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| Taylor Swift (wikimedia) |
A rigged Super Bowl to ensure
that Travis Kelce's team the Chiefs win, to set the stage for Swift's
endorsement of Joe Biden? I cannot fight all this any more, but I did
submit a comment to Yahoo! News:
On to the next phase
The Vikings played in their first
of four Super Bowls when the "Met" was their home. That was the Super
Bowl that did not have Fran Tarkenton as quarterback. CW is that there
was no excuse for the Vikes to lose that game. But I guess it was ditto
for the Colts versus the Jets too.
Has
this whole issue now ruined the Super Bowl? I mean, will the outcome
now be tainted by suspicions of political influence? What if the movers
and shakers atop the NFL are Trump supporters? Would they try to ensure
that the Chiefs lose? Absurd? Well, look at the people that this article
is about. This man named Donald Trump has infiltrated all aspects of
our lives, even something innocuous as a championship football game.
Someday books will be written.
My comment got a response from someone who goes by "Panama." This individual clues me in on a little more perspective:
Super Bowl 58 is now between Taylor Swift and the Swifties versus Gavin Newsom and the DeepStaters.
Plumbing history
People
talk a lot about the four Buffalo Bills Super Bowl losses. Hmmm, what
other team has the distinction? Really seems remote back in time now. I
mean, two stadiums ago for us. Even middle-age adults would require a primer
about "the Met." Winter's presence was so visible there. Did not seem
arranged very well for the sport of football.
Bud Grant - you're surely
familiar with that name - would readily say football was not the
priority at the Met. It was baseball. Minnesota was so ready to abandon
Met Stadium back in 1980. A little depressing, because the Met was a
total breakthrough for this state when it was built. It literally opened
the door for being big league. It was built for that express purpose.
But my, we had to wait. Minnesota has such obvious big league status
today. Not sure why this was not true through the 1950s. But we marked
time with the Minneapolis minor league team making the Met its home. The
Met opened for play in 1956. Is there anything more obscure in Minnesota
history than the five years that the Minneapolis Millers played there?
Sad too how the Millers descended into total oblivion once it was
official that "the bigs" were coming here. So the Met got us all quite
infatuated in its early years. We would cite 1965 as exhibit No. 1.
I
personally would rank 1962 as quite even. Twins were in just their
second year in 1962 and blazed forward with frequent wins. Big problem was that only one team in each league advanced for post-season. It was
"the pennant" or bust.
How America likes winners. Our raison d'etre,
quite, and I'm suggesting that it's to a fault.
So the 1962 Twins were not able to
overtake the dynastic New York Yankees. But our fledgling team
took second in the ten-team American League. This in the team's second
year of existence in Minnesota. The team came here from Washington D.C.
where it had largely floundered. The Senators improved some in 1960 but
not in time to stay where they were.
Legend had it that Minnesota might have gotten the New York Giants or Cleveland Indians. Any of these
options had potential excitement and success. Metropolitan Stadium afforded at
least short-term financial advantages for a team settling there. The
team could exploit that to augment its roster, as Cal Griffith did with
his Twins.
So we were nothing short of a shining jewel by 1965. Really,
we all should have pinched ourselves to see if we were dreaming.
The
luster began to come off both the Twins and the Met. The public is
demanding and fickle with entertainment. Quite the truism. Remember when
"Country Music Television" was a fad? The Twins were holding their own
in 1969. It would have helped if we could have won the American League
playoffs against Baltimore.
I had the sinking feeling we were not going
to win. We got swept. That did not pull the rug out from enthusiasm. The
removal of Billy Martin as manager got people upset. We were so spoiled
we forgot to get adequately excited about our 1970 division
championship. The manager was Bill Rigney who today is a mere trivia
answer. We got swept by Baltimore again!
Griffith failed to find enough
good new players to replace the aging ones. Not that the 1970s were
without highlights. But here's the deal: the Vikings swept to No. 1 in
our hearts most decisively. Even with their secondary status at the Met,
my they galvanized Minnesotans.
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| The Metrodome, Minneapolis |
Time marched on and the big league
movers and shakers realized "the Met" had served its purpose. It would
have to be abandoned. I'm old enough to have written news articles about
deliberations that led to the "old" Metrodome.
I strain to type "old." I
remember it was seemingly miracle-like. We went from having shaky
conditions with the weather to the weather literally being a non-factor.
The national media wasn't sure it wanted to take the Metrodome
seriously. That was annoying. The term "homer dome" made it seem like
home runs were cheap. East Coast commentators liked to find amusement
when our lively artificial turf played tricks sometimes. Most famously
that was with Harold Baines of the White Sox! The chauvinistic East
Coast media had no problems with strange stadium quirks out where they
lived, e.g. the "Green Monster" of Fenway Park. But we were
Midwest.
I must say, the old chauvinistic impulses have faded, are
largely if not completely gone. I think there has been a democratizing
effect of the new media. Hooray!
Jiffy Pop!
I have written songs about Met Stadium
and Target Field. Oh, I have a song written about the great Metrodome
but have not had it recorded. Maybe sometime. I describe the Dome as
"looking like a Jiffy Pop so huge."
Fans are so fixated on today. Can't
blame them I guess. I simply have the idiosyncrasy of wanting to
appreciate historical background, items that many people might consider
"trivia." The past teaches us lessons.
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| Joe Kapp (pinterest) |
Vikings were at their peak of glory
in the 1969 league championship game versus the Browns, on one play.
Gene Washington streaked down the field. The defender falls down. Joe
Kapp sent the ball long downfield right on target. And the crowd goes
wild!
And the Met crowds really could be wild. The popular imagery is of
rows of fans wearing snowmobile suits! Legend has it that bottles of
booze could be passed along. Important to note that social drinking was
quite approved then, was fodder for considerable humor. Nat at all like
today.
The charismatic Kapp took his Vikings to the Super Bowl against
the Chiefs and coach Hank Stram. Just as drinking alcohol was accepted
then, so too was the occasional ethnic joke. So Stram along the
sidelines made what was considered to be a witty comment, about how our
defense was like "a Chinese fire drill." Ouch. We lost the game.
Our
other three Super Bowls would have Tarkenton as QB. He went 0-for-3.
Most certainly ouch.
And now we have another Super Bowl coming along for
2024. 2024! Where has the time gone? Vikings not in it this year.
Chiefs versus 49ers and we have the political or pop culture twist. The
Swifties! I'm sure the NFL just loves this kind of side story. And we
most certainly eat it all up.
Vic Power on pedestal!
I like thinking back to the 1962 summer,
when we all could have been vaporized as result of the Cuban Missile
Crisis. Twins had Vic Power playing first base, Camilo Pascual throwing
his curveball. And our new Twins gave the Yankees a run for their money!
It doesn't get any better than that, really.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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