Football Night in America – sacrilege

The show has been around on NBC for a few seasons, but only today as I awoke from a snooze brought on by 49ers, Raiders and Packers losses did I discover Football Night in America. It’s the show that airs before the Sunday night NFL game of the week, and I can’t recall watching it before.

The show, featuring the entertaining Dan Patrick, Peter King from Sports Illustrated and others, is pretty good. But I object to the title, a thinly veiled rip-off of the great, long-running CBC series, Hockey Night in Canada.

NBC, can’t you come up with something a little more original, eh?

A quarterback switch for the 49ers

 

Pro football is a fickle business. Shaun Hill won the San Francisco 49ers’ starting quarterback job with strong performances during the latter half of the 2008 season. He prevailed over Alex Smith in the exhibition season this summer and the team got off to a fast start.

But they played terribly against the Atlanta Falcons. Even after their bye week, the Niners were listless against the Houston Texans in the first half Sunday. So Coach Mike Singletary made a change, inserting Smith into the lineup.

And pow! The Niners scored three touchdowns and were seemingly on their way to a fourth when the Texans intercepted the ball to preserve a 24-21 victory.

Now today comes word that Smith will start the next game. The starting job is his to lose.

And the way things go in the NFL, he will lose the job eventually – to Hill or to some other quarterback who comes along.

I was lukewarm to Smith when the Niners picked him up as a top draft pick a few years back. He was inconsistent whereas with Hill at the controls, the 49ers seemed to move the ball. Hill isn’t flashy, but the team won more often than not.

I give Smith tremendous credit. He has not sulked or demanded a trade or trashed his organization — as so many multimillionaire malcontents do. He’s kept his focus, and he was ready when called.

Even more, he delivered.

In the brutal world of the NFL, that matters most.

The Twins win, and we’re stuck with more games in that horrid dome

Twins win

The Minnesota Twins defeated the Detroit Tigers 6-5 in 12 innings Tuesday night to win the American League Central title, and I’m not happy.

Not because the Twins won per se. They’ve been a terrific story this season, charging from behind to tie the Tigers and force the one-game playoff for the division title.

What irritates me is the prospect of at least one more baseball game being played in the  abomination that is the Metrodome. Although I’ve never set foot in it, I’ve loathed that dome for years.

When the Brewers were in the American League and played there, I hated it on general principles.

When Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbek and that generation of Twins were in their heyday, I hated it for the homer hankies the fans waved. (I’ve always hated any team whose fans in an act of mass silliness wave hankies or towels or – please, God, no – thundersticks.)

I even hate the dome in football season, as in the past two weeks when the 49ers and Packers lost in succession to the Vikings.

Why do I find the dome so revolting? I don’t begrudge the Twins and Vikings fans a warm place to sit when it’s freezing outside. But the Metrodome is an over-the-top artificial environment, a chamber of Nordic screams designed to rile and rattle the opposing team. The building is a huge advantage for the home squad, and unfairly so.

There are other domes in professional sports. I’ve been in Skydome or whatever it’s now called in Toronto and the old Kingdome in Seattle (inset), for which I had a minimal, grudging tolerance. I’ve also been in Miller Park in Milwaukee, with the roof open and closed. None of those parks approaches the Metrodome in affecting the outcome of a game.

Quirky differences among ballparks parks add to baseball’s appeal — the Green Monster at Fenway Park, the ivy at Wrigley Field, McCovey Cove in San Francisco, the arches at Yankee stadia, old and new. Those features constitute charm and give the home team a bit of a boost. But they don’t loom oppressively over the game as does the Metrodome.

That the Twins are moving to the new Target Field next season is good news. It can’t come soon enough.

Woe unto thee, Raider Nation

It’s not easy being silver and black. The Oakland Raiders, one of the most intimidating and successful franchises in the history of professional football, are reeling. On so many Sundays the past few years, the Raiders have been outplayed and outclassed. Since 2002, when they last won an AFC title and appeared in the Super Bowl, they haven’t posted a winning record. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I checked the stats — the Raiders haven’t won more than five games in any season since.

With the way the team has played this season, six victories seems like a tall order.  A colleague who has season tickets (and writes a fine Raiders blog) said the fans in the Black Hole at the Oakland Coliseum relentlessly booed quarterback JaMarcus Russell on Sunday as the Broncos embarrassed the Raiders 23-3.

This is pitiful football. My Raiders’ credentials are a bit tenuous, but I have enough of a connection to justify a few observations. Growing up in the snowbound Eastern time zone, I watched a lot of Raiders games from the West Coast after the Browns wrapped up. The Raiders in those days were Daryle Lamonica and Fred Biletnikoff, Ken Stabler and Cliff Branch, not to mention scores of outstanding defensive backs and linemen both sides of the ball.

When the team returned to Oakland from exile in Los Angeles, I lived in Alameda – where Al Davis & Co. set up their corporate home. My kids’ high school manned concession booths at home games as a fund-raiser. While I saw little action on the field, I poured plenty of beers for the fans. The early years in Oakland Phase Two were mediocre, but the team had passionate backers who knew better times lay ahead.

For maddening contrast, today’s Raiders fans need only look across San Francisco Bay to see how the 49ers are resurrecting their program. I wish I had a solution for the Raiders, who for so many years found a way to win. Right now, the fabled “Commitment to Excellence” has a hollow ring to it.

Hitting the baseball perfecta

Inspired by a few trips to the betting window over the years, I’ve developed a system of rating how good a sports day I’ve had. To hit the daily double, my two favorite teams – the Cleveland Indians and San Francisco Giants – must win. That happens fairly often (although the Tribe didn’t exactly give me great odds during the first half of the season).

To hit a trifecta, the Tribe and Giants must win – and the Los Angeles Dodgers must lose.

For a superfecta: all of the above plus victory by the baseball teams next nearest to my heart, the Milwaukee Brewers and Oakland Athletics.

The parimutuel concept probably struck me in college, about the time I went to my first horse race. That was the 1976 Preakness at Pimlico in Baltimore. (I had bets on four of the horses in the field of six; neither won or placed.)

During college football season, the main components in my calculus were Ohio State winning and Michigan losing. Eventually, I added USC victories and Notre Dame losses to the formula.

In pro football, a Browns’ victory paired with a Steelers loss was extremely satisfying. Nowadays, my daily double is a San Francisco 49ers victory paired with a Dallas Cowboys loss. I’ll include the occasional (and I do mean occasional) Oakland Raiders victory  and a Steelers loss for good measure.

In September, when football and baseball seasons overlap, I can have either a mighty fine weekend or a miserable one, depending on the fortunes of the Indians, Giants, Buckeyes and Niners.

As for October, my baseball teams are usually watching the Yankees, Cardinals and Dodgers along with everybody else. But one can dream.

The NFL draft 2009, and the new look of the Detroit Lions

 

Matthew Stafford

The Detroit Lions are feeling mighty pleased today. They chose Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford as the No. 1 pick of the NFL draft. He’s shown at right, sporting the new Lions’ logo on his cap.

The Lions made a big fuss the other  day in announcing the logo, which is supposed to represent a fiercer look. Maybe, maybe not. They couldn’t do any worse than they did last season with the old logo.

As for Stafford, I know nothing more than that he was touted as the catch of the draft. All I can say to that is, “Good luck, Mr. Stafford, and good luck, Detroit.”

My years as a football fan are littered with busted first-round QBs. Exhibit A is Mike Phipps, for whom the Cleveland Browns gave up wide receiver Paul Warfield in a move stunning in its stupidity, even by Cleveland standards (See, Colavito for Kuenn). Farther west and more recently, the San Francisco 49ers put all their draft eggs in the Alex Smith basket, and that, to say the least, has not been a picnic.

If any NFL team wants to pay me what Stafford is reportedly getting – $41 million, give or take a few thou – my services are available. But I’d settle for $1 million and a couple of ball caps.