Minnesota Twins vs. New York Yankees

The assumption is that the Yankees will blow the Twinkies out in three games. Trust me, they should. Minnesota’s staff “ace” is Carl Pavano who was last seen being pelted with rotten fruit on his way off the mound for the Yankees after he cashed almost $40 million in checks while on the disabled list. Minnesota has an anemic lineup, a cut-rate pitching staff, and fields a group of slap hitters who all look like second basemen from the 70’s. The Yankees on the other hand boast a $238 million (or whatever the fuck it is now) payroll that features C.C. Sabathia. A.J. Burnett, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mo Rivera, Robinson Cano, Hideki Matsui, Mark Texiera, and Alex Rodriguez and quietly won 100 games because George Steinbrenner is now catatonic and being fed baby food.

Now, name five Twins who aren’t named Joe Mauer, Joe Nathan, Carl Pavano, and Justin Morneau (who happens to be out for the year with a bad back). They have a couple things going for them that are always pointed out, but are incredibly important. First, they don’t give a shit who they’re playing. A week ago they were behind Detroit, and after a 1964 Philadelphia-style choke job and one of the best one-game playoffs ever, they are on their way to New York. For them this is like an early Christmas present. Second, they have the Metrodome and the Yankees have, uh, a stadium that looks like a really clean toilet bowl. The Metrodome is one of the all-time greatest home field advantages in the history of sports, so the Twins have one last chance to use it.

But it doesn’t matter because unless Sabathia, Burnett, and Andy Pettitte have epic meltdowns or Phil Hughes starts choking in the eighth inning, the Yanks are looking primed for a deep run. How far they go depends on if they draw Los Angeles or Boston in the ALCS, but they take this series in no less than four.

Boston Red Sox vs. Los Angeles Angels

While the Angels have the Yankees’ number, the Red Sox have theirs. Maybe it’s the last few ghosts of 1986 floating around or the specter of Donnie Moore rattling his chains and moaning in the bullpen, but for some reason, even when they get a big lead, the Angels cannot seem to get past these guys. My heart wants to believe that this is the year that they finally drive a stake through the heart of Beantown and slay this rotten dragon, but until they do, I gotta stick with the fact that they wilt against Boston.

So, with the hex-related bullshit out of the way, they keys to the series are whether the Angels can get into Boston’s bullpen before the seventh inning, Boston can shut down LA’s running game, and if the Angels’ closer Brian Fuentes can get over his late season case of the yips. Basically, the entire series is going to come down to a total of about five at-bats in what should be a series of close games, and if it swings to the closers, which it will, the Red Sox have the advantage. This is the only series where I am not using my head in the pick though, so I’ll take the Angels in five.

Colorado Rockies vs. Philadelphia Phillies

I don’t know if it’s the power of Christ that compels the Rockies to make this sort of run seemingly every other year or if it’s the Dodgers inability to close out a season without sending their fans into tailspins of despair and doubt, but the Rockies are looking shaky and Philadelphia is going to bring them back down to earth hard. Colorado just lost their best pitcher, De la Rosa – who won 16 of his last 19 decisions – to a groin injury that could possibly keep him out of the entire playoffs. Beyond that, Jason Marquis did his annual second-half nose-dive that got him landed in the bullpen. No wait, he’s starting game four! Good luck. That leaves Ubaldo Jimenez and Aaron Cook on the mound to handle one of the best lineups in baseball in two parks that are built to accommodate home runs in bunches. Conversely, the Phillies get to trot out Cole Hammels and Cliff Lee along with possibly Brett Myers and Pedro Martinez who should be okay for about five innings. The one danger for the Phils, and the key to the series, is Brad Lidge who has become one of Ray Bradbury’s firemen. If the Rockies can keep it close, they could flip what I think is going to be a Phillies sweep into a demoralizing Rockies 3-1 series win. Watch this one drunk.

St. Louis Cardinals vs, Los Angeles Dodgers

St. Louis has the Dodgers’ number this year and the Cardinals are a trendy choice to knock off the Yankees in the World Series. Oh, and Manny Ramirez can no longer hit either because he’s off the juice or he inexplicably developed a conscience and has been racked with guilt and self-doubt over the steroids flap or his transsexual lover left him for a rich Brazilian man. Seriously, Juan Pierre is a better option right now. Toss in the double-barreled butt-fucking that is the inexperience and low self esteem of Jonathan Broxton and Clayton Kershaw and you have all the makings of the Dodgers pulling a Cub-like disappearing act in the opening round. I don’t think that will happen because Joe Torre is pretty good at manipulating a clubhouse, but everyone said the same thing about Chicago the last two years.

Anyways, St. Louis got scary good over the last half of the season and since they have The Best Player in Baseball at first base, it’s safe to assume that everyone around Albert Pujols will be seeing decent pitches to hit. Chris Carpenter is back at peak form, Adam Wainright is the best pitcher no one has seen, Albert Pujols is Jesus Christ, Matt Holliday is hitting again, Rick Ankiel is safely tucked away in the outfield, and the Dodgers have completely stopped hitting.

Cardinals in four flushing out my dream of a Freeway Series so the Angels could shut up those obnoxious assholes in the Manny wigs.

I’m sure some part of you wishes you led the life Steve McNair did, or at least the life he led until one of his mistresses, Sahel Kazemi, stood over him with a loaded 9mm, no doubt crying hysterically, and followed through on the age-old crazy lover’s threat that “if I can’t have you, no one can.” Hell, you’d probably accept the untimely demise if it meant you got to live like he did until Kazemi punched his ticket. He had women, fame, the respect of his peers, a possible spot in the Hall of Fame awaiting him, and enough money in the bank to finance a thousand trips to Tahiti.

In the aftermath of his unlucky tryst the national media and his peers began an awkward dalliance with how to frame the life of a man who in every way possible had it all, but in the end seemed to just hit the jackpot in the wrong way. Is he a football god or a philandering miscreant? Was he a Hall of Fame-caliber player who should be mourned or is he a cautionary tale? Or was he simply just a man enjoying the fruits his life bore? The reality is that in the end, being Steve McNair was pretty awesome, perceived flaws and all, because seriously, what’s the point of being one of the best quarterbacks of the last 20 years if you can’t have four women at once?

He was an ebony god in Nashville with his own soon-to-be opened fried chicken joint, enjoyed an impeccable reputation as a humanitarian and all around great guy, and was a reputed family man who reputedly only fucked his wife. His reputation was so immaculate that even white sportswriters wrote about him in reverent tones usually reserved for the likes of Joe Montana, Peyton Manning, and John Elway. He was the first black man to win a share of the NFL MVP as a quarterback, almost won a Super Bowl by himself, and willed himself through games with injuries that would put the rest of us in traction for eight weeks. But in the end Steve McNair will be remembered more for getting mixed up with a delusional and suicidal waitress from a shitty restaurant chain no matter how many highlight videos NFL Films puts together and teary testimonials his ex-teammates record for posterity, and that’s exactly how it should be.

It’s become clear that in the days and weeks leading up to McNair’s death, things were either going very well or very badly for him, depending on your point of view. Various media reports and police interviews show that not only was McNair involved with Sahel, but at least one other woman whom she began stalking shortly before the murder/suicide – and possibly more. His wife, Mechelle, whom many people have described in the press as a borderline saint, was either oblivious to her husband’s wandering phallus, or willfully ignoring it as so many long-term marriages become more business arrangements than life-long love matches. Something that is painfully obvious considering that McNair had at least two rented condominiums in the Nashville area and in the previous eight months was openly spending at least two or three nights a week at Kazemi’s apartment, had taken her on a half-dozen vacations (while he had entertained his family at the Dave & Buster’s where Sahel worked as a waitress), co-signed for a loan on an Escalade, and fed her the oft-used line about divorcing his wife. As it is with almost all crazy women, the pussy must have been incredible.

How many men have multiple girlfriends? How many men cheat on their lovely wives? How many wish they could? Now, think about how awesome it is to be a top-flight quarterback in the NFL and the smorgasbord of top-shelf vajayjay (or piles of beefcake, depending on your preference) passing before your eyes. You know that unattainable beauty you see at your office every day? She’s an afternoon snack for a pro quarterback, so you can understand why McNair had to beat them off with his prodigious and oft-used member before ending up involved with a delusional club trollop who was looking for a sugar daddy.

You won’t see any players or league officials condemn McNair for straying from the marital bed since most of them partake of the same pleasures of the flesh that he did. Former teammate Eddie George and coach Jeff Fisher stepped into the breach to cover for him by insisting that McNair had trouble adjusting to life after football to explain away doing what comes naturally (fucking 20-year-old hotties because you can) and focusing on the positive aspects of McNair’s life on the football field. Meanwhile, most players in professional sports have probably been talking a little shop about each other’s mistresses, comparing notes, and in some cases, if they’re smart, breaking off contact with the smoking hot nutjob they met at the club five months ago. Meanwhile, Steve’s wife, who has been described as lovely and perfect, has been pumped full of sedatives, visited by a string of preachers, sequestered from the press, and surrounded by police, Tennessee Titans officials, and lawyers since her husband’s demise at the hands of a hotter piece of ass. Expect her full story and expert advice on homemaking, child rearing, hacking into your husband’s PDA, and cashing in on his violent death to come out in a slapdash biography on the Oprah reading list within five months.

The shame of this is that Sahel makes crazy ladies look bad. Big, dramatic murder/suicides are usually perpetrated by loser guys who think (sometimes correctly) that they’ll never get another piece of ass as sweet as the one walking out the door. Most crazy women just drink all of your booze, crawl through your bedroom window at 3:30 am, threaten to kill you or cut your balls off, and make complete fools of themselves in public during a psychotic breakdown after they sense you’re pulling away. But to actually buy a gun and then shoot you after you fall asleep on the couch? That’s elite-level crazy. But to then take it a step further and position yourself to fall on your dead lover when you blow your brains out? That’s the Heavyweight Champ of Crazies, Steve, and I gotta give it up, you got the big trophy that escaped you on the football field.

He permeates the game like a bad case of chronic halitosis in an elevator. His grimy fingerprints can be found all over shady business deals and litigation across baseball. His words are hollow, his cries for fairness and a level playing field are defy reality, and he is as arrogant a liar as Pete Rose. And even though he left the business years ago, he still dresses and acts like a slimy used car salesman trying to pawn a lemon off on some unsuspecting rube. His name is Bud Selig, and he is the archenemy of the grand old game of baseball.

There have been dumber commissioners, Bowie Kuhn chief among them. Kuhn not only lacked the foresight to recognize a shift in the way the game was being played, but he stubbornly resisted the realities of free agency. There have been more dictatorial ones. Kenesaw Mountain Landis was an ardent racist who felt it was more important to keep the reserve clause intact and black folks in their proper place while reminding everyone he was the ultimate arbiter of any dispute. Bart Giamatti, the very model of arrogance, was a pseudo-intellectual twerp who used to quote Greek philosophers in an attempt to mask his own vanity, lack of originality, and overt sense of superiority.

Yet, throughout the history of the game, there has never been another commissioner as self-serving and able to speak out of both sides of his mouth as Bud Selig. At once he has said baseball is going through a golden age while also lamenting the supposedly insidious intrusion of steroids – under his watch, no less. He pisses and whines about inflating free agent contracts, but sits back and secretly sighs with satisfaction as every club grows in real value every single season because of the increasing value of the players – the game’s very commodity – that he publicly vilifies.

When a city balks at building a new stadium, he bitches about how the game cannot survive anywhere where the locals aren’t willing to dig deep and finance a cathedral to the game of baseball. He then has the nerve to turn around and say that the game is there to serve the fans. He hypocritically shuns Pete Rose, would rather pretend Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Roger Clemens didn’t exist, and behaves as if the nefarious Donald Fehr and the MLBPA have robbed him and the rest of the owners of their rightful profits. He likes to trump the success of the wild card in baseball, bleat the virtues of the World Baseball Classic, and rambles on about how wonderful the game is. Yet, at every turn Bud Selig has proven himself to be one of the more disruptive and mendacious commissioners the game has ever seen.

Selig got his start in baseball as a minority owner of the Milwaukee Braves in the 1950’s. When the Braves moved to Atlanta in 1965, Selig divested himself of the team and began actively lobbying for a new team in Milwaukee. In 1969 he reached an agreement to buy the Chicago White Sox, but after American League officials caught wind of his intent to move the Sox to Milwaukee, the deal was nixed. Instead, in 1970 he purchased the bankrupt Seattle Pilots and moved them to Milwaukee where he renamed them Brewers after an old minor league club that dated back to the 1880’s.

For most of their history the Brewers were a profitable, but shitty franchise. They made the playoffs in 1981 and the World Series in 1982, but beyond that, they were at best a mediocre team. Selig was a competent and profitable owner and even considered a hero by some folks in Milwaukee for giving them a team while successfully fleecing them for a new stadium. But as commissioner, he raised the art of being a sneaky fuck to new heights, especially when it comes to labor relations.

From the mid-1970’s forward, the players have beaten the living shit out of the owners at the negotiating table. Mostly it was because Marvin Miller was 10-times smarter than any of the fools he was sitting across the table from. Miller, a shrewd and sophisticated labor lawyer, had been a part of trilateral negotiations between steel workers, the government and US Steel in the 1950’s and had been involved in some of the most complicated contracts the free world has seen. By comparison, men like Bud Selig and the rest of the owners were dogshit on the heel of Miller’s shoe. After Miller retired, the players union was taken over in 1985 by his lieutenant, Donald Fehr, a bare-knuckled negotiator in his own right who continued the union’s winning streak through the 80’s, 90’s and today.

After badly losing to the players in 1981, the owners colluded against the players mid-decade and made a gentlemen’s agreement in blatant violation of the collective bargaining agreement (and the law) not to sign anyone else’s free agents. Selig and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf were the chief architects of the strategy and when Fehr took the owners to court, the owners ended up having to pay $280-million in damages to the players. While Selig never publicly admitted to collusion, his fingerprints were everywhere and Fehr quietly chuckled.

In 1992 labor relations flared up again. Commissioner Fay Vincent — the last real commissioner baseball has seen — pissed the owners off to holy high heaven when he gave an honest assessment of the owners he had been hired to represent at the negotiating table. “The Union basically doesn’t trust the Ownership,” said Vincent, “because collusion was a $280 million theft by Selig and (Jerry) Reinsdorf of that money from the players. I mean, they rigged the signing of free agents. They got caught. They paid $280 million to the players. And I think that’s polluted labor relations in baseball ever since it happened. I think it’s the reason Fehr has no trust in Selig.”

Selig and Reinsdorf went completely apeshit and demanded Vincent’s resignation. At first Vincent told them to eat a dog dick, but in the end the owners held a no confidence vote. By a score of 18-9 Vincent was effectively pushed out and in his place went Selig on an “interim” basis that lasted for six years. He passed on “ownership” of the Brewers to his daughter to avoid a conflict of interest, but anyone who believes that Selig was anything less than fully involved in his team’s finances is more delusional than someone fucks crack whores and thinks he got dick warts from his wife.

Throughout the next two years Selig and the owners cried and whined to anyone who would listen that the players were sucking them dry while agents were holding guns to their heads and forcing them to give guys like Bobby Bonilla and Matt Young inflated long-term contracts. The owners needed to be saved from the nefarious clutches of the evil Donald Fehr and a salary cap had to be put in place to save teams in smaller markets such as Kansas City, Oakland, Minnesota, and of course, Selig’s and Jeff Dahmer’s home town, Milwaukee.

In 1994 with labor relations at an impasse, Selig and the owners decided to lock horns with the Players Association again. This time the owners were determined to win at all costs, even if it meant canceling the World Series for the first time since 1904. So they did. After the players went on strike that August, the owners refused to negotiate in good faith and waited until September before canceling the season and the playoffs. In turn, Selig successfully played the media, blamed the players for being greedy, was complicit in destroying a relatively well run and locally owned franchise in Montreal, and helped devastate attendance figures and the game’s popularity across North America. Then, in the ultimate insult to paying fans, Selig and the owners tried to field replacement players at the beginning of the 1995 season.

No less a legendary figure than Tigers manager Sparky Anderson refused to go along with the charade. Calling the replacements everything but a group of wannabes, retards and baseball invalids, Anderson refused to even manage the Tigers in Spring Training. Calling the tactic shameful for the game of baseball, Anderson called a press conference, announced he was going home to play golf, driving off into the sunset to sip scotch and try to fuck his wife until the lockout was ended.

Eventually, as happened in 1972, 1981 and 1985, the owners got their asses handed to them, but not until after they tried to game the system one last time. Selig and the owners tried to wipe out the existing collective bargaining agreement and abolish free agency in one fell swoop by declaring it null and void. Except they forgot about the National Labor Relations Board and had their asses handed to them in federal court when a judge put the old agreement back in place.

He loves to take credit for the Wild Card entries, which have been phenomenally successful providing five World Series champs since its inception in the mid-90’s. However, Selig was an ardent opponent of the system while Fay Vincent was in charge. Vincent was looking to institute the idea in the early 90’s, but Selig and Reinsdorf undermined Vincent’s authority at every turn only to implement ideas he championed after the fact. Selig loves to talk about the success of small market clubs. Yet, it was only a few years ago that he commissioned a “Blue Ribbon Panel” that carted out a lot of specious numbers that said small market teams were unable to compete under current economic conditions. When asked about the Oakland Athletics ability to win 90 or more games year in and year out, Selig called them an anomaly. When the Twins did it, he called it a fluke. When the Marlins won the World Series in 2003, he called it a great story about a scrappy underdog. When the Tigers turned their franchise around, he called it heroic or some such shit, but he has never backed off his stance that baseball needs a salary cap to control spending despite the fact that teams like the Yankees, Mets and Dodgers may spend in bunches but don’t automatically win the World Series.

During the 2001 labor battle Selig contended that Major League Baseball needed to contract two clubs – the Montreal Expos and Minnesota Twins – for the financial health of the game. Of course Selig was remiss to mention that Twins owner Carl Pohlad, one of the richest men in baseball and one of his Selig’s closest friends, was demanding that the state of Minnesota along with the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul needed to build him a new stadium without him contributing a dime of his own money. Pohlad was bitching that the Twins were at a competitive disadvantage because they did not have a baseball-only stadium. Selig also failed to mention that the owners were going to buy Pohlad out of his stake in baseball with an over-valued cash payout while falsely claiming that fans in Minnesota didn’t give a shit about
the club enough to come to games.

The case surrounding the Expos was even more heartbreaking. For years Montreal management regularly drafted, acquired, signed or developed some of the best raw talent the game has seen in the last 30 years. Andre Dawson, Gary Carter, Steve Rogers, Jeff Reardon, Andres Gallarraga, Cliff Floyd, Moises Alou, Tim Raines, Vladimir Guerrero, Pedro Martinez, Jose Vidro, Larry Walker, John Wetteland, Ken Hill, Randy Johnson, Tim Wallach, Michael Barrett and Marquis Grissom all passed through Montreal on their way to stardom, riches and in some cases, World Series titles.

From 1979 through 1983 the Expos were among the attendance leaders in baseball. The team was locally owned, well run, profitable, and winning. In the early-90’s Sports Illustrated wondered if the World Series would be an all-Canadian affair as the Toronto Blue Jays won consecutive titles and the Expos were knocking on the door and armed with the best farm system in baseball. In 1994, with one of the best young lineups ever assembled, the Expos were poised for a pennant run and had the best record in baseball. Armed with Pedro Martinez, Ken Hill, Walker, Moises Alou, Grissom, Wetteland and a very young Cliff Floyd, the Expos were dominating the National League while also lobbying the local government for help with a new stadium.

Yet, with the cancellation of the post-season the Expos lost all support for a new stadium, watched their attendance shit the bed, and the local owners were forced to sell off their best players to stay solvent. Shortly thereafter, the owners sold the team to an art dealer named Jeffrey Loria who immediately demanded, with the explicit support of Selig, that the provincial government completely finance a new stadium to replace the white elephant Olympic Stadium, and then began to hint that he would move the franchise if he did not get what he wanted. In the end, Selig allowed Loria to sell the club off to Major League Baseball at an inflated price, buy the Florida Marlins and then literally strip the Expos of everything of value that wasn’t bolted down including the office furniture and computers before the Expos were
awkwardly taken over by MLB and forced to play with both hands tied behind their backs. Even when the club competed the team was not allowed to make stretch run trades or September callups that might have kept the team in the pennant race. However, the owners had no problem with sending the Expos on road trips for extended periods by having them play “home games” in fucking Puerto Rico, of all places, all but ensuring the club would be exhausted, spent and dull when it came time for them to play “contenders” that they out hustled, out worked, outplayed and out-thought all season long.

To make up for it Selig hired Omar Minaya as general manager of the team, making him the first Latino chief executive in baseball, Selig cynically made it impossible for Minaya to make significant changes to the club. Except for trading blue chippers Cliff Lee and Grady Sizemore – and two of Cleveland’s current cornerstones — for Bartolo Colon; Selig and the rest of the owners hamstrung Minaya. It took years, but the Expos were finally relocated to Washington DC where Peter Angelos had to be paid off with the blood of 500 first-born male children before he would allow another club into his competitive territory. Now, the Nationals are maybe the worst team in baseball. What’s more, a community that was reasonably loyal to the club was robbed of their team while the owners pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars while
jiggering the competitive balance of the game.

As for steroids, everyone, including Selig, the sportswriters, the players, the fans, the general managers, the mangers, everyone who is involved in and loves the game is to blame for this one. No one is saying that Selig and the owners actually peddled dope to the players. Guys were juicing up long before Selig took the stage. But let’s be honest, when the home runs were being jacked, the tickets were being sold, and Mike Lupica was licking Mark McGwire’s balls, no one gave a shit that Ken Caminiti was pumping himself full of Mexican horse hormones to fuel his MVP season in 1998. When Brady Anderson hit 52 home runs from the leadoff spot after never hitting more than maybe 15 in his entire life, no one lifted a finger to bring an end to steroid use, least of all Selig. Of course he would cart out the usual chestnuts about how there needed to be comprehensive testing and that the game needed to be clean and that the world will collapse unless he and the owners could check the blood, urine, spinal fluid and hair strands of every player in baseball for any illicit substances. But in reality, the owners shrugged, collected the cash and then pointed the finger when the rumors started flying.

The popular sentiment is to blame the Players Association because for years both Miller and Fehr resisted drug testing, and rightfully so. It’s an invasion of privacy and the only reason the owners ask for it is so they have more leverage with the players during collective bargaining and free agent negotiations, not to keep the game “clean.” If it was all about fair play and keeping the game clean, blacks would have been playing in the majors back in 1924, the reserve clause would have been abolished during the 30’s, and Curt Flood would not have had his life ruined for having the nerve to demand the right to sell his services to the highest bidder instead of being sold like chattel.

No, the owners, with Bud Selig championing their cause, applauded the players during the 90’s as record profits rained down and the game’s image was re-established, but when the bill for it came due they pointed the finger at convenient targets like Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire and claimed that it was the players who “did this to the game.” Ironically, Selig and every one else was willing to smile and clap until Barry Bonds came along and knocked Big Mac out of the all-time single season home run record. When Bonds hit number 71 everyone in baseball began to look at each other out of the corner of their eyes and go, “what the fuck do we do now?” It wasn’t because he was black, per se, but more about him being a vile person that no one liked, the zeal of FBI agent Jeff Novitzky’s investigation of BALCO, and Congress sticking their nose into the business of baseball instead of investigating torture allegations during the middle of an illegal
military occupation.

As it stands now, Selig has the nerve to ignore Barry Bonds after he achieved baseball immortality and smashed Henry Aaron’s all-time home run record and denounce all the players upon whom his finances have been reliant. Selig, who is on the record as a close personal friend of Aaron’s, has tried to keep himself above the fray even though he is swimming in money earned from the halycon days that baseball is enjoying. This last year alone saw Selig earn over $18 million in salary and bonuses from the owners. He also has the audacity to tell Newsday, “I don’t want to hear the commissioner turned a blind eye to this or he didn’t care about it. That annoys the you-know-what out of me. You bet I’m sensitive to the criticism. The reason I’m so frustrated is if you look at our whole body of work, I think we’ve come farther than anyone ever dreamed possible. I honestly don’t know how anyone could have done more than we’ve already done” while saying that
Alex Rodriguez of all people has “disgraced the game.”

While the players are certainly responsible for the choices they made, and while the debate about the philosophical implications of steroids can go on forever, this entire mess ultimately falls at the feet of the person who claims to be the head of baseball and repeatedly bleats his own accomplishments while shouting down any criticism. Selig and the owners effectively went back on an agreement to keep the 2003 sample steroid tests confidential, have denied their own culpability for baseball’s problems, and have used the Mitchell Report (a wholly incomplete and one-sided document) to absolve themselves of any responsibility for the problems baseball faces.

The problem here is that Selig helped spearhead and champion this entire situation. Whether he wants to admit it or not, he did look the other way, he was not okay with steroid testing for the good of the game, but rather okay with it as a tool to break the union. He is not sensitive to the needs of the fans, nor does he really give a shit about the communities that support them. This is and always has been a money deal for him, and even the hardest core of fans needs to understand that these leagues and sports are not about the ideal of fair competition of dream fulfillment nor even representations of the best in people, they have gone way beyond that. These sports leagues are multi-billion-dollar monopolies that will be guarded by those involved at all costs and are being helped along by our own
legislators.

After seven years of incessant bitching and whining on both sides, the Red Sox finally traded Manny Ramirez – who won the World Series MVP during the year The Curse was broken and has been maybe the best slugging right-handed hitter in a generation – and two minor leaguers for Jason Bay in the middle of a pennant race. Apparently, Theo the Boy Genius and his bosses had just gotten exasperated with a guy who speaks broken Spanish, rolls around in the outfield after tripping over blades of grass chasing fly balls, and demands trades more often than George Steinbrenner used to piss and whine for a new stadium.

However, the Red Sox just cut loose a guy who hit 25 home runs in 95 career post-season games partially because, in part, he cold-cocked a deserving Kevin Youkalis, shoved a sixty-something-year-old traveling secretary, wouldn’t kneel before Peter Gammons, refused to do publicity shots with retarded kids during Spring Training, and every year made it clear that if the Red Sox didn’t trade him he would make them the sorriest mother fuckers who ever lived. All of this provides ample justification to the legion of sportswriters who have alternately called Ramirez one of the best players to ever don a uniform and one of the biggest embarrassments the game has ever seen.

It’s also a bunch of bullshit.

It’s not that I feel that Manny Ramirez is some innocent or that he does not deserve his share of scorn – he did sign an eight year contract and cashed all the checks – but when so-called experts like Peter Gammons start pretentiously bleating hyperbole about how Manny Ramirez has defiled the Great Game of Baseball, we can officially call bullshit on the charade. Ramirez is a ballplayer, an entertainer, and a diva. He is borderline retarded, impulsive, and a grade-A flake, but he is seemingly concerned with just two things in life: hitting a baseball really, really well and making as much money from that esoteric skill as humanly possible. Which is not unique, but right now he is the It-Boy for all of baseball’s problems.

Coming from the Red Sox, this all seems a bit dubious considering the team’s history. In his day Ted Williams spit on fans when he wasn’t practicing his swing in the outfield while fly balls whizzed by his head. Jim Rice was one of the surliest bullies to ever roam a locker room. Long-dead out-and-out racist owner Tom Yawkey yelled “Get that nigger off the field!” when Jackie Robinson tried out for the Red Sox shortly after World War II. Carl Yazstremski repeatedly dogged the last two months of any season the Red Sox were out of a pennant race – Carl being Carl if you will. The holy Theo Epstein started a tasteless power struggle with Larry Lucchino and when he didn’t get his way immediately, he left Fenway in a gorilla costume to avoid the press after his hissy fit. Yet, none of them ever won a World Series without Manny hitting in the three-hole, but they are all revered by the sporting press as the epitome of all that’s right with the world of baseball in Boston in spite of their huge character flaws.

From a baseball standpoint, the trade is somewhat flawed. The Red Sox just traded their best hitter and justified it by saying he’s a disruptive force in the locker room and a petulant child who takes bathroom breaks in the Green Monster during the middle of an inning, doesn’t follow team rules, and acts like a jackass, not because of declining production or even because he is maybe the worst defensive left-fielder in the history of the game. Then, to bolster their case, reports came out of Boston that Ramirez and his agent, Scott Boras, engineered this trade by burning all bridges and actively threatening to sabotage Boston’s season sparking a debate about whether Bud Selig of all people should get involved. If the Red Sox are trying to save face or make Manny look bad, it won’t work because neither Boras nor Ramirez cares what you think.

The player they got in return, Jason Bay, is a solid enough player and is a Boy Scout by comparison in regards to demeanor and hairstyle, but in the heat of a three-way pennant race in the American League East against the incredibly talented Tamp Bay Rays, and the hurt, but still dangerous Yankees, the Red Sox are at a decided disadvantage since their lineup has been depleted by the decline of Jason Veritek, nagging wrist injuries to David Ortiz, inconsistency from Mike Lowell, spotty performances from the starting rotation, and a near implosion in middle relief. In one stroke the Red Sox significantly reduced their chances for the pennant and turned the Dodgers into the odds-on-favorites to be the only team in the National League West to finish over .500 and gave Joe Torre a big gun to seriously challenge the Cubs and Phillies for the pennant.

It’s plausible to say this was inevitable and probably should have happened years ago. Ramirez never really fit in Boston even though the fans worshiped him. After coming up with Cleveland, Ramirez and his agent Scott Boras cashed in on the free agent frenzy of 2001 when owners handed out lavish contracts like the nouveau riche picking up trophy brides, cocaine, and gaudy art. It was a big move for a franchise desperate to win a title, and it paid off handsomely but cost the team its sanity.

After signing a $160 million contract over eight years, Ramirez began to grate on ownership, and vice versa, almost from the get-go in spite of the tremendous numbers he posted. For years the two sides played chicken with each other. Manny would get fed up with the weather, would miss some decent Latin food, or just plain want out, and throw a silly temper tantrum like a five-year-old screaming for a popsicle and the Red Sox would try with all their might to either accommodate his eccentricities or try to trade him. It got so bad that Ramirez was placed in irrevocable waivers, but because of his ridiculous contract, not one team claimed him. However, in the end, Ramirez would generally deliver big and all would be forgiven, especially when he helped eradicate The Curse bringing Boston to orgasmic joy after the Red Sox overcame a three game deficit to beat the Yankees and sweep the Cardinals in the World Series. In the cosmic baseball ledger book, that alone is worth the headaches.

But in the end, player movement is not about loyalty to a city or a team or even common decency; it’s about leverage, unfortunately. In this case, Ramirez used the only leverage he had: threatening not to play – which is among the gravest sins in sports – to force the Red Sox hand and ship him out of town before they could exercise their $20 million option on him so he could get one more big free agent contract before his skills and numbers sharply decline. It’s really no different from a team extorting a city by threatening to move if the municipality does not construct a new stadium. Owners and GM’s have held players out of games to prevent them from triggering performance clauses in their contracts, but you don’t see too many heartfelt columns being written about them messing with the integrity of competition or being money-grubbing bastards who get public subsidies to conduct business.

Manny Ramirez may be a complete cock smoker of the highest order, but he’s far from the scourge on humanity that Gammons and his ilk make him out to be. It’s just that they are jealous. Ramirez carries the same bastard-gene many of the owners do in that he’s willing to do whatever he has to maximize his wealth. He was also smart enough to hire Scott Boras. He’s a Baby Huey man-child who would be a flunky garbage collector or construction site gopher living in Washington Heights picking up underage girls at low-end Salsa clubs if it weren’t for baseball, but since he can hit a baseball better than 99-percent of the guys in MLB, he can do something that a lot of people wish they could: Dictate his own terms.

I was in a bar in Manhattan watching the Patriots and Chargers duke it out for the AFC Championship. Under the big screen on the other side of a passageway were a bunch of Patriots fans hooting and hollering and carrying on. During commercial breaks they went into the usual song and dance about how Tom Brady is the best quarterback who ever lived, that Bill Belichik is better than even Vince Lombardi, and that this version of the Pats was not only the greatest single-season team ever, but that this dynasty trumped all others in the history of football, if not sports. They were loud, obnoxious and saying that it didn’t even matter who won the NFC Championship Game.

When the Giants ended up winning a classic game played in arctic conditions in Green Bay by stopping Brett Favre in the last minutes and with Lawrence Tynes redeeming himself in overtime, Vegas rolled out an astounding and incomprehensible 14-point spread before Tynes could even finish his post-game interviews. After coming this close to knocking off the Pats just three weeks before, the Giants won three playoff games on the road behind an increasingly confident and efficient Eli Manning, a stifling pass rush, and a collective energy that just oozed that special something that doesn’t come from discipline and whip cracking, but from talent congealing into focused action. This wasn’t the 1985 Patriots lucking their way through three road games in the playoffs into a chance to get slaughtered by the Bears; this was an extremely talented and skilled team peaking at just the right moment, and it was shocking that they got so little respect from not only the odds makers, but the so-called professionals who talk so much shit about football.

But to be fair, during the pre- and post-game analysis that Sunday, everyone, including me, ceded the Super Bowl to New England weeks before. While some were calling for a huge blowout, privately I figured the Giants would come out on fire and score the first 17 points. But I also assumed Tom Brady would lead a storybook comeback and win a shootout with Eli 34-31 on a last-minute drive, immortalizing him in various children’s’ books for all eternity. But during their post-game interviews after the Chargers game, Belichik, Brady, and the rest of the Patriots seemed a little too happy. They got cocky, drank a little too much champagne, and actually started talking about the possibility of a perfect season and their subsequent place in history, and after 20 weeks of focusing on the here and now, they publicly looked past an opponent and didn’t take the Giants seriously. Mike Vrabel offered this nugget to Mike Reiss of The Boston Globe: “Not to have anyone take this the wrong way, but you’re away from your kids for a few days, so it’s a dad’s vacation. It’s not a golf trip; we have business to do at the end of the week, and we will prepare for that, but you can play cards, play dominoes, go to dinner, and really enjoy what you’ve done all year” — a statement that should have tipped everyone off that the Patriots were fucked before they even got on the plane to Phoenix.

Early on I privately chuckled at the fans and prognosticators who predicted a huge blowout. Publicly I called for a blowout up until the Wednesday before the game, but I wondered to myself what everyone had been watching for the last 10 weeks. Yes, the Patriots were dominant. Against Washington, Buffalo, the Jets, Miami, (whom Belichik cynically said still had a chance when they were down by more than 20 back in Week Seven) and Pittsburgh they were otherworldly. But for all the juggernaut talk, teams had been bringing their A game to the Patriots for weeks and had been hitting them in the mouth, coming close to beating them, and exposing huge chinks in their armor along the way.

First, Philadelphia proved what a lot of people secretly suspected all along: The Patriots were vulnerable at offensive tackle and shitty — I mean really shitty — at picking up outside pressure, especially on blitzes. Matt Light and Nick Kaczur are great players and incredibly efficient in drive blocking, but they can be beaten outside by superior defensive ends. And I don’t mean just someone like Dwight Freeney who can beat pretty much anyone you line up against him; I mean guys like Trent Cole and Jevon Kearse or Trevor Pryce and Terrell Suggs, combinations that are really good, but not out of sight, which must have had Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora drooling. Combine that with outside blitzers or safeties striking on the inside, and the Patriots had a glaring deficiency that people avoided talking about. It was as if it were taboo to criticize Brady’s vaunted offensive line, or his running backs’ glaring inability to pick up blitzers, or Bill Belichik’s amazing devolvement into Mike Martz when it came to protecting his All World quarterback.

Second, the Patriots’ linebackers are not just skilled, but experienced and very capable of stuffing opposing running games given the right circumstances. However, aside from Adalius Thomas, they are also old, increasingly terrible in pass coverage, and subsequently wear down as games progress. All year long I wondered why no one went right at those guys by throwing a double team at Thomas and just making Tedi Bruschi, Mike Vrabel, and Junior Seau haul those old bodies all over the field to make plays and hit people over and over again. The popular notion that this was a collection of venerable perennial All Pros still excelling at a high level was a season-long mirage. They benefited from the offense’s scoring so many points that it took away the other side’s running game. Hit those old men again and again and make them chase down people, and you can beat that defense down. Easier said than done, of course, but you have to try.

Third, Rodney Harrison is the most overrated safety in football. Most folks like to describe him as a stylized version of Jack Tatum, a hard-hitting strong safety capable of changing games with his energy and ability to separate a receiver from the ball. The only problem is that Harrison is just a dirty player, a football version of Bruce Bowen who has a tendency to get called for a lot of dumb personal fouls, goes for his opponents’ legs (hello, Trent Green) and tries to get away with shit (including blatant headhunting) that should get him thrown out of games. And that’s before we even get into his use of HGH. Go at Harrison and make him actually play football, and you can pierce that defensive backfield. He’s a weak link and can be exploited like a pimp picking up a teenage runaway at the Port Authority.

And lastly, Randy Moss needed to be physically challenged. All year long he did whatever he wanted. He galloped through secondaries, made spectacular catches, just fucking ate up defenders, and broke Jerry Rice’s single-season touchdown mark before nonchalantly saying it was no big deal even though Rice set the record in only 12 games. All the while I kept asking myself if anyone had looked at game film from the 2000 NFC Championship Game, when the Giants hit him in the mouth, shut his ass down with double teams, and reduced him to a whimpering, whining bitch before the first quarter was over, pacing the sidelines and blaming everyone else for the Vikings’ getting blown out. Leaving the most physically gifted and smartest receiver in football in single coverage, free to run through soft zones, is suicide.

You have to put a hat on him every play. During the playoffs, everyone caught on and made a concerted effort to take him away from Brady. Antonio Cromartie of the Chargers spelled it out to Mike Reiss of the Boston Globe: “I think everybody knows you can’t let Randy Moss get down the field. That’s a big part of his game and with a free release, he’s that much better,” Cromartie said. “Going into [the AFC Championship Game], we felt like we could jam him and beat him up down the field, with the idea that it would make [Tom] Brady throw the other way once he sees him jammed up.”

Moss had two catches for 32 yards and zero touchdowns against San Diego and Jacksonville. It got so bad that Wes Welker became Brady’s go-to guy. The omens were not good for Moss against New York — even though he did torch them in Week 17 — because he had not made a meaningful play in over a month. Yes, you could say he was due for a breakout, but there was no reason for the Giants to not continue the trend of doubling him until it was to their advantage not to.

What’s more, each of those weaknesses were exposed at one time or another by, in succession, Dallas, who threw the ball all over the place before Brady, Welker, and Moss just outscored them; Indianapolis, who shredded their linebackers and showed everyone you could outrun those old men; Philly and Baltimore, who blitzed the Patriots mercilessly from the edge and put Brady on the turf; the Giants, who did all three in Week 17; the Jaguars, who took Moss out of a game for the first time all year; and the Chargers, who got in Brady’s face and picked him off three times, took away Moss, and if they had been fully healthy, probably would have avenged the terrible loss they suffered in San Diego last year. Instead, the focus all year was on Tom Terrific’s uncanny ability to destroy lesser teams by tossing alley-oops to Randy Moss over 5’9” corners, killing defenses underneath by going to Wes Welker, and looking good in milk ads that made it look like he took a money shot on the mouth. It got so bad that no one wanted to even discuss what that team’s actual weaknesses were, because it would break from the storyline. It was all about making history, matching the 1972 Dolphins, breaking offensive records, Randy Moss’s incredible comeback from irrelevancy, Tom Brady’s joining Joe Montana on top of the quarterback mountain, and Bill Belichik’s surpassing Lombardi, Shula, Walsh, and Noll before the Super Bowl was even played. For weeks, no one even gave a shit that the NFC might produce a credible opponent. And now, the Giants’ winning is some huge shocker, when in fact, it was all right in front of us all along if we had just been paying attention.

In the two weeks before the Super Bowl it’s becoming increasingly clear that the Patriots showed up unprepared, cocky, and more concerned about their post-game party plans than actually winning the game. Yes, it’s been widely reported that the Giants showed up in black suits to celebrate the Patriots’ funeral, but Amani Toomer went on the record to ESPN that players from the Pats came up to him and derisively said he could come to their victory party after the game. Even if it was just a little good-natured ribbing, that’s far beyond Plaxico Burress’ or Steve Tisch’s guaranteeing a victory. That’s truly calling someone out, and not one media outlet reported it before the game. Imagine what probably went through Michael Strahan’s mind after Toomer mentioned that little nugget to him. Brady, the untouchable Queen of New England, was photographed in New York bringing flowers to Giselle after Tony Romo got shanked by the press for having the nerve to go to Mexico for a couple of days with Jessica Simpson. Brady was framed as a man in love with this lame “awww, isn’t that cute” moment while everyone took photographs of the walking cast on his foot and speculated about whether it was just gamesmanship on Belichik’s part. During press interviews the week before the game, the Pats seemed a little tight, but oddly arrogant and condescending, acting as if the Giants didn’t even exist. It was as if they truly believed all the bullshit the press was writing about them and felt that greatness was already theirs. Meanwhile, Burress was getting shit on for his prediction of a 23-17 win and reminding everyone that there was another team in Arizona. Brady then sarcastically wondered to the press, “We’re only going to score 17 points? OK. Is Plax playing defense?” Yeah, Tom, in this case Plax overestimated you.

For anyone who saw the Giants’ first drive, those illusions of easy greatness were shattered very quickly. It was obvious that not only were the Patriots getting blown off the ball at the line of scrimmage, but also that absolutely nothing was going to rattle Eli Manning. Deftly moving downfield with an almost 50/50 split of running and passing plays while converting a Super Bowl record four consecutive third downs, picking up every blitz the Pats threw at them, and chewing 10 minutes off the game clock, the Giants marched to the most dominating three points I have ever seen. As the special-teams units jogged onto the field, I saw exactly what I had been waiting for all year: Junior Seau, Mike Vrabel, and Tedi Bruschi with stick marks from the Giants’ offensive line in their ear holes and sucking wind like they just received a marathon buttfucking. After Lawrence Tynes drilled the field goal, there was Bill Belichik personally coaching his linebackers, and those three old men sat on the bench, helmets strewn about their feet, elbows on knees, torsos bent over, heads dipped down with sweat pouring off of them, and all of them visibly, unmistakably exhausted.

The Patriots quickly regrouped on offense and drove downfield for the game’s first touchdown, but nothing seemed right about it. The Giants were flying around the ball, and interestingly, Michael Strahan looked about eight years younger. It also became evident that Brady was not on his game. He missed open receivers, was ignoring Moss, and was getting an enormous amount of pressure from — you guessed it — the edges. For the first time in a very long time, Brady looked perplexed and confused as if he were thinking, “What the fuck are they doing out there?” Moss was seemingly double-teamed on every play and the pass coverage looked like a swarm of hornets. Brady, who is one of the best ever when it comes to checking down receivers and hitting the open man, looked like he was processing shit that had taken him completely by surprise. I mean, how often do you really see Strahan drop into coverage so TWO safeties can blitz your ass? But he was still moving the ball, and on a third down deep in Giants territory, Brady got nailed by Strahan, but unleashed a perfectly thrown ball that bounced off of Ben Watson’s helmet as Antonio Pierce was called for pass interference, putting the Pats on the one. Two plays later, Lawrence Maroney fell into the end zone and the Pats were up 7-3 two plays into the second quarter, but the die had been cast. The Pats were in for a very long night.

Around this time, I sat on my barstool and was hit with a vision: Joe Gibbs sitting in his living room with a glass of milk quietly watching the game with a small smile creasing his God-fearing face just soaking in the sights. Back in week eight the Patriots demolished the Redskins 52-7, but what was unique about that game was that the Patriots kept pressing the Redskins well after the game was out of hand. Here they were in the fourth quarter, already up 38-0, and Tom Brady was still winging the ball all over the field. In a show of supreme arrogance and cruelty, Belichik kept sending Brady out and kept calling midrange and deep balls in a humiliating and unnecessary show of ultimate power. You know, the sort of shit people don’t forget, especially when you perpetrate it against one of the most respected coaches in all of football. Afterward, while Gibbs publicly praised Belichik, Redskins linebacker Randall Godfrey lost his composure and told NBCSports.com, “I said something to [Belichick] after the game. I told him, ‘You need to show some respect for the game.’ You just don’t do that. I don’t care how bad it is. You’re up 35 points and you’re still throwing deep? That’s no respect.” Belichik’s response to a reporter’s query afterwards was, “What do you want us to do, kick a field goal?”

Now, in front of 97 million people, it was Belichik’s turn to eat a shit sandwich. And everyone’s champion this day, from San Francisco to Miami to Buffalo to Washington to Miami to St. Louis to Los Angeles to New York to Detroit, seemed to be Giants defensive coordinator John Spagnuolo. Putting together the pieces that Monte Kiffin, Rex Ryan, and Ted Cottrell had laid out, he blitzed relentlessly, mixed up his coverage packages on every down, double-teamed Moss, and never, ever showed the same look twice. After he established a pattern of having no pattern, he even had the balls to just leave Moss alone at random times, daring Brady to try and find his favorite target. Instead, Wes Welker became the primary receiver making 11 catches.

Late in the second quarter, Brady began to move the Patriots downfield, but on first and 10 from the Giants’ 44 with 22 seconds left, Brady dropped back, avoided the rush and stepped up to heave a deep ball. However, Justin Tuck came from behind and slapped the ball from his hand as he cocked the throw. With no tuck rule to save him, and no backside blocking to speak of, Osi Umenyiora was there to pounce on the loose ball, ending the threat. Off the opening kickoff of the second half, Brady drove the Patriots down to the Giants’ 44. On a fourth down punt, Belichik noticed that a Giants player did not make it off the field before the snap and challenged the play. The booth officials looked, and lo and behold, there was a 12th man on the field after the snap. And just like that, it looked like the Pats got the break they desperately needed. But the drive stalled, and on third down from the Giants’ 25, Strahan sacked Brady setting up a potential 49-yard field goal attempt. However, instead of taking a chance on Gotkowski, Belichik inexplicably went for it on fourth and 13 and watched Brady’s pass to Jabar Gaffney fall incomplete. After the game Belichik told the gathered reporters that he went for it at this critical juncture because Gotkowksi had never hit a 50-yarder before. Ah, the genius speaks.

Now his quarterback — as people had wondered openly about after the Washington game — was beginning to pay the price. After piling on points, running up scores, arrogantly dismissing questions about his sense of sportsmanship, and generally acting like a dick, many wondered if teams would begin taking cheap shots at Brady in retaliation for Belichik’s behavior. Instead, the Giants became all of football’s avenging angels and got all up in Brady’s shit fair and square, making him pay for the Patriots’ arrogant sense of entitlement. Knocking him down or just laying hands on him seemingly every time he dropped back to pass, Brady looked scared for the first time in his career. All through the second and third quarters the Giants harassed him endlessly in ways he has never seen before. Brady was sacked just 20 times this season. On Sunday night he was sacked five times and knocked down another 14, pressured constantly, and spent most of the game trying to avoid blitzers before ending up on his back gauging the crowd’s reaction to find out the result of his pass.

When the fourth quarter started, even though the Giants were outplaying the Pats on both sides of the ball, and the score still standing at 7-3, the popular sentiment — including mine — was that the Patriots would somehow find a way to win, no matter what happened. But I’d like to attribute what happened instead to the Furies deciding to punish the Patriots without regard for leniency or mercy, reminding them that hubris, arrogance and contempt are answered with cold retribution when the books are balanced.

Eli took over at his own 20 and out-Bradyed the All American Super Model Fucker. The key play being a 45-yard catch and run by Kevin Boss on the first play of the drive beating, you guessed it, Rodney Harrison. Then, on third and four from the New England 29, Manning found Steve Smith for a 17-yard gain, and before anyone knew it, Eli found David Tyree in the end zone to put the Giants up 10-7.

But with 7:54 left in the fourth, the Patriots took over from their 20 and started what looked like their inevitable march to immortality. With Moss no longer flying down the field, but rather cutting over the middle, Brady’s options opened up and once again he looked like the best quarterback in football. The Pats had finally figured the Giants out, and for the first time all night, the Giants pass rush was neutralized, giving Brady time to pick them apart one play at a time. Throwing passes on all but one snap, Brady spread the ball around to four different receivers on the 12-play drive. Here it was Wes Welker for 10 yards underneath, there it was Kevin Faulk on a swing pass, and, holy shit, Moss going over the middle for 10. On third and goal from the Giants six, Randy Moss shed his defender — who slipped on the turf — and caught an easy touchdown pass from Brady to put the Patriots up 14-10 for what seemed like the capper to their claim as the best team ever with just 2:47 left in the game.

The Giants’ fans groaned. My roommate looked up at the television and said, “Eli, here’s your chance to be the toast of this town,” but there wasn’t much conviction in his voice. As I looked around the bar the mood was one of dejection, as everyone seemed to accept the cold, hard reality that the Patriots were going to win, yet again. The bartender just leaned on the bar with his head hung and ignored drink orders, the owners of the place sat quietly by the door and one of them said, “They came so fucking close,” while a small bank of Boston fans were in the corner laughing and giving each other high fives. There was nothing anyone could say, so everyone just let him or her have his or her fun. And, damn it, if I didn’t hear a faint mock chant of “Eli, Eli, Eli,” come up out of the crowd in Phoenix over the television set.

So, there was Eli. Taking over on his own 17 with 2:39 to play, Richard Seymour licking his chops, Adalius Thomas staring him in the face, Rodney Harrison taunting him, Bill Belichik glaring at him, and 97 million people just waiting to see him fail. Right away he completed a first down pass to Amani Toomer for 11 yards, then on third down found Toomer again in front of Harrison who stopped him short of the first. With the game on the line, facing a fourth and one, the Giants completed their first clutch play of the drive when Brandon Jacobs banged into the left side of the line and picked up two yards for the first. But no could have predicted what happened next.

On third and five from his own 44, Manning dropped back to pass and faced a vicious rush. Seemingly surrounded with nowhere to go, no less than three Patriots got their hands on Manning’s jersey, clawing at him, trying to pull him down, but also wrestling with the Giants’ offensive linemen in the process. Somehow, Eli broke free of the scrum and scrambled a couple steps back before unleashing a prayer of a pass downfield. Streaking up the middle of the field was David Tyree with Rodney Harrison right on his ass. As the ball came down, both of them went up in the air. Tyree got his right hand on the ball and began to pull it down while Harrison cleanly tried to break up the pass. Somehow Tyree pinned the ball against the top of his helmet, holding it there as he and Harrison fell to the ground. When they collapsed on the turf, Tyree’s back was arched over the body of Harrison, and there was the ball, still somehow stuck his helmet as if someone had Krazy Glued it there.

Anyone who wasn’t a Patriots fans went absolutely berserk. Even casual observers — like girlfriends and wives who never give a shit about football and only sit through it to be polite — leapt off their barstools and chairs and started throwing bar napkins in the air. The sound was deafening, and even with the televisions turned all the way up, it sounded like a 747 landing on top of my head as Joe Buck’s voice was reduced to a whisper in a wind tunnel. I turned around to find the bank of Patriots fans and saw masks of utter horror and shock on their faces as if they were thinking, “fuck, that’s only supposed to happen for us, not to us.”

After that, it became almost academic. With 39 seconds left, Manning found Plaxico Burress — who played all season on a torn up ankle and tore a medial collateral ligament in practice the week before the Super Bowl — wide open in the end zone on a perfectly executed fade route where he caught the ball in perfect juxtaposition against the Patriots’ living-room-sized logo. As the Giants celebrated and the fans leapt for joy, the camera cut to a shot that sent chills up my spine: Tom Brady warming up, then Randy Moss putting on his helmet. In that instant I saw Brady somehow finding Moss down the sideline and catching a jump ball between two defenders to set up a game-winning or game-tying play that would take the wind out of the Giants’ sails and set all right within New England’s universe.

Starting from his own 26 with only 29 seconds left on the clock, Brady started off with an incomplete pass to Jabar Gaffney. On second down, just as he was cocking to pass, Jay Alford drilled him in the midsection for a sack and a loss of 10 yards. Now, with 19 seconds on the clock from his own 16, and with no other choice, Brady went for broke. As he dropped back, everyone held their breath because they knew what was coming. And there he was, Moss streaking up the left side of the field with a step on the two defenders who were covering him. Brady’s pass went up and it seemed like the whole world went silent. As the ball came down, Moss put his hands out to catch the pass in stride, but somehow a defender got his hand on the ball knocking it away from Moss. On fourth down, Brady took one more shot at getting the ball to Moss and he launched another missile downfield where the ball fell harmlessly incomplete.

Bedlam ensued, and even though there was still one second left on the clock, Bill Belichik and Tom Coughlin met at midfield for one of Belichik’s famously brief handshakes. Completely outclassed, and outplayed, the Patriots had to be called back to the field to run out the final second on the clock before the celebration could begin, and when it did, everyone knew who was going to get the MVP. Though the entire Giants defense deserved the award, it was given to Manning in what seemed like poetic justice considering all the shit he’s had to put up with these past four years.

Afterwards, Belichik was especially curt. Looking harried, depressed, angry, and ready to commit violence, Belichik was as graceless in defeat as he’s ever been in victory. Delivering his answers in his signature monotone tinged with petulance, he came across as not only a poor sportsman, but also an even bigger asshole than anyone could have imagined. However, back on the field, the celebration was surreal.

Eli Manning is the MVP of the Super Bowl? The Giants just won? Is this real? Did that just happen? That was what was hanging in the air, and as the Patriots walked off the field with their heads hung, their loyal fans stood there with their hands on their heads in utter disbelief. Practically no one predicted this. A few people here and there said it would be close, but I think I found only one Giant fan that would even venture to say the Giants would win. Regardless, it happened.

Afterwards, the Patriots themselves were less than magnanimous. Understandably, most of them talked about the opportunity that they missed out on and how disappointed they were. But everywhere one looked, and everywhere one listened, there was this lingering sense of arrogance that permeated their behavior after the game. If I’m a Patriots fan, I’m thrilled, because it means they’ll come back hard next year. If I’m not a Patriots fan, I’m in hysterics at how blind they are to how complete this ass whipping really was.

It’s going to be a potentially ugly off-season in the greater New England area. If it turns out that former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh is telling the truth and the Patriots spied on the Rams before their Super Bowl, this will turn into a full-blown scandal tainting the reputation of the entire franchise and calling into question the team’s legitimacy and its accomplishments. What’s more, with everything that’s happened this year, including the outrageous scoring and petulant attitude, the Patriots devalued themselves by acting with very little class in the first place. Every team generally takes its cues from the head coach, and while Belechik has been very successful at winning games, he has also been very successful at alienating his franchise from everyone else in football. Looking back on all the other dynasties in pro football, I cannot think of another one that has been more reviled league and nationwide than the Patriots. It’s not because they win; it’s how they win, and how they seemed to behave as world-beaters even though their margin of victory in championship games was smaller than Belichik’s dick.

However, Sunday proved Belichik right in one tangible way: When it came down to it, it really was everyone else against the Patriots.

When Alex Rodriguez signed his 10-year, $252-million contract with the Texas Rangers, morons across America claimed that it would be the end of baseball. The howls from the peanut gallery of sports writers viciously attacked Rangers owner Tom Hicks, claiming that he was a rube, a fiscally irresponsible retard, and a puppet on the strings of Scott Boras. What no one seemed to pay attention to was that Hicks had a pretty solid plan in place. He expected to use A-Rod as the centerpiece for a marketing plan designed to make the Rangers one of the preeminent sports franchises in the world. In essence, by paying A-Rod the equivalent of what he paid for the franchise itself in 1997, Hicks was making Rodriguez his business partner, an astoundingly progressive development in a business where the players have historically been treated as no more than chattel or replaceable parts.

On Rodriguez’s end, it was a brilliant move negotiated by the best agent in the history of sports. (More on that in another rant.) Boras leveraged his client as not only the best player in the game that day, but one who could be potentially be the greatest of all-time. Boras put together binders filled with projections that put A-Rod in the same company as Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Frank Robinson, Henry Aaron, Ted Williams, and Mickey Mantle. Then he took his client on the open-market and shopped him around. To the consternation of “purists,” he refused to give the Mariners a hometown discount and scoffed at their attempt to keep A-Rod, which apparently amounted to a 20-minute meeting over shitty coffee with the Mariners, basically expecting A-Rod to stay because Seattle was where he started.

At the time, the New York Mets were the heavy favorites to land Rodriguez. When Boras told the Mets that A-Rod would need a marketing team and office space at Shea Stadium, Fred Wilpon and Nelson Doubleday balked. Misjudging A-Rod’s play to be a real mover and shaker in the baseball industry as an attempt to cash on his vanity, sports writers (primarily in New York, but also around the country) jumped to the defense of the poor, put upon owners of the Mets and branded Rodriguez a selfish and ungrateful cur who was interested only in himself. That Rodriguez was acting as if he was above the team and that he was a callous mercenary who was only interested in himself. How dare a ballplayer be a forward thinking businessman and wish to be anything more than the best shortstop in baseball. How dare he encroach on the territory of the owners. How dare he strive to be anything more than walking jockstrap. How dare he wish to be more than just a commodity or a poster boy for the great game of baseball.

When Hicks put pen to paper and locked up A-Rod, eyes rolled. Why Texas? Why for $90-million more than any other bidder? Why, Tom, why are ruining baseball? Well, why not Texas? Especially when they are willing to give you $252-million and build their business around you and acknowledge you as not only the preeminent player in the game, but also the most marketable and bankable personality in the game. When you’re the best player in the game it only stands to reason that not only should you be the highest paid, but you should also have a real stake in the performance of the club. Top-end executives are given stock in a company, superstar columnists are usually put on the editorial board of the paper they write for, talented scientists are given enormous stipends from the universities they do research for. Why should it be any different for a ballplayer of the highest caliber? However, baseball bars players from owning a stake in a team, so big salaries are the next best thing.

The problem is that Hicks was very unlucky. Hicks made it clear he wanted to turn the Rangers into a big winner, and was opening his wallet on all fronts to prove it. He had Rafael Palmeiro and Ivan Rodriguez in the lineup, but during A-Rod’s tenure with the Rangers, general manager John Hart – who enjoyed enormous success in Cleveland – missed on a series of big contracts that doomed the Rangers to mediocrity. Ismael Valdez, Todd Van Poppel, and the infamous Chan Ho Park all failed miserably on the mound. Park especially hurt the Rangers when his arm blew out. He was supposed to be the centerpiece of a revamped pitching staff that was supposed to bolster the incredibly potent lineup Hart had assembled. However, when the pitching went to shit, the Rangers were a club that could hit, but couldn’t pitch, and needed to be completely rebuilt from the inside out, and fast.

The most logical solution was to trade Rodriguez for a package of players. Hart began shopping Rodriguez and had a trade lined up with the Boston Red Sox. Rodriguez, the alleged me-first mercenary, had even agreed to restructure his contract and leave money on the table to make the deal go through. However, the deal fell apart when the Players Union would not sanction the trade because it would set a bad precedent for players being traded in the future. You know, teams saying things like, “well, we’ll make the trade for you, but only if you lop off 15-percent of that salary so we can justify it financially.”

With that deal scotched, George Steinbrenner stepped into the fray and ordered Brian Cashman to get A-Rod no matter the cost. Trading Alfonso Soriano was a small price to pay, and considering that the Rangers were so desperate to rebuild, they were willing to pay a huge portion of Rodriguez’s salary to make the deal, Cashman got him for a song. Then, voila’, A-Rod’s a Yankee, assholes in the Bronx are thumbing their noses at the Red Sox, and after John Henry cried foul, Steinbrenner’s released this gem on the wires:

‘We understand that John Henry must be embarrassed, frustrated and disappointed by his failure in this transaction. Unlike the Yankees, he chose not to go the extra distance for his fans in Boston. It is understandable, but wrong that he would try to deflect the accountability for his mistakes on to others and to a system for which he voted in favor. It is time to get on with life and forget the sour grapes.’

Talk about hubris. Or better yet, loading the bullet in the gun that’s aimed at your foot. George never was one for false modesty, but this was just beyond him, especially since his pitching staff resembled an old folks home before the Tuinal is handed out. Regardless of the fact the Yankees were weighed down with clods in Tampa overriding Brian Cashman’s baseball acumen, everyone else in baseball shuddered, shit their pants, and wailed about the coming apocalypse the moment this deal went down.

Yet, somehow it all went wrong. “How could this happen?,” bleated the morons in their knock off Mariano Rivera jerseys. “We’re the fucking Yankees, we’re supposed to win the World Series every fucking year!” With a team loaded with expensive, but aging sluggers, no one seemed to notice the cracks in the Yankees’ facade. They were old in the starting rotation, their middle relief was weak, and they no longer had a team full of patient hitters. It was a glitzy collection of big names that gave King George his false sense of bravado and arrogance, but whose starting pitchers had an ERA of 5.22, and outside of Mariano Rivera, were dogshit in the bullpen.

Regardless, the Yankees tore through the American League in 2004. Winning 101 games, racking up 242 home runs, slugging at a .458 clip, and scoring 897 runs, the Yankees were an offensive juggernaut.  However, he “underperformed,” hitting .286 with 36 home runs, 106 RBI, and a .512 slugging percentage while learning a new position, acquiescing to Jeter’s birth right to play shortstop, adjusting to a new ballpark and team, and handling the pressure of being “The Man” on a club full of superstars, overpaid talent, Crazy George, and harping fans. They dispatched the Twins in four games then jumped all up in the Red Sox shit in the ALCS, taking a three games to none lead, including a 19-8 win in game three at Fenway, prompting the newspapers to print banner headlines touting the “Boston Massacre Part II.” And how was A-Rod doing? He was hitting .429 and had just knocked in three runs, including a two-run jack in game three that essentially sealed the game.

Yet, it seemed as if the Gods of Baseball got really pissed off. It was if the Furies rose and after 80-something years of horror and devastation had been wrought upon New England, they finally saw the cruelty and hubris of the Yankee fans and decided that enough was enough. As Dave Roberts stole second, David Ortiz delivered the game winning hit in game four, Curt Schilling took out his tampon and put it on his ankle, and Pedro survived the seventh inning in game seven, everyone in Yankeeville stood around with their mouths agape, silently awaiting the Peter North of baseball to slide it in slowly, yet forcefully. It wasn’t just A-Rod, it was the whole fucking team. And somehow I’d like to think that the ghosts of baseball decided that the Yankees had had a fine run these last 100-years, but now it was their turn to suffer. For a very long time.

With the greatest post-season collapse ever etched in stone for all-time, thus displacing the legendary playoff collapses of the Cubs, Angels, and Red Sox, someone needed to take the fall. Joe Torre got his share of grief and almost got fired before Brian Cashman took a bullet for him and talked Mad King George out of it. Instead, Mel Stottlemeyer was later fired (after the 2005 season), Cashman was ordered to acquire an over the hill Randy Johnson, and Jeter sulked because Tino Martinez and Paul O’Neill were not there for the regular manage a’ trois in the shower.

But considering he slapped the ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s glove instead of running over the skinny little shit in game six, Yankee fans began to grouse about A-Rod, of all people. So did everyone else because it was convenient. Ignoring the glaring deficiencies of the club, everyone started in about whether Mickey Mantle would have slapped at the ball. Would Reggie Jackson have acted like a whiney cunt after he was called out? Fuck, no. Mantle or Reggie would have barreled through that skinny, cornrow-wearing little faggot, and if they had been called out for stomping on a pitcher’s nuts, both of them would have said, “I will do anything I have to to win.” That’s what Yankee fans want, not reality, nor a bitch who stands on second base behaving like a child who’s lying to his parents about breaking a lamp.

That was A-Rod’s sin. Instead of being a bad motherfucker, and putting an obviously flawed team on his back that swung at absolue shit, he was apparently exposed as a weak, little cocksucker and was branded as a player incapable of delivering in the “clutch” or on “baseball’s biggest stage.” That every other hitter in the Yankee lineup, including the “clutch” Saint Jeter (who hit .200 for the series), stopped hitting against the likes of Derek Lowe, didn’t matter. Nor did the fact that Kevin Brown and Javier Vasquez shit the bed, or that Jon Leiber was their best pitcher, and that an appearance by Mariano Rivera in the playoffs no longer meant an automatic win. No, now, it was Alex Rodriguez’s fault that the Yankees officially sucked Red Sox cawk.

A-Rod became the cause of all the Yankee ills. The locker room is disjointed and in disarray? Must be A-Rod’s fault because you know he’s not a vocal leader. A-Rod’s in a slump? Hey, he needs to man-up and pull himself out of it even if Jeter ostracizes him and poisons the well in the clubhouse because of some petty grudge. I mean, A-Rod’s the problem here, not Herr Captain, right? The pitching sucks? Well, we got A-Rod and he should be able to knock in three runs a night to make up for Randy Johnson’s flat slider that the Devil Rays are knocking all over the park. I mean, what’s he being paid all that money for, to jake it when I’m paying 100-bucks for these seats? For $252-million he better be winning the MVP every year and hitting .438 in the playoffs. We’re the Yankees damn it, and we deserve only the best!

And even when he tore the cover off the ball during the 2007 season, the criticism never abated. When he’d hit a game-winning walk-off home run, everyone would clap and cheer, then yell in each other’s ear over the din, “he’s gotta do it in October for it to mean anything!” When he’d make a gold glove caliber play, fans would just lean back and say, “what do you expect, he’s supposed to do that.” If he hit a slump, like every player does, he’d be booed incessently while the Bleacher Creatures would mutter, “he’s great and all, but he’s so fucking streaky.” It’s as if they expected him to be Reggie Jackson, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, and Thurman Munson all rolled into one. I guess I can’t blame them, especially since Jeter’s obviously gay and not half the leader or hitter any of those guys were.

Meawhile, everyone is lining up to chug Jeter’s cock for half the production and the same amount of World Series wins A-Rod has since the great teams of the late 90’s were broken up: Zero. On top of that, Jason Giambi, a known steroid user, is embraced by Herr Captain and given public encouragement while A-Rod was ostracized for not wanting to take hot showers with him in the dead of night. Plus, the Steinbrenners make snide remarks to the press, four-year-olds boo you because their dads call you a pussy, and the New York Post thinks it’s big news that you occassionally fool around on your wife, just like every other ballplayer in the history of the game. Under those circumstances, I’d leave a guaranteed fortune on the table, tell the Steinbrenners to go fuck themselves, and shop for a new team too.

Somehow, Alex Rodriguez has replaced Barry Bonds as the most hated baseball player on the planet. A guy with preternatural ability that transcends the game and is on his way to demolishing the record books is now a maligned figure for, of all things, not being the ultimate Yankee. The contract is a special sort of monkey on his back, but that’s not entirely his fault. Rodriguez says some incredibly stupid things in public, and he’s pulled some real winners on the field. The purse slap is more comical than anything, but when he yelled at Howie Clark in Toronto, “mine!”, on a pop up, he came across as some busher. Guys on the Blue Jays had to be restrained from beating the mortal shit out of A-Rod because interferring with calls on pop flies can be dangerous to a fielder’s health. Pulling that kind of shit gets legs broken.

So when Alex Rodriguez opted out of his contract, it came as no surprise. That his agent, Scott Boras apparently sent E-mails to all the sports writers covering the World Series during game four, did. Buster Olney went so far as to call Rodriguez the most selfish player in the game and said that any team who signs him would be giving up their soul. Hall of Fame nose picker and baseball writer Peter Gammons went on a tirade on ESPN Radio bitching and whining about how A-Rod impeded on the Red Sox moment in the sun. Of course not one word has been spoken or written bringing the Yankees to task for carrying out their tasteless firing of Joe Torre during the fucking playoffs. It’s all been about firing Joe, not the timing, which flatly goes against baseball’s tradition and rules of avoiding major announcements until after the World Series. Nor has Hank Steinbrenner’s ridiculous grandstanding over the whole matter during the ALCS and the World Series been spoken about at all. It’s all been about the hiring of the incredibly overrated Joe Girardi while leaving out the fact that when he was brought in, Don Mattingly was promised the manager’s job when Torre either retired or was fired. With that fucking team, and the hideous Steinbrenner offspring, even if they are not in the World Series, they still have to be the center of attention no matter how fat, ugly, stupid, and out of place they are. They are the epitome of crassness and boorish behavior. If there is any justice in the world of baseball, the Yankees won’t win another World Series for at least 100-plus years.

As for Rodriguez, you can almost see the monkey crawl off his back. It doesn’t matter where he goes now, he’s going to make his money regardless of who signs him. Unless he has a streak of Griffey-esque bad luck, he’s going to demolish the career home run mark and easily collect 3,000-hits. Either way, he’ll never have to listen to some idiot in a 150-dollar Yankees jersey call him a cocksucker and a pussy because he couldn’t make up in one swing the eight runs Mike Mussina just gave up in the third inning.

Chances are he signs in a smaller market with a friendlier fanbase. To say he was not a New York guy is to ignore the unreal numbers he put up there. You tell me, have they ever had a better third baseman in the history of that club? How many right-handed hitters stroll into Yankee Stadium – a park built for lefties – and rip off 36, 48, 35, and 54 home runs? The motherfucker is going to win his second MVP in pinstripes, two more than that cunt Jeter ever has in 13 years, and that fucking closet case has a 10-year, $189-million contract, but no one ever complains because he’s the new “Pride of the Yankees” and women all over Manhattan get moist just at the sight of the cocksucker.

Bitch, please.

The fact is that the Yankees fucked this one up on all fronts. Far removed from the days when prudence and judicious thought prevailed in the late-90’s, the Yankees are a collection of sideshow freaks and geeks, and Rodriguez was the smartest man in town when he decided to take a walk. Whether he goes to Boston, San Francisco or Los Angeles doesn’t matter, that he left the Yankees does. While the Yankees will predictably posture and preen and say that A-Rod could never measure up to the expectations or the pressure, and the fans will deride him as a pussy and a choke artist, the inverse is true. The Yankees, for all their resources, could never put together a club that was complete and whole. Rodriguez delivered day in and day out, changed positions for Jeter, and killed the fucking ball, but the Yankees did nothing to support him besides sign the checks. As for the fans, they just pissed away four years of bitching about the best player (yes, better than Bonds) since Ruth, and instead bitched about him as if he were Danny Tartabull. What would you do, stay and try to prove them wrong while everyone incessently goes after you like a convicted child molester? Fuck that, I’m on my way to San Francisco for some of Peter Magowan’s cash and a piece of the team after I retire as I work on breaking Bonds’ record. Oh, and the Giants have better young pitching, no matter what you may think of Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes.

As for the Yankees, enjoy The Curse of Alex Rodriguez. He may not win one, but until you atone for your sins – including running off the best player of this generation – you’ll never win another World Series. Bank it, bitches.

NFC East

Dallas Cowboys (11-5)

They win by default because the rest of the East is total shit, rather than because they are so talented and disciplined. Any team with Terrell Owens parading around like a prima donna drama queen with more issues than Liz Taylor is going to suffer from his annoying act. However, they have a fast, hard-hitting defense, two solid running backs who share the load, and Tony Romo developing into a Pro Bowl-caliber quarterback. However, even with Bill Parcells cracking the whip, the Cowboys were incredibly inefficient and a veritable failure on special teams. However, they are also very talented, and if they can avoid even a third of the drama they experienced last year, they should win 11 games and the division with ease. However, all you have to do is take a look at the closet homosexual playing wide receiver and you’ll get an idea of how shaky this club really is. Anything between seven and 11 wins is possible. Book with confidence.

Philadelphia Eagles (10-6)

Don McNabb can still bring it, but his running back can’t stay out of the trainer’s room meaning that if they are lucky, they can squeeze by with 10 wins. That is of course if their head coach doesn’t have to keep bailing his kids out of jail for acting like complete dumbfucks on a regular basis. Calling this team the class of the NFC is completely out of line when their top receivers are Kevin Curtis and Reggie Brown and the linebacking corps is staffed with Chris Gocong and Omar Gathier. Who are they, you ask? Two youngsters who still need to learn how to shed blocks.That means Sean Considine will be having to step up and make a lot more hits from the strong safety spot, leaving his buddies in the secondary vulnerable to play action. Pull that shit against teams like San Francisco and Los Angeles at your own risk.

New York Giants (8-8)

Giants are footing the bill for the most expensive soap opera on network television. What a bunch of fucking bitches, and Tiki Barber isn’t even playing anymore. Michael Strahan is proving that he is without a doubt the moodiest bitch on the club. Eli finally stood up for himself, but only after Tiki was safely far away from the locker room stuttering away on NBC’s pregame show. Jeremy Shockey, who has more injuries than catches, still can’t tell the difference between a threesome and a forgy. And as for Tom Coughlin, he’s a cunty grandmother cut from the same cloth as Babs Bush, only without the charisma and with submoron intelligence. Wellington Mara is spinning in his grave and Bill Parcells will be climbing into his Cadillac to roll in from Long Island to “save” another franchise after Coughlin gets fired in week 10 when this piece-of-shit club is 4-6.

Washington Redskins (6-10)

Joe Gibbs should just take the cross out of his ass because prayer and relying on Mark Brunell got him jack shit. What’s more, his insistence on using Clinton Portis in the preseason and his subsequent injury demoralized the team until Ladell Betts did an impression of Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick and cranked out 1,154 yards in nine games. Because Jason Campbell is still learning, Santana Moss and Antawn Randle El will rot downfield because every pass will be a checkdown to Chris Cooley as Campbell gets his feet wet. The defense is fine in the secondary and at linebacker, but they are a pushover up front. Just run up the middle and force them to bring a safety up before you eviscerate them with deep balls off play action. Every year fans in Washington must be thinking to themselves, “Dan Snyder needs to stay the fuck away from the general manager’s office.”

NFC North

Chicago Bears (12-4)

Scanning the Bears lineup is like drooling over a buffet of prime rib, Yorkshire Pudding, lobster, barbecued spare ribs and shrimp cocktails before suddenly realizing someone left a steaming pile of dogshit right in the middle of the spread. The offending pile of shit would be Rex Grossman, if you haven’t already guessed, and as long as he is their quarterback this team will never win a Super Bowl. I know, people used to say the same things about Terry Bradshaw, and if Rex turns out like him, I’ll take it all back. Until then, the Bears are fucked. Oh, they’ll win 12 games, run Cedric Benson into the ground, ride a dominant defense to the playoffs, and maybe get to the NFC Championship Game if they get a break or two. But if they face New Orleans again, in the Superdome, they’ll be shipping Grossman off to Miami for a fourth-round pick.

Minnesota Vikings (8-8)

No offense equals no playoffs, and that’s a shame because this Adrian Peterson kid could be special if he avoids another serious injury. However, he’s surrounded by Tavarus Jackson and a bunch of mediocre receivers making his assimilation into the league a never ending pain in the ass. The defense is really, really fucking good, and if Jackson can develop quickly, the Bi-Queens could be stomping on some teams’ nuts with their stiletto heels and rubbing their pancake makeup in someone’s eye on their way to 10 wins. However, I expect them to end up with a sore, bleeding ass, ripped up nylons and bruises on their eyes from getting the shit beat out of them by teams that can actually pass the ball with a degree of competence.

Green Bay Packers (7-9)

Oh, will it ever end? How much longer do we have to hear about this horseshit? How much longer do we have to see Brett Favre throw more touchdowns than interceptions? How much longer do I have to hear about his fucking toughness? How much longer will we have to hear him hem and haw in the fucking off-season. But like a bowl of deep-fried cheese and an ice-cold Miller, old reliable will be out there giving Packer fans gas and everyone else something to chuckle about as he tosses three interceptions a game. Favre at quarterback would actually be doable if the Packers had a running game that didn’t rely on two guys I won’t bother naming since the only people who would give a shit are their moms. This team will be taking a huge step backwards after really improving up front on both offense and defense last year. Now, of course they could pull a turnaround job like the Jets (who were terrible in the running game) and surprise some people, but I figure maybe eight wins if they’re lucky since Favre thinks he can beat double teams just because he’s Brett Fucking Favre. Enjoy the turnovers, fuckhead.

Detroit Lions (5-11)

No one is really criticizing Matt Millen for grabbing Calvin Johnson in the first round. They are criticizing him for seriously fucking up every draft he’s ever run prior to last year. Ernie Sims turned out to be a serious badass at linebacker thus making Matt Millen 1-3 in his drafts and thus qualified to run Ford. But apparently someone has been handing out acid-tinged communion wafers during preseason workouts because Jon Kitna is running around telling everyone the Lions will win 10 games. Cut that number in half and you’re dealing with an earthly reality that doesn’t rely on prayer, holy water, and blind faith. Mike Martz’s offense is going to roll up big yards and possibly big points, but the defense is still two steps behind. Sims and friends will spend a lot of time on the field because Martz does not believe in running the ball, much less controlling the clock, making for what could be a very ugly season filled with a lot of 38-30 losses.

NFC South

New Orleans Saints (11-5)

Say hello to the best team in the NFC. Oh wait, with the loss to the Colts duly noted, they are still better on both sides of the ball than the Eagles and a more complete team than Chicago, but getting waxed by 31 points on opening night is not a good sign. Ink them in for 11 wins, but unless Reggie Bush gets over his case of the dropsies and Sean Payton begins to stretch defenses with deep balls, the Saints will have serious problems on offense and they will lose homefield advantage in the playoffs. Brees is best when he plays a medium range game, but a deep ball now and again keeps the defense honest. Look for the Saints to make adjustments and get the ball rolling again. Defensively, Indy raped them. Rod Flanders exposed their defensive backs and had them on their heels all day helping to make Joseph Addai look like Marshall Faulk. They will need to try and forget about the nightmare they just went through and prove themselves all over again. Tampa, Carolina and the like won’t be pulling that shit on them unless the Saints completely fuck themselves in the head and I doubt Payton will allow that to happen.

Carolina Panthers (9-7)

Yeah, so since they are not really expected to do much that means they’ll win 13 games and go the Super Bowl, right? Bullshit, these pussies couldn’t find their cock in a whorehouse much less in a tightly contested game. DeAngelo Williams is being stunted in his development playing behind DeShaun Foster (who has never run for 1,000 yards) because John Fox has not figured out to use a two-back system, much less evaluate his running backs properly. As for this new zone-blocking scheme they are installing, I’ll believe it when I see it since it’s one of the most complicated and difficult plans to learn and only one team (Denver) runs it with consistency. The defense is supposed to be spectacular, but they are old at linebacker and mediocre in the defensive backfield, so Julius Peppers and company better get innordinate pressure up front to keep the other team off the board. Don’t count on it, sooner or later teams will figure out how to beat them with draws, screens and quick slants to neutralize the one strength they have on defense. But in a division this weak, they have a legitimate shot at the playoffs as a wild card.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4-12)

Give it up, Gruden, your days as a genius are over unless you can completely revamp this bag of dicks. Besides Cadillac Williams, there’s not much to work with on offense. Jeff Garcia is only a stopgap at best, and with Chris Simms still recovering from having his spleen bifurcated — later removed — by a monster hit early last season, the Bucs are a long ways from attaining long term stability on offense. The defense is solid and competent, but with a gaggle of fuckups and retreads at receiver, unless they gel quickly and catch the balls that Garcia gets to them, it could get uglier than granny porn very fast in Tampa.

Atlanta Falcons (3-13)

Who knew a retarded asshole from a criminally insane family would be the downfall of your franchise? Trusting the future of the Falcons to Michael Vick was always considered a 50-50 risk at best considering his refusal to learn how to run an offense without resorting to bursting downfield after looking off one receiver. With him they may as well have installed the option and prayed for the best. Now, with Joey Harrington on his third team, the Falcons have to start all over again and frankly, that’s not a bad thing. Consider this, for his entire career Harrington has played on awful offenses better suited for sandlot leagues. Now, he gets to play with the superior tools that were given to Vick, but were never utilized because Vick never threw the ball with any efficiency. Joe Horne, Alge Crumpler, Michael Jenkins, and Roddy White at receiver is a solid mix to go with Warrick Dunn and Jerious Norwood in the backfield. There is a shitload of speed there, but frankly, the whole lot of them will be demoralized by losing the guy who never got them the ball. On defense they still have Keith Brooking, but that’s about it. They’re not terrible on defense, but only competent. If this team can win more than five years, they should get a fucking medal.

NFC West – Soon to be the best conference in football

Los Angeles Rams (12-4)

If there are not 12 wins on the board, the whole defensive staff should be fired. Adam Carriker looks like a fucking monster up front and capable of doing what Jimmy Kennedy and a whole slew of first round picks who preceded him could not: stop the run. The linebackers can tackle, but the defensive backs are the real issue since beyond Tye Hill, they seem to have trouble covering anyone. Expect a lot of blitzes to compensate for this group’s overall lack of speed and instinct. On offense it’s a potential All Pro unit on one team. Marc Bulger, Steven Jackson and Tory Holt provide one of the best groups of offensive talent in football, and with the offensive line solidified they will put up 27 points a game and should win more than 10 games in a walk. However, there is a real danger on special teams. This group of fuckups should be given the Pink Panties Award for all the yardage they give up. They suck more cock than the streetwalkers in Berlin and consistently give up valuable field position. If that keeps happening, and the defense has to clamp down on too many short fields, the Rams will be nothing more than a .500 club.

San Francisco 49ers (10-6)

They are coming back, and when they do, it’s going to get ugly. Mike Nolan has been steadily building the 49ers into a powerhouse by building around in Frank Gore, Alex Smith and Vernon Davis on offense while bringing in Pro Bowlers Nate Clements at cornerback, linebacker Tully Banta-Cain and safety Michael Lewis to build on an already budding defense. Nolan has instilled consistency and toughness into the Niners, something they lacked ever since the York family took over and gutted the team of coaches and players. Now, with their crippling salary cap problems behind them, they will be a fucking force, and next year they will be on the verge of dominating their conference.

Seattle Seahawks (9-7)

Just admit it, Seattle, you guys blew it. You had possibly one of the best collections of talent in the NFC, if not the NFL, just two years ago, but because you had a tight end who couldn’t catch the ball and you spent too much time worrying about shitty calls in the Super Bowl, you lost your head and your way. Now, Seattle and Los Angeles have passed you by and not even your dope-addled fans and shitty weather can slow down your decline. Shawn Alexander might get a 1,000-yards and Matt Hasselbeck could get 25 TDs with the right breaks, but no one is intimidated by you anymore and beyond Walter Jones your offensive line is not only old, its not very good. Tough shit, you had an OK run, but it ends this year.

Arizona Cardinals (6-10)

“If only we had a defense” will be the Cardinals’ mantra this season. While they are fucking stacked at the skill positions on offense, they are a wasteland on the side of the ball charged with knocking people out of their cleats. Edge could run for 2,000 yards and Matt Leinart could throw for 4,000 yards and 28 touchdowns, but in the end, they will lose 10 games because they are incapable of stopping cripples in wheelchairs from running them over. Until they find some bruisers who can wrap up and tackle (besides Adrian Berry and the oft-injured Bertrand Berry) they will never find a way to close teams out and win more than six games.

Wild Card
New Orleans 27, Philly 17
San Francisco 24, Dallas 14

Divisional
Saints 27, Rams 20
Bears 21, 49ers 10

NFC Championship Game
Bears 20, Saints 7 in the rain and shit of Soldier Field

Super Bowl

Chargers 31, Bears 20

AFC East – Home of Your Probable Super Bowl Champion

New England Patriots (13-3)

While Bill Belichick was distracted with fucking his buddy’s wife, The Pats barely squeaked by San Diego. All day long the Chargers kicked the shit out of New England, outmuscling them on both sides of the ball and intimidating their thin receiving corps into dropping sure catches. New England had their asses handed to them all day and were lucky to even be playing in Indy. That much was evident the following week when they gave up a 21-point lead to the Colts and saw their receivers drop perfectly delivered passes in bunches. Belichick took his cock out of his mistress’s mouth, processed the colossal blunder of letting Deion Branch go, and replaced the whole lot of butterfingered pussies and strengthen the one serious weakness this club had on paper. And he did it by stacking the position with fucking Randy Moss (at a $6-million-plus-per-year pay cut), Dante Stallworth, Wes Walker, and Kelley Washington giving them possibly the deepest receiving corps in the league. And that’s regardless of the their tendency to pull hamstrings, go on the rag, or somehow get busted for dope possession. Bank it, you won’t hear a peep out of Randy Moss this year, simply because Belichick would cut his balls off and feed them to a bull mastiff without a second thought. With the shedding of Corey Dillon and his declining production the running game goes to the very capable Lawrence Maroney. Just ink him in for 1,500 yards. Combine that with Tom Brady’s almost supernatural precision and the Pats are poised to have the most effective offense in the NFL. However, with all the big press going to whether or not Moss can handle playing for the Pats, the signing of Adalius Thomas is in fact the most important pickup the Pats could have made. With the linebacker slots aging fast (and under the radar) bringing this monster in guarantees that Roosevelt Colvin can focus on outside blitzes while Tedy Bruschi can play defensive quarterback and fill the gaps in the middle against the run. Lock these fuckers in for 13 wins, 12 minimum.

New York Jets (9-7)

The Jets are the hot, schizo, bipolar girl you want to date, fuck, and drink with, but you sure as shit won’t commit to her. They are radically inconsistent (losing to Jacksonville by 41, beating Green Bay by 28, blowing a late-fourth-quarter lead to the Colts, and losing to Cleveland) and dependent on enough “ifs” to throw their whole season into a depressing tailspin if any one of them blows up. The Jets win 10 or 11 games if Chad Pennington is kept upright and healthy, if Thomas Jones provides them with a running game, if D’Bricksashaw Furgeson keeps performing like he’s for real, and if the defense stops giving up big plays and becomes more physical while David Harris and Darrelle Revis can deliver as rookies. You just need to see Thomas Jones injure his calf in a preseason workout to remind you that without him the Jets are maybe a seven-win team. Pennington’s got a commanding presence in the huddle, and he just wins, but he’s one good hit from having his career ended. If he goes down one more time, it will be Kellen Clemens’ team. They may be able to pull of an upset against the Patriots if they get a break or two, but realistically they do not have enough on defense to keep other teams in check during crunch time.If Jones is on all cylinders watch out if you’re the Giants, Detroit, or Kansas City, because Eric Mangini’s gameplans will fucking steamroll you. While the Jets should win 11 they are a full class behind the Patriots, Colts and Ravens, so don’t expect them to be booking tickets beyond the divisional playoffs if they can even get that far.

Buffalo Bills (7-9)

Enjoy J.P. Losman’s coming of age. Word out of Buffalo’s camp is that he’s grown a pair and taken charge in the huddle, making the passing game a real force. However, relish Marshawn Lynch. If he’s used properly he could be worth about 2,000 total yards and 15 touchdowns. However, their defense is closer to a collander than a brick wall. Expect the Bills to shit the bed consistently — even though they may put up 24 points a game — because their defense will give up 30. You don’t just kiss your three best defenders (Takeo Spikes, London Fletcher and Nate Clements) goodbye and replace them with two no-names and a rookie coming off major knee surgery and expect to win 10 games in possibly the most talented division in football. Congratulations, Dick Jauron, you’re seriously fucked. We’ll be holding a place for you on the unemployment line, Yalie.

Miami Dolphins (5-11)

And talk about fucked. First you lose Ricky Williams when he decides he’d rather learn Ayurveda and smoke dope in the Sierra Nevadas. Then after showing a smidgen of improvement, your ballyhooed cocksucker of a head coach mentally bails out at midseason on you, heading for greener pastures in Alabama after saying he was staying put. Tack on to that the utter failure of Daunte Culpepper and you have one of the biggest wastes of a great defense since the Rams and Vikings of the 1970s. Now with that fanatstic defense on the downward spiral, Williams trying out for the Saskatchewan Roughriders or some such shit, and Trent Green starting at quarterback while recovering from post-concussion syndrome, the Dolphins are poised to be the shittiest team this side of Oakland. Zach Thomas and Jason Taylor deserve better, but there is no way this team even smells the playoffs before other teams tear off Green’s jockstrap and shove it in his mouth.

AFC North

Baltimore Ravens (12-4)

Brian Billick has been hailed as an offensive genius for years. The only problem is that he’s never proven it outside of one season as Minnesota’s offensive coordinator. Looking like a dumpy Pat Boone in a leather daddy outfit, he rolls around spewing horseshit about scoring points, but the fact of the matter is that unless he just shuts the fuck up and hires a young, innovative offensive coordinator, his club will never score when it counts. They should have demolished Indy last year, but because Billick is the best coach at squelching an offense this side of Marty Schottenheimer, the Ravens shit the bed in their own stadium with inclement weather and Bart Scott, Adlius Thomas and Ray Lewis all up in Rod Flanders’ shit. Willis McGahee is a serious upgrade at running back and you’re not going to see him just plow into a pile pretending he can move it with sheer will a-la Jamal Lewis. Running behind a seriously motivated offensive line is going to give him a legitimate shot at 1,500 yards and Steve McNair one more shot at a Super Bowl. If McNair had McGahee at running back instead of Lewis and his bum knees, he might have been able to pummel Indy’s decidedly mediocre defense into submission. Yes, the road to Arizona goes through New England and San Diego, but if Brian Billick can get his shit together on offense and get McGahee and McNair into a rhythm, this team can beat the shit out of anyone using simple brute force. This is truly the most physical team in the NFL and fully capable of running the table in the playoffs if healthy. And if Billick dies before they play New England.

Pittsburgh Steelers (10-6)

Oh, fuck Bill Cowher. The Steelers don’t need him to win games and after the way he let the season implode last year he was becoming the NFL’s version of Bobby Bowden and living off his reputation. Just watching the sidelines you could see his fire was gone and he needed a break. If he’s smart, he’ll stay out of football forever lest he become another George Seifert. What they need is someone with a fresh approach and they got him in Mike Tomlin. However, he’s already tinkering with the defense and while the Steelers will stick to the 3-4, you can expect Tomlin to make a shift to the 4-3 base unless he heeds this advice: Let Dick LeBeau run the defense, give him the players he needs, and stay the fuck out of the way. The defense is fine. Ben Roethelisberger is also healthy again both physically and mentally, so he won’t have to worry about having either his jaw wired shut or his guts explode on him. That alone should be worth nine wins, but the Steelers won’t go above 11, because their offensive line is a weak point that could get Roethelisberger killed unless they gel quickly, though that is highly doubtful.

Cincinnati Bengals (9-7)

All offense but no defense equals 10 wins at best, give or take a felony or two. Yeah, you can talk about the prison sentences, felony convictions, and rap sheets but the Bengals have Mr. Sexy Cinco Ocho stealing headlines and scoring touchdowns without failed suicide attempts. That should count for something. They also have Carson Palmer at full strength throwing the best deep balls in the game. Marvin Lewis must go to bed at night wondering who is gonna busted first, another crack-addled player waving a gun around naked in an intersection, or his defense’s ass because it couldn’t stop the Polish army. Book them for a lot of points, both scored and given up, along with a loss in the wild card round if they can even get that far.

Cleveland Browns (3-13)

It’s almost Brady Quinn time, bitches. By midseason we’ll get to see whether or not he’s for real or just another scrub able to make third-stringers look bad in preseason games. This team is just gruesome on paper, but they at least have some building blocks in place after pissing away high first-round picks for years. Besides Quinn, there is offensive tackle Joe Thomas dislocating the shoulders of defensive ends, Kamerion Wimbley and Antwan Peek beating the mortal shit out of running backs at linebacker, and Leigh Bodden and Eric Wright developing into shutdown corners. Unfortunately, they have Jamal Lewis with one foot in the grave at running back, Braylon Edwards and his limp dick at receiver, and Kellen Winslow just one more injury away from having to move into his dad’s guest house. Don’t be shocked if Romeo Crennel is the first coach to get fired this year.

AFC South

Indianapolis Colts (12-4)

Peyton got his ring, so everyone can stop with the Marino comparisons because he is now officially better than Dan in every way imaginable and will be breaking Marino’s records very, very soon. Now, if Flanders can pull another ring or two out of his ass, he can make a case for greatest ever. Anyways, they’ll get 12 wins, but that defense sucks cock. There’s a cute anecdote about Dungy writing the names of all the guys the Colts lost before last season on a chalkboard and then telling his team they won a Super Bowl anyway. That’s quaint, but when you lose the same amount of players the following year as well, including both of your starting corners, left tackle, and middle linebacker, you are in serious trouble. Yes, their defense stepped up in the playoffs when it counted and that should be complimented, but breaking in a new group at over a third of your slots is going to be especially difficult in an already brutal schedule. Also, can Joseph Addai handle 25-30 touches a game like Edge did? Also, is he the back you go to when you need first downs in the fourth quarter? Last year the Colts used a two-back system to perfection, and in crunch time against the Ravens handed the ball to Dominic Rhodes — not Addai — because they needed to grind out tough yardage and eat the clock. That will be Addai’s toughest challenge. If he can handle the banging between the tackles and avoid nagging injuries, ink him in for 1,400 yards and a big shit sandwich for me for saying he would be dogshit in the league.

Jacksonville Jaguars (8-8)

Jack Del Rio finally handed the Jaguars over to David Garrard; now he needs to trade Fred Taylor and let Maurice Jones-Drew handle the bulk of the running game. On the surface, the release of Byron Leftwich can be read as a dead reckoning and glaring admission that Leftwich was the wrong man for the job. Maybe, but Leftwich has been injured pretty much his entire career, so it was time for the Jags to cut bait and let him restart his career before he gets too old. Regardless, the transition will not be easy, though it should give the Jags a solid foundation to build on for next year. While they push through some growing pains on offense, their excellent defense will keep them close and put them in position to win their fair share. Book ‘em for eight wins this year, but next year they could jump to 11 or 12 if they can find some people besides Matt Jones who can catch the ball.

Tennessee Titans (8-8)

OK, you’ve run through ill-prepared defenses, been slinging some very pretty touchdown passes, and willed your team into playoff contention last year. I’m sold. You got more than potential, you have some serious fucking skills. But now it gets hard, Vince. With a good chunk of game film for defensive coordinators to pore over, you will find defensive schemes getting harder and harder to crack as time goes on. But the fact that you took over 100 snaps in the preseason is a good sign. You’re working your ass off and punching the clock every day, but there’s a lot of work left to do.That doesn’t mean you won’t win or succeed; it just means you’ll have to become more Steve Young and latter-day Randall Cunningham than another half-assed Michael Vick if you want to win a dozen games. Unfortunately, you won’t get there unless LenDale White can stay off the buffet line, all those free agent signings on defense learn how to play together, and your receivers learn how to catch the ball regularly. You’re not John Elway, yet, and you play in the toughest conference in football, so more than eight wins with just you and a defense doing the work just ain’t gonna happen. Hang tough, buddy, and learn how to slide at the of your runs.

Houston Texans (4-12)

This is the worst organization in football save for the Raiders. Hey, you wanted Matt Schaub, numbnuts, but he’s going to get beat up just as much as David Carr did because you refuse to build a strong offensive line. Oh, and he has only one competent receiver (Andre Johnson) to throw to. That’s brilliant. Bringing in Ahman Green to pick up maybe two yards per carry for his swan song is a shrewd move as well. You know, if Reggie Bush was back there you could let Green just be a power back taking the punishment between the tackles, but instead you have jack shit. That being said, you better pray that all those defensive linemen you have been picking (hello, Mario Williams) pan out because you have nothing, and I mean zero, all over the rest of the field. Being a head coach is a little harder than it looks, ain’t it Mr. Kubiak?

AFC West

San Diego Chargers (14-2)

Save for a dumb pass interference penalty in the fourth quarter on — you guessed it, my favorite corner — Antonio Cromartie that pretty much handed the game to Tom Brady, San Diego should have been beating Peyton Manning’s skull into little itty bitty pieces on their way to Miami and a date with sliding their collective cocks up Chicago’s colon. Instead, Marty Schottenheimer got fired, Cam Cameron took over the Dolphins and Wade Phillips took over Dallas leaving Norv Turner to be brought in to lick the boots of San Diego’s management. On paper this is the best team in football along with New England. Phillip Rivers is developing into an incredibly efficient quarterback, LaDanian Tomlinson is the best back in football, the receiving corps jells nicely with Antonio Gates, Vincent Jackson and Eric Parker (who comes back in week seven), and the defense is stacked with Shawne Merriman, Jamal Williams, Luis Castillo, Quentin Jammer, and Shaun Phillips. Hell they even have a solid stable of assistants given the drama they endured in the off-season. There’s just one problem, Turner is running the show and that could be dicey. Now, to be fair, Turner has never had a collection of players like this at his disposal since he has been a head coach, so we’ll see what he can do. However, a good craftsman never blames his tools, so there are no excuses for Norv anymore.

Denver Broncos (11-5)

Jay Cutler is on the verge of being a great quarterback. He’s working in an offensive system suited to his talents with a bevy of weapons at his disposal. He plays behind the most disciplined and dirtiest offensive line in football and will never have to sit back and throw 40 times a game. That’s thanks to Mike Shanahan’s ability to adeptly use borderline illegal cut blocks to open holes for the second-rate backs who suddenly resemble Pro Bowlers. Yeah, the Broncos get 10 wins on general principle, but the defense will shit the bed in the wild-card round thus reminding everyone it’s not a good idea to pick up Cleveland’s castoffs when you want to build a reliable defense.

Kansas City Chiefs (7-9)

Oh, you have Brody Croyle — no, wait, Damon Huard handing off to Larry Johnson. Let me call my bookie and bet my mortgage against you because this team has all the earmarks of the Bills of the mid-’70s. Superstar running back, great offensive line, solid defense and absolutely no passing game to speak of. The Chiefs come close to breaking .500 by default because they get two easy wins against the Raiders. After that, it’s a roll of the dice every fucking week.

Oakland Raiders (4-139)

OK, Lane Kiffin does not look so much out of his league as everyone originally thought, but Al Davis does. JaMarcus Russell is still not signed? Josh McCown is possibly your starting quarterback? Daunte Culpepper had to be picked up off the scrapheap? What the fuck is wrong with you? This is madness. And once again, another really good defense is being flushed down the toilet because the offense resembles a collection of guys playing Smear the Queer. The skill positions are OK, but nothing to really get excited about because Robert Gallery and company are still starting on the offensive line. Pride and poise indeed. Poised to take a cock up the ass from San Diego and apparently proud of it.

AFC Playoffs

Wild Card
Ravens 24, Broncos 10
Colts 31, Steelers 21

Divisional Round
Chargers 24, Ravens 13
Patriots 31, Colts 21

AFC Championship
Chargers 31, Patriots 27 — This in spite of Norv Turner and because Marty Schottenheimer isn’t there to fuck it up.

So, where do you take a 3-foot-tall wooden cock? Anywhere you want, right? I thought so, but it’s not that easy. I was scared shitless to take the cock in public. Even in a city as open-minded as New York, I have no idea what will raise the ire of the random person on the street. Images of being chased out of lesbian bars by bull dykes dressed like janitors wielding motorcycle chains, or being beaten to death with hymn books on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral by crucifix-wielding parishioners, have haunted me for weeks. So, for the last four months, I have had legitimate — albeit convenient — excuses not to head out with the big bastard while it has sat in its box waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting populace. I am not really one to assign personality characteristics to inanimate objects, but in this case, I make an exception. The fucking cock has been downright impatient, anxious and champing at the bit to get out and about among the people. It begs to be shown the town. It yells that it needs attention. It demands sweet release, and I cannot in good conscience let this noble beast suffer any longer.

However, even in a neighborhood as liberal, flexible, accepting and kooky as Park Slope, you still don’t know exactly how people are going to respond to a man carrying a 36-inch-tall wooden cock over his shoulder like a .50-caliber rifle. It’s just not done. There’s a fucking elementary school around the corner, and while everyone around here professes to be high and mighty liberals, there are plenty of people prudish enough that they would fit in with an Amish quilting bee. Even though women openly breast feed their children in restaurants, gay couples hold hands and kiss, people fuck in Prospect Park under the moonlight during the summer, and there are around five AA meetings a day in the neighborhood, carrying a giant phallus is still a little disconcerting to some folks. It’s a giant cock, and there is no hiding, no parsing of words and no pretending. In essence, when you take this fucker into public, you are inviting scorn, disapproval, shock, hostility, the occasional closet case who drools on it, and all the “pro”-sequences and consequences that come with it.

So, the first thing I noticed when I left the apartment was my next door neighbor, frozen at her front gate on the sidewalk, mouth agape in a mask of almost complete and utter shock, staring at me and the cock while I was locking the door. Across the street, a couple holding a stoop sale slowly rose from their seats and stood eyeing the beast as if it were a troll that had decided to take a shit in the middle of the street and then empty their fridge of beer. A man walking his dog slowed and had to pull up on the dog as he lowered his sunglasses and gawked as if he saw Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen fucking the corpse of Pol Pot on my front walkway. I did not just feel naked, I felt in danger.

I nodded to my neighbors, who slowly nodded back, then I hoisted the bastard over my shoulder and headed on my way. As I approached the corner, two black women walked towards me in conversation. As they took notice of the cock, they stopped talking and with mouths open in apparent shock and/or horror, they just stared and slowed their walk to a crawl as I walked by. The looks and reactions from random passersby on the street were not much different. Stroller Nazis carting around their broods and random couples did double-takes while people in cars slowed to a crawl. No one hurled any insults, but I could feel eyes on me and I swear, for an instant, I felt like Winston Smith on his way to Room 101.

An Afternoon With Mom

Now, understand, this is my usual haunt. My roommate bartends here on the weekends during the day, so I figured it would be a safe haven for my first day and night out with the cock. Unfortunately, I forgot to tell him that I would be bringing a big wooden dick to his bar, and was caught off guard when I found a replacement bartender in his place. Turns out my boy was playing softball with his Bleacher Creature buddies from Yankee Stadium and getting shitfaced on the Upper East Side.

The bar was empty save for what I took to be the usual gaggle of Stroller Nazis with their silent and emasculated husbands in tow, chatting about how there needs to be a “stroller bar in the neighborhood so I can get a beer, too.” My blood ran cold, and I felt my own cock shrink as if it had been doused with ice water.

I sat at the bar, ordered a Budweiser and was immediately quizzed by the baby-faced bartender.

“Dude,” he said, “what the fuck is up with that?”

“It’s a dick,” I replied.

“Yeah, I can see that, but, but, why?”

“It needed to be aired out.”

He served me my beer and I told him about how, while under the influence, I volunteered to cart a 3-foot member around town and write about its experiences traveling through New York.

“I feel like a retard,” I said. “I should wear a hockey helmet when I go out in public and be given gold stars every time I go to the bathroom on my own.”

“Either way, you’re my hero. That thing is awesome!”

He could not take his eyes off of the thing, and I swear I caught him making eyes at it. Nor could the gaggle of mothers sitting in the far corner of the bar. They continued their conversations about diapers, overpriced pre-schools, and polite liberal politics, but they would look over out of the corner of their eyes with a curiosity that seemed at once intimidated and turned on. Like horny wenches just wishing they could eject the children from their lives and briefly run back to a time when they could swallow cock with impunity, I caught them eyeballing the beast that sat on the floor.

As time went on, I sat on my stool idly watching the ballgame, and I clearly heard a woman say, “Tell me, what is it with the penis and why did you bring it to a bar?” I turned around on my bar stool and found myself eye to eye with a mother toting a wee lad resting on her hip and a stroller. “He says I never take him anywhere,” I replied. “So, I figured I’d bring him out for a beer before he started asking for call girls.”

The woman just rolled her eyes, shook her head and pressed on. “I want to know what you plan on doing with that,” she said. “What would possess you to go out in public with it?” I was taken aback. Here was a lady questioning me about walking around in public with a chainsaw sculpture of a cock while she allowed her toddler to hug the thing. “No worries, I’m an atheist former sex-ed teacher. It’s no biggie, I’m just curious about your, uh, friend.” Then her toddler began reaching for the beast as if it were a giant popsicle or stuffed animal, prompting her to say, “Yes, Seth, you have a penis too. It’s OK.” However, when the child decided to lick the tip, she cringed, turned away in horror, and even let out a nervous laugh reminiscent of someone with a good sense of humor being goatse’d.

“You sick fuck!”

As day turned to night, the bar began to fill up, and one of the owners paid me a visit. He walked over, stood next to it, and eyed it up and down, saying, “As long as no one gets offended or my mom doesn’t come in, you can keep it in here.” So I asked him if I could take his picture with it and he vehemently said no while backing away as if I were trying to photograph him getting a blowjob from a tranny. Meanwhile, the looks the cock got were shifting from shock and fear to curiosity and flat out gusto.

One group of shitfaced girls came over and insisted on touching it — the whole time laughing and giggling — but when a camera came out, they scattered like children afraid to have their visage appear on the Internet next to a humungous cock. One man came over and stuttered something about it being the most amazing thing he ever saw. Then he called his fiancée over and insisted on holding it up in front of her as if it were a representation of his own phallus.

Things really loosened up as the woman next to me stared in amazement, and felt compelled to ramble on and on about the men she’s been involved with, and how this giant phallus somehow represented her yearning for an ex-boyfriend.

But the topper was the guy who sat next to me and my friend and while he was asking me about the cock, drooled on it. Not metaphorically, but actually drooled on the cock. At one point, while he was rambling on and on about how much he loved women, I realized that he was not looking at me or any women in the bar, but was looking at the cock instead. And still drooling as if he wanted to take it home and shove it up his gaping ass.

People came over and put saran wrap on it to fashion a rudimentary condom. Others came over and touched it like some folks touch a boa constrictor. Others would screw up their courage, saunter over, and make some silly dick joke. But mostly, the cock became just another patron in the bar. People even offered to buy it drinks.

By the end of the night, my friends Ella and Melody rolled through. Ella saw it, walked over and screamed, “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” loud enough to be heard over the deafening stereo. “I’m a freak, and I do mean a freak,” she yelled, “but that is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. Take that fucking thing home before I steal it and have it turned into mulch.” Melody then tore into me with a lecture on how the thing was just a disgusting object and “just unnecessary.”

I was taken aback. Here were good friends of mine, women who I know have done some freaky shit in their sexual pasts, are as liberal as can be, and hip with the concept of freedom of speech, yelling at me about a 3-foot cock and how it’s somehow inappropriate to bring to a bar.

“What is it about the cock that bothers you?” I asked Ella. “Oh no,” she yelled. “You’re not pulling this sociological-study bullshit on me. This is not some fucking psychological test or performance art crap. You brought a disgusting looking 3-foot dick into the bar and are expecting to just get a rise out of people, you sick fuck.”

On the way home, with the bastard over my shoulder, I had to admit to myself that she had a point. I mean, really, what sort of lunatic walks around with a 3-foot cock expecting people to welcome him with open arms? Not me, anyway. Regardless, who gives a fuck? If people are comfortable, they’re not living life to the fullest, and what else is this little set of trips about besides taking people out of their comfort zones?

Either that or it’s about showing everyone how much I like dick.