FOXBORO, Mass. As the Pittsburgh Steelers' walked off the field following their 34-13 loss to the undefeated New England Patriots here tonight, teammates pointed their fingers at second-year safety Anthony Smith who had "guaranteed" a victory last Wednesday.
Anthony Smith
"Damn, man--what'd you go and do that for?" said running back Willie Parker. "We gonna have to give refunds now?"
Brady: Four touchdown passes.
"Naw, you guys didn't read the fine print," Smith explained. "I never guaranteed a win--I said if we didn't win, and you saved your ticket and mailed it in along with your proof of purchase by December 15th, I'd give you a rebate equal to the amount by which the Pats beat the over," which was set at 47 points. Because the game score equalled but did not exceed 47, the "over" bet set by Las Vegas oddsmakers, Smith is disclaiming liability.
"That ain't your receipt man--this is from Applebee's!"
Professional sports guaranties of victory are frequently given but rarely enforced. The federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act imposes significant penalties on interstate businesses that fail to live up to their promises, noted Morton Sokolow, an attorney for Smith who has defended a number of similar claims. "Unless you're careful," he explains, "you could be in deep doo-doo."
Patriots' quarterback Tom Brady threw for four touchdown, two for more than 50 yards, both over Smith. "I was tied up at the time," Smith said. "Some guy tried to give me an Applebee's receipt for his proof of purchase."
Pittsburgh fans who travelled to the game will be given a free toaster oven and a Steelers' license plate frame. "It's really our way of saying thank you to our loyal fans," said Smith. "We don't actually owe them anything."
EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey. Jeff Feagles, veteran place kick holder for the New York Giants, stormed out of the team's dressing room today after accusing reporters of ignoring his contributions to the franchise's incredible 9-10 record over the past two seasons.
Feagles: "How long must I labor in obscurity?"
"You guys have written a book about everybody on this team from Eli Manning to Christine Procops," the Giants' chief financial officer. "What do I have to do to get a little ink around here--become a CPA?"
Crunch Time: A Season Running the Numbers for the New York Giants, $24.95.
Feagles' frustration boiled over after reading a story in Sunday's New York Times that listed eight books published about the Giants this fall, a statistic that other teams around the league cited as evidence of east coast bias by national media outlets headquartered in New York. "We won the Super Bowl last year and there were only three books published about us," complained Rod Zucker, Vice President of Marketing for the Indianapolis Colts. "The New York media is like a drunk who loses his car keys and only looks under the street lamp because that's where the light's best."
Steelers license plate holder
Other teams joined the chorus of complaint. "There were no books published about the Steelers after we won Super Bowl XL," notes Pittsburgh Communications Coordinator Dave Lockett. "We got a license plate holder."
New York publishers denied the accusation, saying they commission books based on anticipated demand and are not prejudiced against other regions of the country. "I asked several people I know, and they all said they'd be more likely to buy a book about the Giants than the Tampa Bay Orioles," sniffed Armand de Borchgrave, a third-generation editor at Farr, Wilkinson & Sanford, which will publish a cookbook of tailgating recipes by Giants' fans for the holiday book market.
Saul Steinberg's famous New Yorker cover: Does the rest of America really matter?
New Yorkers are notorious for their condescending attitude towards the rest of America, as memorably portrayed by Saul Steinberg, the cover artist for The New Yorker magazine whose map depicting Manhattan looming as large as the rest of the country became an instant classic. "After the Steelers won the Super Bowl in 2006 we commissioned David Halberstam to write a book about Giants' fans reactions to the game," de Borchgrave recalls as he wipes a tear from his eye. "He had only written about 760 pages when he died this year."
Halberstam: "For a Steelers fan, perhaps the most important consideration is what a New York writer will say about his beloved team if the Giants do not make the playoffs."
The NFL's licensing office said they would work with New York publishers to introduce them to markets beyond the Tri-State area in the unlikely event that the Giants' dynasty comes to an end in the near future. "We need to educate them," said Phil Burns. "People in Indiana will read something longer than a throw pillow if you give them the chance."
NEWARK, Delaware. As he returns home from a disappointing Vth place finish at the XXth Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy, Johnny Weir isn't looking back. Instead, the elfin skater is being groomed by his handlers for a place in history--the first man to cross professional ice skating's "gender bar" and win the hearts of male audiences.
"I am so sick of Ben Roethlisberger," complained Andy Brandnewjetski, a native of Coatesville, Pennsylvania, Weir's birthplace. "Bring on the quad jumps, man," the former Steelers and Penguins fan said as he knocked back a shot of rye whiskey followed by an Iron City Beer chaser.
Men who retire from Olympic skating have historically found themselves confined to a "velour ####", either stuffed into fuzzy costumes for "Smurfs on Ice" and similar youth-oriented shows or forced to become television commentators.
"I'd rather be dead in a ditch," Weir replied to a reporter who asked if he'd be satisfied with these career alternatives. "Don't get me wrong, Peggy Fleming is nice, but the stores where she buys her clothes ought to be burned to the ground!"
The Ice Capades have tried to capitalize on male skaters in the past, but without much success. Elvis Stojko--a martial arts and dirt bike enthusiast--was touted as the "Male Hope" in the late 1990's, but he fell victim to the Rudy Galindo dynasty in much the same way that Ted Williams never won a World Series during Joe DiMaggio's years with the Yankees.
Network officials say Weir is different, even if he does fit the satin-and-sequin stereotype the public expects of male skaters. "He wore a snake costume and a bird outfit at the Olympics," said the Outdoor Channel's Clell Furnell. "Maybe we could put him on between 'Texas Rattlesnake Hunt' and 'Ducks of the Mississippi Flyway'."
DETROIT. Seattle rookie linebacker Lofa Tatupu today proposed that the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Seahawks use the ancient Hawaiian mediation process known as "Hooponopono" to end a war of words that has escalated in the countdown to Super Bowl XL.
"Hooponopono has been used by my people for many centuries to resolve conflicts amicably," said Tatupu, whose father--Mosiula "Mosi" Tatupu--was a high school football star in Hawaii and later played for the New England Patriots. When asked to give examples of problems that the ritual had been used to resolve, Tatupu cited disputes over ownership of pigs and whose turn it was to get more poi during a commercial.
Seahawks' tight end Jerramy Stevens got the ball rolling by saying that Jerome Bettis would have a "sad day" when he left his home town of Detroit without the Super Bowl trophy. Steelers' linebacker Joey Porter responded by saying Stevens was "too soft to say something like that." Seahawks' receiver Joe Jurevicius upped the ante by calling Porter a "stupid nimmy-not." Porter fired right back, saying Jurevicius's momma was so ugly she had to sneak up on a can of soda to get a drink.
In Hooponopono representatives of warring groups sit in a circle, pray and ask one another for forgiveness. The term means "to make things right," said Hui Malama I Na Kapuna O, an expert in Pacific studies at Kapiolani Community College in Hawaii. She began to elaborate, but campus police cut her off and asked her to move because her name was so long it blocked a fire exit.
Porter said the Steelers would not submit to the process, and suggested an alternative from his own culture. "How 'bout I go upside Tatupu's head instead?"
DETROIT. His Steeler teammates laughed and said it was only a matter of time. Like a long-dormant volcano, Pittsburgh linebacker Joey Porter erupted during the second day of media interviews in the run-up to Super Bowl XL, pouring forth a lava flow of provocative comments that are sure to provide hot bulletin-board material in the Seattle Seahawks' locker room.
"The Irish potato famine? It never happened," said Porter, referring to the nineteenth century crop failure caused by an airborne fungus that resulted in large-scale emigration from the Emerald Isle to America. "All them Irish just wanted an excuse to go to Notre Dame."
"I don't know why he'd say that," said Seahawks' cornerback Kelly Herndon, a black man with an Irish-sounding name. "Porter's entitled to his opinions, but to join the ranks of potato-famine deniers is really going too far."
Porter didn't stop there. "Everybody says Franklin Roosevelt saved us from the Great Depression. Gimme a break. He made it worse by shifting so much of the American economy to the public sector through government entitlement programs!"
Even Steelers' coach Bill Cowher had some reservations about that pronouncement. "That's a subject on which reasonable people can differ," Cowher said in a conciliatory tone. "I for one think the Depression was worsened by a lack of monetary liquidity following the deflation of prices in public securities markets."
Porter blamed the media for egging him on. "They want to talk about everything except football. Yesterday some punk from The New York Review of Books asked me 'Agree or disagree: John Ashbery is our greatest living poet.' Hell, man--disagree. 'The mangel-wurzels that come out of every door.' That's ####."
When reminded that Ashberry had been praised by no less a poetic light than W.H. Auden, Porter didn't back down. "Ashbery couldn't change Auden's typewriter ribbon."
WASHINGTON, D.C. Moved by the impassioned plea of Steelers' linebacker Joey Porter, Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) today introduced emergency legislation to create a federal Court of Video Appeals that would review replay officials' calls during NFL playoff games.
"We came awfully close to a gross miscarriage of justice this Sunday," Specter said to an empty Senate chamber, recounting Referee Pete Morelli's ruling that Troy Polamalu's interception and fumble with 5:26 left in the Colts-Steelers game was an incomplete pass.
The Steelers went on to win, but the outspoken Porter charged that the decision was part of an NFL conspiracy to ensure that the Colts advanced to the Super Bowl. "On this, the day before Martin Luther King Day, I don't see how you can take a pick away from a Hawaiian guy."
Specter, who last entered the world of Pennsylvania professional sports in support of Eagles' wide receiver Terrell Owens, discounted the notion that pro football was beyond the jurisdiction of the US Senate. "Anybody who thinks I've doing this because I've got too much time on my hands is just plain wrong," he said angrily. "I'm in it for the press coverage."
The court would be in session during all NFL playoff games after the wild-card round, and would set up shop in the stands as has sometimes been the practice at Eagles' games to provide for the convenient arraignment of drunken Philadelphia fans. A three-judge panel would hear #### argument from the two teams, who would also have the right to file briefs of not more than twenty pages in support of their positions.
When a reporter noted that the new legal procedure could extend the NFL playoff season by several months, Specter seemed unconcerned.
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His work is available on Amazon Shorts (at 49 cents a dowload), and he writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
