Jusssst a bit outside: the Pittsburgh Pirates preview

Duty calls to preview the MLB season. In the spirit of that, we'll have 30 notes and errata on each team (20 plus 10, eh), in reverse order of PECOTA projection. At bat: the Pittsburgh Pirates.

1. Bucs bandwagon: The time is now for an AL East widower to adopt the Pirates, as much as one can support a team in the National League, the other white meat of MLB.
   
   The Pirates will turn it around eventually. They have a lot of history, are a reasonable driving distance from southern Ontario and play in a beautiful ballpark. Besides, Pittsburgh teams, such as the NFL Steelers and NHL Penguins, are a go-to for the kind of fan who needs you to know her/his team was picked organically. This kind of fan also wants to feel blue-collar, without ever doing blue-collar work.
   
   Pittsburgh is the safest place for that out of all the northern U.S. sports markets. Philadelphia fans can sniff out a poseur at 75 yards and are quick to anger. Aligning with the Buffalo Bills and/or Sabres carries a high risk of having your heart ripped out repeatedly, for real.
   
   
2. GeraldM on Yahoo!, would you like to present the rebuttal? "Why again are you writing about the Pirates ? NOBODY CARES ABOUT THE FREAKIN PIRATES !!! The have sucked for their entire history and will continue to suck for generations to come. I GUARANTEE they lose between 125 and 140 games this season. They have NO TALENT of any kind, anywhere, they never have and they never will."
   
   
3. Keep payroll low, build slow: The Pirates, 2-3 years away from being a competitor, do not seem like a repeat of the Florida Marlins, a team which cuts back to the bone to protect its profits at the long-term expense of the product. Pretty much any everyday player of note (Jason Bay, Freddy Sanchez, Nate McLouth) has been traded over the past two seasons, but they weren't going to be around long enough to be part of the solution, ergo, they were part of the problem.
   
   McLouth'scomment when jokingly asked whether all the traded players should start a newsletter: "No. You don't want to pay that much for postage."
   
   
4. Crazy's all they got until he arrives: Cleanup hitter of the future Pedro Alvarez posted a .914 OPS in his first full season. That makes him like the Jesse Jane of prospect porn.
   
   
5. Cutch is clutch: Centrefielder Andrew McCutchen on-based .365 and slugged .471 as a 22-year-old rookie. There is more where that came from; think Carl Crawford-lite.
   
   
6. Why run a Pirates preview? Why do it today? Because the NFL's salary cap expired at midnight and the Pirates' 17 consecutive losing seasons goes to show what can happen in uncapped leagues. You're also owed one Pirates preview where their skein of suck is not the first point of reference.
   
   
7. Zach Duke: good bad-team pitcher or just an underachiever like most of us? The left-hander was Pittsburgh's all-star rep and kept his ERA just north of 4.00, but it's going on five years since he was a bright hope. The longer the wait ...
   
   
8. To second chances! First baseman Jeff Clement, whose career as a catcher stalled due to knee injuries, is trying to get it together with the Pirates. He was drafted No. 3 overall in 2005 ahead of Ryan Zimmerman, Ryan Braun, Ricky Romero, Troy Tulowitzski, McCutchen and Matt Garza, whom most people have actually heard of.
   
   
9. Speaking of ... There's outfielder Lastings Milledge, on his third organization.
   
   
10. No sense of marketing: New shortstop Bobby Crosby should have been forced to wear No. 87. A Pirates jersey with "Crosby 87" on the back would be the team's best seller.
    
    
11. Why there is optimism: The Pirates' farm system used to be the 26th-best in MLB, according to Baseball America; it has already risen 10 spots to 16th.
    
    
12. Makeover magic: The Pirates remodeled the clubhouse of their spring training facility. That should singlehandedly change the culture. Bill Simmons is writing a 20,000-word thesis on the effect of clubhouse remodelling on team performance. It will in no way be axiomatic.
    
    
13. The starting pitching is actually not bad: Duke, Princeton-educated righty Ross Ohlendorf (3.92 ERA, 1.23 WHIP in '09), lefty Paul Maholm (4.44, 1.44) are an adequate front end of a starting rotation. They're so spectacularly adequate that NBC is giving them a late-night talk show.
    
    
14. Strange but true: Last season's preview noted, "MLB.com's Pirates beat writer is Jenifer Langosch. She has one N and about 100 Ls to cover this season." The Pirates lost only 99 games, but remember, one was cancelled.
    
    Oddly enough, Langosch's blog now refers to her as "Jen."
    
    
15. Fantasy baseball is designed to break your heart: Just check what outfielder Garrett Jones (21 homers in a half-season last year) did in high-leverage situations last season. Someone will take a flier on him on your draft day, and you will hold your laughter.
    
    
16. He's average-sized in Japan, but big here: Second baseman Akinori Iwamura is fast becoming the Pirates' most popular player.
    
    
17. The difference was signability: The Pirates' first-rounder from 2007, Daniel Moskos, isn't even rated as one of the team's Top 20 prospects. At least they signed him, right?
    
    
18. They might keep losing, but not with the same guys: Only eight players on the 40-man roster were there when GM Neal Huntington was hired.
    
    
19. Not that you needed proof ex-GM Dave Littlefield really ached: The Pirates' second-rounder from three seasons ago, the awesome named Duke Welker, had an 0-11 record with a 5-plus ERA in Single-A balll last season. Oh, and he was repeating that level.
    
    
20. Tough call: Celebrate the 50th anniversary of their unlikely 1960 World Series win over the Yankees, or the 20th anniversary of Barry Bonds' first MVP season in '90?
    
    
21. Another anniversary that will pass unmarked: It's been 20 years since the Pirates finished in the top half of the league in attendance, and 30 since the franchise did so during a season where it didn't make the playoffs. Yet they're still around and the Expos are gone.
    
    Keeping it positive, though: There's plenty of good seats available on the bandwagon.
    
    
22. Roberto Clemente. That is all.
    
    
23. A commentary on American history: Former Pirates pitcher Jim Bibby's Associated Press obit mentioned that he threw a no-hitter, but left out that he served in Vietnam.
    
    
24. Time and fevers: Bibby, who died last month, is the fourth member of the Pirates' 1979 World Series-winning team to shuffle off this mortal coil.
    
    
25. They have the No. 2 pick in the June draft: And right on cue, the best college pitching prospect, Louisiana State's Anthony Ranaudo, has come down with a sore elbow.
    
    
26. Not so long ago, he was in Ottawa: Former Lynx manager John Russell is in the last season of his contract. Russell was a candidate to manage the Texas Rangers, who are a favourite to make the playoffs.
    
    
27. Other stories about famous people: The comedian Lenny Bruce was at Forbes Field when the Pirates' Bill Mazeroski hit the winning walk-off home run off the Yankees' Ralph Terry in the ninth inning of the '60 World Series.
    
    It was the first major-league baseball game Bruce ever attended. It was also the last. What could top it, really?
    
    
28. Basically, he joined another farm team. Ohlendorf interned with the U.S. Agriculture Department during the winter.
    
    
29. PECOTA says: 71-91, sixth NL Central, 663 runs scored, 781 runs allowed.
    
    
30. In English, please: Hockey writers in town to cover a Penguins playoff run should use their off-day to visit PNC Park.
    

Football: A new favourite player, Ellis Lankster

Nothing can be finer than tearing someone a new one today when you never heard of her/him prior to yesterday.

Only a true NFL obsessive knew that Ellis Lankster was a rookie cornerback for the Buffalo Bills before the clip below started to spread virally.



There should be some empathy for Lankster. He seems to have a speech impediment. He would not be the first person who had problems communication which belied his intelligence and value. Who knows, given the way NFL teams overanalyze every bit of minutia about a prospective player, perhaps it caused him to fall to the seventh round in the draft.

Anyway, sorry, but a football player stuttering is not funny. As for the Bills' offence sputtering ...

Related:
Leave Ellis Lankster Alone (Pro Football Talk)
Poor Ellis Lankster (OTR)

He's paid his debt, but there could be Bills in his future

In case you were wondering where any loose talk about the Buffaronto Bills signing Michael Vick sprang from (The Score's Tony Ambrogio mentioned the possibility during a report from the team's mini-camp), there was an item about on Pro Football Talk.

"The Bills want to win. Now. Whether it’s because owner Ralph Wilson is feeling a Leon Hess-style sense of urgency or whether coach Dick Jauron feels a Rich Kotite-style sense of urgency or a combination of both, the Bills are going all in.

"They offered receiver Terrell Owens $6.5 million guaranteed at a time when no one else was willing to pay him $6.50.

"And a league source tells us that the Bills made a very aggressive play for defensive end Jason Taylor immediately after Taylor was cut in March by the Redskins.

"... As to the potential backlash from signing Vick, consider the fans' reaction to the arrival of Terrell Owens.

He's already gotten the key to the freaking city."

Be that as it may, Vick is probably an even-money met to eventually return to the NFL. Even the New York Daily News is onside with letting him back into the league. The recently retired coach Tony Dungy, who is pretty non-threatening, has kind of become his advocate, taking up Vick's cause in the media with appearances on The Dan Patrick Show and an article in S.I.

Incidentally, on the subject of crimes and misdemeanours committed by NFL players (it would be nice if all those products of Domination Culture who run the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds and throw themselves around with reckless abandon were also wired to stay on the straight and narrow, but that ain't happening), the league is being reactive about the frequency of players arrested for ddrunk driving. A San Diego Union-Tribune story said earlier this month claimed there 73 players on NFL rosters who had been stopped for drunk driving. That's two players per team, about 4% of the league.

The league's efforts could be part of greater awareness that getting behind the wheel while impaired is such an anti-social act (remember the PSA which likened driving drunk to pointing a loaded gun at a room full of people?). The Ontario government recently increased the penalty for people who blow just .05, just below the legal limit of .08. It doesn't do any good to get sucked into a debate about what's worse, dog fighting or drunk driving (so just don't), but it's odd where the line gets drawn..

Anyway, getting back to Vick, the Jacksonville Jaguars said yesterday they are not interested in signing him. Of course, the other team with a feline-derived nickname, the Carolina Panthers, are more commonly known as the 'Cats. That meant ruling out the headline, "Dog killer won't play with Cats."

(So, so sorry. Going on about 3 hours' sleep.)

Related:
Keep An Eye on Buffalo As A Mike Vick Destination (Pro Football Talk, May 19)

Snark break...

Milk before the cereal? You wild man, you... how was your Have-Not Province Party?

The Creighton University baseball team, which is also the Blue Jays, lost in extra innings on Tuesday, just like their American League namesake. In case you're wondering, they also didn't use Travis Snider in the final three innings. (Seriously, Cito Gaston, you don't manage to protect the egos of marginal talent.)

The Buffalo Bills' Toronto game is on a Thursday, meaning it will be on the NFL Network. Someone please ask Rogers chairman Phil Lind how having the game on a network no one in the U.S. gets will, in his words, "re-introduce Toronto to American viewers as a tourist haven." As a double whammy, Rogers is spending all this money to promote a game that will air in Canada on rival TSN.

The New York Jets are also skedded for home games during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Smooth move, NFL.

Hockey Night in Canada's playoff preview, as you know, included the perspicacious puck pundits from Canucks Corner, Kuklas Korner and Puck Daddy, which was essential. It was a bit heart-sinking that good airtime was wasted on the tapped-out blogs vs. mainstream media debate, which is a major eye-glazer compared to talking about who's going to advance in the playoffs.



That whole debate is about as fresh as a Leafs joke. Anyway, that's just a small quibble from a small person. Greg Wyshynski is taking the St. Louis Blues to beat the Vancouver Canucks, by the way.

Free-agent NHLer Mike Comrie's dad founded the Canadian furniture chain, The Brick. After the season Comrie had, some team should be able to sign him for no money down.

No one remembers if David Beckham took any reds when he played for the L.A. Galaxy, but he got carded while trying to buy a glass of red wine once.

It's hard to figure out who to root for in a lawsuit between Woody Allen and American Apparel. One is really creepy, disgusting and sleazy. The other makes movies.

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• Garry Nunn scored the series-winning goal for the Vancouver Giants in the second round of the WHL playoffs last night. Hosing him out of a college education really paid off.
• For anyone wondering, the only reason to pay attention to the NFL draft is to see if a team will give Pat White a shot at playing quarterback. A six-foot-nothin' left-handed scrambler who played for a spread option team at West Virginia? Do it.
• A belated congrats to a friend and fellow 2002 University of King's College grad, Renée Mercuri, and her spouse, Joshua Tusin. They welcomed their first child, Maxence "Max" Tao Mercuri Tusin, into the world on April 6.

T.O. in T.O., on T.O., with a guy who used to work here

Since Terrell Owens said "out of left field, you get blindsided" in his interview with Rogers Sportsnet and since it was Arash Madani (who used to work in Ottawa) scoring an exclusive, it's worth a link.

(The interview actually took place in Washington, D.C., but the headline was too good pass on.)

Rogers lets one slip...

It wouldn't be the first time Rogers promised something and could not deliver, but Tim Graham, who covers the AFC East for the worldwide leader, has found a bit of a smoking gun via an e-mail sent to fans who attended the "podunk" Bills in Toronto game:

Rogers has been listening to its Bills Fans and may be able to negotiate a new deal which will bring an additional Bills regular-season game to Toronto in each of 2010, 2011, and 2012! This now means that a quarter of the Bills home games could be played in Toronto. This would allow us to issue a new 3-Game Ticket Package for the 2010 games in Toronto.

(Update: The Buffalo News believes it's going down: "The Bills are making a great profit by playing their current eight-game series in Toronto, at an average of $9.75 million a game. Would the Bills like another guaranteed payday that far exceeds what they get in Orchard Park? Yes."

You can already hear the cries of "over my dead body," coming from Western New York, not to mention a few Bills fans on the other side of the border who fell in love with the team in Buffalo. Pro Football Talk is playing Solomon, saying, "Converting the team into a regional attraction might be the only way to save it. Thus, four games in Toronto is much better than eight games in Los Angeles."

Who knows how much fire there is here, although a gut reaction is that moving the Bills piecemeal would just prolong the agony. The team is entering its 50th season under the constant question of how much longer it will be able to stay in Buffalo, which is basically transitioning into a sleepy government town (the largest employer, according to its Wiki, is the State of New York). Toronto's going to keep growing. Perhaps our own Greg Hughes was right a couple years ago when he said this is inevitable. The NFL once had a team in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, too.

Related:
Plans afoot to move more Bills games to Toronto? (Tim Graham, ESPN.com)
Toronto eyeing more Bills games? (Mike Florio, Pro Football Talk)

Rocky Mountain buh-bye...

When we rule the world, it will be mandated that every trade rumour story must have the coda "or not" tacked on to the end.

As in, "Jets might want Cutler — or not." Anything you read about the ex-Denver Broncos QB — or not — is is a function of the calendar. There isn't a ton of NFL news in mid-March. This is a league which has become as annoying as baseball (or hockey in Canada, thank you, TSN) for trying to make the season last 12 months. In a half-hour of research, give or take 28 minutes, you can find out that Jay Cutler's agent, Bus Cook, was in Buffalo yesterday, that Newsday's pot-stirrer par excellence Wallace Matthews says the J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets must get Cutler, since having another Cook-represented QB, Brett Favre, worked so well last season, until the games really started to matter. Point being, you should be prepared to let a lot of Cutler talk go in one ear and out the other, unless the journos who cover your favourite team are saying something such as, "we're guessing there will be another list very soon that will have Minnesota front and center. Just give it some time."

Really, you mean that? Those who would know say that ship already sailed unless the Vikes are willing to deal Denver a carload of draft choices. Never mind that the Vikings might have those earmarked for players who block, tackle, cover and rush the passer and make up the 53 finely meshed gears that make up a football team. That's all well and good, but it has nothing to do with playing quarterback, which as is our understanding, is about being in TV commercials or being romantically linked to a country-music cutie of the moment. (That might be a bit major media-inculcated.)

It's a little tough to buy any Cutler-to-Buffalo talk. The NFL might be so desperate to plug the Bills In Toronto series that they'll have Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts play there next season, but Cutler and Manning? Whoa.

Point being, there's a lot of treacle to cut through, and I wholeheartedly apologize for not having the willpower to resist commenting or adding anything original to the discussion. It would be awesome if Jay Cutler somehow ended up on the Vikings. As a fan, it's good to sort of have a framework for approaching this, which is a faux-erudite way of saying you should at least be consistent in which clichés you choose to monger. Some people would say that they wouldn't want Jay Cutler on their favourite NFL team, extrapolating that he would be a bad influence in the locker room, based on how it's gone sour in Denver. None of that is actually important. A NFL career is short, you gotta get what you can while you can, so you can't blame Cutler's agent for taking decisive action rather than have his client stuck with an organization that's leaking oil three lanes wide and has hired a newbie coach, Josh McDaniels, to turn around the loveboat.

So, yeah, get Cutler to Minnesota, pronto. He's been all about winning since he committed to play college football at Vanderbilt. By the way, did you hear this one: Cutler could go to the Dallas Cowboys in return for Tony Romo — or not.

Snark break...

Year-end lists and best-ofs are pointless busywork, that's why.

The NHL might hold its awards show in Las Vegas. You just know someone will end up winning the Phoenix Coyotes in a craps game.

James Mirtle's suggested lyrics for the Barenaked Ladies' version of The Hockey Theme:

Chickity China, the Chinese chicken
The TSN execs' brains stopped tickin'
Bought the song for a cool $2-mil
Didn't ruin it — but they soon will

You know what was most amusing part of taking in Russia's 8-1 World Juniors win over Slovakia? The Russians scored to make it 7-1 with 4½ minutes left and then there was a mass exodus for the exits. It was as if everyone still thought Slovakia might make a comeback.

The MLB Network launches today and it's already in more U.S. homes than the NFL Network. in Canada, thought, it's a shutout for football.

Mike Shanahan was fired by the Denver Broncos. It's hard to believe that could happen to a coach who has won one playoff game in the past 10 seasons.

Mats Sundin sure knows how to make a declarative statement: "I'm going to do what I can to help the team get into the playoffs." Ya, that will give the Canucks a return on their investment.

God bless Scott Burnside at ESPN.com for making a comparison you would never hear from a hockey writer in Canada:

"Early on, the (world junioor) tournament is reminiscent of the women's international slate, which features a small group of teams that are committed to the sport (and thus to producing competitive squads) along with a bunch of others that show up simply because the International Ice Hockey Federation tells them they must."

By the way, anyone who watched any of the third period of Canada's first two games is hereby obligated to start watching the next women's world championship. It's only fair.

"Not so much" is on the list of banished words and phrases. Wait, someone still says that?

(Personal opinion: "Race card" should have been retired long ago. Oh, it would be nice if your race was just something you pulled out of your pocket when it was convenient. Only white people could come up with race card.)

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting

• Regina football writer Rob Vanstone has a book due out soon on the 1966 Saskatchewan Roughriders. That team was so special that the franchise decided to go another 23 years before it won a second Grey Cup, lest it crowd the legacy of the first-timers.
  
  (Right after Ron Lancaster's death this fall, CBC aired an old Life & Times profile of the Little General. He recalled an old joke. "They say in Saskatchewan, there are four seasons, and the wind blows in the winter, the spring and the summmer -- and in the fall, Lancaster blows playoff games.")
• After reading this, you might want to make the Rice Owls your college football team.
  

Someone plans to rock the Tre Kroner today at the Sweden-Russia game at the World Juniors. See you in 2009.

Damn Vikings: Proudly podunk; why Canada doesn't need the NFL

A good Minnesota Vikings fan knows about crazy coincidences, so this could not have happened by accident.

On Monday, Edward Greenspan, the Toronto lawyer, wrote a rather whingey op-ed about how he was a "bit angry" over the Bills in Toronto fiasco, saying it made the city and country look "podunk." Fair enough, but he also took a swipe at the Vikings' home base, one of the few cities with teams in all three major sports as well as the NHL, saying "no one would mistake Minneapolis for a truly world class city."

Well, that very night, the new How I Met Your Mother involved the sitcom's Canadian character, Robin Scherbatsky, getting turfed from a bar full of Vikings fans from Minnesota -- complete with a Gary Anderson reference (10 years next month; it's a pain that never ends). It also included some wise words for all the poseurs up here who think the city needs the NFL for some sort of self-validation. It all starts about a minute into the clip.

(Now, can anyone explain the significance of Jason Segel's character wearing a No. 70 Vikings jersey?)



For those of you who don't have time to watch the clip, here's the money quote to share with Greenspan, Rogers vice-president Phil Lind and the whole lot of them:

"I'm proud to be Canadian. We may not have a fancy NFL team, or Prince, but we invented Trivial Pursuit -- you're welcome, Earth. Plus, in Canada, you can go to an all-nude strip club and order alcohol. That's right. From Moose Jaw to the Bay of Fundy, you can suck down a 20-ounce Pilsner while watching some coal miner's daughter strip down to her pelt. Jealous? In Canada, people don't care where you're from. As long as you're friendly and loan them a smoke or hand them a donut. I'm proud to be Canadian. I wish I was there right now."

Don't get hung up on the facts that it's tough to find a coal miner anywhere these days or that you actually can't drink alcohol at a strip club in Saskatchewan (as confirmed by a Sasky expat). No doubt that Greenspan and his friends, who live in a different world where people have underlings to order around and own cottages and own more than one suit, would just see this as something from the idiot box. They wouldn't get the connection. Too freakin' bad. They probably didn't even notice Marshall Eriksen (Segel's character) was wearing No. 70 and why that is significant in Vikings lore.

Regardless, there's a lesson in there. We could stand to improve many things about ourselves in Canada, especially when it comes to how we support sports, but through Robin (played by Cobie Smulders, a Vancouver girl), something like the truth has been revealed. We don't need a fancy NFL team (and the Buffalo, soon to be Toronto, Bills are only fancy with how they contrive to blow games in the final minutes). It's a pretty good country even if we don't steal Buffalo's NFL team, even though we're probably going to, eventually.

No disrespect to Greenspan, who can buy and sell yours truly several times over before lunch, but his whole notion that you have to have four major pro teams to be a world-class city is just bumph. San Francisco only has baseball and football, and both its teams stink, but people still visit it in droves. Seattle is still great even its post-Sonics, pre-Sounders landscape. Friends speak well of Omaha, Nebraska, which doesn't have anything bigger than a Triple-A baseball team.

Happiness can be had without having four teams or worrying what people are thinking about you. It's not how much it takes to make you happy, it's how little. Anyone who can't get that through his head is beyond saving.

And how this relates to the Vikings' tortured history

It's acknowledged that it tempts fate to reference Gary Anderson and the Almost Perfect season four days before a Falcons-Vikings game. However, enough time has passed to at least start making jokes about it. Besides, anyone who has adopted the same interpretation of karma as Jared Allen probably isn't worried.

Weird little reminders of that kick keep popping up. For instance, in that same year, 1999, the Queen's Golden Gaels' season ended with a loss to McGill by a near-identical score, 30-28. McGill's kicker, Anand Pillai, unlike Gary Anderson nine months earlier, had a perfect day, 5-for-5 on field goals.

And who is now the kicker for McGill? Austin Anderson, Gary Anderson's son. You could look it up.

(Clip via Randball.

Oh, and here's the significance of Marshall Eriksen's No. 70 jersey:)

Snark break... introducing the Poz Button

As you were renewing your subscription to The Daily Growl ...

The next step in the interactive sports-viewing experience will be the Poz Button.

Suppose you're watching a game and a team clearly outsmarts itself in a critical situation and gets smacked around by the sports deities -- as was the case with the Buffalo Bills yesterday. You'd hit the Poz Button and if enough people are like-minded, then something adverse will happen to the coach or manager, like a mild electric shock or having a bucket of green slime dumped on him, like in the old kids' show You Can't Do That On Television.

It wouldn't be for garden-variety physical errors. A pitcher hanging a curveball or a quarterback overthrowing a receiver is everyday. It would be reserved especially for when a team clearly avoided making a logical choice (and in this case, the Bills' coach for not much longer, Dick Jauron, overruled his offensive co-ordinator on the play call).

This idea first took root back in the spring. Joe Posnanski wrote a post about then-Jays manager John Gibbons intentionally walking one of the worst hitters in baseball, in order to set up a lefty-lefty matchup and a double play. (The next two hitters promptly got run-scoring hits to put the game out of the Jays' reach -- although granted, they were losing by one run in the eighth inning, so it probably was already.)

For anyone who needs a rehash since the other early NFL games available to most of Canada (Seahawks-Rams, 49ers-Dolphins and Lions-Colts) enthralling than the Bills-Jets games, Buffalo had the ball and a three-point lead just ahead of the two-minute morning.

Most teams call a running play there, make the other team use up its timeouts. Marshawn Lynch had been having his way with the Jets much of the afternoon, yet the Bills elect to trust J.P. Losman, the the shakiest gun in the AFC East, on a college-style rollout pass. He gets blindsided by a blitzing safety, Abram Elam, the ball bounces into the hands of the J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets' Shaun Ellis who returns it for a touchdown. There is Brett Favre is on screen thrusting his hands heavenward like he actually had something to do with the game-winning play.



Dick Jauron deserved to get the green slime for that one. Please, make the Poz button happen. It would also come in handy when:

• ... An opponent of the Raptors hits a three-pointer off the inbounds play following a timeout (the Sam Mitchell Memorial Special).
• ... A NHL team gives up a short-handed goal after using one of its forwards as a point man on the power play.
• ... A baseball team doesn't score a run after laying down a sacrifice bunt. Actually, this should be any time a team sac-bunts except when it's tied in the ninth inning or later.
• A starting pitcher loses the lead after his manager lets him throw more than 110 pitches (another Gibbons specialty).
  
• A football coach goes for a two-point conversion before the fourth quarter.

On to the fairly obvious, not overly funny jokes

The Arena Football League is all but dead, but it says it's not. How is Ottawa not trying to get into this league?

Former President Bush (start saying it now), after that shoe-throwing incident, said, "The war is not over, it is decisively on it's way to being won." Please note that he didn't say which country.

Best text message to send to a friend who cheers for one of the Minnesota Vikings' rivals: "The Bears could use a receiver like Bernard Berrian."

If Diogenes was around today, he'd wander the earth trying to find a Boston-area sportswriter who isn't going to vote for Jim Rice for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Red Sox reliever Hideki Okajima ran in the Honululu Marathon on the weekend. He finished in six hours 10 minutes, about the same length of time of the average game started by Steve Trachsel.

Headline from the Serious Sports News Network: "Former college journalism major furious with fantasy football leaguemates due to lack of appreciation of weekly newsletter."

Last but not least, please pass the hat around for New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon. He might not be able to afford that ivory back-scratcher.

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• Please spare a thought for Whitby Dunlops defenceman Don Sanderson (a former Trenton Sting player), who struck his head on the ice during a fight in a senior hockey game Friday in Brantford and is in critical condition in Hamilton hospital.
• Women's Professional Soccer scored a big sponsorship deal, which should buoy some spirits.

What the AFL's demise could mean for the CFL

According to owner Casey Wasserman of the Los Angeles Avengers, the embattled Arena Football League is set to call off its 2009 season [Sam Farmer, The Los Angeles Times]. The league's official statement says a firm decision hasn't been reached yet, but it also doesn't deny outright that the league may suspend play for the 2009 season. We'll see what happens, but the future certainly doesn't look bright for the league.

This may signal the complete demise of the AFL; once you suspend operations for a season, it can be tough to bounce back, especially if the reasons are financial. Lockouts and strikes are somewhat easier to recover from, as the league itself was never really threatened; it's usually just a question of when things will get back to normal. With a somewhat-fringe league like the AFL, though, and financial issues being cited as the biggest factor, you have to wonder if they'll ever be able to return. A season away will likely alienate a lot of fans, and more importantly, quite a few players. Corporate sponsors also will become leery of associating themselves with a league that doesn't appear strong, and it becomes a vicious cycle; the league is perceived as weak economically, and thus receives less investment and attention, so it necessarily becomes weaker. Regardless of if this is a temporary coma or the final curtain for the AFL, there may be some interesting effects on the CFL.

David Naylor of The Globe and Mail had a good story yesterday about the talent that could be freed up for the CFL. His quotes from Montreal Alouettes general manager Jim Popp are quite interesting:

"There's a small pool of players who, if the Arena League didn't play, would be interesting to teams in the CFL," Montreal general manager Jim Popp said. "At best, three to five players per team that would attract some interest."

That's actually quite a potential influx of talent. 16 different teams are currently listed on the AFL website, and Naylor's article adds that a 17th folded this off-season. Using Popp's estimate, that would be between 51 and 85 players currently in the AFL who would be attractive to CFL teams. That translates into six to ten players per CFL franchise, which could change the makeup of their rosters significantly. Salary isn't much of an issue; Naylor reports that AFL pay is similar to the CFL.

Even that estimated talent influx perhaps doesn't show the whole picture. What could be bigger for the CFL is its position if the AFL folds. All of a sudden, it's now the prime developmental league for the NFL outside of college football, thanks to the demise of NFL Europa last year [Wikipedia]. The CFL would now be a primary option for players who can't crack NFL rosters, and that could lead to even more new talent.

The largest potential long-term impact goes beyond talent, though. The NFL needs at least one player-development league somewhere. With NFL Europa gone and the potential disbanding of the AFL, the CFL is now the main alternative. Moreover, it's already rather popular and thus wouldn't need dramatic cash infusions to keep operating. That might rekindle the NFL's interest in taking an equity position in the CFL, as it's now more in their own interest to ensure the survival of the Canadian game. It's tough to see the NFL doing that at this exact moment given their recent massive job cuts [Judy Battista, The New York Times], but it might be more plausible down the road.

Regardless of if the equity interest plays out or not, the NFL would have a more compelling rationale to keep the CFL around if there was no AFL in the picture. That might lead the league to be more cautious with the Bills/Toronto idea; not necessarily canceling the games (highly unlikely) or outright ditching the idea of a NFL team based in Canada (also unlikely), but ensuring that their moves would not kill the CFL. In any case, it will be interesting to watch in the months ahead.

Update: The league is not dead yet! As Duane writes, the owners voted to carry on Tuesday night. Still not the most optimistic of times, considering that at least one owner publicly said they were suspending operations for a year before this and also that that option wasn't ruled out. Despite claims to the contrary, I'm not sure that they're getting better.

Snark break...

As you were wondering what happened to 10 years' worth of issues of Word Up magazine....

Construction is being delayed on a NFL stadium in the Los Angeles area, which might help Rogers Communications' chances of stealing liberating the Buffalo Bills. Or not.

In case you weren't feeling old enough already, there is talk of the Boston Red Sox drafting Carl Yastrzemski's grandson. Mike Yastrzemski is an outfielder, too.

Shame on Citigroup -- they keep their name on the New York Mets' stadium, but can't come with the $240,000 to sponsor a holiday toy train exhibit. Today's youth need to learn about riding the rails.

And you wonder why Canadians are smug toward the U.S. ... it's a little hard not to be when someone who's a "Philadelphia lawyer" believes that winning "143 seats in Canada's 278-seat Parliament" does not make a majority (it would, if not for those 30 additional seats) and that there's a province of Ottawa.

So the Sens gave up the lead three times last night against a Florida Panthers team which was missing five regulars to injury? That's a shame (really).

From the National Lampoon Sports Minute: "The chairman of the Chicago Cubs said he expects the team to be sold by spring training. And that will fix everything."

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• It probably has no chance of succeeding, but a fan group is planning to sue the Bowl Championship Series.
  
• The Kurtenblog guys pretty well nailed it in regard to Boots Del Biaggio and Gary Bettman. Hockey's a great sport to survive the people who are supposedly in charge.
  
• People in Chicago ain't happy about Ron Santo not getting into the Hall of Fame.
  
• You really should read this interview with Outliers author Malcolm Gladwell. (Seriously, though, do Americans not know about hockey players having early birthdays? The assumption here was everyone knew.)
• Erik Bedard is likely safe with the Seattle Mariners, as much as that's possible.
  

Bills make me want to...stay home and watch on the couch just like every other week

I had great intentions. I was all set to head down to the Dome this afternoon to do some sort of Gonzo piece on the first regular season NFL game in Canadian history (tm). But, then I looked and saw that it was -9C with a nasty windchill and, well, I do pay Rogers a lot of money so it can beam me signals of sporting events into my home.

What? Like you would have gone.

I'm not sure what sort of atmosphere one could have expected down there anyway. What with that wind coming off the lake. I did go for a walk down by the building that really should have been called the ConDome (what? as if that wasn't the No. 1 vote getter in the name the stadium vote way back when) just before the preseason event and the atmosphere was, well, like a late summer day in Toronto. That is to say that there were as many people sipping Tall Skinny Carmel Lattes with a half sweetener on Front Street as there were NFL fanatics.

No one will be stupid enough to be sipping anything on Front Street today. Maybe that's a good thing as it will give the Budweiser people a good excuse as to why no one showed up to their official tailgate (nothing says tailgate like spending $10.75 to drink beer out of a plastic cup). Hopefully they gave the Bud Girls a parka to wear.

It will also make it a little more difficult for those looking to dump their seats. It's a buyers market, really. You don't want my $50. Fine. Freeze. I'm going over to that nice, heated pub to watch this middling game of debatable importance. Of course the Buffalo people are probably really peed off now that the Miami game is being played indoors.

As for me? I'm doing what any reasonable person would do. Sitting on the couch with a Corona in hand, a legally questionable $20 wager placed to make things more interesting. Go Dolphins. Double my coin, well ya.

EDIT: It doesn't look like I missed much atmosphere.

Based on the crowd reaction, the game could've been played in Timbuktu rather than Toronto, because this was as foreign a "home" crowd as the Bills have ever played in front of. The setting was decidedly not blue-collar Buffalo, with Blue Jays and CFL Argonauts banners hanging from the rafters and nearly as many orange and aqua Dan Marino, Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams jerseys among the 52,000 fans.

But, at lesat the crowd got a great game, right? Right??

The attraction of the National Football League's descent on Toronto was that, after having to sit through all those pesky NHL and NBA and Major League Baseball contests over the years, Canada's biggest city would finally get a taste of the big leagues. All those other games are fine, but the NFL - that's the big time, kids. Now let's see those wallets.

What Toronto actually got, in the first regular-season NFL game on Canadian soil - or artificial turf, anyway - was something less. What it got was a pretty uninteresting NFL game, between two NFL teams that aren't exactly the Dallas Cowboys. For an average ticket price of $183, with a high end of $575, Toronto got to sit through an NFL game that was played at, and was about as exciting as, room temperature.

Then, of course, there was all the money being made and the excitement of a packed park down at the house that Fred McGriff built. Oh, wait...

...the press box estimate was that the place was about 7,000 people shy of full. Attendance, meanwhile, was announced at 52,134, a shade below the stadium's NFL capacity of 54,000. Given that the game was proclaimed a sellout last on Thursday of last week, that's quite the accounting error ... If you wanted another example of how this didn't seem to be the gold mine that the late Ted Rogers proclaimed it would be, there was the row of nine vacant luxury boxes at the south end of the Rogers Centre.

Oh well. There is always the International Bowl to look forward to...

Edit 2:They still aren't very happy in Buffalo.

Bills (and Bulls) in Toronto: Phil Lind just doesn't get it

Awful Announcing has provided the perfect illustration for how badly Rogers exec Phil Lind has misread the play with the Bills in Toronto.

(This has happened in Toronto before. When will people learn?)

This is not new news, but it's worth putting in front of people and juxtaposing it against what Lind, the vice-chairman at Rogers, told the National Post in the summer:

"Via television, the Bills series will re-introduce Toronto to American viewers as a tourist haven. We will beam our fair city and all its selling points into millions of American homes. Media outlets will do features, journalists will visit. This is the type of opportunity that simply does not come along very often. Those who oppose the Bills-in-Toronto initiative may have the best of intentions, but they are simply wrong."

Well, those orange areas are the parts of the United States that are getting Dolphins-Bills as their 4 p.m. game on CBS. The competition in that timeslot is the Dallas Cowboys-Pittsburgh Steelers game on FOX, which matches two teams which have national followings in America and beyond. Phil Lind's vision of Joe Six-Pack and Betty Housecoat calling travel agencies on Monday morning to inquire about hotel accomodations in Tor-on-to suddenly became much less vast.

To answer USA Today's question, it's not worth reopening the NFL-in-Canada debate. A regular-season game with two out-of-town teams on the fringe of the playoff race, with overpriced tickets, is not going to provide any answers, beyond what people want to believe. That said, when people spew straight-up bullflop about this boosting Toronto's tourism industry, someone has to point it out.

Could we settle this over a couple Wendy's Baconators?

It's ironic this is coming from a writer who has the same name as one of the McKenzie Brothers actors.

"Miami Dolphins vs. Buffalo Bills (-1) at Toronto: NFL officials immediately regret moving this game to Canada when the start is delayed while Rogers Centre officials scramble to locate a down marker that has a '4.' " Pick: Dolphins 24-20."
— David Thomas, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

It's a nice line. The real A-hole is anyone up here in America's Hat who responds seriously to a throwaway line in a NFL picks column.

It's amusing, though, to see a U.S. writer be unaware that three-down football was not a Canadian creation. The game that Walter Camp and all those cats developed back in the 1890s had three downs. The fourth down was added to increase offence, which was a slippery slope toward America's quick-fix, instant-gratification society.

One less down was something Canadians, in our what-are-you-gonna-do way, learned to live with, like dismal politicians, lengthy winters and CBC Television. It never seemed to be too big an issue, especially since it meant teams couldn't wait until it was third-and-11 before they actually tried something to move the ball downfield. It's like something Doug Flutie said once: If you have play that will work, why not use it on first down? Why wait? Average yards gained on first down means much more than third-down conversion rates, no matter what the cliche-mongering chair moisteners in the network broadcast booths say every Sunday.

Of course, the Law of Intended Consequences was by keeping the foot in football and having as much kicking as possible, that meant there could be a Grey Cup where Henry Burris could be MVP even though his team only scored one touchdown.

Coaches down south eventually started seeing the passing game through the eyes of love instead of the eyes of fear. It meant that American football evolved and for myriad reasons, became more fun to watch than the Canadian game.

It only took them several generations, and several times the investment in developing coaches, players, college and pro teams, but American eventually caught up.

Meantime, as any hardcore football nut up here can tell you, there are several levels of amateur football in Canada that do play with four downs. That being said, nice line, eh.

Buffalo Bulls, FTW

How about Turner Gill and those Buffalo Bulls? They blasted Ball State but good in the MAC championship game, 42-24. They're still going to the International Bowl, were, not to bury the lede, they might end up playing against Notre Dame. (Or not.)

Buffalo took control by returning two fumbles by Ball State's all-everything QB, Nate Davis, for touchdowns in the third quarter, including a 92-yard runback for the go-ahead points. Turner Gill will be at a BCS-conference school soon enough. Buffalo was plenty big time enough on Friday.

A Dolphins Fan in Toronto

I am a diehard, lifelong Miami Dolphins fan, I presently live in Toronto (but grew up not that far from the city anyways), and I will not be attending the game this Sunday by choice.

You'd likely be surprised by just how many Miami Dolphins fans there are in the Southern Ontario area. The numbers are likely buoyed by the airtime Miami received on National Television down south by being a top team for such a long period of time. It's likely also assisted by Dan Marino, the most prolific pivot upon his retirement and arguably one of the all time greatest QB's (definitely tops among the QB who never won a ring crowd). And I'm sure the heated rivalry with Buffalo helped win over a few anti-Bills supporters in the area too.

Whenever I would head down on a bus trip to Buffalo for the Bills-Dolphins game with my fellow Miami supporters, to have everything that can be bought at a concession stand thrown in my general direction every time I stood to cheer a score or a big play by Miami, I always had a great time! Whether Rich or Ralph Wilson, those cross-border trips will always remain great memories. But now that it's here in Toronto....well, honestly part of me wanted to see them fall short but I am glad it sold out just before blackout deadline so I could at least watch the game this weekend.

I don't want to see the NFL come into town, first off (although I'm sure the lack of a franchise in L.A. will ensure that should the Bills move anywhere it won't be north). So luckily the way the event was presented it made certain that my team allegiances did not get the best of me - I certainly don't want to pay an arm and a leg for ridiculously overpriced tickets, which the corporate sector has reluctantly picked up the tab for. And while some may see this as too idealistic, possibly a betrayal to my team (how many times will Miami play a meaningful game in Toronto - realistically, this may be my only shot!), when push comes to shove I'm not just going to cave in to what amounts to a cash grab in hopes of snagging a much larger cash grab, which will in turn eliminate something I really care about in the end.

Of the people I know who are going they either got a good deal presale, won the tickets via contest or (which is what is happening more often than not), got them handed out to them from work. I know many more people not interested in supporting this, and if they're not hoping to see the game fail to succeed, they would at least suffer a little in the stands.

I do hope my team does well and wins the game, continues along this incredible bounce back season and keeps their slight playoff hopes alive, but I will be doing so from home...or possibly a sports bar. But to make it known a devout Dolphins fan from Toronto will not be participating in this event. And it should also be known, I'm not alone...

Snark break ...

As you were down at the free clinic, getting shots for Nerd Flu...

A strip club is opening in Seattle just 400 feet away from Safeco Field, the Mariners' stadium. The cab drivers in Seattle must be ticked -- now a trip to the rippers is walking distance for the ballplayers.

Former Nashville Predators owner Boots Del Biaggio, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman's buddy, was slapped with federal charges in the U.S. on the same day Sean Avery was on the carpet in New York City for "conduct detrimental to hockey." That's irony on a base level.

If Del Biaggio ends up in white-collar resort prison, please don't refer his spouse, Kristen, as "sloppy seconds." You wouldn't like Gary Bettman when he's angry!

(How about, as Kurtenblog noted, what about Avery being the front-page story on NHL.com, using a to drive traffic? Hypocritical, much?)

"Unlike before the internet when the only publication professional sports clubs controlled was the game program (unless they owned a newspaper writer or two), teams today have a powerful and wide-reaching outlet — their website — that they can dress up as an objective journalism operation, which can be subsequently employed to boost revenue.

"In a somewhat related story, it's interesting that despite the NHL deeming Sean Avery's infamous remarks on Tuesday in Calgary "detrimental to the league and the game of hockey," the league's website - which the NHL is relying on to create buckets of cash in the near future — seems to be taking full advantage of the publicity that the incident has created."

The San Francisco Giants gave Edgar Renteria a two-year contract for $18.5 million yesterday. They had to waive their age requirement for a starting middle infielder — Renteria only turned thirty-three last summer.

More great headlines that cannot be written: "Another J.P. to boo at Rogers Centre."

From Demetri Martin: "I think statues are wonderful. They show what great people would look like if pigeons shit all over them."

Former Saskatchewan Roughriders QB Steve Sarkisian might be the new coach of the Washington Huskies. Washington was 0-11 this season, so wouldn't a former Ottawa Rough Riders QB be better equipped to take over that team?

This has nothing to do with sports, but it might be the all-time greatest Kids In The Hall sketch:



This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• Former Dallas Cowboy quarterback Quincy Carter's new team is, wait for it, the Rio Grande Valley Dorados.
• Minor League Ball has a look at the Blue Jays farm system, good reading for everyone who thinks J.P. Ricciardi should just be out signing some free agents, any free agents.
• Kurtenblog has a how-to for the Teddy Bear Toss event that many junior hockey teams hold. Alas, the Ottawa 67's already had theirs, while Kingston Frontenacs fans should be throwing lumps of coal.
  
  This actually happened ... a group of us, which included a couple people who had never been to a hockey game, had Halifax Mooseheads tickets. We showed up about five minutes into the first period, not knowing the Teddy Bear Toss was on, and entered the concourse at the Metro Centre right at the moment the Mooseheads scored. As the teddy bears rained down, we had to assure one person that this was not a regular thing.
• This one's for faithful commenter, OttawaFan: An update on what CFL legend Hal Patterson, now 77,as been up to lately.

Another Buffalo football team Toronto can turn up its nose at...

Here's one for the too-funny-by-half files: The Buffalo Bulls are projected to play in the International Bowl at Rogers Centre next month.

This means Rogers will struggle to sell out the stadium for a another football game involving a Buffalo team with a fair-to-middling record.

The NFL Bills are 6-6 coming into Sunday's game vs. the Miami Dolphins. The Bulls, with ex-CFL QBs Turner Gill (pictured) and Danny Barrett as head coach and quarterbacks coach, respectively are 7-5, going in as heavy underdogs vs. Ball State in tonight's Mid-American Conference championship game. (Ball State is 12-0 and has an all-everything quarterback named Nate Davis, for anyone who hasn't watched proud alumnus David Letterman any time in the past few weeks, or read Jason Whitlock's epic takedown of the BCS and ESPN.)

This is going to come off shenanigans from a second guesser. Buffalo was on the shortlist of potential NCAA football teams for OOLF to clasp to its bosom (about that, seriously, Sager, join a gym). It was one hell of a post, but it just never progressed past the conceptual stage to the get-off-your-lazy-ass-and-write it stage. Part of the problem was the content had to wag the lede dog a bit. The first line was something like, "If this were written like a Lavalife ad, it would say, 'must be able to read Proust and a Tampa Two defence.' "

(To quote an older colleague: "Oh, you still don't think you're going to marry someone smarter than you, do you?")

It had got to the point where it seemed odd to have followed a brand of football for 20 years, getting caught up in the internecine hatred between rival teams, who's-No. 1 debates, Heisman hype, and BCS boondoggles without cheering for a specific team, or ever attending a game. Talk about geek love. But how could you have any moral high ground for razzing Notre Dame fans when you don't even have a team?

Plus, some big-time U.S. sportswriters -- Bill Simmons, Joe Posnanski -- during the past couple years have put out the call to readers to help them pick a soccer team to support. Poz, bless him, said for him it was about wanting to "feel international."

With all apologies to those better, more popular writers, how about actually being international? Supporting the Manchester I-Don't-Give-A-Craps or the London Not-A-Real-Sports does not make one any more worldly -- fact.

Clamouring to have a favourite college football team seemed a perfect protest of the weak. Everyone else wants feel international? I'll be parochial. This is the sporting analogue of Stewie Griffin hearing a banjo and exclaiming, "Mommy, I want a mullet."

Of course, this could never be as simple as picking one of the old-money powerhouses, or even an arriviste team such as Texas Tech. You can't pick a school such as Alabama or Southern California, not with what's known about the serfs of the turf.

A favourite college football team would have to represent a school with a modicum of academic integrity. That condition knocks off the whole Southeastern Conference except Vanderbilt. It would have to be a team which can compete for a championship of some kind on a regular basis. So much for Vanderbilt.

On and on it went over this season, following the "brain" schools every week to see how they fared. Northwestern is 9-3, but they're out for being in the Big Ten, which has ceased to be big or ten.

The same goes for the Minnesota Golden Gophers, who are in their first season with a new coaching staff, also held appeal (especially since the Vikings might end up being their co-tenants yet). Minnesota's coach, Tim Brewster, is also a big proponent of helping create opportunities for African-American coaches; he has more black assistant coaches than any other team in the country. Minnesota could also be struck for playing in a border state -- if Syracuse, Washington and Washington State's woes have taught us nothing, it's that the population demographics in the U.S. augur poorly for major-college teams in northern states.

The search went far and wide, even dipping down to the Football Championship Subdivision. How about Villanova, or Montana? A couple of Conference USA schools, Rice and Tulsa, which have Ottawa natives Tyler Holmes and Scott Mitchell as their starting left tackles, have also been on the radar screen. They both play wide-open football, are academically prestigious, but C-USA teams very rarely have their games beamed into Canada, which would make it tough, sorry, fellas.

Anyway, Buffalo had a lot of desirable qualities. As a MAC school, they'll never get anywhere near a BCS game. If this season's Ball State team can't, who can? That doesn't mean they're not worthy. Elliott Smith didn't need to have his songs on the Billboard Top 20, right?

The Bulls seemed like an appealing underdog team. Until last season, they had averaged about two wins a season since joining the NCAA's top division in 1999. As noted, their coach, Gill, used to play in the CFL. They even had a QB with two first names in senior Drew Willy.

Besides, if Toronto interests, or any interests, are going to steal Buffalo's NFL team, one should adopt the Bulls in solidarity with Western New York football fans. It's only right.

Anyway, to sum up, that post never got written, but all you are probably better off. Buffalo is also going to the International Bowl, and one wouldn't want to do it disservice by not promoting the hell out of it.

(Yours truly is spoken for in NCAA hoops but it was noted that the UB basketball team only lost by four against the No. 2 UConn Huskies last night. Carleton beat Buffalo by 10 back in August, by the way.)

Deaf ears can't be frozen ...

There's a hole in this story about how as big as the roof at the Rogers Centre.

"Another factor: the roof is locked in place after baseball's Blue Jays end their season.

" 'I wish we could open it,' (Rogers Communications spokesman Adrian) Montgomery said. 'But please let them know that we recognize how important this game really is. And we will do everything in our power to replicate the frenzied atmosphere at Ralph Wilson Stadium."

The Buffalo Bills fans who are clamouring to have the roof open for the Dec. 7 game might want to see this clip.

The Toronto Argonauts had a home game on Oct. 18, three weeks after the Jays' season ended. The roof was open for the first half, but was closed at halftime. Why can't the people in charge just be honest, and say that their stadium is not weather-proofed (drainage and such) and that Toronto fans are not going to pay 500 bucks to sit outdoors?

Is their offence called the Beebe gun?

Don Beebe, who was part of all four Buffalo Bills Super Bowl losses in the early '90s, might finally win the big one.

Beebe is coaching the Aurora Christian Eagles in the Illinois 4A state championship game. As you know, Beebe made that famous play in the '93 Super Bowl, the Bills' third Super Bowl loss. It was 52-17 in the fourth quarter when Beebe chased down Leon Lett and knocked the ball out of his hand at the one-yard line to deny the the big Dallas Cowboys d-lineman a touchdown (and screw over everyone who had the "9-7" square in a Super Bowl final score pool). Now, why is this kismet?

Well, in the days afterward, every high school boy in North America who was taking gym that semester probably got the Don Beebe speech. The phys-ed teacher, God love her or him, would hold up Don Beebe's play on Leon Lett -- which ESPN, in its wisdom, so-called, has deemed the No. 1 sports blunder in history -- as an example of why you always hustle, never give up, and keep playing no matter what it says on the scoreboard. is perfectly kismet, then, that having been used as a pep-talk prop by so many moulders of young bodies and minds, that former Buffalo Bill Don Beebe is now coaching high school football.

Reading about Don Beebe is a bit of a reminder of what the NFL will lose when the Bills are liberated from Buffalo once and for all and put in Toronto (although at the rate those tickets aren't selling for the Dec. 7 game, don't be so sure). At the high school level, as our estimable commenter Dennis Prouse noted in a post from a couple months ago back about another high school football team named the Eagles, it really is about the game itself.

That vibe is all but gone from the NFL, except in Green Bay and Buffalo, where the lowest ticket prices in the NFL, lake-effect weather and the, uh, vagaries of the Western New York economy contributes to the sense that it's all about the game.

The Bills, at least looking back from the remove of 15 years, were always about those players whom the real fan could appreciate. They had talent and All-Pros, for sure, but Beebe was one of a number of lunch-bucket guys who was just a football player, not a physical freak, although he was pretty damn fast for a Caucasian. (Just imagine the replica jersey sales if he had ended up with the New England Patriots, oh, about 12-15 years later.)

There was Beebe from Chadron State, wherever that is, the free safety Mark Kelso with his Gazoo helmet was from William & Mary, and the special teams dynamo Steve Tasker. Even Andre Reed, the great receiver, came from a Division 2 school. Thurman Thomas was a second-round draft choice. The Bills, under Bill Polian, always found hidden gems. That's football.

True, Marv Levy was David Letterman Top 1o list fodder after four Super Bowl losses. Who can forget "Top Ten Things Buffalo Bills coach Marv Levy said at halftime"? ("Number six -- 'Hey, Kelly. Leave some champagne for everyone else!' ")

Levy, though, was whip-smart. You knew he was because he'd coached in the CFL in the days before teams had 6-8 assistant coaches, so you had to know the fundamentals of every position. He had coached special teams. The Bills' epic comeback against the Houston Oilers in January 1993 was pure Marv, the professor masterminding it all, but giving the class the chalk. Another coach might have pulled that off, coming back from 32 points down with the starting quarterback and running back each out of the game, but Marv actually did.



Seriously, that short kickoff that Bills recover at the 1:50 mark of the clip below, that's football. Brains and brass balls. It's not Joe Buck talking about the Jonas Brothers' halftime performance.

That is what the NFL is becoming, and that is the teat the Toronto interests want to suckle at as they embark on the Long Transition with the Bills. Well, they're not going to find football no matter how much he or she puts on the expense account for the privilege to to sit indoors at Rogers Centre for the Dolphins-Bills game on Dec. 7.

You want football, from afar it's an ex-Bill coaching together with one of his brothers at a high school in Illinois. That sounds all right.

Related:
Oh, brother: Beebes have ACS on roll (Kane County Chronicle)

The things you find in your spam

This e-mail just arrived:

Hey Sports Fan!

Mission accomplished this week for Trent Edwards and the Buffalo Bills with a 54-31 win over the Chiefs. Now at 6-5 and playing the 49ers at the Ralph Wilson Stadium next weekend, our Bills are starting to see the road to the playoffs emerge!

Tickets are still available for the historic matchup between the Buffalo Bills and the Miami Dolphins at Rogers Centre on December 7. To purchase tickets visit www.billsintoronto.com/tickets.

If you are interested in VIP tickets, including EXCLUSIVE access to the Budweiser Bills Tailgate party please call 877-626-7887.

Don’t miss out on Buffalo Bills’ and NFL history!

Go Bills!

Anyone got $300 to lend me?

Look, it's ugly to take such joy in Rogers' failure to sell this dog out as fast as they would have liked (and make no mistake. It will be sold out), but you have to understand a couple things.

• After years of listening to the four-downers in T.O. make snotty little comments about the Canadian game, it's nice to know that the NFL can't just open the doors and charge what they want. We lovers-of-the-rouge are still dreaming of a couple thousand empty seats, but even if that doesn't happen the desperation has been fun to watch (sick, I know, but what are you going to do).
• My cell, cable, home phone and internet are with Rogers. Need I say more? They won't let me download music (which would be wrong, of course, but, yeah, well...). I pay more for my cell than I do my car.

The NFL is a fine institution that I have enjoyed from time to time. I just don't need it in my city and, more to the point, my city doesn't need it to prove that it's a "world class" town. T.O. has a football team already anyway.

Not that I will be upset if the NFL comes to the big smoke. Unlike many, I don't think it will be the death of CFL football (CFL football can't be killed anyway. It's like the cockroach of pro sports. I'm convinced it will still be going in 3174 after two nuclear holocausts and the forced evacuation to Jupiter after the oceans finally took us all out. It will still be looked down on by proponents of the Intergalactic Jousting League, however).