Back Porch Arena Football

I turned 30 last month. It was a sobering experience. Made all the more so because of how far I've fallen down the totem pole of birthday presents. When I was a kid, I got spectacular birthday presents that I played with for hours. Be it a G.I. Joe Hovercraft or Mike Tyson's Punchout!!, a birthday present offered tangible evidence that this year held all sorts of unique excitements yet to come.

This year I got a lawn mower. Seriously, a lawn mower.

The other day, as I was in the midst of seeding an empty lot next door to my house so I'd have more grass to mow in the future, I decided that turning 30 brought with it all sorts of wisdom. Particularly as it pertains to sports. In fact, I decided that instead of receiving a lawn mower, I should have been given the right to remake all the sports that I watch through subtle rule tweaks. Clearly this makes perfect sense. In fact, if you're anything like me you've probably found yourself sitting around ruminating about how you could perfect sports as well. Here are my seven changes.

This is Leroy Thompson. He's a linebacker for the Columbus Destroyers of the Arena Football League. He will play in ArenaBowl XXI this weekend. But that's not why I mention him today.


No, I mention him today because he is one of the subjects of the Pop Culture Grid in this week's Sports Illustrated, a weekly feature in which SI asks four athletes a series of off-the-wall questions. And this is his answer when he's asked to name the weirdest thing a fan ever said to him:

Sign my breasts

Wow. It's surprising that Arena Football players have to deal with autograph hounds. And it's surprising that Arena Football players have groupies. But it's really surprising that sometimes the two are combined.

The Major League Baseball all-star break is the official low point of the sports year. If you want to watch sports today, you've got the Home Run Derby and ... what?

Well, you've got an Arena Football playoff game, the Chicago Rush against the Los Angeles Avengers. Arena Football is smart to schedule a big game during the all-star break because it's guaranteed to get more attention than it otherwise would

TV news shows are desperate for highlights to fill time. Newspaper sports editors are desperate for stories to fill space. Sports bloggers are desperate for anything to do in their parents' basements. All of those outlets are going to be give much more attention to the Arena Football playoff game than they would on almost any other day of the year.

So why don't more minor sports leagues have events today?

On Sept. 30, 1987, a man named James F. Foster filed a patent described as a "football game system and method of play." The patent filing begins like this:

A new game is disclosed, involving substantially the same rules as American football (e.g., NFL or NCAA) except that kicks or passes into the end zone may be deflected back onto the playing field as a playable ball by a rebounding assembly that surrounds the goalposts.

That patent laid the groundwork for the sport of Arena Football, and that patent will expire on Sept. 30, 2007. So does that mean the Arena Football League needs to be worried about rival leagues taking the idea? I asked Chris McCloskey, an AFL executive vice president.

You'd think if anyone around here was going to write about Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, it would be Ryan Wilson. But I can't pass up the opportunity to share this video, in which Triumph uses New York Dragons quarterback Aaron Garcia as comedic fodder on the red carpet at the Tony Awards:

I don't know if that really was Aaron Garcia of the New York Dragons, although Garcia does have the time to visit the Tonys, as he's currently out with a severe ankle sprain. Garcia's claim to fame, incidentally, is that he was the starting quarterback at Washington State as a freshman, only to lose his job to Drew Bledsoe.

This is Clint Dolezel, the quarterback of the Dallas Desperadoes. Last night Dolezel became the first quarterback in the history of Arena Football (or any other kind of football, I'm sure) to throw 800 touchdown passes in his career.

Here's my question: Is this a record you should be happy about? I mean no disrespect to Dolezel when I say that, but isn't setting the career record for Arena Football touchdown passes kind of like setting the career record for minor league home runs? I don't know anything about him, but I would bet Dolezel would rather have spent the last 10 years as the Cowboys' third-string quarterback.

Interestingly, Dolezel didn't even know when he threw the pass that it was his 800th touchdown. Neither did Willis Marshall, who caught the pass. Fortunately, their teammate, Marcus Nash (the former first-round pick of the Denver Broncos), knew it was a noteworthy ball and grabbed it to give to Dolezel, who will in turn give it to his dad.

The Arena Football blog It's Still Football has a good take.

You may or may not know that Jon Bon Jovi is part owner of the Arena Football League's Philadelphia Soul, assuming you know of the Soul's existence. But even if some part of your brain has dedicated itself to recalling that useless little factoid, you probably didn't expect this:

After Georgia scored a controversial touchdown that took the starch out of a Soul comeback, Bon Jovi gave the ESPN2 crew much more than it bargained for when looking for a reaction shot in the owners' box. Unaware of the camera, Bon Jovi raised both middle fingers toward the officials.

Awesome. It's hard to imagine anyone being that pissed off about an Arena League game, let alone the man who owned the 1980s with his hair-fueled pop rock. I wonder if Debbie Gibson curses out curling officials during the Tim Horton's Brier.

To his credit, Bon Jovi apologized in the aftermath:

"I didn't understand the ruling," he said. Bergeron "did have possession on the play. He fumbled in the end zone. He recovered the ball. I reacted to something I didn't know the rule on."

Bon Jovi said he obviously didn't realize that the camera was pointed at him.

"I apologize for the middle-finger thing," he said. "I didn't understand the rule. It's simple as that. We will be back next week."

Don't get me wrong here: while this sort of behavior is not endorsed for birthday party clowns, teachers, Ohio State coaches, or anyone who works with young and possibly malformed minds, Jon Bon Jovi flipping off referees at an Arena League game is hilarious and strangely charming.

(Via Ben Maller.)