Last Monday, I tuned into The Jim Rome Show during lunch. It was the day after Kobe Bryant's buzzer-beater had staked the Los Angeles Lakers to a 3-1 lead in their best-of-seven series with the Phoenix Suns.
I figured Rome, whose show broadcasts from Los Angeles, would be imbibing in the Purple Passion with heavy hand, but what the hell. It was only days before his annual Smack-Off and seemed as good a time as any to get in my own yearly smack fix. Besides, the New York sports station to the left on the dial and the Boston one to the right were both on commercial break. Rome was conveniently in the middle, an uncharacteristic position for him.
Take his views on the Lakers. For a seasoned sports guy, Rome did the unfathomable that day. He proclaimed the series over. Forget about the possibility of a Suns comeback, that a 3-1 deficit has been overcome seven previous times in NBA history. Maybe if Van Smack acted like he'd been here before, he would have realized he was.
These same Phoenix Suns faced first-round elimination against the Lakers in 1993 as the star-gazing young California native first set eyes upon the City of Angels. The Suns went on to take three straight games and that best-of-five series. Nonetheless, Rome wasn't buying into any of it on this Monday afternoon. It's not what the Clones wanted to hear.
Sure, this tunnel vision goes on in other places. In my own New England pasture, the host of Boston's top-rated morning sports program hung a "Closed For The Season" sign on the American League East last July when the Red Sox held a 5½ game lead over the New York Yankees. You would think a long-time New Englander who dates back to 1978 when the Red Sox lost a 14½ game lead at about the same point in the summer would know better, but the shock value draws callers.
So too have partisans of heavy Super Bowl favorites from the 1968 Colts to the 2001 Rams regaled themselves in the assurances of the house sage whose prognostications held all the certainty of fact. We can excuse these wayward prophets because many had never been there before, nor have they since. But Romey has, which makes his premature ejaculation of the tongue all the more inexplicable.
Don't get me wrong, Jim. It's okay to have a take. Just don't suck. Those are your two rules, are they not? Try following them every now and again yourself. If your take is going to be, "This series is over," there better be no comeback. Next time I want a forecast with that kind of accuracy, I'll ask Enron's CFO for his future earnings outlook.
Oh, I know, you had a busy week with your annual Smack-Off and all. What's that make now, Romey — twelve? I'm sure this taps your creative juices, what with lining up the same callers and following the same rules year after year after year. Let's see, do I want to put Jeff in Richmond up first smacking on Sean the Cablinasian, or go with Rachel in Houston smacking on Sean the Cablinasian? Looks like there are just so many ways to sneak old Sean into the winner's circle without exposing your man-crush on him.
Twelve years is quite a spell to keep the Iafrate Support Group up and running. Think about it, Van Smack: that's longer than it took Jethro Bodine to pass second grade while trickin' Uncle Jed into thinkin' he wuz in high school.
Hey Clones, nothing says "I have a life" better than laying on your top bunk rehearsing retread smack for a week, then sitting on hold for 90 minutes just to recite it verbatim with an arrogant undertone like you're pissed you had to miss this wave to make an obligatory phone call.
Well, Romey, your wave came and went. We called it Y2K and it washed away all your creativity. All it left were those pregnant pauses in your shtick that are more like memory lapses as you think up a fifth and sixth different way to say the same joke. Next time, stay home and Huge E-Mail it in. That way, T-Rodge can just read them off and maybe cut down on all the dead air. I bet your wife would like to see more of you around the house anyway after six weeks of vacation. No? Well, you can always live in your car like Jeff In Phoenix On The Car Phone does.
Speaking of Jeff, how long do you think he kept reciting this year's Smack-Off routine into that car phone mouthpiece of his before realizing you cut him off to pimp product? Ouch, that had to hurt! Well, let me close in a way Jeff never got a chance to: thanks for the vine and I am out.
Rack me.
While you're at it, rack the Phoenix Suns.
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