Outside Oberlin:

Pippen in 2000?

So Junior is headed home to Cincy, the Bills cut Andre Reed, Bruce Smith and Thurman Thomas and Scottie Pippen isn't an All-Star.

The sports world is being turned all around and every which way. So what am I going to talk about?

Politics.

Yes, following Michael Jordan's taping of a soon-to-be shown commercial endorsing former NBA star Bill Bradley, I found myself wondering what kind of precedent this might be setting and what other sports figures we can expect to soon be lending their winning smiles and to which campaigns.

Well, Bill Russell also endorsed Bradley, but Jordan's mother is on tape for Gore. Who else might help the VP? I'm thinking Pippen - a superb player in his own right, who finally gets a chance to step out of the shadows of a greater player and promptly self-destructs.

That's a bit harsh, I'll admit. How about Colts (and former Panthers) GM Bill Polian for Ralph Nader? Great ideas, talented, committed, intelligent and you never hear anything about them.

Other strange bedfellows as the realm of sports (entertainment - comedy/drama genre) meets the realm of politics (entertainment - comedy/horror/sci-fi genre):

- Albert Belle for Donald Trump; money to burn and plenty of self-promotion.

- Yogi Berra for George W. Bush; both of them sound interesting, until you realize what they said didn't really mean anything.

- Better yet, Shawn Green for Bush; young and charming, loaded with cash and they always have exactly what they want fall into their lap.

- Bobby Valentine for John McCain

- Muggsey Bogues for Ross Perot

- John Rocker for Pat Buchanan (tell me you didn't see that one coming)

A brief note concerning Super Bowl commercials...

The Super Bowl was once a time of high creativity, as companies kick off new ad campaigns for the coming months. At up to a million bucks a pop, companies made their airtime count. Remember those mock-Unsolved Mysteries Nike ads with Leslie Neilsen involving MJ 'sightings' that were more like a TV mini-series than an ad campaign? They ran once - just once - and that was it.

In the past few years, however, the number of catchy new campaigns (ala the Budwiser frogs/lizards) were slowly being replaced by schlock and - dare I say it - repeats. And those crazy, one-time-only deals? Gone.

But this year - a year when any of the division championships would have guaranteed a first-time Super Bowl winner and when the fourth quarter was worth watching-was a glimmer of hope that the good ol' days may be on the way back.

Sure, there were repeats, but nothing as bad as Monster.com's four repeat performances or Pepsi's mosquito singing "Brown Sugar" four or five times last year. And yeah, there were campaigns that are clearly going to be carried on verbatim for a month or two, but they had some inventiveness and originality to them (the investment firm's 'Road Less Traveled' piece).

Heck, there was even a "one time only" bit when eTrade noted "We just wasted 2 million dollars... what are you doing with your money?" following a chimp dancing to a small boom box as two guys in folding chairs attempt to keep the beat. Yes, good times are here again.

Of course, as Dennis Miller is fond of saying, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.