… WOW! Who could we be talking about with an article entitled “In The Crosshairs”? Could it be Dick Cheney … Wayne & Janet Gretzky … Mizzou’s embattled AD Mike Alden ??? …. Yes, all of the above. Mr Swagger apparently triggered an international incident with our last column … All this and more as we “take aim” at a raging plethora of abject bizarreness …. only HERE and just for YOU!
We’ve never met Wayne Gretzky … one of the few bona-fide sports legends that BobLee has not had the opportunity to study up close and personal. We do, however, have a good friend who has been with Wayne and Janet on several social occasions. He 
reported long before the current brouhaha that “The Gretzkys” were incredibly nice and genuine people. We feel it necessary to note his assessment in lieu of this gambling mess.
The subject of sports gambling has been a SSays column on hold for some time. There are very few subjects related to sports on which yours truly is LESS knowledgable. We would rate “sports gambling” between “how high Serena Williams shaves her legs” and “what is Bill Bidwell’s IQ” in our “lack of knowledge of” list.
If you gave me $10 and told me to “take the points” on “the over-under” on tomorrow night’s Sharks v Islanders game, I would have zip zero nada idea what the hell you meant and/or how to begin to do “it”. Nor did I know that in Canada (especially around Edmonton) Janet Jones is non-affectionately known as “Yoko Ono” for luring Wayne out of The Great White North to LaLa Land.
Comparing Janet to Yoko is beyond gaggy. Janet (Jones) Gretzky has been smokin’ since “Flamingo Kid” and she has aged very well since then. Of course so has Mizzus Swagger and Mizzus did NOT bet $100,000 on the Super Bowl. Either Truman Capote or Clay Aiken once said “the rich are different” and I guess that applies to how “they” watch the Super Bowl.
At o
ur house we stocked up on Tostitos, peach salsa, a 24 pak of boneless wings from KFC, and a messa Diet Coke. At the Gretzkys LA-manse (she maintains an LA residence while Wayne keeps a Phoenix home as HC of the Coyotes), Janet apparently called some Joey Baggadonuts in Hoboken and laid down 100K on who would win the coin toss.
When I “get rich” I’m gonna open The Swagger Theatre of The Absurd in Branson and maybe expand our Super Bowl scenario to include “It’s not delivery – it’s Digiorno” …
We hope all this Gretzky gambling mess is nothing more than “rich people being bored and doing really stoopid stuff”. If Wayne Gretzky ends up with a permanent stain on his reputation from all this it will be a shame … but such is the risk with legends, pedestals, and a carnivorous sporting public.
Staying on hockey for a second … Huzzas to The Hurricanes for a truly incredible season so far. They sit atop the NHL in points while being near the bottom in payroll. We’ve always admired Jim Rutherford and the “Canes folks we’ve gotten to know. … It’s still questionable how much “hockey fever” has affected The Triangle. We conducted one of our famous “BobLee Wants To Know … Mall Rat Surveys” recently. Given a list of five sports personalities to identify, we got the following recognition results
- Anson Dorrance
- Ivory Latta
- Caulton Tudor
- Peter Laviolette
- Peter Golenbock
Despite being the best known “Peter” on this list, “Canes and USA Hockey Head Coach Peter Laviolette’s local “lack of” fame indicates still a ways to go for “the hushpuppy and sweet tea” crowd to embrace the primary tenant in “that Canadian Bank’s building across the street from F-Bomb Alley”.
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“The Saga of Prince Armani” – Chapter Two … Blame The AD.
Was this ever predictable … in the aftermath of Prince Armani’s decision to resign as Missouri
’s Head BB Coach, the inevitable “Blame The AD” stories percolate to the surface. MU AD Mike Alden is now “in the crosshairs” over whether he “pressured” Quin to quit. Using an intermediary, Gary Link, (kind of a Eric Montross sorta staff guy) it is now alledged that Alden not so subtly informed Snyder to “quit before we fire you”. Alden, of course, denies the charge. “Prince Armani” to his credit says “wins and losses were why I’m no longer the Mizzou BB coach”.
Note that Alden is being maligned and beleaguered even though he looks normal which refutes the local theory that “ADs are only beleaguered if they look like chipmonks”.
In a side note, Quin’s attorney is named “Wally” … ??? “Wally” … that’s like having a neurosurgeon named “Chip” …
What we find so curious is not yet another “Blame The AD” scenario. ALWAYS BLAME THE AD … ADs, as a species, rank ahead of “refs”, “the media”, and “Dick Vitale” when it comes to “loonie vigilante death squads hunting for heads”. What’s unique about The Mess At Mizzou is the continued involvement of Elson Floyd in the matter. Remember now, Elson is the Ersky Bowles 
of Missouri … NOT the Meezie. How come a “system-wide President” is a principal in “who said what to whom and when did they say it”?
Maybe it’s because Prez Elson made a colossal blunder in crawling out on the “I’m with ya” limb with Quin several years ago. System-wide presidents should probably spend their days schmoozing trustees and attending “How come Johnny still can’t read even though we invited Michael Moore to give our commencement speech?” conferences at Ritz Carltons in Cabo San Lucas.
Also fun to note that … as with UNC’s Matt Mess … the scenario is so predictable
- The loony lynch mob DEMANDS the severed head of the coach …
- The coach’s head is indeed severed per their DEMAND …
- The now headless ex-coach becomes a pitied martyr to the loony mob.
- The evil bureaucrats with the bloody ax immediately become the “bad guys”.
- Proving our solid contention that loonytic fans is loonytic fans is loonytic fans wherever they may be.
- At Quin’s off-campus post mortem, attended by family, friends, “Wally” , and the obligatory crying and confused players; the embattled ex-coach did not reveal who he bought the Thunderbird for in Lawrence last summer. Reports that Paige Laurie was spotted in the Holiday Inn lounge sipping a mai-tai are still unconfirmed.
We’ll keep following this developing mess as it surely gets messier.
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POLITICAL STUFF … (Feel free to skip over this section if it makes you queasy … this material will NOT be on the final exam. BobLee’s political rants are simply a “bonus”)
Memo To Dick Cheney:
Mr VeeP I recommend you put away the shotgun in favor of a flyrod until after 2008. The concept of you OR Dubyah with loaded guns is disconcerting. Nothing smaller than a nuke please! I know you’re 
an outdoorsy Wyoming guy, but no point in riling up that White House Press Corps any more than necessary. Sure, it was unequivocably an accident with plenty of witnesses and sure you did alert the local media immediately; but, well, you know the “rules”. That 18 hour delay before you personally called David Gregory didn’t even qualify for a bronze medal in media cover-up.
We did a quick Google search and the Top Three “curiously never-explained delays in media notification” are, in order:
- Teddy Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne – She Died
- Gary Condit and Chandra Levy – She Died
- Vince Foster’s “suicide” (wink, wink, nod, smirk) – He Died
So see Mr Cheney, your unfortunate hunting accident, while fueling lazy writers of “late night talk shows” didn’t even crack these top three “incidents”. Sure all these “others” involved mysterious and never fully explained DEATHS linked directly to prominent Democrats, but as Conservatives we don’t want to use “their behavior” as our benchmark.
BobLee Sets Off International Incident …
In our previous column we noted that Jimmy Carter had used the King Funeral to formally announced his candidacy for The Biggest Embarrassment In The Democratic Party. We listed 
Howard Dean and Ted Kennedy (refer above to MJ Kopechne) as his primary challengers. Little did we know that former Clinton VP Algore monitors our website. Algore – Internet … we shoulda
known!
Within 12 hours of our announcement, Algore flew to Saudi Arabia and committed outlandish acts of sedition against this country that Alger Hiss would have envived. If you haven’t read about this it might be because David Gregory and his cronies are too busy dressing up like Floyd R Turbo and demanding Dick Cheney be beheaded. If it will get this Tennessee Walking Idiot to shut up and crawl back in his padded cell to count chads, we will acknowledge that Algore IS indeed a viable contender as Greatest Democratic Embarrassment.
jimmy carter was a semi-rational guy when he was algore’s age … how “certifiable” will algore be when he’s jimmy’s age … YIKES!
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Swagger Stumper
Speaking of Flamingo Kid …
What’s the link between Flamingo Kid and The Real McCoys?
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Ann B Davis was “Schultzie” AND “the middle square” in the Brady Bunch …
My Alma Mater celebrated Valentine’s Day with a Homo-Trans-Bi Kiss-Off in front of the Student Union. The DTH account did not mention if “domesticated farm animals” were involved. I’d pay cash money for a picture of Meezie and Asst Chancellor for Christian Persecution Jonathan Curtis in a lip lock. I wonder if Ol’ Roy or John Bunting were involved … PLEEEEZE GOD … NO!!!!!! … and whatabout TYLER … NO NO NO!!!! … I’m SURE this won’t be picked up by any Radical Wolfpack Fundamentalists … surely not!
Have the Winter Olympics started yet?
SSays latest designated hottie – Stacy Keibler – is “en fuego” on Dancing With The Stars. YOUSA … that gal’s got legs that a Chippendale table would die for!
