Bulldog's drive deserves nothing but kudos

I would like to say for the record how much fun I had covering Sandpoint football this year. I watched a team morph from mediocre to superb during the course of this season. I watched a team mask whatever they lacked with a fiery spirit that more than compensated. I also watched the best high school football game I've ever seen last Friday, and I've seen a lot of them.

Coaches love to talk about "leaving it all on the field." Loosely translated, it means that win or lose, there are no doubts because you gave it everything you had. In fact, the Bulldog football team's motto this year was "leave no doubt." I, for one, believe they succeeded.

As tough as that 21-20 loss to Bishop Kelly was, and it was a tough loss, anyone at Barlow Stadium on Friday night had no choice but to respect what the Bulldogs did. They played their best game of the year against the best team in the state — yes, I said the best team in the state — and actually embodied the cliche of "giving 110 percent." They executed their game plan to near perfection. They out-hit, out-hustled, and out-gutted one of the better high school football teams this state will ever see.

I can only imagine the collective shock around the state when high school football fans opened the papers and saw the final score. It was the essence of high school football. The only people who really thought the Bulldogs had a shot at winning that game were the ones marching out in unison from the home team's locker room. And I'll be damned if they weren't right.

It might sound corny, but I really didn't see any losers on Friday night, regardless of what the scoreboard said. What I did see was a whale of a football game. A great team won on a perfect play. When Bishop Kelly beats Pocatello by four or five touchdowns this Friday in the state championship, it will almost seem anti-climactic. To them, and to us.

What value?

Let me preface by saying that I am not a "hater." I respect athletes and cringe when I hear Jim Rome clones rip athletes apart for something they could never do themselves. That being said, when you make $250 million to play baseball, you're subject to a little criticism — so here goes.

I can only hope the baseball writers were trying to humor us with irony when they voted Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez the American League's Most Valuable Player on Monday. Literally, he's far and away the most valuable player in baseball, his contract being larger than the GNP of most third world countries. In actuality, he's most valuable only to the fantasy geeks (myself included), who benefit from the gaudy statistics he puts up every year.

It's no coincidence that the "best player in baseball" is never on a team that wins anything. Just ask Seattle, Texas and now the Yankees how many of his voluminous home runs are actually clutch hits. After years of watching him I've begun to realize how he compiles these stats that merit MVP votes. When his team wins a 13-2 game, he usually hits a couple of moon shots and drives in about seven runs. However, in tight games, when a base hit really means something, invariably he fails to deliver.

Boston Red Sox DH David Ortiz on the other hand, who came in second in this years voting, had seemingly nothing but game-winning hits. Arod is the most talented player in baseball, few would argue otherwise. If it were the ninth inning, bases loaded with two outs, down one run, do you think the Yankees would want their MVP third baseman coming to the plate? No, that would be Derek Jeter, the guy with all of those rings on his fingers.