Downey’s Eleven:
1. Tide detergent. Mountain Dew. Copenhagen chewing tobacco. Jim Beam. Viagra.
Five things you might find at a University of Colorado football recruiting party? No.
These are only a few of the sponsors’ names I have seen on racecars.
But Bobby Labonte, yours is an altogether new experience, son.
Your car in Sunday’s Daytona 500 has painted on the hood: “`The Passion of the Christ,’ in Theaters 02/25/04.”
To me, this brings all new meaning to the biblical phrase: “It is written . . . “
Mel Gibson’s new movie, one of the most talked-about ones never to have been in a theater near you, will be advertised on a car in Sunday’s race.
I grew up a good Catholic boy, took catechism classes, was confirmed, and in all those years of studying the Bible, I’ll be doggoned if I can remember one word about Thou Shalt Not Drive Around in a Circle.
But holy speedway, Bobby, what is this? Driving for Jesus? Motoring for Mel? I have no idea if Gibson’s film is worthy or not, but it strikes me as just a wee bit blasphemous, this seek-and-ye-shall-find-the-checkered-flag thing.
Oh, well. I suppose there is no percentage in painting “Gigli” on your car.
Bless you, Bobby, and drive safely.
I wonder if back when George Burns was making movies, an auto racer would have been willing to drive 160 m.p.h. with “Oh God!” on the hood.
2. Swimmers at the U.S. championships in Orlando this weekend would have advertised Gibson’s movie, but they needed bigger Speedos.
3. Notre Dame’s football team goes 10-3 under Tyrone Willingham, but a year later, alumni fire off a letter to the school ripping the program? Nebraska’s team goes 9-3 for Frank Solich, but the coach gets fired?
Help me out here: College football fans are: (a) Ardent? (b) Boisterous? (c) Committed? (d) Demanding? Or (e) Every One of ‘Em Nuts?
4. Marvin Gaye’s daughter will do the national anthem at Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game in L.A., in sync with a recording of her late father’s.
I have heard anthems sung, crooned, croaked, shrieked, warbled, garbled, bungled, butchered and played on saxophones, xylophones, Hammond organs and just about everything but a ukulele and a kazoo. It is supposed to be a hymn, not a hot number.
But I have to admit, the one Gaye did at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., at that 1983 NBA All-Star Game was the most amazing I ever heard . . . or saw, through the cool shades the Lakers gave to each of us as a souvenir. There were 17,000 of us there, looking like Jack Nicholson, clapping and swaying to Marvin. It was great.
5. How come it has to be one of the great talkers in sports, Jeremy Roenick, who gets his jaw broken by a puck? It was funny when the organist in “Slap Shot” was hit with one, but this sure wasn’t. Get well, J.R.
6. I see that a $2.6 million, one-year contract has just been given to outfielder Jay Gibbons by the Baltimore Orioles, but I believe that I speak for sports fans everywhere when I say, for the record: Who???
7. Ever heard of Hub Kittle? Oldest guy ever to pitch in a professional baseball game. At 63, he worked 1 2/3 innings for Louisville’s Triple-A minor leaguers in 1980.
A funeral service will be held Saturday in Yakima, Wash., for Kittle, who died of diabetes and kidney failure Tuesday at 86. For years he was a Houston Astros and St. Louis Cardinals pitching coach, a gentleman and a great teacher of the game.
8. Marge Schott is in bad shape in Cincinnati, meantime, with a respiratory ailment. It was as rare to see Schott without a cigarette as it was without her dog Schottzie before she sold her majority share of the Reds in 1999. The 75-year-old has been in and out of hospitals ever since.
9. Whoa, did you get a load of that 155-pound Newfoundland that won first prize at the Westminster Kennel Show last week? He was black, he was beautiful and if he were any bigger they could have run him in the Preakness.
10. Lingerie football–just in time for Valentine’s Day, I guess–is forming a four-team league, and the Chicago Passion will be our city’s team, it was announced this week. Ernie Banks yesterday, Tyra Banks today. Where do they play: Jiggly Field?
11. OK, only 12 days are left until you can go to Harry Caray’s restaurant to see that evil Game 6 ball get wiped off the face of the Earth. Or, as I believe Justin Timberlake will call this, “equipment destruction.”
