Poor Ed Rendell. As the New York Times reports, the Pennsylvania governor faces the possibility that two of his state’s teams — the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers — will play against each other in the Super Bowl. Mercifully for Rendell, the former mayor of Philadelphia, he’s already made it clear he’ll cheer for the Eagles in any intra-state matchup. But he’ll still have to follow a long tradition of governors betting on the game, and bet against himself:
For most governors, that would be reason to host a news conference and smile a lot. But Rendell is hardly your average governor where sports are concerned. This is the man who — legend has it — sparked the snowball-throwing frenzy in a playoff game against Dallas in 1989. He has said he paid a guy to throw a snowball at the field so he would not bother other fans…
He said that he would continue the tradition of opposing Super Bowl governors placing a bet on the outcome, and that he would bet against himself. If the Eagles were to win an all-Pennsylvania Super Bowl, a shipment of sandwiches from Primanti Bros. would be donated from Pittsburgh to a senior citizen center and a homeless shelter in Philadelphia. If the Steelers were to win, Philadelphia would send Pat’s cheese steaks to a senior center and a shelter in Pittsburgh.
Though it should go without saying, this is obviously one of the sillier stories the Times has ever run, an example of its insidious liberal bias — in order to advance to an all-Pa. Super Bowl, the Steelers will first have to defeat my hometown Baltimore Ravens.
