Super Bowl webstuff III, IV and V

Got three for you today, as we count it down:

First, from the excellent Prelinger archives, this (Quicktime) video from 30 years ago -- Super Bowl IX 1/2 -- features the very young, pre-SNL pair of Christopher Guest and "Bill (Billy) Murray" trying doughtily to coax some laughs out of NFL and CBS personalities of the day playing a touch football game in Miami just before X was played.

They don't really succeed, but there are some flashes, and not just in a time-capsule sorta way. Witness this exchange between the late Johnny Unitas and Paul Hornung, who was suspended for a season in the 1960s for betting on NFL games:

Hornung: Tell the guys no fair patting on the ass. No fair winking off ... John's betting on the other team again.
Unitas: Nine points! Ha-ha-ha! I took that!
(Snip)
Murray: (Hornung) hasn't changed a bit, though. He told me just before pregame he had $600 bet on his own blue team. As long as he's betting for his team, I think it's for a good cause.

The Supe sideshow has gone from such lo-fi charms to farting horses, Janet Jackson's boob -- and in the second link of the day, Lingerie Bowl III, which must be paying its bills. The near-naked models with the blacking under the eyes are back and the LB has apparently expanded, with Dennis Rodman as commissioner and the girls wearing the uniforms, such as they are, of the Dallas Desire, the Los Angeles Temptation. This is "every man's Super Bowl Sunday fantasy" according to the voiceover, evidently ignoring the presence of Rodman. Kind of makes Phyllis George's protestations of sexism to Billy Murray's sideline questions to be kinda quaint, eh?

But hold that fantasy and wait one bra-snappin' minute, announcer man. Today's final link comes from Outsports, the website that looks at sports including the NFL through a different coloured lens: It's the Gay Super Bowl Party, where patting on the ass, I'd guess, is fair game.

Shovelling out the stable

The morning links, which (again) just failed to be nominated for an Oscar:

Leafs win. And the Hurricanes, leading the league, just got a little better.

Quote of day from Brian Burke, on trading away Sergei Fedorov and Petr Sykora: "When you take over a team that has had largely a losing tradition, as we have, you have to shovel out the stable before you start showing the horses."

The Broncos are talking to Terrell Owens.

The Knicks are bombed by Atlanta. How much longer can Isiah Thomas last? Here's Larry Brown, looking forward (well, not really) to tonight's next outing against the Lakers: "All I know is (the Hawks) shot 63 per cent against us and had 71 points at halftime. That's probably about what Kobe will have."

From the Super Bowl hoo-hah file: As a regular visitor to longsnap.com, I've always been partial to this most eccentric of duties (check out the flash intro here), and J.P. Darche, who puts his head between his legs for the Seahawks, is the lone Canadian at Supe XV XL. Darche gets the headline treatment from Dave Feschuk and Al Maki. 

Super Bowl webstuff I and II

With this week being Super Bowl, I thought it'd be cool to count it down with some classic Super bits from the Internets. Start off with a double-barrelled bang of antidotes to the Steelers Nation stuff being crammed down our gullets:

The name-says-it-all steelerssuck.com starts us off with a re-imagining of Rupert Holmes. Yeah, it's pretty ghastly, but certainly no moreso than the original.

And over here, you can have hours seconds of fun playing with this Bill Cowher guy.

(Both of these from Deadspin.)

Raps over Ron-Ron

Da-doo-Ron-Ron-Ron, da-doo Ron-Ron, it's the morning links:

Oh, that Ron Artest. He came into the ACC last night and walked out a loser -- barely -- the Raptors winning a thriller in OT. (Personal note: Sam Mitchell for Coach of the Year! Okay, Sam Mitchell has a pulse! On my first trip to the ACC this season, Sam shows he can indeed make a situational sub, putting Pape Sow out on Ron Artest on the Kings' next-to-last possession, and getting a turnover out of it. First he gets rid of the Boy GM, then he turns into a sideline genius. Coincidence? I think not.) Artest, who appears to be carrying a tire under his shirt -- always a possibility, although tire irons are more likely -- had 24 and 9, but as Dave Feschuk opines, the Kings are taking a huge gamble that'll never pay off.

Here's something new: a Dennis Rodman update that involves him actually playing basketball. Conquering adversity, too: "He also had to combat a nasty case of nipple chafing, the result of wearing two nipple rings roughly the shape and size of manhole covers, which required the hasty half-time application of surgical tape to allow him to continue."

Marcos Baghdatis may have lost the Australian Open final to Roger Federer, but he certainly didn't lose any fans.

Thanks to Deadspin for this one: Some guy claims to catch Doug Flutie's drop-kicked ball, fires off a fax to Patriots with a list of demands to turn the ball over, Patriots drop-kick his fax. Heartwarming stuff.

It's all about the team

Time to wrap it up around here, after a busy week of fun and firings:

One last read: The Mighty MJD on Vince Carter on Kobe.

Breaking news: Canada is looking pretty strong on the Skeleton run, Jeff Pain following Melissa Hollingsworth-Richards at the top of the heap; Martin Brodeur has signed a six-year extension with the New Jersey Devils.

Sports around town: The U of T Blues women's volleyballers, 14-1 in their league, have a pair of games at the Athletic Centre's Sports Gym this weekend -- Saturday against RMC and Sunday vs. Queen's (1 p.m. both days).

Watching: Suns at Cavaliers, 1 p.m., Sunday, Ch. 57. The Suns were supposed to struggle without Amare Stoudamire, but if anything, Steve Nash is making a more powerful case than he did last year for league MVP. Even more powerful than LeBron James.

Not watching: Maccabi at Zagreb, 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Raptors TV. It's either this or a repeat of Life and Times: the Rob Babcock Years Months. The payoff for October's exhibition game loss at the ACC continues.

NFL picks: Almost had ya. Welcome to the worst weekend in the football season -- after enduring a week of non-stories, you realize you have nothing to look forward to but another week of even bigger, even less meaningful information. Heed JABS' first rule of pro sports: The bigger the stage, the better off you are ignoring the mounds of pre-event coverage. Besides, I'm still kicking myself for backing Jake Plummer last week.

Fusion reaction

The morning links (naming rights are available):

As expected, lots of reaction from yesterday's latest misstep over at Maple Leaf SE, Raptors GM Rob Babcock getting Trumped. Some tastes:
The two Daves weigh in: Perkins, like Steve Simmons at the Sun, fingers MLSE president/CEO Richard Peddie as the real killer of the Raptors franchise, while Feschuk doesn't count coach Sam Mitchell safe either.
Good conversation, as ever, over at Raptorblog, where Scott muses about bottom-line priorities at work, while James Mirtle offers a native British Columbian's take. Best of all might be this smoking gun from the Globe's Mike Grange -- well, not really smoking, but it's a compelling theory about why the Boy GM, heading wide-eyed into the adventure of another day at the office, got the axe: It's all about Chris Bosh, silly.

Getting away from that mess to -- another mess, the Leafs losing No. 7 in a row.

After all that flag flapping last week, Danielle Goyette will happily carry the Maple Leaf at Turin in two weeks.

Roger Federer is into the Aussie Open final, against Cypriot "miracle" Marcos Baghdatis. The women's final goes tonight (tomorrow), Amelie Maursemo against Justine Henin-Hardenne.

Former Argo Matt Dunigan and the great Gizmo Williams are among this year's CFL Hall of Fame class.

With Toronto granted the 2007 world under-20 soccer opener AND final at a stadium that hasn't even been started yet, the folks in Edmonton are wondering: What were they thinking?

Wlly Szczerbiak is a Celtic and Ricky Davis a Timberpup, part of a seven-player trade.

Parsing Peddie

The press conference that MLSE called today to announce the Babcock firing was pretty surreal -- Babcock himself came on later, basically offering up excuses and no-hard-feelings to everyone involved in his usual bland way, while admitting he was blindsided by the whole thing. He even lauded the players for their "community spirit", which seemed a touch, well, weird and out of place.

But the baffling stuff that came out of Richard Peddie trumped all:

Peddie: "This was a tough decision, but one that we feel is in our best long-term interests. We recognize Rob's efforts to clear cap space and bring in young talent, but it's time to bring in someone with proven experience as an NBA general manager to take us to the next level."
(A reading: It's the shaft, Rob. You made some decent moves -- but now halfway through your contract, we're going to get rid of you. Exactly how this kind of action is going to attract anyone with "proven experience as an NBA general manager" is left unsaid and best avoided for now. Cliche alert: The "next level", surely one of pro sports' emptiest phrases.)

Peddie:"In fairness to Rob, once we knew a change was necessary, we didn't think it was right to have him continue. And from a team perspective, making this move today better positions us as we look toward the trade deadline and then the draft this spring. I thought he was the right choice but after working with Rob for a year and a half now, I went to the board and recommended that we relieve him because I'm not convinced he's the one that we need long-term. I'm disappointed that Rob was the wrong choice for us. In hindsight (I) should have got someone who was more proven."
(A reading: There have been many pathetic statements made in the history of the Raptors, but this might be the most pathetic. It starts off talking about "fairness" (cliche alert there) to someone he's just fired in the middle of his contract, and ends with an admission that the guy doing the firing made a mistake with the hire in the first place. Which begs the question -- isn't there one more person who should've been fired today?)

Peddie: "Wayne has the leadership qualities and league-wide credibility that we need to get to the next level. He has the full powers of a general manager. Included within his mandate to manage our team roster and player development, and to further develop Sam, Wayne's advice will be sought in the hiring of the next general manager. ... We also feel that in moving Wayne into the role of general manager on an interim basis we will be better able to develop Sam Mitchell's growth toward being a very good NBA coach during the second half of the season."
(A reading: So it was Babcock's deteriorating relationship with Mitchell that blew this one up. No surprise there. As for Embry's advice being sought in the hiring of the next GM, Mitchell would do right to polish off that resume. It doesn't sound like his front-office ally is fully in charge of this process, youknowwho being the unmentioned, passive voice still running things. If this really was totally about a power struggle, that's not much of a prize for the coach.)

Peddie: "As with a coach, a general manager is evaluated in large part by the results of his decisions. Unfortunately, while some progress has been made recently, those results have not met our expectations. We have plans in place that we believe will lead us into the playoffs in the near future, and enable us to compete for an NBA championship down the road. We will begin our search for a general manager, perhaps one who has the experience to serve as team president, who has the skills to build that winning team and deliver the results we expect."
(A reading: As with a coach and a GM ... but not a CEO. But what about these expectations? What exactly are they? What are these plans in place? He cleared cap space and brought in young talent, as you said. The carrot of team president is a nice touch, but is anyone going to want this job, given the results expected -- whatever they are?)

The Raptor follies. The MLSE follies. They never stop. Richard Peddie accomplished the impossible this afternoon: he took a guy with a pretty crappy record as a GM, and a guy who everyone knew was on a short leash, and turned him into a sympathetic character who deserves more than this.

Babcock fired

(UPDATES: Embry named interim GM; Peddie dangles club president out to be added to the next GM's portfolio; Babcock cites "philosophical differences" with ownership and Sam Mitchell, says he was surprised by the timing of the move).

Farewell, Rob Babcock. We hardly knew ya, and I mean that sincerely.

When the word first came down of a "major announcement" by MLSE president Richard Peddie, the early dough was on head coach Sam Mitchell, especially after the Raptors limped back from their recent western road trip, including giving up 81 to Kobe Bryant, following with a familiar defenceless effort at home against the Bulls on Wednesday.

Instead it's Babcock. How do you summarize his short tenure as general manager? The Vince Carter trade was the obvious cinder block around his neck. Rafael Araujo, who the Boy GM picked eighth in the 2004 draft within days of taking the post, has been awful and may well end up playing in the D League or Europe next year. Rafer Alston was his big first-year signing -- a year later, Babcock traded him away for Mike James. Donyell Marshall wasn't traded at the deadline last year, and instead the club got nothing for him when he left to sign with the Cavs as a free agent.

With Joey Graham vanishing of late and Jose Calderon struggling like most first-year point guards do -- only Charlie Villanueva has really excited, though only intermittently; sometimes he looks like a flashback to John Wallace, another product of a Big East country club -- it's not like any of his summertime moves are paying off. Then again, this is such a young team overall, and each of them has shown just enough to offer a stay of execution for the GM -- at least, that was the prevailing opinion around the club.

Those earplugs he'd wear at games always struck me as a metaphor for Babcock. He wasn't much of a communicator. He never seemed to give the impression that he was listening to what was going on around the league.

The only surprise here is the timing. Perhaps the midpoint of the season was enough to say enough. Perhaps Wednesday night's half-empty ACC house was the trigger. Or perhaps there's more to this story than meets the eye right now. What now? Wayne Embry seems the obvious to take over. The trade deadline is Feb. 23. That's fish-or-cut-bait time for whoever takes over as far as a player like James.

One thing seems assured: Sam Mitchell is a lucky guy. He's safe. For another day or two, anyway.

Oh, and this just in: MLSE hasn't got a clue. The only way to fix this situation is to hire a proven GM, pay him lots of money to do the job and leave him alone for three years to try and do it. This just proves that Peddie and his dysfunctional crew made the wrong call in going cheap and unproven 19 months ago.

The 10 most hated...

Not an easy list to make but always good for an argument (Lleyton Hewitt? I barely know how to spell his name), and No. 1 is no big surprise (no spoiler here): GQ has it's 10 Most Hated Athletes list, and thanks to the Sports Filter for the link.

Only problem with this one is that it lacks Canadian content, but I'm sure we can come up with some suggestions. Vince Carter and Todd Bertuzzi spring immediately to mind.

Go 1836 Go!

The morning links, looking pretty hirsute:

Marcos Baghdatis, who is a Gillette commercial waiting to happen, took favoured David Nalbandian to five sets tonight (today? tomorrow morning? I dunno, it just happened) in Melbourne. And won. So they're going crazy in Cyprus this morning (this afternoon?) as their favoured son is into the Australian Open final on Sunday (Saturday? Let's just say in a few days).

Ron Artest has finally been traded, although I won't believe it until he shows up at one of the Maloofs' crap tables in a Kings uniform. Oh, and this is hardly news, but the Bulls shot 51 per cent and beat the Raptors. One more NBA: The Pistons -- supposedly down and out when Larry Brown left -- run their record to 35-5, a significant mark in Detroit.

Randy Starkman has just a great read on Pat Quinn's role as the park-bench sage of Salt Lake City 2002.

Billy Beane and the A's are taking a $500,000 chance on Frank Thomas, which segues to this little tidbit: only three weeks till pitchers and catchers can report to spring training.

Oh, and thanks to the Mighty MJD for this one: Houston's new MLS team nickname. Go 1836 Go! (Now here's an idea -- in the spirit of Real Salt Lake, what's Toronto's name going to be when we get one? Over at the Voyageurs board, they're pushing for the Blizzard.)