Marshall Faulk's style of running isn't typical for a Super Bowl running back. John Biever/SI

On to my E-mailer of the Week Award, and if you think this is not a significant honor, listen to former award winner Robert Carver of Metairie, La., who says, "Now my wife and dogs look up to me as a role model and my family has stopped complaining that I didn't go to med school, as they wanted...."

My E-mailer of the Week is Chris Sullivan of San Diego because of the original concept he has introduced. He waxes poetic over the dazzling moves of his hometown guy, LaDainian Tomlinson. He was in awe of Barry Sanders. He calls runners such as these "skilled" runners. But he poses the question of whether or not you really want a "skilled runner" to lead your team to the Super Bowl, or would you rather have a good, solid, scheme-oriented guy?

OK, he's given me a research project, but what the hell, I've been on vacation and I need a little hard work to get me back in the groove. I'll go down the list of every team that's appeared in the Super Bowl and try to determine how many of them were led by, oh, I don't like that "skilled runner" term. Let's say "rare runners," who put their own unique spin on the operation. This is subjective, of course, but don't worry, I'll be very selective. In chronological order, here are my Rare Super Bowl runners, and if a great runner is not listed, it's because I feel that for all his greatness he was basically a scheme guy, not a freak talent:

1969, SB III: Lenny Moore, Colts
2000, SB XXXIV, Marshall Faulk, Rams

And that's it. And you could even argue the Moore choice, since he really wasn't that much outside the scheme. You know something, Mr. Sullivan, I think you've raised a Rare point here. You're one of my better E-mailer of the Week Award winners.

To all you folks out there who keep repeating what a creep I am, I offer you Jeff of Philadelphia, who has some really nice things to say: "Dr. Z is wasting his talents. He should be covering international restaurants and wines for the largest publication in the world." No, he didn't say that, but he did say some awfully nice things, and for that, I and my redheaded wife and Little Jake the cat are supremely grateful.

Just as we began to tiptoe through the tulips, here comes Mark of San Francisco with a nice fat rip about my "repeated refusal to recognize Art Monk as a Hall of Famer." Sit down, Mark. Light your pipe. I'm gonna tell you a story.

In the early '60s I was pretty fresh out of school and I worked for the long-defunct New York World Telegram & Sun. Our lead baseball writer was a famous old-timer named Dan Daniel. I mean everybody grew up reading Daniel. He had covered Ty Cobb and John McGraw and the whole schmeer. How famous was he? Well, once, when our boxing writer, Lester Bromberg, was covering a fight in Havana, he ran into Ernest Hemingway, who told him to "please remember me to that great writer, Dan Daniel."

Dan used to write a weekly mailbag column called "Ask Daniel." For some reason, a few of his readers seemed hooked on the idea that one of Babe Ruth's record 60 home runs in 1927 really should have been a ground-rule double, since it had bounced into the stands. Dan would answer that question regularly ... "No, no, a thousand times no ... how many times must I repeat that it never happened?" It would drive him nuts. He'd sit in the office cursing. He had a pretty short fuse, Dan did.