If you needed any evidence that we’re not going to see a college football championship playoff anytime soon, today’s news that college commissioners think it’s a non-starter and that the NCAA approved two more bowl games for next year should suffice. You see where this is trending, right?

I’m on record as being in favor of a playoff (as you probably are, too), but it’s just not going to happen. You’ll never come up with a format that pleases everybody and you’ll never get college football to give up the hopelessly archaic system tradition of the bowls.

The arguments against a playoff that get trotted out seemingly every year range from the realistic (fan travel) to the ridiculous (negatively impacting academics). In-between is the reality that too many people are already making a lot of money and won’t give up their self-interests.

$222 million went to schools that went to bowl games last year (about $3.5 million per). A playoff reduces the importance of the bowls and exacerbates the braying of idiots like Scott Cowan and Neil Abercrombie who already complain that they’re not getting their due.

There’s a theory that those who have a vested interest in college football actually want there to be controversy most years, to keep people talking. There’s probably something to that.

But even though fans want to see a playoff (most years, it seems) and there are those in the media who want to see a playoff (though it would keep the talking heads like Jim Nantz from making their oh-so-clever BCS/BS jokes),  the people who’d have to make it happen don’t seem to want to make it happen. Time and again, coaches and commissioners and college presidents decry the idea.

34 winners instead of just one. $222 million to 68 schools instead of more money to fewer schools. Not hard to do the math on this.

First, the cartoon.

Later, the rest of the story.

EDIT – Here’s the rest of the story: the above cartoon ran in The Sporting News.

On November 28, 1988.

The more things change….

BASIC NUMBERS

DISCIPLINE

Cautions
Reckless Foul (9): Dyachenko (DC), Franchino (LA), Fred (DC), C Gomez (COL), Hernandez (SJ), Igwe (NE), Olave (RSL), Smith (NE), Talley (RSL)
Professional Foul (3): Corrales (SJ), Moffat (CLB), Thompson (NE)
Dissent (3): Conrad (KC), Gray (COL), Gutierrez (CHI)
Game Disrepute (3): Gallardo (DC), Kovalenko (RSL), Segares (CHI)
Tackle From Behind (2): Boswell (HOU), McDonald (LA)
Delaying a Restart (2): Hejduk (CLB), Hesmer (CLB)
Persistent Infringement (2): H Gomez (COL), Thomas (CHV)
Deliberate Handball (1): Donovan (LA)
Diving/Exaggeration (1): Alvarez (DAL)
Pushing/Holding (1): Garcia (KC)

Ejections
None

REFEREE WATCH

As anniversaries go, this one is at least more fun than the whole “100 years without a World Series title” thing.

25 years ago today, then-Cubs manager Lee Elia unleashed his infamous postgame tirade against the Wrigley Field faithful (audio here, not even remotely safe for work). It’s a part of Cubs lore, and Elia will be back at Wrigley today to mark the occasion.

Of course, it’s a lot funnier now, with the Cubs holding the second-best record in baseball (as Annie Savoy said, “You could look it up“). At the time, it was scandalous – not the kind of thing you heard (or printed) every day. Now it’s cause for a laugh and fond remembrances.

With all the hullabaloo about the NFL Draft this weekend, I thought it would be fun to see how the guys from 2003 have panned out.

Keep in mind these guys were the subjects of those “This is the guy we wanted” stories five years ago. Most of them have contributed, some have been stars and a few are out of the league.

First-round picks should have slightly longer careers than later-round draftees (I don’t know how much longer or if that’s even true, because I haven’t run the numbers, but intuitively, that’s what I’d expect). As you can see, though, this isn’t an exact science, and teams do still miss (sometimes badly) with first-rounders. Remember that when you get all giddy about the guy your team drafted this weekend.

So Miley Cyrus is “embarrassed” by the implied-nude pictures of her that will be appearing in June’s Vanity Fair (wow, first the LeBron cover and now this – Vanity Fair just can’t catch a break, can they?).

First off, she should be embarrassed. So should Annie Leibowitz. Because Ms. Cyrus looks like she was just pulled out of the East River in time for an audition for Lost Boys II: Electric Boogaloo.

I know she’s incredibly precocious. I know she’s very talented. I know she’s going to be worth a kabillion dollars by the time she’s 18. I know she’s an international sensation and on a different plane from your basic, garden-variety 15-year-old.

But she’s fifteen years old. Fifteen. She was born a couple of weeks after Bill Clinton was elected.

In my mind, there’s one person who should take the ultimate responsibility for this: it’s not a 15-year-old girl who is sliding so fast on the Fame Luge that her naturally-suspect decision-making processes are even worse; it’s not a 58-year-old, world-class photographer (though she deserves a bit of backlash, but artists get so full of themselves sometimes that their decision-making processes go all to hell, too); it’s not a 94-year-old magazine; it’s not an 84-year-old media company. (more…)

Actual subject of an actual email I actually just received:

Celebrate Mother’s Day With Gifts From MLSgear.com!

Are you sure? I mean, my mom and I have had our moments, but you think I want to get her something from MLSgear.com? For Mother’s Day?

Are you insane?

Seriously, Dan‘s a friend, the funniest guy I know and a great fellow if you get to know him.

But God forbid he decide to shred you, because when he does, I feel like Miss Jane from Romper Room by comparison.

Watch your back, Jack McGee. That’s all I’m sayin’.