Less cowbell

There's a simple reason cowbells are for Elsie and Beauregard and not for people.

Cattle have hooves, not opposable thumbs, and therefore cannot whack one another over the head with the things, leaving 4-inch gashes that expose their bovine skulls. Or result in "a concussion, memory loss, mental and emotional distress and anguish, depression, paranoia, anxiety, loss of enjoyment of life and inability to pursue prior educational and professional goals."

This is just one of the ways in which bulls and moo cows tower over your average Mississippi State fan. Another is that bulls and moo cows never have been known to call an LSU baseball player "Buckwheat," causing him to take out after Bubba . . . all the way into the stands.

OK, Albert "Joey" Belle was nuts. But still. . . .

ANYWAY, Mississippi State fans love them some cowbell. Now it's gonna cost somebody big one way or another, it says here in the (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger:

An Alabama man wants Mississippi State University added to his lawsuit against the Southeastern Conference and the man who allegedly assaulted him with a cowbell at the 2009 Egg Bowl.

Doug Foster, attorney for William Matthew Brasher, has filed a motion in Oktibbeha County Circuit Court requesting that MSU and president Mark Keenum be added to the suit.

Brasher alleges he was assaulted by Brent Vowell during MSU's football game against the University of Mississippi on Nov. 28, 2009. He already was seeking unspecified damages from the SEC and commissioner Mike Slive because the league had a "knowing refusal," the suit says, to enforce its own rule on artificial noisemakers.

MSU was sent a claim by Brasher's attorneys on Nov. 16. It said Brasher is "willing to resolve his claim for damages" of $10 million.

MSU officials would not discuss the lawsuit Monday.

I WONDER whether the lawsuit thing will influence the SEC to, er, ring up the Bulldogs for repeated violations of its noisemaker policy?

Just a word to the wise, though -- less cowbell.