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The Turkey Committee decided to simplify its task way back in 1983 and started showing a great bias toward Minnesota-based winners for the grand award.

There has been only one Turkey of the Year without a Minnesota connection in the 22 years since the committee's philosophical change. That was Kerri Strug, the squeaky-voiced gymnast who made herself a hero of the 1996 Olympics by overhyping an ankle injury and allowing her crazed coach, Bela Karolyi, to carry her around Atlanta like a sack of new potatoes.

We might as well get this out of the way early in today's Turkey Banquet:

The committee gave consideration to Mark Downs Jr. of suburban Pittsburgh as a contender to break Minnesota's hold on top turkey.

You will remember Downs as the tee ball coach who offered one of his players $25 to hit a teammate with a baseball. The target was a child with autism. Downs was hoping a solid bump with a baseball would enable him to avoid playing the kid in that day's game.

Eventually, committee members decided they didn't want to be in Downs' company, and thus he wasn't issued a banquet invitation.

It also must be revealed that our ever-vigilant members have been focused in one area since the first of the preliminary selection meetings took place in May.

A committeeman rose that day (we'll call him Darkman, to protect his identity) and said: "I'm sure that you saw the Original Whizzinator headlines this week. I really think it's about time for us to acknowledge that, without the Minnesota Vikings as an organization, the Turkey Banquet would have long since faded away.

"Without the drunken driving, sexual harassing, ticket scalping, Moons in the driveway and moons in Lambeau, without the Herschel trade, Pecos River and eating peanut butter from a diaper, without taking a knee, 41-0 and Nate Poole, and now the Whizzinator - without all of this, we would have been eating our Thanksgiving cranberries at home long ago."

The committee chairman never heard so many hoo-rahs in the long, emotional history of Turkey meetings.

And since then, we've had the flotilla from Al and Alma's for the aquatic version of the Arctic Blast, followed by an Old Testament-sized Code of Conduct that apparently suggests players take part in intimate contact only with a committed mate for the purpose of procreation.

There's no question about it. The Turkeys of the Year come and go, but when it comes to being a fowled-up organization, the Vikings are unchallenged every year for persistent, spectacular embarrassment.

As you might have anticipated, today's banquet has been moved to the waters of Lake Minnetonka. The folks at Al and Alma's hung up on us when we said a number of Vikings would be in attendance, so the Turkey cruise was booked at Bert and Bertha's, the competitors on the other side of the lake.

Guests are reminded that, rather than the Turkey Banquet's tradition of formal wear, today's dress is optional.

The Turkey envelopes, please.

- Michelle Wie: First pro tournament, she got away with unofficial cheating once -- hitting it in a bush and finagling a free drop by claiming an aversion to bees. So, she tried to cheat more blatantly the next time she found foliage, and was turned in by Sports Illustrated's Michael Bamberger. Congratulations to him, since no one else was willing to give this brat a comeuppance.

- Daunte Culpepper: The quarterback's one-day walkout in Mankato earned him an $8 million boost in contract cash, then he took a giant leap backwards in performance before ripping up his knee in Game 7. And what the final results of Sex Cruise might do to his good-guy image Minnesota is still waiting for that.

- Bret Boone: How could anyone come in as a replacement for Luis Rivas at second base and be a downgrade? Boone managed it.