Take Your Pick — XFL or WWF — It’s all the Same
BY ZACH PRETZER

I have to admit that I haven’t watched a great deal of professional wrestling. Since its inception, I have also unintentionally associated the sport, if you would like to call it that, with an extremely low intellectual level and a waste of time. After all, I rarely have time to watch television, but when I do I’d rather spend it watching something constructive such as The Simpsons...err...I mean South Park…err…never mind.
The point is, when I heard that the WWF President Vince McMahon announced that he was going to start an “alternative” football league, I was pretty damn intrigued. Being from Cleveland, it has been quite a long time since I have had any interest in watching any form of football, so I thought that just maybe this new league would be worthy of my viewing attention.

Before I go any further, let me say that I have landed upon Monday Night Raw or Smackdown! a few times when flicking through the channels, and I will admit that I think The Rock is a hell of an entertainer. He doesn’t impress me enough to make me actually plan my Monday, Thursday or Sunday evenings around professional wrestling, but he puts on a good show — a quality guy’s soap opera, if you will. But anyway, it is for this reason — the fact that the WWF, as much as I despise it, could produce something that was somewhat intriguing to me — that I gave the XFL, or the Xtreme Football League, a chance to spark my interest.
In fact, an average of 10.3 percent of U.S. television homes were tuned in at any given moment two Saturday nights ago for the first XFL game between the Las Vegas Outlaws and the New York/New Jersey Hitmen. The percent of viewers in itself was quite an accomplishment for NBC, as they brought home a prime-time victory over the networks — but was this rating really a victory for the XFL? 

I would argue that the answer to this question is quite easy. If my reason for watching the game is similar to a significant percentage of the people who tuned into the first game, then mere curiosity could explain why the league got such a high rating for the first week. The league’s inaugural game was hyped-up well in commercials on NBC and through other sources, such as ESPN and espn.com, so it is no wonder that people had an interest in watching the contest. 

Let it be known, however, that soon after I tuned into this game I had an incredible feeling of guilt — similar to the brief but striking feeling of guilt I receive when I happen to land on the WWF channel and actually leave it there. I’m not talking about the feeling of guilt when my conscience says, “Hey man, you should be studying,” or, “Wassssssssssssup, why don’t you ever call your parents?” rather it was a simple feeling that if I had been fooled into watching this game then I must be a complete idiot. 
I haven’t really been excited about watching a football game since I tuned into an Ohio State Buckeyes game versus the Michigan Wolverines a few years ago. Ohio State was on their way to having a shot at a national championship before suffering a humiliating pummeling at the hands of the Wolverines. The only game before that which I remember being really excited about watching was when the Browns played the Denver Broncos in Cleveland’s last AFC Championship appearance in the ’80’s. Well, as you might know or not know, a horse-lipped quarterback by the name of John Elway thought it would be fun to drive 90 yards down the field in the closing minutes of the game and wash away any hopes I ever had of seeing Cleveland in the Super Bowl. That game really pissed me off, and the Ohio State game was the icing on the cake. So needless to say, it took me a lot of nerve to finally get pumped up to watch another football game. 

After tuning into NBC at the prime time 8 p.m. slot, it didn’t take very long until I began to hate myself. I thought the new rule changes that the XFL promoted would make the game more interesting. Instead, I was bored off my ass. 
It didn’t start that badly, though. The first new rule change they exposed was the opening kickoff. Rather than the teams’ captains flipping a coin to see who gets the ball first and which team defends what goal, they had two players, one from each team, sprint to the center of the field from opposite ends. Whichever team’s player reached the 50-yard mark first and picked up the ball won the choice of kicking or receiving. To me, that seemed pretty cool and different than the usual boring flip of a president’s head.
However, the other rule changes that the leagues told about, such as no fair catches or touchbacks and faster play clocks did little to make the game more exciting. First of all, the fast play clocks only created more delay of game penalties by both teams, and thus, the game was slower than it would be if they had the normal amount of time to snap the ball. And secondly, there were virtually no plays in which the touchback and fair-catch rule had any significance. 
The point at which it became apparent that the XFL was really not dissimilar to the WWF was when the cameramen focused more on the scantily-clad cheerleaders than on the game. That, and the fact that the Governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura, was a commentator quickly made me realize that the XFL is no less a circus than the WWF.
Yes, the outcomes of the games aren’t fixed, but the carnival-like atmosphere reminds me of everything the WWF provides to the educated television viewers of America. Perhaps other professional sports leagues can learn something from the league. The league’s emphasis on the fans is the only thing it has going for it, and concentrating on the fans is indeed a way to get people to tune in. That is where all of the WWF’s success can be attributed to.

However, I think that the ratings of the second week of play, in which they plummeted by over 50 percent, speak for the large number of people that were disappointed with the XFL. It was a good idea, but it needs an incredible level of improvement in order to get me to ever watch another XFL game. Hey, maybe if they put The Rock at defensive end...

How a Baseball Fan Survives the Long, Cold Winter
BY NICK STILLMAN

If I would consider myself a large sports fan, I’d say I’m an enormous baseball fan. Aside from traditional winter challenges like wielding off seasonal depression, cold hands and wet socks, part of my problem with winter is figuring out how to occupy myself without the aid of televised baseball.
For the serious baseball addict, winter is a strange and abstract season with no 7:30 p.m. gametimes to dictate where to be in the early evening — a daunting lack of structure for the hardball lover. Hockey tends to be ubiquitous on ESPN, something that may please Canucks and pockets of people in Minnesota, but aside from spectacularly voyeristic brawls, the sport isn’t all that entertaining to watch on television.
That leaves basketball as the only remaining major sport to try and get into during the offseason. And aside from my colleague’s complaints in last week’s Review that NBA shooting and scoring averages are way down this year, it’s actually a decent alternative.
For the first time in a while, NBA basketball is as compelling the college game. The Bulls’ dynasty is long gone and no team has a clear path paved to the Finals like the Lakers did last year. Mercifully, questions of who would step up as the next Jordan have fizzled and the league seems content with its plurality of young superstars like Vince Carter, Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, Chris Webber and Allen Iverson.
For baseball fans aching for October-esque drama, the NBA All-Star Game was a shocking contribution. The game has become notorious for its utter lack of defense, strategy and heart shown by the players. Lately it’s developed into a spectacle — a self-indulgent offensive showcase where the players can dazzle without much worry of being gangster slapped by the lax defense.
The 2001 All-Star game was different, though, and hopefully will breathe some life back into the East-West rivalry, which lately has developed into a looming question of whether the East can hang with the West at all. The All-Star Game proved they can. 
After being down by double-digits for most of the first half, the East mounted a spirited and relentless comeback. Sure, Carter had a few nasty dunks and Iverson weaved through a puzzled defense like water through their fingers, but the restoration of some life into the East was sincerely a team effort.
Interestingly, it wasn’t red-hot Game MVP Iverson who nailed the crucial jumpers late in the game — it was his buddy, Nets point guard Stephon Marbury.
The game was so good because both teams clearly wanted badly to win. So did the coaches, and doubly intriguing was to observe who they chose to put on the floor for the crucial moments. When the West had a chance to win with a last shot, it seemed like Kobe would be the guy until he deferred to an open Webber, who blew a point-blank shot that would have won it.
The game’s outcome got me to thinking — maybe a team from the East really can give the studs from the West a run for their money. Of the top four teams in the East — Philadelphia, New York, Milwaukee and Miami — Philly’s the only team with a legitimate shot.
But they’ve got a damn good shot. They’ve played pretty well against the elite from the West and have been consisitently excellent all year. Most importantly, they might be the most balanced team in the NBA. Iverson, the now-healthy Eric Snow and Aaron McKie handle most of the load on offense and they’re one of the league’s most tenacious teams on defense.
Moreover, yesterday’s addition of Dikembe Mutombo will make them the best defensive team in the East, possibly in the NBA. The big man can block shots at will and steal boards among the trees. They had to relinquish forwards Toni Kukoc and Theo Ratliff among others to get him, but Mutombo adds intangible leadership and intimidates the hell out of anyone in the paint.
Philly, matched up with either Sacramento or Portland — the cream of the Western crop — promises to be a terrific finals. And like a breath of clean, fresh air, the playoff stalwarts — the Lakers, the Heat and the Knicks — will probably be nowhere in sight.
It’s about time. Teams with new and young cores like Philly, Dallas and Denver are finally showing some muscle after years of futility, making for a refreshing change of pace in the league and lending hope to teams like the hapless Clippers, who (gasp!) have a dynamic core of less-than-drinking-age talent and a shockingly bright future given their penny-pinching owner.
So try and relax, baseball diehards, it’s possible to fill your television timetables with something other than ESPN Classic’s constant reruns of Bucky Dent’s playoff homer from 1978. That other sport that overlaps with baseball’s opening day is actually pretty entertaining now that some parity has balanced the powers. For now, keep the Cracker Jacks and hot dogs in the freezer — they can wait until April.