Nothing But Iron: Christmas Cardiology, Playoff Pathology December 22, 20006 by Steven R. Lagman, M.D., C.A.S.W. Soon you will receive a Christmas card, but it won’t be from me. For sure I like you enough to send you a card, but I can only do so many things in the 27 minutes that separate my day-sometimes-night job from side pursuits like coaching, watching, videotaping and playing basketball and amateur sportswriting. As writing goes, I can supply irreverent commentary about sports, fashion, entertainment and social injustice, or more mundane but seasonally appropriate prose like: Wishing you and your family a safe and happy holiday season. Did you know that safe and happy holiday season is a registered trademark of NBI’s parent company, DrTM Enterprises? Did you know that Hallmark has yet to pay me a stinkin’ cent in royalties? If you are like me, or you wish you were like me, and fail to send holiday cards on many odd, not to mention even-numbered years, consider this: If there are people who would stop liking you because you didn’t send them Christmas cards, were they good enough friends to deserve cards in the first place? That logic has the potential to cut greeting card revenues by about 6% per year. Orange alert for these guys. Did I mention that my brother Bruce is in a fantasy greeting card league? Hectic time of year for him because the FGCL runs concurrently with fantasy football. These are but two of seven fantasy leagues in which he plays, um, participates. I think he occasionally does real things too, but I am not certain. At the beginning of the year Bruce and the other league "owners" meet, drink beer and draft imaginary boxes of make-believe greeting cards. Some of the cards are imagined to have eagles soaring over vast evergreen forests. Others have fields of wild flowers, four-year-old kids posing as hand-holding newlyweds or flying deer with illuminatable nostrils. Some are imagined to have cute, funny or inspirational sayings inside. Every time an owner actually receives a card that matches one in his fantasy box, he gets points. Most points wins, just like a real sport, sort of. This weekend the playoffs start. It is intense. I continue to enjoy a steady stream of reader mail. I want to incorporate reader commentary more often, but so much of my time is spent fabricating excuses for not sending greeting cards. I decided to use a letter from Todd Bramson, my financial advisor, because Todd Bramson is my financial advisor. I knew early on that Todd was smart because he told me I could make more money as a doctor than a sportswriter. So far I have not made any money as sportswriter, so Todd’s prediction proved true. If you are jealous that I used Todd’s letter, send me a hot investment tip and I will consider your views. Todd writes: I would like to write a longer response but am still waiting for the feeling to move back into my fingers. I attended (voluntarily) the Packers (I mean Jets) game yesterday and stayed until the end so I could sit in a parking lot for over an hour. I have two questions for you, relying on your combined skills at writing and personal health. Can you recommend a psychiatrist? I have many questions about my sanity. How long will it take my core body temperature to rise to somewhere in the 90 degrees or higher range? With a publication base as substantial as yours, I doubt that this will ever even cross your desk, but if it does, I'd love to see a response in your next column. I suggest you invite reader mail on especially controversial topics just to get a pulse from your readers. With that in mind, I better take a minute to check mine again. I think I'm OK now, but may need a second opinion from you or a colleague you trust. Todd Bramson long time fan, first time reader mail writer In reply: Thank you, Todd, for inspiring me to resurrect Reader Mail. Forgive me for editing your letter for length (I tried not to disturb the context). I did this so there is more room in the column for me to express my views. Reader Mail is one of my favorite parts of sportswriting; to neglect it for so long is like failing to drink six 8-ounce glasses of water each day. I waited to respond until I was sure you had sufficiently recovered from your bout of Tundral Hypothermia. After a typical late-season game, it takes 6-10 days for body temperature to reach 90 degrees. Insanity tends to be permanent. You should not worry so much about your physical or psychiatric well being, however I worry that one of your responsibilities, as my long-time financial advisor, is to help me distinguish good investments from bad. Tell me you got your Packers-Jets tickets as a gift from one of your clients. I can’t bear the thought that you bought them with your own otherwise investable money. For the record, I do know a good psychiatrist, but I cannot recommend him, ever since he thought it would be a "good stress release" for me to own Lambeau Field club seats, which cost almost as much, per hour, as a session with a good psychiatrist. Suggestions to take the chill off your next frigid adventure in Green Bay: 1) Hire a driver so you can consume pre- and intra-game antifreeze in therapeutic doses. 2) Wear a stocking cap, even when you take your shirt off. According to my mom, you lose a lot of heat through your head. 3) When applying body paint, use two coats. Apply it widely and thickly to increase the R value. 4) Speaking of R value, bulk up by eating more foods that contain lard. 5) Leave early. This may keep your intestines from freezing to your spleen, and will solve your post-game parking lot woes. You can catch the end of the game on the radio as you speed down a wide-open Highway 41, or in the case of the Jets game, you can tune in to Country Y100 W and sing along with Keith Urban, who wrote Stupid Boy, which is probably not a song about a guy who went to a Packers home disaster and stayed for the whole thing, but I am just speculating on that because I listen mostly to hip hop. If none of that helps, join a fantasy football league. Bruce likes his FFL because participation requires the strength, endurance and agility of a pot roast. FFLs are also a good investment, primarily because they don’t cost much. Bruce, a connoisseur of climate-controlled environments, could not even comprehend the kind of cold you endured, although, according to Arizona legend, he once got a goose bump when he stood too close to the open door of his wine refrigerator. (You watch, he will remind me about the time his house melted in Arizona’s summer heat.) Lastly, I think your pulse is 46, which would have been plenty fast to watch the Packers and Vikings play on Thursday. I make fun of Todd because that’s my job, but I in serious life, I admire his commitment to the team. I myself sat through 90.00 % of the Green Bay-Detroit game last Sunday. I brought my friend Dan, a Bears fan, and his son Jordan, who desperately wanted to see a game in Lambeau. Jordan was admitted to Lambeau, and believe me when I tell you he came very close to seeing a game. Dan was impressed by 1) the crowd and 2) that there was a crowd. I was impressed that there was a Bears fan in the crowd who helped cheer for the Packers. I, myself, thought the high point of the game was the chili that Dan bought me. The chili was life changing, in that I now plan to get it every time I go to Lambeau. No football stadium should have chili that good. The game itself was about as exciting as watching wet paint that just won’t dry. But, hey, what right have I to be choosey? It was a win. A win, even over a marginal team at risk of losing its NFL accreditation, is good. Because we didn’t want to get stuck in the parking lot like Todd did at the Jets game, I ushered my guests to the car with 6 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. You purists may think that this a breach of duty, but consider the details of my sacrifice in larger context: I left my home at 9:15 a.m. and returned at 5:30 p.m. That is eight hours and fifteen minutes of my life devoted to a team that had just won its 6th game of the season. I spent money to do this. And I cheered too. Most of all, I was sober the whole time. Don’t even think about questioning my dedication. I happened to see some of the exclusively telecast Packers-Vikings game because I was at Flemings, an NFL-Network-enabled restaurant, for a holiday dinner with friends. Our table was on the side of the dining area farthest from the two high def televisions, making me wish I had brought the binoculars. As it turned out, in the span of a handful of trips to the bathroom–granted, handful is the wrong word in this context–I was able to see all the touchdowns for both teams (1). Despite the fact that the lone touchdown belonged to the visitors, the Packers prevailed. Had I been there, I would have bought the chili before leaving early. By the way, I have some feedback for the entrepreneurial NFL and its Network: 1) I will follow the advice of State Journal sportswriter Tom Oates, and refrain from complaining to my cable company. Instead I will send a note to Charter Communications that I don’t really care that they refused to accept the NFLs extortionary offer to carry the game. 2) Show me the games and I will watch your commercials, at least the funny ones. Sometimes I will buy the products of your sponsors. If you want me to pay extra to watch a televised game with one defensive touchdown and three field goals, you can stick that up your asterisk. 3) Remember, NFL, you need me a lot more than I need you. By now you readers are asking yourself this: With the No. 6 football Badgers in the Cap One Bowl and the No. 4 basketball Badgers coming off a win against then No. 2 Pitt, why the Helsinki am I writing about the Packers? Oh, yeah, the Badgers. You can read about them on NBI Network. NBI-N is generally unavailable, so too bad so sad. Take solace in the free news that the Packers are not yet mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. The math is calculus, mind you, but it does lead to some curious speculation. Green Bay will need some help with its math, especially from the Bears, who have already locked up home field advantage with simple addition and lots of subtraction (read take away). Because Brett Favre is arguably the most successful quarterback in Soldier Field history, it would be hard to believe the Bears will throw this game. On the other hand, Lovie Smith would have a lot of explaining to do if Rex Grossman were to suffer a season-ending injury while trying to win a game that has no obvious post-season value. On the opposite other hand, if Brian Griese torches the Packers’ lately-stingy defense for 349 passing yards, Smith will have a lot of explaining to do. I suppose, however, with a name like Lovie, he is used to explaining himself, so it will all work itself out. One final word: Strutting should be criminalized for any NFL player on a team with a losing record. It will be obvious enough if you did your job for a change and made a play. Losers need not and should not strut. _____________ Nothing But Iron is an amateur sports column. The author wishes to thank Dan for politely clapping when the Packers made a good play, or at least for clapping against Detroit, which is a lot like clapping against a leper colony, and for letting his son be immersed in the potentially addictive subculture of Green Bay Packers football. The author wishes you and your family a safe and happy® holiday season. ©2006 DrTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.