Political Football: Obama, Romney and Berman

November 6, 2012 @ admin → No Comments

Random thoughts while wondering whether an apt analogy for the popular and electoral voting results would be time of possession and final score for a football game in that the former does not guarantee the latter (assuming you follow things such as voting for president):

Playboy Playmate Jaime Edmondson correctly predicted the New Orleans defeating the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday night.

* President Barack Obama likes the Chicago Bears. Republican challenger Mitt Romney likes the New England Patriots. They said so — separately — in halftime interviews with Chris Berman on ESPN’S “Monday Night Football.” “[Charles] Tillman may be defensive player of the year the way he’s playing,” Obama said of the Bears safety.

* “I take personal full responsibility for their [Patriots’] Super Bowl wins, as well as the Red Sox winning the World Series,” former Massachusetts governor Romney said, chuckling.

* Given the supposed closeness of the election, you think one candidate might have picked a team in Ohio or Florida rather than ones in Illinois or Massachusetts, both expected to go heavily in Obama’s favor.

* Obama did observe the similarity of sports and politics: “It’s interesting. Political reporters are a lot like sports reporters. … You lose a game, and you’re a bum. You win a game, you’re a god. And, the truth is, just like in sports, in politics, we’re all human. We make mistakes. Sometimes we perform well. But the key is just to stay focused on what it is that you’re doing. And in sports, it’s about winning championships. Interesting — in politics, it’s not winning elections. It’s making sure that you’re delivering for the folks who sent you.”

John Kerr (left) and Jim Durham, a great broadcast team for the Bulls.

* The Chicago Bulls game Tuesday (Nov. 6) no doubt will have a pregame moment of silence for former broadcaster Jim Durham, who died over the weekend in Texas at age 65. Said Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, “Jim was the voice of the Bulls for 18 years [1973-91] and he was the best at calling a basketball game I ever heard.” Agreed by many observers and listeners. Let me know when a better basketball broadcaster comes along. RIP to a superb talent and even better person.

* Speaking of the Bulls, former assistant coach John Bach has an award named for him at Fordham University, where he still remains the winningest coach in school history. Patrick Ewing, the former New York Knicks center, received the first Johnny Bach Award at the team’s tipoff dinner Monday in New York. Bach, 88, is set to help the Fenwick High basketball team. It’s too bad an NBA team — particularly the Bulls, considering Bach lives in Chicago — can’t find a way to employ him.

* Speaking of the Bulls and legendary characters, stats maven Bob Rosenberg is scheduled to work his 2,000th game scoring with the Bulls on Tuesday. He did miss two games in 2000 to keep score at Chicago Cubs games in Japan, but he hasn’t missed any others that the Bulls have played at home. Wonder what the odds of that are.

* Speaking of odds, here are some words of wisdom from Kevin Bradley, the SportsBook Manager of Bovada: “The first six weeks of the NFL season was almost unfair to bettors with the book cleaning up week after week, but I can say with certainty that after [Sunday] that is not the case. Week 9 is one of, if not the worst, NFL week for a book that I have witnessed in my 18 years as a bookmaker. With eight favorites covering on Sunday, it really hit us up hard on parlays and teasers and losing our three biggest decisions on three road favorites in the Broncos, Bears and Lions, was debilitating. … It’s fitting that on Halloween week, November 4, 2012 will go down as arguably the scariest day ever for the books.”

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Sone Luvabulls video always works around here: