Best nonfootball moment from the Super Bowl? That’s easy. And no, it wasn’t any of the commercials. They were mostly blase (except the kid with the Vader helmet) and lacked originality.
It certainly wasn’t the Black Eyed Peas, who we could barely hear. Other groups/singers I would have rather seen in that spot, keeping in mind the show has to be rated PG: Bon Jovi (why haven’t they done a halftime show?), Pink, Katy Perry, Billy Joel or Dave Matthews, to name a few. I’ve never been a huge Black Eyed Peas fan. Then again, it was a “show,” hence all the bells and whistles and other fluff. You really think Billy Joel sitting at the piano for 25 minutes isn’t more enjoyable than what we saw Sunday?
The best nonfootball moment definitely was not Christina Aguilera butchering the national anthem. We were really worried Mo Cheeks might need to come out and save her.
The best moment was actually actress Cameron Diaz stuffing Yankees’ slugger Alex Rodriguez with popcorn in a luxury box midway through the first quarter.
Forget the fact A-Rod looked weaker than when he was being fed fastballs from Cliff Lee in October. This was a rare, tender moment you don’t often see from high-profile relationships. Stars usually know when they’re being stalked by pesky paparazzi and resist anything PDA-related. That’s obviously to keep up the tough-guy image they’ve maintained to impress their boys back home — or cousins/steroid dealers back in the Dominican Republic.
Naturally, A-Rod was ticked about the moment being caught by Fox cameras and didn’t find out about it until his buddies texted him.
According to Bill Zwecker of the Chicago Sun-Times, “He really went ballistic — thinking the cameraman was out to get them in a paparazzi-like shot. … That’s so crazy. Anyone who knows anything about producing a live sports event — especially something as huge as the Super Bowl — would know that those celebrity shots are purely random.”
From the mailbag
How badly does one of the major sports need a Charlie Sheen type character? Strippers and drugs and destroyed hotel rooms and rehab?
Things are pretty lame lately, huh? If you could take Tiger Woods from last year, the Dallas Cowboys from the early ‘90s and Dennis Rodman from the late ‘90s, I think we’ve got a winner. Instead we’re stuck with Mark Sanchez pulling his best Lawrence Taylor.
Assuming Phil Simms-Desmond Howard is the main event, who is on the undercard?
Jennifer Aniston vs. Angelina Jolie, Blake Griffin vs. the Taliban and the Dougie vs. the Electric Slide.
–Jason Raj McIntyre covers athletes away from the field and runs the popular blog, TheBigLead.com.
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