5-at-10: Dumb and Dumber edition

Thursday, June 21, 2012

For whatever reasons, "Dumb and Dumber To" has been cancelled. Jim Carrey said the studio's lack of interest was the big reason, some have said Carrey pulled out and some even have hinted that the Farrelly brothers lost a lot of cred with the studio after "The Three Stooges" debacle. Whatever. You know who loses here? We do.

That said, let's have a "Dumb and Dumber" 5-at-10. Who's with us? From the "Talks Too Much" studios, here we go...

photo In this July 26, 2011, file photo, Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott talks during the Pac-12 NCAA college football media day in Los Angeles. The BCS commissioners, including Scott, are backing a playoff plan with the sites for the national semifinals rotating among the major bowl games and a selection committee picking the teams, Notre Dame Athletic Director Swarbrick said Wednesday, June 20, 2012. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)

Four-team playoff is here

As Harry said during the D&D boys' travels: "According to the map we've only gone 4 inches."

According to an ESPN article, SEC commissioner Mike Slive compared college football's journey to a four-team playoff like a marathon and after the news that the parameters have been agreed upon, Slive said, "My hope is we've done 26 [miles]. My hope is we have .2 to go." We tend to feel like Harry because those four inches are just the first step of this journey.

Whatever the distance covered by the BCS conference commissioners, who along with the Notre Dame AD, have come to a consensus on a four-team seeded playoff system to determine the national champion. It's a move a decade in the making, and the four painful inches covered will seem like four seconds when the talk turns to making this an eight-team playoff sooner rather than later.

And while those four inches create a landmark football championship after for the 2014 season - and those four inches will generate four miles of cash - there are, as Big Ten apologist/commissioner Jim Delany noted "always devil in the details."

The basics have been agreed upon, although nothing is official until the college presidents vote on it later this month. Here's what we know (with the 5-at-10's view in parenthesis):

- The four-team field will be picked by a selection committee. (Good start, but we have said from the beginning that a selection committee of 11 people should be picked and their deliberations should be broadcasted on TV, with the rights being sold of course. Complete and total transparency is needed. At some point the teams that finish No. 5 or No. 6 will bellyache about the new system, but if there is transparency, then those complaints are disagreements. When there is not clear view of the proceedings, those complaints are more about conspiracies.)

- The two semifinal games would be played within the existing BCS games (Sugar, Rose, Fiesta and Orange) on a rotating basis. (Another good call, and it seems the SEC-Big 12 "Champions Bowl" accomplished a great deal of its goal by forcing the Big Ten's hand in regard to the Rose Bowl. Especially since there is no "conference champion" requirement.)

- The SEC will win it all in this set-up, too. (OK, that wasn't agreed upon, but we feel pretty comfortable in throwing that out there.)

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photo Miami Heat small forward LeBron James reacts during practice, Wednesday, June 20, 2012, in Miami. The Heat play Game 5 against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

LeBron on the brink

Harry: Yeah I called her up. She gave me a bunch of crap about me not listening to her, or something. I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention.

- OR -

Lloyd: You mean, not good like one out of a hundred?

Mary: I'd say more like one out of a million.

[pause]

Lloyd: So you're telling me there's a chance... YEAH!

We know what's at stake tonight for LeBron James and the Heat. Win tonight and secure the NBA title.

Lose tonight and the Heatles will have to go to a rowdy OKC for games 6 and 7.

You could make an argument that this is the moment for James and Miami. (We think this is not a do-or-die, but if it gets to Game 7, with all the background noise, the home-court edge and the pressure, OKC would have a huge advantage.)

So here it is, LeBron, one win - at home - from the prize that will silence almost all of his critics. (Sure there are some LeBron haters that will never get over "The Decision," but those folks still think the moon landing was a hoax.)

Anyhoo, what are you expecting? We'll put LeBron at 30-12-8 and with the Finals MVP when the Heat win it tonight.

And we'll take "yes" on whether he cries afterward.

Side story about odds: Friend of the show RJ Bell of pregame.com sent out a release that Monday night in Las Vegas, the 19 hit seven consecutive times on the same roulette table at the Rio casino. The odds of that happening are more than 114.4 billion-to-1. In fact, Bell said if you played roulette every day for 24 hours a day, a number would hit seven straight times once every 217,000 years. So take heart Lloyd, there's still a chance.

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Controversy du jour

Lloyd: Excuse me, Flo?

[Harry and Lloyd crack up]

Lloyd: Flo, like the TV show. Uh, what is the Soup Du Jour?

Flo, Waitress #1: It's the Soup of the Day.

Lloyd: Mmmm. That sounds good. I'll have that.

Great scene from the movie - and it's right before we get introduced to Sea Bass, which is a treat - takes us to the puzzling issue du jour. Let's discuss.

Tampa Bay relief pitcher Joel Peralta was tossed from a game this week because he had pine tar on his glove.

It was a story that allowed us to review the great old baseball images of George Brett exploding onto the field after the umpires said his ninth-inning homer in Yankee Stadium in 1985 was denied because he had too much pine tar on his bat. It also called to mind the time Joe Neikro flipped his emory board across the infield and when a Cleveland Indians employee was caught trying to sneak a loaded bat that belonged to Albert Bell out of the umpires' dressing room.

Ah, the hijinks of those crazy baseball players.

But, after our discussion of Roger Clemens earlier this week, it also got us thinking (which is admittedly a dangerous deal): Why is certain forms of cheating (scuffing the ball, corked bats, etc.) good-natured fun and steroids (which were not even against baseball's official rules until the mid-2000s) are akin to flag-burning and ordering the McRib sandwich at McDonald's? (Side question: Why do the good folks that make the McRib shape the "meat" into something that looks like it has bones? Is that really a good goal for a sandwich - to give the appearance of bones? And yes, we know the Micky D folks have served billions and billions and we'll have 22 comments today, but it's still worth asking.)

Anyhoo, where were we? Oh yeah, baseball's finicky hatred of steroids and its lovable embrace for actual rule breakers. Stealing signs, scuffing up the ball, juicing the bat... all of those are competitive edges but steroids are the devil's work. Gaylord Perry got into the Hall of Fame by cheating more than Bonds or Clemens and Perry needed to doctor up the baseball to win his 314 games. But Perry's a crafty veteran and Clemens and Bonds are anti-christs? OK, whatever. Sure Perry was a cuddly grandfather-esque fellow who grinned and heed and hawed about his Eddie Harris version of putting snot on the ball. And Bonds and Clemens were as pleasant as afternoon IRS audit after an early-morning root canal, but that does not differentiate between the indifference to Perry's blatant disregard for the rules and Clemens and Bonds obvious disregard for in truth was illegal but not against baseball's rules.

So how are we to know which rules are sacred and which are suggestions? We've known for years that the baseball Hall of Fame voters are anti-steroids, but you know what that's ultimately going to achieve? Baseball's Hall of Fame is going to be watered down. Yep, by keeping the alleged and the admitted steroid users out, baseball writers are going to feel inclined to vote for someone, so the Jim Rices or the Jim Kaats or even the Dave Stewarts of the world are going to get an extra review or two. (In fact, if a guy is on the ballot more than five years, then it's time to move along. Our simplest definition of determining whether a player is a Hall of Famer is as follows: Ask yourself if he is a Hall of Famer, and if you pause more than two seconds, he's not. Period. This is not the Hall of Really Good or even the Hall of Great, it's the flippin' Hall of Fame, and not everyone gets a trophy.)

But eventually, Bonds, Clemens, A-Rod, Sosa and the lot will get into the Hall of Fame and we all know it.

So steroids are the sin du jour because it's cheating but actual cheating is a shrug-you-shoulders-"Good try" type of deal. This is baseball not NASCAR right?

Want to know where that makes sense? I'll tell you where. Someplace warm. A place where the beer flows like wine. Where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I'm talking about a little place called Aspen.

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- "Kick his tail Sea Bass." OK, that one was edited for F-O-I-B sports column. Still, if there's anything fun coming from the pine tar ejection earlier this week, it's the war of words between Joe Maddon and Davey Johnson, the aged managers of the Rays and Nats. When asked whether the two would meet to settle their differences, Johnson said, "No, I don't know him that well, but I thought he was a weird wuss anyway, so no."

- "Man you're one pathetic loser. No offense." The defense rested in the Jerry Sandusky trial without sending the former Penn State defensive coordinator and alleged child rapist to the stand. How overwhelming is the negativity around this dude? According to a story on Yahoo.com the town of Sandusky, Ohio is thinking of changing its name to Perkins because of the unfortunate coincidence. (Of course if Kendrick Perkins keeps stinking up the NBA Finals, they may have to go to Option No. 3.)

- Jim Carrey's run in 1994 was jaw-dropping. In addition to "Dumb and Dumber" he had "The Mask" and "Ace Ventura." All in 1994. Anthony Davis will cap a similarly awesome-in-its-awesomeness-type of run next week when he's the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. Davis, the sensational Kentucky center know affectionately as the Uniblocker because of his ability to swap shots and his massive Unibrow (what appears to be joined eye brows making one long brow... let's move along), won the NCAA title, was named NCAA freshman of the year and NCAA player of the year. Well-played Mr. Uniblocker, well-played indeed.

- "Just when I thought you couldn't possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this... and totally redeem yourself!" Just when we thought the Braves were D-E-D dead, they thump the hottest team in baseball twice. And welcome back Freddie Freeman, who hit a three-run homer in the first inning of Wednesday's 10-5 win over the Yankees. Research alert: The Braves are 4-9 without Freeman in the lineup and 33-23 with Freeman on the field.

- "Our pets' heads are falling off!" One of the sad moments of the movie - "Pretty bird, pretty bird," - when Lloyd and Harry find the canary has been killed. Well, that may be how the football folks in Knoxville feel right now. After finishing 1-7 in SEC play last year, the Vols had the lowest APR among football programs in the SEC, too. Hey, at least they are consistent.

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Today's question

OK, the 1980s was high time for comedy. "Caddyshack," "Stripes," "Fletch," and that's not even touching the comedy gold that was Eddie Murphy in the late 1980s, there were a ton. We've been pretty impressed with some of the big-time comedies in the 2000s from "Hangover" to "Old School" to "Weeding Crashers" etc.

But in honor of "Dumb and Dumber," what is the Rushmore of comedies in the 1990s?

There are two dunks for us - "Dumb and Dumber" and "Tommy Boy" and from there it gets tougher. Comedy took on a more grunge turn with a touch of serious. Jay and Silent Bob had a nice roll and so did the Coen Brothers. There also was a turn to spoof movies and even some high-quality kids comedies (Toy Story has aged quite well thank you). That said, there were a ton

Here's out Rushmore of 1990s comedies and we think there is a real chance this may be the most wide-ranging Rushmore in recent memory because of the wide range of choices and differing tastes.

Dumb and Dumber, Tommy Boy, There's Something About Mary, Office Space. (Yes we left off the Big Lebowski and several others like Friday, City Slickers, Austin Powers, etc., but these four are funnier to us. That said, it was not a great decade for comedies but an AWE-some decade for movies in general. Silence of the Lambs, Braveheart, Gladiator, Forrest Gump is just for starters.)

Discuss. (And don't forget Friday's mailbag)