Sports Fodder: Players don't need Santa, they have bowls

Sports fodder for a Friday morning . . .

How boring and meaningless have college football's bowl games become? Well, the best thing on TV on New Year's Day was a hockey game. Yes, that's right. A hockey game. The Pittsburgh Penguins-Buffalo Sabres' outdoor game in front of 70,000 frozen, snow-covered fans was must-see TV. It was hockey in its purest form, without all of the piped-in, headache-inducing music and flashing lights of the modern antiseptic arenas. With the Zamboni creeping out onto the ice seemingly every 15 minutes and stadium workers constantly patching the ice, there was nothing antiseptic about the Penguins-Sabres game. The NHL should play five outdoor games a year.

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The college bowl games, by comparison, were exposed for the shameless, slick three-hour commercials that they truly are. It's all about Tostitos, Champs Sports, Meineke, AutoZone, Insight and all of the other good folks who bring you the most vacuous, purposeless and irrelevant sporting events of the year. But don't expect the bowl games to disappear. Coaches love them because they can win artificial "championships" at the end of the season and earn contract bonuses. Players also love them because, well, they get paid.

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Yes, players get paid to play in bowl games. It has always been the NCAA's dirty little secret that they don't like to talk about. But players get paid to play in bowl games in the form of a ton of valuable free gifts. According to the Sports Business Journal, players in bowl games this year got gifts ranging from a $400 Best Buy gift card, a Nintendo Wii game system, a Garmin portable GPS, an XM satellite radio and corresponding one-year subscription, an Apple I-Pod Nano and a Vizio 2-inch HDTV. Yes, even the Wolf Pack got some swag at the New Mexico Bowl - an Oakley watch and sunglasses, an Under Armour backpack and beanie and a one-year subscription to ESPN The Magazine. Why this little tradition of giving gifts to players isn't a NCAA violation we'll never know. But, hey, you don't want to make your bowl game sponsors upset, now do you?

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Do you really care who wins the Ohio State-LSU game next week? Of course you don't. The only way the LSU-Ohio State game would be interesting is if the winner had to play USC.

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The BCS could work with a few minor tweaks. First of all, the NCAA needs to slice off five bowl games. There are too many. A bunch of non-deserving teams (we won't name names) went to bowl games this year just because there were spots that needed to be filled. Second, they need to play all of the meaningless bowl games (you know who you are) in the first three weeks of December. Get them out of the way so all of the players can go home and play with their new I-Pods and spend their Best Buy gift cards before Christmas. The top four teams could then play a two-game semifinal round on Christmas Day and the championship game could be New Year's Day. Problem solved.

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The San Francisco 49ers (remember them?) did the right thing by not firing Mike Nolan this week. Who else could look so good in a suit on the sidelines? The Niners, though, have to get Nolan a real offensive coordinator. Former San Diego Chargers offensive coordinator Cam Cameron, who just got fired by Bill Parcells in Miami, would be a nice choice.

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Oakland Raiders coach Lane Kiffin also did the right thing by quickly announcing that JaMarcus Russell would be his starting quarterback in 2008. Russell is going to be a good one and there's no reason for him to get stale on the bench, especially at $10 million a season.

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Jose Canseco is going to come out with a sequel to his book "Juiced" sometime around opening day in April. We can't wait. Alex Rodriguez's name might even be mentioned. The last time Canseco came out with a book detailing steroid use by major leaguers, most everybody painted Canseco as an idiot just trying to sell books. Well, he shouldn't have any problem selling books this time.

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Roger Clemens' interview with Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes will air Sunday night. Gee, what do you think we might hear? That Clemens has never used steroids? That Clemens has never taken any performance enhancing drugs in his lifetime? The plot of "Snakes On A Plane" left more to the imagination.

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Baseball's Hall of Fame is going to announce its 2008 class on Tuesday. And by Tuesday night everyone will call the writers idiots for leaving this guy or that guy out. Well, we're here to call the writers idiots before the announcement. Who should be voted in? Bert Blyleven, Tommy John, Lee Smith, Rich Gossage, Harold Baines, Andre Dawson, Jim Rice, Mark McGwire and Tim Raines. No question.

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There has been a lot of national media talk supporting Rice as a Hall of Famer. We agree. He should be in Cooperstown. But if Rice gets in, then Baines and Dawson should go in right beside him. Rice hit .298 with 2,452 hits, 382 homers, 1,451 RBI, 1,249 runs scored and a .352 on-base percentage. Dawson and Baines were even better. Dawson hit .279 with 1,373 runs, 438 homers, 1,591 RBI, 2,774 hits and 314 steals. Baines hit .289 with 2,866 hits, 1,628 RBI, 1,299 runs and 384 homers. But, hey, Dawson and Baines never played for the Red Sox or Yankees.

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The Oakland A's did a nice job of getting three solid, young players for Nick Swisher from the Chicago White Sox on Thursday. But when will the A's grow tired of being a farm club for other teams? Swisher is just 27-years-old and his current contract runs through the 2011 season. He is a power hitter who draws walks and is a leader in the clubhouse. He was the ultimate A's player. Pitcher Dan Haren, who also doesn't exactly earn Roger Clemens money, was also sent packing for young players earlier this off-season. Ready for a 70-92 season, A's fans?

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It was a dismal bowl season for the Western Athletic Conference. The conference's four bowl teams (you know who you are) went a combined 1-3 and allowed 133 points combined. What does it all mean? Absolutely nothing. To steal a line from Denny Green, WAC football is what we thought it was. A fun way to spend a Saturday (or Thursday or Friday) afternoon or evening. Hey, where else can you drink beer in a parking lot with your friends out in the open without worrying about getting arrested? In the current BCS system a WAC team will never play for a national championship. And after this bowl season, it's tough to be too upset about that.