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February 02, 2004

AP Sportswriters Dispute Groundhog Poll

Gradient Isobar, Weatherbeater
BNN Environmental
Monday, February 2, 2004


South Pasadena - (BNN) "Winter is nearly over" announced ABC Sportscaster and voice of the PAC 10 Keith Jackson today with the results of the AP Sportswriters' Groundhog Day Poll. In the poll, 38 writers voted that "Spring is Just Around the Corner" while the remaining 27 cast ballots for "Six More Weeks of Winter."

This is in sharp contrast to the morning's earliest indicator - inveterate groundhog Phil of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. During the observance of the annual ritual this morning, Phil's shadow was ruled to have been seen by Phil, thus projecting six more weeks of the frigid conditions that have socked the northeast and much of the midwest for the past month.

"Nonsense" stated Jackson. "I'm seeing my own shadow because the sun is shining right over my shoulder! Besides, just one month ago today, temperatures were moderate enough to have one Grandaddy of a football game even further north than we are now."

The prognostication of the erstwhile Punxsutawnian groundhog was collaborated by a distant cousin, T-Boy the Cajun Groundhog. T-Boy is a nutria, a different breed of ground-dwelling mammal and lives at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans, lending the additional diversity of geography to the predictive elements.

According to WWL Newsradio 870,

Officials at Audubon Zoo watched a Cajun groundhog (as) T-Boy the Cajun groundhog stepped out and saw his shadow, meaning six more weeks of winter.

"T-Boy is so unlike all the other groundhogs because he sleeps in and he is never wrong."

Sarah Burnette with Audubon Zoo says T-Boy has been calling the forecast for the last 15 years and this year, in homage to the space program's recent work on Mars, he entitled Monday's event the "mission to marsh."


"Some might speculate that this is merely a popularity contest conducted to drum up excitement, a buzz you might say, but that's just a bunch of hooey" said Jackson.

Jackson discussed the conferences he had had with some other sportswriters as the poll was being conducted. "Ivan Maisel told me his corns felt pretty good when he woke up this morning and Trev Alberts was having his best hair day in recent memory - all signs of approaching springtime."

Associates of Phil and T-Boy stood by their respective rodential pronouncements Monday, shivering in frigid temps in Pennsylvania and braced against an incoming cold front in Bayou Country.

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February 02, 2004 at 04:05 PM in Sports |

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