NEW YORK, NY – My good friend and esteemed MTM colleague Grote2DMax touched on today’s topic briefly yesterday in his piece on Bobby Valentine: some people manage to get by just fine with a whole lot less. By the same token, there are those that seemingly have it all but still can’t seem to outshine their less heralded counterparts. I like to call this “The Bailey Quarters Principle.” For those of you too young to remember, Bailey Quarters was a character on the late 70s/early 80s sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati. She was bespectacled and spunky and sneaky hot. Although Bailey kinda took a backseat to busty blonde receptionist Jennifer Marlowe (Loni Anderson at the top of her game), there was just something about her that somehow managed to occasionally draw your attention away from the racktacular Jennifer. Anyway, this “less is more/more is less” paradigm can be found throughout sports. Here’s just a sampling.
Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles are a classic example of a 200 pound bully playing like a 98 pound weakling. This offseason, using the rousingly successful Washington Redskins business model, they signed just about every high-priced free agent on the market stopping just short of inking Sid Luckman’s ghost. And they’ve fallen flat on their faces. They’ve given a whole new (and quite literal) meaning to the term “an embarrassment of riches. So bad are the Iggles this year that they’ve replaced their fight song “Fly, Eagles Fly” with Public Enemy’s “Don’t Believe the Hype.”
Gene Keady. Why on earth would we mention Purdue’s former head basketball coach? Quite simply, the man had the greatest combover in the history of civilization. He is a fine example of someone who had very little (in this case, hair) and cultivated a signature hairstyle that scared the hell out his opponents and, yes, even his own players. There have been many high-profile pretenders to Keady’s Combover Crown such as Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and Chris Berman, but none of these clowns will ever come within a hair of catching him.
Chris Johnson. This overpriced underachiev… What? He just ran for 190 yards last Sunday? Oh. In that case…
Jason Bay. Baseball’s $66-million-dollar answer to the BP Oil Spill. He’s been so unstoppably bad for so long that people have ceased recognizing his existence and just hope that he doesn’t pollute fish, fauna, Mets fans, and other single-celled organisms around Flushing. And this is a guy who came into what seemed like a perfect situation: Expectations were high, but not so high that he couldn’t skate by with a less-than-stellar season or two; he seemingly had a skill set that would have played well off his teammates; plus, he was white. My God, they love white people in Queens! He’s responded by hitting 6 home runs in 2010, then a whopping 12 last year, driving in fewer than 60 runs both seasons, and never managing to hit over.259. It’s enough to make you want to ban Bay marriage. I’m sorry, but the thought of more Bays running around just sickens me.
Tim Tebow. Sure. Why the hell not? Oops, I mean, why the heck not? The guy has seemingly nothing going for him. He’s a big, white, galumphing, virgin with absolutely zero passing skills. Yet somehow he’s managed to go 5-1 and lead the Broncos back from the edge of extinction and into the playoff picture. Has he done it alone? No. But the Broncos had the same defense and running game earlier in the season and they stank worse than an air vent outside a Chipotle. Replacing a guy who threw for 3,653 yards last year, Tebow is the classic “less is more” example. He may not hit that number over his entire career, he may not even know how to count that high, but he somehow manages to get the job done. And if that means keeping the Jets out of the playoffs, well, God Bless Tim Tebow.
That’s all for this week. The bad news is, there will be a lot less of Lori Levine tomorrow but, thankfully, that means a rare Tall Matt appearance.
