Allegations surfaced early Monday morning that scorekeeping fraud had occurred during the automatic points tally following the RFL ** GAME * OF * THE * WEEK ** contest between Ali Eslambolchi's Heirs to the Ayatollah (Heirs) and David Brodkin's Determined Sperm Which Squirm Like Worms with Firm Stern Perms (Sperm). News agencies nationwide delivered a premature report that the Heirs had defeated the Sperm by a score of 50-31, after Heirs WE Wayne Chrebet tipped the scales with 6 pts late on Sunday Nitro. However, news agencies later retracted the projected Heirs victory when it was discovered that Sperm WR Lauveraunesaunerausaveraunes "Bimbo" Coles had scored a little known 100 point play near the end of regulation. CNN, ABC, and Yahoo!Sports later retracted the Sperm's projected victory amid lawsuits challenging the validity of the 100 point rule.

"I (think the league should accept the results of this 100 pt play and just get on with preparations for next week. The American People demand a swift resolution) ..." commented Sperm GM Brodkin. His opponent in this momentous challenge to league democracy, Ali Eslambolchi of the Heirs, stated in a press conference: "I am completely against recounting of the GOTW points...I think doing that is completely against everything our RFL fathers envisioned for the integrity of our league."

Other GMs were particularly outspoken about the perceived obstruction of justics and the RFL Way. Tim Purwin of the Carpet Bombers stated, "Please continue recounting the HTTA/...Sperm... game, until you are completely certain of the outcome." Purwin also confirmed reports that Sperm RB Justin Watson, who scored 0 for the game, thought he was playing for the Heirs in place of injured RB M.Faulk and therefore should be allowed to replay his downs with the proper mindset.

DISENFRANCHISED VOTERS SPEAK OUT ON BALLOT IRREGULARITIES

GMs around the league have been calling for a revote after league commissioner David Wang ratified a vote count in favor of implementing the 50-yard rule prior to the start of the RFL2k season. The new rule was adopted with less than a majority vote after voting irregularities were reported. The commissioner then shot down a grass-roots movement that managed to garner a majority of league GMs to call for a revote. Since the commissioner's contraversial ruling, huge demonstrations have rallied around the RFL world wide headquarters in San Jose, which sublets part of the building to Sony on a temporary contract.

"The ballot was too confusing," complained GM Clark Goebel, "I thought I was voting for catered steak dinners at the draft." The ballot referred to had choices printed on both sides of the email message, with cryptic abbreviations "Y" and "N" sometimes used in place of traditional responses "Yes" and "No".

Other election irregularities were reported. "White police officers used intimidation tactics on me," reported Brown GM and IFEJ President Joe Pynadath, "I was too scared to vote no." Other GMs complained of being turned away at the polls, when their email vote message was returned as "undeliverable".

RFL: REAL or FALSE LIBERTIES?

All this controversy has heightened the awareness of league constituency regarding alleged improprieties around various RFL matters. Please see the "BUSHWHACKED" segment of CALS' CORNER later in this edition of WIR for more on these late breaking developments.

****************************
**** GAME OF THE WEEK ****
****************************
Heirs to the Ayatollah 50
TheDeterminedSpermWhichSquirm... 31

This result is still pending a manual recount of Lauveraunes Coles' 100 points from late Sunday night. Sperm GM Brodkin has filed a court injunction to block the manual recount, citing the need for a fast resolution so the RFL brethren could begin preparing for next week. Brodkin also made reference to a precedent set after a similar performance by Wilt Chamberlain many years ago. RFL sources have not confirmed whether the reference was to points scored or babes bedded.

Heirs GM Ali is reported to be "calm" in the face of allegations from the Brodkin camp that the manual recount is a blatant terrorist attack against the league. The partisan RFL Secretary of State has gone on the record as stating that the 100pt rule is invalid unless a veto is obtained from league commissioner Wang by 9am PST Tuesday morning, the traditional dibs queue deadline. Since that deadline has come and gone, the league records office will go with the people's choice and give this Dubya to Ali.

c'pper 18 rand'son 0 rsmith 15 moulds 3 chrebet 6 wycheck 3 dgreco 5
garcia 12 watson 3 pr'tice 6 har'son 6 coles 0 tonyg 0 nedney 4
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%$!@#& 26
The Everyday Tokers 41

The Tokers are riding high after their best performance of the season, despite having nothing better than No-TD Napoleon to throw to the lions week after week. %$!@#& shows for the second week in a row that they are little more than Edgerrin James and a bunch of scrubs.

elvis 0 ejames 15 anders 0 morton 0 trbrown 0 dmoore 3 c'stie 8
brunell 12 dayne 3 kaufman 0 moss 12 twilkins 0 bubba 6 gr'tica 8
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Curly Black Hair 29
Clarpet Blombers 61

CBH has the strongest RB tandem in the league, but had to go with just one half of the backfield this week. Carpet Bombers have perhaps the best 3 RB set in the league, and the scratching of Wheatley from the monday nitro lineup gave Purwin an added boost of 15 from Lamar Smith, which would have otherwise been wasted on the bench. This could come in handy down the stretch as the Bombers make a run to catch league leading Heirs to the Ayatollah. Trent Green was marvelous in the latest rendition of his Kurt Warner impersonation act, netting an additional 21.

b'lein 6 warren 3 garner 12 oronde 3 tdwight 0 becht 0 mare 5
trent 21 lsmith 15 watters 18 jsmith 6 shepherd 0 c'ford 0 peterson 1
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All Jacked Up 34
Crazed Beagles on the Run 17

Janikowski pulled up lame again with disease, diverting the Beagles K effort to 3-point Mike Hollis. The 7th straight loss for the Beagles solidifies their standing in the league cellar. Enraged GM Walter Grayeski blames his woes on commissioner Dave Wang, declaring "I had the 3 best record in the RFL over the past 2 years. This year I can barely win a game." Meanwhile Clark Goebel's AJU quietly racks up their 7th win, keeping alive their Steamroller dreams, while solidifying their spot in the playoff picture.
Scrub Dubya for Clark (2-0)

griese 3 tiki 9 egeorge 3 dhayes 3 dmason 9 freddie 0 anderson 7
peyton 3 wdunn 3 kfaulk 8 freeman 0 marcus 0 riem'ma 0 hollis 3
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Black Ops 46
Na Brown's Boys 48

A true display of Monday nite madness, Na Brown's Boys GM Joe Pynadath was having Sunset Midnight Madness flashbacks for the second week in a row. Several buffet tables were reported to have been disrupted in the action. Black Ops entered trailing by 8, but an early score from TD and beaucoup de yardage from Rich Gannon pulled them within 2, after Elam and McCaffrey had bolstered the lead further for NBB. Then with just over a minute to play Gannon struck paydirt, giving Ops their first lead of the night at 46-45.... but NBB staged a last minute drive and capitalized on a buzzer-beating FG from Elam to save the victory. Green Bay Packers linebacker Na'il Diggs (2 tackles sunday) is rumored to be on Na Brown's hot list for TE prospects to shore up their current state of misery at that position.
Scrub Loss for JoePa (1-1)

gannon 9 ftaylor 12 tdavis 9 boston 0 holt 9 sloan 0 hanson 7
king 6 green 6 bettis 12 cris 12 ed 3 mangum 0 elam 9
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Nasty Pimps 33
Fresh Squeezed 36

Put these two team names in the same sentence, in the context of acne, and you don't want to be around for the result. In this RFL matchup however, the result was compelling and exciting (for at least one GM). The vaunted Fresh Squeezed D managed to shut down Alstott and send Favre to the showers early on late sunday afternoon, to preserve their slim margin. The game could have hinged on which Giants receiver caught all the balls this week, but to Shiv's misfortune Hilliard was left on the bench for a gimpy T Owens.

favre 0 alstott 0 pittman 12 muhsin 9 towens 0 roland 6 daluiso 6
blake 3 jamala 15 biaka 3 toomer 0 ibruce 9 jackie 0 stover 6
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TheArmchairQBAdventurePlayset(tm) 44
Merry Munching Merkins 35

Tim Brown made a valiant run at the end but was way short. The Merkins brought in the late Columbian revolutionary Che Guevara at QB, but he could not be resurrected in time to contribute to the scoring effort, much less to overturn the preseason voting debacle. This journalist would like to go on the record as saying that Joe Horn does not suck. I have been converted! Watch out Jerry Rice!

mcnair 6 dautry 0 jlewis 12 horn 9 rod 3 chad 0 akers 14
che X rich'son 6 dillon 3 tibrown 12 schroeder 3 dilger 0 v'jagt 11
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Minnesota Nice 35
Fire in the Hole 38

Ugh, what a disappointment. Dudley could come up with the goods last night, and now FITH stands at a SCRUBBY 8-3, while MN Nice has endured more than their fair share of scrub defeats and stands at 5-6 with the 4th highest scoring total in RFL. RFL Scoring officials are investigating lawsuits filed on behalf of MN Nice complaining of weekly "scoring irregularities" that have unjustly prevented their beloved franchise from its rightful winning record. Hey commish, can we get a reading on everyone's SCRUB record so we know who to root against?

fiddler 0 cmartin 12 rw''ms 6 key 9 dalex'er 0 dudley 0 brien 8
kerry 9 emmitt 0 stewart 9 tmathis 0 dward 9 sharpe 3 hall 8

[Note from Commish #2: after completing the hand recount in Saint Louis county, the 8 ''pregnant'' chads written in for Jeff Hall were discounted. Jeff Wilkins' 1 ''swinging'' chad was deemed the only vote worthy of counting. Therefore, Minnesota Nice receives all PK electoral votes - and wins this election 35-31 over Fire in the Hole.]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

REFLECTIONS

Yes, members of my beloved RFL citizenry, it has been a season and a half since I last held the reigns of the league and sent forth to yon denizens of RFLdom my sage wisdom on all matters befitting RFL conversation. Cals' Corner has historically been the one segment of the WIR in which the league could gather immediate knowledge of the inner workings and political struggles facing the RFL administration, presented from my unique standpoint of informed unilateral impartiality. To quoth league elder and fellow hack journalist Dave Brodkin, "In this portion of WIR, the self-proclaimed guru (Commissioner Callery) gives a brief dissertation on the state of RFL, parallel to a United States President's 'State of the Union' Address. Unfortunately, the corner is often a means for Callery to flaunt his own IHS."

Yes, my outlets for IHS have come few and far between in the past two years. Despite my annual contention in the playoff picture, it has been years since my teams dominated the Steamroller/Aglione Bowl titles on a yearly basis. Perchance this revolutionary band of thugs known as Fresh Squeezed will offer me a return to those glory days. As I continue my belated run for glory this season, you will surely hear more and more of my gratuitous horn-tooting.

BUSH LEAGUE

In this segment, we feature the performance of the week most befitting of play in the Bush Leagues. This week's nomination goes to Determined Sperm Which Squirm Like Worms with Firm Stern Perms GM David Brodkin for the erosion of his backfield. While they have performed intermittently at times this season, Brodz has managed to fill his stable with people that nobody has ever heard of... which has helped him slide into a current 3-game losing streak. Brods, buddy, what has happened to you?!?! Have your traditional RFL values eroded such that you, one of our storied veterans, resorts to such scrubness? I won't even get into that whole thing about increasing your roster size...

Honorable mention for the Bush Leagues this week goes to Shivan's favorite team, the New York "football" Giants, who somehow managed to stumble their way to a 7-2 record before showing their true colors this week against a miserably hampered Rams team. This astute observer hopes that somehow, perhaps by virtue of their cream-puff schedule, the Giants will back into a playoff spot and give the Vikings an easy first round warm-up in the divisional playoffs.

BUSH-WHACKED!!! (...sponsored by http://www.gwbush.com)

Commissioner Dave Wang has come under fire on repeated occasions this year, from the controversial decision to turn down majority pleas for a revote on rule amendments, to his recent display of authority (though well supported by the RFL community) in dictating depth chart adjustment procedures. In this segment we observe some of the charges levied against this powerful figure.

Wang's outspoken detractors have stolen the limelight from his more subdued base of supporters. Among the leaders of the anti-Wang movement is Walter Grayeski, the very same GM who has allegedly attempted a number shady dealings with late-season trades. Of Wang's commissionership, he says: "The First year was fantastic. The web site was well done and the WIR were on time. I guess all the success went to his head." But Walter is not so generous with his evaluation of Wang's people skills: "The commish has some strong points when it comes to execution, but clearly is not ready to govern. I purpose that Mr. Wang become the RFL secretary and we elect a commissioner who understands the people."

Another Wang detractor is storied anti-establishment GM Joseph Pynadath, who founded a racist sect during the 1992 season (IFEJ) that unsuccessfully attempted to dethrone RFL's benevolent monarch, Patrick Callery. About Wang's tyrannical rule, he confieded to me: "Cals, I've made no secret about my opinions regarding this 50 yard rule. But that's not even the issue. The issue was the Commish Veto on the revote. Lets look at the facts. The season had not started, nothing was going to be impacted, the GM's wanted to revote, I could go on and on - I'm nothing but a mere commoner, but it seemed to make sense to me that we allow a revote."

When asked about Wang's on-the-fly interpretations of rules midseason, Joe added: "Boy, do I miss the old days of hard rules that we could count on. Cals, if there's one thing that drives my team nuts, its not knowing how these 'gray' areas are going to turn out... What bothers the coaching staff at NBB HQ is the fact that 1 man lays down these rules without any type of consultation. This Monday night rule is a prime example. A vote would clearly have shown that it should be allowed. There was no precedent for this. Why not just listen to the people. THAT is a democracy!"

When asked for comment on his detractors, the commissioner responded, "Detractors? What detractors? Oh... you mean the bitter, Buchanan-voting losers who fell to my scrubby FITH squad in Weeks 1 (Joebob), 3 (Wally) and 8 (JoePa)? Let it be known that FITH has no problem taking a dive against GMs who don't oppose me publicly (Brodz, Gary, Tim). But show even the slightest amount of disrespect towards the Commish's Office in the public eye - and I will go to the fringes of the e-world to research the most obscure statistical data so that I pick up the right free agent WRs to ensure that you *will* take a loss against me!"

Throwing games? Well, this reporter has seen it all. What level of corruption is the new commissioner NOT capable of? It appears his crooked ways have no bounds. I questioned him further regarding the confusing ballots for the 50 yard rule vote: "... after I finished voting, I quickly scanned my ballot to make certain I punched the right hole... And if the wrong hole was punched, I damn sure would have ripped it up and asked for another ballot."

SUPPORT YOUR COMMISSIONER

Wow. Despite the ever-present fist of tyranny Mr. Wang presides over the league with, I must take my hat off and salute him for his uncanny organizational and journalistic skills. Thank the RFL Gods that Mr. Wang came forward two years ago to take over the league, because this ex-commish was past being burned out. I was wasted to the point that I was losing my love for the game! So, unless you all can find somebody more fit to take over operations, I suggest you try to work with the commish rather than against him. You know what they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. And Mr. Wang... you're still fresh to the job, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. But give this job a few more years and you may not be so loathe to allow your RFL compatriots to take a more active role in determining the rules that will govern our league into the next millenium.

PLAYOFF PICTURE

All this typing is making my wrists sore. Your commish will update the playoff picture for you next week!

This has been Cals' Corner. See you next... ummm... whenever.

*************************************************
RFL GM Profiles: Dr. Drew Wagner, 2-time Steamroller Champion
*************************************************

RFL management regrets to inform you that Dr. Drew Wagner has regretfully blown off the RFL interview staff, despite repeated attempts to contact him at the UMass Medical Center in Wusstah. We were told he was inevitably detained performing emergency erectile surgical maneuvers.

In place of the much ballyhooed Wagner interview, RFL WIR management is pleased to present an encore edition of last year's Week 5 interview with Commissioner David Wang, who was then just a month into his first season of what has become an embattled tenure at the helm of the world's most powerful fantasy football league. The editorial staff though it an ideal edition to republish, given the current state of the RFL political scene. Enjoy!

RFL: Commissioner Wang, are you corrupt?

DW: .... (yes) ....

RFL: Would you step down if a military style coup was mounted to depose you?

DW: .... (yes) ....

This has been an encore presentation of RFL interviews. The rights to all proceeds made from this interview belong to the RFL WIR and exclusively to the RFL WIR. RFL WIR is not responsible for remarks taken out of context or unintelligibly transcribed, and will not be liable for any libel suits derived therefrom.
********************************************************
SEASON POINTS LEADERS
*********************
QB...You can't beat a Viking, you can only hope (dream) to contain him.
103 Daunte Culpepper (Heirs to the Ayatollah)
88 Kurt Warner (Carpet Bombers)
85 Peyton Manning (Crazed Beagles on the Run)
83 Rich Gannon (Black Ops)

RB
164 Edgerrin James (%$!@#&)
151 Marshall Faulk (Heirs to the Ayatollah)
123 Ricky Williams (Minnesota Nice)
120 Charlie Garner (Curly Back Hair)
114 Stephen Davis (Curly Back Hair)
108 Curtis Martin (Minnesota Nice)

WR
107 Terrell Owens (Nasty Pimps)
102 Isaac Bruce (Fresh Squeezed)
96 Marvin Harrison (The Determined Sperm...)
96 Randy Moss (The Everyday Tokers)
93 Rod Smith (TheArmchairQBAdventurePlayset(tm))

TE
54 Tony Gonzalez (The Determined Sperm...)
48 Shannon Sharpe (Fire in the Hole)
39 Frank Wycheck (Heirs to the Ayatollah)
36 Freddie Jones (All Jacked Up)

PK
93 Matt Stover (Fresh Squeezed)
82 Martin Gramatica (The Everyday Tokers)
79 Mike Vanderjagt (Merry Munching Merkins)
78 Gary Anderson (All Jacked Up)
77 Joe Nedney (The Determined Sperm...)

be sure to check:
The RFL Season Point Leaders page
...for an expanded list of scoring leaders.

Since I bad-mouthed my good friend Dave Brodz so much this week, it is only reasonable that I challenge him under the spotlight of ***G*O*T*W*** to back up my words with real action.

Brodz	Advantage	Cals
JGarcia		JBlake
TPrentice		JAnderson
JWatson		TBiakabutuka
MHarrison		IBruce
LColes		AToomer
TGonzalez		JHarris
JNedney		MStover

This is, of course, a storied rivalry if due only to its longevity. Brods and I have butted heads frequently throughout the years, most notably in the lowest scoring Aglione Bowl on record, when the Brodkin Citgo Machine took down Z-Bomb 23-21 in 1992. Watch for Fresh Squeezed to dominate at RB and WR... the Sperm must have a strong showing from Harrison to keep it close. If so, Gonzalez and Garcia have enough firepower to turn it in favor of the Sperm and end their 3-game losing streak. Too many ifs required though, to slow down the 4-game win streak of Fresh Squeezed....

**** CALS' LINE: My Team by 4 ****

©1999-2000 RFL Inc.
All rights reserved.

Revised: November 15, 2000