IS BUYING CROSS-COUNTRY SKIS
Thanks for joining this special time-travel edition of Eagletarian. We're sitting in Raymond James Stadium in Tampa the evening of Feb. 1, 2009, watching Super Bowl XLIII unfold, between the AFC Champion Tennessee Titans and the NFC Champion New York Giants, the game that also has come to be known as the Kerry Collins Classic. Or we were watching it, anyway. The game was suspended with 1:57 remaining in the third quarter, after a large sinkhole opened around the 20-yard line, on the end closest to Dale Mabry Highway.
NFL commissioner Bud Selig is attempting to answer questions from reporters, his hand cupped to his ear and an 
expression of pained puzzlement on his face. Wait a minute ... now we're being told that Selig's expression has nothing to do with the situation, that he in fact has looked this way ever since the senior citizens' early bird special buffet at a nearby eatery ran out of rice pudding just as he completed his main course in late-afternoon.
At any rate, reporters are angry, since the first cracks in the earth appeared before the National Anthem was sung, but the NFL ignored the widening fissure and chose to kick off, though one section of grandstand collapsed and dozens of fans were injured.
Finally, matters came to a head after the Giants tied the game, 13-13, on a 67-yard touchdown pass from Eli Manning to Plaxico Burress. Burress leapt over the sinkhole, executing a triple somersault in midair, but Titans corner Nick Harper, backpedaling, didn't see it in time and fell in, freeing Burress for the easy TD. As Burress casually strolled into the end zone, Fox analyst Tim McCarver ignored the earth swallowing the defender and fretted about whether the fissure had unfairly dampened Burress' speed, as it had threatened to do to B.J. Upton before he scored the tying run in Game 5 of the World Series a few months earlier.
Selig suspended the Super Bowl as soon as the Giants kicked the extra point, explaining that at that exact moment, the situation had become untenable. Reporters demanded to know why it was less tenable then than 10 minutes earlier, when several players on both sides had to be treated on the sidelines after being burned by discharges of super-heated steam and sulphur. Selig shrugged and mumbled something about what a jim-dandy fellow the stadium grounds crew chief was, and how his office analyzed geological data befoere the game that indicated the fissure might not widen past three or four feet until after midnight Then, appearing disoriented, the commissioner demanded reporters "get off my lawn" and that they "remember the Maine."
Selig seems to have no idea when the game might resume. It won't be tonight, he said, even if the sinkhole is filled quickly, because it is already "way past my bedtime" and the network has begun showing "Everybody Loves Raymond" reruns. Selig said he was not inclined to continue the game tomorrow, because he has invited friends over to celebrate his DVD acquisition of the entire series run of "Matlock," followed by a rousing game of whist.
Stay tuned for further developments.
Les Bowen has covered the Eagles for the Daily News since 2002. Before that, he spent nearly 13 years covering the Flyers. It took Les only a few seasons after the switch to figure out that there was no penalty box at the Linc, and that the time really wasn't his, despite what Andy Reid kept saying. Les came to Philadelphia and the Daily News from Charlotte in 1983. In the intervening years, he has pretty much lost track of NASCAR, and his accent. He, his wife Barbara, and their two sons live in Haddon Township, New Jersey.
Paul Domowitch has been with the Daily News since 1982. He has spent most of his 27 years at the paper covering the Eagles and pro football. For the last 10 years, he’s been a selector for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A native of Wilkes-Barre and a graduate of Wilkes University, Domo came to the Daily News from the Fort Worth (Tx.) Star-Telegram, where he covered some god-awful Texas Ranger baseball teams. His first beat at the Daily News actually wa s boxing, which he covered just long enough to lose two sports coats to blood spatter before moving on to football. Domo and his wife Shelley, a University of Oklahoma grad and very dangerous to be around following a Sooner loss, have been married 29 years and have raised 2 terrific daughters – Allison, 26, a lawyer and graduate of Boston University School of Law; and Amy, 23, who graduated from Clemson and works in marketing and sales for a professional baseball team.
