We interrupt this political program for a brief venture into sports by our resident TMV sports guy.
The San Francisco Giants Monday night won the World Series in five games over the Texas Rangers. The victory captured the fancy of almost no one not a baseball fan who lives outside the Bay Area.
The baseball gods who insist on calling baseball America’s National Pastime are like those clinging to their Bibles and guns. That just ain’t true no more. Baseball has gone the way of newspapers. It is a summer sport which runs out of gas in late October and early November.
Baseball was “saved” in the past decade because of home runs and steroids and juiced up players. That’s now passe. The only salvation the game has is hyped by the New York media when the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies and (don’t laugh) the Mets are in the playoffs and Series.
All the blame cannot be placed on the New York messengers and those upstarts from Bristol, Conn. They are actually showing some love for a college football team out West.
That would be the Oregon Ducks who are undefeated in seven games and scoring 55 points a game with an offense I consider the greatest scoring machine and dollar entertainment value in college football history. Their defense is no cupcake, either.
Oregon runs more plays in less time and if it were not for a rare fumble, interception or penalty, they score. We haven’t seen such a frenetic offensive pace since Bud Wilkinson’s Oklahoma Sooner days 50 years ago.
Their pace is so fast television cannot run a replay of the previous play and the defenses cannot substitute and all opponents are gassed five minutes into the second half.
Barring upsets, the BCS national championship game this year promises to be the most exciting of all time assuming Oregon makes it with opponents being the winner of the Auburn/Alabama game or Boise State.
For non college football fans and to the chagrin of the television networks, the best game match-up would be Oregon vs. Boise State. Why? The boys from Boise, despite a weak conference, are blessed with outstanding coaches and the athletes to support their game plans. Just ask Oklahoma if Boise is not a squad of winners as much as they were three years ago in the Fiesta Bowl.
That is not to take away anything from Auburn, Alabama or even Ohio State and Iowa.
As for the NFL, my least favorite team, the Dallas Cowboys, I am sorry to say is terrible even before quarterback Tony Romo went down.
My homer instincts rooting for the San Diego Chargers, have been muffed as badly as their special teams which give new meaning to “special” as in porous and pathetic. I would be surprised if they won a road game all season unless it was some club in Boise State’s conference.
Each week the rankings of the NFL best teams change. At the halfway point, it is the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, or Baltimore Ravens, or the Oregon Ducks.
Jerry Remmers worked 26 years in the newspaper business. His last 23 years was with the Evening Tribune in San Diego where assignments included reporter, assistant city editor, county and politics editor.