Sure, the early birds get the worms. But not all of them!
For the past 11 days you’ve been treated to — swamped by — the finest collection of human interest stories, data and predictions that can be pulled, prodded and exhumed and presented as intriguing preface to Super Bowl XLVI. Newspapers, magazines, TV and radio have been full of it.
Although I’m at a disadvantage, given my late arrival to this endeavor, that doesn’t mean I’ve been left empty-handed or that I’ll waste your time. Submitted for your perusal, Super Bowl XLVI, “The Best of the Rest”:
COMPLETE GIANTS SUPER BOWL COVERAGE
* Giants assistant equipment manager Rollo Hansen carries three sets of keys. “Once, I almost left a set at home,” he confided to The Post.
* Omen or Mere Coincidence? The Superintendent of Non-Essential Utilities in the town of Carmichaels, Ind., 65 miles southwest of Indianapolis, is named — ready? — Harry Carson!
“I’m not much for football,” this Harry Carson told The Post, “the game I like to watch is through the scope on a rifle.”
OK, but still, the man’s name is Harry Carson! What are the chances?
* True or false: Deion Branch, the Patriots’ Super Bowl-tested wide receiver, was born without teeth? … That’s true!
* Patriots special teams captain Fred Raheem-Tariq Anthony-Jones has a pit bull puppy, Nipper, which he claims can read. It can read?
“Yeah, the guy at the pet store said that I should line his cage with newspaper. At night, I even leave the light on for him.”
* First-down chain gang member, Clarence Truscott, working his third Super Bowl — this year he’ll be flipping the one-through-four down cards — had an uncle on his mother’s side who beat a man to death with his bare hands.
“Man had a terrible temper,” Truscott told The Post.
* Armed Forces Radio will get the play-by-play call of over-the-top screamer Kevin Harlan, meaning that our military folks abroad will be made to listen by armed force.
* Say, what are the mayors of East Rutherford and Foxborough wagering?
* Giants backup offensive lineman Troy Cantilever has a large “Eli” tattooed on his chest, over his heart. But it’s not what you think.
Cantilever was having the name of his girlfriend, Elinor, burnt into him when she texted him to tell him they were through.
* Patriots long-snapper, Kent Carlson, was raised by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Carlson.
* New England’s director of game tape, game video, and game videotape recordings, Fritz Muller, had a seventh-grade science teacher named Mr. Coughlin. Was the teacher’s first name Tom?
“I don’t know,” Muller told The Post.
* Patriots tough-as-nails linebacker Wade Hunt, who remains doubtful for Sunday with swimmer’s ear, grew up in a rough neighborhood in Elyria, Ohio, where he joined a motorcycle gang, The Demon Skull Knight Riders, M.C.
“We didn’t let people push us around, that’s for sure,” he recalled. “Friday and Saturday nights we’d hit the bars, raise hell.”
What kind of choppers did the Demon Skull Knight Riders ride?
“Well, none of us actually had a motorcycle. We’d ride around in an old Chevy station wagon.”
* How’s this for strange? Giants special teams assistant coach Lyle Sturdivant does not like to be locked into small, windowless rooms or closets for too long.
“I don’t know what it is, or how it started,” he admitted to The Post. “I just don’t like it.”
* Sunday’s Super Bowl will be broadcast in 14 languages, most of them foreign.
* Giants backup RB Marcus Denson, expected to be activated, today, grew up on the mean streets of Gary, Indiana.
Still, Denson was a high school honor student, he worked after school bagging groceries and even had time to volunteer at a homeless shelter, “Until,” he said, “football turned my life around.”
* Coincidence or Omen? The NBC Peacock has 11 feathers — the same uniform number worn by Patriots all-purpose man Julian Edelman. Just sayin’.
* A source close to Giants defensive coordinator Perry Fewell indicates that the Giants plan to counter New England’s no-huddle offense with a no-huddle defense.
“Just to keep them guessing,” said our inside man.
* Go figure: Patriots DB Beasley Wilson says he “never dreamed of playing in a Super Bowl,” yet teammate Cedric Thomas says he “always did.”
* Bosco Emmerman, sports book at the Charlatan Palace in Reno, yesterday told The Post a surge in late money has made “the team that wants it the most and comes ready to play a slight favorite. But that could change over the weekend.”
* NBC cameraman Clifton Bush will be working his 16th Super Bowl (he previously worked Super Bowls for FOX and CBS).
“I’m particularly excited about this one, though,” Bush told The Post. “This is the first time I’ve been assigned to shoot anything going on down on the field.”
* That’s Victor Cruz Salsa, folks, ask for it by name!
Putting the ‘B’ in celeb
B-list Celebrity Super Bowl Picks: Arnie Thibodeaux, longtime track announcer at Falls Downs in Manchester, N.H., picks the Patriots.
Urban rapper No-I Witness says he’s going with the Patriots, too. By the way, N-IW’s back in business with his latest release — from Riker’s Island.
Franklin L. Morris, who plays the incorrigible Spike Evans in The Learning Channel’s after-school specials, “Detention Time,” likes the Giants.
Walter “Wally” Lafarge, composer of the music heard in both the original Mario Bros. and Tetris video games, says, “Dum, ditty dum, dum, dum, dum dum, the Giants, dum ditty dum, dum, dum.”
Colin “Bix” Bixford, rhythm guitarist in the ’80s heavy metal group Mucous Plug, also likes the Giants. Bixford, after losing his memory “Somewhere, not near here, maybe” has just launched his “Back From Wherever Comeback Tour.”
Archie Sklar, retired after 20 years of lighting the vowels on “Wheel of Fortune,” says, “Go with the team with three vowels, not two — the Patriots.”
Tonya Harding calls the Patriots “a lead pipe cinch.”
Country-western balladeer Nullin Void — hits such as “Happy Hour In Sad Heart Saloon,” “Catfish Rhapsody” and “Sunset Morning Moon” — is going with the Patriots.
Finally, recently withdrawn, often-confused GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry is picking the Packers.