By Steve Sirk
Columbus Wired Columnist
1/13/02

New Year’s week promised to be a doozy. Of course there would be the usual fanfare surrounding The Annual Dropping of the Ball...the drunken hotel parties, the besotted street mobs, the fumbling physical interludes between people so polluted with distilled toxins that conventional dating strata could be temporarily chucked aside, without the burden of sentience, as long as the was some gettin’ some to be got by the some-getter and some-gettee.

But it was also a heck of a week for sports fans in Central Ohio. On New Year’s Eve, the Pittsburgh Penguins would visit Nationwide Arena, bringing hockey legend Mario Lemieux (and their legions of unwashed fans) with them. On Friday the 3rd, the Ohio State Buckeyes would have the chance to defeat #1 Miami for the national championship, which would likely propel Columbus into an uncontrollable frenzy, the likes of which wouldn’t have been seen since, like, the day before, when it was reported that the Buckeyes had practiced or something. And then on Sunday the 5th, the Cleveland Browns would be appearing in their first playoff game since Lance Ito was a household name, and as an added bonus, they would be playing the loathsome Steelers in that Appalachian Port-o-Let known as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania..

As I anticipated the week to come, all I could think was “Wow! What a great week not to live in Idaho!” Of course, if I was from Idaho, I likely wouldn’t care about these things and therefore wouldn’t miss them at all. Instead, I’d be building a separatist militia armed with high-powered potato guns. But that’s neither here nor there, nor any of the places in between.

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BLUE JACKETS vs PENGUINS

Aside from the occasional night where the Blue Jackets play as if they put their skates on the wrong feet, there is nothing more aggravating about a trip to Nationwide Arena than seeing the place overrun by fans of the Detroit Red Wings or Pittsburgh Penguins. Thanks to the cruel, unfortunate reality of geography, many Columbus hockey fans adopted these two franchises as their favorites before the Blue Jackets arrived in town, and more than I’d care to see seem to have a problem letting go. And that doesn’t count all of the transplants and the fans that travel in from out of town. And so it was that on New Year’s Eve, I braced for an onslaught of pseudo-Pittsburghers, transplanted Pittsburghers, and honest-to-goodness fresh-off-the-boxcar real Pittsburghers.

First, let’s begin by laying out the indisputable facts. Pittsburghers are feces-flinging primates whose entire economic system is based on the collection, distribution, wholesaling and retailing of used hubcaps. While these critter-clubbing neanderthals have managed to develop their own simplistic language of gibberish, they lack the cerebral capacity to decipher it, causing them to speak at headache-inducing volume in the hope that shouting words like “gutcheez”, “bumbershoots”, and “hoosafratzes” will somehow make them easier to comprehend. The day these squirrel-munching knuckle-draggers discover fire, they’ll probably use it to clear the tires out of their front yards. To borrow a phrase from my good friend Z-Man, Pittsburgh is “a black hole of white trash.”

Yet for some reason, my friend Snoop showed up to the game proudly dressed in Pittsburgh colors. Her #66 Lemieux jersey callously betrayed her heritage, like a California kid dressed in the filthy rags of the Taliban.

In the week leading up to the game, I berated her constantly about her choice in hockey teams. I vainly argued that she has no legitimate ties to Pittsburgh and therefore the hometown team should take precedence. I argued that it was blasphemous to support Pittsburgh and wear the city’s colors the very same week that her beloved Browns were playing the Steelers. I argued lots of things, with no success.

“They were the team I followed when I first started watching hockey, so I’m not going to abandon them now,” she explained in that manner that women always explain things that they know don’t make sense, but are no longer open for discussion. Her tone of voice made it clear that if we were dating, she would have withheld sex over this.

But since we aren’t dating, and since zero minus zero still equals zero, I badgered her the rest of the week anyway. (“Would you wear a Wolverines hockey jersey five days before the OSU-Michigan football game?” etc.).

As I made my way up to meet her at our seats, she greeted me with some sort of loud, mush-mouthed proclamation that was wholly indecipherable. I was distraught at the notion that Snoop had gone so far as to learn their language, but upon closer inspection, I was relieved to find out that she was just criminally wasted. Her blood alcohol would have been calculated in proof, not three-digit decimals.

The game got off to an ominous start. The Penguins jumped out to a 2-0 lead, and after each Pittsburgh goal, the arena was filled with the grunting and snorting and nattering and squawking of the paleolithic Pittsburgh fans. They made their pleasure known by flashing toothless smiles and clapping rusty hubcaps together. Snoop chimed in as well, saying things like “Woooo Penguins” before succumbing to the unrelenting pull of gravity and falling back into her seat.

After getting one goal back, the game would turn on back-to-back power play goals by David Vyborny and Andrew Cassels within 58 seconds of each other to give the Jackets a 3-2 lead late in the second period. Suddenly, the building was rocking and the forlorn apes were silenced. Me and the guy sitting on the other side of Snoop took great pleasure in exchanging many “fives” just inches from her nose.

The Jackets eventually won 5-2, and when the final horn had sounded, and the invading heathens had been defeated, Nationwide Arena was a raucous, jubilant place to be, save for the scattered Pittsburgh fans, who were beating their chests in a blind fury and angrily heaving handfuls of their own poop onto the ice.

In the locker room after the game, coach (now ex-coach) Dave King and left-winger Geoff Sanderson spoke of how great it was to finally throttle the Penguins in front of their local fans. Sanderson felt that with a few more wins, misguided souls like Snoop will finally come around.

But goaltender Marc Denis summed it up best, when he dismissed my line of questioning...

“The Penguins always have a contingent of fans here, but we have way more, so they aren’t even a factor.”

Not even a factor, Snoop. Worthless. You’ve fruitlessly run up a debt on the karma ledger, and eventually you’ll have to pay. And somehow I’m stuck with the feeling that I’m going to be splitting the cost, my own innocence be damned.

******
BUCKEYES vs HURRICANES

What is there to say about this game that hasn’t already been said in six weeks of pre-game coverage and the still-ongoing around-the-clock post-game coverage?

After her brush with de-evolution at the hockey game, Snoop regained her sobriety and her Ohio frame of mind and hosted a Fiesta Bowl party. And so it was in the Snoop Condo that a bunch of us packed together to watch The Greatest College Football Game Ever.

The Ohio State Buckeyes were winners of 13 straight, a streak far more impressive than any of the victories contained therein. The Miami Hurricanes were defending national champs, winners of 34 straight, and considered by many to be a better team than the allegedly-professional Cincinnati Bengals.

My enjoyment of the game was spoiled, for the most part, by a commercial that stunned me into uneasy silence. Capital One was trying to entice viewers to apply for its No-Hassle card. In one of the more baffling advertising concepts in the history of television, Capital One took the touted benefits of their credit card....one low rate, no balance transfer fees, no annual fee, no telemarketing, $0 fraud liability....and summed them all up in the following image, which was beamed into millions of homes across America:

A goblin getting a pencil rammed up its butt.

In the commercial, a man is seen wrestling with this big bad monster that is supposed to represent his family’s credit card bill, but he is rescued by his wife, who produces a No Hassle card, causing the monster to wither into a small helpless goblin. Not content to have won the battle, she then picks up the poor goblin and brutally, sadistically sodomizes it with a #2 pencil. As I sat down to watch the game, I never ever expected to see the Ralphie Treatment. On network television. Twice.

The message of this commercial is clear: Men, let the women of the house control the credit cards or you will be crapping graphite for all eternity. This sort of advertising is immoral and needs to be stopped immediately.

I recovered my senses just in time to have my stomach churned again, this time by Willis McGahee’s knee bending in ways that would make Gumby cringe. Without their All-American running back, the Hurricanes surely would not be able to overcome the 17-14 fourth quarter deficit that was standing between them and glory. There was already the fear of inexplicable failure in their eyes, and seeing their star’s superhuman leg disfigured in the ways of a mere mortal surely didn’t help any. (Note: Only ABC’s failure to properly replay this injury over and over and over and over and over again has kept McGahee from joining the likes of Joe Theismann and Tim Krumrie in the Legendary Gruesome Injuries Hall-of-Fame.)

As the fourth quarter rolled on, and the clock wound down at seemingly one-fifth its normal speed, the Snoop Condo was ready to erupt. But then disaster struck when Roscoe Parrish returned an Andy Groom punt 50 yards to the OSU 26 with under two minutes to go. Three plays and three yards later, Miami kicker Todd Sievers held the fate of the Buckeye Nation in the palm of his hand (or, technically, the instep of his foot.)

There was reason for optimism though. Sievers was only 3 of 6 from 40+ yards all season, reducing it to a coin flip. And at halftime, Miami’s cheerleaders had shanked a pair of field goal attempts for charity. Foreshadowing, perhaps? To find out, we had to wait through a succession of timeouts befitting of a basketball game. Death row inmates have less time to contemplate the menu for their final meal than Sievers did to prepare for his kick. And then, with the tension in the air at Snoop Condo growing so thick that several of us evolved gills, Sievers stepped into the ball and snuck the sumbitch just inside the right upright.

That meant overtime. The NCAA version of overtime is every bit as fair as it is cruel and sadistic for anyone with any sort of vested interest in the game. The two teams alternate possessions from their opponent’s 25 yard line. If a team is winning after any set of possessions, the game is over. If they remain tied, they do it all over again. On January 3rd, this was the equivalent of the World Cup final going to “extra kicks” in penalty kicks, and having it drag on for well over a half hour.

I, for one, do not have the constitution to process such drama. I felt like closing my eyes, covering my ears and curling up in the fetal position. Instead, I...umm...I don’t know what I did, and nothing short of hypnotic regression is going to make me cognizant of that lost time. I was cursing the Miami kicker.....and then next thing I knew, the Buckeyes were national champions. And when I came to, I had a sudden, newfound affinity for referees for some reason. Maybe I should see a psychiatrist after all.

In the spirit of the campus area’s traditional post-game pyromania, Snoop celebrated by burning a bowl of Tostitos on her front porch. The stench of melting plastic never smelled so sweet.


****
BROWNS vs STEELERS

By the time Sunday rolled around, I had become so accustomed to good fortune that I allowed myself to entertain the notion that the Browns might somehow beat the Steelers. When it comes to the Browns, I always assume the worst, and then I expect the Browns not to live up to my lofty expectations.

But maybe this game would be different. After all, the Buckeyes had been much bigger underdogs than the Browns, and nobody had come close to referring to the Steelers as invincible. The Buckeyes had proven that anything is possible, even if “anything” might involve the Cleveland Browns.

As vaguely semi-not-unconfident as I was, I declined to attend a larger viewing party, figuring that in the event of Stage IV Cleveland Browns Trauma, I should be at home, surrounded by breakable possessions of my own.

The precaution appeared unnecessary in the early part of the afternoon. With the exception of a Pittsburgh punt return, almost everything was going Cleveland’s way in the first half. Kelly Holcomb was putting up Tecmo Bowl passing numbers against the Steelers defense. The Browns were forcing turnovers left and right. The Steelers home field advantage had been nullified, their fans becoming so despondent that they ceased even basic social functions, such as picking the bugs out of each others’ hair.

The Browns tacked on another TD early in the third quarter to make it 24-7, yet there was a direct, inverse correlation between the Browns’ increasingly hopeful situation and my own internal dread. It’s a funny thing, sports fandom. The better things looked, the more convinced I became it would blow up in my face. This thought permeates the life of the Cleveland sports fan. If you’ve spent a lifetime following the Browns and Indians, the scariest part of your wedding is “If anyone knows a reason why these two should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace.” This would be the cue for someone, say John Elway, to barge in and ruin your happily-ever-after.

“You’re being ridiculous,” said ChiefsFan Roommate, when my loud proclamations of doom would stir her from her nap. (Like her football team, ChiefsFan Roommate was spending the NFL playoffs drowsily drifting in and out of consciousness on the couch.)

“No I am not,” I declared. “You are a fool for doubting me. This game will go down the toilet faster than a dead goldfish in one of those super-high-powered toilets found in schools and offices and malls and stuff.”

ChiefsFan Roommate went back to sleep, not fully sensing the inevitable doom.

Early in the fourth quarter, the Steelers had trimmed the Browns once-promising lead to a mere 27-21. Because of this, I became some sort of profanity-spewing snooze alarm for ChiefsFan Roommate. “(BLEEP!)”, I’d yell. “Huh?”, she’d ask groggily, before drifting back off to sleep. “(BLEEP!)” “Huh?” “(BLEEP!)” “Huh?”
Occasionally, she’d try to console me by telling me it would all work out, especially when the Browns stormed down the field to stretch their lead back to two scores at 33-21. But I would have none of it. “This game is over,” I stated. “Pittsburgh will advance to visit the banjo-plucking peckerwoods in Tennessee. It’s just that the NFL has some silly rule about actually running all of the plays before declaring Pittsburgh the winner.”

ChiefsFan Roommate could not comprehend. She went back to sleep, entering a dream world where cruel, heart-breaking things don’t happen to football teams like the Browns.

Meanwhile, I watched in horror as every dreadful stereotype about the curse that is Browns football came true. Pittsburgh racked up two touchdowns against the evil prevent defense in the final three minutes to take the lead. Pittsburgh’s final drive was possible because Dennis Northcutt dropped a potentially game-sealing first down catch. Then Anthony Henry dropped what would have been a game-ending interception on Pittsburgh’s TD drive. Then the Browns got into field goal range, but came up one second short of attempting the game-tying kick.

Pittsburgh 36, Cleveland 33. A 24-7 third quarter lead, wasted. 22 points allowed in the fourth quarter. Two touchdowns allowed in the final three minutes. All this against the most vile, disgusting football team on the planet.

I was beside myself. Why is it that the Browns make every playoff loss excruciating? “The Choke” will go right alongside The Drive, The Fumble and Red Right 88. And let’s not forget that in 1985, the Browns blew a 21-3 lead to the Dolphins, and in 1988, a pair of Earnest Byner penalties took the Browns out of winning field goal range in a 24-23 loss to the Oilers. Of the nine Browns playoff losses in my lifetime, six have been of the bizarre, inhumane, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, life-is-stranger-than-fiction variety....games that make you want to play Russian Roulette with six bullets in the revolver. (Of course, I am referring to a proverbial game of Russian Roulette, with proverbial bullets and a proverbial revolver. Despite the fact that I know of no such proverb containing these three elements, I will still refer to them as “proverbial” because actual revolvers and actual bullets should not be used because of a stupid football game, unless you bet a lot of money that you didn’t have on the Browns, and placed this bet with some gentlemen that worked in the construction business but wore $2000 suits.)

My hopes of a New Year’s Week Trifecta were dashed. The Jackets whipped the Penguins, the Buckeyes dethroned the Hurricanes, but the Browns...well...”anything” WAS “possible”, but as usual, it wasn’t in the GOOD connotation of that phrase.

And so ends the story on how Snoop ruined New Year’s Week by wearing that friggin’ Pittsburgh hockey jersey and rooting for Pittsburgh over Ohio on Tuesday night. Her Penguins lost the hockey game, and then her Browns...my Browns...EVERYONE’S Browns.... lost the football game five days later. The Sports Gods are vengeful deities, and Snoop had earned herself a horrific double-smiting that caused needless despair to millions of people that she identified with and considered her own.

I will be sure to bring this up before the next Blue Jackets - Penguins game.