Bet on it!

There's no betting allowed in baseball. Everyone knows that. But friendly wagers involving something other than money can make for some great entertainment.

With that in mind, Cyclones GM Steve Cohen challenged Lowell Spinners (Red Sox affiliate, and New England area rival) GM Tim Bawmann to just such a wager, based on the outcome of each franchise's hometown football team in the Super Bowl.

The premise is a simple, but fun one. If the Giants win, Bawmann will have to make the four-plus hour trek to Brooklyn to work on the KeySpan Park grounds crew before a game between the Cyclones and the Spinners. If the Patriots win, Cohen will make the reverse trip and work on the Lowell grounds crew.

The idea was spawned by Assistant GM Kevin Mahoney, who loves to:

A) come up with different ways to promote the Cyclones
B) find new ways to put Steve in potentially unpleasant and/or embarrassing situations
C) use the thin veil of A to justify doing B

Steve, being the good sport he is, signed on for the bet, despite the fact that he doesn't know Sam Madison from Madison Hedgecock and thinks the key to a Giants Super Bowl victory is making sure Lawrence Taylor and Carl Banks can get to Tom Brady. He knows New York is better than New England, though (despite the recent sports teams' evidence to the contrary), and is willing to stake his banged up body on the claim, with some heavy-duty manual labor hanging in the balance.

So cheer especially hard for Big Blue this Sunday (or don't, if you're evil and want to see poor Steve dragging the field and chalking the lines) because there's a little something extra on the line in Brooklyn.

-- Dave