New Jersey, Titletown, USA?:
"I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to." - Elvis Presley

I don't have any solid, substantiated evidence on this, but my theory all along in New York City has been that those who root for the Mets also root for the Jets and those who root for the Yankees, also root for the Giants. It's some sort of cosmography of the New York sports world. In any case, this reality leaves most New York fans ,at least during the football season, without much of a choice in having to root for a team that plays its games in the swamps of the Meadowlands, New Jersey, an otherwise unbearable chancre of a state whose biggest claim to fame lately has been The Sopranos.

So it's almost shocking to the system to think that a collective cockroach of a state like New Jersey could lay claim not only to the NHL title but also the NBA title simultaneously. Vulgar, almost. Like electing Mike Tyson as your mayor.

That is, of course, unless you consider an even more horrific outcome: Disney-owned franchise claiming two out of the four major professional sports titles. The reigning baseball champions are the Anaheim Angels, owned, at the time of their World Series Championship, by the Disney Corporation. Bad enough in and of itself when you consider the absurdity of a mix of Donald Duck and baseball, but inspirationally unoriginal in its pathetic paen to Gene Autry, the offkey cowboy with impeccable morals. Then, the problem is compounded by something called the Anaheim Ducks and owned by the Disney Corporation making it to the Stanley Cup finals. Disney overload my friends. So in the case of the Stanley Cup, it is imperative that the New Jersey Devils defeat the Anaheim Ducks in order to save the future of sports from some sort of evil duck cartoon serialization sponsored by Disney, even if it allows New Jersey to pull off its double.

Still, I can't quite bring myself to root for Prozac Nation Duncan and his San Antonio Spurs over the New Jersey Nets. It's history. I still remember the them kicking and beating up on the wounded and Ewing-less Knicks in the 1999 Finals with Duncan and Robinson and the squeaky Avery Johnson like they were Alex and his three droogs beating that tramp to death in A Clockwork Orange. That was the same year the Spurs won a record 12 consecutive playoff games. Ever since then, I've thrilled at their every misfortune so with the Nets have a running total of 10 straight playoff victories to date, there would be a certain sort of vicarious thrill to see the Nets knock off the Spurs and their record all in one championship. Another year of the sort of milquetoast assassins and deadpan gloating eminating out of San Antonio would be intolerable.

So for the first time outside of the football season, there will be rooting for New Jersey from New York. Hopefully it's not like some easily transmittable toxic rash that itches all summer long.

*****

There is a certain delicious schadenfreude in the recent tribulations of Roger Clemens on his road to 300 victories. This is why Mike Piazza was so busy kneeling in front of the Pope this off season. Obviously he wasn't begging for a healthy 2003 season or reaching the homerun record for catchers. You think he isn't constantly reminded of how he punked out against Clemens in Game Two of that World Series? Yes sir, Mike Piazza was begging the Pope not to let Roger Clemens reach 300 victories.

This has potential to become baseball's Greatful Dead tour this summer. Can you imagine the 300 victory pilgrimages all summer long, the Clemens extended family and friends, rabid and vengeful Red Sox fans, anti-Selig demonstrators? The Pete Rose protesters? The George Steinbrenner apologists, the Bobby Valentine fans in fake noses and moustaches and the Sabermetrics scholars recording every fart, screech and moan of the growing baseball circus? Michael Moore could direct Roger and Me Two, a documentary chronicling the efforts of Roger Clemens to earn his 300th victory while David Wells sucks up all the sloppy seconds and wins 20 games out of the bullpen relieving Clemens in game after game as the Yankee infield performs mystic feats of fielding bloopers destined to blow enormous leads against second-rate baseball teams into the unforeseeable future.

*****

A new pet complaint rolling around in the bowels lately is the advent of Overhyped Non-Stories in Non-Sports: Already this year we've had Femnazi Martha Burke versus Hootie Johnson and his clan of political incorrect desperados drumming up artificial controversy and screaming for vengeance and attention like The Furies of Aeschylus. Then came the hysterical "Annika versus The Men", casuistry which played out the string of idiotic clichés to their illogical conclusions. Golf and Sexism. A selling point with growth potential. After all, with Golf and Sex only an "ism" away, how long before we see Outlaw Golf with its biker babe, stripper, and Japanese dominatrix golfers, selling big on a second-rate cable sports channel? When does the media get to sink its teeth into the Anna Kournakova of the links? I think these overhyped non-stories in the anti-sport of golf were figmented into neomythologies in the commercial world as a cynical marketing ploy, not sincere efforts at highlighting archaic values in modern sports culture.

Bowling, another anti-sport of questionable marketing possibilities should follow its lead. Sell sexism. Bring forward their misogynistic credos, their terminologies and slang into the public light for examination and titulation, perhaps even expose their naked bowling underground. For a refresher course on the sexism of bowling terminologies, here are a few to consider:

Alley: Although this is commonly known as the surface on which the ball is rolled, "alley" is also a place where prostitutes gather and consort. What about "back alley abortions"? Do you see how demeaning it is to women? Bowling is conducted on something that hammers home two negative images of women.

Bed posts: Which, as we know, is the 7-10 split. Do you recall what a 7-10 split looks like? Maybe a woman with her legs spread? Bedposts? When you succeed, you "pick" a split. Sounds like the kind of talk you hear in the sitting room of brothels. More negative stereotyping.

Head pin is the number one pin. Clearly referencing some sort of Orphic phallic worship ceremony. What do you think the head pin is a euphemism for anyway? You think they'd make pins in the shape of a women's vulvas? Of course not. Bowling simply isn't integrated enough. The most important things in bowling are the ball and the pins. Why not roll ovaries instead of balls? Is it too much to ask for a little female representation in the terminologies of the "sport"?

Mark is making either a spare or strike in a frame. Clearly this references some sort of male scoring ritual like notching a bedpost with every woman they've slept with. More negative stereotyping, keeping score of women slept with as though they were simply widgets in the mechanism of male hormones. Filthy.

So you see, bowling has quite alot to market in its cesspool of uncontrollably fashionable sexism. Take golf's lead and Hype the Hubris!