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Review: “Goliath and the Gridiron” (or, This is Your Brain on Berries; Any Questions?)
In continuing its 40th-anniversary retrospective on DC Comics’ ultimate mini-series, the “Strange Sports Stories” collection in Brave and the Bold issues 45 through 49, BuckBokai today analyzes “Goliath of the Gridiron,” a sobering, moralistic tale of berry abuse in college football in the early 1970s.
In the best tradition of sportswriting-based purple prose, “Goliath of the Gridiron” opens with a bloody good (so to speak) description: “The shock of contact and the thud of body against body heralds the opening of the *Hartnell Aggies’* football season…”
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Arena Football’s Future: Would you like to know more?
Ah, now that the 2010 NFL season has begun (sort of), BuckBokai reflects on two things: 1) how patently *lame* the aberration known as “arena football” is and 2) how awesome said aberration will be in the 23rd century – you know, once we’re at intergalactic war with Klendathu.
First, full disclosure with all the shame of a blacked out one-night stand by a married man – except BuckBokai was conscious. BuckBokai once tried to like the indoor game. Seriously, in 2002, the post-Super Bowl jones (you know, that condition due to which Vince McMahon was ostensibly induced to set up the XFL a year earlier) set in hard with me and BuckBokai sought the Arena Football League as a methadone to the proper football addiction.
What greeted me instead was this:
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Remembering DC Comics’ Strange Sports Stories
In the 75th anniversary year of DC Comics, one memorable series has fallen by the historical wayside…
A watershed moment in science-fiction sports literary history went down in January 1970 when one day, in newsstands across America, youthful readers and observant kiosk owners were greeted with Brave and the Bold #45. This former test vehicle for superheroes (among them the Justice League of America, the Teen Titans and the Suicide Squad) had undergone an insane metamorphosis month-to-month into something which proudly proclaimed itself as featuring “Strange Sports Stories.”
The “Strange Sports Stories” series lasted in Brave and the Bold for five issues, after which the entire concept seemingly disappeared from DC Comics and the public consciousness altogether. Seriously. Do a search for it sometime online. Hell, this was the Wikipedia entry on SSS’ run in Brave and the Bold before BuckBokai got to it:
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Brett Favre might retire, believed to be former Obsidian Order officer
In one of the most nauseating annually repeated stories in recent sports history, mainstream news outlets are once again paying attention to that Elim Garak of the NFL future Hall of Famer Brett Favre and his on-again/off-again talk of retirement. Reports ESPN.com this morning:
Favre has informed the Vikings he will not return to Minnesota for a second season, according to multiple reports.
Favre has sent text messages to teammates saying, “This is it,” league sources told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter.
Here’s the thing. BuckBokai has figured for years that this whole will-he-won’t-he dance is a charade worthy of Starfleet’s favorite Cardassian tailor. To wit: Brett Favre *simply doesn’t want to go through the grueling workouts of training camp.* That’s it, seriously. Waiting for a decision like this every summer is tantamount to Lebron James’ ballyhooed PR-heavy exit strategy.
Except every year.
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Briefly remembering Tecmo Bo Jackson
Just a quick one to pass on here. Thanks to the most excellent Sports Pickle column Today in Revisionist Sports History, we are reminded that on this day in 1991:
Bo Jackson signs a five-year contract to play football for the Los Angeles Raiders. Jackson would go on to become the all-time leading rusher in Tecmo Bowl history.
What’s that? Tecmo Bowl? Sure, Buck Bokai’s got the video – one of the two or three funniest online. Enjoy the superhuman speed of Tecmo Bo (after the break)!
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Dispatch from parallel universe: Remembering Super Bowl XXV (Bills 22, Giants 20)
Norwood: Synonymous with "clutch"
O sure, this piece is completely untimely with the World Cup coming to a head, baseball in full gear, and everyone hype on both sides of the ocean about which basketball free agents are going where.
Nevertheless, it’s Buck Bokai’s blog and Buck Bokai pretty much misses NFL football whenever the regular Sunday dosage isn’t forthcoming. For this writer, the love of this game all goes back to 1991 and Super Bowl XXV or, as Buck Bokai prefers to think of it, The Perfect Game.
Wow, remember the Buffalo Bills…?
Those of us who saw this classic matchup of the Bills’ revolutionary hurry-up offense vs. Bill Parcells and defensive coordinator Bill Belichick’s soon-to-be revolutionary defensive schemes will never forget a moment.
There was MVP Thurman Thomas’ 31-yard pinball-bouncing TD run and the Giants’ masterful 9-1/2 minute fourth-quarter drive. There were QBs Jim Kelly and Phil Simms, piling up workman lines: 18-of-30 for 212 yards against 20-of-32 for 222 yards and one TD. Neither threw a pick. Neither offense turned the ball over.
And the game was won the only way it could have been: With a last-second field goal that made the words “Scott Norwood” synonymous with “clutch.”
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