Tuesday, February 4, 1997
OPINION:
Contests don’t always display highest level of leagues’ play
Some meditations on those orgies of self-appreciation called
all-star games:
First on our list is the NFL’s Pro Bowl. Now here we have the
quintessential anticlimax. After gorging on football all winter
long and ending with our yearly Super Bowl feast, the NFL gives us
the after-dinner mint known as the Pro Bowl. You know, it’s
something to cleanse the palate and remind us of how great our meal
was.
The problem is, this game always leaves me reaching for the
Pepto.
Seriously, who wants a game played by the best performers of the
season to be decided by a kicker? And mediocre kickers at that.
John Kasay of the NFC missed three of four attempts in the NFC’s
overtime loss. If you do that during the regular season, you’re out
of a job. You do it in the Pro Bowl and it makes you look even more
dumb than those uniforms already do.
At least the halftime kicker was right on the money (you bet
that pun was intended; the guy took home a million dollars, for
goodness sake!).
Anyway, how can you take any football game seriously when the
AFC has won eight of 13 meetings? It’s obvious the players don’t.
Last year’s game even drove one player bonkers. Cardinals fullback
Larry Centers was found wandering on the beach in Hawaii, muttering
in a strange language. After they found him, he was exorcised by
Reggie White, Baptist minister/assassin.
I’m not kidding.
Sure, it’s hard to come up with a gripping contest in the
aftermath of the carnage known as the regular season. Many top
stars beg out of it, leaving the game in the hands of the Vinny
Testaverdes and Gus Frerottes of the NFL. It’s not even played on
the mainland.
So how do we spice this up? My mom always said that football is
preparation for war, so let’s play on that theme. Just for this
game, the teams could be divided up based on old sectional
differences.
You know, let’s have the North play the South. Then, while the
players are slugging it out on the field, the fans can get involved
outside the stadium by reenacting great Civil War battles. We could
even have the game hosted alternately at Shiloh, Antietam and
Gettysburg so that not only would the NFL attract fans in towns
without teams, but the game could be historically accurate as
well.
Now, on to hockey and the NHL All-Star Game. While this game is
a whole lot more fun to watch, it also has to be taken with a grain
of salt.
I mean, space-age graphics to better follow the puck? Talk about
selling out to the ratings dollar. The puck is not that hard to
track, and that ethereal glow on the screen with the red comet on a
shot is just obnoxious.
Puck high jinks aside, this really is an exciting game to watch,
simply because it’s an offensive showcase. But imagine being the
poor goalie who has to serve as the clay pigeon.
Picture it: You’re the goalie for the Saskatchewan
We’re-Trying-To-Relocate-To-The-United States-ers and you get to
play with the best for the first time. But all of a sudden, your
forwards stop checking, your defensemen stop clearing out the
crease and Mario Lemieux is on the break.
Next thing you know, you’re the poor schlub in that commercial
who takes a puck between the eyes. On top of that, you look like a
totally incapable player in your sport’s most watched event.
Let’s call it the NHL Some-Stars-And-The-Goalie Game.
The NBA All-Star Game? Here is another brutal misrepresentation
of the state of the game. You can bet that the All-Star Game will
have both teams break 110 points, but this is a league where teams
put up sub-70 point totals with scary regularity.
These anemic offenses are not due to rock-hard defenses
(Chicago, Seattle and Detroit excluded) but because NBA players
CANNOT SHOOT! That is the most frustrating part because after
growing up watching Magic, Bird, Worthy et al., I want to cry when
only Mitch Richmond and Reggie Miller can come off of a screen and
hit a 15-foot jumper.
Even worse, there’s no place in the NBA for those who can. A guy
like Brian Evans, late of Indiana, will never catch on simply
because he’s not athletic enough. The fact that, fundamentally,
he’s nearly perfect doesn’t matter (I’m a purist, so sue me).
No, the NBA All-Star Game will feature high-flying dunks,
three-pointers, bad passes, turnovers and some of the best
bricklaying this side of Powell Library.
I guess I’ll just have to wait for the granddaddy of them all:
baseball’s Midsummer Classic, the only All-Star game where the best
play that way and give the fans a real taste of the majesty of the
sport. This is the one and only showcase where a sport is played at
the highest possible level. It’s only once a year, so mark your
calendars.
Shapiro is a Daily Bruin staff writer. Responses can be e-mailed
to mshapiro@media.ucla.edu.