The Golden Years

"Jerry Rice talks about playing in Denver."

Rice, probably the best wide receiver ever to play the game, could have gone out as 'Niner several years ago, to screaming fans and the memories of being a part of one of the most exciting and successful scoring machine in all sports. It would have been great. He would have been remembered as great.

Now, he looks more like an over-the-hill boxer fighting palookas for meal money because he can't do anything else.

It's not like he needs the money. He could certainly never get out of bed for the rest of his life and lay well on satin sheets. It's the ego. As a number of athletes have said, it's hard to walk away from the screaming stadium, the huge stage that is pro sports, esp. pro football, where each game is special event.

But we don't need this. We don't need pitiful ego-addicted men trolling the byways for years past their time. We need a law.

With Congress up in arms over steroids, because the war in Iraq, Social Security and the federal deficit will surely take care of themselves, it's time for them to take action.

Federal law should provide for mandatory retirement for any pro football player over the age of 36. Exceptions will be allowed only for those who have passed a skills test where they will be required to perform at at least 80 percent of their level at age 30. Those who pass can only be given one year contracts, and only for the league minimum. Athletes over 40 will be required to pack it in if a confidential poll of players and season ticket holders, who are forced to watch Rice's travesty up close and personal, finds that a majority of those polled disagree. We'll call it the "Jerry Rice Law" and chalk it up to his legacy that we agreed that he'd be the last to have us watch such foolishness.

But let's not stop there.

Additional federal law will ban players and coaches who retire from unretiring. I mean, a guy gives the tear jerker farewell and heads off to presumably a pleasant second life of mindless sports commentary, only to jump back in a few years later. This has to end.

This law will cross all sports. No MJ hopping in and out and making a Jerry Rice-like fool of him-self. No Ryne Sandberg coming back to waste our time trying to reach balls he could have fielded blindfolded two years before he left. No Joe Gibbs deciding that watching 350 lb. men hit each other repeatedly was more engrossing than staring at cars going 'round and 'round and 'round in circles. I call it "One Strike, You're Out." If you're packing it in, pack it in, for God's sake. Don't force us to watch the sad consequences of your inability to find a hobby.

That's it for tonight. I'm off to have my bran muffin. I get cranky when I'm not "regular" you know.