And another thing...

now you see me . . .

And now an announcement for those of you who are either loyal readers of this blog (you know who you are, Mom), or just stumbled on it while looking for that online crocheting site: This is likely to be my last entry here for awhile.

Which is to say, I'm about to be swallowed up by the Super Bowl Vortex (which is really rather lovely, actually, with exploding multi-colored fireworks and giant inflatable Chris Bermans and the Geico cavemen waving from the 50-yard line, and holographic images of Peyton Manning, Brian Urlacher and Prince). So for the next two weeks,  I'll be blogging my brains out (now there's an uncomfortable image) at The Journal Gazette's official Super Bowl blog, The Colts Da Bears The Blog.

Before I go, though, I have a few thoughts on this whole let's-play-the-Super-Bowl-in-Fort-Wayne thing.
I say, why not?

I mean, what's Miami got that we don't?

They've got Joe's Stone Crab; we've got Hall's Gas House. They've got South Beach; we've got Piere's. They've got Biscayne Bay; we've got Headwaters Park, which looks like Biscayne Bay during our periodic spring floods.

Bring it on.

And bye for now.

-- Ben Smith         

Time to choose sides

The Bears in the Super Bowl. The Colts in the Super Bowl. At, like, you know, the same time.

I guess the only appropriate thing to do now is to paraphrase Rex the T-Rex from "A Toy Story," who at point in the proceedings is heard to moan, "Oh, great! Now I have guilt!"

Oh, great! Now I'm conflicted!

I grew up watching the Bears, Sayers and Concannon and Butkus and Bobby freakin' Douglass. I grew up rooting for the Colts, too, Unitas and Matte and Bubba Smith and Mike Curtis. I was such a huge Baltimore Colts fan I actually HATED the Indianapolis Colts for awhile for what they did to a city 800-some miles away.

So now what do I do?

I'm in the same overflowing boat with a whole pile of people in Fort Wayne right now, half a Bears town and half a Colts town. I'm in the same boat with a gentleman named David Ray, a Fort Wayne native who lives now in Athens, Texas, 40 miles from Chicago coach Lovie Smith's hometown, and who like so many Fort Wayne folks was rooting for both the Colts and Bears Sunday.

"I am lost now . . ." he e-mailed me Sunday night.

"So who will you be rooting for in two weeks?" I e-mailed back.

"When push comes to shove, I wish this match-up didn't have to happen," he replied.

I guess if worse comes to worst, he can always stitch together half a Brian Urlacher jersey and half a Peyton Manning jersey and wear that. The name on the back, of course, would read something like "Urlning."

Urlning. I think I just found the right word for this.

-- Ben Smith

Sampson For Whatever

OK, I guess you can haul out the banner now, Indiana fans.

“Sampson For President” or “Sampson For Governor”? Which way you gonna go?

Just watched the Hoosiers just hang a nervy “W” on the wall out at Connecticut, and again it was like jumping in the Wayback Machine and journeying back to, oh, 1987 or so. Clutch free throw shooting. Defense igniting the offense. Recognition (how about that White-on-White pass out of the double team, D.J. to Mike?) and bloodless shooting (how about that three from the ‘burbs with the game in the balance from Roderick Wilmont?).

I can hear the whooping of Hoosier Nation from where I’m sitting.

It’ll be Sampson For President or Sampson For Governor now, clearly, and I’ ve gotta say it’s funny how little it takes to win over even the most hypercritical fan base. When Sampson came to town with that NCAA rap sheet under one arm, all you saw were raised eyebrows. Then he reaches in his pocket and produces a handful of stirring wins and, more importantly, a team that plays with fire and purpose, and everybody’s gushing like teeny boppers.

“I’ve been waiting six years for this!” I hear from almost every diehard I run into these days.

Of course, one loss to Purdue and we’re talkin’ about phone calls again.

Later.

-- Ben Smith

Paging Lloyd Daniels . . .

OK, I'm back.

Spent the past few days auditioning for one of those cold-remedy ads in which germs appear as tiny Jabba the Huts who live in your chest and nasal passages. Which is to say, I was felled by the dreaded What's Going Around.

While I was gone, Muhammad Ali became an official senior citizen, which did not make me feel any better. Also, the city jumped back into the pro basketball biz, or so it appears.

Talked to John D. Zeglis, the prospective new owner of a Fort Wayne franchise in the National Basketball Development League franchise, a former AT&T exec. Denny Sutton and Jay Frye are on board, too, old hands with the Fury. Sounds like this thing is going to happen, maybe as soon as next fall.

What I have to say about that is this: What with all the talk about a new baseball complex downtown (my jury's still deliberating on the wisdom of that), plus a new af2 team, plus the Komets, Fort Wayne is suddenly MInor League Central. Add an NBDL team and for the first time in my memory at least, we'll have four pro franchises in town at once.

That's a lot of balls (and pucks, ha-ha) to keep in the air. It's also thinner slices of a static entertainment pie to go around, or so it seems to me. I smell market saturation

I'll have more to say about this in my regular column somewhere down the road. In the meantime, I think I'll Google Thomas Hamilton, just for chucks. Big Ham disappeared on the Fury midway through a playoff series a few years back, and I figure if we get pro buckets in here again, he might turn up looking for work.

Big Ham, Lloyd Daniels, the effervescent and irrepressible Jimmy "Wild, Wild West" Carruth: Man, those were the days.

See ya in, mmm, a quarter point or two.

-- Ben Smith

Bear-ly serviceable

Well. THAT was unimpressive.

Up here in the pressbox at Memorial Coliseum, waiting for Komets-Chicago to begin, and Bears-Seahawks has just ended. Suggested headline: Matt Hasselback Out-Wrecks Rex.

Has a defense ever gotten a bigger assist from an opposing QB than the Bears' "D" got from Hasselback?

If it takes this kind of self-destruct to get the Bears out of the divisional round, they can start printing Super Bowl tickets down on the bayou. Somehow I think Drew Brees (and Deuce McAllister, Reggie Bush, Marques Colston, et al) will be a biiiit of an upgrade over what Chicago saw today.

I guess you can put some of it down to the two-week layoff, but what does it say for the Bears' chances that the weakest team left in these playoffs took it to overtime, on the road, in Bear weather? Nothing good, obviously. Although I did find it ironic that, after all that caterwauling about how that doggone Grossman was gonna ruin everything, he was one who made the big play in overtime to set up the field goal -- and rescue a defense that, frankly, turned in a remarkably uninspired effort given the circumstances.

Fearless Prediction for next week: Saints 31, Bears 20.

Later.

-- Ben Smith

Who are these guys?

OK. Now I know I'm delusional.

Just got done watching the Colts put a pilow over someone's face for the second week in a row. And now I know aliens have abducted the Colts defense and replaced it with the '85 Bears, because I swear I looked up one time and Doug Plank was tackling Jamal Lewis.

  Six points for the Ravens today? Two field goals? Back to back playoff games in which the Colts defense hasn't surrendered double figures?   Are you KIDDING me?

  Look, I know all the wise guys said getting Bob Sanders back would make the Colts immeasurably better than the bunch of sad sacks who gave up 153 yards to the estimable Ron Dayne not even a month ago. But come on, this much difference? Who is the guy, Batman?

  All I know is the Colts are headed to the AFC title game and it's the defense that's getting them there, which is a plot twist I haven't seen since Victoria Principal walked into the bathroom on "Dallas" and saw Bobby lathering up at the conclusion of the longest dream sequence in history. If defense wins championships, suddenly the Colts all us geniuses figured had hit the wall are looking almost like a Super Bowl team. They've silenced Larry Johnson. They've turned the joke around on Ray Lewis (Who?). Throw in Adam Vinatieri, who just flat never misses, and a Peyton Manning who's apparently past his choking-in-the-playoffs phase, and . . . I can't believe I'm saying this . . . I like the Colts better than ice cream now.

  Good lord. I AM delusional.

-- Ben Smith    

bent up like beckham

Just got finished reading all the euphoric statements regarding soccer star David Beckham comin' to America. And I've gotta say this: Pie in the sky really fills you up.

(And before all you People Who Hate Soccer start tuning up on me, please note that I never promised my blog would be a soccer-free zone. And so, in answer to the question my mother continually used to ask, yes, I do have to ruin everything. It's kinda my job.)

Which brings me back to Becks. Time for me to ruin this moment, too. 

To begin with, it seems to me he's comin' to America because Europe is pretty much done with him, which means he hardly sounds like a savior (what, another one?) for American soccer. The guy's not even a fulltime starter now for Real Madrid, for cripe's sake. He's a spare part who's played in only 12 of his team's 17 games.

If he's a savior, we've dumbed down the term. And You Know Who won't be happy about that.

Likely this move will be great for him -- the man's already an endorsement god, and now he's got an entire new corporate culture to conquer -- but for American soccer? Please. He's not going to substantially improve the MLS, a second-rate league at best, and he's not going to turn Americans onto soccer. After all this time, it ought to be obvious we're immune to to it. If the greatest player ever, Pele, couldn't make this Soccer Nation, what chance does a guy have who these days is as famous for who he's married to (Spice Girl Victoria Adams) as he is for picking the top corner on a penalty kick?

OK, I'm done.

-- Ben Smith

Indiana looks T-O-U-G-H

I'll make this quick, because the hour is late: I'm starting to think Indiana could be a tough out -- a really, really tough out -- in the NCAA Tournament.

Granted I base this on two games in Assembly Hall, where the Hoosiers have been cozier than Barnes and Noble. Granted it's based on the demolition of a Michigan State that will remind no one of the various Mo Pete/Mateen Cleaves editions, and the gutting of a Purdue team which, as Matt Painter pointed out, is still learning how to compete.

85-58: I feel like I just sat ringside for Danny Bonaduce vs.Mike Tyson. God only knows if the blood will ever come out of this sweater.

But I digress.

The point is, Indiana dismantled both of them, and when's the last time you saw Indiana dismantle anybody? When's the last time you saw it compete on the road the way it did at Duke and Kentucky and Ohio State?

The way this team plays defense, it gives itself a chance in every game it plays, and if you don't match its intensity, 85-58 is going to happen to you. So, yes, Indiana will be a very tough out. Very tough.

Later.

-- By Ben Smith of The Journal Gazette

Backwards ending

One week into the New Year, and already I have a winner for the coveted Mister Clueless Award, 2007 edition.

Director of bands for The Ohio State University, come on down!

I mean, it's halftime, your team's getting smoked by 20, and the Ohio State band breaks into a jolly rendition of -- yes! -- the theme song from "Titanic"!

I can't think of anything more inspiring, frankly. Unless it would, I don't know, Mozart's "Requiem" -- you know, the one he was working on when he died.

If you watched this ritual slaughter (and if you stayed with it to the end, you're either a Luv-Them-Gators fanatic or your quality of life's a quart low), you know Ohio State already looked paler than Amadeus himself by halftime, which again proves my earlier point about the reliability of all us Resident Geniuses who write about sports for what some people call a living. Most of us thought Florida needn't bother even showing up, so mighty and awesome and just all-around omnipotent were the Buckeyes. Turned out we had it exactly backwards.

This one ended for all intents and purposes after Florida's first possession, when two things became abundantly clear: A) Urban Meyer's imaginative offense was to Jim Tressel's as a Lamborghini is to a Model T, and B) the supposedly unstoppable Buckeyes were not only stoppable but grossly overmatched.

Tressel never did figure out what Meyer was doing with his gamebreaker Percy Harvin, which was essentially lining him up at every position but university regent. Then, down just 10 in the waning minutes of the first half, with a Heisman Trophy winner and all those offensive weapons at his disposal, Tressel panicked, went for it deep in his own end when he didn't need to, and handed Florida three more points.

Eighty-two total yards, the mighty and awesome and all-around omnipotent Buckeyes managed. Don't you get that many just for showing up?

In the end you watched this one and watched what LSU did to Notre Dame and you realized those annoying SEC people were right: Their conference was king this year. And then you popped in a tape of Michigan-USC, and you realized something else: The Big Ten was not.

The Sorta Big Two, Medium-Sized Two and Seven Dwarves. That's what we've got here.

Excuse me now while I go apply a heating pad to my neck. I think I sprained it trying to follow Percy Harvin.

-- By Ben Smith of The Journal Gazette

Welcome to the blogosphere

So this is the blogosphere. I gotta say, it looked a lot bigger in the brochures.

(I know, I know, bad joke. Get used to it. I’ve got a million of ‘em, and they all stink).

Anyway, let me say this right off the top: I’ve never been much of a blog guy. I can’t decide if it’s the wave of the future or just a passing fad, but since everyone in the print media – croaking right before our eyes, let’s be brutally honest here – seems to think this is how we’re going to save ourselves, everybody blogs now. Including me.

Frankly I think it’s just our last feeble act before we go for a dip in the tar pit with the rest of the dinosaurs. But then, I’m a natural pessimist. I figured O.J. would get time.

I also thought Larry Johnson would run for a gazillion yards against the Colts, which only proves my second point: The reason sports is wonderful is because no one can predict it, not even us Resident Geniuses who cover it. The dirty truth is, you can dress us up and put us on TV and make us talk REALLY, REALLY LOUD, but once the games start we have no more idea what’s going to happen than the guy sitting on the corner stool screaming at Peyton to for God’s sake quit throwing the ball to Ty Law. We’re just more visible, and we have more access.

Look at last weekend, for heaven’s sake. We Resident Geniuses had the Colts-Chiefs scenario exactly backward; it was the defense that saved the season from the offense. Most of us thought the Eagles would smoke the Giants, too, and that was decided by a last-second field goal. And how do you predict the Cowboys lose because Tony Romo can’t get a snap down?

Which goes absolutely nowhere in explaining why I’ll throw out a Fearless Prediction anyway: Don’t be surprised if we get Colts-Pats again the AFC title game. Indy beating Ray Lewis and the Ravens outdoors requires some faith, but come on, how do not like Tom Brady better than Phillip Rivers in the other matchup? Or Bill Belichick better than Marty Schottenheimer?

Let me know what you think. Tell me I’m an idiot or the wisest man on the mountaintop.  If you’d like, take a crack at being a Resident Genius yourself.

In the meantime, I’m out. The BCS National Championship game’s coming on, and I want to see if anyone actually cares about this thing who A) isn’t wearing scarlet-and-gray, or B) fails to realize the Gator Chomp is high art.

Later alligator.

-- By Ben Smith of The Journal Gazette