Super Bowl V Replay

I'm replaying Super Bowl V - Baltimore Colts vs. Dallas Cowboys - using the Sports Illustrated Football Game.

Coin Toss: Visiting team Baltimore called tails, it was heads. Dallas chose to kick off to start the game.

END OF FIRST QUARTER: Cowboys 0, Colts 0. This is a defensive battle - Johnny Unitas has been picked off twice and Craig Morton once. Neither team has entered the red zone.

SECOND QUARTER

11:40 Cowboys 3, Colts 0. Mike Clark kicks a 17-yard field goal for the Cowboys.

8:40 Colts 7, Cowboys 3. Johnny Unitas 5-yard TD pass to Roy Jefferson. PAT good.

3:40 Cowboys 10, Colts 7. Walt Garrison 1-yard TD run. PAT good.

HALFTIME: Cowboys 10, Colts 7. The Colts were driving and had the ball first-and-ten on the Dallas 17 with a minute-twenty on the clock. Unitas was sacked and fumbled the ball for his third turnover of the half. Earl Morrall off the bench in the second half? The Colts have had great field position thanks to kick returner Ron Gardin: he has kickoff returns of 55, 50, and 45 yards. According to Wikipedia, Anita Bryant performed at halftime for Super Bowl V. We don't allow homophobes on our stage here.

THIRD QUARTER

9:30 Colts 14, Cowboys 10. Tom Nowatzke 1-yard TD run. PAT good. (Unitas still in the game.)

3:00 Cowboys 17, Colts 14. Duane Thomas 16-yard TD run. PAT good.

END OF THIRD QUARTER: Cowboys 17, Colts 14.

FOURTH QUARTER

6:00 Colts 21, Cowboys 17. Unitas 12-yard TD pass to John Mackey. PAT good. (Who's the idiot who suggested that Unitas might be benched? He just led a masterful 55-yard scoring drive.)

FINAL SCORE: Colts 21, Cowboys 17. The Cowboys faced a tough decision with a fourth-and-long deep in their own terriroty and 4:10 on the clock. They punted and hoped their defense could force a turnover or punt. Unfortunately punter Ron Widby shanked a 26-yard punt and then the Colts ground game ate up the clock. Ball game.

Why did I go through all this when I could have played the game in under sixty seconds at WhatIfSports? The final score using that site was Colts 10, Cowboys 0.

Old Time Hockey

I love it that the Sioux were able to march into Marriucci Arena Engelstad South, push the Gophers around, and take three out of four points from them. This is five games in a row without a loss in Engelstad South. As for Blake Wheeler ... from now on he will be referred to as "The Breck Girl."

How Soft Can The Gophers Get?

Sioux and Gophers play to a 1-1 tie tonight.

Idiot Of The Weekend Award goes to the overrated Blake Wheeler, a prototype soft Gopher forward. Not only did he (as always) not play the body all weekend, he negated two Gopher power plays by being goaded by Sioux players into taking offsetting penalties after the Sioux had drawn a penalty. Fittingly, Blake (with a name like that, I'm amazed he's not a figure skater) refused to square off with Joe Finley - from Edina! - after the game. Blake, you're a wuss - have fun in the NHL, I'm sure they'll take it easy on a softie like you.

After the game, Don (Boy, He Sure Can Coach 'Em Up) Lucia said something about no punches being thrown. He obviously wasn't watching when Derek "Free" Peltier (6-0 195 lbs) of the Gophers had Sioux player Evan Trup (5-10 155 lbs) on the ice and threw two punches at him for apparently no reason (aside that the Gophers only take their shots when they easily can.) Trupp took exception and then so did the much bigger Brad Malone. Two on one ... and the rest of the Gophers stood on the ice and did nothing to help their teammate. S-O-F-T.

After the post-handshake mixup, reputed Gopher tough guy Stu Bickel was pointing his finger at the Sioux and talking trash. Funny - Bickel had nothing to show when players were going at it tonight and did not take up Finley's challenge to him to go at it at any time from earlier in the game. Stu: You're from Chanhassen. Next time you think you're a tough guy, pretend you're at the dinner theater and sing some show tunes. You are obviously more fitted to that than actually squaring off against a similar-sized Sioux player who will destroy you.

Final Note: The folks on FSN were whining about the lack of an "intimidation" penalty being called on UND in overtime. Along with the Gopher coaching staff whining about the Sioux playing tough-guy hockey, it just reaffirms that not only is Gopher hockey soft, their TV affiliate buys into that wear-the-skirt mentality. All I can say is: Golly people, I hope you don't get too intimidated in the future.

So Boring That Woog Was Entertaining In A Good Way

If I had unable to watch tonight's Sioux at Gophers game and you had told me that it ended with the Sioux winning 2-1 in overtime, I would have assumed that I had missed a classic. This was not the case. In fact, this had to have been the most boring close game between the teams I have seen in almost 30 years of Sioux hockey watching. The only time I got worked up was when FSN lost their feed late in the second period. (Way to spend that Murdoch money.) Both teams were mediocre and made lazy, horrible passes. Only the two goalies looked like high quality players out there.

But the Sioux won after they decided to show up for overtime and the winning goal was pretty freakin' cool. Of course I'll tune in tomorrow night - I just hope the Sioux show up.

And here's the Woog comments that were genuinely funny (and there was a third one that I can't remember):

After Frank claimed (no doubt tongue-in-cheek) that he and Woog cover both the Gophers and their opponents "fairly and down the middle," Woog said: "That middle line moves as we (the Gophers) are winning."

Woog on the start of a Gophers power play: "Power play with a small 'p'."

Update: Trupp's goal was SportsCenter's Play of the Day.

This Is Going To Be Huge Something Odd That I Do That I Will Likely Regret Once It's Over

What: Replaying of Super Bowl V (Original score: Baltimore Colts 16, Dallas Cowboys 13.)
When: Super Bowl Sunday, mid-afternoon.
How: Using my brother's Sports Illustrated Football Game, which I kind of inherited.
Who: Me, playing solitaire.
Where: My place, complete with live blogging of all scoring plays and quarterly updates.
Why: Why not? Why this specific board game? Let's just say I have some experience playing this game solitaire and rather enjoy it and leave it at that. Why this Super Bowl? I only have the 1970 season with the SI game.

By the way ... while surfing about this board game last week, I determined that SI's football game was bought by Avalon Hill, who renamed it Paydirt. The game eventually went out of print, but there is a cadre of die-hard fans who continue to make their own charts for each season or for certain (usually playoff or Super Bowl) teams. This includes someone locally.

I also found out (the Silver Surfer strikes!) that the reason the Cowboys were wearing their dark jerseys while being the designated home team is that back then the NFL dictated - if you can imagine the NFL dicatating something heh heh - that the designated home teams wear their dark jerseys.

Get Well Soon

I found out today that my guy Michael Wilbon suffered a minor heart attack earlier this week. He was supposed to be out of the hospital as early as Wednesday. I hope he is doing well.

Speaking Of Books ...

A few weeks ago Full Metal Jacket was on cable. I watched a few minutes of it and decided that since I had only seen it once many many years ago that I needed to Netflix it. I did some Net surfing on the movie and discovered that Michael Herr had been a co-writer of the movie. Turns out it is the same Michael Herr who wrote the introduction of the edition of Rock Dreams that I own. I did some surfing on Herr and found out that he had written a highly-acclaimed book on the Vietnam War, Dispatches. I headed to the downtown library the following Saturday to check out a copy of the book. Shortly after I cracked it open, I was blown away. As he writes in the book, he covered the war for Esquire, and didn't have a daily or weekly deadline to meet. So he captured vignettes and moments. Herr is not only a stylist with talent to burn, he has damn good eyes and ears. To wit:

In Chu Lai some Marines pointed a man out to me and swore to God they'd seen him bayonet a wounded NVA and then lick the bayonet clean. There was a famous story, some reporters asked a door gunner, "How can you shoot women and children?" and he'd answered, "It's easy, you just don't lead 'em so much." Well, they said you needed a sense of humor, there you go, even the VC had one. Once after an ambush that killed a lot of Americans, they covered the field with copies of a photograph that showed one more young, dead American, with the punch line mimeographed on the back, "Your X-rays have just come back from the lab and we think we know what your problem is."

This scene occurs early in the book and isn't out of the ordinary as the book reads on. As I got further in the book, I was impressed by the kindness that ordinary infantrymen showed Herr during his time in or near the action - they would offer him an air mattress to sleep on or go look for a stretcher to crash on when they would end up sleeping on the ground. When Herr was back in safe positions at a restaurant or bar, "grunts" who recognized him from earlier in the war would seek him out, sit with him, and tell him stories.

Like I said, this book blew me away. Highly recommended, oh-so-highly.

The Top 30 Rock Books I Own: #2 Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age Of Rock

Title: Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age Of Rock
Author: Nik Cohn
Year Originally Published: 1969
Edition I Own: First Grove Press Edition, copyright 1996 by Grove Press

What They Say: 1) Cosmic Debris Magazine 2) Book Reporter 3) The editors of The Rolling Stone Record Guide (the first red one): "The best-written, wittiest rock history ... So if he thinks that Bob Dylan is fairly useless and that the Rolling Stones should have died in a plane crash at thirty, that's just part of the sport."

Tuomala's Attempt At A Take: Bought this one in the mid-to-late nineties at the now-closed Hungry Mind in St. Paul, which always had a great selection of music publications on its shelves. I've read it twice and love it. Nik Cohn is an interesting cat: 1) This book is considered one of the first critical histories of rock 'n' roll, and some of its narraration went on to become the basis for the prose in Rock Dreams. 2) Pete Townshend played Cohn some of Tommy before it was finished, Cohn wasn't entirely impressed, so Townshend went and wrote "Pinball Wizard." Cohn is a huge pinball fan, and funny - he went on to write a glowing review of the album. 3) He wrote an article about disco that went on to become the inspiration for Saturday Night Fever. He later admitted he had fabricated much of the article and that he had inserted some of the characteristics of the Mods he had known in England into the disco people in his article.

Busted

One song you won't hear at Mariucci Arena this weekend:

I'm waiting for my man
Twenty-six dollars in my hand
Up to Lexington, 125
Feel sick and dirty, more dead than alive
I'm waiting for my man

Hey, white boy, what you doin' uptown?
Hey, white boy, you chasin' our women around?
Oh pardon me sir, it's the furthest from my mind
I'm just lookin' for a dear, dear friend of mine
I'm waiting for my man

Here he comes, he's all dressed in black
PR shoes and a big straw hat
He's never early, he's always late
First thing you learn is you always gotta wait
I'm waiting for my man

Up to a Brownstone, up three flights of stairs
Everybody's pinned you, but nobody cares
He's got the works, gives you sweet taste
Ah then you gotta split because you got no time to waste
I'm waiting for my man

Baby don't you holler, darlin' don't you bawl and shout
I'm feeling good, you know I'm gonna work it on out
I'm feeling good, I'm feeling oh so fine
Until tomorrow, but that's just some other time
I'm waiting for my man

Bye Bye Ma Bell

I hadn't used my AT&T Universal Card since news broke in 2006 that they provided customer data to the NSA. But they kept sending me the usual credit card junk mail (cash advance checks, etc.) and today I finally got around to calling them and cancelling my account. When asked why I was cancelling, I said: "The United States government spied on its own citizens and AT&T aided them in this. I don't want to do business with such a company."

And the customer service rep in India probably marked "other" on the form he filled out.

"Okay Tuomala, Calm Down"

There is a radio ad for Timber Lodge Steakhouse that runs on KFAN feauturing Mike Tice. The ad starts of with Tice introducing himself and asks us: "Remember me?" Of course I do coach, and I miss you. The Monday Night Football music plays in the background and is no doubt a nod to Tice's head coaching debut vs. Baltimore in 2001. (During this game my friend Joel called me and after viewing Tice and Brian Billick said: "I can't decide which head coach looks more like David Puddy.")

Further in the commercial, Tice tells us to: "Take and old coach's advice, tough guy." Damn, now I want to eat a steak with Mike Tice. Does he wear the pencil to dinner? I hope so.

The Top 30 Rock Books I Own: #1 Spider Kiss

Note: Here's something new I'm going to try. Late last year I looked through my book shelves and made a list of the favorite thirty rock books that I own. I'll be listing these in the upcoming weeks. I didn't rank the books, but rather will be listing them chronilogically by date of publication. My commentary may be minimal on some of these books, especially the ones I haven't read in years.

Title: Spider Kiss
Author: Harlan Ellison
Year Originally Published: 1961
Edition I Own: Ace Edition, published October 1983 by Ace Books.

What They Say: 1) Wikipidea 2) BlogCritics 3) Greil Marcus in Mystery Train: "At once a roman a clef, a trash rock novel, a prescient version of Elvis: What Happened, and a clear look at the sources of American culture."

Tuomala's Attempt At A Take: Bought this at the B. Dalton in Grand Forks while in college. I have read it twice over the years and enjoyed it both times. I wish it was still published under its original title: Rockabilly.

Who Killed Heath Ledger?

I'll tell you who: Bob Dylan and the Joker. Ledger's body was found with a bottle of sleeping pills nearby. Why the need to sleep?

Ledger told The New York Times in a November interview that he "stressed out a little too much" during the Dylan film and had trouble sleeping while portraying the Joker, whom he called a "psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy."

"Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night," Ledger told the newspaper. "I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going." He said he took two Ambien pills, which worked for only an hour, the paper said.

In all seriousness, it was sad to hear of his passing. He was awesome in Brokeback Mountain and his talent should have been obvious to me early - he managed to take my thoughts off of Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You. Gotta go watch that The Dark Knight trailer again. RIP, Heath Ledger.

Sioux Surging? It Must Be Late January

All you suckers in the Twin Cities who watched Minnesota vs. Minnesota-Duluth tonight in what must have been a 2-1 yawner (two second division WCHA teams? yawn) (oops ... after Saturday's games, UM and UMD are fifth and fourth respectively in the WCHA standings ... but both teams have losing conference records, so the "yawn" comment still stands) could have flipped over to channel 23 (or 13 depending on where you live) and watched the now-ranked-fifth in the Pairwise Rankings Sioux win their fifth in a row last night over Mankato State. (I'm not going to call that school by whatever name they changed it to - same goes for Moorhead State ... as the sound bite goes on the Common Man Progrum: "Be consistent, that's all I ask.")

Friday night's game was also on this channel, but I didn't know that so I ponied up the six bucks to watch it via MSU's webcast. A genuine fight broke out between UND's Rylan Kaip and Trevor Bruess, and Kaip kicked Bruess's ass! Bruess didn't even throw a punch. This was payback for last season, when Bruess tried to square off with Kaip and kept hitting him. Kaip had already had a fighting major that season, and while being hit looked to the Sioux bench to see if the coaches would give him permission to retaliate. They said no, so he just took his shots. Ironically, in Friday's fight it was Bruess who looked like he wasn't given permission to fight. But it just turns out that he's a wussy. Mankato State hockey ... all they can do is aspire to be a little above mediocre.

Grand Forks Herald Sioux hockey beat writer Brad Schlossman has YouTube links on his blog to the recent UND vs. MSU nastiness, including Friday's fight.

Mess With The Bull, Get The Horns
Mess With The Cat, Get The Claws (And Worse)

As I had always suspected, the three young men at the San Diego San Francisco Zoo taunted the tiger that ended up leaping out of its enclosure and killing one of the "victims." This should end up on one of those Darwin Awards thingys that people email me and I don't read, but it won't.

Too bad the tiger had to die as a result. And too bad she didn't take the other two down with her before she was put down. Losers.