (Other notable Cobbler graduates include one of my brothers and my sister, 20 years before Vinatieri.)

It's inconvenient when facts don't quite fit the story line, but I should admit that Vinatieri is not a hands-down choice as the best Jackrabbit football player ever. Jim Langer, South Dakota State '70, was the starting center on the undefeated '72 Dolphins team and is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The annual award for the top Division II lineman is named after Langer. I'll still give the "Greatest Jackrabbit" nod to Vinatieri because Langer grew up in Minnesota and didn't go to high school with me or any of my siblings. Assuming Vinatieri gets into the Hall someday, how many other schools with a mediocre football history primarily in Division II (now I-AA) have two inductees?

In college football, North Dakota State is almost always better than South Dakota State, and it's a given that the University of Colorado is more powerful than either. But neither the Bison nor the Buffaloes have anyone in the Hall of Fame. Barring a late rush by someone such as Kordell Stewart (haha), Vinatieri's enshrinement in Canton will make it Jackrabbits 2, Native Bovines 0.

O'Neil Snubbed

The only association I have with John Jordan (Buck) O’Neil is the same last name, but still I'm mystified as to what it takes for him to get elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Seventeen people associated with the Negro Leagues were elected today by a special committee, but Buck was not one of them.

Buck was two-time Negro League batting champion, five-time championship-winning manager, the scout credited with discovering Lou Brock and Ernie Banks, the first black coach with a major league team, and a driving force behind the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City. Those other 17 must be exceptional people to be more deserving than Buck. The fact I've never heard of any of them must be a shortcoming on my part.

Buck O'Neil is 94 years old and in my opinion is qualified two or three times over. The special committee should reconvene in special session and vote Buck O'Neil in the Hall of Fame before God calls him home.

Update 2022: Buck didn't make it before his death in later in 2006, but did make it in voting in 2021. Formal induction is July 2022.

Change of Seasons

Super Bowl 40 (no pretentious Roman numerals here) was a game only a Steelers fan could love. The losing team was awful, the officiating was awful, and even the winning quarterback was awful. It might have been the second-worst Super Bowl of all time, surpassing only Super Bowl 5 when the Colts beat the Cowboys. Even that drudgefest in 1971 had one thing going for it: Until fellow South Dakota State alum Adam Vinatieri came along, it was the only Super Bowl decided by a last-second field goal.

SB 5 was so bad that a member of the losing team was named MVP. Cowboys linebacker Chuck Howley got the award for gathering in three of the game's ten (10!) turnovers. In the fourth quarter of SB 40, the Steelers were on their way to an unimpressive win and I was wondering who could possibly win the MVP award. The Seahawks hadn't made any plays all day so a repeat of the Chuck Howley vote seemed extremely unlikely. There were no obvious MVP candidates from the Steelers defense except, as the joke goes, the officials. The Steelers offense only made three plays all day, but it turns out that Hines Ward was in on two of them so he got the Escalade.

With the dreadful game in Detroit (capping an otherwise decent football season) now out of the way, my thoughts now turn to the Winter Olympics. Hahahaha ha ha...ack...ooof...I almost hurt myself. No, really, who cares about that!? I thought the Winter Olympics were neat the first time I saw them on TV...in 1968! Since then I've gotten over it, and February represents a hole in the sports viewing calendar. I don't care about the Olympics, hockey, golf or tennis, and in regard to basketball I'm a firm believer in the "two minute" rule: Don't bother watching until the final two minutes. Fortunately, the hole in the sports calendar between the end of football and the start of baseball is getting shorter all the time.

Last baseball season I made it to 15 professional games at various venues throughout the country: spring training in Arizona, five big-league parks (KC, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Baltimore, DC), an independent league park (KCK), and the Arizona Fall League. This season my travel schedule is much less extensive and I don't have any tickets on order.

I am scheduled to go to Florida in early April. Spring training will be over by then, and the Devil Rays (or whatever PC name they will be using then) won't be home when I'm in the Tampa area. Of course I could always take out a home equity loan and get some Boston Red Sox tickets, but I'm not real gung-ho on paying their admission prices when I can watch all of their games on TV. Maybe I'll take in a Pawtucket Red Sox game just to get to something this year.

Pawtucket's McCoy Stadium is only five miles from my house, but I'm intrigued by a game the Pawsox will be playing Saturday, August 26 at Fenway Park. Actually it's a minor league doubleheader with the Lowell Spinners hosting Oneonta in a Class A New York-Penn League game at 2:00, followed by a Class AAA International League game between Pawtucket and Rochester. It seems like a chance to get to Fenway Park this year without taking out that home equity loan. Ticket prices have not been announced but supposedly will be "family friendly."

I wonder if they'll be selling Monster seats....

Gas Giants

As I squinted at the time early Saturday morning (4:30 a.m.), it came to me that I had forgotten to put out the trash. I knew it would be difficult to get back to sleep without resolving that situation, so I threw on some clothes and dragged the stuff out to the curb. Walking back up the driveway, I noticed a bright planet trailing behind the half moon. Saturn, I thought.

Oh well, there's no time like the present. I quickly set up my Televue 85 telescope and took a look at 75x. Instead of rings, I saw a banded disc surrounded by four little dots: Jupiter and the Galilean Moons. I checked my calendar to find out when Saturn would be up, and 18 hours later I returned to the back yard and found it high overhead.

As it turns out, Saturn's orbit will be at opposition this coming Saturday. That means the orbits of Earth and Saturn will be as close as they get in a 378-day cycle, and Saturn will be overhead at midnight. I use my Televue more as a wildlife spotting scope than an astronomical scope so my mount is just a photo tripod with a video panning head. But it worked well enough to find (at 138x) the ringed ornament hanging in the sky. If there's a neglected telescope stuffed in a closet, now is a good time to dig it out and take a look at the rings. Saturn rises in the east and sets in the west just like the Sun and Moon, so now should be visible throughout the night. And if you happen to be setting out the trash at 4:30 a.m., the Jovian system also is worth a look. (Or you can wait until May 5 when it will be at opposition.)

After some dabbling in astro observing and photography, I decided a while ago it would save a lot of time and frustration if I would do my astronomical observing mostly through the photos of others. But once in a while it's a good idea to look at the sky and get a reminder that those photos represent something real.

Sutter

It was nice to see Bruce Sutter get elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Yesterday it was announced he barely got the required number of votes, making him the first pure closer to be honored. Along with Cal Ripken, Jr. and Tony Gwynn, Mark McGwire will be eligible to be elected next year. I think McGwire will get elected but he will have fewer votes than the other two due to that little steroids controversy. I still like my idea of closing the Hall to new inductees after this year. OK, one exception for Gwynn and that's it.

Tomorrow I'm off to Iowa in search of bald eagles again. I usually don't complain about it being too warm in January, but I have heard that for eagling, colder is better. I'm sure there will be a few eagles along the mighty Mississippi, so look for photos next week.

Bruce Sutter, 1999

Adages

I managed to stay awake all the way to the end last night as Texas pulled it out against Southern Cal 41-38. I am left with one question: If Reggie Bush was the greatest football player of all time and space, as some pundits seemed to think prior to last night, why wasn't he on the field for the pivotal fourth-and-two with just over two minutes remaining? I don't have a problem with USC going for it, or with giving the ball to LenDale White, but I don't understand why Bush was over on the sidelines watching. Even having him in as a decoy would have affected the Texas defense, wouldn't it?

Of course after last night, the pundits have forgotten all about Bush and are now proclaiming Vince Young as the greatest football player of all time and space. The pressure on the Houston Texans to draft the hometown hero Young instead of Bush will be enormous.

It was a great football game, the type envisioned by those who created the Bowl Championship Series (That Is Not a Series). It proves the old adage about a blind squirrel occasionally finding a nut. Any year (most years) when there aren't exactly two undefeated teams from major conferences, the legitimacy of the championship game is suspect. This year the BCS cultists lucked out when Michigan scored on the last play of the game to inflict Penn State's only loss. The game proved something else that should be an adage: All-time great teams have both offense and defense. Pete Carroll made his reputation as a defensive coach, so it's ironic that his offense was so great and his defense was so deficient.

Vegas

I'm headed to Las Vegas tonight. When I say that it elicits a certain type of response, so I hasten to add that LAS happens to be the closest airport to Death Valley, which is where I'm going first. Casinos, lotteries and other such entities would not exist if they had to depend on me for business.

It will be a wide-ranging trip, also including Bosque del Apache NWR in New Mexico, the sky islands of southeast Arizona, the Arizona Fall League in the Phoenix area, and the Aviation Nation air show back in Las Vegas. I'll post text message updates throughout the two weeks and eventually there will be photos.

Final item about the World Series: I checked the Venezuelan newspaper at eluniversal.com to see the reaction in Ozzie Guillen's homeland. Since I don't do Spanish I had Google translate it. I was able discern that they are very proud of Oswaldo, but here is proof that online translations are far from perfect:

Now in Chicago one hopes that the other local equipment, the Puppies, that militate in National Liga and which they have not gained a title of the Classic one of October from the season of 1908, is the next ones in putting the ring of winners.

I think it is more likely the 100th anniversary of Orval Overall's '08 series clincher will come and go long before the Puppies enjoy another Classic one of October title.

Longest Day

I heard the end of the third game of the World Series this morning, sometime after 2 a.m. Eastern time. I didn't see it because my eyes were closed, as they are most nights at that time, but I was awake and listening. I heard them say at five hours and 41 minutes it was the longest game in World Series history, but only a tie for most innings, 14.

And they said the other 14-inning game was Boston beating Brooklyn 2-1 in the 1916 World Series, so I looked up the details this morning at Baseball Almanac. The time of game was reported as 2:32.

How can a 14-inning game take twice as long now as 89 years ago? There were 17 pitchers last night, and many of those pitching changes came during innings. Back in 1916, both pitchers went all the way, with Babe Ruth outpitching some guy named Sherry Smith. Fox wasn't producing the show in 1916, so that also sped things up considerably.

Maybe they can't prevent games from going into extra innings and dragging on, but I do have one suggestion for moving things up by 40 minutes – cut out the pregame show. No one cares what Kevin Kennedy and Jeanne Zelasko have to say. Get rid of them, start the game at five minutes after the hour, and maybe we can get done a few minutes before 2:00.

Useless Factoid o' the Day: Fox does not have a monopoly on worthless information. While browsing Baseball Almanac, I found that the winning pitcher for the Cubs in the deciding game of the 1908 World Series was Orval Overall. His bio link says "Nickname: None." With a name like that, you don't need a nickname. With two wins in the series, I guess you could say he was the best pitcher Overall.