Wednesday, February 09, 2011

02/09 Quickie: SB Tix Snafu, Pujols, More

So, would you take "Option 1" or "Option 2?"

If you were one of the 400 fans whose Super Bowl ticket was invalidated by the league, would you take:

*Option 1: a ticket to next year's Super Bowl (which the league has said you could scalp) and $2400 cash

*or Option 2: a ticket to a future Super Bowl of your choice, plus hotel and airfare?

I'd go Option 1, get the Super Bowl ticket and sell it, then sock away that money to go to a future Super Bowl when my team is in it. With Option 2, you never know.

Then again, there's always Option 3: Sue the league. The group suing the league will likely be able to settle for more than the value of either of the league's options.

(Can the league really afford to publicly battle fans that decide to sue them? There is zero moral high ground, and the judgment will be to make it go away as fast as possible.)

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Albert Pujols Watch: Apparently, he's reporting to spring training a week from today, so the Cards have 8 days to make a deal with him or he will pursue free agency after the season.

I see no sign that Pujols (or Team Pujols) has thought this scenario through: Pujols will be "LeBron 2.0" -- all anyone will want to talk about, on every Cardinals trip this season, is his pending free agency. Every city. Every beat writer will have the "Would he come HERE?" angle. Everyone will play up the "Countdown to the season ending!" Cardinals fans will be their typically cheerful selves, but inside be dying a little, with every game. It's a mess.

And while I appreciate the argument that Pujols doesn't want this to be a distraction during the season, he's kidding himself if he thinks it won't be just because he doesn't want to talk about it. He owes it to the team to re-sign with them or accept a "rental" trade for the season.

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CBB Tonight: UNC-Duke. A great rivalry in sports, to be sure, but slightly overrated, if only because their regular-season match-ups -- even their ACC Tournament match-ups -- are ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of the "national" college hoops scene: That is to say, the NCAA Tournament, which is both team's ultimate goal. (Of course, I'll be watching.)

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Love that 56,000 fans packed Lambeau Field to celebrate the Packers, but does this really surprise anyone? Of course they did, in those numbers.

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The best story from yesterday was the belated appreciation for a piece published Sunday that tried to ID the precise Cubs game that Ferris Bueller attended in his eponymous "Day Off" movie. It turns out that the scene was filmed in May '85, but the author makes a compelling argument that the game in the movie itself was supposed to be a June game.

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It appears we have entered the slow February post-NFL season -- but Quickish is rolling along, hitting the big topics of the day (today: Pujols and UNC-Duke, among others) and anything that breaks (like yesterday's NFL Ticket Offer). Please pop by and check it out (and tell friends!)

-- D.S.

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