PAGE 16 THE BEHREND BEACON OCTOBER 8 1999 NATIONALSPORTS Jaguars win lackluster 17-3 decision over Steelers by T.J. Simers Los Angeles Times PITTSBURGH - There was a TV re port this weekend that Houston is so confident of landing an expansion team at this week's meetings in At lanta that an Oct. 14th, city-wide cel ebration has been scheduled. Premature as that may he, this is no time to expand in a league where interest could shrink if the decline in competent quarterbacks continues. Someone looking at the final score here, for example, might have con sidered Jacksonville's 17-3 win over the Steelers on Sunday a defensive tussle. But these two teams, two of the best in the NFL by most stan dards. performed as if unaware they could use the forward pass. Pittsburgh quarterback Kordell Stewart, like Arizona's Jake Plummer featured in national TV commercials and representing the NFL's electri fying future, hasn't led his team to a touchdown in two games. In his last eight starts. — Slash" has been noth ing hut a parenthetical afterthought. meaningless to the Steelers' cause, throwing for one touchdown with 1 I interceptions. Here's hope for more playoff follies from Sox by Sam Donnellon October 05, 1999 Knight Ridder Ne‘‘spapers PHILADELPHIA - The Boston Red Sox return to the playoffs, where their fortunes have always gone amiss. I loved it when Bucky Dent hit that fly ball into the leftfield net in '7B. I loved it when Bill Buckner muffed that ground ball in 'B6. I loved it when Roger Clemens went ballistic in that playoff game, getting tossed in the second inning against Oakland, giving his team a real good chance to win. Even though he's been with two teams since, I love it that Clemens's ERA is around 4.00 in the postseason. Can't Wait for them to recite that stat at his Hall of Fame induction cer- Cllloll\ I love it ‘1 hen the Red Sox are in a pennant race, am absolutely ecstatic to see them in the postscason again, facing the Indians for the third sea son in a row. I think of all those people I know up there, all those middle-aged cousins and their kids, all my college friends and their kids, and I know just what they're thinking: This is the year. They can't help themselves. The difference bemeen Boston tans and Philadelphia tans is this: Boston fans really believe the Easter Bunny brings them eggs. Philly fans not only don't believe in the bunny, they suspect immediately that the eggs are rotten. We would never allow ourselves to he tortured the way those people do every year. We would look at a play off pitching rotation that includes re habbing Ration Martinez, ancient Bret Saherhagen, St. Louis castoff Kent Mercker, and think, P.U. They look at that slop and see the hest pitching staff in the American League. They've even got stats to prove it. The Red Sox ranked first in Taking a rest in campaign against using Indians as sports mascots by Tim Giago September 28, 1999 Knight-Ridder When the footballs of the National Football League fill the autumn air, I usually write a column about using In dian as mascots. This became an an nual event with me. I only wanted America to grow up. The annual column even made Newsweek magazine and the New York Times sports pages one year. Af ter nearly 15 years of covering this touchy topic, I believe I'll give it a rest for a while. Over the years I have tried to ex plain, from an Indian point of view, why the use of Indians as mascots was repugnant to most Indians. I wrote about the time the Washington Redskin fans painted a pig red, placed a feathered headdress on its head and chased it around the football field at halftime. I used the analogy of paint ing a pig black, placing an Afro wig The hometown fans were booing him on the team's second drive, and by the time he surrendered the ball for back-to-hack safeties in the fourth quarter, Three Rivers Stadium was nearly empty. Stewart and Plummer, billed as two of the game's most daring com petitors, have combined to throw three touchdown passes this season - with 16 interceptions. And as badly as Stewart played. the guy on the other side of the field is supposed to lead his team to the Super Bowl, and yet Mark Brunel' managed to com plete only 10 of 25 passes for 85 yards with one touchdown and one interception. And he won. Give Houston the expansion team and let's see if they are still celebrat ing once they find who is going to play quarterback. On the bright side. someone might point out. St. Louis quarterback Kurt Warner became the first quarterback in at least 50 years - hack to the time when they kept track of such stats - to begin his career with three touch down passes in each of his first three games. And Washington looks like the Don Coryell Chargers with Brad Johnson making like Dan Fouts - the perfect capper to this millennium, earned run average, shutouts, saves and strikeouts. and allowed the few est walks. Here's why: Pedro Martinez, the best pitcher in baseball. When he sat out a few weeks with a sore biceps after the All-Star break, the Red Sox quickly started looking like the Phillies. They've got one everyday starter. Nomar Garciaparra, who hit over .3(X) this season. They had 18 pitchers starting games, seven saving Red Sox fans say none of that mat ters if Pedro pitches is ice against the Indians this week. Maybe he will and ina} he it won't. It's not that Boston is devoid of postseason heroics, it's just that they have always been followed by emo tional holocausts. Carlton Fisk's dra matic Game 6 home run against the Reds in 1975 was followed by a Game 7 loss. Back in 'B6, they rallied from a 3- I deficit in games against the An- gels, winning Game 5 on an extra-in ning home run from Dave Henderson, blasting Gene Mauch's last hope in the next two games at Itenway. I was there. It was exciting. I even found myself rooting for Boston against the Mets in the World Series that followed. I won't make that mistake again. I don't want to get that high and end up that low. They haven't won the World Series since 1918. They have lost lour consecutive World Series seventh games, dating hack to 1946. The obituary page today, yesterday and tomorrow is tilled with the names of men and women who lived their whole lives since the last Red Sox world championship. They blew a I 4-game lead over the Yankees in 1978. They blew that World Series against the Mets in 1986, needing just one more strike with a two-run lead in Game 6, coughing up a 3-0 lead in Game 7. There were on its head and doing likewise. There would he one humungous uproar in the black community should this hap- My point was that no one seems to give a damn if American Indians are publicly ridiculed in the name of sporting events, but do the very same thing to another ethnic minority and all hell would break loose. Those fans (short for fanatics) who paint their faces with Day-Glo paint and stick feathers in their hair and the marching hands that support this idi ocy with supposed Indian music straight out of a Hollywood "B" movie, would not dare to use these juvenile tactics in the name of any other race of people. They would not dare show up at a professional foot ball game wearing hlackface and sporting Afro wigs. Then why do it to a race of people without the numeri cal or financial clout to stop this non- sense? This has been the point I have tried H]tll Warner taking on Johnson in a shootout for the NFC Championship. But remember when everyone could tell you what number the great quarterbacks were wearing, while doing their damage? How many know what number Warner or Johnson wear? Five of the Johnny-come-latelys who started Sunday in the NFL played previously in the World League, including Warner, who also played in the Arena League. Two oth ers who started Sunday were exiled earlier to the Canadian League. One more began his NFL career as a sev enth-round draft pick. Throw in Rick Mirer, Billy Joe Hobert, Shane Matthews and Kent Graham and on a given Sunday it might he more ad visable to run the ball and wait for the other team to turn it over. Adding to this litany of misery - someone else's idea of entertaining parity - is Trent Dilfer, Steve Beuerlein, Jim Harbaugh, Neil O'Donnell, Rich Gannon and Jeff Blake. Kordell's our quarterback," said Pittsburgh Coach Bill Cowhcr, and what else is he going to say after be ing asked if there might he a change at quarterback? people in Lord Bunberry's at Boston's Faneuil Hall who had popped cham pagne bottles and toasted a champi onship after Keith Hernandez made the second out to start the Mets' 10th in Game 6. Given their history, that's almost as incredible as Game 6 itself. There is so much had karma around this team that books have been dedi cated to the subject. Yet almost every fall their fans get their little hearts pumping like pistons. And almost every fall they end up whining like a rich kid who can't find the Jaguar keys. I love when this happens. At least I used to. I tell people this and they look at me as you would a child who has just dissected a live insect with his hands. But they don't understand. Red Sox fans are so full of their team all sum mer, so oblivious to their own history, they invite my joy. They celebrate first place in July as if that's the ultimate goal. They treat their rickety park, with its 32-inch wide seats that aim away from home plate, as if it's the Louvre. They say things like, "At least we're there every year' or "I don't see your team doing any better' or some thing like that, and I want to put my own hex on them as quickly as pos sible. They also have this annoying ten dency to attract every wannabe intel lectual you have ever run into. Maybe it's the 300-odd colleges lining Boston's Mass Avenue, or maybe it's each egghead's unique understanding of the human condition that attracts them to this team. I don't know. I never studied. But it's annoying. Only old Brooklyn Dodgers fans have as many bittersweet memories, and they're starting to die off. But the Red Sox fans? If procreation was a sport, they would have more titles to get across to the general American the sake of football game? I mean, public for many years. If you wouldn't grow up America. do these things to any other race, why When I saw phrases from some of We are human beings, not mascots for America's fun and games do it to American Indians? Do you my columns printed on banners by really consider it an honor for Indi- American Indians at parades and pro ans to he mimicked and ridiculed for tests of the use of Indians as mascots, Mike Tomczak? The Steelers gave Stewart a signing bonus of $B.l mil lion before this season began, be cause they took a look around, and that was as good as they could have hoped for, even though Stewart was coming off a 7-9 campaign with 11 touchdown passes and 18 intercep tions. Go ahead, try and ask for a raise after a year like that. The Steelers (2-2) have now lost four consecutive home games with Stewart in command - something never experienced here in the 29-year history of Three Rivers Stadium. Stewart completed 15 of 32 passes for 126 yards against a Jacksonville (3-1) defense that also sacked him four times. — I think it's obvious now we're not a very good offensive team," Cowher said. Poor coaching added to Stewart's woes. Confronted twice with fourth and-one predicaments, instead of handing the ball to Jerome Bettis, the Steelers called for trick plays. The first resulted in Stewart being sacked for a four-yard loss, the second in Stewart throwing an incomplete pass. Jacksonville, meanwhile, most everyone's pick to represent the AFC than the Yankees and Montreal Canadiens combined. They seem to multiply with every incredible choke, like the Whos in Whoville who cel ebrated Christmas even after the Grinch stole all their toys. But it's not the same anymore. I haven't lived among them for years, and I guess I am softening with age. I think they arc too. When these people were in their 20s, they were bolder and brasher, convinced of the immi nence of a World Championship. They took the hits in '7B and 'B6, and kept coming. They had energy. They had juice. They had youth. It was fun to taunt them. Now? Now they have that beaten down middle-aged look. Now they are as uncertain of seeing the Sox win the World Series as they are of ever see ing God. Doubt has crept in. Fear too. I see a lot of myself in them these days. Which makes it hard to want to see them get whacked again. I've taken sonic hits over the years too. I don't know how much longer I can hold my disdain, or my perverse joy at their mythic misfortune. The good thing is that I know I don't have to. Right now, as I write this, there is sonic poor college student from out of state listening to some Boston blowhard go on and on about the sure-thing Red Sox. Pedro's the greatest pitcher ever, the Red Sox have the Indians' number this year, the Yankees, and yada, yada, yada. Right now, as I write this, there is another anti-fan being nurtured, ea ger to enjoy another one of their fa mous flops. Who will he the goat? How will it happen? How much suffering will be involved? When I was younger, I could hardly wait. Now? I'm too old. I may even pull for them a little this year. These days, I leave the insects alone. - banner at a recent Indians game in the Super Bowl, has been exposed as a fraud. The Jaguars barely heat Carolina, lost to Tennessee at home and left here fortunate to play a team lacking any kind of offensive punch. After exploding for 41 points against the. defenseless 49ers in the opener, the Jaguars have averaged 19 points a game in their last three games. Now there are reports that Coach Tom Coughlin and Brunell are at odds, because Coughlin has as sumed play-calling responsibility. Brunell's tentative performance spoke eloquently to the friction be tween the two. Beyond a well-aimed seven-yard pass to Keenan McCardell for Jacksonville's only touchdown at the start of the second quarter, Brunel! looked nothing like the projected next Steve Young. There just aren't that many good quarterbacks in the game anymore. A week ago 16 of the 28 teams in competition failed to score at least 21 points. — You can sit there and say, hell, we should run it every snap," said Cowher. — You can't do that in this business." However, that may be where the game's headed - something for the folks in Houston to consider when it's time to buy a personal seat license. MLB PLAYOFF PREDICTIONS National League Championship Series Wiertel: Houston vs. Diamondbacks Hazelwood: Houston vs. N.Y. Mets Snyder: Atlanta vs. N.Y. Mets American League Championship Series Wiertel: Cleveland vs. N.Y. Yankees Hazelwood: Boston vs. N.Y. Yankees inyder: Cleveland vs. N.Y. Yankees World Series Wiertel: Houston vs. N.Y. Yankees Hazelwood: Houston vs. Boston Snyder: Cleveland vs. Atlanta World Champs Wiertel: Houston Astros Hazelwood: Houston Astros Snyder: Cleveland Indians I knew that I had succeeded in get ting my point across, at least to most Indians. I recall a banner reading, "We are human beings, not mascots for America's fun and games" at one pro test in Minneapolis, Minn., 1 said "Yeah," because that is the very word ing I used to end my column a few weeks prior to this protest. I decided to stop writing about it because all that can be said has been said. Many schools and colleges across America have ceased using Indians as mascots. Some major newspapers have stopped printing words like "redskin" on their sports pages. And towns like Champagne- Urbana, 111., the home of the Fighting Illinois and their infamous Chief Illiniwek, have stopped turning the city into a giant poster advocating rac ism. These changes didn't happen be cause I wrote about it. They happened because people went into the street to protest. A valiant lady, Charlene NFL SCHEDULE Week 5 Sunday, October 10 Cincinnati 010 Cleveland 1:00 Chicago O.' Minnesota I:00 Atlanta @' New Orleans 1:00 New England 0' Kansas City 1:00 Dallas o_7' Philadelphia 1:00 Pittsburgh 01` Buffalo 1:00 San Diego o_l' Detroit 1:00 San Fran 0 , St. Louis 1:00 N.Y. Giants 01' Arizona 4:05 Miami Q_P Indianapolis 4:15 Denver 0' Oakland 4:15 Baltim 0" Tennessee 4:15 Tampa bay (cl' Green Bay 8:20 Monday, October 11 Jacksonville N.Y. Jets 9:00 Bye Week: Carolina. Seattle, Washington GAME OF THE WEEK "BATTLE OF THE BAYS" TAMPA BAY VS. GREEN BAY CRAIG HAZELWOOD TAMPA BAY 24-17 JASON SNYDER GREEN BAY 28-20 MATT WIERTEL GREEN BAY 27-20 Teters, a Spokane Indian woman, who was a graduate student at the Univer sity of Illinois, was one of the first to take the protest to the homecoming games. It was because of her that the city of Champagne-Urbana, took down the sign portraying Indians with big noses and the other racist depic tions in their grocery stores, banks and restaurants. The fight is continuing. You will hear from Charlene, Michael Haney, Venon Bellecourt, Phil St. John and many other Indians who are sick and tired of America's ignorance. I am sure many white and black people know that using another race of people as sports mascots is wrong. Deep down in their hearts they know it is wrong. I appreciate the major tele vision networks for not focusing on the fanatical fans painted up as Indi ans in the stands each week. Slowly but surely the message is getting across. Perhaps America will grow up someday.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers