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From here to eternity
By GARY SHELTON
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 26, 2001
Gary Shelton, a Times sports columnist from the year 2001, is back with the galaxy’s best newspaper.
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All you need to know about the future, really, is this.
Bet the Barsntaz.
Give the points.
Wait. Let me rephrase that. Whoever gets this message should have his decendents, and mine, bet on the Barsntaz. After all, you won't live to see Super Bowl CXXXV. Frankly, I'm a little stunned I've lived to see it myself.
Take my word for it. If this time cylinder is successfully smuggled through the portal, if this letter gets to your hands, and to your time, then protect it at all costs. Keep the information secret. Then tell our children's children to bet their last farthuple on the champions of the IFC.
I cannot stress this strongly enough. I was one of those who said the Bengals would never get back to the Super Bowl in a million years, and only a hundred years later, here they are. Who would have figured? But the Bengals can't win this game.
Come on. There is no way the Barsntaz lose. Not with Quelian V, the finest two-legged running back the game has seen. Not with Clook "The Cranium" Xertek as head coach. Not with Billy Joe Anthrax, the defensive tackle. And especially not with Joe Montana playing quarterback.
That's right, Joe Montana.
I'll explain later.
A hundred years later, it turns out.
* * *
When I woke up, finally, it was because of the noise. There was this pinging, and then gears grinding, and then it sounded like glass falling on metal. For a moment, I thought Allen Iverson had recorded another CD.
I tried to open my eyes, and it was like television static on a dead channel. I tried to say something, but my lips wouldn't work. My legs wouldn't work. My mouth tasted dry and sour. The best I could figure, it was a typical Monday morning.
"Mr. Pass?" a voice said. "Are you there?"
"I think his frequency is off," someone else said. "What's the frequency, Kenneth?"
I blinked awake, and the room slowly sharpened into focus. This was my first glimpse into the world that will be, and let me tell you, it sure was shiny. These guys love chrome. The whole hospital room looked like the bumper of a '57 Thunderbird.
"Mr. Pass? Can you hear me? You've been asleep for a hundred years."
"Really? Could I have another year and a half? Two, maybe? I'm really tired."
"No, Mr. Pass. I'm afraid you need to wake up."
"What ... who ... why do you keep calling me that?"
The doctors looked at each other. The one on the left looked young. The one on the right looked, well, like a cow. I don't mean she was heavy. I mean she looked like Elsie. If she was an organ donor, the card probably said "porterhouse." I was, in a word, confused.
"Well, for a hundred years, you've been called Mr. Pass. It's because of this thing around your belt. It said "Press Pass.' We thought it was your name."
"Where am I?"
"Where you are is in a hospital in Washington, D.C. The more important thing is when you are. It's January 26, 2101."
I did not believe the doctors, of course. Who would? You live all your life in present tense, and suddenly, you wake up in the future. For one thing, all of your magazine subscriptions ran out decades ago.
But there I was, and then I was. The story, it goes, was that I had been on my way to a game between Tampa Bay and Green Bay, back on Christmas Eve in the year 2000. I slipped and hit my head, and by the time anyone found me, I was frozen.
"Cryogenically?" I asked. "Like, I was kept in a capsule in a hospital?"
"Not really," the doctors said. "You were kept in a corner of the Packer Hall of Fame. School children would visit, and as they walked past, out of respect, they would toss blank receipts at your feet."
"It sounds like a lovely way to spend eternity," I said. And it did.
* * *
"Doc, I need to know some things."
"I'll help where I can."
"Doc, are there still newspapers?"
"Of course there are. I have mine holographed in every four hours. I don't know about you, but I can't get enough of that wacky Dilbert."
"Right. And, uh, are there still sports?"
"Well, some sports. Combat Golf. Survivor Swordfighting. Rollerball. Tonya Skating. Baseball died back in 2027, with the final player strike. And they pretty much only play hockey in remote areas, like Neptune and Ion-14 and Canada. But we have squash, the Interplanetary Pastime."
"Squash?"
"Yes. Do you like the sport?"
"Doc, I don't even like the vegetable. Do you still have football?"
"Oh, sure we do. It's the most popular game on 34 of the 38 inhabited planets."
For some reason, it calmed me to know that, in these days I was never expected to see, there was still something left of my time. That in an antiseptic hospital in an antiseptic world, there was still something basic, something coarse enough to appreciate the harsh nature of football.
"Doc, who's the best player in pro football?"
"Oh, there's no doubt. It's Albu Perani."
"What position does he play?"
"She. Albu is a she. And she's a wide receiver for the Bengals."
"Oh. Women play pro football now?"
"Of course they do. Two decades ago, the best team in the league was from Alcora, and it was made up entirely of women. They were determined, merciless players who played with fearless attitudes."
"What were they called?"
"The Janet Renos."
"I see. You know, I watched a lot of football back in my time. Tell me: Did the Bucs ever win the Super Bowl?"
"Oh, you mean the old Air Shula teams?"
"What?"
"Yeah. It's a famous story. Mike Shula, after he was rehired by the Bucs as offensive coordinator, went to a coaching clinic and came back in love with the passing game. The Bucs went six seasons without ever running another draw play. He won four titles, and Shaun King threw from here to Mars. Even before you could throw to Mars. Back when Warren Sapp was NFL commissioner, he used to tell that story all the time. He and Mike were very close, you know."
"You're pulling my leg."
"No, really. It was a great franchise, right up until Skippy Glazer started playing quarterback. Then the family moved the team to Milos-12, and no one ever heard of the Bucs again."
"How many teams are there now?"
"Last season, there were 911. This year, if Los Angeles builds a stadium, there were be 912. Which would be perfect. Two-hundred and twenty eight four-team divisions."
"For goodness sakes, why so many?"
"Well, when Steve Case discovered he could send people, like e-mail, all over the universe back in 2021, the NFL discovered it could sell interplanetary television rights, not to mention billboards on 457 moons. After that, the league expanded every year. The sky was the limit. No pun intended."
"How did they ever get enough players?"
"That wasn't a problem, once we found out aliens were living among us."
"Aliens?"
"Yep. They've been here for years, nudging us along with key inventions such as microwave popcorn, the internet and the cure for rap music. There were even aliens here when you were alive the first time. For instance, did you know that Tony Dungy was a Vulcan?"
"You know, somehow, that makes sense when you think about how calm...wait a minute. Vulcans were fictional."
"No, they weren't. Gene Roddenberry, it turns out, was from Saturn. All the old Star Trek shows were actually documentaries from his family vacations. William Shatner was really Roddenberry's cousin from a planet called Overactus."
"So Tony was a Vulcan. Wow. I miss old Tony."
"Why? He's still coaching. How do you think the Bengals got to the Super Bowl?"
"You're kidding. Tony Dungy is still alive?"
"Of course. Vulcans live to be a thousand, you know. He's lived long. He's prospered. He came out of an 80-year retirement last year when he was watching a game and discovered they still had off-tackle."
"Football with aliens? I'll bet that took some getting used to."
"Of course it did. For the NFL, the big deal was getting past all the labor problems. For instance, the Gorthaxes. They were a problem because they don't have blood. They have Nandrolone in their veins. For humans, that's a steroid. So how are you going to outlaw that? And if they play, how are you going to keep a lineman from Alabama from taking it, too? And what about the Klarzmotts?"
"What about the Klarzmotts?"
"They have eight arms! They have 2-foot fingers made out of Velcro. They are 9 feet tall. They make great receivers, you know."
"I'll bet. So what happened?"
"Strikes. Earthlings didn't want aliens. If you were a 5-11, 200-pound receiver, would you want to compete for a job against a 6-9, 410-pound Chulu? Those guys have wings! On the other hand, the Anti-Alien Discrimination League insisted they had a right to play. So there had to be some adjustment in the rules."
"Such as?"
"Well, it started as a one-alien-per-team rule. Then three. Now, we're up to 10 non-humans per team, but league rules still say you can only have 22 hands and 22 feet on the field at the same time."
"What happens if you have a receiver with four hands?"
"Then you have to play a guard from Nebulon. They don't have any hands. The advantage, though, is that you don't get any holding calls."
"What did the league do about steroids?"
"We still test. And the good thing is this. Gorthaxes, it seems, really stink at football. Remember Tony Mandarich? He was a Gorthax. Keith McCants? Same thing. Brian Bosworth was a Gorthax, and by the end, he was afraid to watch it on TV."
"Oh. So, who are the other good players?"
"Joe Montana. Deacon Jones. Dick Butkus. Johnny Unitas. Jim Brown. El-fanx Jihi. Flubber Newsome. Billy Joe Anthrax. Spray-Can O'Leary. Jerry Rice. Bippity-Bop Harrison. Anthony Munoz. Xorb the Impaler. Roseanne Barr. Vortex Glurk. Tiffany "The Widow-maker" Wyatt. Walter Payton."
"Hold on. I recognize some of those names."
"You do? Oh, wait. I see your confusion. We have clones now."
"Clones?"
"Yep. That isn't the original Joe Montana. This is actually the sixth Joe we've had. And the ninth Jim Brown. You get a little bit of hair, a fingernail, anything with DNA and voila: You have a Hall of Famer."
"Wow. In my time, DNA couldn't even get you a jury verdict."
"Hey, don't make fun of O.J. In the 22nd century, the man is a hero. The way he chased down the real killer ... "
"Someone else really did it? Who was it?"
"Brace yourself. Modern-day forensics revealed that it was really former Triple Crown winner Affirmed."
"The horse? Oh. I guess Affirmed was from another planet."
He nodded. "Equine 2."
"Anyway, Doc, back to cloning. Why doesn't everyone have a Jim Brown?"
"Well, there is only one clone of each player allowed at a time, and each team can play only one. Montana plays for the Barsntaz. And he may be the best Montana yet."
"Do the Bengals have a clone?"
"Yes. Sarah Michelle Gellar. She's dating the owner."
"The Bengals wasted their clone?"
"If you consider Sarah Michelle a waste, maybe we should re-examine to see if you still have head trauma."
"Good point. How about other technologies? Do you have time travel?"
"Heavens no. Do you know what that would do to the point spread? We couldn't gamble because some wiseguy would go forward in time, find the result, and come back. In the end, we decided we'd rather have football than time travel."
"I see. And how about genetic engineering?"
"We've given up on that. The Cowboys once tried to mold a player with Bob Hayes' speed, Michael Irvin's hands, Emmitt Smith's toughness, Bob Lilly's tenacity and Roger Staubach's character. Instead, they messed up the formula and got Dan Reeves' speed, Alvin Harper's hands, Deion Sanders' toughness, Shante Carver's tenacity and Irvin's character."
"What did they do with that guy?"
"He became a free agent, and Little Danny Snyder gave him a 4-billion farthuple contract."
"That sounds like the worst mistake you could ever make."
"No, the San Antonio Vikings cloned Alvin Harper by mistake."
"Why on Earth -- or anywhere else -- would they do that?"
"Well, they found this fingertip on a training room floor, see?. . ."
"Ugh. Let's change the subject. Are there androids in the NFL?"
"Yes and no. Androids lack the passion for the game, but they're completely devoid of personality. But we still use them. We've found they make excellent commissioners."
* * *
So here I am, a century past deadline, at the Super Bowl again.
If you want to know the truth, the surroundings are even stranger than the games they used to play in New Orleans.
Remember how they used to say the Super Bowl was the biggest game on the planet? Well, it's bigger than that now. They play the game in space. Yes, space. (Or, as they say in St. Louis, the final Frontiere.) Back in 2091, it seems, the NFL built a slow-orbiting, gravity-controlled football stadium called the Enterprise Dome. (The architect was a big Star Trek fan, having mistakenly assumed the old series was a documentary.) Later, that was changed to the TelstarVisaRolexMercedesMillerMcDonalds Dome. As it turns out, the world has not outgrown commercialism.
They play the game at half-gravity. Even after they expanded the field to 150 yards long and 80 yards wide, with 25-yard end zones, the players were just too fast for the surface. So the NFL decided to make the game not just back and forth and side to side, but also up and down. Let me tell you, you've never seen a great play until you see Randy Moss, the new one, jump up 45 feet to catch a pass from Spartacus Bejorky, The Churnin' Saturnian.
Super Bowl festivities take a week. It takes that long to get in all the anthems.
They play with a lead-tipped football. That way, you can control whether you want to throw a ball 5 yards long and 40 yards high, or the other way around.
Oh, and Denny Green still hasn't made it.
Tickets for the Super Bowl are now 20,000 farthuples, provided you can get them away from the cast of CBS's weekly drama Glizul: YumYum Hunter. Parking is 100,000 farthuples, but hey, they valet. Or you can sign up for the GE-DNA Space Shuttle.
They still have gambling. It was 40,000-1 that the Bengals wouldn't be here. It was 400-billion to one that I wouldn't be here. The only odds greater than that were Dilfer-Collins.
And, yes, you can still see the game better at home than in the stadium. Especially now with Positioncam. Turns out, NFL Fuji-Films has found a way to put tiny cameras and microphone chips inside every helmet, so if you want to see what a play looks like from, oh, the offensive tackle's viewpoint, you can watch the play that way. Or you can be the quarterback or the receiver or the guy who stands around leering at the cheerleaders. You know. The punter. And get this: You can sign up for Virtual Laceration, which makes you feel the same pain the players do while watching in your own living room.
There are still referees. Four holographs, four floating Zebrabots. Unfortunately, they still huddle every play and discuss why they shouldn't have thrown a flag.
Yes, there is Instant Replay. This year. Over the past century, replay has been voted in 37 times and out 36 times. Of course, coaches will tell you there still is the occassional glitch; they refer to the Replay Computer as "Hal 9000."
Coaching is different. For instance, the most popular defense is no longer the two-deep. It's the two-deep, four wide, three high zone. Oh, and if you play a Szacha Slug at fullback, their natural position, then you never tell them to "lay it on the line." The last coach who did that caused 3-million tiny slugs to be born on the goal line, who immediately ate the marching band.
Medicine is different. You can have arms replaced, legs replaced. If you are a general manager, you can have your heart replaced, although it might not be good for your career. With such advances, players can play forever, or at least until they are as old as Beano Cook.
There have been a few rule changes, too. No shapeshifting. No Jedi mind tricks. If you have a weapon for an appendage, such as the slingblade arms of the planet Billy Bob, they must be covered. No wings. No dimension-hopping. No hiding inside another player, like the little guy from Aliens. No use of Chumlies, the little animals from Saturn who are the exact size, shape and colors of a football. Oh, and there is now a penalty box, just like they have in hockey.
There are still unruly fans, too. Technology hasn't halted that. Earlier this season, Coach Waldo Wyche, great-great grandson of Sam, was watching a play when a hologram materialized before his eyes. It was a large hand, which then made an obscene gesture. That's what happens to a coach when his team is called three times in a row for Backfield in Mutation.
Sadly, there are no more cheeseburgers or pizza. Turns out, they made people fat. Oh, the people who made cheeseburgers and pizza thought everyone knew that, but then, they started losing lawsuits. Just like the tobacco companies. Instead, fans eat a snack called Soylent Green. No, it's not people, like in the movie. It's just that Nabisco, a GE-DNA subsidiary, has a sense of humor.
But most of all, there are the players. You remember the bar scene in Star Wars? That's the offensive huddle for the Barsntaz. You have oblong helmets, because you have oblong heads. You have eyes the size, and shape, of footballs. You have reptilian skin and elongated snouts. You have dreadlocks. You have (and this is scary) polka-dot uniforms! All the teams from the the Interstellar Federation Conference are like that.
The Barsntaz are vicious, if you want to know the truth. Ask the Millineum Falcons (they moved from Atlanta to the Martian capital in 2079), who lost 412-2 in the semifinals. One bad play, and oops, there were only 21 hands in the huddle.
You want to talk tough? Billy Joe Anthrax played the second half last week even though he had both knees replaced at halftime. If you don't think that's tough, consider this: He picked out the new knees he wanted from a player on the opposing team, then went out and collected them. He's sponsored by Johnson, Johnson and yet another Johnson.
There is Snapper Lorghum, the Kamaze from the planet of Kervorkian. Lorghum tends to spontaneously combust every eight seconds. Imagine. He goes running down the field, hits the ballcarrier, and ka-boom. He's sponsored by Firestone.
There is Jarnal Spodio, from Lintmosh. He's sponsored by Chickenbeak Sushi. He's a great weapon out of the backfield, especially when he's invisible. People think the ball is being passed, but it's just Jarnal, running with it.
There is Boom Shacka-lacka, the strong safety who grew up in the bad side (and who knew there was one) of the planet Nirvanah. Shaka-lacka is a savage player who has been fined repeatedly for the intense damage caused by his late hits. (The best-selling video: Boom Shacka's Biggest Blows, can be purchased for 80 farthuples. Not for sale in Nebraska).
Finally, there is Clook "The Cranium" Xertek, the old master. He's won nine titles in 12 years, largely because he sticks to the basics. In some ways, he sounds a lot like an NFL coach of a century ago.
"I don't know if we'll win," Xertek said. "They'll put their helmet on one antenna at a time, just like us."
How are the Bengals going to compete with that?
Not to say the Bengals don't have some players of their own. Start with Albu Perani, the Bengals receiver. No one hovers better than she does. Besides, being a chameleon tends to allow her to slip through secondaries unnoticed. One second, you wonder why the quarterback is throwing to a speaker on the roof, and the next, it's a touchdown.
There is Spray-Can O'Leary, the grizzled fullback from Collard Green, Miss. O'Leary, sponsored by Lucky Charms, earned his nickname as a rookie against the dreaded Venusian Vipers. The Vipers, the story goes, had the best pass rush in history, four giant, hostile creatures who looked like large grasshoppers. O'Leary took a fake handoff on the first play of the game, then whipped out a can of Raid and left bodies all over the field. He was suspended for two years, but the grasshoppers never played again. There is Ickey Muldoon, the dancing Org with the rhinocerous head.
There is Time-Warp Walters, the speedy back from Notre Dame, the first player from the Fighting Irish to reach the NFL in more than 60 years. Walters has had an injury problem -- he never did find that kidney -- but has played well down the stretch.
There is Skywalker Kqxz, the trash-talking cornerback, who can call receivers names in 4,874 languages and dialects. Kqxz may be the finest coverage man in history because, technically, he is classified as a fungus.
Then there is Dungy, calm, patient, logical. And if the game gets close, he figures he has an edge.
After all, he is Clook's father.
* * *
So what does the future hold?
It holds magic and miracles, invention and imagination. It is frightening and fascinating, a blend of evolution and endurance. Players are bigger. Coaches are brighter. And people still talk about cutting down on the turnovers.
As for me, I can only hope you get this capsule. I am fine in the future. I am happy.
But, man, do I miss cheeseburgers.
Today's Odyssey
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