By Bob Markus

I have more than a passing interest in Sunday's Super Bowl, which has not always been the case. Although I covered 10 Super bowls as a writer for the Chicago Tribune, my interest in the game dwindled to the point where, for several years, I would take my wife to a movie and dinner on Super Bowl Sunday, taking advantage of near-empty movie houses and no-reservations-needed restaurants. One year we saw "Titanic," which I found to be as tedious as the majority of Super Bowls. Another year we saw "Babe," which starred a whole pig, not just the pigskin. But this year is different and on Sunday I intend to be planted in front of my TV set along with most of the rest of America, watching the Pittsburgh Steelers play the Chicago-St.Louis-Arizona Cardinals.

In any ordinary year, I'd probably be rooting for the Steelers, a team I covered extensively in its heyday. I was there for Franco Harris's "immaculate reception," although I can't say in all honesty that I actually saw the play. I remember that the game had been rather dull up to that point, with the Oakland Raiders leading 7-6 and Pittsburgh facing a fourth and long in the final minute. I had stationed myself at the press box door, preparing for a dash to the elevator down to the locker room level. As soon as I saw Raiders' defensive back Jack Tatum swat down Terry Bradshaw's desperation heave, I bolted out the door. Already waiting for the elevator were Steelers' owner Art Rooney and his son, Dan. I was about to commiserate with them when I heard a roar from the crowd. I popped back into the press box just in time to see Harris reach the 5-yard line on his way to the winning touchdown. I had no idea how he'd gotten there. Most of the rest of the knwon world, of course, knew that Tatum had broken up the pass with a trademark viciousness that knocked the ball into Harris's hands. Thank God for instant replay.

After the Steelers won their first Super bowl, I covered their training camp the next summer as they prepared to kick off the exhibiton season with the College All-Star game, an annual event sponsored by my newspaper. When you spend two weeks with a team, sleeping in the same dorm, eating in the same cafeteria, standing on the sidelines at every practice and conducting lengthy interviews with most of the stars, you get to know them fairly well and they get to know you a little bit. At least, when you show up in a crowded postgame locker room down the road a year or two they'll remember your face, if not your name.

I remember once, a few years later, covering a Steelers' Monday night game in Houston and standing outside the dugout entrance to the Steelers' locker, when Bradshaw spotted me as he was leaving the field and said, with a big smile, "Sam Blair, how the hell are you!" Sam Blair was a writer for one of the Texas papers who was about six inches taller than me and resembled me about as much as a wombat resembles a water buffalo. But the point is that Bradshaw knew that he knew me, even if he didn't know exactly who I was.

My favorite player from that team was Rocky Bleier, whom I got to know pretty well. I remember one conversation we had on the subject of fear. Bleier had been wounded in Vietnam, an exploding grenade having injured a foot so severely that he missed an entire season rehabbing it. Bleier said that there was a fear factor in football almost as strong as he'd experienced in Vietnam. It was the fear of failure, he told me, a fear so pervasive that at times a player will welcome an injury that allows him to rationalize that he is not responsible for his poor play, while at the same time fearing the injury will cost him his job. But if Bleier was my favorite Steeler player, my favorite Steeler was Art Rooney, who loved good cigars, good horses, and good stories. The Steelers' owner always made you feel that he was interested in what you had to say, even if what you had to say was not of the slightest interest. He was, there's no other way to say it, a nice man.

Still, with all that pulling me toward the Steelers in Sunday's game, my heart tugs me the other way. I grew up a Cardinals' fan in a city and a time where that was not fashionable. The gulf between Cardinals and Bears fans was just as wide then as the gulf between White Sox and Cubs fans is today, with perhaps a little less animosity. The Cardinals were less despised than ignored by Bears fans. In truth, I liked both teams, but I saw far more Cardinals games, thanks to my father's job. He was an internal revenue agent and, as such, often was assigned to sporting events, presumably to make certain that taxes were being collected and reported on every ticket sold. He would always get a couple of general admission passes to the Cardinals' games in Comiskey Park and I saw several games in 1947, the year the Cardinals won their only championship. The seats were not the best, often in the upper grandstand in left field, where the overhang of the top deck obscured the first 10 to 15 yards. Once, for a Bears' game--this must have been in Wrigley Field--we had standing room tickets and stood along the sidelines.

The Cardinals in those years featured The Dream Backfield, originally comprising quarterback Paul Christman, fullbck Pat Harder, who also was the place kicker, and halfbacks Charley Trippi and Marshall Goldberg. But in that championship season, Elmer Angsman, already a local fan favorite after playing at Notre Dame, replaced Goldberg and starred, along with Trippi, in the 28-21 victory over Philadelphia in the title game. Angsman gained 159 yards in only 10 carries, including a 70-yard touchdown sprint and Trippi scored on a 44-yard run and 75 yard punt return. I later got to know Christman, who became a very good TV analyst.

The Cardinals seemed destined to repeat as champions in 1948, when they went 11-1 in the regular season, their only loss coming against the Bears in the second game. But the team suffered a tragic loss when offensive tackle Stan Mauldin collapsed and died after an opening game victory over Philadelphia, and the championship game was played in a raging blizzard, the Eagles slogging to a 7-0 victory.

The Cardinals were owned by Charles Bidwill, who suffered through a 29-game losing streak during World War II before rising to the top. But as quickly as they rose to glory, the Cardinals returned to mediocrity and beyond. After Bidwill's death, his widow, Violet, inherited the team. She later married a St. Louis businessman, Walter Wolfner, and in 1960 the team was moved to St.Louis. In 1962, Vi died and left the team to her two sons, Bill and Stormy (Charles II). The reading of the will touched off an exceedingly nasty law suit filed by Wolfner, who revealed that the two sons were adopted, a fact of which the two boys were unaware, even though they were as opposite in appearance as Arnold Schwarzenegger aand Danny DeVito in the movie "Twins." Bill was round in face and body, while Stormy was scarecrow thin and long-faced, with a beard covering an unsubstantial chin. The boys also inherited Sportsman's Park Race Track and, in 1972, divided the properties, Bill getting the Cardinals, and Stormy the race track.

I've never met Bill Bidwill and I only know Stormy to say "hello" to, but I renewed acquaintance with the Cardinals as a team after their move to St. Louis. Despite their repeated failures to make the playoffs, the Cardinals were a pretty decent team under Don Coryell. I got to know quarterback Jim Hart, having interviewed him when he was a rookie free agent out of Southern Illinois. Players tend to remember guys who talk to them on the way up and Hart always was my go-to guy in the Cardinals' dressing room.

Another connection I had to the Cardinals was Joe Pollack, who was my sports editor on the Columbia Missourian while I was studying journalism at the University of Missouri. My senior year I covered the football team for The Missourian and Joe and I travelled together in his car to most of the away games. By the time I started covering Cardinals' games, Joe was the publicity director. I always called him the Woody Hayes of p.r. men because, like the Ohio State coaching icon, he would go coatless, with a short-sleeved shirt, in the coldest weather. One unfortunate result of this habit was that when Busch stadium was built to house the baseball and footbll Cardinals it was built without windows in the press box. I spent many a bitter cold December day in that open air press box trying to make my freezing fingers hit the right keys on my type writer. Once, I beat the system by watching the game on TV in my room at the Marriott and walking across the street to the Stadium for the postgame locker room.

After their move to Arizona in 1988 I lost much of my interest in the Cardinals. I knew Denny Green from his days of coaching Northwestern and the Minnesota Vikings and I did watch in fascination his infamous meltdown after the Cardinals blew a big lead to the offensively punchless Bears. But they seemed a long way away from the Cardinals I once knew and admired.

Even when they made the playoffs this year despite a late season collapse, the Cardinals did not much excite me. I knew that Kurt Warner was looking a lot like the quarterback who won two MVPs and one Super Bowl for the St. Louis Rams and I knew he had quality receivers to throw to. But I didn't think that was enough to take a team to the Super Bowl, much less win it. Now I'm not so sure. I'm going to root for the Cardinals on Sunday and I'll even go out on a limb and pick them to win it, despite the Steelers obvious edge on defense. Call it: Cardinals 21; Steelers 17.

Dear readers,

I can't blog this week due to an illness in the house. No, none of us humans is sick, but our computer has developed a cold. The expert we described the symptoms to diagnosed it as a virulent virus from Siberia. His first prescription didn't work and we are now waiting further word. Hopefully, there will be a cure by next week and I hope to see you then. Bob Markus

By Bob Markus

Early Wynn is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Tommy John isn't. Red Ruffing is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Tommy John isn't. And now it looks like he may never be. Not in this lifetime. Baseball's original bionic man, the only player in major league history to have a surgical procedure named for him, was booted off the Hall of Fame ballot yesterday, named on only 171 of the 539 ballots. It was the 15th time that the born-again (in the baseball sense) lefty had been rejected by the voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America.

That throws him into the merciless hands of the Veteran's committee, which meets only every two years and seemingly hasn't selected anyone for admittance since Connie Mack was catching barehanded for the Washington Statesmen. If Tommy thinks he's going to get into the Hall of Fame through the back door any time soon, he should talk to Ron Santo.

If Early Wynn is in the Hall of Fame, Tommy John belongs there. If Red Ruffing is in the Hall of Fame, Tommy John belongs there. I'm not picking on Wynn or Ruffing, nor am I questioning their credentials. I'm sure I could find other examples. But Wynn and Ruffing had careers that closely paralleled John's. Wynn had 300 victories, even though he struggled to get that 300th as mightily as Sisyphus pushing the rock up the mountain. He finally got it on a five and fly and immediately retired. He also had 244 losses, giving him an over-all winning percentage of ,551, slightly lower than John's .555. Ruffing had 273 career wins and a winning percentage of .548. Both Hall of Famers had earned run averages considerably higher than Tommy's .334.

Tommy John finished his 26-year career with 288 wins, which is seventh highest all time for a left hander. The other six are all in the Hall of Fame. He also had a 6-2 record in the postseason. I know that numbers should not always be the determining factor and, in fact, I tend not to vote for players who have longer careers than a Boston politician unless their numbers simply overwhelm me. I'm also aware that there are numbers within numbers. For instance, Sandy Koufax, whom I consider the greatest pitcher of all time, had only 165 career victories. Just 36 of them came in the first six years of a 12-year career. But he led the league in earned run average for his last five seasons and had 97 wins in his last four years.

Then there's Ralph Kiner. For years I questioned whether he belonged in the Hall of Fame. His 369 career home runs is not an impressive number and he played only 10 seasons, the bare minimum for Hall of Fame consideration. But then I look at the fact that he won the National league home run title seven years in a row, beginning in his rookie year and twice had more than 50. On the other hand I always thought Enos Slaughter belonged on the basis of his nickname alone. Country Slaughter. What a name for a ball player! Playing mostly for the St. Louis Cardinals he's probably best known for scoring the game and Series winning run from first base on a single by Harry Walker in the 1946 World Series. He was not a great slugger (169 career homers),probably was a racist, and Eddie Stanky, who managed him for a time in St Louis, detested him, but it's hard to erase the image of the swashbuckling, hard-playing country boy.

Chicago Cubs shortstop Joe Tinker, with his .263 lifetime batting average, probably owes his Hall of Fame status to a poem, but his partners in crime, second baseman Johnny Evers and first baseman Frank Chance both sport Hall of Fame numbers. So there are all sorts of reasons that go beyond numbers for letting a player through the magic door. Which brings us back to what should have been Tommy John's trump card--the surgery; Tommy John surgery. Lou Gehrig had a disease named after him, but he had to die for it. John's surgery, which came in 1974, gave him new life as a pitcher. It also gave hope to countless pitchers who came after him.

The surgery took place in 1974 after John, off to a 13-3 start for the Los Angeles Dodgers, tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow. Using tendon tissue from the pitcher's right arm, Dr.Frank Jobe repaired the injured elbow. It was a first of its kind surgery, but now is an almost routine option for sore-armed pitchers. Before the operation, John was considered a fastball pitcher. Afterwards, he had to change his style, winning more on guts and guile, outhinking the hitters rather than overwhelming them. He managed to win 164 games that way.

So today, I congratulate Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice for their election to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I only wish Tommy John had joined them.

By Bob Markus

Pardon me for mixing cliches, not to mention metaphors, but if you can't go home again at least you can let the mountain come to Muhammad. It's been more than 20 years since I last experienced the excitement and enthusiasm of a college football championship game and I won't be in the press box at Dolphins Stadium Thursday night when Florida and Oklahoma play in the BCS title game. But I could be the first writer to arrive at the postgame press party.

You see, the media headquarters for the national championship game is the Harbor Beach Marriott, which literally is in my back yard. It's right around the corner from my condo apartment and, in fact, there is a sign in the office window of our building proclaiming: This Is Not The Marriott, with an arrow pointing in the right direction. Until last year, when a beach front monstrosity was erected in front of us (I was sorely tempted to pull a Howard Roarke on it), the Marriott was the only building between me and the Atlantic Ocean.

I now must apologize for this digression, but although I know all MY readers know who Howard Roarke is, in case you just stumbled upon this while searching for You Tube, Howard Roarke was the architect in Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead who dynamites his own building because it was not built to his exact design specifications. We artists are touchy that way.

Anyway, although I am not credentialled for Thursday's game, my Football Writer's Association of America card should let me into most media functions, as long as they don't inspect it closely enough to see it expired last Sept. 1. So, although I probably won't do it, I can watch the game on TV and then walk over to the postgame feed while the rest of the ink-stained wretches are still pushing and shoving each other into the interview room at the stadium. By the time they write their stories and catch the last shuttle back to the hotel I could have my stomach stuffed with goodies and be a couple of hours into a good night's sleep, perchance to dream.

And, for me, a No. 1 vs. No. 2 college football matchup is the stuff dreams are made of. I covered a number of them in my 36 years writing sports for The Chicago Tribune. Some of them were disappointing in one way or another. My first 1-2 matchup was more unsatisfying than disappointing. It was the 10-10 tie between Michigan State and Notre Dame in which Ara Parseghian chose to run out the last minute and a half and take the tie, although his Irish had reasonable field position. It was not an exciting game but it featured some bigtime defensive players like Bubba Smith for Michigan State and Alan Page for Notre Dame. Unfortunately for the Irish, star running back Nick Eddy hurt his knee getting off the train in East Lansing and quarterback Terry Hanratty got levelled by Smith and knocked out of the game in the first quarter. That left both teams, Jimmy Raye for Michigan State and Coley O'Brien for Notre Dame with quarterbacks who were not exactly household names, even in their own households.

The only reason I was assigned to the game was that our columnist, Dave Condon, had gone to cover a Muhammad Ali fight in Houston and had not been heard from since. I was sitting on the rim of the copy desk early that week when sports editor George Strickler came out of his office to tell me to pack a suitcase and get to East Lansing right away. There were daily press conferences with Spartans' coach Duffy Daugherty, none of which produced anything of substance, but we did get treated to Daugherty's singing a number called, "My Sister's a Mule in the Mines." I thought my coverage of the Michigan State locker room was as unremarkable as the game (the big story was in the Notre Dame locker room where Parseghian was trying to explain his decision), but somebody must have liked it, because when I got back to the office on Monday morning Strickler called me into his office and told me the Tribune was breaking longstanding tradition and adding a second sports column, which I was going to write.

Another 1 vs. 2 game involving the Irish came two years later, but it was early in the season and ended up of little significance. The thing I remember most about it was a quote from Jack Mollenkopf, the Purdue coach whose Boilermakers were ranked No. 1 to Notre Dame's No. 2. It came at the Friday night press party (an event that was a staple at almost every school at that time, sometimes called a smoker and attended by the coaches of both schools). I was sitting at a table with Mollenkopf and a couple of other writers, when the Purdue coach, who was one of my alltime favorite people, remarked: "I don't know why everyone's so excited about this game. We're going to beat them tomorrow and they're going to end up ranked higher than us." What a prophet! Purdue soundly whipped the Irish, 37-22, but ended the season with an 8-2 record and a No. 10 ranking. Notre Dame, with its 7-2-1 record, was ranked No. 5.

The next year, 1969, produced my personal favorite championship game, The Shootout in the Hills between Texas (1) and Arkansas (2). The game was played in Fayetteville, Ark., and the warmth and hospitality of the townspeople in itself would have made it memorable. The Razorbacks were coached by Frank Broyles and I arrived on site early in the week harboring less than positive thoughts about Broyles, who had coached Missouri for one year after Don Faurot retired, before bolting for Arkansas. Like most Missouri grads I felt a little snubbed. But Broyles quickly won me over.

The night of my arrival, the Southwest Conference football writers held a dinner in Broyles' honor to which I was invited. There were perhaps a dozen of us at the table, including Broyles, and it didn't take long to discover why the writers felt so highly of Broyles that they would take him to dinner. But the clincher came on Friday, the day before the game at the coach's final press conference. After fielding two or three questions about Texas' new-fangled wishbone offense, Broyles held up a hand and said," wait a minute.'' He then left the interview room and came back a few moments later with two cans of film. He then proceeded to show us the Longhorns in wishbone action while explaining the intricacies of the triple option formation.

The game lived up to its billing. With President Nixon in attendance (it was the second time that year I got to meet the President, the first time being at the Kentucky Derby), Texas came back from a 14-0 fourth quarter deficit for a 15-14 victory. The one play I still rember from that game came on fourth and three at the Texas 43 with the Longhorns still trailing 14-8. Although a punt seemed in order, and Texas almost never passed out of the wishbone, Coach Darrell Royal called for a pass and quarterback James Street delivered a 44-yard strike to tight end Randy Peschel, who caught the ball despite double coverage. The Longhorns scored two plays later and, with President Nixon leading the way, were declared national champions. Great game. Great people.

In 1971 I covered two 1-2 games, the first memorable, the second not. On Thanksgiving week-end Nebraska and Oklahoma played what was not only that year's Game of the Century, but also a game for the ages. It was my first trip to Norman since my student days when I covered Missouri football in my final semester. Oklahoma had the No. 1 offense in the country and Nebraska the No. 1 defense. But the Cornhuskers also had the electric Johnny Rodgers, whose 72-yard punt return was a big play in Nebraska's 35-31 victory.

By the time Nebraska played Alabama in the Orange bowl, the Crimson Tide had moved up to No.2. But there was little drama to this game. The Cornhuskers rolled the Tide halfway back to Tuscaloosa in a 38-6 runaway. Years after that tidal wave, the Hurricanes of Miami were involved in consecutive 1-2 games while I was covering college football on a fulltime basis. In both cases the No. 2 team won to claim the national championship. First, Penn State stifled Miami's Vinny Testaverde in a 14-10 Fiesta bowl upset to end the 1986 season. A year later, the Hurricanes, taking advantage of their home field in the Orange bowl, upended top-ranked Oklahoma 20-14.

The two coaches in that game were Jimmy Johnson for Miami and Barry Switzer for Oklahoma. Both would go on to win a Super bowl with the Dallas Cowboys. Although I had little personal dealing with Switzer, I always liked him. He was easy to deal with. If you wanted to talk to an Oklahoma player, all you had to do was ask. I remember once arriving in Norman in midweek for a big game and meeting Switzer in his office. The only other writer there was the AP national football writer, Hershel Nissenson, who asked Switzer, "What time is practice?" "What time do you want it," responded Switzer.