Denver Broncos tailback Travis Henry tested positive for marijuana.

    At the same time a group called SAFER or Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation  leases a billboard across from Mile High Stadium with the message “Ricky Williams, Come to Denver… where people support your SAFER choice.” The billboard is in the Broncos colors with a picture from the back of a dreadlocked man in a Broncos uniform.

    So let’s back up a bit. Travis Henry, for smoking marijuana, is suspended. Ricky Williams, who just recently applied for re-instatement, is perhaps the poster boy for NFL marijuana suspensions. Ricky Williams is still under contract with the Miami Dolphins.

    These two events by themselves will not a story make. Yes, a running back tested positive.  You can travel to Austin and see that happening every other day. Not a story. Yes, a pro-pot group tries every way possible to put out the message that marijuana is SAFER… get it, safer, than alcohol. Still, not a story.  So let’s add one other element of reefer madness, the hottest team in baseball – the Colorado Rockies, who play in a ballpark called Coors Field are now on television every night. They are no longer able to hide in obscurity. Everyone now notices the Rockies and… their MASCOT.

    I don’t want to bring frantic fans down from their Rocky Mountain high over their baseball team but seriously, the whole country now has had a chance to see your MASCOT – a polka dotted, purple and puce triceratops wearing a baseball cap and jersey with no pants. There’s no way you can tell me this thing was conceived with a clear head. If anything shouts out toked-up think tank, this conception has to be it.  If you thought Barney was embarrassing enough to make your fossil fuel stay in the ground, you haven’t seen “Dinger the Dinosaur.” It’s bad enough all the dinosaurs have died and half the people think they never existed while the other half thinks they only died a few years back and man walked around with them. But to memorialize these creatures as the ugliest mascots in sport is particularly denigrating. It’s enough to make me watch Jurassic Park again and, this time, root for the Rex.

    Having your running back test positive shows your team may have a pot problem. Inviting football’s most notorious pothead to come on down shows your town may be pot friendly. But choosing and designing a mascot that may be LSD inspired shows your town to be in a haze - a purple awkward haze. The kind of haze a police department might be mired in when trying to solve the JonBenet Ramsey case. The kind of haze a presidential candidate might be in when he thinks nobody will check out what he’s doing on a boat named “Monkey Business.” The kind of haze which inspired Trey Parker and Matt Stone.  The kind of haze a punter competing for a starting job might find himself in when he decides the quickest way to the top is to stab the other punter. The kind of haze where you to get shipwrecked on a three hour tour. The kind of haze that tells you, you can’t get that three hour tour song out of your head.

    Okay, enough, we get it. The Rockies have a dinosaur for a mascot… and the colors are a little sappy. If Jerry Falwell were still alive he’d be saying “See. See what happens when you let your kids watch Tele-Tubbies? Gay dinosaurs, that’s what happens.”

    No, this is what happens when you think its okay to invite Ricky Williams to join your team. This is what happens when you think you can badmouth alcohol in a state with more breweries, more beer production and more beer consumption per capita than any other state. This is what happens when you combine six-packs, doobies and thin air. We’re onto you.