What an article…we have contrasting emotions, outrageous hyperbole, filler sentences, a Kurt Warner/Jesus joke and championship bath robes. That’s right. Championship bath robes. Take it away, Dan Bickley:
In the dark minutes after Super Bowl XLIII, the contrast in emotions was striking.
Because, already prepared by sportswriter groupthink with the “it was a good loss” column, Bickley was surprised to see that the Cardinals were actually upset that they had lost.
He had figured that they would probably be pretty happy with themselves and that their emotions, despite the close loss, would be similar to the Steelers’. It was a woeful miscalculation.
Didn’t they know that this good loss was just like winning? Didn’t they know that they should be happy with their effort? Didn’t they know that they were ruining the premise of a thousand articles currently being written by sportswriters all across America?
Oh no, they didn’t.
The Steelers strolled toward the team bus wearing white championship bath robes and smoking cigars.
Championship bath robes. Just think about that for a second.
…
…
…
Championship.
Bath robes.
…
…
…
I love professional sports.
They were in a state of collective ecstasy. Their lives had all changed forever, for the better, and they knew it.
I like hyperbole. Hyperbole, hyperbole, hyperbole. Get in my article.
The Cardinals were appropriately numb. The difference between winning and losing a Super Bowl is immense, emotionally, historically and financially.
Some other sentences that didn’t have to be written:
John McCain was appropriately numb. The difference between winning and losing a Presidential election is immense, emotionally, historically and financially.
The patient was appropriately numb. The difference between anesthesia and no anesthesia is immense, emotionally, physically and lawsuit-causingly.
Colonel Jessup will look back and think that he probably shouldn’t have ordered the Code Red.
Beer is awesome.
… What if someone had just pushed the Steelers' James Harrison out of bounds on that interception to end the first half? What if the Cardinals had gone to that explosive, no-huddle offense earlier in the game? What if the defense would've just stood up at the end? What if Santonio Holmes doesn't make one of the best catches in Super Bowl history, rivaling grabs from the Giants' David Tyree and the Steelers' Lynn Swann?
Then the Cardinals still probably have lost the game because Jesus was upset that Kurt Warner didn’t set aside a Championship Bath Robe for him.
Showing posts with label super bowl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label super bowl. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Good guys DON'T finish last
Nils and argued this point vehemently over a slew of text messages last night, but I still say that the best commercial of the night was the one about the free Grand Slam breakfast this Tuesday at Denny's. I'm not even sure how this is up for debate.
As far as the game goes, it was surprisingly exciting. But what put Pittsburgh over the top, exactly? Peter King has some ideas.
It's a story about the affection everyone on the Steelers has for everyone, basically.
[I'm not following....]
"It matters,'' said [Hines] Ward. "You're going to be a better team if you like one another and trust one another."
[Oh, OK. Actually, I was thinking a similar thing when Warner threw that crippling INT that was returned for a score right before half-time. I thought, "Wow, Warner just *totally* showed his lack of trust in his teammates. If the back-up punter hadn't intentionally ignored Warner's 'I've got five on this seat' when he got up to grab a bagel during film study that week, Warner would have definitely thrown a TD right there."
I am still a little unclear on how liking each other directly causes success on the field, though. King, do you have another quote that, when taken out of context, is creepy and altogether hilarious?]
"We're just a bunch of little boys, fooling around in the living room,'' Troy Polamalu said.
[Perfect.]
Chemistry didn't win the most exciting Super Bowl I've covered, but chemistry did wear a Pittsburgh jersey.
[Because chemistry, like players, can only play for *one* team at a time. Sorry, Cards.]
Chemistry got built three years ago in Pittsburgh when Jerome Bettis wanted to draw the franchise quarterback more into the fraternal graces of the locker room and started playing a silly game with Ben Roethlisberger, standing 20 yards from the goal post and seeing who could be the first one to hit an upright with a pass.
[This is brutal. One more.]
No one knows what chemistry is, or how important it is in winning.... It's one of those things you can't define, but you can see. And the Steelers are full of it.
[OK, I can't read anymore of this. And how counter-examples do we all need to experience before we stop singing this song (Reggie Jackson-Billy Martin, Shaq-Kobe, Hall and Oates (there's no way they liked each other, right?), etc.)? Enough already.
Well, on the bright side, only 16+ hours until my free Grand Slam at Denny's.]
As far as the game goes, it was surprisingly exciting. But what put Pittsburgh over the top, exactly? Peter King has some ideas.
It's a story about the affection everyone on the Steelers has for everyone, basically.
[I'm not following....]
"It matters,'' said [Hines] Ward. "You're going to be a better team if you like one another and trust one another."
[Oh, OK. Actually, I was thinking a similar thing when Warner threw that crippling INT that was returned for a score right before half-time. I thought, "Wow, Warner just *totally* showed his lack of trust in his teammates. If the back-up punter hadn't intentionally ignored Warner's 'I've got five on this seat' when he got up to grab a bagel during film study that week, Warner would have definitely thrown a TD right there."
I am still a little unclear on how liking each other directly causes success on the field, though. King, do you have another quote that, when taken out of context, is creepy and altogether hilarious?]
"We're just a bunch of little boys, fooling around in the living room,'' Troy Polamalu said.
[Perfect.]
Chemistry didn't win the most exciting Super Bowl I've covered, but chemistry did wear a Pittsburgh jersey.
[Because chemistry, like players, can only play for *one* team at a time. Sorry, Cards.]
Chemistry got built three years ago in Pittsburgh when Jerome Bettis wanted to draw the franchise quarterback more into the fraternal graces of the locker room and started playing a silly game with Ben Roethlisberger, standing 20 yards from the goal post and seeing who could be the first one to hit an upright with a pass.
[This is brutal. One more.]
No one knows what chemistry is, or how important it is in winning.... It's one of those things you can't define, but you can see. And the Steelers are full of it.
[OK, I can't read anymore of this. And how counter-examples do we all need to experience before we stop singing this song (Reggie Jackson-Billy Martin, Shaq-Kobe, Hall and Oates (there's no way they liked each other, right?), etc.)? Enough already.
Well, on the bright side, only 16+ hours until my free Grand Slam at Denny's.]
Friday, January 30, 2009
The Boss >> EVERYTHING. EVER.
Look, I think Bruce Springstein is OK. I can appreciate his song-writing abilities. But honestly, I never really "got it" with respect to the sheer insanity of his rabid fanbase. For example, take a look at Ian O'Connor's column.
His sideburns and soul patch a dusty shade of gray, his voice as rough as a turnpike exit ramp, the man dressed in casual black sat on a stool with his right foot planted on the floor and his left foot planted on the crossbar. Springsteen wouldn’t have come across any better, any more regular-Joe genuine, if he had grabbed a guitar and starting singing about warm beer and a soft summer rain.
[For starters, I have a personal rule against getting *too* excited about anyone with a soul patch. Also, now that we know how the Boss likes to position his feet when sitting, why does "warm beer" conjure a positive connotation? Warm beer is gross. And a song about it would just be weird.]
So I’m one Bruce-loving son of New Jersey who is going to positively hate himself in the morning.
[Should have taken it easy with the warm beer. Maybe bring a cooler or something next time.]
The Boss is bad for the Super Bowl.
[Huh?]
He’s too big, too good, too damned popular to be plunked down in the middle of America’s leading sports event.
[Great point. With 100+ million people watching, we wouldn't want someone *too* popular. Think about it....]
Springsteen doesn’t play at the Super Bowl.
[Boy, those TV execs are going to be PISSED come halftime.]
If NFL officials wanted Bruce so badly, they should’ve turned this into a concert and had Pittsburgh and Arizona play a 12-minute game at intermission, like those mini Giants Stadium scrimmages the little boys play at the half.
[I can't tell if he's being serious or not.]
Springsteen said he hasn’t played football since his backyard games from 50 summers ago, and yet he was met at the Super Bowl by a larger audience than would greet a collection of every living member of pro football’s Hall of Fame.
[We get it. The Boss is popular.]
His sideburns and soul patch a dusty shade of gray, his voice as rough as a turnpike exit ramp, the man dressed in casual black sat on a stool with his right foot planted on the floor and his left foot planted on the crossbar. Springsteen wouldn’t have come across any better, any more regular-Joe genuine, if he had grabbed a guitar and starting singing about warm beer and a soft summer rain.
[For starters, I have a personal rule against getting *too* excited about anyone with a soul patch. Also, now that we know how the Boss likes to position his feet when sitting, why does "warm beer" conjure a positive connotation? Warm beer is gross. And a song about it would just be weird.]
So I’m one Bruce-loving son of New Jersey who is going to positively hate himself in the morning.
[Should have taken it easy with the warm beer. Maybe bring a cooler or something next time.]
The Boss is bad for the Super Bowl.
[Huh?]
He’s too big, too good, too damned popular to be plunked down in the middle of America’s leading sports event.
[Great point. With 100+ million people watching, we wouldn't want someone *too* popular. Think about it....]
Springsteen doesn’t play at the Super Bowl.
[Boy, those TV execs are going to be PISSED come halftime.]
If NFL officials wanted Bruce so badly, they should’ve turned this into a concert and had Pittsburgh and Arizona play a 12-minute game at intermission, like those mini Giants Stadium scrimmages the little boys play at the half.
[I can't tell if he's being serious or not.]
Springsteen said he hasn’t played football since his backyard games from 50 summers ago, and yet he was met at the Super Bowl by a larger audience than would greet a collection of every living member of pro football’s Hall of Fame.
[We get it. The Boss is popular.]
War Crimes & Homoeroticism in the Sports Section
I think that Bill Plashke may be losing it…and I don’t mean that in an insulting way. I mean it in a positive we-can-help-you-Bill way.
Because I want to help.
The fairy tale is that, if he wins Sunday, the Arizona Cardinals quarterback has promised to buy his family a puppy.
It’s a fairy tale? As in, it's not real? Warner’s kids are going to be PISSED.
The reality show is that the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to whip the dog out of him.
I’m pretty sure that is not a real phrase.
The fairy tale is that, while dining with his family every Friday night before home games, the Arizona Cardinals quarterback picks up a stranger's bill.
How is this a fairy tale? This really happens. It happens every Friday night before home games. I know this because you just told me it was true…even though you also told me it was a fairy tale.
Your bad writing hurts me.
The reality show is that the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to cash him out.
Plashke is currently waterboarding this fairy tale/reality show device despite waterboarding being specifically disallowed in the Army Field Manual...which means that this column is four sentences in and already officially guilty of a War Crime.
Good start.
The fairy tale is that, for the second time in a bungee-jump of a career, Kurt Warner will finish work Sunday as the sweetest of Super Bowl heroes.
Just when I started to think “hey, that actually is kind of a fairy tale” and “maybe that means that Plashke just needed to get warmed up and is now going to make sense,” I do something stupid like read his next sentence…
The reality show is that the Pittsburgh Steelers will make him melt in their mouthpieces.
Without a single shred of a doubt, this is the single most disturbing sentence ever written in a sports column.
There are, by my rough count, 325,648 jokes that it is possible to make from this sentence alone, but each of them only reinforces what I just read…and I need to be cleansed of that sentence. To pretend that it never happened. To scour my mind clear of the thought that any part (or emission) of Kurt Warner might be melting in the mouthpieces of a single Steelers player. To try manfully to knock away the image of the Steelers actively wanting Kurt Warner in their mouths. So I do not joke about it.
I just flail helplessly beating my head against the wall and weeping in sorrow for the state of sportswriting.
I would go on, but Plashke rides the fairy tale/reality show metaphor so indecently, unfeasibly long that it really belongs in a John Holmes movie. And I just can't do that to myself.
Or to you.
Because I want to help.
The fairy tale is that, if he wins Sunday, the Arizona Cardinals quarterback has promised to buy his family a puppy.
It’s a fairy tale? As in, it's not real? Warner’s kids are going to be PISSED.
The reality show is that the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to whip the dog out of him.
I’m pretty sure that is not a real phrase.
The fairy tale is that, while dining with his family every Friday night before home games, the Arizona Cardinals quarterback picks up a stranger's bill.
How is this a fairy tale? This really happens. It happens every Friday night before home games. I know this because you just told me it was true…even though you also told me it was a fairy tale.
Your bad writing hurts me.
The reality show is that the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to cash him out.
Plashke is currently waterboarding this fairy tale/reality show device despite waterboarding being specifically disallowed in the Army Field Manual...which means that this column is four sentences in and already officially guilty of a War Crime.
Good start.
The fairy tale is that, for the second time in a bungee-jump of a career, Kurt Warner will finish work Sunday as the sweetest of Super Bowl heroes.
Just when I started to think “hey, that actually is kind of a fairy tale” and “maybe that means that Plashke just needed to get warmed up and is now going to make sense,” I do something stupid like read his next sentence…
The reality show is that the Pittsburgh Steelers will make him melt in their mouthpieces.
Without a single shred of a doubt, this is the single most disturbing sentence ever written in a sports column.
There are, by my rough count, 325,648 jokes that it is possible to make from this sentence alone, but each of them only reinforces what I just read…and I need to be cleansed of that sentence. To pretend that it never happened. To scour my mind clear of the thought that any part (or emission) of Kurt Warner might be melting in the mouthpieces of a single Steelers player. To try manfully to knock away the image of the Steelers actively wanting Kurt Warner in their mouths. So I do not joke about it.
I just flail helplessly beating my head against the wall and weeping in sorrow for the state of sportswriting.
I would go on, but Plashke rides the fairy tale/reality show metaphor so indecently, unfeasibly long that it really belongs in a John Holmes movie. And I just can't do that to myself.
Or to you.
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