(Stadium Announcer Voice:)

Pitching for the Oakland Athletics…Number 27…Catfish…Hunter.

And look at Billy Martin go.

Not to spoil the moment, but guess who said this was his favorite song?

Have a great week, everybody…

It broke 60 degrees today so the choice between grading and biking was easy to make; Not even the Cubs beating up the Royals was enough to keep me inside (final score: 13-1). I took the Big Back Way up King to Longview and up the bike path to the college. The good feeliing I got today from ride shows my legs are getting back into biking form and, as long as I stay upright, it’ll be a good year for the two-wheeler.

Here’s some pix: the north face of C Hill, the mountains to the west, and Harvey Field at WNC.

And Lake Calebro. In reality, it’s a nameless artificial pit on WNC’s southeast corner where it catches mountain runoff water and prevents flooding in the neighborhood. I don’t believe the college has anything named after its second president (and my former grad advisor). There’s the Davis Observatory and the Randolph High Tech Center. Tony’s missed out so far on the college naming thing so this’ll have to do for now.

Love this time of year. Winter’s harsh grip is releasing my shriveled-from-frost gonads, and millionaires in Arizona and Florida are playing catch on green fields and answering dumb questions from reporters on almost every subject, including the little debacle on Capitol Hill between Congress, Clemens, and McNamee.

That circus doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care because the sport can’t be damaged much more by those types of allegations and accusations. When the angels of truth are Jose Canseco, John Rocker and an ex-trainer who keeps used syringes for years on end, the sport, industry, and way of life have pretty much sunk as low as it can get.

This was more about saving Roger Clemens’ plaque in the Hall of Fame. Here’s some sad news for you, Rocket: you ain’t got much credibility, and in the five years it’ll take you to become HOF eligible, the Department of Justice is certain to catch you lying to Congress on something. Either way, the memories will not fade: you, McGwire, and Bonds are the symbols for baseball’s steroids era, and none of you will see a HOF plaque in the next decade, if at all. That’s reality. (Tastes bitter, doesn’t it, Roger? Would you prefer it in a syringe?)

To clear the palate, here’s some good quotes about baseball courtesy of Mark Newman at MLB.com.

“That’s the true harbinger of spring, not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of a bat on a ball.” — Bill Veeck

“They give you a round bat and they throw you a round ball and they tell you to hit it square.” — Willie Stargell

The cliche was proven true, again: when all things are equal (and even sometimes when they’re not), the team that wants the victory the most wins out at the end.

Congratulations to the New York Football Giants.

Edit: The commercials were weak this year, but this one wasn’t bad (but do we really want Justin Timberlake back on the Super Bowl?)

Why do you watch the Super Bowl? Is it the clash of titans, a bloody match of two finely-honed teams for the ultimate glory in football (which is repeated annually)? Don’t lie. We all know it’s the commercials.

Fortunately for you, SI.com gives us the list of the 10 Best Super Bowl Commercials. There’s Mean Joe Greene and his bottle of Coke, the Bud-wise-er frogs, and the Pepsi dancing bears. And Office Linebacker Terry Tate.

This was a stroke of marketing genius. Insert a large man with NFL-level intensity and anger into a white-collar, pencil-necked, Dilbert-like work environment and just let Terry be Terry. Take it away. dude, and notice there are no sacred cows. Everybody gets a little bit of his “loving.”

This spawned a Terry-verse of commercials that never got old. I stumbled across the below during my intense research and had to watch it ten to fifteen times to ensure it is worthy of this blog. Then I had to watch it for the humongous…human sensitivity training sessions.

Terry is still working in Hollywood under the name “The Mighty Rasta” and has had roles ranging from “Prison Break” to “Bachelor Party Vegas.”

And I’ll let y’all know when I’m not sleeping on the couch anymore.

I want to do it. I so badly want to predict a New York Football Giants victory. They’ve played great in the last four weeks, including the week 18 17 squeaker with their SB opponents, the New England Patriots. Their defensive line has come together and is working like clockwork, they’ve a Hall of Fame type receiver in Mr. Buress, and their quarterback has grown up before our eyes and kept the ball out of the other teams’ hands. If any team in the NFL could win, the Giants could do it.

But they won’t.

If you’re any kind of sports fan, you already know the reasons the Patriots will win Super Bowl 42: Spygate, Tom Brady, perfect season, previous SB experience, an enveloping defense, genius-level coaching, and so on. It comes down to the intangible: like the Blues Brothers, they think they’re on a mission from God. And they’ll prove it on Sunday.

And if you’re planning to take Monday as a recovery day from, shall we say, the excitement, consider yourself lucky not to be working for FedEx (via SI.com and bustedcoverage.com):

Last week, I sent an email to MLB suggesting their webmasters install a countdown counter because I want to know when pitchers and catchers reports.

And this morning, there it is.  Four weeks to go before Spring Training!

[Edit: I also said they should create counters for each team so fans can install them on blogs and websites. You know who to blame if they do that.]