After streaming a flick the other night — “Kimi” on HBO Max, pretty nifty technothriller — the realization came I hadn’t watched but a couple of plays in the Wake Forest/ Mizzou Gasparilla Bowl. Not that I gave a lump of coal about the game or who won.
Yet then realized how different this year’s Bowl Season has been. Something’s been missing.
Yes. No Joey the Vig’s Bowl Pool. Which would have me and about fifty others hanging on every fumble, pick and FG every silly Bad Boy Techno Taco Burpee Bowl until way after our bedtimes.
About fifteen years ago I was at a holiday party. In the corner of the den the TV was tuned without sound to the Fruit Company Cumquat Bowl or some such. What did happen to my benefit was Syracuse either made or missed a FG — who can remember details — which kept the kid alive for top spot with the Vig. I let out a scream, raising my hands in triumph, walked through the house like Ali after downing Liston.
Only The Professor, another annual bowler bozo, understood.
The Vig passed away suddenly a couple of months back.
Joey the Vig was a fictional ID fashioned for my pal John up Michigan way. A retired teacher, he loved numbers and odds and charts and data bases and football. He’d host such contests. A 13 run pool in baseball. Monthly pick ’em pool during football season.
And, my favorite, the Bowl Pool.
Not only because I could milk it for some blogs. I won it a couple of times, pocketing a little moolah.
So, to honor and in memory of dear friend Johnny Wags a/k/a Joey the Vig, find herewith America’s Premier Pigskin Prognosticator taking on the challenge of picking the winners for the remainder of the Bowl Season.
And, yes, it’s twu it’s twu, Against The Spread. (As set by Vegas Insider on 12/24.) Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Bowls