DOES everyone feel as relieved as I do that Lenny the lizard wasn't able to off the Budweiser frogs during the Super Bowl? Did someone say celebrate
. . . or was it terminate?I just couldn't imagine the slaughter of amphibians marring the most-watched television program in the world.
But the fans in Denver more than made up for what Lenny and the ferret weren't able to do.
Hanging from telephone wires, overturning cars and setting fires, Bronco celebrants trashed their own city. I mean, what's a downtown if you've won the big one, huh?
Cops had to use tear gas, helmets and face shields to convince the joyful gathering it was time to call it a night.
Make it 20 people arrested and 40 injured. There are all kinds of ways to pop a cork.
Police were even trying to determine whether two gunshot deaths that happened right after the game were related to the Super Bowl. In one of the incidents, a woman was shot to death in a domestic dispute.
Well, she probably was asking for it. Might have talked during 4th-and-6 in the last minute of play.
There's no telling how many wives were threatened, shoved, punched, kicked, or -- yes -- shot at, for disrespecting the sanctity of Super Sunday.
Amen.
Of course, we can pat ourselves on the back for not being quite as nutso as European and South American soccer fans who really know how to celebrate.
In some countries they don't just tank up on the frogs' favorite brew when they go to a game. They load the family rifle. Yessir.
I imagine you could say that the enormity of the upset against Green Bay contributed to the pandemonium.
BUT imagine how much property New York Jets fans would have been justified in destroying back in 1969 when they shocked the Baltimore Colts -- that is if everybody cared as much about Super Bowls in 1969.
And God forbid the Chicago Cubs ever win the World Series because that might call for Armageddon.
Sports has been called a microcosm of the real world, an arena where conflicts can be played out and resolved without drastic consequence.
But we've developed this wonderful in-your-face way of expressing the joy of victory.
"I'm so happy I could kill you."
What do you think would have happened Sunday night in downtown Denver if a guy wearing a cheesehead had wandered into the joyful gathering?
I cheddar to think.
All right. Let's transfer this sort of joy to the author who's so ecstatic about winning the Pulitzer prize that he goes out and slams his hardcover edition over heads in a library.
Why not? The Pulitzer is the big one, baby.
LET US PRAY -- and I don't mean to get religious on you here -- the folks at ABC will do a little more homework on Hawaii's geography before the Pro Bowl than their Disney counterparts did over at ESPN before the Hula Bowl.
You remember, don't you? Twice during ESPN's broadcast, Honolulu was referred to as a city on the Big Island.
And if they ask a few questions they might even avoid the foible of the ESPN crew that televised the UH vs. Kansas men's basketball game.
That's when they said fans at the then-named Special Events Arena were "waving some sort of vegetation as a good luck charm."
Ah, blissful, isn't it?