Um, don't you mean Kerry Collins?

Yes!

Crap, I wonder if that's going to be this year's mental block. Last year, or maybe the year before, it was calling Philip Rivers something else. David Rivers or something. Not even a name of someone I'd ever heard of. A few years ago I kept typing Victor when I meant Carlos Zambrano and vice versa.

This is aside from always typing hear when I mean here and vice versa, then catching myself about 95 percent of the time, leaving the mistake plenty often enough for me to look illiterate.

Thanks for the catch. It's been fixed.

is 13th on the list of things to be thrown at referees, eh? I have to wonder what the first twelve are...

There's one person who made it to the end!

I'm in an arguing mood. Debating. A debating mood.

essmeier: Flawed analogy. You're comparing sportscaster to writer vs. sportscaster to comedian.

I disagree. First of all, Joyce and Sales are both writers. (Sales wrote his gags, right?) Second, they're both humorists. ("Ulysses" is a very funny book.) Third, I could be comparing writer to writer (Costas and Joyce, both of whom have written books) and comedian to comedian (Berman is a hack act, the Milton Berle of cable TV).

But really I think you're just being overly pedantic here. Joyce was a great talent and Sales was a buffoon. I'm not saying Bob Costas is a great talent like James Joyce. Then again, Chris Berman ain't no Soupy Sales.

Me: Why all the reverence for that guy? [Costas] ... Give me Madden over Costas. Costas just seems like he'd be insufferable in conversation.

I don't know about reverence, at least around here. Give me Madden over Costas too, at least on a football game. For studio hosting, or baseball, I'll take Costas, thanks.

What I don't get is the venom that Costas gets from some quarters. I think he's a total pro.

I've also had a few conversations with him. They were strictly on a professional level, so we're not friends and I can't say I really know him, but I've found him to be a perfectly pleasant, reasonable, straight-talking guy.

Andy Buchanan: incredibly, what the announcers last night and even post-game ananlysts failed to mention was that even if the flag was seen, and the call reversed, Pittsburgh has a FIRST AND GOAL ON THE ONE!

This is true except for the fact that Michaels repeated this very point about eight times. He repeatedly said that the point here was that Pittsburgh made a great play, and would have had first and goal on the 1 anyway.

The call had absolutely no bearing on the outcome of the game, yet the booth guys and the post-game guys talked about it like it actually mattered.

That's not true that it had no bearing on the outcome of the game. First and goal on the 1 is not the same as a touchdown. That's why you don't get 6 points for getting first and goal on the 1. It's not even a guaranteed field goal. Did you already forget that, in that same quarter I think, the Steelers had fumbled the ball away on about the Miami 3? There are a lot of ways not to score from first and goal at the 1. It did matter.

Baron Kimball Second, there are at least 100 teams playing division 1 ball. The sheer statistical improbability of the 1 and 2 meeting is slim.

There are maybe 30 programs that ever -- ever -- have a shot at being ranked as high as No. 2. If that. Within a five-year-period, roughly, the time frame for scheduling, that number is probably more like 20. If the top teams are making any effort to play each other, or heck, if they're simply not making every effort to avoid each other, you'll get a 1 vs. 2 game with some frequency.

And not to argue with your every point, but just skipping down to ...

The NFL's got the Cards and 49ers, don't they?

Yes. And the difference between those teams and the Steelers and Seahawks is about one tenth of the difference between Oklahoma and Baylor in any given year. The Arizona Cardinals are to Baylor as James Joyce is to Soupy Sales!

Part of the problem of college football is that the conferences give the powers an excuse for about half of their schedule being patsies. They only have to sign up three or four patsies themselves. And if they don't have exhibition games, too bad. Either get them -- they're called scrimmages anyway, and they do have them -- or quit selling those patsy games as regular-season games and practice truth-in-advertising. If those are exhibition games, why does the winning team get a W?

If Notre Dame schedules an opponent every week with a reasonable expectation, five years hence, of being a good team (OK, Navy excepted), how can you let all the other schools get away with their lame excuses?

JTD, do me a favor and send me an e-mail at king at salon dot com, would you? My mathematician friend wants to talk to you.

Thanks.

Anonymous, I wrote about a company that was trying to do exactly what you describe five years ago:

http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/06/27/fancast/index.html

It must not have worked out. The site's gone.