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Fan vote helps Brady eke out MVP

The balloting for MVP honors in Sunday's Super Bowl was close enough that Patriots quarterback Tom Brady can thank about 1,000 fans who voted online for his margin of victory over teammates Ty Law and Adam Vinatieri.

Media members have 15 of the 19 votes used to determine the MVP, and Brady finished third among that panel with four votes, including Fox's John Madden and Sports Illustrated's Peter King. Law earned 5 1/2 votes and Vinatieri five, making the online vote the deciding factor in which player would get a Cadillac Escalade.

With close to 400,000 online votes, a slight drop-off from last year, the choice was Gore-Bush close, decided by 0.28 percent. Brady earned 29.02 percent of the vote, and his late push from directing the winning drive was nearly trumped by a rush of votes for Vinatieri. The Patriots kicker drew 28.74 percent, including 6,500 one minute after the winning field goal.

Brady was given the four official votes that go to the online winner, enough to push him past his teammates. Considering his slim margin online, the voting easily could have shifted in Vinatieri's favor had the balloting been kept open even one minute longer.

There was no safeguard to keep fans from voting as many times as they wanted. Remember, this is Boston, the same town that saw a hacker give shortstop Nomar Garciaparra 25,000 online votes on the last day of balloting for baseball's 1999 All-Star Game.

NEW-LOOK NASCAR: NASCAR.com relaunched Wednesday and unveiled several new features, including seven fantasy games built around the Winston Cup circuit.

The official site has a cleaner, white background but hasn't addressed one pet peeve: Its type size is too small for comfortable reading. If you squint, you'll find driver Kevin Harvick's sensitive sport-or-not-a-sport musings on the Winter Olympics: "Figure skating? Dude, did you really just ask me that? That's like watching the grass grow. Not a sport at all ... tutus on ice, that's what I call it."

The site debuted a Web exclusive racing cartoon, "The Kellys," with 10 episodes last season, and the show returns with 40 weekly episodes starting today.

Another new feature is "Racer's Edge," a premium service directed toward fantasy league enthusiasts. Packages start at $30 for the season, with special chats, stats and insights available to subscribers. NASCAR.com will feature a slew of live events leading up to the Daytona 500 Feb. 17, including live footage from practice runs today at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. TID-BYTES: How good was Super Bowl XXXVI? Of 40,000 fans responding to a poll at SuperBowl.com, 38 percent said it was the best ever, with 45 percent putting it in the top five.... Much-coveted Raiders coach Jon Gruden, nicknamed "Chucky" for his resemblance to the evil doll in the Child's Play movies, actually has a doll of his own. A San Diego man has dressed the doll in a Raiders jacket and headset and has sold about 50 in the past two years, and one is bidding at $50 this week on eBay.com. ... If you couldn't spring for $885 tickets for tonight's Opening Ceremony, check out nbcolympics.com for a preview. For the record, the official sites for performers Leann Rimes (rimestimes.com) and the Dixie Chicks (www.dixiechicks.com) offer links to Olympics.com, but Sting (sting.com) and Yo-Yo Ma (yo-yoma.com) do not.

-- If you have a question or comment about the Internet or a site to suggest, e-mail staff writer Greg Auman at auman@sptimes.com.

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