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The Daily Dose/January 9, 2009
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
Notes from around the Human Experience...Pics will return!
NOW HEAR THIS: Here are five things, in no particular order, that annoy me about the college bowl season. This is still relevant because even though we are several days into 2009, they are still playing college football. In fact, the BCS title games isn't until Thursday, and Tuesday we will be subjected to Ball State and Tulsa - two teams only those affiliated with Ball State and Tulsa care about, playing in the GMAC Bowl, a game nobody not actually at/in the GMAC Bowl cares about.
Leading Off: This leads to complaint number one: they're still playing. Good gravy, it's January 6.
There is no good reason for college football to be played after New Year's Day. I'm sorry. On January 2, the holidays are over and our interest in college football - already more or less limited to The Bottom Ten, the Army/Navy game and the Division III playoffs - is at rock bottom.
Yeah, Whatever: Also bothering us is the fact the Rose Bowl is an afterthought. It pains us to say that. We are big Rose Bowl fans here at the Writer's Shack, and while we realize those in other parts of the country may not be, that's their problem, not ours.
But, honestly, neither USC nor Penn State wanted to be playing in Pasadena this year. They would have preferred to have been playing in the BCS title game Thursday. USC would have even preferred to have been in the Fiesta Bowl or the Sugar Bowl or anywhere else where they could play a Big 12 or SEC school.
Batting Third: Furthermore, do we really need two bowl games in some cities? Hell, some, like Boise, don't even deserve one and now we have no less than five cities - New Orleans, San Diego, Phoenix, Orlando and Dallas/Fort Worth - which have two.
Today's Halftime Entertainment Provided By Frosty The Snowman: Also, cold weather bowls are proof this country is sitting directly on the fourth ring of the fifth level of Hell. Come on, who the hell wants to go to Boise in December to watch an outdoor football game? Or Washington, D.C.? Or Albuquerque? These aren't rewards for a good season, they're sentences.
The Bottom Of The Barrel: The worst part is teams actually playing in a bowl game, can end the season with losing records. Two teams finished with sparkling 6-7 records after losing their bowl game. Three 6-6 teams, including Notre Dame, won to salvage some respectability and triumphantly finish at 7-6.
In Conclusion: It would be nice if the NCAA upped the minimum win requirement for bowl eligibility from six wins to seven, or, better yet, eight, but if they raised it to seven there would only be enough teams to fill 29-and-a-half bowl games. If the requirement were eight wins, there would have been enough teams for only 22 and a half bowl games, which, rounded up to 23, isn't an unreasonable number of bowl games, looking at it from a purely competition standpoint, which the NCAA, of course, doesn't really care about.
Hut, Hut Hike: The NFL again showed why their overtime procedure is one of the worst in sports.
Baseball and basketball know what they're doing, choosing to break ties by playing baseball and basketball. Hockey used to have it right, sort of, playing hockey for five minutes before deciding that's too long for professional hockey players to have to exert themselves and ending the game in a tie if neither team scored. Now, they start the calliope music and pitch circus tents and make teams skate with one less player for five minutes, before having a shootout if the game is still tied.
College football, at least, gives each team a crack on offense, but they take the kickoff, punting games and clock out of the equation, plus the defense for all intents and purposes cannot score, so it's not real football, even in Canada, but it's pretty close.
Meanwhile: The NFL is content with their sudden death procedure, letting the first team to score in overtime win the game. This is akin to letting a baseball game end in the top of tenth inning because the visiting team scored a run.
They shouldn't be content with this. It's not fair to the team that loses the coin flip. Indianapolis lost to San Diego Sunday night because the Chargers got the ball first in overtime and scored on their first drive.
Editor's Note: This edition of the Daily Dose was originally scheduled to move on Monday morning. We do not live in writer's Fantasyland, however, and circumstances conspired to prevent publication for a day. Since we went through the effort of assembling On This Date notes for January 5, we are presenting them here, as a public service. Today's On This Date segment follows.
Bailouts Are Job One: On this date, in 1914, the Ford Motor Company raises salaries for assembly line workers from $2.50 a day to $5 a day, and cuts the workday from nine hours to eight.
Up, Up And Away: On this date, in 1972 - two years after the last three Apollo missions were cancelled - President Richard Nixon orders the development of the Space Shuttle. The first shuttle would not launch until 1981.
Following are today's On This Date entries:
I Do…For Now: On this date, in 1540, Henry VIII marries his sixth wife, Anne of Cleves. A few months later Anne is advised that Henry is "reconsidering" the marriage and she would ultimately agree to an annulment. She received a nice settlement and would live until 1557.
I Do: Three weeks after they had been introduced by nosy friends, George Washington and Martha Dandridge Custis are married on this date in 1759 at her home northwest of Williamsburg. Washington married up a bit - Ms. Custis was a wealthy widow, and immediately became one of the wealthiest men in the colonies. They had no children of their own, but Washington raised her two children as his own, and by all accounts their marriage was a happy one.
Dot Dot Dash Dot: Samuel Morse first tests his electric telegraph on this date in 1838, at an ironworks outside of Morristown, New Jersey.
One Final Time: On this date, in 1931, Thomas Edison files for his 1,093rd and final US patent. He would die in October and patent #1,908,380, for his Holder for Articles to be Electroplated, would be issued in 1933.
Thought For The Day: If we did the things we were capable of, we would astound ourselves. - Thomas Edison
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Mark Fidrych was the first athlete to be featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Usually the trivia question has something to with a featured item from that days column, and originally it did, but the tidbit mentioning Mark Fidrych was edited, kind of ruthlessly, too, at the last minute.
Today's Stumper: Samuel Morse invented telegraphs in his spare time. What was his primary occupation? - Answer next time!
Postscript: Morse also supported slavery, referring to it as a "…a social condition ordained from the beginning of the world for the wisest purposes" adding that it had "…nothing of moral character in it, any more than the being a parent, or employer, or ruler."
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