As the Dolphins lug the embarrassing yoke of an 0-7 record into Kansas City Sunday, longtime Dolfans desperate to escape the current malaise might use this game as an excuse to cast the memory back to one of the franchise’s shining, halcyon moments.
It was Christmas Day, 1971, in Kansas City. Miami would earn the first playoff victory in club history, 27-24 over the Chiefs in double-overtime. It finally ended on a 37-yard Garo Yepremian field goal.
They called that “The Longest Game.” Forty years later, they call this “The Longest Season.”
Fans today are hard-pressed to remember the Dolphins’ most recent playoff victory, although elders move gnarled fingers slowly across yellowed newspaper clippings looking for hints and seem to recall driving to the game in automobiles that featured hand cranks.
That reminds me. You know how we have the Don Shula Expressway? I hear the Department of Transportation might be adding a Tony Sparano Depressway. I envision traffic woes. Toll booths on the Sparano will be called Red Zones, and those attempting to drive through them will stall and not be permitted to continue on to where they were headed.
• College basketball quietly is underway, the sport building slowly to conference games in January. Here, new UM coach Jim Larranaga has it tough. Not only is his team judged mid-pack in the ACC, it isn’t even the best basketball team on campus. That’s the Canes women, No. 7 nationally in preseason poll.
• Kneeling to pray in public has come to be known as “Tebowing.” Meantime the practice’s namesake, Tim Tebow, continues to take way too many sacks for the Broncos. Analysts think Tebow would have more mobility in games if he’d ditch the flowing robe and sandals.
• Donald Trump intends to buy the Doral resort including its famed Blue Monster course. He plans major changes, but I’m hearing the traditional Trump excess and ostentatiousness will be kept to a minimum other than the gold-plated Bentley golf carts and the redesigned greens being carpets of $100 bills.
• The Marlins unveiled the names of the four streets surrounding the new ballpark. One is called Marlins Way. Who knew it was an address, too? I always thought Marlins Way was a philosophy of grossly under-spending on players.
• It is November, the NHL is well underway and the Florida Panthers enter Sunday’s home game vs. Tampa on pace to make the playoffs. Can we stop the season now, please?
• His agent said UM football coach Al Golden has no plans to leave. What a relief, because, of course, in the history of college football, no coach has ever said he has no plans to leave and then left. Um, right?
• Club owner Micky Arison warned that a proposed downtown resort casino would cause traffic nightmares for Heat games. Um, what Heat games?
• Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa retired on top. He is best known for winning three World Series and for spending about two decades turning a blind eye to Mark McGwire’s artificially enhanced home-run power.
• NCAA officials visited The Miami Herald this week and spent an extraordinary amount of time expertly revealing absolutely nothing about its UM/Nevin Shapiro investigation.
• His former caddie, Steve Williams, called Tiger Woods “a black a------,” verifying that Williams is a “a white a------.”
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