WASHINGTON -- What do mayors of cities with Super Bowl contenders do when they get together to place their bets?
Trade insults, of course.
As the 70th annual winter meeting of the nation's mayors wound down in Washington yesterday, Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and Philadelphia Mayor John Street took a time out to wager on Sunday's playoff games. The Pittsburgh Steelers take on the New England Patriots for the AFC title, and the St. Louis Rams play the Philadelphia Eagles for the NFC crown. The winners head for the Super Bowl game in New Orleans on Feb. 3.
The mayors, tossing a wobbly football, met on neutral territory: the New York Room of the Capital Hilton Hotel. It was time to put up, not shut up, and words flew faster than the ball. The referee was Marc Morial, mayor of New Orleans.
Street was target No. 1 because he had to leave early to return to Philadelphia. Despite being a vegetarian, Street is offering TastyKakes and cheese steak hoagies to his St. Louis colleague if the Eagles lose.
Menino then bet Murphy a lobster dinner that the Patriots will beat the Steelers, boasting that the Patriots "played so well in the Snow Bowl there's no telling what they'll do in Pittsburgh." He scoffed at anything Murphy might offer, suggesting it couldn't be worth more than $1.49.
Murphy bounded up to the microphone, noting that "only in his dreams" is Menino going to collect. Which is why Murphy could afford to wager a Sony TV (the really big size) made in Western Pennsylvania, a basket of Heinz 57 products, and pierogies, assuming Menino knows what pierogies are.
"I know what pierogies are," snapped Menino.
He then grabbed the mike to point out that not even all the Heinzes support the Steelers because Teresa Heinz now votes in Massachusetts. She's married to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
Murphy pointedly ignored that riposte to dip into a box and bring forth his ultimate talisman -- "Myron Cope Terrible Towels." For Morial, he had a T-shirt that reads: "The road to the Big Easy goes through the Big Nasty D."
Slay, insisting that the Rams are the team to beat, then put up non-alcoholic O'Doul's, Ted Drewes frozen custard and toasted ravioli on their behalf.
With the bets on the table, the mayors then got down to point spreads. Murphy predicted the Steelers will beat the Patriots 27-3, eliciting a painful noise of protest from Menino, and will then face the Rams in New Orleans, where they'll win again, but narrowly.
Morial, boasting that both Steelers' quarterback Kordell Stewart and Rams' running back Marshall Faulk are New Orleans natives, tried to raise the banter to a higher level. Whoever plays, he insisted, the Super Bowl will be a "big, wonderful celebration of patriotism."
Four mayors show their fortitude in bets on Sunday 
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