Forrest Gump is trending, which is to say that Peyton Manning isn’t much good with contemporary cultural references.
Then again, when DeAngelo Williams is providing emojis to establish Manning’s lousy 2015, maybe contemporary cultural references aren’t such a hot idea.
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Then again, maybe old cultural references aren’t that swell either, as Iowa 184-pound wrestler Sammy Brooks explained how he beat Nebraska’s T.J. Dudley to win the Big Ten Championship Sunday. By having a mullet.
“I think these fans just respond really well to a good haircut,” he said in a postmatch interview that fell short of Bobby (The Brain) Heenan standards, “So that’s what I was working on coming in here, making sure I had it fluffed and feathered the right way. I think the fans saw my hard work. I gain trust every time my hair grows a little more, and a little more I trust in myself and my mullet, so it’s a process, you know. You can’t grow a great mullet in a day. You can’t win a Big Ten title in a day.”
Suddenly, Forrest Gump seems like a poet laureate.
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Tennis star Maria Sharapova, who admitted she failed a drug test at the Australian Open, which is admirable, given that her story is that she’s been taking the banned drug since 2006 for a magnesium deficiency and irregular EKG results, and that she simply failed to notice that the drug was just added to the banned list this January. I mean, Nike didn’t buy it (they suspended their relationship with her, doubtless waiting to see if they’re leaving money on the table by firing her), but that’s just corporate arglebargle that shouldn’t matter to anyone of any substance or dignity.
Problem: The drug is called meldonium, which sounds like it came out of a comic book and is the key chemical ingredient in a meldonium bomb. In other words, if the stuff sounds like something Lex Luthor needs to kill Superman to obtain it, it’s probably a bad idea, banned or not.
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In another scandal, the USA Today crossword puzzle editor is being investigated for plagiarism. If the Sudoku master goes down, too, I will lose all faith in single-digit numbers.
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Erin Andrews was awarded $55 million by a jury in NextDoorCreeperGate, and because I am cynical by nature as well as nurture, I can already imagine some elderly whackjob judge knocking the award down to $55 because she’s famous and should have expected to have people drilling holes in adjoining walls of a hotel to catch her undressed in the (no longer a right to) privacy of her own room as part of the price of that fame.
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Hours after a Montreal radio station reported that Quebec City was going to be rejected as a potential NHL expansion site, the NHL and NHL Players Association both denied that report, saying in a statement some gobbledygook nobody cares about.
But it reminds us that commissioner Gary Bettman said in Pebble Beach in December that the league was far away from deciding anything, and March is not far away from December. It also reminds us about the NFL Los Angeles relocation scene, and how we learned to believe nobody.
Hurray believing nobody, ever.
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The agent for this just asked the 49ers for a trade.
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Speaking of which, Philadelphia general manager Howie Roseman should at least exhibit enough of a sense of humor to send one of the Chip Kelly’s old Eagles back to Chip Kelly with a tag that reads, “No backsies either, you beady-eyed former employee.” Then he went back to scraping Kelly’s picture put of the team photos.
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Bill King was the last local broadcaster capable of this, and we miss that about him. Anyway, Wisconsin-Green Bay play-by-play announcer Matt Menzel was temporarily ejected from the Phoenix’ Horizon League final against NCAA bubble team Valparaiso because, as the official UWGB Twitter feed explained, “The officials were displeased with the gestures of our radio talent. Asked him to leave.”
Menzel was reinstated to blabbage later in the game, and Green Bay won in overtime, 99-92, to go to the tournament. Clearly they won it for him.
What this means is it might be time for Ken Korach, Jon Miller, Tim Roye, Dan Rusanowsky, Ted Robinson or our own Greg Papa to do what John Cleese used to call “baring their buttocks at the general public,” and see if an official will notice and act. We cannot be outdone on this. Get out there, boys, and air the equipment. Do it for Bill.
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While Manning was Gumping his way through the one non-fawning question at his one-room ticket-tape parade, here’s what sane Americans were talking about (and no, it isn’t politics).
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And finally, while we were and drooling in wonder at Manning as though he were Charlemagne in repose, these guys were trying to duplicate the sun.
Now that puts football in its proper perspective, because until Stan Kroenke buys the patent for the second sun, that’s a bigger deal than a retirement announcement. Of course, watching a dog play the accordion is bigger too, and dogs don’t bore us with press conferences.
