Bowe Couldn’t Handle Corps Curriculum

I take no responsibility for this column.

I’m not writing it--a sheep is.

I don’t want to get too sidetracked with the whole cloning issue--”cloning issue”--get it? But if you could clone athletes, think how it would affect sports.

Let’s say each pro team was allowed to clone one athlete. Cleveland would clone Jim Brown. The Bulls would clone Michael Jordan. The Dodgers would clone sand Koufax. And the Capitals would clone a defensive-minded forward who’d immediately break his heel.

I trust we all know what Les Boulez would do.

They’d trade their clone for Mark Price.

Baaaaaaa.

Our first question comes from a J. Wayne, who asks, “Hold on a minute, pilgrim. What in the Sam Hill was Riddick Bowe doing in the Marine Corps?”

Not much, obviously. And not for very long either. Bowe didn’t seem to be very keen on the “drop and give me 20” portion of the program. Reportedly, Bowe didn’t want any part of Marine boot camp from the first day he got there. Bowe didn’t like being told what to do. And he sat there like a big tub of goo, poor baby.

What did he think boot camp was, Jenny Craig with dorms?

A review of Bowe’s last few years in the ring will show that almost every time he fights, something preposterous happens--either somebody parachutes in the ring, or Riddick’s spin doctor Rock Newman flings somebody out of the ring. In Bowe’s last two bouts, Andrew “Under the Boardwalk” Golota has pounded him like a piece of veal above and below the belt. Golota got hit harder by a cell phone than he got hit by Bowe.

It should be clear that Riddick Bowe realizes his career as a fighter is stalled and that he is lost as to what to do now. I don’t doubt Bowe’s sincerity about wanting to be a Marine since he was a teen-ager. But Bowe didn’t go to boot camp to change careers--Bowe went to lose weight and get in shape for his next fight. Bowe had a romantic notion abut the Marine Corps making him into the man he’d always wanted to be, a man with a sense of duty and discipline. But you have to bring those things with you; the Marines don’t hand out character at the door like a blanket and a pillow.

This was not unpredictable. Bowe is 29 and a multimillionaire. He quite possibly may have passed the time in life when he wants to be told what to do every minute of the day. This may account for why the Marine Corps isn’t crawling with twenty-something multi-millionaires. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t hear Juwan Howard saying, “First I want to win an NBA championship, and then I want to take Guadalcanal.”

The Marines should be embarrassed, grabbing for the cheap publicity of having Bowe in boot camp. And Bowe looks like a pansy, not being able to muddle through basic training. How can he aspire to get in the ring with a lawnmower like Mike Tyson if he can’t even tough this out? (Rock Newman’s observation that Bowe wants to serve his country, and “maybe now Bowe can run for Congress or something” is stupefying.) The saddest thing is that Bowe, who has always seemed such a nice, guileless fellow, seems to be drifting without anchor. Maybe Bowe should join the Navy.

Our next question comes from a G. Steinbrenner, who asks, “Can’t anybody put a muzzle on that Angelos guy?”

It does seem that every time Peter G. opens his mouth, he changes feet. He really ought to shut up with his tasteless lobbying for umpire John Hirschbeck to apologize to Roberto Alomar. Doesn’t Angelos realize that all he’s accomplishing with his goading support of Alomar is to antagonize all umpires? The more Angelenos yaps, the larger Alomar’s strike zone becomes. If I got two strikes on Alomar, I’d “Nuke LaLoosh’ my next pitch-throw it at the mascot, knowing the ump would call “strike three.”

Speaking about the Orioles not being in touch with reality, how about Mike Bordick saying that eh doesn’t expect it to be a big deal taking Cal’s place at shortstop. Is he out of his mind? The gentleman to Bordick’s right has played 2,300 straight games at shortstop. He’s the most popular, most admired, most revered baseball player in, oh, 30 years. And now some power mad manager decides to move him to third base just to show him who’s boss. And Bordick, who’a a pawn in this game, thinks this volcanic situation will just cool off. Oh yeah? Usually when you take the place of a legend, the legend is already gone--he’s not 10 feet away and waiting to see if you can play the position better than eh can. My advice to Mr. Bordick is 1) expect reporters in every city to question you about how you feel pushing Cal Ripken Jr. aside, and 2) don’t hit .210.

Our next question comes from a L. Flynt, who asks, “I just received the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Is this what I’ve paid the $79 a year subscription fee for? What do I tell my son when he asks how come there are no pictures of Cecil ‘Super Can’ Fielder?”

Ask your son if he thinks Big Cecil looks good in a bikini?

Actually, this is one of my favorite bathing suit issues, because it isn’t cluttered with a lot of, you know, words. Oh sure there are some words about things vaguely connected with sports, like bone-fishing--I think the story is called “Bonefishing With A Babe.” But mostly what SI is showing is boobs, no sports; hundred so pages of Tyra Banks, not Ernie Banks.

I imagine SI thinks this is a landmark, principled issue because they have thrown in some real athletes in bikinis, including the bodacious (and monoexpressional) Der Schteffer and some beach volleyball vixens among the tease pony models in high heels. I hope in an upcoming issue they give equal photographic time to naked centerfielders in in exotic spring training locales scratching their groins, romping in the whirlpool, and stretched out on the training table in fishnet thongs receiving a deep tissue massage, with an accompanying text: “Carnal Pleasures Of The Emerald Chessboard.”

Our last question today comes from a T. Kornheiser, who is confused by recent paradoxical statements by the Capitals coach, Jim Schoenfeld. “Mr. Schoenfeld lashed out at recent criticism of the Washington Capitals, saying that people who don’t attribute the Caps’ sorry showing to injuring “have a complete lack of understanding of our team.’ Yet all season long Mr. Schoenfeld has insisted that injuries are no excuse for the team’s record. I’m just wondering, as the Moody Blues once said, “Which is real, and which is an illusion?”

Whoa! Hey, Schoney, I apologize for that question.

That was the sheep writing.