Category Archives: Football

Rocky Rhodes: Everything Old Is New Again

Grant “Rocky” Rhodes is America’s oldest living sportswriter. He first rose to prominence in 1921, when he struck an early blow for civil rights with his groundbreaking article on the Negro Leagues (“Colored Players Not Totally Inhuman”). His weekly sports column, “The Cat’s Pajamas”, appears in 7000 newspapers nationwide when not bumped for “Hints from Heloise” or “Gardening Weekly”. Today, he graces Scratchbomb with his nine decades of sports wisdom to talk about Sunday’s NFC Championship game.

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We got this one attendant at the home, Frankie. A little stupid, but a good kid. So this morning he tells me that the Giants are playing the Packers in the NFC championship game. “That probably reminds you of old times, huh?” he says. “Back in the days of Vince Lombardi and stuff like that. I bet Lambeau Field was a pretty exciting place to be back then.”

Sure, it was exciting, if your idea of exciting is freezing your nuts off in the middle of Ass-Nowheresville. Ask a sportswriter his idea of hell, and he’ll say “Green Bay.” That place makes Amish country look like Weimar Berlin. I knew a guy who cut off his pinky rather than go there for the ’61 NFL Championship. A week of eating nothing but cheese and brats and I 0couldn’t get unblocked if I stuck a stick of dynamite up my rear end.

It was nothing like the championship games of the real old NFL. I mean, the real Paleolithic days, when there were no helmets, cheerleaders, or common sense. Guys sacrificed their bodies and minds every Sunday, for little money and even less notoriety. But I’m sure all of them would do it all over again if they could, and if their softened brains could still grasp the concept of decision making.

You wanna talk about a championship game? In 1937, I saw the Providence Steamroller beat the Chicago Cardinals 2-0 in the parking lot of a Studebaker dealership in Davenport, Iowa. It was definitely the best damn football game I’ve ever seen, and I’m sure my fellow spectators, all three dozen or so, would agree.

1937 was the year the NFL tried to increase scoring by changing the ball’s shape to oblong. Before that, it was angular, metallic and sharp. Of course, the old shape was totally impractical, but the league held on to it for a long time because they paid a lot of money to some fella named Calder to design it.

Of course, they hadn’t started filling the balls with air yet. No siree, they still filled ’em up with good ol’ fashioned concrete. The only score in the game came when the Cardinals’ quarterback dropped dead from exhaustion in his own end zone. A linebacker tripped on his corpse and fell on it to record the safety. He was the championship’s only casualty, which was quite rare in those days. Most every game back then would end with at least three guys in the morgue.

Providence’s star player was Stan “Running Back” Wisniewski. He was the perfect man for the team’s patented “run straight up the middle” offense. Stan only averaged 1.2 yards per carry, but he still led the league in yardage every year–mostly because they handed him the ball on every single play.

Back then, you were allowed to  call one play in your first game of the year, and you had to stick with that same play all season. It would be another few years before Weeb Ewbank invented something called “strategy”.

“Yup, you really missed out by being born so late,” I told Frankie. “Those were the days where men were men, and football was football. You’ll never get to see something like that in your life so long as you live.”

“Yeah, but I also don’t have to pee in a bag,” he said.

Touché, Frankie.

Ron Paul Takes on the BCS

ronpaul.jpgHey there, Interweb-Land, Ron Paul here. Maybe you know me from seeing my name on thousands of highway overpasses across  the land. Perhaps you recognize me from my scintillating fifth-place finish in Iowa, or my breathtaking YouTube productions. You might also be familiar with my millions of loyal followers who post angry responses in all-caps to any blog post that mentions my name.

What’s that? You don’t recognize my name? That’s because the liberal media is afraid of me and my suspiciously well-organized grassroots campaign, so they never mention me among the other Republican candidates. If you don’t believe me, just listen to my spirited rebuttals on CNN, Fox News, C-SPAN, Good Morning America, The Today Show, A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, and three dozen other programs.

Fact: I have a blimp! No other candidate in either party has any sort of dirigible. Mike
Huckabee used to be zeppelin-sized, but I don’t think that counts.

But I’m not here to talk about outmoded forms of air travel. I’m here to talk about the BCS, which is in desperate need of a Ron Paul makeover. Just like our great nation, college football’s bowl system is a mess wrought by bureaucrats and meddlesome eggheads and their stupid computery computers.

When Ron Paul takes over, all computers in the nation will be destroyed, and I will give out free Common Sense Thinkin’ Caps to every citizen. I will also not allow evolution to be taught in schools, unless all science teachers doing so follow every statement about this theory by yelling BULLSHIT.

The BCS is just like the income tax: nobody’s happy with it, but nobody’s got the guts to do anything about it. Except guess who? That’s right, yours truly, the Paulinator. No, please, hold your applause until I’m finished.

My solution: tear down the whole damn thing. But don’t start over. Just let the schools stomp around in the rubble and let them figure it out. How about, everybody play everybody, all the time! Or play the same team over and over! If Michigan wants to play Ohio State three times a week all year, let ’em! Oregon can play itself for all I care. Hell, they got enough uniforms for seven teams.

Eventually, the glorious free market will decide who’s champ, without the expense and fuss of a newfangled bowl system. You see, Americans are frontier people. Things run best in this country when we let ’em run wild. Who can do their job with the nosy NCAA or federal government waggin’ its finger at every gosh darn thing?

Say you’re a big agribusiness company, and you wanna save some dough by feeding Styrofoam peanuts to your poultry. Or you’re a toy company and you feel like using some delicious lead paint. Guess what? You can’t, ’cause the dang ol’ government says you can’t.

But when Ron Paul is supreme executive, I mean, president, that won’t be a problem, ’cause we won’t have an FDA or an FTC. In fact, we won’t have any office that can be spelled in all capital letters. Probably do away with that stupid Supreme Court, too. All we need in Washington is me and enough Congressman to field a softball team.

I’m sure there will be some unscrupulous companies that’ll do crazy stuff, like slap Gerber’s labels on sulfuric acid and sell it as baby food. So you, as a consumer, can choose to not by caustic chemicals for your infant. You vote with your dollar, see? And you’ll drive the no-good-niks outta business, leaving only righteous capitalists standing.

Unless the sulfuric acid guys buy out all the other baby food companies. Or they pay off enough newspapers and networks so you never hear about their sulfuric acid. But hey, that’s the free market. Don’t like it? Go to Cuba, commie.

I’m sure my BCS solution will captivate the nation, just like my solutions for Washington have taken root in the political consciousness. Why, here’s unsolicited testimony from a concerned citizen.

luapnor1.jpgLAUPNOR: IF YOU WANT TO KEEP THE BOWL SYSTEM YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE CONSTITUTION ALSO THE IRS IS ILLEGAL AND EVERYONE WHO DOESN’T THINK SO SHOULD BE BURNT AND TORTURED AND TIM TEBOW IS NOT MY HEISMAN WINNER. HOOK EM HORNS!

I like the way LAUPNOR thinks!

Don Shula, Mythbuster

shula_time.jpgAs a fan of the Jets, of course I wanted them to beat the Colts on Sunday. But as a fan of non-douchebags, I wished Indy could stay undefeated. Because that would mean they had a chance to win all 19 games, and thus threaten the sore winner tyranny of the 1972 Dolphins. Up until two weeks ago, I hoped both the Saints and Colts would go undefeated in the regular season and win the AFC and NFC championships, thus ensuring there would finally be a completely undefeated team to knock those old crabs off their cheap throne.

In every other sport, when a record falls, the previous record holder (or his family) is on hand to congratulate the new champ and wish him/her well. Even Hank Aaron begrudgingly tipped his cap to Barry Bonds when he beat the all-time home run record. If anyone ever had a reason to flip off the guy who supplanted him in the record books, Aaron did. But Aaron decided the game was bigger than him and paid tribute to Bonds, because he’s not a huge dick.

The ’72 Dolphins don’t suffer from such humility and perspective. They’re like mountain climbers who’ve scaled Everest, and decide to take sniper shots at anyone else who attempts the feat. Each year, they literally pop champagne when the last undefeated team takes a loss–and brag about such poor sportsmanship, on top of it all. And make commercials about it, too.

They insist to whoever will listen about how they’re the best team of all time, which, considering how much football has changed in the last 37 years, is borderline insane. Athletes are conditioned so much better in every single sport now, but especially infootball. Can you imagine the ’72 Dolphins trying to block the linebackers of today? Just look at these guys. They’d be mashed into the ground by the Lions, let alone a decent team.

Oh, and they played one of the easiest schedules in NFL history. Not in the NFL that year. In NFL history. Their opponents that season had a .396 win percentage. They are in the 99th percentile in terms of ease of schedule, all time. An NFL team is less likely to play such an easy schedule every again than a person is likely to be born with a dorsal fin.

Two years ago, when the Patriots were in the midst of their undefeated (regular) season, Don Shula got all a-snitter about how Camera-Gate invalidated their accomplishments. He conveniently neglected to mention that his ’72 Dolphins were not without their own ethical missteps.

He also tried to poke holes in many other grand achievements, on this very web site. It was quite a coup to get him to open up, I must say! You can take a trip down memory lane and read all about it here.