Volume 3, Number 10
October, 1998
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Just a few memos from the desk of yours truly
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by Dave Lind |
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- Memo to you rookie-bashers: Let's just all take a pill and ease off
on the rookie QB's. Leaf and Manning may not exactly be setting the
league on its ear, but last time I checked they were still rookies and
they still had only 4 NFL games under their belts. Anybody but me
remember Marino riding the pine for most of his rookie year, or Elway
getting yanked practically in mid-pass in favor of Steve Deberg, or
Favre getting shown the door by the Falcons (The Falcons!) for sucking
so hard in his first season.
- Memo to you Batch-boosters: And while we're at it, enough with you
blowhards trying to compare Charlie Batch with his much-more-heralded
counterparts in San Diego and Indy. Manning and Leaf both suffer from
the Savior Syndrome. Both are laboring under the oppressive expectation
of turning around teams that won a total of seven games combined.
Compare that with Batch, who steps in with utterly no expectations to
take the place of a wildly unpopular quarterback for a playoff team and
is charged with the daunting task of handing the ball off to Barry.
- Memo to Deion: Next time let me pick the cliff. Nobody...I mean
NOBODY tries to kill them self by driving their car off a 30-foot
cliff. You could JUMP off a 30-foot cliff and walk (ok, crawl) away
with little more than a broken leg. And not to second guess The Lord,
but what in the h*&% is he doing saving your sorry butt while he lets
perfectly likable people like Reggie Miller, Hank Gathers, and Flo Jo
drop dead for seemingly no good reason.
- Memo to you Plummer-pushers: Please, no more comparisons of Jake
Plummer to Joe Montana, at least until the former can show he's capable
of leading his team, if not to the playoffs, then at least TOWARD the
playoffs. I know a lot of scrawny white guys with no apparent football
ability who look more like Montana than does Plummer. And one more
thing, "The Snake" is not an acceptable nickname for Plummer, I don't
care how much you may have liked "Escape From New York". The name is
already taken and unless you want to invoke the wrath of legions of
battery-chucking Ken Stabler fans, you desert-dwelling sand-eaters may
want to put your sun-baked brains to work and come up with something
original.
- Memo to Iron Mike: Look Mike, if you don't want to fight anymore,
just retire and try to fade away with whatever dignity you may have
left. Don't put us through this farce of acting like you're trying to
get your boxing license back while secretly doing everything in your
power to sabotage the proceedings. We all wrote your blow up in New
Jersey off as just your usual inability to control your temper. But to
grant an interview to Playboy in which you calmly explain that you are a
nut and you fully expect to snap at any moment? Yeah, you want to get
back in the ring like I want to get back into divorce court.
- Memo to Miller Genuine Draft: I, like most men of my age, are slaves
to commercial advertising. The sacred tube tells us what to wear, what
to drive, what to eat, and (most importantly) what to drink. Since most
of us have grand visions of becoming better people than we are and
sleeping with far more attractive women than we ever could, we have come
to identify with those beer commercials featuring bikini models who seem
to have been raised in zero gravity. What does not appeal to us is your
endless series of commercials aimed at the greasy-haired,
heavily-tatooed, El Camino-driving Jerry Springer-watching crowd.
Repeat: Underwear models = good. Fat, sweaty heroin addicts = bad.
- Memo to NBA players: Ok, I know those cushy 8- and 9-digit salaries
can sort of warp one's perspective, but I'm here to tell you you're
really pissing into your own oatmeal here, guys. You've got the
sweetest deal in sports and you're willing to put it all at risk to keep
marijuana off the banned-substance list? Am I hearing this correctly?
You're holding out for the right to smoke pot? Hello......?
- Memo to NBA owners: Ok, so you're finding it difficult to balance
your billion-dollar revenues against those hundred-million dollar
salaries. Believe me, no one sympathizes with you more than I. But
let's be honest here, you wouldn't be in this situation if you hadn't
all had the fiscal restraint of a sailor on shore leave. If you're
stupid enough to give a 9-digit paycheck to a kid who is just barely old
enough to vote, then who am I to feel sorry for you. And while I
appreciate your efforts to try to sway popular opinion with your
politically correct attempt to establish a drug-free work place for your
multi-million-dollar daycare center, let me just say this: If marijuana
were a performance-enhancing drug my brother-in-law would be leading the
NFL in rushing and have hit 75 home runs this year. Lay off the weed!
If you want to improve the image of your league, establish a
zero-tolerance policy for wife beating.
- Memo to Sammy Sosa: I was watching your locker room strip-tease
following your playoff-clinching win over the Giants and I wanted to say
"Thanks". My wife is usually not much a baseball fan, but she was
watching when you peeled your shirt of and...well...just "thanks".
- Memo to Griffey: Hey, Junior. If you try one more time to tell us
you're not a home run hitter I'll reach over a slap you myself. How
does 150+ dingers over the past three years sound? That's more homers
than anyone in baseball with the exception of that Andro-chugging
pituitary freak in St Louis. Well spank my ass and touch me lower
Daddy, but that sounds like a power hitter to me.
- Memo to the Niners: Yeah, yeah, yeah, another 3-0 start en route to
another 13-3 finish. Ok, so it's not your fault you play in the
Pac-10...I mean, the NFC West. But could you please try to remember,
the next time you're dancing and strutting like a peacock on viagra
after rolling up another 56-6 pasting of East Carolina, that beating up
on your fellow NFC West teams is hardly the equivalent of beating an
actual NFL team, and should truthfully count as only three-fifths of a
win.
- Memo to the guy in the Coors Light ad: I'm thinking Krebbs could
wipe up the floor with your sorry little ass, so you might want to just
back out of his grill and cut the big man some slack.
- Memo to Ken Starr: You have nothing! I've seen the video tape, I've
read your pathetic little report, and I say again: You have nothing!
Go buy yourself a and a good cigar and leave us the hell alone. Your
15 minutes are up.