Everywhere I butted in and eavesdropped this week, someone was in anguished lament over being knocked out of his/her NFL “Survivor” or “Elimination” pool by the Giants’ loss to Seattle. And the other party’s reply was equally woeful, something like, “Tell me about it.”
Apparently, none seemed to appreciate that the Giants have become the NFL’s best volleyball team.
And, perhaps as a matter of misery enjoying maximum company, more than a few of these miserable souls suggested that the Giants, as a 10-point home favorite, likely created the single largest knock-out day in pool history.
Easy, now. It wasn’t even close.
Sherman, set the Way-Back Machine to the early afternoon of Sept. 7, 2003, Miami, Fla., Week 1 of the season. The second-year Texans, off a 4-12 season, were at the Dolphins, who were following a 9-7 season and were believed to be improved. (In fact, they would finish 10-6 in 2003.)
The safest “safe pick” — especially in Week 1, when no one is looking to reinvent the wheel, think outside any boxes, push any envelopes or step on the devil’s tail — was the Dolphins, a 13-point favorite, the biggest on the board. In these pools, remember, all one has to do is pick the winner, no points included, to survive.
Final score: Texans 21, Dolphins 20. Kris Brown kicked five field goals for Houston, yet oddly enough missed an extra point. Fifteen plus six, on that day, equaled 21.
This result reigns, still, as the event that instantly mass-produced the most one-day total losers in American wagering history. I’ve no scientific proof of this, but common sense and empirical knowledge tells me it’s so. What else could have come close? How many people bet the Mike Tyson-Buster Douglas fight?
Knock-out pools here, there and everywhere — from Bangor to Maine! — on Week 1, with participation at their highest and hundreds of thousands of participants, lost between 80-100 percent of their entrants. So many were cooked so quickly that new pools began, right away. You can look it up. Where? I have no idea. But you can.
Fill-in Francona was nice addition to FOX crew
Terry Francona’s two-game ALCS fill-in for Tim McCarver wasn’t half-bad. For starters, Francona seems like such a sweet guy, one could sense that reports of Red Sox players taking advantage of his good nature were true.
His too-polite side extended to his treatment of FOX’s computerized pitch box, a gizmo he clearly didn’t regard as credible — he called it “that FOX thing” — but had fun with, just the same.
His Game 1, in-game taped chat with Tigers manager Jim Leyland fell apart early after Francona suggested he was being intrusive, that Leyland would rather be managing than being interviewed. Leyland smiled and said yes. End of interview. That FOX felt comfortable showing that, and that Francona laughed at his own uselessness, made for a good-faith, regular-guy feel, too.
And when Joe Buck, who did well making Francona comfortable, during Game 2 mentioned the 1915 Red Sox, Francona was quick with, “Wasn’t [Tim] Wakefield on that staff?”
Unless we were being had, the strong impression left is that Francona’s a very nice man. Regardless, what easily could have been an impulse-hire disaster for FOX and its audience — as I suggested it might — just didn’t happen.
* FOX’s ALCS coverage created a growing dread that its World Series coverage again will be drowned in a series of shots of anxious-looking fans before every pitch. If “the best seats in the house” offered such a steady view, the front-row seats would be facing Row 2, not the field.
* At the corner of Stupid and Ridiculous: Seems that as far as the sheep-like modern sports media are concerned, Bobby Thomson, in 1951, was responsible for the “Walk-Off Heard ’Round the World.”
* As long as Mike Francesa knows Tigers reliever Al Alburquerque as Alberto Jose Alburquerque, suggests reader Mike Caputo, he must know of Babe Ruth only as George Herman Ruth.
Network ads go on offensive
Three Sunday afternoons ago, viewers of the Jets-Raiders were ambushed by a CBS promo for the sitcom “Mike & Molly.” With Molly on her hands and knees and facing the camera, a gym instructor stood directly behind her. In case anyone missed the visual message, she then said, “Easy does it. The last guy I let back there had to buy me a ring.”
This past Monday, at 6 p.m., during Game 2 of the ALCS, an ambush promo for the FOX show “Bones” included a similar on-hands-and-knees scene — only the man at the woman’s posterior was gyrating his pelvis. That, too, was followed by a wisecrack to ensure that no one missed the point.
Of course, such inappropriate promos are selected for just that reason — they’re inappropriate. But if anyone at CBS or FOX wishes to put their name, title and approval to these ads appearing at such times, I’ll be happy to credit them, right here. Hey, if you’re going to be so bold, don’t hide. Stand up, be recognized!
* You watched Sunday’s Jets-Patriots, right? Who played better, Tom Brady or Mark Sanchez? Not even the most blinded-by-loyalty Jets fan would have chosen Sanchez. But the absurd NFL QB passer rating system — the one TV’s football experts lean on to confuse the obvious — gave Sanchez a 105.6, Brady a 100.7.
* How long before a college or colleges — or what’s left of a D-I football conference or conferences — files a monster suit against ESPN for undue influence in destroying existing conferences with wink-and-nod inducements for future financial considerations? How long before ESPN has to answer, in HD, to a congressional committee?
* One wonders whether the NBA’s team owners and the NBA’s players realize how many genuine all-sports fans — people they’re conditioned to take for granted — don’t care if there’s an NBA season. More than all else, that should strike both sides as cataclysmic.
* So if sports programming rights are so expensive that cable systems are “forced” to raise subscriber fees, what’s the plan for rebates or credits for lost NBA telecasts? Yeah, I know, fat chance.