Newz Forum: OTHER: The Sports Curmudgeon on the Lingerie Bowl, Arizona Cardinals, The NFL plus more.

I've been taking shots at Jacksonville as the Super Bowl site for weeks and you recall Tony Kornheiser did a preemptive strike on Jax last week. Yesterday, Bernie Lincicome did a column in the Rocky Mountain News with 25 pertinent multiple-choice questions for the Super Bowl.

I fear that the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce will not be happy with a couple of them:

The cultural highlight of Super Bowl week in Jacksonville will be:

a. attending the hand-truck relay races
b. getting a bib-overall wax
c. polishing the community tooth.

If Boston is the 'Athens of America' and Philadelphia is the 'City of Brotherly Love', Jacksonville is:

a. 'The Bold New City of the South'
b. 'Hooterville with Plumbing'
c. 'Not So Bad If You Don't Inhale'.

One traditional event of Super Bowl week is for each city to send a chef to the host city for a "Taste of the NFL" event that is a charity fund-raiser. I'm sure that this is a big hit since it has been ongoing for about 20 years now. However, I read in the Houston Chronicle that the chef from Houston will be preparing:

Beef Tenderloin (always a nice option)
Venison Tamales (sounds like an interesting version of a classic dish)
"Blazing Saddles" campfire beans. (Too much information!)

Last year, you had the option to do a pay-per-view at halftime to watch the Lingerie Bowl - women in skimpy clothing playing indoor football. As of a couple of months ago, I read that they were threatening to do a replay of this event again this year but I haven't seen anything about it recently. However, for a mere $14.95, there is another halftime pay-per-view option available this year. You can watch the Girls Gone Wild Halftime Games, which nominally take place on Girls Gone Wild Island. Funny, but I don't recall seeing that on any map that I studied in 7th grade geography. Whatever. As part of the promotion for this event, the producers are guaranteeing wardrobe malfunctions.

Meanwhile at halftime of the Super Bowl, most people will be refilling their beer mugs or calling in their halftime bets or tapping a kidney while some others watch Paul McCartney. I asked some friends recently if Paul McCartney was still relevant as an entertainer and they said in sort of hushed tones that he was a Beatle and that made him relevant. I asked if that meant that Ringo Starr was relevant as an entertainer and the room got quiet. So now, I pose this question to you:

Does a performer's career have to be "over" and "in the rear view mirror of society" in order for him/her to be the feature act in a Super Bowl Halftime Show? Paul McCartney? Remember Janet Jackson? How about Aerosmith?

In case your answer is yes, let me be the first to present the short list for consideration as next year's halftime headliner: The Captain and Tenille, Peter, Paul and Mary, Diana Ross and Barry Manilow. May I have the envelope, please.

Scott Ostler had a good line regarding Super Bowl halftime performers yesterday in the San Francisco Chronicle:

"Speaking of birdbrains [he had just been talking about Bill Bidwell and the Arizona Cardinals], Janet Jackson will be in Jacksonville to appear at a celebrity scholarship party. The event, appropriately enough, is open to the public."

In baseball news, there are arbitration cases where the stakes are enormous such as the Roger Clemens case where he asked for $22M and the Astros offered $13M and the case was to go to arbitration - until a compromise was reached. That would be a tough situation for an arbitrator; $9M hangs in the balance. At the other end of the spectrum is the arbitration case of Twins' pitcher Kyle Lohse who is asking for $2.4M and the Twins have offered $2.15M. This is where the newbie arbitrators get their training, right? Don't feel too bad for Lohse no matter how this comes out; last year he made $395K so his minimum raise will be in the neighborhood of 450%

The Montreal Expos are no more so I figured that their big furry orange mascot, Youppi would go to "mascot Heaven". Then, I read that the Expos were trying to sell Youppi and hoped to get "onetime six figure payment" for him. Say what? He was annoying as hell when there was a team to employ him; now he is out of work - to some small degree because he was not attractive enough to draw and keep fans in the stands - and on that basis, they want somebody to pay more than $100K for him? I'll start the bidding a $29.95 (US dollars) with the proviso that I am allowed to burn all the existing Youppi costumes that exist on the planet.

When the Rangers signed Chan Ho Park for $65M over 5 years, that had to create the contract that a baseball owner most wanted to get a "do-over" for. Not since the Orioles signed Albert Belle had there been such a waste of money. Now, however, Park has "only" $30M left to go on his deal while the Yankees still have to pay out $82M to Jason Giambi. We have a new leader on the "I Wish I Had A Do-Over" List.

The Arizona Cardinals have announced that they have changed the Cardinal logo on their helmets to make the bird a bit "meaner-looking" and the team promises to introduce new and "edgier" uniforms soon. If I lived in the Phoenix area, I know that would charge me up to go and buy season tickets! Anyway, I have two thoughts for the Cardinals braintrust - and I use that term very generically:

1. You need players that are meaner not a logo that looks meaner.
2. You can dress up an elephant all you want in whatever you want, but it is still big and fat and slow.

Finally, here is a comment from Jim Armstrong in the Denver Post regarding the future of Jason Giambi:

"Turns out 'roid Ranger Jason Giambi isn't out of the Yankees' plans after all. He has lost so much weight they plan to use him as the right-field foul pole."

But don't get me wrong, I love sports...

Copyright The Sports Curmudgeon