Monday, February 9, 2009

If the Pro Bowl Happened and Nobody Cared, Is It Worth Thinking About?

The Pro Bowl was played yesterday, which I know not because of any interest in the contest, but merely because the Super Bowl was a week ago, and I happened upon it as I flipped between Out of Sight and some really bad movie about an evil 12-year-old (not The Good Son).

Could there be a more boring all-star game than the Pro Bowl? Every sport's all-star game is a bloated whale over-larded with festivities that don't make me feel particularly festive, but has there ever been an iconic moment, anything at all worth seeing, in Hawaii? The all-star games in basketball and baseball have had lots of memorable moments through the years --Charlie Hustle smashing into that catcher who was never the same afterward, Torii Hunter's over-the-wall catch on Barry Bonds a few years ago, John Kruk's at-bat with Randy Johnson, Magic's return, Isaiah Thomas freezing MJ out of the offense and earning his hatred forever-- but I can't remember anything ever happening in the Pro Bowl. If you asked me to describe a recent game, I'd tell you something like, "There was a big comeback a couple years ago, from like 10 or 28 points down. I can't remember which team it was. I'm not sure if the team that came back won or not. And then a few years before that, there was a big blowout. And there was also a bunch of close games in there."

It's typical to follow up such complaints with a buffet of options for improvement, but I don't really think it matters all that much one way or another, so I will offer none.

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