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| Blue wound up beating on Red |
Yet
I couldn’t help but be amused by the mighty attempt of the city Gotham to
impose its will on the glory of college football – what with the Pinstripe Bowl
being played this weekend.
THE
GAME PLAYED at Yankee Stadium that tries to impose the aura that the New York
Yankees bring to baseball onto the world of college football would up having to
turn to the Big 10 to find a recipient.
But
while the Rose Bowl will have Iowa take on Stanford and the Big 10 team that
likes to think it represents Chicago (Evanston-based Northwestern) will get to
partake in the Outback Bowl, the Pinstripe Bowl wound up resorting to inviting
the Indiana Hoosiers for a participant.
They
got to take on Duke University.
Think
about it – Indiana vs. Duke. It sounds like a competitive college basketball
matchup; one that would legitimately be worth the hype and spin that the
Pinstripe Bowl types tried to put on the football game.
FOR
THE RECORD, Indiana almost managed to bring glory to the Midwestern U.S. –
falling short in overtime on a field-goal kick that I’m sure Hoosier football
fans will forevermore claim was something they got cheated on.
They
may well think they should have won – instead of taking a 44-41 loss.
Although
the fact that Indiana qualified for its first bowl game appearance in nearly a
decade with a team that had a 6-6 won/loss record makes me think that Hoosier
fans ought to be grateful their team got to spend a Christmas holiday break in
New York City – certainly more entertaining than the Christmas Day I spent in
Hammond, Ind. Breathing in cigarette-infested air while trying to keep from
letting slot machines take all my money.
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| The relevant Rodriguez |
Personally,
I watched the game more out interest of seeing how Yankee Stadium plays as a
football facility. For the record, it worked much better than that 2010
football matchup at Wrigley Field between Illinois/Northwestern.
PERSONALLY,
I WAS hoping that when freshman running back Alex Rodriguez scored a touchdown
that briefly gave Indiana the lead, somehow that lead could have held up and
that the story would be how Alex Rodriguez scored the winning touchdown in a
bowl game at Yankee Stadium.
Just
because I know many baseball fans who would wretch at the very thought – what with
the way they want to rag on the baseball version of Rodriguez every chance they
get.
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| The bigger name after today |
I’m
sure they would have choked on the very thought of it!
But
that storyline didn’t hold, nor did any Indiana lead. Those of us with Midwestern
loyalties will now have to suffer the shame and humiliation of losing in
football to Duke University, of all teams.
ALTHOUGH
BEFORE THOSE of us from west of State Line Road start gloating that this is
merely Hoosiers showing their incompetence, we must admit that our own
state university’s Fighting Illini couldn’t even qualify for a bowl game this
year.
Those
boys in the orange and blue (who inspire the Bears of the blue and orange)
probably wish they could have escaped the environs of Champaign/Urbana this
past week for some time in Manhattan (and not the one in east central
Illinois).
Let’s
only hope that those boys in purple can do something significant come Friday
when the Northwestern Wildcats take on Tennessee in that Outback Bowl – which is
nothing to the locals in Tampa, Fla., but a game played in the stadium where
the Buccaneers play during the fall.
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| We could have used more glimpses of the cheerleaders |
Or
else on Friday in the Fiesta Bowl at University of Phoenix Stadium when Notre
Dame takes on Ohio State. All in all, a slew of football matchups that eagerly
have me counting down the roughly seven more weeks until baseball spring training.
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