Dear. Mr. Petrino

Dear Mr. Petrino,

Woo Pig Sooie!

Congratulations on a great football season last year.

If it wasn’t for those two losses, you would’ve been perfect.

But as it turns out, you were nowhere near perfect.

Hey, we’ve all been there.

Ok, I’ve never made an 18 million dollar mistake.

But I did buy a stock once that lost 20% in one day.

Once.

Does that count?

Hey, I get it.

That girl is hot.

And you are over 50.

And she is under 30.

But come on man.

You were the head football coach at the University of Arkansas.

Riding around that college town.

On a motorcycle.

Without a helmet.

With a 25-year old hot blonde on the back of your bike.

Who do you think you are, Bruce Springsteen?

Born to Run is just a song.

Not a lifestyle.

What the hell are they putting in that Arkansas drinking water anyway?

Slick Willie thinks it’s called the Oral Office.

And now you?

Hey, I get it.

That film room can get awfully cold at night.

And you’re a man.

And a man needs what a man needs.

But in your case, what you needed was a reality check.

Men in Arkansas fool around with women young enough to be their daughter all the time.

Sometimes it might even be their daughter.

It’s Arkansas.

I get it.

Are you the first man to have an affair?

Of course not.

Are you the first man to have an affair with a co-worker?

Of course not.

Are you the first man to have an affair with a co-worker that you hired?

Of course not.

Are you the first man to have an affair with a co-worker that you hired, while she is engaged to somebody else?

Of course not.

Not in Arkansas.

Hey, I get it.

But who taught you how to cover your tracks, John Edwards?

Let’s take a ride down timeline avenue.

And you better wear a helmet.

March 28, 2012:  Jessica Dorrell gets hired as a “student-athlete development coordinator”.

Whatever that is.

Not exactly breaking news.

At the time.

In fact, we probably never would’ve heard of Ms. Dorrell if it wasn’t what took place on April 1.

No foolin.

That was the day you apparently zigged.

When you should’ve zagged.

And that motorcycle accident left you with one whale of a headache.

And a real pain in the neck.

Two days later you step up the mic and you tell the Arkansas media that it’s all good.

Just me and my hog out for a ride.

Nothing to see here.

Actually you’re real words were:

“It was a situation where I don't remember a lot about exactly what happened.”

Did Bill Clinton write that for you?

You don’t remember exactly what happened?

Really?

I guess that short term memory loss was real short.

Because just three days later you said:

"Today, I've acknowledged this previous inappropriate relationship with my family and those within the athletic department administration."

Oh really?

You’ve “acknowledged” it.

To your wife?

And your four kids?

And the athletic department?

Ddi you acknowledge that you gave Dorrell a $20,000 “gift” to buy a car?

We found out about that on April 10.

And did you acknowledge that in the last seven months you and little miss hottie had exchanged 300 phone calls.

And 4,300 text messages.

We found out about that on April 12.

4,300 text messages!

Who are you my 14-year-old daughter?

Amazingly, coming off one of the best football seasons in school history, the University of Arkansas had seen enough.

Just nine days after you stepped out over the line.

In that chrome wheeled, fuel injected, suicide machine.

The school ripped the bones from your back.

And your neck too.

Fired.

With cause.

You and that tramp may have been born to run.

But the Razorbacks wanted nothing to do with it.

On April 10, Jeff Long, the school’s athletic director, said:

“Coach Petrino engaged in a pattern of misleading and manipulative behavior designed to deceive me and members of the athletic staff, both before and after the motorcycle accident.”

Gone in 60 seconds.

Actually nine days.

Now as part of your contract, the school would owe you a cool $18 Million if they fired you.

And under normal circumstances Judge Judy probably would’ve given it to you.

But there is nothing normal here.

Instead of dragging this thing out.

And with your hand firmly implanted in that cookie jar.

You finally did the right thing.

For once.

You did the walk of shame.

Waiving the right to challenge the firing.

And waiving the right to all that money.

That you didn't deserve.

After all, you are no longer a Hog.

You are now just a Pig.

The Voice

Yesterday was the worst day in Dodgers history.

For now.

It had nothing to do with what happened on the field.

It was what was missing right above it.

In the press box.

For just the second time in 63 years, Vin Scully missed a Dodgers home opener.

In 1977, the masterful announcer missed that game to broadcast The Masters golf tournament.

This year his absence was due to something far more significant.

A cold.

Ok, “just” a cold.

But enough of a cold to keep him home.

And that was news.

National news.

In fact, the report I heard this morning went something like this:

Andre Ethier’s 8th inning homer lifted the Dodgers to a 2-1 win over the Pirates.  Dodgers announcer Vin Scully missed the game with a bad cold.

Not too many announcers make headlines when their fever gets a little high.

But Vin Scully is not like any announcer.

He is the announcer.

The greatest announcer in sports history.

I’m sure the good people in Detroit might debate that.

Maybe St. Louis too.

But as a kid who grew up in Los Angeles.

There was nothing better than snuggling up to your radio to listen to the sweet sounds of Vincent Edward Scully.

You see kids, back in the day, we had this device called a transistor radio.

It kinda resembled an iPod.

I suppose.

Minus all of the bells.

And all of the whistles.

But what the transistor radio did do was let you listen to Dodger baseball as you went to bed.

April through September.

October if you were lucky.

From the opening theme song:

It's a Beautiful Day for a Ballgame,

for a ballgame, today.

The fans are out to get a ticket or two

From Walla Walla, Washington to Kalamazoo

To the Farmer John commercial at the end.

Where this Jewish kid learned all about “butt and shank portions.”

There was nothing like listening to a Dodgers baseball game.

But as much as I loved Garvey, Lopes, Russell and Cey.

And as much as I cursed the hated Giants.

Even before I knew how to curse.

Dodger baseball was all about one thing.

Vin Scully.

You think Smokey Robinson has a smooth voice.

Try Vin.

Whether it was Kirk Gibson’s “improbable” and “impossible” homer in ’88.

Or a story about nothing.

Vin made every baseball inning special.

And he still does to this day.

Now 84, Vin doesn’t do as many road games as he used to.

In fact, I’m not even sure if he leaves the state of California anymore.

But when it comes to baseball at Dodger Stadium you can count on two things.

Expensive parking.

And Vin Scully.

Except for yesterday.

And that scares me.

I’ve had the good fortune to meet Mr. Scully.

Several times.

And every time it’s an honor.

For me.

After all, Vin was the man who put me on the map.

Even if he doesn’t know it.

You see, back in 1993, I was a young pup TV guy.

Working at the Dodgers affiliate in LA.

On the night of July 3rd.

A Friday night.

Vin’s broadcast partner and Dodgers hall of fame pitcher Don Drysdale died of a sudden heart attack.

It was my job to quickly put together the obit segment to honor this fallen star.

So I scrambled to find the appropriate video.

And I scrambled even more to write the appropriate words.

As soon as that was done, I faxed the script.

From our studio in LA.

To Mr. Scully.

On the other side of the continent.

Then I waited.

And waited.

Until it was time for Vin to read the words I had written.

Finally, when our video feed came up, I heard his voice.

And for the next two minutes.

Which felt like two hours.

He read every word I wrote.

Word for word.

Without changing one.

Now considering the tragedy we were covering, there wasn’t anything to celebrate.

But as a budding writer, hearing Vin Scully take the words from my head and have them come out of his mouth.

That was more than I ever could’ve imagined.

The piece turned out really well.

So well, I actually won an Emmy Award for it.

My first.

There’s an old saying that a great voice can read the phone book.

I would have to agree.

Get well soon Vin.

A League of Her Own

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

The movie.

Did you see it?

I did.

I had to.

Hey, if I’m gonna claim Robert De Niro as my favorite actor.

I had to see it.

In fact, I have to see any movie with De Niro in it.

No matter how many thumbs down Ebert gives it.

My love of De Niro is so bad.

I even own the DVD for the Bullwinkle movie.

Not the Blu-Ray.

Just the DVD.

You gotta draw the line somewhere.

But unconditional love is well... unconditional.

You know, that whole in sickness and in health thing.

Hey, just because Bobby D makes a stinker.

Doesn’t mean I don’t have to smell it.

That’s the way I am with De Niro.

U2.

Bruce Springsteen.

The Oakland Raiders.

And the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.

Love is love.

And that love is blind thing may explain why I was sitting in front of the TV on Tuesday night.

Watching women’s basketball.

Yes, women’s basketball.

You see, for the second straight year, my beloved Irish women were playing in the National Championship game.

Last year they lost a heartbreaker to Texas A&M.

This year, they were facing Baylor.

Another team from the Lone Star State.

A school with the biggest star in the women’s game today.

Literally.

Six-foot-eight Brittney Griner.

But Griner is not all size.

She is substance too.

As a freshman, she recorded the first triple-double in school history.

34 points, 13 rebounds and 11 blocks.

11 BLOCKS!

As a sophomore, she led Baylor to the Final Four.

For only the second time in school history.

But this year, as a junior, Griner has taken this party to another level.

With a win Tuesday, Baylor would become the first team in college basketball history to finish the year with 40 wins.

And no losses.

The first team in history!

Men or women.

I wasn’t aware of that stat until Tuesday night.

But ESPN made sure I wouldn’t forget it.

They must’ve brought up the 40-0 thing... at least 40 times.

But hey, it’s a stat worth repeating.

Especially for someone like me who is hardly a fan of this sport.

Back in the day, watching women’s college basketball was worse than water torture.

With all due respect to the great Cheryl Miller.

If you thought Rocky and Bullwinkle was bad.

Try watching any women’s basketball game from the 70s or 80s.

ANY game.

But thankfully that has all changed.

These ladies that played on Tuesday night got some serious game.

Well, some of them.

Ok, a couple of them.

I know, it’s not the NBA.

It’s not men’s college basketball.

It’s not even good boys high school basketball.

But these women play the game right.

No smack-talking.

No neck tattoos.

No taking five steps before a layup.

Just good sound fundamental basketball.

Minus the high-flying, 360, between the legs, double-reverse, dunking stuff.

Except for Griner that is.

Just a few weeks ago she became only the second woman, ever, to dunk in an NCAA Tournament game.

In fact, she’s dunked six times in her college career.

This after 52 dunks during her senior year of high school.

This girl is borderline unstoppable.

Her game is more Shaq than Shakira.

Even if she sounds more Bernie than Brittney.

This girl can really play.

And she put on a whale of a show for the world to see on Tuesday night.

Or at least the people that had nothing else to watch.

Griner finished with 26 points, 13 rebounds and five blocks to lead the Lady Bears to the National Championship.

Before the game I asked my kids what you call a lady bear.

You know, like a female deer is a doe.

Or a female chicken is a hen.

They informed me that a lady bear is... a lady bear.

Hence the nickname.

The only person who came close to matching up to Griner on Tuesday night was Rebecca Lobo.

The ESPN sideline reporter.

Lobo is listed at 6-foot-4.

But courtesy of some heels, I'm guessing, Lobo stood nearly eye-to-eye with Griner for the post-game interview.

Notre Dame coach, little Miss Muffet McGraw, also wore heels on Tuesday night.

But when your name is Muffet, you need a little more than a pair of pumps to intimidate your opponent.

Especially when the star of that opponent wears a size 18 shoe.

A men’s size 18.

I can’t tell you the next time I will watch a women’s college basketball game again.

From start to finish.

As I did on Tuesday.

But it sure did beat Rocky and Bullwinkle.