1999 Week 13
December 8, 1999
We've closed the door on another regular season and are almost to that magical time of the year, the bowel season. Be sure to check out my preview next week, I'll let you know which teams will slide through the bowels like grease and which ones will explode and surprise everyone. Not to mention those who will simply stink up the place.
I was really looking forward to watching some top-notch football last weekend. I admit I'm getting on in years, but I also know when someone's trying to pull a fast one.
You can't fool old Beeno, that's what I always say. As our milkman said when he'd stop by on one of his half-hour deliveries, "Mama Cook didn't raise dummies". Then he'd go upstairs to do some "consulting" on brands of milk. I never quite figured that guy out, the bedroom seemed an odd place to go when the milk was all in the kitchen.
I also never enter those sweepstakes contests. I've been at some of those network parties and, believe you me, the last thing you want is Ed McMahon and Dick Clark showing up at your door. They've had so much plastic surgery that one more nick with the razor and they're gonna unravel. That's one thing you'll never see me do, I'm proud of having more chins than the Hong Kong phone directory.
You have to watch for these scheissters. I remember in my younger days, I was at a bookstore, browsing through Jerry Kramer's book about the Packers, "Instant Replay". Some beautiful young blonde lady came up to me and said, "I really like books, especially books about football." I said, "hmm, sounds like you're a fine and upstanding sports fan, that's the sort of person we need in America."
She then pulled out a key from her purse and said, "I also like romance novels. I have a key to the janitor's closet. How about you and me go in there and write our own romance novel?"
I was polite and told her I had to finish my book, and she left. But I knew there was something untoward going on. That janitor's closet couldn't have had much light and she didn't look like she had any pens or paper to use in writing that book anyway, so she probably was trying to pull something. I told my ESPN colleague Herb Street that story and he said she probably would have tried to pull something, then went into this long description of the interesting stuff women could do with hand lotion.
But I digress.
I watch the games this weekend and suddenly I realize that they're all re-runs. The networks probably couldn't afford to pay for the conference title games this year, so they just showed the same old Marshall/Western Mich, Florida/Alabama, and Texas A&M/Nebraska games from earlier in the season. I couldn't believe it. I thought we didn't start getting repeats on television until June or so. At least that's the way my favorite shows, "Designing Women" and "The Golden Girls", used to be.
After a while I figured out that they did make some subtle changes, by including plays filmed from previous matchups. They can do a lot of tricky stuff these days. So they ran a re-run of the game, but changed the ending. That way they fool the bookies, who probably are in on the secret that it's a re-run and think they can make a bundle on the pointspread since they already know the result.
So that's why Nebraska won this time, after losing earlier, Marshall won narrowly after winning a blowout before, and 'Bama crunched Visor Boy's team after winning in OT a couple months ago. The networks wanted to create some more excitement without having to spend all that money on equipment and travel, so they used their films from the old games but changed the endings.
Well, ole Beeno's onto them this time. You won't catch me watching any more of those regular season rematches. Next Sunday when all those NFL divisional foes supposedly play each other for the second time this year, I'm going to be in the family room, watching all my "Maude" tapes. I can't get enough of that Bea Arthur.