Hooked on more than football

Green Bay has its Packers, but whether the season ends today or in two weeks after the Super Bowl, fans will still have their fishing.

The pastime “is a prominent part of the North Woods culture, as are beer, cheese and Green Bay Packers football,” reports the February issue of Field & Stream.

Throughout Wisconsin, the magazine adds, “they might as well staple fishing licenses to birth certificates.”

Trivia time

Who were the two wide receivers taken before Jerry Rice in the 1985 NFL draft?

Super scalpers

Scalpers have been loitering outside the Arizona Cardinals’ training facility in Tempe trying to buy Super Bowl tickets from season-ticket holders who qualified for admission to the Feb. 3 game in Glendale, Ariz.

According to the Arizona Republic, one scalper said he’d pay $2,500 for a $700 face-value ticket and still make a $500 profit.

Said another: “I say these people deserve to get something for their season tickets besides having had to spend all fall watching a team that never goes nowhere.”

Zevon remembered

From Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe:

“In the spirit of this year’s Patriots, I wrote a column a few weeks back about things that are ‘perfect’ and inexplicably omitted Warren Zevon’s werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic’s.

“The werewolf’s hair, of course, was perfect.”

A real sleeper

Bill Sharman was a guest at a recent charity function for the Toberman Neighborhood Center in San Pedro and recalled the 1971-72 Lakers team that won a record 33 games in a row, including the NBA championship.

Before the season, Sharman, as coach, convinced his players that morning shoot-arounds would be beneficial on the day of games, but one was not easily swayed.

Responded Wilt Chamberlain: “You know, Coach, I don’t get up before noon.”

Farm league

The Oklahoma City Blazers on Friday night gave away a cow valued at $2,500, along with a lamb, a goat and a pig, to four lucky ticket-holders at their minor league hockey game against the Laredo Bucks.

The winners, presumably, had to bring their own ark.

Lofty perspective

Las Vegas Sun columnist Ron Kantowski apparently forgot his media credential for the big contest between Nevada Las Vegas and Brigham Young.

His lead: “The game was still scoreless when somebody who might have been BYU’s Jonathan Tavernari launched what might have been a 25-foot jump shot.

“Because from a cruising altitude of 33,000 feet, or however far it is from Section 229, row H, at the Thomas & Mack Center to the court below, a college basketball game looks a lot like the approach to Kansas City International Airport.

“Somewhere down there you know there is life, but all you can see is a grid pattern and the occasional silo.”

Ready golf

Leading contenders during the final round of the PGA Tour’s FBR Open, Jan. 31-Feb. 3 at TPC Scottsdale, Ariz., will be hoping to avoid a playoff.

Even without extra holes, the winner won’t be crowned until just before 4 p.m. local time, or about 20 minutes before the Super Bowl kickoff at nearby Glendale.

Trivia answer

Al Toon of Wisconsin, chosen 10th overall by the New York Jets; and Eddie Brown of Miami, chosen 13th by the Cincinnati Bengals. Rice, from Mississippi Valley State, was chosen 16th by the San Francisco 49ers.

And finally

Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle, on Roger Clemens: “The Rocket, in his campaign to hold his breath and turn purple until everyone believes he didn’t use steroids, has just reached mauve.”

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