Super Bowl XXXIX featured no fake mooning incidents, no Desperate Housewives and, most important, no wardrobe malfunctions. I didn’t see a single gratuitous cheerleader shot. Come to think of it, I barely saw any women, which has prompted me to demand the FCC launch a full-scale investigation into whether the Fox telecast was directed by […]
Mike Doser
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Belly up
I find the Super Bowl to be an almost sickening celebration of corporate excess and gluttony. And I even covered the game a few months after September 11, 2001, when the festivities were supposed to be more subdued. I didn’t see anybody going without. People stuffed their faces at the pre-game Super Bowl brunch, at […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Women…
The public doesn’t seem to care much for female team athletics. It’s proven. From 1996 to 2002, organizers launched five major pro women’s leagues in basketball, soccer, softball, and volleyball, and only one — the Women’s National Basketball Association — remains. The top NCAA men’s basketball programs draw more than 16,000 to their games, while […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Getting schooled
Big Media has eroded local sports. These days, if an event isn’t shown on ESPN or a national broadcast network — if people aren’t talking about it on The Jim Rome Show — it’s widely considered minor league, unimportant nationally and locally. Many Rochesterians let national media coverage determine how they feel about this city. […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Hypothermia is the price of contemplation
It’s 8:20 a.m. and 10 degrees outside. My fingertips are beginning to numb inside my new Isotoner gloves. I wear long underwear and jeans, but a frosty wind rips through them as if they were fishnet stockings. My pen freezes and I can’t take notes. At such an extreme temperature, my digital voice recorder’s display […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Out of control
I’m reflecting on the Bills’ 29-24 season-finale home loss to Pittsburgh, which kept Buffalo from the playoffs, and no song is more appropriate than The Hives’ Hate to Say I Told You So. Incidentally, this column coincides with The Hives’ song, just as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon allegedly coincides with TheWizard of […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
I might offend you, but…
Classic New York sportswriter and syndicated columnist Jimmy Cannon used to write a potpourri piece under the headline, “Nobody asked me, but…. ” His observations were sharp and often visionary. For instance he wrote in 1968, nobody asked me, but “all football has to do is play its games, and the baseball owners will chase […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Winning in one dimension
The Bills are 8-6 and might make the playoffs. That’s incredible because after the Patriots crushed them 29-6 on November 14, they were 3-6 and alive like a cemetery. Somehow they’ve won five straight. The secret, according to coach Mike Mularkey, was to play one game at a time. You see, earlier in the season, […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
In defense of pro athletes
It’s Christmas blockbuster movie season. I’ll see The Polar Express with Tom Hanks, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events with Jim Carrey, and Spanglish with Adam Sandler. And I’m telling you, if those movies stink, I’ll be so angry that I’ll head to the Oscars in February and throw beers at each of those […]
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Rapid fire with J.B. and the boys
I watch those NFL pre- and post-game programs. Fox’s James Brown, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, and Jimmy Johnson are so much fun. They yuk it up, act goofy, and then they joke about each other’s shortcomings, particularly Bradshaw’s perceived mental deficiencies. I wish those guys were my friends. We’d have so many laughs together, just […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Madden. Michaels. Edie?
Last week, there were two disgusting events that occurred in US professional sports. There was the Pacers-Pistons fan-player brawl on Friday, November 19, which I’ll get to later. And there was the Terrell Owens-Edie Britt encounter that occurred before the November 15 Monday Night Football game between the Eagles and Cowboys. Owens was leaving the […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
A spark in the dark
During the summer, I read a newspaper reporter’s opinion that Bills quarterback Drew Bledsoe was actually going to be better because he couldn’t be any worse than last year. That’s like saying he’s going to be better because my Magic 8 Ball told me so. Clearly, in the harmless world of sports, that kind of […]
