brett favre's last game...

... and he probably will be on the sidelines, not playing because of a concussion...

This afternoon will be the last Vikings game of this football season, since they were too pathetic to make the playoffs. And Brett Favre's final game will be anticlimactic since the game is pretty meaningless and he'll be out of the action. He'll just be over there on the bench while the announcers gush about his career. This his final year as a player just sort of fizzled out, but he found ways to be at least interesting on the field and off the field. He's been a major presence in the sport since 1992, so it's sort of sad to see him finish.

Our friends Tony and Diane are coming over to watch the game on TV with Jerry and Tom and me, saying goodbye to the Vikings 2010-2011 season and preparing for the off-season ways the Vikings will have to stay in the news: Who will be quarterback next year with Favre gone? Will there be a season next year or will there be an owners' lockout? What will happen to the still deflated Metrodome? Will the Vikings move to Los Angeles after the 2011 season if they don't get a new stadium? The drama will continue.

summer sports update (mostly)

Even though it's hard to think about football yet, mid-August in Minnesota this year, like last year, means wondering, "Hey, Is Brett Favre going to play for the Vikings this year or is he retired?" I think that most Vikings fans would care a lot less than they do, and in some ways it would be good to be done with these annual guessing games, except that the other Vikings quarterbacks suck. Most everybody is feeling over-Favred by the news media, here and across the world, and I'm thinking that this season won't be as much as fun as last season was, Favre or no Favre, but ya never know. I sorta hope he plays, even if he is a total media hog.

Meanwhile, on the other side of downtown, baseball continues, and the Twins are back in first place. They're three games ahead of the Chicago White Sox, and the White Sox arrive in town tomorrow for three games. The new Twins stadium is an enormous hit, and most games are near-sellouts. The stadium crowds are generating tremendously good energy for the city, at least as long as we have a winning team.

Out there on the East Coast, my other home team, the Philadelphia Phillies, have been doing better, are creeping up in the standings against Atlanta, and might yet make it to the baseball playoffs. Go, Phils!

*****

33 years ago today, Elvis died. I got a reminder email about that this morning from my cousin Beverly, who has been the ultimate Elvis fan since the very beginning. She's still in mourning.

(Brett and Elvis. Two good guys that came out of Mississippi, of all places.)

my last football comments for a long time, I hope

Last Monday morning was just so weird. There was a cloud over downtown Minneapolis, throughout the skyways, within the offices, as people tried to come to grips with the trauma of having witnessed the Vikings choke, a few inches once again from reaching the Superbowl. It was one of those shocked-but-not-really-shocked kind of things, where you actually expected the Vikings to blow it but yet you kept finding reasons to hope. And just when you became a believer again, there was another kick in the face. You know?

And, for me at least, that game became a reason to permanently despise the New Orleans Saints. Several things were obvious in that game -- first of all, that the Vikings were the better team... and, more obvious, that the Saints coaching team had based their whole game plan on injuring the Vikings quarterback, Brett Favre. Let's face it, football is a rough game, sometimes almost violently so. But I had never seen a game where injury, maybe serious injury, was so recognizably the intent.

So I can't think about football for a few more months.. The Superbowl? I hope we don't even watch -- Let's all go to the movies instead that day.. But if I do develop a smidgeon of caring between now and next Sunday, I'll have to look to the other team, the Indianapolis Colts, to show the Saints how football is really supposed to be played.

minnesota chuckles

Mankato is a city ninety miles southwest of the Twin Cities... Maybe we weren't in such a hurry to get back home from our road trip or maybe I wanted to show Jerry my college alma mater, but we took the time to stop in Mankato and hang around there for a while on our way home from Iowa yesterday. I graduated from Mankato State University (now inexplicably renamed Minnesota State University Mankato) many years ago, of course, and some things have changed a lot, some things not at all, but I've always kinda liked Mankato and the university.

After touring the campus a little, we drove into downtown and stopped at an outdoor restaurant on the main street for some dinner... The live entertainment was at the next table: two guys and a girl who were obviously college kids who shared a house. We sat there for an hour or so and listened the whole time to the girl telling the guys what slobs they are to live with and the guys saying they weren't going to change and she was being unreasonable. For an hour! Talking about dirty dishes in the sink! It was hilarious to listen to, they were all so serious and earnest. Made me wonder if I would go back to that age again or not, if I could. Ha! Of course I would.

Mankato is also the place where the Vikings work out in the pre-season.. Didn't see them, but today we are seeing Brett Favre all over the news, as he has arrived here in the Twin Cities today to -- is anybody shocked? -- sign with the Vikings. Oh what a media hog! When will his next retirement be?

So anyway, here we are back at home. A nice little trip.

seeing a purple #4

How about some football drama in the month of May? Well, in this case, it's just sort of a mini-drama for Minnesota Vikings fans as suddenly there is Brett Favre talk back in the air. Tonight, as I write this, Vikings coach Brad Childress is in Mississippi (Mississippi??) visiting Brett Favre, presumably to talk Favre into coming out of retirement AGAIN to come quarterback the Vikings to the Super Bowl (ha!).

Most Vikings fans here, of course, have been hating Brett Favre for about 18 years as he led the much-despised Green Bay Packers to a lot of success. So how to turn around and potentially have to cheer him on??..

I say, let's do it! The Vikings were so listless last year that they could hardly sell out their one local playoff game. Favre might at least bring out some fans to boo him. Let's fill those stands again, dudes. Come on, Brett... What's the worst that can happen to an old guy like you?.. -- a career-ending injury?? You won't be missing out on much more career! Would you rather be sitting on your front porch in Mississippi smoking a corn pipe?!

Who knows?.. Maybe we could learn to love the guy!