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| DEAN'S LIST |
Walter: Terribly Amazing
05-01-2004 |
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| Takeo punts. |
I’m sure many of you think professional punters have it easy, and I wouldn’t be caught disagreeing with you. Perhaps the sports world's real dream job, punting in the NFL is one of the easier ways to make a seven-figure salary in our country. The luckiest of all NFL punters is former Patriot Ken Walter, who regularly managed to make his 36-yard punts bounce backwards during New England’s two Super Bowl runs. That’s not an easy thing to do. You try consistently kicking anything 30+ yards into the air and making it bounce backwards without costing your team world championships. There’s nothing lucky about that. Strictly speaking, the free-agent Walter is an awfully consistent punter. You might even say that Walter’s unique talent is nothing short of terribly amazing...
The name of the game is Violent Verbs: Erik Plunk…Smush Parker…Radek Bonk…Alex Van Pelt…John Lynch…Webster Slaughter…Dr. Jack Ramsay…Ron Tugnutt…Goran Ivanisevic…Chuck Foreman…Tim Spehr…Anna Smashnova…Quentin Jammer…Alexander Popp...Billy Bean…and Takeo Spikes...
A student may defer his education in favor of accepting employment as a pro nerd at a computer company but not as a pro jock in the NFL. Curious, isn’t it? I smell a rat, and it stinks like competitive discrimination…
Our "terribly amazing" theme rages on with The Barry Bonds Stat Line of the Day (as of Friday, April 30): 10 HR, 5.1 AB/HR, .490 BA, .701 OBP %, 1.176 SLG %, 1.64 BB/G…
You might think that Barry Bonds’ astounding 5.1 AB/HR ratio leads the Majors by a wide margin, but it’s not even the best in the Bigs. Red Sox Nation is quick to remind you lesser-informed fans that back-up catcher and Joaquin Phoenix look-alike Doug Mirabelli has gone deep every 4.7 times he’s stepped to the plate in 2004 (albeit in only fourteen official at-bats)…
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| In a rare case of perfect casting, Anaheim's Garret Anderson, Jose Guillen and Vladimir Guerrero are set to star in highly anticipated sequel. |
Fellow Red Sox fans, if you’re antagonized by some of my comments, then I’m doing my job. I can hear it now: "Dean’s List sucks, Dean’s List sucks." Now that would be the ultimate compliment. After all, you think the greatest franchise in the history of baseball sucks…
True to my word, the “Top Ten All-Time Worst Nicknames of Sport List” kicks off in this edition of the DL with the tenth worst nickname of all-time: Thunder & Lightning. A synopsis of this awfully awful alias follows:
During the 2000 NFL season, the New York press went overboard in coining a worthless, overused nickname for the Giant backfield of Tiki Barber & Ron Dayne. While Barber’s cuts were in fact lightning-quick, the dainty Dayne, although quite obese, brought no semblance of thunder to New York’s offense. The overrated squad’s parade was eventually rained on when the underrated Ravens squashed the G-Men in Super Bowl XXXV and said “never more” to this atrocious nickname. Perhaps the only thing more over-hyped than Thunder & Lightning in the NFL in 2000 was the playoff guarantee of the head bus driver himself, Jim Fassel...
Speaking of nicknames, an appropriate tagging for Anaheim’s Garret Anderson, Jose Guillen and Vlad Guerrero would be Angels in the Outfield II. To quote Ben Stiller aka Gaylord Focker from Meet the Parents, there would be “so much love…and yet so much information” in such a nickname. It’s funny because it’s true…
If you’re like me, you never laugh least, and almost always laugh last. That was a musing, and I’m Dean Christopher... |
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