The NHL is sort of like my baby

Sports Baby has started teething and it is not at all what I expected.

At some point in my life I got the idea that teething is a horrible process that causes unspeakable suffering for babies and heartbreaking aggravation for parents.

I envisioned unwitting babies pushed to the end of their tiny little ropes by crippling pain brought on by their toothy terrors bursting from their subterranean hiding holes by tearing through baby's poor, defenseless gums like a vicious mutant worm blasting through a foot-wide brick wall. And oh the blood.

Then I learned that teething takes more than six months, sometimes close to a year, and I wondered how babies handled it all without crawling to the nearest bridge and scooching off the edge just to end the suffering.

Finally it came time for my little guy to start the dreaded process. One day his first little tooth bubbled just below the surface of his gums ready to wreak its havoc. The next day came and phew, no havoc, just a cute little tooth peeking out of Sports Baby's adorable smiling mouth. The day after that a second one popped up.

What? No blood? No fever? No baby sneaking into the liquor cabinet to douse the fires with a dram of whiskey?

Apparently I've been misled about teething. "Cutting teeth" is in fact a misnomer. Baby teeth do not, in fact, cut through the flesh, but rather a chemical released by the body causes the gums to open, allowing the teeth to glide on through.

Relieved that Sports Baby won't be suffering horrible pain, I've downgraded his suicide watch from a Charlie Sheen to a Will Smith.

Teething can have some uncomfortable symptoms but so far Sports Baby is taking it all like a champ.

The NHL is teething too but it appears that its brains have been so battered by rogue stanchions, flying elbows and blind assassins that it has lost the ability to release that chemical to soften the sting of the process. No, it's a bloody mess out there.

Just two months ago I wrote another blog post praising the NHL for gaining attention with some clever ideas. But since then a Sidney Crosby concussion (the "blind assassins" link above will take you to a video of the play), a Zdeno Chara near decapitation (see "rogue stanchions" above) and a dirty hit from Matt Cooke (see "flying elbows") have been the biggest stories coming out of the NHL.

The league, however, may finally be putting some teeth into its disciplinary rules to punish players for hits to the head.

Cooke was suspended for the rest of the regular season and, somewhat surprisingly, for the first round of the playoffs for his recent elbow to the head of New York's Ryan McDonagh. This after Cooke skated away without any penalty or suspension for this eerily similar hit on Marc Savard last season. Savard suffered a concussion and now his future in the game is in doubt after receiving another concussion two months ago.

That the NHL gave Cooke a lengthy suspension, including playoff games, this time around is a sign that the league may finally be taking these hits seriously. Cooke, however, was an easy target. The hit was a blatant blindside brain bash and Cooke is a repeat offender who has been suspended by the league before.

But as many hockey commentators are pointing out, the test will come when a star player does something like this. Would Alex Ovechkin, himself a repeat offender, get a lengthy suspension for an elbow to the head delivered in the playoffs? This handy and hilarious NHL suspension flow chart from the Down Goes Brown blog predicts that he wouldn't.

Regardless, tougher suspension guidelines are apparently on the way for next season and maybe the Cooke suspension will send the message that the league is not fooling around anymore. Then again, maybe it won't.

Wasn't the 25-game suspension to Chris Simon for this March 2007 slash to the face of Ryan Hollweg supposed to send a message that the league was serious?

Wasn't the 20-game suspension to Todd Bertuzzi for breaking Steve Moore's neck in 2004 supposed to send a message?

Wasn't the 21-game suspension to Dale Hunter in 1993 for nailing Pierre Turgeon after Turgeon scored a goal supposed to send a message?

Wasn't the 16-game suspension to Eddie Shore for almost killing Ace Bailey with a stick to the head in 1933 supposed to send a message?

Wasn't the 11-game suspension to Killer McSlashface in aught-six for inventing the Zamboni and then using it to run over an opponent supposed to send a message?

I guess teething is not always painless.

Photo Icon SMI

Follow me on Twitter @Sports_Andy

NFL owners are like my baby

You may have heard that babies put everything into their mouths, but unless you have a kid, you won't quite grasp the scope of that statement.

Imagine I'm a sassy teenage mother wagging my finger back and forth to emphasize the statement: "Guurrrrrl, you don't even know. My baby eat EV-ERR-EEE-THANG."

Here are some things that have gone into Sports Baby's mouth: my glasses; his own diaper, unused; broccoli; his own shoe, still on his foot; our kitchen table; my nose.

He has a heavy plastic cookie jar toy that sings songs. Oh yes, he tries to eat the fake cookies, but he'll also grab the whole damn jar, pick it up with his super baby strength and then drop it on his face as he tries to eat it too.

Our family doctor, a nice fellow with a motorcycle calendar in each one of his patient rooms, advised us to avoid giving our baby fruit for awhile because, the theory goes, if he tastes that sweet goodness he'll never want anything else.

We've disproven this. He's eaten bananas, he's tasted apple and yet everything else in the world still looks appealing enough to go into his mouth, including yams and, get this, broccoli (sorry, did I mention broccoli already? It's just that I think broccoli tastes like a tree fart.)

The theory was put to the ultimate test this weekend when a friend brought over some pineapple and we gave the little guy a piece to chew. I don't know if crackhead is too strong a description, but he lost it like he was the Cookie Monster getting his first taste of triple chocolate macaroon.

But even after that he still put a nasty-looking chick-peas-and-greens combo into his mouth and swallowed it down.

Whether it's food or furniture, pants or poison, anything that is within a baby's reach is headed straight for the mouth.

Tweak that sentence just a little and you get a great description of NFL owners: Whether it belongs to players or fans, employees or taxpayer, any money that is within an owner's reach is headed straight for their pocket.

If you haven't yet picked a side in the NFL labour dispute and you wish to do so, pick the players. If you've already picked the owners, change your mind. If you don't care, please continue to not care.

But if you enjoy getting your football fix on NFL Sundays or, more likely, getting your fantasy football fix on NFL Sundays, the blame should land squarely on the lint-free shoulders of the owners if the season is delayed or cancelled this fall.

On Friday the union decertified and several players sued the league for violating anti-trust laws. Soon after that the owners locked out the players.

It might appear that the players walked away first but the fault lies with the owners.

The NFL is thriving, crushing the other North American pro sports and becoming the most popular form of entertainment in the United States. Everyone is making money, but the owners just want more of it. And they want their profits guaranteed.

Their demands during this labour dispute are such things as "We want even more money!" and "we know you're all getting brutally injured out there, but why don't you play even more games for us. More money!" A judge has already ruled that the owners and league acted in bad faith when they negotiated new television contracts that included stipulations that the league and owners would get paid by the networks even if a labour dispute forced the cancellation of games. They even took less money per season to get this included in the deal.

Describing his findings about the NFL's attitude towards TV contracts, U.S. District Judge David Doty said that the league "consistently characterized gaining control over labor as a short-term objective and maximizing revenue as a long-term objective . . . advancing its negotiating position at the expense of using best efforts to maximize total revenues for the joint benefit of the NFL and the Players."

The players, on the other hand, are asking for things like more money for those retired players who have not yet died tragic early deaths; no added regular season games; some health and safety measures and no additional free money for the owners.

You can argue the old millionaires vs. billionaires if you like, but with all the information coming out about the injuries the millionaires sustain, the nasty lives they lead after football and the short amount of time most of them actually spend in the NFL, it's clear who is sacrificing the most for the league.

Meanwhile the owners blah blah silver spoon blah blah old money blah blah corporate jets blah blah never visit their parents in the nursing home blah blah greedy.

If you still need convincing, the arguments against the owners have been stated nicely in several places, including poetically by The Washington Post's Sally Jenkins, hypothetically by ESPN's Bill Simmons, politically by author/blogger Dave Zirin and, um, profanely by Deadspin's Drew Magary.

One of my concerns with my baby now that he is rolling around more is that his movement range is expanding and we have to be more careful of where we put things. I always envision him rolling across the room and happening upon something like a pile of change left on a shelf we didn't think he could get to. If that happened it wouldn't take long for him to gobble up more than enough coin to buy a Slurpee. I'd pick him up and give him a shake and he'd sound just like a piggy bank. 

Funny — that's how the NFL owners sound too.

Follow me on Twitter @Sports_Andy

Steve Nash is like my baby

In the movie As Good As It Gets, Jack Nicholson says to Helen Hunt, "You make me want to be a better man."

Then he takes a stiff swig of Jim Beam just before she jumps out of a window (sorry, I've used this link before. I just love watching Helen Hunt jump out of a window. It's also a stellar demonstration of peer pressure).

I may be getting a few different movies mixed up but the important thing is Jack's "better man" compliment. It's lovely, as long as you don't look directly into Jack's crazy, crazy eyes.

I think about that quote a lot that these days as my baby's odometer clicks past six months. My life has changed drastically since he was born. Some of the changes are out of necessity — FYI babies aren't cool with Wu-Tang Clan played at full blast in the car — but many of the lifestyle choices I have made are voluntary changes made with the little guy in mind.

In an earlier blog post I mentioned that babies aren't supposed to watch TV until they are at least two (it's to prevent them from glimpsing Charlie Sheen) but I got around this by watching sports with the baby safely stashed behind a blanket so that he could not see the screen. Since I wrote that, however, things have changed. I no longer watch much TV at all when Sports Baby is awake and aware, meaning I watch a lot less TV these days than I used to. I'm not sure how, but somehow this makes me a better person.

I'm also theoretically a better man because I drink less beer. Given that I could at any time be called upon to pick my baby up without dropping him or perhaps even drive him to the hospital after he eats a used Ricola wrapper, I like to limit myself to two beers maximum. Most days I settle for zero beers. Again the intricacies of the cost-benefit gains of this decision are a little hard to pinpoint but somehow this makes me a better person, or at least a slightly less beer-gutty one. And boy am I going through Scotch by the barrel.

When sober I do love to pick Sports Baby up and fly him dangerously close to our six-foot-high Hobbit ceilings. And though he's no fatty, he is gaining weight at an incredible rate — he's already doubled his birth weight, providing progressive weight training that may finally help me get some of that "old man strength" to go along with my "old man shoulders that dislocate whenever I try to reach into the backseat to grab something."

Now that Sports Baby is eating solid foods my diet has improved as well. We make him steamed vegetables and I sometimes have a bite or two — I no longer need all of my vegetables to be smothered in Caesar dressing. I'm also constantly looking for places to buy "unmedicated chicken." I don't really know what chickens that are off their meds looks like but I imagine them wandering around downtown muttering "they're out to get me, they're trying to kill me, they're going to steal my babies, they want to eat me limb by limb. THE FARMERS, that's who!"

All of these changes are because of my baby, his mere presence driving me to be a better man and a better daddy. He's like a tiny, male version of Helen Hunt. Soon he'll be jumping through little baby windows.

That brings me to Steve Nash. Regular readers of the blog (PS thank you, and sorry for the wait since the last post) will likely have surmised that Nash carries a lot of water in this household. My baby is not named Steve Nash Prest, but let's just say the name made our long list.

The reason that Nash is a two-time NBA MVP is that he makes those around him better. Even at the age of 37 Nash is still passing the ball as well as anyone in the sport, his 11.3 assists per game placing him second in the league.

And it's not just his dazzling playmaking that makes him such a positive figure. Teammates credit Nash with inspiring them to improve their training and diet because they see all of the things he has done off the court to help him be one of the best older players in league history.

A couple of years ago the "Nash diet" became a bit of a craze after teammates Shaquille O'Neal, Grant Hill and Jared Dudley talked about copying Nash's disciplined eating habits. Dudley in particular, a younger player who battled weight problems as a kid, credits Nash's influence with helping him lose weight and improve his game. Nash describes his diet on his Facebook page.

It's a great testament to his leadership and charisma that he can inspire his teammates in so many ways. He's like a grown up, male, basketball-playing version of Helen Hunt, except with better hair.

Now if only he would stop being so damn honourable and demand that Phoenix trade his ass to an organization that is interested in winning the title. You hear me Phoenix? Open up the window! Don't make him crash through it.

Photo Getty Images

Follow me on Twitter @Sports_Andy 

NBA dunk contest participants are like my baby

I'm probably going to say this every couple of weeks for the next 24 years, but I think my baby is getting it.

Can he walk? No. Crawl? No. Sing Justin Bieber songs? Yes, but that's age appropriate. Can he talk? No. Can he toss out witty bons mots . . . Hey! Shut up already with the questions. He's just a frickin' baby.

Last week a fever followed by a cold increased his wah-wah quotient but when the heat subsided and the boogers dried he perked right up and became pretty with it for a five-month-old.

He turned himself into a human bowling ball, rolling halfway across a room to get to something he wanted (never mind that it was a used Kleenex tissue lying beside a garbage can). We started him on solid foods and he's already a pro, gumming down a more varied diet than I eat:

Sports Baby: salmon and broccoli

Daddy: beer and that sticky white cheddar popcorn with the ironic* name Smart Food

The biggest and best change is in the smiles and laughs. It used to be that finding his giggle button to release a laugh was a lot like a drunken freshman stumbling upon his girlfriend's bingo button and unleashing all heaven on the unsuspecting lass — total fluke and one-and-done, the same steps the following night yielding nothing more than awkward stares, crying, and eventually a wet diaper (I'm talking about the baby now again, I think). 

But now Sports Baby laughs when you tickle underneath his chin. He smiles back whenever we smile at him. He scopes out pretty girls, saving the biggest grins for them.

He's no longer a little ball of snot, as my cousin recently called a friend's baby. He's a little ball of awesome.

And speaking of ballers, I thought that Saturday night's NBA slam dunk contest was really good. All of those guys were brining it.

Blake Griffin won with his now famous Kia commercial with Baron Davis throwing him an alley-oop through the car's sunroof as Blake jumped over the hood. Showmanship aside, I actually thought it was one of the weaker dunks of the night and Blake's dunk coach Kenny (the Jet) Smith blamed Baron's pass for messing up the slam (they should have known that the best guy to make a pass inside a car is Stephon Marbury).

Blake had the buzz, but all four of the participants pulled off fantastic dunks. Usually there are at least a couple of duds in there but not this year (accepting the now-inevitable missed attempts that come before many of the makes). In fact, some have argued that DeMar DeRozan and Serge Ibaka, the two guys who didn't make the cut for the finals, had the best dunks of the night.

Check out Ibaka's legit free throw line dunk:

And DeRozan's "Showstopper":    

Like Sports Baby, all of the the contestants are finally getting it after several hit-and-miss years. Now if only the NBA would get it too. Here comes the part where this blog becomes like every other sports blog as I offer a solution that no one will care about to a problem that probably doesn't even exist. Anyway, if dunkers are going to bring it like they did on Saturday I think the contest needs a new format.

First of all, it's stupid that DeRozan and Ibaka didn't get to do as many dunks as Griffin and Javale McGee because their "scores" weren't as high after the first round. The scoring is bupkis (more on that in a second), so there's no way it should be used to eliminate dunkers before the end of the show. There are only four of them anyway. Give them all three dunks so they know what they are preparing for and can bring their best stuff out when they want to.

As for the scoring, the whole Table of Judges throwing up an 8, 9 or 10 thing isn't working anymore, not when all of the dunkers are doing good stuff.

Here's my solution: have the judges rank all of the dunks from best to worst and give the trophy to the person whose cumulative total rank for all of their dunks (or two of their dunks) is the best.

The math would be a little more complicated but all it would come down to is the person with the most dunks favoured by the most judges would win. After every dunk each judge would just have to decide where it fit in. Was Ibaka's free throw line dunk better than Blake's arm in rim dunk? Was the Showstopper (seen here again, but this time in beautiful super slo mo) better than McGee's two balls, two hoops (also in slo mo) dunk?

A cool offshoot would be that on top of having one person win there would also be one particular dunk that would be crowned dunk of the night. Another benefit would be that the first guy to go wouldn't get screwed because the judges have nothing to compare him to. This happened to DeRozan, who criminally got a 44 out of 50, one of the worst scores of the night, for this bit of awesomeness.  

The whole process would give the contest more of a narrative arc as well because each dunk would be compared and contrasted to those which came before it.

Problem solved.

Now if you'll excuse me my dinner is served. And poured.

*Sorry to my Dad, an English prof, if this is the wrong use of the word ironic. I feel like he's the only person on earth who has it nailed. You should have heard him rip that Alanis Morissette a new one. "Those are just coincidences! No wonder your boyfriend dumped you!"

Follow me on Twitter @Sports_Andy

Vancouver is like my baby

My baby has started to, as they call it in the infant industry, "make strange." That's when a baby begins to recognize that the person holding it, looking at it or blowing fart-kisses on its belly is not one of the recurring characters in the drama that is its little baby life.

It's a weird expression, don't you think? Make strange. It sounds so German to me.

"Hey Spatzle face, vy don't you macht strange und schtop schtaring at me vile I macht sexy mit diese apfel strussel?"

It sucks for our friends and family who get an earful of screaming whenever they are reintroduced to the little guy but it's also a great boost to my confidence that I can lord my non-strangeness over everyone else not named Mama.

The city of Vancouver, itself practically a baby at the tender age of 125, made strange when the NBA arrived in town in 1995 in the form of the Grizzlies. As the team approached the city, Vancouver lost it.

"Ahhh, what is that?! Why isn't Trevor Linden on the ice? Wait, where the hell is the ice!? Ahhhhh, black people!" To be fair, most Vancouverites didn't encounter many black people during their formative years in Hong Kong.

The Grizzlies' biggest attraction, literally, wasn't even black (which might help explain why the team is long gone).

Really, who wouldn't make strange at a basketball team fronted by a huge, brush-cutted, white boy hill-billy baller nicknamed Big Country (see photo at top)?

The Grizz fizzled in Vancouver, lasting only six years before moving to

Memphis.

But the basketball radar blipped once again this week in Vancouver when commissioner David Stern mentioned his regrets about losing Vancouver as an NBA city while acknowledging that there have been talks of bringing a team back here.

“We’ve had visits from, believe it or not, Vancouver, where the Canucks are absolutely doing a spectacular job there,” Stern said on ESPN Sports Guy Bill Simmons' podcast on Tuesday in advance of this weekend's all-star game.

He didn't mention that the "visits" were from a couple of homeless guys asking if they could sleep in Stern's garage. (The answer: "No. And if you have to get high you can do it in the alley but then get the hell out of here.")

Actually, the owners of the Canucks made the visit but right now the talks are just talks and all reports seem to indicate that Vancouver is not one of the first choices for a new or relocated NBA team.

It pains me to say it but I don't think an NBA team will be back in Vancouver for a long time. Why? Because ballers don't bounce in the rain, according to a column I wrote for the North Shore News a couple of years ago. I've attached it below for your perusal. I've left it unedited and a few things have changed since I wrote it: the Grizzlies and Thunder are no longer terrible; Portland is now a young and arthritic team, not a young and talented team; and the fledgling B.C. Titans basketball team has now folded. Who are the B.C. Titans you ask? Exactly. I stand by my remarks about Toby Bailey though.

Anyway, enjoy the all-star game. And remember, if you don't want to get screamed at, try not to be so strange.     

Ballers won't bounce in the rain

North Shore News

Sunday, Nov. 23, 2008

Andy Prest

THE loss of two NBA teams from the Lower Mainland-Pacific Northwest area in the last 10 years disturbs me.

(By the way, I think there should be a name for the combined Seattle/Vancouver corridor. SeaVan might work but it's a little boring. What about SeaWeed?)

Of course Vancouver lost their mostly un-beloved Grizzlies to Memphis in 2001, forcing hardcore junkies to travel to Seattle for their NBA fix -- a trip that can take anywhere from three hours to 47 days, depending on border wait times.

Now this season the Seattle Sonics are no more, packed up and carted off to thriving metropolis Oklahoma City. That makes the closest big-time pro hoops team the Portland Trailblazers, which is nice -- because they are a talented young team -- but also terrible because Portland is not close to my house.

Sure the Sonics and Grizzlies were terrible when they left (and still are) but even awful teams are fun to watch for hardcore fans. The good people of Oklahoma get to see Kevin Durant, one of the most exciting young scorers to enter the league since Michael Jordan, blossom into a superstar for a few years before he goes somewhere nice as a free agent. And the people of Memphis they . . . well, they get to watch great players crush the Grizzlies night in and night out.

But what about SeaWeed? More than 5 million people live in or near these two cities but combined they have fewer NBA teams than Charlotte, N.C.?

What's the deal? Maybe the laid back West Coast can't handle games with so much scoring. Maybe basketball players who know how to "make it rain" aren't welcome here.

Whatever the reason, it stinks. Anyone who has taken in an Argyle vs. Handsworth North Shore finals series or stopped by the provincial championships at the Agrodome knows that there is no shortage of love for hoops here.

Maybe there's hope -- a pro team called the Vancouver Titans is set to start play in something called the International Basketball League next year. To give some kind of indication of what kind of talent you might be able to expect, the Titans are holding an open tryout today at SFU. I don't think Steve Nash is going to give up his Phoenix Suns gig to suit up for the Titans anytime soon, but there appears to be some "where are they now" appeal to the league.

Toby Bailey plays for the Los Angeles Lightning. If you know who Toby Bailey is I'd bet you'd pay eight dollars to watch 33-year-old Toby try to dunk on people with the rage pent up from years spent not in the NBA. I know I would.

Well, maybe four dollars.

Hockey brawls are like my baby

Add another first to Sports Baby's long list of accomplishments: first fever.

I'm happy to say that his Mama and I got through it without crashing through the front door of Lions Gate Hospital and screaming "My baby is one fire! Get all of your doctors to stop saving these losers and come help us now!"

Instead I got to make a 7-11 run at 3 a.m. to pick up some cherry-flavoured baby Tylenol (FYI: delicious. Whatever my baby doesn't finish I'm going to chug and then go crazy like Rod and Todd on Pixy Stix). I was delighted to see two drunk-up hoochies in 7-11, their shiny boots towering them over the little store clerk. As they strutted around, their flirting and drunk laughs bringing the clerk as close to a sexual encounter as he's been since a chubby EMT gave him mouth-to-mouth after a 1997 robbery, I thought to myself, "wow, hookers!"

Then I realized that they're not hookers, this is what people do on Thursday nights when they don't have to worry about their baby dying or their wife getting upset with them because they're slow-dancing a sloppy make-out with a stranger in the middle of the dance floor long after the DJ has started playing up-tempo tracks again. Ah, the memories. I almost broke down and bought an undergrad-memorial corn dog from 7-11.

Back at home my baby eventually roundhouse kicked his fever in the face, beating it away with a little help from more cowbell.

These days the NHL has a fever too — fight fever. The League is going retro these days with a slew of 1970's style line-brawls breaking out.

The Penguins and Islanders did it two games in the last two weeks with both games punctuated, strangely enough, by fights involving backup Penguins goalie Brent Johnson. In the first game Johnson shared a laugh with fellow goalie Rick DiPietro before breaking DiPietro's face with one punch. In the rematch Johnson was challenged to a fight by oddly-spelled no-namer Micheal Haley in a rare skater vs. goalie bout in a game that featured 346 penalty minutes and 10 player ejections.

Sandwiched in-between those games was a fight-filled contest between old rivals Montreal and Boston that featured a much tamer goalie fight between Carey Price and Tim Thomas, two all-stars who know better than to actually punch each other. Boston also threw down against the Dallas Stars recently in a game that featured three fights in the first four seconds. And then there was that brawl where Brick killed a guy. What's next NHL? Lions? Land mines? A friggin' Cyclops?

It's such an odd quirk of the sport. I'm not sure how I'm going to explain to my kid when he is four years old that it's not OK to punch people unless they break into your house, call your Mom a ho, or are wearing skates. Whatever, I'll figure it out.

For media watchers it's made for an interesting week.

Globe and Mail columnist Roy MacGregor, referring more to concussions than fighting, highlighted a growing gap between mainstream media writers who think the league has reached cartoon-level violence and are calling for stiffer penalties to protect players on one side and the Hockey Night in Canada analysts, particularly Don Cherry and Mike Milbury, who revel in the game's violence on the other side. MacGregor's article went so far as to equate HNIC to Fox News for the boisterous, old-school rantings of its resident blowhards.

How did Cherry respond to this wild fortnight of fisticuffs in tonight's edition of his weekly sermon, Coach's Corner? He didn't, instead using the time to proudly show a couple of fights between teenaged junior players ("They're good boys," he gushed) before joining Ron MacLean in a 1930's Yukon reenactment of the fake orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally. At least I think that's what it was. Although for most of it I had the sound off. And my eyes closed. Anyway, it was weird. (Here's the video. The baffling display begins at the 4:30 mark. Only watch it if you don't have better things to do with four minutes of your life — things like practicing villainous eyebrow arches in the mirror or dyeing your cat's fur orange with Cheetos goo.)

Anyway, I'm not sure if the NHL has any interest in cooling down their teams' recent fight fetish. If they did it would take a lot more than a cowbell. I'm thinking more like a gong.


Photo Justin K. Aller/Getty Images
Follow me on Twitter @Sports_Andy

Ben Roethlisberger is NOT like my baby

                                           Obviously not Roethlisberger. The new champ, Aaron Rodgers.

Any parent can tell you about a not fun game we all play called "Is my baby breathing?"

It starts the moment the baby pops out as you wait for the lungs to fill with air and that first cry that lets you know the little guy gets the whole breathing thing. Hours later as exhaustion kicks in on that first night, most parents still have trouble falling asleep, fearing that if they take their eyes off that newborn for just one second he may forget about the whole breathing thing.

As far as I can tell, the fear never really stops. (Sorry this post is such a bummer so far. I blame Ben Roethlisberger.)

One of my favourite times to worry about choking out my baby is when I'm out walking with him strapped to my chest in our baby carrier. On Super Bowl Sunday I took him out for a pregame stroll. My baby usually likes to take in all of the scenery on these walks, only falling asleep after I cover his head with a hood like a falconer putting away his peregrine.

Feeling my baby warm against my chest is one of my favourite things in the world. I always ruin it, however, by imagining that I've put him in wrong or the straps are too tight and I'm slowly choking him out. Is he breathing? Is that him or me that's moving? Should I poke him? What if I fall and smush him? What if a wolf attacks? What if I cut off a nerve and his legs fall off. Oh my God I'm hyperventilating! Brown bag, breathe in, breathe out. For the love of God, somebody get me a beer!

Sorry again, I got carried away. That's what it's like to have a baby.

Eventually the kid shifts around in the carrier, sighs, or just wakes up and tells me to stop being such a puss.

Anyway, on to Ben Roethlisberger.

I thought of following my normal convention with the title of this post but if I actually finished the sentence "Ben Roethlisberger is like my . . . " I would either be immediately put in jail for child abuse or my son would grow up, read it and then come hunt me down and thrash me like a Boy Named Sue.

This all because of Big Ben's well-documented penchant for getting accused of sexual assault and other acts of general dirt-baggery. His misdeeds earned him a four-game suspension to start this season but he returned with a vengeance (for football opponents, not college girls), leading the Pittsburgh Steelers all the way to Sunday's Super Bowl. And as the Onion Sports Network pointed out, his team's success coupled with his string of no sexual assault charges for almost one year seemed to place him just one Super Bowl win away from earning a complete pardon for all of his sins.

But alas, Green Bay's defenders locked Big Ben in the proverbial gridiron bathroom and had their way with him while their buddies stood guard to keep Ben's friends from saving him. Ick — this post really is getting gross. Thanks a lot, Ben.

Anyway, Roethlisberger did get his comeuppance, throwing two interceptions — including one that was returned for a touchdown — and missing an easy touchdown pass before failing to finish off a late comeback attempt. With two Super Bowls already to his credit, Roethlisberger had the chance to cement his status as one of the best big-game quarterbacks ever and to further rebuild his image. Instead he opened the door to questions about whether it was his play that led Pittsburgh to their recent titles or whether he was just a good player blessed with a great team. In other words, he choked.

Let's sum up.

Big Ben: Former dirt bag who is either a reformed dirt bag or still a dirt bag but pretending not to be one; cost his team the Super Bowl; eye-opener; choker.

My baby: respects women; never lost a Super Bowl; can chew on own toes; not a choker. 

Photo Perry Knotts/NFL 

Follow me on Twitter @Sportsbaby