COLUMN: Wacky world of bowl games

Tradition is being flushed when it comes to college football.

What used to be a reward for a season well-played has disintegrated into a gridiron quagmire of barely watchable, if not just plain bad, football games.

Remember when the “Grand-daddy of them all”, the Rose Bowl, was the ultimate honor and treat for the top team in the now defunct Pac-12 (or 8 or 10) versus the champion of the Big (insert number here, but it won’t matter)?

Michigan versus USC on New Year’s Day.

Football with a hangover from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. AFTER the parade.

Or the Sugar Bowl from New Orleans and the Cotton Bowl from Dallas.

What New Year’s Day evening was complete without one more game, the Orange Bowl from Miami?

Where did you go, games of glory?

And what is the deal with the “bowl” games of today?

The Myrtle Beach Bowl? The Cricket Celebration Bowl? Or the unforgettable clash in this year’s Avocados from Mexico Cure Bowl, “live” from Orlando? Orlando, I believe, is in Florida.

I’m as big a football fan as there is.

Soon, after the final pro football game of the year, we will enter into what I have always called the Dark Days of no college or pro football until August.

But after watching way too many meaningless games between way too many teams with 6-6 won-loss records, I’m ready to welcome the break in the schedule.

What’s next in the wacky world of bowl games?

There is actually a game called the “Let’s Go Bowling, Bowl”, which “honors” the sport of bowling.

Nothing says football more than the sounds of pins falling in a bowling alley, eh?

And how about the “Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl” from, you guessed it, Yankee Stadium.

Babe Ruth must be turning over in his sacred grave.

And not to be outdone by a regional baseball rival, who will ever forget the Fenway Wasabi Bowl from Boston’s shrine of baseball, Fenway Pahk.

Used to be, when achievement meant something and before everyone got a trophy for just showing up, post-season college bowl games were for the cream of the crop.

Now they are advertising campaigns for Pop Tarts, or “Scooter’s Coffee” (the Frisco Bowl), and the Famous Toastery Bowl.

I had to look that one up. The game was originally conceived as the Bahamas Bowl but was changed to honor a mortgage company before finally landing as a tribute to a chain of restaurants. Toast? Guess so.

And if you just can’t stand not knowing who won, Western Kentucky beat Old Dominion in overtime to win this year’s Famous Toastery Bowl.

The list goes on and on and each year the crowds shown on TV get smaller and smaller for this host of 6-6 games.

It started with the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, played on the hideous blue turf at Boise State University, I suspect it was a backup game in case BSU went 5-7.

That game, by all rights, should be the Papa Smurf Bowl, the “grand-daddy of them all” in honor of the blue field.

One of my “favorites” is the TaxAct Texas Bowl. Losers have to pay taxes for the winners? And is there not a conflict between the TaxAct Bowl and the Taxslayer Bowl (formerly known as simply the “Gator Bowl”.

Where and when does this madness end?

Will next year bring about the Crane/American Standard Bowl?

Two 6-6 teams could fight for the right to pull the coveted golden handle and flush the losers out one end of the stadium.

The losers of the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, a bowl game sponsored by mayonnaise, could be waiting near the drain.