Observations about Spygate and a week full of hype

The construction of the Light Rail in Phoenix does not sit well with some local residents. AP

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PHOENIX -- I know I'm tired because because when I typed Super Bowl Diary as the slug at the top of this thing, it came out Super owl Diary, and I was so wasted that I didn't catch the typo. I was made aware that something was up when I caught The Flaming Redhead tee-heeing.

"Oh yes, news from the Super Owl," she cackles. "Leave it that way. It's much better."

Actually this is a playoff diary because I want to do a slight inclusion of my Green Bay trip, so I can get a quick zinger in on the airlines, which one should attack at every opportunity. But more on that, Media Day and the Hall of Fame later.

This morning as Super Bowl Sunday dawned the whole landscape changed. The story that broke out of Boston, that the Patriots had taped the Rams' walkthrough before the 2002 Super Bowl, places the whole event under suspicion. Cheat in a Super Bowl? I mean, it's one thing to get caught cheating at the beginning of the regular season, but to take it to the biggest arena of all? Wow, this puts the whole thing under a cloud.

How shallow it makes the entire promotion seem, the parties, the endless hype, the reams of copy devoted to the magnificence of the unbeaten Patriots. Of course there might be nothing to the story, but still, suspicion hangs over this game like some deadly fog. It makes everything we've read all week, all the stories we've gathered ourselves, seem like the ultimate in hypocrisy. It puts the league itself under suspicion and brings the commissioner, Roger Goodell, into sharper focus for his failure to answer the question of why, indeed, he destroyed the Spygate tapes earlier this season. This was the major news angle that came out of his Friday presentation, which still left the matter unanswered, in my opinion.

If the Spygate II story is correct, then the Patriots have blinded a lot of people in their devious march to immortality.

Speaking of devious, the airline that used to be my favorite now practices the Evil Arts of lying along with the rest of them.

"Can't take off while it's snowing," was the cheery announcement accounting for our delay getting out of Newark en route to Green Bay for the Giants-Packers game. I saw a few raindrops. No snow. The delay set up a four-and-a-half hour major league delay when I blew my Milwaukee-to-Green Bay connection. The delay coming back, via the same route, was only three and a half hours because of heavy snow and two de-icing stops.

"Wow, a double lie," I thought, which came only six lies short of my all-time lying flight. They certainly could, and did, take off in snow, and it hadn't actually been snowing the first time. You always expect the worst and you're never disappointed. That's air travel. But you've got your own problems, right?

No such problems traveling to Phoenix, although Little Jake, our once-feral tabby, broke my heart by latching onto the inside of the suitcase, not letting me pack it, in a desperate effort to keep us from leaving. We are not inhuman. Jake has good company while we are gone. She gets brushed, fed, watered, although her beloved outdoors is denied her for the duration of the trip.

Our first meal in Phoenix, right off the plane, was in one of the Redhead's old hangouts, La Pinata. Now as for me, a New York City boy, a Mexican restaurant is a Mexican restaurant, but Linda grew up in Phoenix, see, and she explained to me the nuances and varieties of the cuisine in a numbing litany. There's Arizona Mex and Tex Mex and Mix Mex and Sex Mex and Messmex and I can say that La Piñata was delicious, leaning heavily toward the melted cheese in almost everything, plus Margaritas that actually presented the stirrings of something alcoholic. Usually these things strike me as mere fruit juice concoctions people try to con you into believing pack a real wallop.

Next day we did a quick tour of her old haunts. Central Ave., the main drag, was ripped down the seam for miles and miles, to make room for something called the Light Rail. You don't drive it. It's like negotiating a shallow crater. Phoenicians aren't happy about their city being presented in such chaotic fashion.

"It's like the lady you invited over for Thanksgiving dinner showing up with curlers in her hair," says the Redhead. You are fooled by the hype and the roster of parties and the forced hysteria, but between you and me, the people of Phoenix would be just as happy if this event never showed up. At least that's what was relayed to me by Linda's family and friends, who have to live here once the glitter has worn off.

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