No Debate: Kansas State Got Raw Deal

Let’s see if we can get this straight: Kansas State finishes third in the BCS but doesn’t even get to play in one of the six New Year’s Day bowl games. For this, we had to endure 12 weeks of debate on the new system?

“I would have thought that they would have been able to get into the Cotton Bowl or at least in the Holiday Bowl,” said fellow Big 12 Coach Larry Smith of Missouri. “I think what happened is that with the politics in the conference, there were some deals struck.”

Gagging himself, K-State Coach Bill Snyder called a news conference, then canceled it and issued a prepared statement:

“We are honored to have the opportunity to play in what is becoming a high-profile bowl. The Builders Square Alamo Bowl is in a great city and is played in a great facility. We’ll be matched against a very strong and upcoming title contender in Purdue from the Big Ten.”

Purdue finished fourth in the Big Ten and didn’t make the AP, ESPN/USA Today or BCS top 25s.

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Trivia time: What is the great city in which they play the Builders Square Alamo Bowl?

Badger stiffs: Just in case you think the Rose Bowl lucked out getting UCLA, consider the Bruins’ opponent.

“Wisconsin is the worst team ever to play in the Rose Bowl,” CBS’ Craig James said.

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Slow start: Year II of Fox’s stewardship of the local baseball institution could be shaping up better too.

“The Dodgers have had a rough fall,” writes the Philadelphia Daily News’ Bill Conlin. “Thanks in part to the perception that Fox will send in wave after wave of meddling suits and that [Ruppert] Murdoch will attempt to run his new baseball team the way he runs a newspaper, the managing job fell all the way to world-class bridge burner Davey Johnson.

“Randy Johnson, the truffled cream of the free-agent pitchers, rejected a handsome offer and will be a Diamondback for $52.4 million over four years. Mike Piazza, turned into a June vagabond by his contract demands, signed with the Mets for $91 million. . . .

“By now, you’ve probably guessed that the Dodgers were going to make a move involving a Johnson. In this case, it was doghoused catcher Charles Johnson. . . . When the cards were turned, the Dodgers had catcher Todd Hundley--lots of luck--and right-handed prospect Arnold Gooch. I’m not making any of this up.”

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Can he get a witness? There aren’t many Web pages like Chris Webber’s. In a recent edition, promoted on America Online, Webber and agent Fallasha Erwin asserted that Webber’s traveling companion, not Webber, had been found carrying marijuana through an airport, adding:

“A FILA representative was present throughout the entire process with Chris at the airport.”

FILA dropped Webber as an endorser soon afterward.

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Trivia answer: San Antonio.

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And finally: Stan Kasten, president of the Atlanta Hawks, on negotiations with sponsors seeking to buy naming rights to their new arena: “If you’re asking is everything for sale, yes.”