What’s that old axiom…what goes around comes around?
In the case of San Francisco Chronicle sports jokester Scott Ostler – even after a Super Bowl beatdown of his beloved 49ers by the Chiefs – at least his sense of humor is intact.
You may recall that Ostler laid down a tongue-in-cheek lampooning of all things Kansas City – as in barbecue – cuz to Ostler barbecue was pretty much all KC had to hang its hat on.
Until yesterday.
His sad refrain today:
“If you take a great book and slap a sloppy ending onto it, you’re going to drop off the best-seller list like someone clipped your elevator cable,” Ostler begins.
“If the final chapter of Moby Dick had the big white whale splashing the tourists at Sea World for laughs and sardines, you’re headed for Clunker City, Herman Melville.
“And so it was in Super Bowl LIV on Sunday for the 49ers, and for the author of San Francisco’s miracle season, coach Kyle Shanahan.”
What did I tell you?
Unlike Star sports editor Jeff Rosen who made an embarrassing factual error by incorrectly reporting that Mark Twain was born in Hannibal, Missouri (he was born in Florida, Missouri), and then failed to publish a correction after being notified of the error, Ostler was more than happy to eat his serving of part crow, part humble pie.
“The 49ers’ dreams, and Shanahan’s coronation as king of football masterminds, came crashing down in nine lightning-fast minutes that seemed to take forever, as the Kansas Chiefs turned a 20-10 deficit into a 31-20 win,” Ostler continues.
Star sports editor Jeff Rosen Dodges a correction bullet on Mark Twain mixup
“The Chiefs and Missouri are ecstatic. The 49ers are devastated. They’ll never get this one back, and Shanahan, who earned every glowing adjective typed next to his name this season, saw all the gold tarnished in a heartbeat.
“Three years ago, Shanahan, as offensive coordinator of the Atlanta Falcons, put his fingerprints on a crushing Super Bowl loss. Combining that game’s fourth quarter and overtime with Sunday night’s fourth quarter, Shanahan’s two Super Bowl teams were outscored 46-0.
“Does that make the 49ers’ season a failure? It appeared to feel that way to Joe Staley, Richard Sherman, Emmanuel Sanders and other 49ers in the postgame interviews. The pain was evident and raw. Losing the biggest game is the biggest hurt.
“Now questions will be asked. Can Shanahan win the big one? Does he have the football play-calling equivalent of a baseball hitter with warning-track power? Can this be considered a great season, or a book ruined by its ending?”
Where the 49ers went wrong?
“Losers will always be second-guessed, and in the case of Shanahan in Sunday’s game, first-guessed,” Ostler writes.
“When he elected to play it safe just before halftime and go into the locker room tied 10-10, eyebrows were raised. Instead of having close to two minutes (and three timeouts) to try to eke out another score, Shanahan declined to call a timeout, took the ball with just under a minute left, and sat on it.
“That looked like it might become irrelevant, when the 49ers came out in the third quarter and scored a touchdown and kicked a field goal for that 20-10 lead.”
Talk about a bad call…
“But the 49ers were playing the Chiefs, who in three games have carved out a reputation as maybe the greatest comeback team in NFL playoff history, digging themselves out of three Grand Canyon holes to emerge as Super Bowl champs.”
Now the 49ers and Ostler will have the rest of the year to contemplate what might have been and maybe work up a few more barbecue jokes about Kansas City.
And 49ers congressional diva Nancy Pelosi won’t be eating any Gates Bar-B-Q.
Although all Emanuel Cleaver aka Ralph will be getting is a bunch of candies and nuts.
That and a ride in Wednesday’s Super Bowl parade downtown.
Strange bedfellows sports and politics… East to West and midway too, the age of ‘fake’ everything is a winner today: sports, news, politics – ‘fruit of the poi$on’ tree at the top – compromised garbage in, compromised garbage out – counterfeit results for the uber parched – to be continued, time immemorial. No going back now… the fix permanent.
Much as the NFL became bogus starting in 1969, so too the loony left wishes politics become same half a century later. ‘Change the rules’ as football did variously in order manipulate credibility and results – can’t win the old fashioned way, legitimately and by the rules – so we’ll change/manipulate em.
Dems want to change em, the electoral college as Supreme Court among other. Just as the swiss chiefs/pro sports teams every have been frauds since 1968 gave way to 1969, such is the $orry lot century 21 sports as politics as, well… everything, the reality. ‘The end justifies the means’, whether you prefer your faux football/politics/food and drink fishy East, bbq midway or wine West.
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Of note, the only Western Division team that has ever (or ever will) own a legitimate pro football Championship: the 1963 San Diego Chargers. Interestingly, much as the NFL Champion Bears refused to play them similar 1904’s ‘World Series’ which never was. The days 1960-1965 featuring co-champs AFL and NFL – the legit Chargers one, Texans one, Oilers and Bills two each, those years afore the Superbowl was born and the genuine became counterfeit. ‘Legit’ Superbowl’s short three year run 1966-1968 a pre-compromised era that started ’69, has continued to date, ditto MLB, NBA et al.
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You know your in San Francisco when –
Your co-worker tells you they have eight body piercings – and none are visible.
When someone says “tenderloin” – you don’t think steak. You think danger.
You make well over $100,000 and you still can’t find a nice place to live.
You think anyone who drives a car to work is decadent.
You keep a list of companies to boycott.
You would never dream of crossing a picket line.
You take the bus and are shocked at two people carrying on a conversation in English.
You realize there are far more Rainbow flags in the city than California State Flags.
The guy who cuts your hair is straight, and your plumber is gay.
The woman who delivers your mail is straight and your Mary Kay Lady is gay.
You have a very strong opinion where your coffee beans are grown, and are willing to fight about it.
Your child’s 3rd grade teacher has a nose ring and is named “Breeze”.
Your Football team blocks, runs and passes like Nancy Pelosi in the 4th Quarter and the coach says that you “Won the first three quarters forever!!!”
‘And a river (called irony) runs through it’ [sub-title: ‘Are we still in Kansas, Toto?’]
You know you’re not on the radar when Dorothy and her dog “doubt” that they are in Kansas; Missouri knows chiefs still aren’t on the football map when President Trump invites ‘the best team in America’ to the White House… and Clemson’s Tigers accept.
… the continuing travails and tales Kaycee’s ‘Show-Me’ State, part 2020, chapter 51…
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How about silent movies to talkies?
Windup Model Ts to today’s automotive technology?
Can see you’re the inquisitive type HC, allow me not disappoint:
Cioran informed – ‘progress is the injustice that each generation commits with regard to its predecessors’… Kerouac doth concur.
Rather be a Luddite than ‘Illustrated Man’. ‘Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling often touched on ‘past’, reflection of his own sentiments – several episodes second nature to me.
As such, Kerouac still prefers listening to old radio programs (‘Suspense’, example.) Still use a rotary dial landline, listen 8-track in my ’70 Dodge Challenger and still revere 1950s – 60’s sports world/players in lieu today’s… but then you knew that.
To wit, have yet to hear anything finer than Ray Scott’s “Starr, McGee, touchdown Packers” call a Green Bay score the 1960’s:
No screaming mimi ‘TOUCHDOWN KAN-SAS CITY’ (’bout the only thing more irritating than Holthus, the public address guy Arrowhead crowd prompt ‘Kansas City Cieeefs’ FIRST DOWN!
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Did you like Kevin Harlan’s, “Oh baby, what a play!” better than Holthus?
I meaan, who doesn’t live to sip the sweet nectar of the end zone?
Harlan purloined his signature from Hank Stram who liberated it another; nothing new under the sun. Kerouac prefers no play-by-play man before or aft, Tom Hedrick…
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That sounds faintly familiar….
Do you have any evidence that Stram used that call?
The playoff game vs the Dolphins in KC December 25, 1971 provides the evidence – pre-Harlan ‘signature’ Stram on the sideline.
Following Podolak’s long kick return that set up Stenerud for one of his missed field goals late in regulation time, video and audio feature Stram in all of his his banty rooster glory:
“What a play! What a play!” (starting about mark 4:40 – 4:48)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXuAF3uupU8
Then, all the laughter (and the Chiefs) died in sorrow… still, will take yesteryear ‘legit’ over ‘faux today’ counterfeit, any day.
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BUT he did not do Harlan’s signature:
“Oh baby, what a play!”
Big difference.
Saying, “What a play!” is maybe, kinda-sorta close…but no cigar, K
“BUT he did not do Harlan’s signature: “Oh baby, what a play!”
– Hank Stram says “What a play!” at least twice. Also – and you have to listen closely because it’s muffled/faint, BEFORE he utters “What a play”, for what sounds like the first time, says – “What an ‘incredible’ play!” – listen to it again, closely.
So, no Shifty Schiff transcript manipulation, the full-on Hank Stram treatment appears to sound:
“What an incredible play! What a play! (What a play! What a play!”)
… compared to “Oh baby, what a play!”
“Big difference.”
– yeah… (nod Rodney Dangerfield: ‘Tough crowd – tough crowd’… close enough government work, my opine.
Why not ask Kevin where he stole – check that – ‘borrowed’ it from/how invented it, HC? I see big bucks/litigation depending reply 😀
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Who, what, where, when and why… four out of five ain’t bad, apologies Meatloaf
“Harlan did Chiefs radio broadcasts for nine years, a stint he loved. It was during that time that he coined his signature, “Oh baby! What a play!” The expression came out during a Monday night game between the Chiefs and Buffalo Bills.”
– so that is ‘who’ (KH), ‘what’ (Monday Night Football) ‘where’ (Arrowhead), ‘when’ (Oct. 7, 1991) ,and contest (vs BUFF) started… sayeth one source
https://www.kansascity.com/sports/nfl/kansas-city-chiefs/article36699960.html
‘Why’ however/raison/player/play in particular? Ay… comes the mystery – there’s the rub. Is your sleuth bailiwick HC… go get ’em/it!
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