Sport Bozos

Adam Carolla (never heard of him, but I know the car,) was quoted in the March 16 Sports Illustrated (page 34,) “why do we have Joe Buck and Troy Aikman?” His point was that stand-up comedians (apparently including the ones I haven’t heard of that are named after Japanese compacts,) should take over sports broadcasting.

“When I watch sports with Jimmy (Kimmel – who I’ve heard of,) it’s nonstop joking.”

I have two words for Mr. Carolla –

 Dennis Miller.

The short-term Monday Night Football pundit’s desperate hit and miss and miss and miss one liners left me wishing that Dan Dierdorf would return to his seat in the booth – preferably on top of the crumpled and silenced former funnyman. What sounds good on stage before a drunken audience, or in a living room with beer-sodden friends doesn’t always sound as good while sitting in front of a TV camera.

Do you think Bubba and Clevis would rather hear how many cheese steaks Vince Wolfork can eat, or whether Demarko Murray’s last second reach made a first down?

Do they want to hear arcane 70’s references to hi-rise basketball shoes with gold fish in the heel, or if the Bulls have the possession arrow with two minutes to go in regulation?

Do they want to know what Linsay Lohan would make of a bunt signal, or what Russell Martin’s caught stealing percentage is with runners on the corners?

Miller proved that sports broadcasting is not the venue for stand-ups. That’s not to say it’s a comedy-free venue. In sports, comedy comes from…

clowns

Though clowns are in bad taste almost everywhere (circuses included, horror movies excepted,) there’s a forty-five year tradition of broadcast clowns (both intentional and non) in sports.

Do you think Roone Arlidge gave Dandy Don and Howard those bright yellow jackets because they were serious journalists?

Ed Wynn (or somebody that once shook his hand,) once complained that in Vaudeville you could do the same act across the country for years before you needed a new one, but you do an act once on television and everybody’s seen it. That’s true for stand-up commentators, once you've spouted off Belichick joke number 37, it goes into your dirty laundry bin, but sports clowns can hack out the same old material game after game.

How many times have the pregame folks kidded Bradshaw about all his marriages?

Think of Madden’s constant use of the word, “boom!”

Dick Vitale is such a predictable caricature that even when he’s not on the air doing his shtick – other sportscasters imitate it.

There are lovable clowns like Bob Uecker, annoying clowns like Boomer Esiason, deadpan clowns like Kenny Maine, and guys that should just give up trying to be a clown like Tim McCarver.

Actually, I’d like sports a lot better if they’d all stop trying to be clowns.

But that’s the state of sports broadcasting, Adam Carolla (of whom I've never heard.) So if you want to break in, buy yourself a red nose.

The real tournament begins in a couple hours. I've studied the field for numerous seconds, and I've found no reason to budge from my pick the last two tournaments: The State University of New York, Albany. Go Great Danes!

Though I worry what might happen if they meet the Northeastern Huskies in the final.

What a dog-fight that would be!

Okay - this is an ad - but it's still a great concept by an EVIL corporate biggie.

College Football Analysis for the Uninformed Part One

Memo from the Boss:

Headley – 2014 was too dreadful to be funny and 2015 doesn’t look hopeful. Talk about sports for your New Years post. I know you don’t know anything about the subject, but do the best you can.

Walter Bego – Go Figure Reads

So today begins the playoff for the NCAA college football Bowl Division national championship. This is opposed to the NCAA national championship in their playoff division… and their other playoff divisions. There’s also the NAIA’s playoff division for schools too small to be owned by multi-national corporations, the AARP touch football, run slowly, and try not to break a hip playoff division, and the pros who are different from the college guys because they don’t have to pay someone to write term papers for them.

What do you say we just scrap the NCAA, NAIA, NSA, IRS, AARP and anything else that uses letters to hide their name?

This afternoon we have the Florida State Seminoles against the Oregon Ducks, and then tonight we have the Ohio State Buckeyes against the Alabama Crimson Tide.

What – no SUNY Albany Great Danes?

Let’s forget the Xs and Os (along with the other 24 letters in the alphabet,) and focus on how the mascots would fare against each other.

Game One – Seminoles against Ducks

Seminoles are Native Americans that once wandered the territory we now know as Florida and Georgia. They were nomadic hunters from a number of Native American tribes and were known for their independence and fierceness in combat.

Ducks are waterfowl that can fly and taste really good with Dim Sum.

The Seminoles have sharp spears, and keen hunting skills; the ducks have webbed feet, and look cute when the walk.

Too easy – there has to be a catch here. I better go with the Ducks.

Game Two – Buckeyes against Crimson Tide

      Buckeyes are nuts. Really, they’re nuts that come from trees. They don’t do anything except provide ammo for nasty little kids that like to throw things. They don’t even taste good.

I know what a tide is – it’s a phenomenon of (among other factors,) the rotation of the earth and the moon’s effect on large bodies of water – usually oceans. I’ve never known it to be crimson, though I remember something about a red tide when algae with high mercury levels clog the shore and poison everything.

What am I supposed to do with this? You throw a bunch of nuts into a poisoned ocean and they bob around for a while, collecting mercury residue until the tide brings them to shore? This could be the most boring game of football since Howard Cosell retired.

But!!!!!!!!!!!! Mercury laden water is NOT the mascot for the Crimson Tide! An elephant is, because as everyone knows, elephants can always be found bobbing through the tide in the Gulf of Mexico near where Alabama has its 37 feet of coastline.

Elephants eat nuts; nuts can’t do anything to elephants. They can’t even run away without nasty children to throw them.

Again – too easy. I better go with the Buckeyes.

So, our National Championship game (not to be confused with all the other National Championship games,) will be the Oregon Ducks vs. the Ohio State Buckeyes, (assuming that neither Dim Sum nor mercury poisoning interfere.)

Please inform your bookie that you got your tip from Headley Hauser’s Just Plain Stupid blog, (so I can get my cut when you lose.)

What about the pros? I’ll give it a shot. Name the four teams involved…

What? Twelve teams!? I better wait until they whittle that down a bit.

Yes, it's a replay video, but I like it, and football games are 40% replays and 40% beer commercials.