Sports is politics

From one of my favorite sports columnists, Sports Illustrated's Dr. Z.

From Gene (and incidentally, I know how Toms River got its name... after Dr. John J. River) -- "What the hell is our congress doing spending money looking into past drug use instead of preventing any future abuse?" From Dave -- "Spygate has become a symbol for how to adjust focus on something to avoid 'the something' that truly matters." And he goes on to mention the somethings that truly matter -- price setting by energy conglomerates, the phony war in Iraq, that failure of adequate compensation for indigent NFL veterans, and politicians' lack of the same commitment to these issues.

First the drugs, which I interpret to mean steroids and HGH, which triggered that TV show from the Washington hearing room. Gosh, wasn't it fun, all those politicians pretending they were like something out of Court TV?

Did they have the power to really bring charges? Uh, no. Did they have the power to reach a verdict and impose a penalty? Come on now. So what were they doing there? They appeared at Clemens' request, after he had gone around and personally schmoozed a selected group of them. Somehow there was the vague threat of punishment to Roger for lying to Congress, although the president has gotten away with it for years.

What I saw, though, in the 10 minutes or so that I was able to watch it, was something right out of the old radio show, It Pays to be Ignorant. It was one of my favorites when I was a child. It was a brilliant parody of quiz shows, such as Information Please and The Quiz Kids. This poor old ex-vaudevillian, Tom Howard, would ask his idiot panel a question such as, "Who was buried in Grant's Tomb?" and for 15 minutes or so the most moronic discussion would take place, without the question ever being answered.

The part that I watched of this week's version was Sen. John Tierney trying to get an answer from Clemens to the question, "How do you say three times in your deposition that you never did speak to [Brian] McNamee about steroids and later on acknowledge that, in fact, you had?" And Clemens would bounce this back on one hop... "It was prior."

"What was prior? You contradicted your own deposition."

"It was before that."

"What was before? First you said you didn't, then you admitted you did."

"Not the way you mean it." ...

Enough rabble rousing. Lee of Elma, N.Y., asks, and here we go again, "If Bill Belichick is found to have taped the Rams before the Super Bowl, will he go down as the Richard Nixon of NFL coaches?"

Did you know that Nixon was a wine buff? The story they tell about him is that, when he'd entertain guests on his yacht, Sequoia, he'd have a bottle of 1966 Chateau Margaux wrapped in a towel and served only to himself, while his guests were served an inexpensive Zinfandel. I once did a column about that and interviewed members of the Wine & Food Society for their opinions. My favorite response was from Harriet Lembeck, who taught a wine class.

"Why, the '66 isn't ready yet," she said. ...

A nasty note from Ben of Seattle, advising me to get over my fixation with line play since no one else gives a rat's ... uh, gives a goshdarn about it. Grow up, Ben. Adults follow line play and its intricacies. Children with short attention spans watch only the ball and immediately flip the dial if a team has to punt.