by Dennis Freeland
went to Montreal
last week for a newspaper convention. I thought I'd write about the experience
of baseball français. But the Expos left for Florida the day I arrived.
I did take the Metro out to Olympic Park and walked around the stadium with
the nonworking retractable roof. People in Montreal often refer to Olympic
Park as "The Big Owe" -- taxpayers are still paying for the complex
built for the 1976 Olympics (the one with Sugar Ray Leonard and Nadia Comaneci).
That was the same year Memphis opened Mud Island. By the way, the Expos
ownership says it has to have a new stadium or the team will have to move.
Does all this sound slightly familiar?
This is football season in Canada. The Alouettes opened their season last Friday night. I thought about going to Olympic Park for that game, but it was the CFL and I've been there/done that. Instead I went to see the band Oranj Symphonette (Dave Brubeck's son plays bass) at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. Evidently a majority chose jazz over football. Only 7,000 showed up to see a win over Hamilton. The ownership of the troubled CFL franchise ownership group says it has to average 17,000 or the team will shut down again.
At the convention I read a sports column from a paper out west. The piece was written the week after Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning announced he was staying at UT for his senior season. The writer made a reference to the quarterback's "happy feet" and insinuated that Manning is afraid of a pass rush. Now, that unfortunate phrase "happy feet" can be traced back to ESPN analyst Craig James. His comments, which have been thoroughly refuted by almost every expert and coach in the country, continue to make the rounds -- even in Idaho!
James made a mistake (although I doubt he will ever admit it -- experts aren't allowed to be wrong). His comment is an unfair albatross hanging around Manning's broad neck. Those who really count -- Tennessee coaches, players, fans, and NFL coaches and scouts -- realize that Manning is a much better quarterback than Craig James is a football analyst.
And, by the way, Montreal is the greatest city in North America. Ask any expert.
Oilers Respond
A public-relations executive in the front office of the Tennessee Oilers called last week to "correct a couple of things" in our sports column, "Inauspicious Beginnings" (June 19th issue). The column questioned the NFL team's decision to "rush through an introductory press conference/autograph session" and pointed out that Oilers owner Bud Adams seemed unprepared for the event, mispronouncing the name of Memphis Mayor W.W. Herenton in the process.
"We didn't rush through an introductory press conference -- I don't think an hour is rushing," the Oilers rep said. "Mr. Adams is 74 years old. I think it was saying a whole lot that he was even there. We could have introduced the logo to the state of Tennessee without him, but he wanted to be there. He had been on the road for a few days and he wasn't his usual chipper self.
"We thought the event was planned out pretty well. It was not a public conference, it was a press conference. We weren't looking to have a party with the public. We don't think of Memphis as an afterthought. We've been to that city several times. We want to be Tennessee's team. We want to cultivate the whole state and not just the city of Nashville."
On the issue of NFL expansion, the Oilers official said: "I don't know if Memphis got a vote or didn't get a vote, but I don't think that is important at this point. I think what is important at this point is that the NFL is coming to Tennessee and will be playing in Memphis and I think that is what we should be talking about and not dig up things that happened four or five or 10 years ago. However long ago that that happened."
We hate publications which always have to have the last word, but if we could just make three quick points: (1) Regardless of his age, Adams is a shrewd businessman. If he had been better prepared, if the press conference had not been held in the hot midday sun, and if he had been better rested, the first major Oilers press conference might have come off a little more impressively. (2) In our newsroom we found out about the press conference (at which the first question came from a moving executive looking for work) approximately four hours before the event began. (3) The Oilers need to understand that the way this city was treated by the National Football League over three decades cannot be swept under the rug, and neither the media or the sports fans here will accept revisionist history about how the owners voted.
Down The Stretch
Hiring Pepper Rodgers to head up Memphis operations is the smartest thing the Oilers have done since beginning negotiations to play in the city. Rodgers knows how to sell tickets in Memphis and he understands our town's bruised psyche. It's been more than a decade, but at one time Rodgers was riding high as the successful coach of the USFL Showboats. Too bad for Pepper and the city that the league folded. You can buy Cuban cigars in Montreal, but they aren't cheap. At the upper end, they go for $20-$30 Canadian (approximately $14 -$22 in U.S. dollars). Bringing them back through customs is a snap, or so we hear.