Super Bowl Sunday: Black Curtains for Jet Fans

Nothing will be as bad for me as the Yankees-Phillies World Series in 2009, but I've been avoiding dealing with this Super Bowl as much as possible. And it's not because I can't stomach the thought of either team's fans celebrating and laughing at the Jets. It's because those other teams and their fans have good reason to lord it over Gang Green.

After three years of Rex Ryan guaranteeing that a Super Bowl team would come out of the Meadowlands, he turns out to be right, except that it's not his team. But Ryan's big mouth isn't the worst thing about a potential Giants title. It's the Jets staff's classless covering up the Giants' Super Bowl logos outside their locker room with black curtains before their December game.

Hard to believe that just a few months ago, the Jets seemed to be the local team on the rise. Everyone wanted to play for Ryan, while Tom Coughlin's job looked to be in jeopardy. Jets' GM Mike Tannenbaum was the aggressive wheeler-dealer who quickly built a contender, while Giants GM Jerry Reese was too passive in the wake of the lockout.

Now nobody seems to enjoy being in the Jets' poisonous clubhouse. And players Tannenbaum got rid of for nothing (Steve Weatherford, Danny Woodhead, James Inhedigo, Shaun Ellis) are now contributing to Super Bowl teams. It's particularly frustrating when legendary Jets special teams coach Mike Westhoff goes out of his way to criticize Weatherford, who ends up being a key part of the Giants' playoff run.

At least it figures to be a good game, and now that Super Bowl Sunday is here, I'm actually looking forward to it.

Because once the football season is over, it's almost time for the unveiling of the 2012 Mets.

Now there's somethning that should be covered in black curtains.

Is A-Rod Being a Diva or Not Over The Popcorn Incident?

I wrote Monday about the goofy-looking clip of Cameron Diaz feeding Alex Rodriguez popcorn at the Super Bowl. But the story doesn't end there.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, A-Rod was not happy about Fox cameras catching them at that moment. Bill Zwecker claims that "Alex Rodriguez wanted to slug a few folks after he spotted himself and his girlfriend Cameron Diaz being shown to the 111 million people watching the game."  His story quoted an anonymous source saying:

“He really went ballistic — thinking the cameraman was out to get them in a paparazzi-like shot. … That’s so crazy,” said my source. “Anyone who knows anything about producing a live sports event — especially something as huge as the Super Bowl — would know that those celebrity shots are purely random.

“A-Rod, of all people, should know that.”

A few points:

* Zwecker's prose is more than a little overwrought here. A-Rod "wanted to slug a few folks"? Really? I don't doubt that he was ticked off over being caught on camera in that awkward shot. But that doesn't translate into physical violence. I know the Sun-Times is a tabloid, but still. Does anybody really think A-Rod would punch somebody over this? Come on now.

* The writer fails to mention that none other than broadcaster Joe Buck himself commented at the time the clip was shown that Rodriguez wouldn't be happy with the image, implying that anybody would be embarrassed at being caught at that particular moment.



* The columnist's source is very disingenuous in saying that "A-Rod, of all people, should know that” regarding the way live events are filmed.  A-Rod, of all people, should know that the media loves to make him look stupid. Is it possible that the camera just happened to catch Rodriguez at that moment? Of course. But it's just as plausible that the camera was filming him for a while the way the paparazzi do, waiting for the "perfect" shot to make him look ridiculous. Why is that "crazy," to use the source's words? This is Fox, not PBS, after all.

* It was unclear when Fox ran its clip as to whether it was live or on tape. Granted, as my brother noted to me, it doesn't take long for Alex to do something dopey. But call me a little skeptical over the idea that the camera just happened to catch him at that moment only. Fox uses a ton of things on tape during "live" broadcasts, as we've seen when they'll be interviewing a manager "live" on the field, only to see him get thrown out of the game at the very same time he's shown in an interview (I think that happened with Ozzie Guillen a few years ago.)

* At the same time, Rodriguez has to know that when you go to a high-profile event like the Super Bowl, with a movie star on your arm, chances are that you're going to be on camera. If you don't want to get caught looking awkward with Cameron Diaz feeding you popcorn, then don't let her feed you popcorn.

* At any rate, the fact that this story has become such a big deal shows how everything involving A-Rod gets blown out of proportion. This isn't exactly Charlie Sheen on a wild night out, or Lindsay Lohan at the jewelry store. A-Rod did absolutely nothing illegal or immoral. As I noted Monday, he's sitting at the Super Bowl, with a movie star on his arm.  That "should have been a real coup for Alex," I wrote, but instead it's turned into a punch line. Which invariably happens when A-Rod is involved!

Squawker reader Symphony decried the attention to this incident, saying:

Sorry, but I continue to believe what one focuses on, criticizes, has a problem with, etc. says just as much about them as the object of their feelings.

The focus on this moment has been silly.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

A-Rod and Cameron Diaz (and Popcorn) at the Super Bowl: Most Unromantic Gesture Ever?

One of the things I find oddly endearing about Alex Rodriguez is his terminal awkwardness. Even when he's doing something that should be totally cool, he still manages to look goofy. It kind of humanizes him, in a weird way. And no matter what he does, somebody will always, always, bring up Derek Jeter and say that Jeter would never do whatever A-Rod did.

Like when A-Rod was sitting in a luxury box at the Super Bowl last night with Cameron Diaz feeding him popcorn. That should have been a real coup for Alex, but it ended up causing snickers and snarky remarks. For one thing, she fed him the popcorn the way I had to feed my late cat C.C. a pill when she was sick. And A-Rod looked about as pleased as C.C. did, which is to say, not at all.

And what was up with Alex's very awkward hand placement? Not a good look, dude.

Anyhow, I wrote about it on Facebook last night, and it didn't take long before somebody to note that Derek Jeter would never put himself in a position like that. You mean having a movie star cater to his every whim? I dunno about that. But the awkwardness, I grant you, would not be there. But at the same time, people are not fascinated by Jeter the same way they are Alex. The captain doesn't sell the newspapers that A-Rod does.

However, the other kind of tabloids -- the supermarket gossip ones -- aren't interested in either Jeter or A-Rod. In the Rodriguez-Diaz partnership, she is the one the scandal sheets focus on, not Alex. I was thumbing through Life & Style a few weeks back, and they ran that pic of the two of them vacationing in Mexico, with Cameron paddleboarding, while A-Rod was relaxing. And they cut the top half of him out of the photo. Harsh!

Anyhow, here's the video from the Super Bowl. It also cracks me up that Joe Buck mentions John Madden before noting that George and Laura Bush were at the game.

Call Him Mayor Jinx! Mike Bloomberg sez Jets are going to the Super Bowl

Oh, great. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the person who jinxed the Yankees' ALCS chances by yakking on his radio show about planning the World Series parade, has done it again. Today, on his weekly WOR radio show, Bloomy said that the Jets are Super Bowl-bound:

"The Jets are going to the Super Bowl. You heard it from me. The Bloomberg prediction,"the mayor said during his radio show.

In an article about Bloomy's comments, the New York Post compares him to Joe Namath guaranteeing that the Jets would win Super Bowl III. Oh, please. As if.

And by the way, even Broadway Joe in his "I want to kiss you, Suzy" phase could have had enough sense not to talk up going to a Broadway show, when most of the city's streets were rendered impassible thanks to the city's ineptness during last month's blizzard.

It wasn't enough that Bloomberg jinxed the Yankees with his parade-planning talk (and besides, what the heck was he talking about regarding planning a parade route. It's called the Canyon of Heroes for a reason -- the ticker tape parades do the same route every time!) Now he's done it with the Jets.

Yeah, yeah, I know I also predicted that the Jets would be going to the Super Bowl -- and even went as far to say they would win -- but I at least was right when I went out on a limb to say that the Giants would beat the Patriots in a Super Bowl. When has Bloomy ever been right on his sports predictions?

I'll let Jet fan Squawker Jon have the last word. He sez that the fact that both myself and Bloomberg think the Jets are Super Bowl-bound shows that we aren't really Jets fans. And given the worrisome comments I've seen from Gang Green fans on the blog over the past week, he might have a point!

What do you think? Tell us about it!