Overrated ball-thrower Brett Favre recently announced his intention to un-retire from American Football. He announced this on the program of terrifying Scientologist (and family friend of Joe McCarthy!) Greta Van Susteren-which was odd, because he was looking to be released from his contract with the Packers, not for a lost white girl. You know who else thought it was odd? America's sportswriters! That elite league of old white dudes coudn't understand why their favorite good ole boy QB broke this news to a lady instead of one of them. Thankfully, Greta is not merely a top-rated television hostess-she is also a blogger! So she responded to a couple utterly obscure small-market sports columnists with typical internet heroism. Enjoy!

So, what's happening in Boston today? An outpouring of grief from the Boston Herald! The paper runs what may be the biggest correction of all time, size-wise: a front page splash apologizing to the New England Patriots for alleging that the team had videotaped an opponent's practice session. The original story ran February 2—the day before the Super Bowl, which the Patriots lost. Since the team obviously suffered morale failure from this traitorous blow by their hometown rag, this was really the least the Herald could do. (News of the apocalypse, P. 24). Click through for a larger picture.

Athlete and sportscaster Josh Booty thought he could drive just fine, even though he was drunk, and then he thought he could take on taser-wielding Orange County Sheriff's deputies, who of course tased him right before he cracked his head. But is it a surprise the 32-year-old thought he was invincible, or that he was acting out? First he was "the most highly recruited high school quarterback in the country," according to the New York Times. Then he drew a record-setting $1.6 million draft bonus to play for the Florida Marlins' minor league franchise. When he got bored of that, he went to college for a year, until he was drafted into the NFL. He was a quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks, then the Cleveland Browns, then the Oakland Raiders. The free-agent quarterback parted ways with the Raiders in 2007 and has been killing time as a sportscaster for Fox, ESPN and the NFL Network. So why the self-destructive behavior? A possible answer, plus a larger shot of Booty's booking photo, after the jump.

It took a day or so, but the staid and conservative New York Sun basically became the Post today, with no fewer than six stories on your New York Football Giants. Including one by beloved former Daily News columnist Lenore Skenazy. She has never watched football before, but now she has some sort of meathead son who declares that upon growing up he's "going to be a linebacker, or safety, or maybe a hot dog seller, because he loves the tongs." Ok, little Skenazy! Whatever. Then Skenazy and her husband eat "wings" and watch their very first Super Bowl ever on a "spanking new high-def projector so we can watch the game on our living room wall. We take down our French poster for the occasion." Mon dieu! Not their "French poster"! Andrea Peyser would eat these people alive. [NYSun]

The gay community is hotly divided over the value of the Giants' Super Bowl victory. On one side is the H8STR8 contingent, which called for all gays to boycott the game in favor of drag shows. They also claimed they'd be picketing sports bars in the "anti-gay" Murray Hill area; if that's true, we'd love to see it. On the other side, though, are the dozens of tristate-area men looking to celebrate the Giants' win with some hot man-on-man craigslist sex. Even Patriots fans are asking to be punished HARD for their wayward loyalties. Despite their political differences, both ends of the spectrum should be able to unite around the sentiment: "GIANTS WIN: blow me." [Craigslist]

['Saved by the Bell' actor and 'Dancing With the Stars' contestant Mario Lopez at the Victoria's Secret Super Bowl party in Phoenix, AZ last night; image via Bauer-Griffin]

In this screenshot from I Am Legend, a news ticker from a fictional 2008 TV interview reads "Giants lose to Patriots for second time this season 23 to 7." Which, since the Giants lost to the Patriots once this season (after I Am Legend was released) and are set to play them in the Superbowl, means I Am Legend has obviously predicted the future and you may as well place your bets. Also, Emma Thompson will cure cancer. [via Digg]

"We're not saying he's Phil Simms or anything," Archie Manning said after his son had gone to the interview room. "I just never thought he was as bad as some people thought he was." [NYT]

Yesterday we noted the lack of high-definition football in the press room at CES 2008, the biggest electronics show in the world. Today though, things are much more civilized. We're watching the Giants/Buccaneers game in glorious high definition on some LG set. We're surprised there isn't a massive Panasonic plasma with booth babes serving beef Wellington to the bored hard-working masses of reporters. This should be prime sponsorship real estate.

We snapped this shot in the press lounge at CES 2008. There were several HDTV's displaying the NFL's AFC wild card playoff game between the Jaguars and Steelers with several dozen comfy seats with reporters watching the game. Nice, right? Sadly, the world's biggest electronics show didn't have the game in HD. UPDATE: Today's games are being shown in HD. What a relief.

Tonight: the Iowa Caucuses. Also tonight: The Orange Bowl! As the Iowa caucuses require quite a bit more evening activity from participants than simpler primary elections, we can't help but wonder which candidates' supporters are most likely to skip the caucuses to watch a nationally televised, sure-to-be-thrilling bowl game between Kansas and tragedy stricken Virginia Tech. Huckabee, who already earned a bit of ire in the heartland by telling Iowans that the game would be boring, seems an easy bet, as does fellow good ol' boy Fred Thompson. But as the GOP require only a straw poll, unlike the more involved politicking of the Dems, it might be Edwards (who would love nothing more than to appeal to the type of Iowans who love college football) who's hurt most. Of course caucusing is so archaic, annoying, and inconvenient that no one turns up to do it any year regardless of what's on TV. Besides the same couple thousand old white folks who've chosen our terrible leaders and their ineffectual challengers for the last century or so. [KansasCity.com]
Photo: "Iowa Bus Tour: Football Break" by John Edwards 2008

For those of you who haven't been following the postgame analysis, Tom Brady is the Patriots quarterback who dumped longtime girlfriend, Six Degrees 'star' Bridget Moynahan, for supermodel Gisele Bundchen—and who was none too pleased when, over the weekend, the world learned that Moynahan is three months pregs with his baby. (Shades of the Billy Crudup dust-up!) This morning's Page Six smackdown upped the ante in the Brady vs. Moynahan stakes considerably.

Sigh. Maybe Joseph Epstein was right.

Here's one of the more interesting nuggets we've read in Lloyd Grove's Lowdown in some time: