May 2007 Archives

I hesitate to pass this along.

Of all things credible, the National Enquirer is not my first choice.

But because I think you are dying to know about Tony Romo's love life (or are simply bored at work), here you go.

Everytime I hang out with my friends back home the first thing they want to know is....

"Have you seen anyone famous?"

The magazines build up star sightings by constantly tallying where any and nobody has been. There are always stories hyping it up with lines like: "So and so was spotted here... Love birds x and y were all over each other at this hot night club... A-listers blah and blah were caught dinning in the Village." Throw movie sets into the mix and I understand how my friends believe that celebs are crawling all over the concrete jungle of Manhattan.

Yesterday was a day that my friends would jump and get giddy and take pictures and talk about for days. Not gonna lie, I kinda semi a little bit got excited too when I approached my house. After hitting up a little Trader Joe's to buy some two-buck chuck (great cheap wine .. a must try if you have not) I'm walking and notice crowds of people all over the street. In addition to that there are 1950's type cars lined up on one side of the street. You see a lot living here, but that is not a normal sight. Instant thought: movie set.

Of all the movie sets I've walked by (most recently was the newest Bourne Identity) I've never actually seen the lead actor. Until yesterday.

"That's a cut," someone yells. The crowds part and that is when I see him. Mr. Titanic himself, Leo DiCaprio. Umm.. hello. I do not care who you are, the guy is a stud. And he was standing on the street right behind my house. Too bad he was working, I would've offered him some two-buck chuck. Haha...

The very first time I interviewed a professional baseball player, I called a friend. (Kind of like Who Wants to Be A Millionaire.. I used a lifeline) And I asked for some advice.

Tiff: "So what do you think? What's he like?"
Lifeline: "He's cool... just watch out. He loves blondes."
Tiff: "Haha.. shut up."
Lifeline: "Haha.. I'm not kidding."

The athlete I was going to interview? The man now affectionately known as Alex Stray-Rod Rodriguez. Hmph, guess my lifeline was right. He does like them blondes.

In all seriousness, can someone please tell the boy to be a tiny bit more discreet next time? I'm not sitting here saying what he did was right or wrong (however if he was my husband, he should not even bother to come home. His stuff would've been given to the homeless man on 92nd and 3rd. The only item he'd be autographing would be divorce papers). Where was I?

Oh yes... cheating. This is not new. Nor was it invented yesterday. Ball players on the road taking advantage of a quick bout of freedom? Not new either. However what is new is this dive into privacy by mediattzi. (I made that up but I think it works in this case) This is not journalism. This is not front page news. It is tabloid gossip and pictures used to make people jump to conclusions. Might I add there is no proof that the man did anything more then go out to a strip club, dinner and enter an elevator with a woman not his wife. Wrong? Maybe. But we weren't there. Assume what you want, but the photos we have seen prove nothing. The man going to strip clubs is not a crime. Tacky, but no crime. Maybe his wife is ok with him going? You and I do not know.

That being said, Alex buddy, you make it tough for anyone to defend you. Do I want to wake up and see your mug plastered all over the paper for anything other then baseball? Ummm.. no. So unless you get back to your April self and start smacking some homeruns OR are the sole reason the Yankees make a turnaround and actually begin to look alive (yes they won last night .. but really? It takes more then a win to jump back into contention) then please, do something with the millions of dollars the Yankees paid you besides spending it on some strippers.

Go win some games.

Notre Dame freshman cornerback Gary Gray , the highest non-Clausen rated incoming freshman on their roster, will likely miss the 2007 season while recovering from shoulder surgery. Gray, who arrived on campus in January (as did Clausen), broke his arm in Notre Dame's second spring practice...when he could have been daydreaming in Driver's Ed or Typing class back home in South Carolina...and has not played since. He recently had shoulder surgery and reports are that he'll be on the shelf this autumn. Sophomore Munir Prince, a backup at running back last season, is moving over to cornerback.
Last fall Notre Dame's top two coveted recruits, again in the non-Clausen category, were Gray and North Carolina native Greg Little (an absolute stud of a wide receiver, from what I was able to see in person at the Army All-American game). Little changed his mind at the last moment and will play for the home-state Tar Heels, while Gray will have the best seats to home games this season of any freshman not in shoulder pads.

Also in Irish grid news:

--Sophomore tight end to-be Will Yeatman, a 6-6, 260-pound manster from San Diego, was recently named an Honorable Mention All-America in lacrosse. What was I saying the other day?

--Your top bet to replace Darius Walker at tailback, since Walker is unable to replace the decision he made last January? That would be Junior Jabbie .

--Charlie Weis says that three QBs--freshman Clausen, sophomore Demetrius Jones and junior Evan Sharpley are all still in the mix to start when Georgia Tech visits South Bend on Sept. 1. Clausen throws the best ball, Sharpley understands the system best, and Jones makes the most plays. Here's one opinion that won't be listened to, but I'll let it be heard anyway: Make sure Clausen and Jones both play, either by rotating them or moving Jones to a flanker/wideout/Antwaan Randle El type role.
Why? The Irish are going nowhere this season anyway. 7-5 would be a great year for this squad. Sharpley's nice but he's not the future. Clausen will be terrific, but why have him shoulder all the burden as a true frosh? Does anyone remember how long it took before Brady Quinn ever broke a smile in South Bend, largely in part to his freshman year experience? Meanwhile, Jones is the kind of big, fast athlete the Irish need on the field. He's exciting and they really don't want him to transfer. At least give the young man a chance. Last season there were two former athletic Irish quarterbacks making a living in the NFL as wide receivers: Arnaz Battle (49ers) and Carlyle Holiday (Packers). Jones has no less potential than they did and he's a bigger body than most of the dudes in gold helmets. He needs to play.

--I've said it before and I'll say it again: Keep an eye on David Bruton in the defensive secondary this autumn.

In Arizona. Today I was driving through West Chandler , which is a section of one of the fastest-growing American suburbs of the past five years, and not the former San Diego Chargers wide receiver. Anyway, I drove past a pub that was named The Regal Beagle . Was tempted to stop in and see if Larry and Tripper were there, biting their palms in ecstasy whenever a fabulous babe strolled past.

Let's get a few of the sportsy things out of the way, shall we?

1. The Kobe Bryant demand/retraction is not a story. When I behaved like a petulant child (the latest episode, only hours ago) and made ridiculous statements ("General Irko, Dr. Zaius and I are running away to the Forbidden Zone!") my parents just ignored me. Every columnist/talking head should have done the same.
Besides, what kind of assurance can ESPN really give us that they were not complicit in manufacturing this story? The NBA playoffs have become an afterthought (Dear Commissioner Injustice: Any postseason that makes Pirates of the Caribbean 3 seem brief by comparison is in need of tweaking) so suddenly the league's highest profile player suddenly breaks his story on Screamin' A. Smith's radio show. Then retracts it on Dan Patrick's? And SportsCenter devotes more time to this "story" than they do to the Jazz-Spurs? I smell an exec coveting a higher ratings share.

2. I like the SC anchors John Andersen and Scott Van Pelt . They're what SportsCenter anchors should be. Witty (without stealing the show) self-deprecating and infused with common sense.

3. I'll be diving the Marianas Trench later this week in search of the New York Post's reputation. If you did not see it, the Post ran a cover photo of Yankee 3rd baseman Alex Rodriguez with a busty blonde (not his wife) waiting for a hotel elevator in Toronto the other night. The story ("Stray-Rod") detailed Rodriguez's night out, which included a fancy dinner (with the woman and two male companions), a visit to a strip club and then implied that A-Rod and the blonde may have retired to the same floor of the hotel together.
What in the name of Joumanna Kidd is going on here?
Last summer The Post waited until July to embarrass A-Rod in public, running a cover shot of him sunbathing in Central Park (regrettably, in jean shorts) on the afternoon of a game. This year they wanted to get a head start.
It's amazing that you'll never see a photo of Derek Jeter with a woman in public unless she is famous herself. And while Jeter is single, the New York press never invades his personal space, even though he does not exactly have a reputation of sitting home and reading the "Left Behind" series.
The Post clearly crossed the line here, and I'm sure that their Yankee beat writer, George King, truly appreciated that maneuver. I'm wondering whether their in-house gadfly, sports media columnist Phil Mushnick , who never spares the rod in excoriating TV/radio folk for violating principles or being ethically challenged in favor of sucking up to whomever is signing their checks, will have anything to say about this episode.

4. Twenty-one of Major League Baseball's thirty teams have better records than the Yankees. That's 70% of the league. The Yanks were the first baseball story on SportsCenter this evening. I mean, the Colorado Rockies entered last night having won seven straight. The Arizona Diamondbacks ended the night with a seven-game win streak. And yet the Yankees hit leadoff
America loves a trainwreck. The Bombers are the Britney Spears of baseball (they may have beaten Toronto on Wednesday, but they've lost five of the last six series they've played).

5. That said, I heard Richard Justice say on PTI last week that this season will not play out like 1978, when New York trailed Boston by as much as 14 games in July and yet came back to win the pennant (and World Series). Justice said that that is unlikely to happen because "these are not the 1978 Red Sox". He's right. Those Red Sox were better.
Name your big four Boston batters of 2007: David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Jason Varitek and Kevin Youklis?
I'll take their 1978 analogues: Jim Rice, Fred Lynn, Carlton Fisk and Dwight Evans. That's before we even talk about Carl Yastrzemski, even if he was at the end of his career. Butch Hobson. Jerry Remy. George Scott.
Rick Burleson was the closest thing to an easy out in that lineup. You never got a break. And don't try comparing their offensive numbers to their '07 Sox successors. It's a different era.
Dennis Eckersley was a 20-game winner, the '78 Sox version of Josh Beckett. Luis Tiant was also near the end, but still effective. The only place where these Sox are unquestionably better than those is in the bullpen. But in July of 1978, the Boston Red Sox appeared to be absolutely invincible. It's a long season.

6. Here's the scenario: Two outs, top of the ninth, and let's say it's the 7th game of the World Series (and, just to make it more dramatic, there's a flaming meteor hurtling toward Earth). Anyway, the Yankees are down by one run and Derek Jeter, the tying run, is on first. A-Rod is up and he hits a towering fly between shortstop and 3rd base. As Jeter is running it out and he approaches an area near the two players, does he bark, "Ha!"?
Probably not. And that is one reason why A-Rod, despite perhaps being the most talented player in baseball, will never garner the respect Jeter does (that and the four rings fewer issue). A-Rod may lead the majors in homers and be fourth in RBI, but that ploy in Toronto last night and one a week earlier at 2nd base against Boston--when he blatantly elbowed Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia coming up from his slide to break up a double play--are going to get you mentioned alongside Ty Cobb for more than just your hitting prowess.
On the other hand--and maybe A-Rod's thinking this--if the dude following him in the batting order could maybe get a base hit when he's standing on first, then he wouldn't have to resort to such crimes and misdemeanors.

7. Lacrosse leftovers: First, some apologies for mistakes made. To the former SID who wrote in and reminded me that the practice of tacky T-shirts handouts is perpetrated not by SIDs (sports information directors) but by NCAA stooges, thank you. And I'm sorry.
Meanwhile, NCAA, why exactly are you doing that? To remind everyone that the NCAA is putting on the show? Why? You've got a monopoly; it's not like we or the athletes have a choice. Stop acting like the overbearing parent at his kid's Little League game who forgets whom the moment should actually be for. We'd respect you more if you just put on a good show and stayed out of the glory-grabbing business
Another apology, to Austin Walker of Johns Hopkins. I wrote that no African-Americans had played on Monday, but Walker, the son of former New York Jet wideout Wesley Walker, did. And Austin's older brother, John, was an All-American at Army and a finalist for the Tewaaraton Trophy in 2005. Looks like Wesley and his wife did a fine job of raising the kids.
As for the Duke team being given another year of eligibility by the NCAA, I don't agree with that. The NCAA did not end Duke's season in 2006; Duke did. While the circumstances may be extraordinary, the NCAA should have told Duke that losing that year was one of just many ramifications the Blue Devil brass should have considered before they pulled the plug last spring.

Non-Sports Thoughts

1. My new personal hero is Johns Hopkins senior attack Jake Byrne , and not because he scored four goals in Monday afternoon's 12-11 win over Duke in the D-I men's national championship. It's for his sense of getting what really matters.

See, I've been fortunate enough to attend quite a few national championships this past decade and there's just one thing that leaves me with a sour taste after each one. That is this: the shameless rush each school's sports info. department seems to be in, the very second the game ends, to hand out "National Champions" t-shirts to the members of the team. Why would any player, I've always wondered, rather wear some cheap T-shirt instead of the jersey they wore while achieving one of (if not THE) greatest moments of their young lives? And yet, I always seemed to be alone on an island on this thought.
Until today.
Twenty minutes after the clock expired, while all of Byrne's teammates were wearing the uncomplimentary complimentary T-shirts and snipping off pieces of a lax goal net for themselves, he stood proudly wearing his No. 25 powder-blue jersey. It was sweaty and smelly, of course, but Byrne happily wore it and only it.
I asked him why.
"I just decided," he said--and remember, he's a senior; this was his final game, "that I wanted to wear this jersey as long as I possibly could. Until they made me take it off."

Wouldn't it be nice if every SID in America took Byrne's words to heart and scrapped the entire cheapie -shirt deal? It cheapens a wonderful moment. Thank you, Jake Byrne.

Corrections to earlier "blog facts":

--Mike Pressler has done a press conference since leaving Duke.

--This is the 7th-most attended NCAA event, at 48,443. There have been six men's basketball events that drew more.

The scene: Duke marches off the field as they walked on, two-by-two. Johns Hopkins took a victory lap as U2's "It's A Beautiful Day" played in the background. U2: the official house band of NCAA lacrosse (after all, one of the Duke 3 IS David Evans, which is the actual name of The Edge).

Most Outstanding Player? The honor was just given to Johns Hopkins goalie Jesse Schwartzmann (and well deserved), who also won this award two years ago when JHU also beat Duke by one goal in the national title game.

Hopkins wins!

Duke held the ball for a final play, and I'm fairly certain that it was Matt Danowski (or Brad Ross; couldn't tell if it was 40 or 10) who got in position to spin to his right and fire a hard shot from about 12 yards out. The ball seemed to ricochet off the foot of JHU goalie Jesse Schwartzmann, who just had a monster 4th quarter in terms of saves. It shot up into the air and about halfway to midfield.

Duke recovered the ball with about 0:04 left and even got one final shot from about 15-20 yards, but it sailed wide right. As the ball skittered toward the end line, the Blue Jay players began their celebration.

Great, great finish. Duke held JHU to just one second-half goal but still managed to win, thanks to some superb goal-tending from Schwartzmann, who is one of those few lax goalies who doesn't look like a doomed soul about to walk the plank.

Johns Hopkins, your 2007 D-I lacrosse national champions. That would make 43 national championships since 1891.

We've got some GENUINE excitement at the highest attended NCAA lacrosse match ever (48,443).

Johns Hopkins is up 12-11 with 0:40 to play. Duke has the ball and has just called timeout. Remember, neither Danowski nor Greer has yet scored a goal this afternoon.

Get ready for a great finish. Duke did score with ):03 to win on Saturday. They have yet to hold a lead this afternoon.

Kevin Huntley of Johns Hopkins just scored a go-ahead goal with 3:25 remaining. We'll see if it holds up, but currently it is 12-11 JHU.

The Huntley family has some history with this. Kevin's dad, David, led the Blue Jays to the 1978 and '79 NCAA championships and is the school's all-time leading scorer among midfielders. Two years ago Huntley himself, then just a freshman, scored two goals in JHU's 9-8 national title win against Duke.

Late in the game now, two minutes to play. Duke has the ball and JHU is in a zone.

Duke outscored Johns Hopkins 5-0 in the 3rd quarter to set up an exciting 4th quarter. We enter it with the Blue Devils trailing 10-9. Who knows what got Duke fired up (maybe playing for a national title? Maybe they always seem to pick up the intensity versus opponents clad in powder blue).

The Blue Jays' Rabil, a 6'3", 220-pound studrock (who, by the way, does NOT look like Erin Brunette), just scored a goal one minute into the fourth to give JHU a 2-goal cushion. It was Hopkins' first score in nearly 18 minutes.

UPDATE: Dookie's dynamic duo finally scored a goal. Matt Danowski, the coach's son, took a pass from Peter Lamade on a turnover and basically scored a breakaway goal.

Back to a one-point game.

Two big reasons Duke trails 10-4 at the half:

1. JHU has won 75% of the faceoffs.
2. Duke's dynamic duo, Matt Danowski and Zach Greer, who came in tied for first nationally in points with 94, have between them a total of one assist (by Greer). So far it's been Ned Crotty who has been Duke's most potent offensive weapon.

UPDATE: With just over six minutes gone in the 3rd, it's now 10-7, JHU. Duke has controlled the ball this half and that's the major difference. Danowski now has one assist. This lax, it's a turvy-topsy battle. I expect the Blue Devils to come all the way back and at least tie the score.

Update: Now it's 10-8.

The Dookies evened the score at 2-2 with just over two minutes to play in the first quarter, but then Hopkins scored two quick goals in the quarter's final 39 seconds.

The press box scuttlebutt was about Duke's second goal, when the official statistician credited it to Ned Crotty unassisted. That incited a Duke SID to leap out of his seat and have a talking-to to the stat dude. He was rather, shall we say, imperious about it all. The scorer changed it so that Zack Greer was given an assist.

Once again, I just don't understand why people play goalie in lax. Their success rate is akin to a Yankee middle reliever's, it seems.

Hopkins scores early in the second quarter: 5-2.

Thanks to a sweet, thread-the-needle pass by Paul Rabil, Johns Hopkins leads 2-0 midway through the first quarter (women's lax, halves; men's lax, quarters; discuss).

Duke just scored (he says with no exclamation point). Brad Ross.

One curious phenomonen of both lax finals: The number of high school-age and younger fans who attend the game toting their lacrosse sticks. It's sweet. Like, maybe they'll catch a foul ball. Or that's just their way of pledging allegiance to the sport. You certainly don't see that at the NCAA Pole Vault championships.

About the name of one of our two competitors, via Wikipedia:

Milton Eisenhower, a president of JHU, was once invited to speak to a convention in Pittsburgh. Making a common mistake, the emcee introduced him as "President of John Hopkins." Eisenhower retorted that he was "glad to be here in Pittburgh."[13]

The peculiar first name of philanthropist Johns Hopkins is the surname of his great-grandmother, Margaret Johns, who married Gerard Hopkins. They named their son Johns Hopkins, and his name was passed on to his grandson, the university's founder (1795-1873).

Johns Hopkins was founded in 1876 following a $7 million grant by Johns Hopkins hisself (the equivalent of $131 million today). Hopkins was America's first research university, the first to teach through seminars as opposed to just lectures and the first to offer undergraduate majors.

Duke, I can tell you from personal experience, boasts some of the country's most talented Texas Hold-'Em players.

Duke just entered the stadium as U2's "City of Blinding Lights" was playing. Don't think they planned it that way but the effect was powerful.

And now we begin:

Twelve seconds into the first quarter, and Hopkins already scored. Rabil an assist to Jake Byrne.

ESPN's George Smith , the network's unofficial scandal beat reporter, did a terrific segment on Duke lacrosse that I saw Friday. In it he talked about how (something hardcore lax fans have been aware of quite some time, but not casual sports fans) the Blue Devil players wear warm-up shirts that have one of three numerals on them: "45, 13, or 6".

Yes, those numerals correspond to the numbers worn by Evans, Finnerty and Seligmann, the trio that were indicted. That the Blue Devils don them in public, and that the administration does not censure the overt show of support, tells you just how much Duke's lax program thinks of the validity of Crystal Mangum's accusations. In short, they're saying, "She's not the victim; these three were."

Quite a bold statement.

They also have a Latin phrase on their sleeves, "succisa veriscit", which translates to "When cut down, it grows back stronger." It's the motto of the Delbarton School in Morristown, N.J., alma mater of three current Duke players. It's also my personal motto for chest hair.

--There should be between 45,000-50,000 fans here this afternoon. That makes the D-I Men's Lacrosse Championship the most highly attended NCAA championship conterst. Remember, bowl games are not official NCAA events and the hoops final is played indoors. So think about that.

Mike Pressler, the former Duke coach who resigned in the heat of the controversy last season, is here in attendance at M&T Bank Stadium today. I believe I happen to be seated right in front of a Duke SID (sports information director) who is telling someone on a cellphone in quite the stentorian voice exactly where Pressler will be sitting. And that he will be seated among some of his former Duke players. But Pressler has not spoken to anyone from the media since the story broke last year.

Other thoughts as we are less than forty minutes before game time:

1. Duke scored the game-winning goal on Saturday against Cornell with :03 to play. How bummed would ESPN be today to be airing Johns Hopkins-Cornell? And that's not meant to be a slight on the programs, but just an indictment (poor choice of word, I know) on how TV loves a good controversy. Race + sex? Sign 'em up.

2. What are the odds that at least one of the Northwestern players will wear Crocs to the White House?

3. Female lax players do NOT wear helmets, but male lax players do. Discuss.

4. Duke's goalie cramped up late in the fourth quarter of the 12-11 victory against Cornell on Saturday. A goalie cramping up? Who was in goal, Johnny Damon? Actually, the goalie, senior Dan Loftus, is an All-American.

5. This is the first time in the past 20 NCAA tournament games that Hopkins is the lower seed.

6. Hopkins' best player is Paul Rabil, No. 9., but the best 1970s porn 'do-plus-stache belongs to freshman midfielder Max Chautin:

http://hopkinssports.cstv.com/sports/m-lacros/mtt/chautin_max00.html

Would I lie to you?

7. All three accused Duke players from last season are also here today.

8. Duke's top two players are Matt Danowski (40) and Zack Greer (25).

9. Just learned that my high school, Brophy College Prep, won the state title in lacrosse. How long have they been holding state championships in lacrosse in Arizona?

10.Based solely on the media guide photos, there are just three African-American lax'ers here today. All three--freshman Lorenzo Holt, sophomore Austin Walker and junior Val Washington--play for Johns Hopkins (thanks to poster for correcting me). I cannot wait to see how much more fun D-I lacrosse will be to watch when the rosters are at least one-third African-American. And if that comment strikes you as politically incorrect, when is the last time you watched a football game, college or pro, in which less than one-third of the players were African-American?

Okay, an admission of regret. I could just erase some of what I wrote in the previous blog, but that would be dishonest.

The more I read about the Duke rape case, the more I actually do sympathize with the players involved. They were stupid for hiring strippers whom they did not know to perform at their party (my rule: Always hire strippers you've previously dated; just to be safe). But as you read the Wikipedia entry on the case--and I'm not claiming that it is the 100% truth--you do get the sense of an accuser with almost zero credibility.

If the accounts are accurate, she had already had sex with three different people that day (at Notre Dame, where I went to school, we'd call that a prolific decade). Anyway, putting yourself in Duke president Richard Brodhead or athletic director Joe Avela, it's difficult to say that you'd act differently, no? Especially in the light of fellow team member Ryan McFadyen's profane email...even if he was just making a sophomoric attempt at irony.

Former Duke coach Mike Pressler , who resigned in the wake of the scandal, has recently published a book entitled, "It's Not About The Truth". The title emanates from a conversation Pressler (now the head coach at Bryant University in Rhode Island) had with Avela shortly before resigning in which he begged his boss, "Can't we just wait until the truth comes out?"

Avela's reply became the book's title.

The case has become a litmus test for one's politics and racial perspectives, and that's how come the Duke lacrosse story transcends sports. Anybody who spent four years at college can completely appreciate and understand how the Duke players got themselves into this situation: off-campus party, a few games of beer pong, somebody decides to pull a Joel Goodson, and then the next thing you know you're dealing with a legal-and-media barrage that makes Guido the Killer Pimp look like a toy poodle. And then someone writes an off-color email that gets released into the wrong hands (if you learn anything in life in the internet age, it's that anything you write to anyone can become the province of the last person you'd want to have read it...which is why I prefer to blog...I already know everyone can see it).

In short, I can imagine this happening to me and my friends from college and while I don't think any of us would have used the "N-word" or told the stripper what to do with a broomstick, I also know that a nineteen year-old's judgment can be impaired by a few games of beer pong.

Then there's the accuser. Is she getting a free pass in all of this? How you reply to that question is why this is such a powderkeg? Yes, the accused were a privileged group. Upper middle-class Caucasian males who would graduate from a prestigious university and probably never know the hopelessness, financially and in other ways, that the accuser lives with every day. But is that in itself a crime? And did any disrespect they show her merit her actions against them? If this case is a referendum as to how you live your life, who comes off worse?

Anyway, these are the things you wonder about as you wait for a lacrosse game to begin.

Greetings on this Memorial Day morning from M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. It'll be Duke versus Johns Hopkins today for the Division I Men's National Championship in lacrosse. This game, like last night's women's final, is a rematch of the 2005 national championship game.

Johns Hopkins, the Murphy's Oil Soap of collegiate lacrosse (I mean, there may be other oil soap companies, but their brand name is inextricably linked to the product, right?), won that game 9-8 in overtime. But earlier this season on April 7, Duke defeated Hopkins here in Baltimore 11-9. The Blue Jays have not lost since. Then again, either have the Blue Devils.

More pre-championship skinny below, and I shall endeavor not to include the terms "stripper", "Nifong" or "preppy" or "Gary Gait":

(by the way, in solidarity with my Northwestern distaff homeys, I am wearing sandals in the press box; as I did last night):

The Wildcats held on to win, 15-13, for their third consecutive national championship. Which means that their coach, Kelly Amonte Hiller, has been associated with the only two teams to win three consecutive national championships in women's lax history. You can only wonder what the most successful coach in women's collegiate lacrosse earns.

And how much Ivy League or ACC schools would be willing to pay to lure her away from the Midwest. But Amonte Hiller who, like her big brother Tony, has found her greatest athletic success in Chicago, may just be tempted to stay. She's building something special and athletic director Mark Murphy (yes, the former Washington Redskins safety) sure digs her. Murphy was one of the first to give Amonte Hiller a hug when the clock hit 0:00.

One funny moment: Don't know how it happened, but Northwestern's Kristen Kjellman grabbed the NCAA championship trophy only moments after the clock ran out. The entire team was buzzing around Kjellman, as she held the trophy aloft, while the P.A. announcer asked that we "please remain off the field for the trophy presentation". It seemed that Kjellman pre-empted that.

Oh, and by the way, yes, this is the same Northwestern squad that was involved in the scandalous, sandalous White House visit two years ago. You remember. They won their first national championship and were invited to the Rose Garden in July for the presidential photo op. And a few people were upset that some of the players wore sandals instead of dress shoes. And that was the one thing anyone outside of Evanston could tell you about Northwestern lacrosse.

Now, however, they've won three in a row. The Wildcats are a burgeoning dynasty and their terrific coach, just 33 years old, is a rising star in women's collegiate athletics. Even though she still looks young enough to be playing.

I apologize for not knowing enough about lax to describe what's going on right now, but it reminds me a lot of my first high school freshman mixer. There's a lot of parrying and feints and false moves, but no action. I think the Northwestern attack has the ball behind the goal, but no one on UVA is coming out to challenge her. The goalie and one defender are just having a stare down with her, and the other five Wildcat defenders are playing ring-around-the-rosey with one another out at the top of the circle.

This has been going on for about three minutes. It's a sort of mutual delay tactic. Meanwhile, some exec at CSTV is bellowing, "We're NEVER televising this again!"

But actually, we have ourselves a thrilling final right now. UVA has closed to withing 14-13 with less than five minutes to play. Prior to the stall tactic the Cavaliers' Megan O'Malley scored the goal of the match, catching a pass from teammate Ashley McCulloch in mid-jump and firing it before landing for the goal. Great play. You could hear the "Whoa!'s" even in the media section.

Northwestern goalie Morgan Lathrop just made a beatiful save of a shot from near point-blank range. And now Northwestern has gone down for another goal by Katrina Dowd (her third tonight).

It's 15-13, Northwestern, with 2:29 to play.

Attendance for tonight: 6,075. An NCAA women's lax record.

In case I forgot to mention it, this is a rematch of the 2005 title game, which Northwestern won 13-10.

I really like this No. 10 for Virginia, freshman midfielder Kaitlin Duff (no relation to Lizzie McGuire). She just made a nice steal in the crease and raced with the ball the length of the field. Nobody could catch her, and she soon scored. Duff is lightning out there. Fast and with no dropoff in energy. She's thinner than most of the other lax'ers out there, but she compensates for that with enthusiasm. Someone should name a beer after her. Or

The Cavs have come out in the second half with a lot more pep, led by Duff (whose dad, Jim, played college hoops at Kentucky) and they've now closed the deficit to a pair of goals. It's 12-10, Northwestern, with 21:46 to play.

Now it's 12-11. We got ourselves a game.

How to explain the Cavs' turnaround? Easy. LeBron simply took over and stopped worrying about getting his teammates involved.

An aside: Please let's take out all the idiots who ridiculed LeBron for passing the ball to Donyell Marshall at the end of Game 1 and have them banned from watching (or at least commenting on) hoops for one year. You have a better-than-average 3-point shooter wide open with a chance to take Game 1 on the road at Detroit if he just buries it. Smart play. You're an NBA small forward. You're supposed to make that shot.

I don't remember anyone chiding Horace Grant for passing to John Paxson.

The Wildcats have scored seven unanswered goals to take a 7-2 lead. Actually, I don't believe that they were completely unanswered by the Cavs. I imagine UVA coach Myers muttering unmentionables under her breath with each succeeding Wildcat strike and then wondering aloud, "Perhaps I should have dressed up a bit more for this game. JDub is no one to model oneself after as a fashion plate."

Virginia just scored. It's 7-3.

God bless 'em, but I cannot fathom why anyone would want to be a lax goalie. Virginia's, Kendall McBrearty (and you couldn't make up a more fitting flax [female lax] name) has actually played very well, but it's just such a destined-to-fail job. I mean, have you felt a lax ball? Do you even want to stop it? Watching lax goalies reminds me of that bizarre "Shoot The Freak" attraction at Coney Island.

http://www.picpatrol.com/entry.php?category=13&entry_id=104&page=0

HEGEMONY? NO, SHEGEMONY

I've gone too far into this blog without lauding the ridonkulous dominance of the Northwestern women this season.

After losing their season opener, 9-8 in overtime to North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Wildcats have won twenty straight (Vanderbilt were the victims of their wrath in the next game, falling 20-2). Here's just some of the spectacular stats that--and I know numbers can be boring...except 99, that number's never boring...I mean, you've got Barbara Feldon and the luft balloons and....what were we talking about?--oh yes, Northwestern's nutty stats.

The Wildcats are dominant both offensively and defensively.

Numbers you should know:

1. Kristen Kjellman , the reigning Tewaaraton Trophy winner (and possible repeat winner when that name is announced on Wednesday) is the NCAA's all-time leader in tournament goals. She entered the game with 38 and has at least one this evening. Kjellman, by the way, is also a dead ringer for CNBC's Erin Brunette if Brunette had a younger sis with honey-blonde hair.

Check it out:

Kjellman:

http://nusports.cstv.com/sports/w-lacros/mtt/kjellman_kristen00.html

Brunette:

http://www.gogomag.com/eb/

Kjellman is also the first lax'er, male or female, to win the Tewaaraton Trophy who does not play for an East Coast school (don't get too hot and bothered, though; the award's only been around since 2001).

2. Northwestern leads the nation in scoring defense, entering tonight's game with a 5.9 goals-against average. Only Notre Dame has scored in double figures (an 18-10 Wildcat win) against them this spring.

3. Counting tonight's 11 goals (it's 11-6 late in the first half), Northwestern has broken the NCAA record for goals in a season. The previous record was 351 and they now have 357.

4. The Wildcats already set the single-season points (goals + assists) record before tonight's game, with 505. Right now they have...more than that.

4. They also, tonight, have broken the NCAA assists record in a season, which was 165.

5. The Cats will almost certainly break the NCAA record of 16.1 goals per game tonight. They entered the game averaging 16.4 per and they already have 11 in the first half.

6. Their goalie, Morgan Lathorp , entered tonight's game leading the nation in goals-against average (5.74) and in save percentage (.586).

7. Five different Northwestern players have scored 50 goals this season.

Remember, all of this is just in Northwestern's sixth season back. This would be their third championship in six seasons (they'd also become only the second team, after their coach's alma mater, Maryland, to win at least three in a row; Amonte Hiller steered to the first of five straight). This at a school which is not only not a powerhouse in its own conference, the Big Ten, but at a school located far away from the lacrosse breeding grounds of East Coast prep schools.

Truly an outstanding accomplishment.

Amonte Hiller, by the way, is a Massachusetts native. As is her top player, Kjellman, who as a high school senior in Westwood, Mass., led her school (Westwood) to its first state championship by scoring the game-winning goal in the final minute. Kjellman captained the lacrosse, soccer and basketball teams as a high school senior. The lax and hoops teams were a combined 168-12 during her career and Northwestern is 76-5 in her four seasons in Evanston.

Kids like that get on my nerves.

No, you get the feeling we'll all be working for her some day. She even was named the winner of the Wildcats' "Lax Idol" bus karaoke contest for two years. Kjellman: the kid's a winner.

At the half, it's Northwestern ahead, 11-6. Still a game.

Hey, and I just wanted to say: There are something like 56 NCAA varsity athletes on the field this evening. And almost all of them are going pro in something other than sports.

That's for you American Movie fans.

Quick update on the score: It's 2-2 after six minutes. The Cavaliers scored two quick goals before Northwestern even got possession of the ball, but the Wildcats, aided by a goal by Tewaaraton Trophy (the lacrosse Heisman) winner Kristen Kjellman, have evened things up.

A few quick obserations, as Northwestern takes a 3-2 lead on Casey Donohoe's goal:

-- I like Virginia coach Julie Myers . It's a stifling hot day in Philadelphia--or at least it was-- and Myers has dressed for the national championship game in running shoes, khaki shorts, and a blue polo shirt with a Virginia emblem. It's rare, nearly unheard of, to find a coach as casually dressed as I am. But it's the smart move on this hot day.

--Did you ever see The In-Laws ? I mean the good one, with Alan Arkin and Peter Falk. Remember the advice about avoiding gunfire by running "serpentine"? Well, you absolutely need to learn how to run serpentine, it seems, to be an effective lacrosse player. Especially if you're the one with the ball.

--All the fans (many of them high school kids who brought their own lax sticks, which is a nice touch) are seated on the south side of Franklin Field, and all the media are seated on the north field. I wonder if word got out that I did not have time to shower after going for a slow and sweaty run along the Schuylkill this afternoon. My "shower" was two bottles of water poured over my head (if you happen to live in the Fairmount section of Philly and saw a guy changing clothes out of the trunk of his car at about 4:30 today, well, guilty.

--Too bad Don Imus isn't around anymore. When he and his producer saw the video of this game tomorrow--you know how Imus loved to opine on women's NCAA championship games--he might have coined the term "flaxen-headed ho's"....although I doubt he'd have said that.

...Again, strike that. Still at the women's lacrosse national championship game. And really, what business is it of yours what undergarments I happen to be wearing as long as I do my job well? Marv, would you like to comment?

Before we commence with the utter overall dominance of the lasses from Evanston, Ill., allow me to toss this existential query your way: How many citizens of La Crosse, Wisconsin, do you suppose are watching this game this evening? And in case you wondered, there are no Cheeseheads on the Northwestern squad, even though Evanston is located a mere forty or so miles from America's Dairyland.

According to Wikipedia: "Despite this, there is no written record of any visit to the site (of La Crosse) until 1805, when Lt. Zebulon Pike mounted an expedition up the Mississippi River for the United States. Pike recorded the location's name as "Prairie La Crosse". The name originated when he saw the Native Americans playing a game with sticks that resembled a bishop's crozier or la crosse in French."

If only Pike, of Peak's fame, had stumbled upon the locals playing dodgeball. Dodgeball, Wisconsin. I'd live there.

ANYHOO.... While the little national media devoting themselves to lacrosse this weekend are sequestered 105 miles south on I-95 in Baltimore for tomorrow's men's final and the seductive redemption tale of Duke ("Hey, they had strippers at the party, AND they're in the national championship! Wooo!"), this Northwestern team is, just on the basis of their overall excellence, a more worthy story.

First, a little history: the Northwestern program was dropped in 1992 and then resurrected in 2002 under head coach Kelly Amonte Hiller , who is my new hero. A former two-time national lacrosse player of the year at Maryland (1995 and 1996, where she led the Terrapins to back-to-back undefeated seasons and national titles), Hiller was also an All-American in soccer and also competed in the World Triathlon Championships in Switzerland in 1998.

Total studette. Oh, and her big brother is five-time NHL All-Star Tony Amonte.

But Kelly is the jock in the family. And an even better coach. As I said, Northwestern didn't even exist as a varsity program in 2001. In 2002 Amonte Hiller (her hubby, Scott Hiller, is an assistant coach as well as a big deal in the sport). Hiller had five sophomores and fifteen freshman. Two of her players had never even picked up a lacrosse stick before.

But the programs has climbed swiftly. In the last three seasons the Wildcats are 61-2, and have won a pair of national titles. Before they came along, the only national title in Northwestern's history was a 1941 fencing championship. I mean, good for those guys, but these Wildcat players (except for the frosh) have personally won more team national championships than all the previous Northwestern athletes in school history combined .

Check that; I'm at women's lax.

The NCAA Championship. In Musbergerese, "You are looking LIVE at Franklin Field , on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. I'm joined by Phyllis George, but I'm not joined to Phyllis George. That would be entirely inappropriate."

ANYWAY, it's the NCAA Women's Lacrosse Championship, and we have a good one. Two-time defending champion Northwestern --that's right, Northwestern-- going up against the last school to win the title before the Wildcats, Virginia.

Both of these programs lived a semis charmed life on Friday evening. The Cavaliers (19-3) beat ACC rival Duke (yes, they have a women's team, also; George Smith didn't tell you that?) 14-13 by staging the largest comeback in NCAA Championships history. Duke scored with 20:46 remaining in the second half to take a 13-4 lead. UVA called timeout. Then someone found a can opener and all the Cavs chugged some spinach or something because the proceeded to score ten unanswered goals. During the 10-0 run senior Megan Havrilla , a suburban Philly native, scored three goals as did sophomore Blair Weymouth , who was the 2006 National Rookie of the Year.

Jess Wasilewski, another Philly native, scored the winning goal for the Cavs with 0:09 to play.

V

Another begins.

Keyshawn Johnson said the hell with playing another year of football, I'm getting on TV in a different way. Gone are the pads and uniform to be replaced by a pressed suit and sharp tie. Sunday will remain a big game day for Johnson however, this time he will be worrying about makeup and cue cards rather then a playbook.

Yup, he joined ESPN's cast for "Sunday NFL Countdown" and "Monday Night Countdown".

This could get interesting.

Jim Breuer.

AKA - Goat Boy.

Huge (I'm talking the single most enthusiastic baseball team supporter I've ever met) Mets Fan.

Funny.

Random.

Unpredictable.

Just a few things that come to mind when reflecting on my morning spent with Breuer at a Reebok Event, hanging out in Times Square in New York City. He's an awesome guy, very personable and quite possibly the most animated guest we've ever had. A must see!!

Man, I am ashamed. It's the top of the seventh inning and I'm just now making a Trenton Thunder/Thunder Road pun.
I have definitely lost something off my fastball...just like Roger Clemens.

And think of all the apropos lines....

"So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young any more..."

"With a chance to make it good somehow/ Hey, what else can we do now?"

And, lastly, what Roger will not likely say in his post-game press conference as he makes his way to his next start, most likely for the big club at Toronto:

It's a town full of losers and I'm pulling out of here to win!"

"I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am."

Did you really expect us to spend an entire evening at Waterfront Park without an On The Waterfront reference?

Speaking of which, we'd like to announce that Waterfront outdueled First Energy Park in the attendance battle today. Tonight's announced crowd of 9,134 is the largest in Waterfront Park history and almost a thousand more than Lakewood drew.

Mass Exodus

Immediately after the P.A. announcer told the capacity crowd, "You ARE the greatest fans in baseball!", nearly half of them are getting up and walking out. Not because of what he said. But because Roger was just taken out of the game.

Clemens might should have taken the curtain call after five innings...after all, it was an official game then and he had the lead. Instead, he came out for the sixth and this is what happened:

first batter: single to center on an 0-1 count
2nd batter: single to right on first pitch
3rd batter: sac bunt on first pitch, runners advance to 2nd and 3rd
4th batter: hit by pitch on a 2-2 count; bases loaded
IGGY SUAREZ!: walks on a 3-2 count. One run forced in.

So, yes, let history show that Iggy Suarez knocked Roger out of the box. And may have been the final minor league hitter Clemens ever faces.

The SeaAnemones score 2 runs this inning, both charged to Clemens, so right now he can only get the loss.

The total tally:

5 1/3 innings
6 hits
3 runs
5 strikeouts
4 walks plus one hit by pitch
one wild pitch
102 pitches total

That's not what I'd call a "Million Dollar Baby" performance. If he were anyone but Roger, wouldn't the Yankee brass tell him to stay down in the bushes until he got sharp. Certainly he did not strike any fear into the Portland Sea Anemones, a AA team that entered tonight's game with an 18-20 record.

Roger's line in the top of the fifth:

First batter: Grounds out 3-1 on a 2-2 count. Don't you love the math of baseball? Roger did a nice job beating the runner to the bag.
Second batter: First-pitch line-drive double just past the first baseman.
Third batter: Three-pitch strikeout
Fourth batter: Fly out to right on a 1-0 count.

For the fifth inning that's one hit, no runs, no walks, one K. Eleven pitches.

Roger's final line (assuming he's done):

One run (earned)
Four hits....three doubles, one triple
Five strikeouts
Three walks

84 pitches total (I may be off by one, but then again, I may not be).

Roger didn't exactly look like a million bucks, which is approximately what the Yankees will be paying him per start. Then again, he wasn't Kei Igawa, either. He gave Portland a good Rogering. Not a great Rogering.

If I had to rank the Yankee pitching rotation right now, I'd put Roger third. The ace is Chien Ming-Wang, followed closely by Andy Pettite (who's pitched far better than his record). Then Rocket. After that Mike Mussina, who is struggling this season. His ERA is up around six. Then I LOVE Phil Hughes, who's my No. 5 only because he has only pitched about 12 innings in the bigs. But when he returns, and has a start or two under him, watch out.

And here's hoping that the Yankee Clippard sticks around. And that Carl Pavano remains AWOL.

Meanwhile, of the many reasons Yankee fans should shudder is the fact that Boston now has two closers who are more effective than Mariano Rivera: Jonathan Papelbon and Hideki Okajima.

Wait a moment: Here comes Roger, back for the sixth inning.

The score is 2-1 Thunder, by the way. Top of the sixth. Doesn't Roger know that Yankee starters don't last into the sixth inning any more? That's what Scott Proctor is for.

So I've been giving you pitch counts, etc. But you want a first-hand eyewitness account. Well, Roger looks a little heavy. Somewhere between burly and heavy. Hurvy. He looks hurvy. We all hear about Roger's legendary workout schedule, but if it's anything like what Pedro Martinez is doing in his rehab with the Mets right now ("four to five hours a day!" Wow. Where my parents worked, that was known as "before lunch"), well, maybe he can work a little harder.

Roger's upper body is becoming one amorphous mass with no distinct boundaries. Not unlike North America. He looks like your uncle who you just know cand down 22 beers at once. And you're just wondering why he had to do it before he came over for Thanksgiving dinner ("Give us a hug, doll".).

Anyway, here he comes, out for the top of the fourth. By my highly unofficial count (something about a bratwurst being lodged in my crotch), I have the Rocket at 63Go pitches.

Top 4th

First batter: 4-pitch strikeout.
2nd batter: doubles down the right-field line on a 1-0 count
3rd batter: lines out to 3rd baseman on 0-1 count
IGGY SUAREZ: Grounds out to 3rd on a 1-0 count. Very nice play by Aarom Baldiris.

Clemens' briefest, best inning yet: Ten pitches, one K, one hit, no walks, no runs.

Total through four innings: 73 pitches. One run. Three hits. Four strikeouts. Three walks.

Meanwhile, Roger's BFF, Andy Pettite, is up in the Bronx pitching a shutout against Portland's parent club through four innings. 6-0, Yanks, at the moment.

But of course there is.

I'm starving here and ran to purchase a brat during the bottom of the 2nd, when the Thunder were batting. Things are so cramped here at the stadium (I believe the entire town of Hamilton, N.J., is occupying the SRO space on the concourse), including auxiliary press row. So the only place to put my brat is in my lap. I believe Jamie Gumm once had a similar quandary.

Anyway, top of the third:

1st batter: doubles on the second pitch
2nd batter: 1st pitch out
3rd batter: grounds out to short on the sixth pitch; fielder's choice, run scores from 3rd
4th batter: strikes out on 7th pitch

The tally: 16 pitches, one hit, one K, no walks, one run.

Clemens' opponent on the hill tonight is an intriguing one. Like Roger, Clay Buchholz is launching his career in the Red Sox system (Portland is Boston's AA affiliate) and is a native Texan. He's a 6'3" righty; Clemens is a 6'4" righty.

Buchholz was born on August 14 (1984); Clemens on August 4 (1962). In fact, Clemens made his Major League debut on May 15, 1984, almost three months to the day before Buchholz was born.

2nd Inning, and Clemens looks much better against the bottom of the Sea Dog order:

1st batter: Strikeout on five pitches
2nd batter: Strikeout on four pitches
3rd batter, the one and only Iggy Suarez: doubles (plus a one-base fielding error) down the 3rd- base line on a 1-0 count.
4th batter: weak liner to 3rd baseman, on a 2-2 count; 6 pitches.

The totals: One hit, no runs, no walks, 2 strikeouts. 17 pitches.

Top of the first here at Waterfront Park in Trenton and the Rocket is looking more dud than Sputnik thus far.

First batter: 4 pitches, flyout to deep center on a 2-1 count
Second batter: 6 pitches, base on balls on a 3-2 count
Third batter: 7 pitches, same; BB on a 3-2 count
Fourth batter: 6 pitches, foul pop-up to right on a 2-2 count
Fifth batter: wild pitch (both runners advance), 6 pitches, BB on a 3-2 count

(That's right, he's walked the bases loaded; this really IS a minor league game)

Sixth batter: 1 pitch, fly out to left.

The totals: 30 pitches, three walks, no hits, no runs. Left the bases loaded.

So you can either look at it as Roger is struggling with his control, or he's unhittable through one

Bottom First Update: In a day when we've been subjected to Muckdogs and Sea Dogs, I now give you: bat dog. The Thunder use a Golden Retriever to--what else--retrieve the bats. Unless you strike out. Then you walk the bat back to the dugout yourself.

Golden Retrievers: They're the best.

Great Moments in Sportswriter Stalking

And I'm not even talking about the entire Bonnie Bernstein episode, circa 2003. No, I'm talking about the coup scored by myself and freelance photographer Brian Price a few moments ago. Here's the scene. There's a flustercuck of media, photographers and fans around the dugout at about 6:15, all of them waiting for Roger Clemens to emerge from the catacombs of Waterfront Park.

Well, I hate crowds (which explains why I live in New York city). So I mosey (it was definitely a mosey; not a saunter; nor a skeedaddle) down the right-field line toward the Thunder bullpen. After all, the Rocket has to warm up some time, right?

And as I approach the area, I spot Price speaking to a Yankee security guard. "If it's anything like the game at Legends Field (last Friday night in Tampa)," Barry the guard tells Brian, "he'll come out through the back of the stadium and along this path."

And with that Barry points to a narrow cement path at the end of the first-base line stands. This is the minors. The stands only go about 2/3 of the way down the line. Barry and I exchange "A-Ha" looks. And we quietly wait, out of view of the media milling around the dugout.

And then it happened. At about 6:35 p.m. the Rocket hisself emerged right from where Barry said he would. He walked right past me--deeply tanned face, two days' growth of facial hair-- and past Brian, who thus scored exclusive photos of the Rocket's first appearance.

I scored exclusive what? Coverage of that? It's not as chic when you don't have a camera with you. Need to learn how to operate one someday.

Other pregame notes:

--The Seadogs have a player named Iggy Suarez . His flyouts will of course be described as Iggy pops. You have to love it when you get an Tuffy Gosewisch and an Iggy Suarez in the same day. Don't worry, Boof Bonser, you're still my favorite.

--The BlueClaws drew 8,063 fans earlier today. We'll see if Trenton outdraws them. They should: it's a night game and it's the Rocket.

--I was wondering, and now the question has been answered: they still use "Big League Chew" in minor league dugouts.

Top of the First

Roger's first pitch is a ball. Afte rthe second pitch is also outside, some wiseacre kid barks, "Throw some strikes!"

Portland's leadoff hitter gets good wood on the ball, but flies out to deep center.
--

Poor Freddy Sanchez.

Dude wins the National League batting title last year, and his old team, the Trenton Thunder, decide to stage a Freddy Sanchez Bobblehead Night in his honor. What happens? Roger Clemens arrives and steals the former Thunder's thunder.

At least Ryan Howard had formerly played for the Lakewood BlueCrabs. This is Clemens' debut with the Thunder. Then again, Freddy Sanchez can always tell people that his Bobblehead Doll Night set attendance records at Waterfront Park in Trenton.

Speaking of Sanchezes, my Hollywood friend, Moose, informed me that Will Ferrell and his lesser-known sidekick, Adam McKay, named their production company Gary Sanchez Productions and even installed him as the president. Which is funny, because there is no Gary Sanchez.

So, greetings from Trenton. It's an older park than Lakewood's with a different type of charm. You look out beyond the right field fence and you see the mighty Delaware River, which is actually not so mighty up here It seems to be running a little low right now. But it's pretty and rural up here, at least on the Pennsylvania side.

It's painful to attend not one but two minor league games on a sunny day and not buy one beer. There's a Spaten stand right behind me. I love Germans. I love their cars. And I love their beer (their pop music I could do without). Barry, don't look, I may have to sip a Spaten later on this evening.

Tell the truth: If you're a Yankee fan, didn't you wake up this morning thinking that if there's one cartoonishly oversized, overpaid pinstriper who'd be dominating the news today, it would be Roger Clemens? So did I.

At the earlier game today, the P.A. announcer showed his sense of humor by playing "Under Pressure" and "Emotional Rescue" whenever a pitching coach or manager made a trip to the mound. Does anyone play Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out".

Moment of silence, please: They're playing "Dirty Little Secret" by the All-American Rejects during Portland's batting practice. Portland. The Portland (Maine) Sea Dogs. I'm not making that up. Muckdogs. Seadogs. From now on, everyone gets a dog. Trenton Thunderdogs. New York Yankeedogs. New Jersey Devildogs. Mmmmm, Devildogs. Love them. But they're not in my top three of Hostess/Drakes cakes. In order:

1. Ring Ding (the standard by which all other snack cakes may be measured)
2. Ho Ho's (Yodels are an inferior impostor; kind of like seeing O.A.R. when you really wanted to see DMB)
3. Hostess Cup Cakes (when we were kids the trick was to rip off the leathery top layer and eat that separately; as if I don't still do that).

Back to the game. It's 5:52 here and the SeaDogs are taking BP. And now they're about to face the scrutiny that someone who is not pro-children is about to endure. See, we were just handed a release that says that for every strikeout Clemens tosses tonight, Dairy Queen will donate $1,000 to charity. Half of that sum will go the Children's Miracle Network.

Staying on the children topic. I'd almost rid it from my memory, but during the Lakewood game this afternoon the P.A. dude played the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song and every child there yelled the refrain--"SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!!!!"--with the intensity of a thousand suns. And I don't mean Hagerstown Suns. I'm telling you, if during the playing of that song I'd spotted a booth with a sign that read "FREE VASECTOMIES!" I'd have been there in a moment.

GUESS WHAT??? The Trenton Thunder are more hip than the NBA. Right now the P.A. system is playing Grace Kelly by Mika. Only a few days ago I implored David Injustice do dump that crappy "Right Now" tune from the NBA promos and go with something from Mika. And the Thunder are doing it. They have won me over. I may have to go purchase a "Got Thunder?" T-shirt. When Trenton scores tonight, I will give them Thunder Claps.

By the way, we're situated in an auxiliary press box. It's for the lesser writers (I am where I belong), but it's better. We're actually outside on this beautiful evening. And here's what else is funny. They've put up this fiberglass lattice in front of us to "protect" us from foul balls. But I WANT a foul ball. The lattice reminds me of the garden my mom used to attempt each spring back in Middletown, N.J. I hope we have a tomato vine growing on it by the fifth inning.

Finally, it would be an invasion of his privacy to re-print the entire contents of Steve Rushin's commencement speech that he delivered at Marquette University (his alma mater) last Sunday. Suffice it to say it was as good as any I've ever read. However, here's a quick note that Steve sent me yesterday that will give you an idea of how many bizarre paths it crossed:

Everyone couldn't have been nicer. It was a great, great weekend. God love the Jesuits. You drop Keith Richards, Chris Farley, Jesse The Body Ventura, Gandhi and Don Rushin into your commencement address and they can't thank you enough.

So, according to the good folk at MOVABLE TYPE PUBLISHING, this is my 500th blog since joining NBCSports.com. Time was, in the unsullied days before DSL and WiFi, that achieving the 500-Blog milestone was a free pass into the Bloggers' Hall of Fame, which was located in some unemployed 30 year-old's basement (whose exactly, and where, doesn't matter). Honestly, if The Silence of the Lambs was made today, wouldn't Jamie Gumm be a blogger? I think so.

Which reminds me, before I forget, The Girl In Jamie Gumm's Hole (get--GET!--your mind out of the gutter) has a small role in the excellent new film, The Namesake . She's a solid enough actress when playing the role of the friend or the potential serial killer victim, but more than 15 years later, she's still sporting the same haircut. I believe this is holding her back. Hell, I'm still sporting the same haircut, too, but I'm not making a living in front of a camera. She needs to ditch that "MISTER, DON'T MAKE ME HURT YOUR DOG" 'do.

Anyway, the 500th blog. Which means that G.A. has posted at least 500 comments. A far more impressive feat, especially since his comments are funnier than my blogs. Regardless, there are so many memories. The unmitigated hate and hostility from the MMA crew (and they won that battle--yesterday the estimable New York Times had not one but TWO features on the MMA in its Sports section); the unmitigated hate and hostility from the Notre Dame crew when I said Notre Dame didn't belong in the Sugar Bowl (I can't lose 'em all). The Miss USA pageant. David Injustice. The Blossary. Good times.

But will it be enough to get me inducted into the Bloggers Hall of Fame? With the cheapened standards of these times, I doubt it. So I'll press on. 600 blogs. 700 blogs, at which point blog observers will begin to question the authenticity of my T-1 lines and so forth. It may get ugly.

And then the question of where I'll break the all-time blog record? Will it be a Paper Rock Scissors championship? A Gilmore Girls reunion show? An All-American Rejects concert? We'll just have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, let's give you some actual post-game quotes from earlier this afternoon in Lakewood when Ryan Howard addressed the media. Just to prove to my editor, Barry, that I was there and not at Elsie's Subs in Red Bank, N.J.

Ryan Howard Quotes

On whether any of his Lakewood BlueClaws teammates asked him for autographs :

"Couple guys have. How did they approach me? Come up and ask. It ain't that big a deal."

On whether he is anxious to return to The Show and when he'd like to be back :

"I was anxious the day I got on the DL. ASAP.

On whether he recognized the song they played for him during his first at-bat :

"I dunno." (told it was the "Welcome Back, Kotter" theme, a show that went off the air the same year he was born, 1979). "Well, I did recognize it."

Told that with his 2 RBI he tied Randy Ruiz's Lakewood career RBI record with 91 :

"Did I?!? That's awesome!"

On how the players at A ball Lakewood regard him :

"They look at me as a guy in the big leagues, MVP and all that stuff. But the game is the game. It's always the same."

Are you going to see Roger Clemens pitch tonight? :

"No!"

Last time you played a game that began at 11 a.m.?

"Here. I had to get up at six a.m. to be here today. That's unheard of."

Any mementos you'll take back with you to Philly?

"I saw some water bottles with my face on them (notices the water set up in ice in front of him). Is this it?"

The BlueClaws win, 7-4, and I blow $200 on "Got Crabs?" T-shirts. They come in all different languages, which was a nice touch.

Ryan Howard went 2-3, with a double and a home run. He struck out and walked. He was on deck in the bottom of the 8th when Adrien Cardenas made the final out. Being the home team, Lakewood did not bat in the 9th.

Fittingly, the loudspeaker played local hero Bruce Springsteen's "Born To Run" after the final Sun set in the 9th. You cannot improve on that.

Right now there's about 100 Ryan Howard fans milling behind the BlueClaw dugout hoping to get an autograph, but he's in the clubhouse.

Westward, to Trenton....

I should mention that today First Energy Park is a junior high utopia (or, depending on your perspective, dystopia). Geez, I don't miss those days a tall! Except for Jennifer Tambs. She was cool. And Pat Hoddy, who could make any noise possible with his mouth or hands. He was way ahead of his time in the human beatbox division. He'd dust the floor with Blake, just the way Jordin Sparks did.

Jennifer Tambs didn't have any special talents other than being cute and funny. And years later her dad was featured prominently in the book Killing Pablo , by Mark Bowden. So if E. and Vince ever do make Medellin , they need to find someone to play Lewis Tambs, the U.S. ambassador to Colombia.

But, yeah, there's a slew of early teens here. None of them are watching the game, of course. They're skulking around the ballpark concourses, making sure to be seen with the cool classmates and that they're not wearing anything embarrassing. And certainly, they're standing nowhere near their parents. That's why I was such an uncool middle-schooler: I liked my parents (of course, that doesn't explain why I'm not cool now).

Back to the game. Unless there's a double play, Howard (that's--We know!) will come to bat this inning. Score is still tied 3-3 in the bottom of the seventh. The first Lakewood batter walked, the second was plunked. Now it's first and second, nobody out, and 2nd baseman Adrien Cardenas , who just happens to be Baseball America's 2006 "High School Player of the Year", is up. Howard bats after Cardenas.

According to BA , Cardenas began the 2006 season considered not even the best player on his Monsignor Pace High School team in suburban Miami. But then he led Pace to a Florida state championship (going 5 for 5 in the title game) while batting .647 and hitting a Dade County record 18 homers.

Breaking News!!

Ryan Howard just displayed the proper flair for the dramatic. After Cardenas flied out to center, Howard stroked a 2-2 pitch to left-center for a three-run shot. It hit off a lightpost. But this isn't a Robert Redford movie, so no sparks flew off the post when the ball struck it.

Still, Howard's homer off the Hagerstown Suns' Chris Lugo not only broke the tie but put Lakewood up 6-3.

I'm hoping that Lugo plunks the next batter and that there's a bench-clearing brawl. Why? Because I'd like to see some Suns leave the bench during an altercation just once this month and not be suspended a game for doing so. (yes, I'm holding a grudge...I'll be holding it all summer, thank you).

JAZZ HANDS

Have you seen any of the Jazz-Spurs series? It's like watching two teams playing two different games who just happen to be on the same court. Here's the script: Spurs go up 20; then the Jazz make a nice run to close the deficit to single digits, at which point Gregg Popovich wakes up his team. Then, faster than you can ask, "What ever happened to Rasho Nesterovic?", San Antonio is up by 16 again.

Don't misunderstand me. I like the Jazz. If this series is doing anything, it's introducing the average fan to the talent of Deron Williams . But i don't see Utah winning more than one game in this matchup. A year or two from now, the Jazz could be very dangerous. But not this year--no matter what Charles Barkley says.

Meanwhile, what hoops purist would disagree with me when I say that neither Phoenix nor Utah deserves to advance to the NBA Finals when they cannot simply block out Tim Duncan following a missed free throw...by Duncan! He did it to Phoenix in Game 6 and he's done it in each of the first two games of this series. The Big F misses the second free throw, no one blocks him out, and he scores an easy put-back. And you wonder why Jeff Van Gundy looks the way that he does.

Speaking of Van Gundy, he may have had the best line of the entire postseason in the second half of Game 2. Some ambitious ESPN staffer had uncovered Deron Williams' 5th grade yearbook, in which next to Deron's photo and the word "FUTURE", Deron had put down "NBA Superstar". And that was a nice get, whoever at ESPN did that.

But Van Gundy took it a step further...and funnier. Noticing that the TV screen also showed the photo of the classmate who followed Williams, and that there was a blank space next to that boy's "FUTURE" line, Van Gundy asked, "But what about Stephen Wright? He has no future!"

Or something along those lines. Hilarious. I hope that was as spontaneous as it sounded. Because I'm not used to laughing when ESPN televises something, not now that Michael Irvin has left and Tom Jackson has nobody to ask, "Are you retarded?"

Great line, Van Gundy (Who knew he was that funny?). You've earned that third mic on the game telecast with that one. Maybe you should remain retired from coaching.

Again, that's Ryan Howard. They played him on with the tune we all thought they'd play him on in the beginning: Bon Jovi's "Who Says You Can't Go Home?"

And Ryan gets punched out looking at a third strike. Off-speed pitch. Ring 'em up!

By the way, this is way overdue, but is there something askew about a National League player doing a rehab assignment as a designated hitter? Then again, no one's ever thought of him as a Gold Glove first baseman.

Howard has a twin brother (no, not Kevin) and another older bro and claims that he's the smallest of the Howards. At 6'4", 250, that's saying something.

It's 3-3 as we go to the top of the sixth....

That's Ryan Howard, not Kevin Howard.

The play-on music was "Bulls on Parade" by Rage Against the Machine . I earned a little cred up here in the "press box" by being the first one to identify it. Howard smacked a gapper into right-center on the second pitch. Two-bagger (sounds like a euphemism for a night out with Paris Hilton...oh, I'm sorry. I read that she's begun toting a Bible). Two RBIs for Howard on the play. Score's tied at 2.

If you're looking for a BlueClaw to make your favorite--Ryan Howard ain't gonna be here forever--may I suggest catcher Tuffy Gosewisch . I mean, I'm about to go to the Food Court here and see if I can order a Tuffy Gosewisch for lunch. Oh. Tuffy just grounded out to short to end the inning. Leaving Ryan stranded at second.

You'll enjoy this. Ryan Howard seems to have timed his return to Lakewood exactly one week to soon. Next Wednesday a First Energy Park they're staging a Ryan Howard MVP Statue giveaway when Lakewood hosts the Delmarva Shorebirds. If you live west of the Mississippi, "Delmarva" is a magical land--an abbreviation that stands for Delaware/Maryland/Virginia.

I'm looking over the different promotions. Klingon Night? Is there a Klingon Night? Haven't seen it yet.

So as I said, Ryan Howard has been here in Lakewood before.

Oh, let's get this out of the way first: Lakewood's opponent this morning is the Hagerstown (Md.) Suns. They're an affiliate of the Washington Nationals. Lakewood, as you've likely guessed, is affiliated with the Philadelphia Phillies.

Hagerstown is up 2-0 heading into the bottom of the first. Lakewood's Quintin Berry led off the BlueClaws' half with a single, but then Jason Donald grounded into a DP. We may have to wait until the second inning for Howard. I'm sitting behind the first base dugout, and Ryan's a lefty, so this means that I'll be watching Howard's End . Nice.

Adrien Cardenas, the third batter, just doubled with two outs.

Here comes RYAN HOWARD. He's wearing No. 6 and it says "R. Howard" on the back of his jersey. Howard's stance is more open than Nancy Pelosi's view of Syrian politics. Suns pitcher Yunior Novoa, a wiry lefty, quickly gets two strikes on the man who hit 58 home runs in 2006, but then serves up four straight balls. Howard walks in his first AB.

By the way, because I aim to answer your every question, the reason it says "R. Howard" on the jersey is because the BlueClaws have another infielder named Kevin Howard. That's kind of funny when you think about it. Ryan's down here for two games and so some schlub in the clubhouse has to sew a "K" on to Kevin's uni just for...well, why? Was anyone going to get the two of them confused? Kevin is two inches shorter and 75 pounds lighter. I mean....

By the way, if you can answer this question in five seconds or less, I'll be impressed: At the second game of the day, in Trenton, they're staging Freddy Sanchez Bobblehead Night . Quickly, who's Freddy Sanchez?

Oh, I almost forgot (so much stimulation here): When Ryan Howard walked to the plate, they played him into the batter's box by playing the theme from "Welcome Back, Kotter". A writer seated next to me mused, "Do you think Ryan even remembers that show?"

And that reminds me, today I drove through Brooklyn and crossed the Verranzano Narrows Bridge to get here. And I'm not making this next bit up: As you are exiting the borough, there's a large sign that reads:

LEAVING BROOKLYN.......FUGGEDABOUTIT"

Who says New Yorkers aren't light-hearted?

Speaking of New York, learned RyanHowardologists can tell you that Howard also spent a little time playing for the minor league Batavia (NY) Muckdogs . Here's a bit of tid for you on that outfit:

"The Muckdogs logo is a dog on a crushed fence in the shape of an "M" surrounded by muck with baseballs on either side."

Surrounded by muck? Who wouldn't want to play for them? And why are so many teams in the minors attaching the suffix "-dogs" to their names? Sundogs. Icedogs. Muckdogs. Catdogs. MichaelVickdogs. Barklikeadogs. It's out of hand.

Extremely obsessive RyanHowardologists will tell you that this is Ryan Howard, too:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/1d/Bjoffice.jpg/180px-Bjoffice.jpg

You know, "Fire Guy" over at Dunder Mifflin. How many people besides myself and G.A. care that America's two most famous Ryan Howards both work in eastern Pennsylvania, and only an hour's drive or so from each other?

Greetings from (somewhere near) Asbury Park. New Jersey.

Talk about plum assignments! I've returned to my ancestral homeland (the Jersey shore...not a New Jersey beach, Mr. Kirshenbaum....more on that later) for a diamond doubleheader featuring the reigning National League MVP, Ryan Howard and the greatest pitcher of our lifetimes (if you're under 40...I don't wanna wrassle with those Sandy Koufax/Bob Gibson fans), Roger "My Time is More Precious Than Mr. Hand's" Clemens .

So I'm here at gawgeous, absolutely gawgeous First Energy Park in Lakewood, New Jersey. And to paraphrase President Andrew Sheppard when he takes Senator Bob Rumson to task for not being a member of the ACLUC in The American President , "Why aren't you?"

Allow me to set the scene: It's 10:42 a.m., and a ballpark set in a bucolic spot is rapidly filling up. First Energy is only six years old. It's very, very pretty. There's an upper deck with luxury boxes. I'm looking for the one sponsored by Satriale's. Behind right and left fields there's a grassy knoll where fans, known as "The Sod Squad", can sit (if you've ever been to the ballpark in Scottsdale, Ariz., where the S.F. Giants play their spring training games, it's a lot like that).

Bruce Springsteen's Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out is playing on the loudspeaker. It's so refreshing to be at a ballpark in the Tri-State area where "The Boss" is universally loved.

There's beer on tap. The host club, the Lakewood BlueClaws , have pulled out all the stops. There was a middle school band out front playing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" (by the way, I never noticed this before, but the sheet music books come from a company in Lebanon, Pa., named "Loser's"; the front of the book says "Loser's Music". How perfectly ironic). Sunny skies above, with a mild breeze. And fans walking around supporting the home teams in T-shirts that read "GOT CRABS?"

I'll have to ge me a dozen of those. Great stocking stuffers.

If your only acquaintance with New Jersey's terrain is the opening of The Sopranos or the drive you've made from Newark Airport to Manhattan, you've severely underrated our fair state. And Garden Staters prefer it that way. It's absolutely sublime here down in Ocean County this morning. And so many people here plaing hooky. A lot of kids' perfect attendance records are going down this afternoon. I don't know whose idea it was to start a baseball game at 11 a.m. on a Wednesday, but I'm completely in favor of it. Why should people in Florida and Arizona have all the fun?

Two of my absolute favorite things: Will Ferrell and Wedding Crashers. I have often said, if I were stuck on an island and had to choose one person to play LOST with, it'd be Ferrell. I don't care what you throw at me, how HOTT anyone is, sense of humor beats out looks every time. (Ok, fine. I'd take Matthew McConaughey, if you insist.
He's the only exception.)

That being said, allow me to introduce to you two of my absolute favorite people who are doing more then just "Living the Dream!" Lauren (one of my best girlfriends, we met back at Florida State University and then moved to NYC and owned this island circa summer of '03) and her fiance Troy (charming handsome Australian who knew Lauren was a catch the first moment they met circa summer of '03) are living the life in a huge way.

Upon deciding they wanted to ditch their jobs for a year of worldly travels, the two saved all of their money for over a year. They then left the U.S. of A. and headed for Asia. They've spent the last nine months hopping from one country to the next. Yet, Lauren and Troy are two people who are not capable of one thing: anything dull. EVER. They've climbed down waterfalls, rode on elephants, slept in the desert (with no tent), made national TV at a cricket match and even somehow landed on a famous soap opera in India. That is not even half of the stories these two have.

"It was so great to see Jason after such a long time, almost a year to be exact! Not much has changed though, save for the new language he speaks, suave suits he wears everyday, amazing apartment (with a view of the Eiffel Tower), and the harem of gorgeous French women that follow him everywhere. As you might have noticed though, nothing has changed with us either......still telling lies! "

They've landed in Paris, France for a quick stint and then take off next for Argentina. If you have any spare time at all... you should check out their blog: Adventure of a Lifetime. They are truly just living the dream!

Not feeling too hot today at work. You know when you don't know what is wrong, but you're sure that whatever it is, it's not right? Exactly. Diagnose me with whatever that is.

Part of a daily ritual, I checked my horoscope for today.

May 21, 2007
You are cheerful and outgoing by nature, but today your spirit is somewhat dampened. You don't respond with your usual enthusiasm to invitations to a myriad of social activities. Don't fight the way you're feeling, tiffany. This is a day for trusting your instincts and behaving accordingly. A home-centered, relaxing evening is exactly what you need right now.

Like I'm gonna argue with that?

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens... These are a few of my (not so) favorite things."

Yesterday afternoon, NYC got poured on with a nice rain shower. Now normally that would not bother me. However, right when the skies decided to open, I was all the way on the complete opposite side of the island, with no umbrella, wearing flip flops and too far from a subway to make a run for it. So I just walked. Whatever.

The reason I was on that side of Manhattan was to hit up B&H for a new lens for my camera. Excited to use it, I went over to a friend's apartment and we climbed up onto the roof to take pictures. While taking pictures we noticed the normally very color-coordinated Empire State Building looked (not to be mean) but it looked ugly.

Conclusion: Some of the lights had blown out or the man controlling the color switch had a little too much at Happy Hour and just turned a bunch of switches on. How wrong we were...

Apparently, to show support for the Subway Series, the building was lit for both of NY's baseball teams. One side sported blue and white for the Yankees and the other blue and orange for the Mets. See what I mean? Ugly.

Tonight the building will be back to its coordinated self with blue and orange as the color of choice. The Empire State Building's current team of choice: the Mets. When you win 2 out of 3 the building has no choice but to go with the winner.

Hey, Yankees, if you start winning some games, you can have the whole building to yourself. Not just half.

The Sopranos tore a page right out of the Blair Witch Project playbook last night with the, "Is that a tooth I'm looking at?" moment. Fantastic. Single-best image perhaps in the entire series. Nothing better symbolizes everything that Tony is all about: He loves his family, he comes across as a well-dressed and responsible member of the citizenry, but he's not above separating a dude from his dental work if the situation calls for it.

Brilliant. And didn't you love how Tony noticed the tooth in his hem, and then folded his leg above the other to hide the evidence?

Stellar episode. Here's a few more thoughts:

--With only two episodes remaining, it would be nice to get a rerprieve from people deciding how the show's going to end. Can we all agree that nobody has better than a shot in the dark guess at this point, and that that's a good thing?

--Final note on Christofuh: somewhat ironic that the kid with the big schnozz dies by the schnozz. Had to be intentional by David Chase, no?

--Meadow has never looked better. And maybe she should get back together with Finn. Then again, if she hits law school instead of med school, she'd be more of a direct asset to the family.

--What's the difference between the boys in the back room of the Bing and the gang at Cheers ? Sam Malone would be an amalgam of Tony + Christofuh, the leader of the band/the recovering alcohohic. Cliff Claven becomes Paulie Walnuts, albeit with a darker side. And Norm is Bobby Baccala. Woody is Silvio, the dim-witted but ever-amiable sidekick. And let's face it, how much more entertaining would Cheers have been if the bar's back room had a stripper pole instead of a pool table?

--If only Tony had installed a high dive. What separates the Sopranos from almost every show that preceded it was the moment when Melfi asked T if he was ashamed of his son, and he replied, "I am." Because isn't that what you were thinking? But out in the "I forgot my mantra" land of Hollywood, that line would almost never fly.

--Wondering about the practical problems of shooting the Tony-rescues-A.J. scene. Do you realize that if they did more than one take, Tony would have to dry off and then I guess have an identical suit waiting for him?

--You're a little bit surprised, aren't you, that A.J., who's always been one of the weakest characters on the show, has been given such a prominent story line this season? I am. It's like the Dick Van Dyke Show giving more than one line per season to Richie. Which makes me think, Was there a better under-10 year-old actor in TV history than Ron Howard as Opie? And, no, I'm not consdering Gary Coleman for that distinction.

--Phil Leotardo. You gotta give him this: Great hair. He looks like half of my uncles I had growing up. I had, like, 19 uncles (it's a long story), all of whom were named Dominic, Savino, Frank or Anthony. I'm just sayin'...

--Didn't you love the Cleaver movie poster in the background at the backroom Bing offices?

--Are we not paying enough attention to the two potential Jihadists that Chase keeps bringing up in each episode, if only briefly? Are they planning something huge? Is it a sting operation? What? And speaking of loose ends, what ever became of Bobby's hit in the laundry room in the first episode of the season? Is he going to skate on that?

--Why didn't they just put A.J. in a room next to Uncle Jun?

--Let's hope that's that the last Peter Bogdanovich scene we're subjected to. Yes, okay, he hooked up with Dorothy Stratten nearly three decades ago. Henry Winkler was hot then, too, but I don't need to see him now, either.

How about this Game 7 between the Spurs and Suns! It's everything we all hoped it would be. Tied at 77-all after three quarters. Sure, I felt bad when Bruce Bowen had to leave the game after he ran into that open-court pick set by Sun reserve Pat Burke , a surprise starter who used the old "hide an anvil in my jersey" ploy. Burke was ejected. How the Suns would replace his 2.6 points per game became the dominant story of the first half.

Another curious story is the rumor that Robert Horry's food taster dropped dead after sampling his chicken fajitas last night. Police are ruling out fowl play. Horry's taster dropped dead right near a bus stop on Van Buren Street, and Horry shook him trying to revive him and asking onlookers for help. But, as it was an altercation involving an NBA player, none of bystanders waiting on the bus stop bench felt comfortable leaving their area.

Still, what an amazing finish to an unforgettable series. You've got two guys, each of whom has won two NBA MVP trophies, attempting to will their teams to victory. Tim Duncan already has 31 points after three. Steve Nash has only four points, but he's already dished out two dozen assists.
It doesn't matter who wins. We fans are just so lucky to be able to witness a Game 7 of this magnitude.

I LOVE THE NBA!

Why do I feel myself rooting for Tank Johnson after reading these quotes ?

Why do I believe Dolphins coach Cam Cameron is dead right when he says things like this about Ricky Williams?

imperious , adj.

"domineering in a haughty manner; dictatorial; overbearing"

I understand that I am beating a Barbaro here (and on all days, the Preakness Stakes day), and I also acknowledge that as a Phoenix native and Suns fan, I'm in the midst of a personal bench-clearing bawl.

Having fessed up to that, let's review a few things. First, David Injustice is the type of man who is never wrong. He prides himself on knowing all the nuances of any issue and on making the proper decision. In the case of Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw v. The NBA , he ruled, at least in terms of the letter of the law, correctly.

However, as commissioner, he does have latitude. His word is final. And he might have acknowledged a few inconsistencies in the rule and judged in a manner that almost everyone (I haven't read or heard anyone who believes in what he did other than to say that, by the strictest terms of the rule, he ruled consistently upon precedent) who loves basketball would have applauded. To wit:

--If Tim Duncan leaves the bench in the 2nd quarter, why is that not an infraction only because no altercation took place? Does Duncan know that no altercation will take place in the time that he went from being on the bench to stepping on the court? Of course not. In retrospect you're telling the Suns that if James Jones had seen Duncan run on the court, the best thing that he could have done to help his team would have been to slug Francisco Elson. Because what Sun fan would not take a Jones for Duncan suspension straight up?

--As Steve Nash said in a post-game interview Friday night, what will forever haunt him (and let's be honest; this may be as close as Nash ever comes to an NBA Finals from here on out) is that the Suns did not instigate the altercation and that neither Stoudemire or Diaw came anywhere near to a Spurs player. In fact, and what few people have noted, is that Nash himself rushed at Horry. And, yes, he was technically on the court as a participant so the same rule does not apply to him as it did to Diaw and Stoudemire, but he pushed Horry. But see, Steve Nash is a 6'2" white guy.

--Kudos to Gene Wojciechowski (alias, The Typographical Terror) for his Saturday morning column on the series. The more prominent journalists who call out David Injustice and remind him that we're people here, and that justice trumps correctness, the better.

--Here's one quote from Injustice from his contentious appearance on Dan Patrick's radio show earlier this week:

It's not being decided by [Robert Horry]. It's being decided by two Phoenix Suns who knew about the rule, forgot about it, couldn't control themselves, and didn't have coaches who could control them. And don't you forget it. Now, is it exactly fair? Probably not. Is it a red letter rule? Absolutely. Did cost other players and teams their playoffs and championships? Yes. So, I guess there's no way for us to get the message through. Do you think next year the players will understand it?

For me, the key line there is the final one: "Do you think next year the players will understand it?" No, David, I don't. And not the year after that. Or the year after that. Or after that. Because it's unnatural to ask uber-competitive people not to react as Diaw and Stoudemire did. One question Stern asked rhetorically during an appearance on PTI earlier this week displays his ignorance of, or simple out-of-touchness with, the game he oversees. Stern asked, "How come nobody else on the Phoenix bench ran onto the court?"

Okay, David, I'll let you think about that one for a moment. What do Boris Diaw and Amare Stoudemire not have in common with anyone else on that Suns bench? Oh, yes. They'd played most of the game. Their adrenaline was at a much higher level than say, Eric Piatkowski's. But you wouldn't understand that, would you?

The point is, having this rule is not going to stop players in the future from reacting in the split second as Stoudemire and Diaw did. Why can you not at least admit that after one or two seconds, both players came to their senses and stopped? That no coach was going to be able to prevent Stoudemire from getting to Horry if he really wanted to? Stoudemire policed himself, because he was aware of the rule. He check-swinged, and he didn't go around. So why call the strike on him?

-- Yes, it's terrible what happened to Rudy Tomjanovich nearly thirty years ago. But, as many a blogger has asked, how come baseball seems to survive with the occasional bench-clearing brawl? It's funny. The Phoenix Suns had some fantastic teams in the early '80s, with Paul Westphal and Don Buse at guards, Walter Davis and Len Robinson at forward, and Alvan Adams at center. But it didn't matter. They just could never overcome Showtime, the mighty and magnificent L.A. Lakers (one of the very best basketball teams ever assembled).
Twenty-five years later, the Lakers are still screwing them. Steve Nash misses the crucial final minute of Game 1 due, basically, to the Magic Johnson rule. Because the odds of Nash bleeding on to Bruce Bowen and giving him a deadly virus are so high. Then there's Kermit Washington, whose monumental punch instigated the bench-clearing brawl rule (though it would not come down for years); and, of course, Cheap Shot Rob.
I hate L.A. ("We hate it!").

--This may sound blasphemous, so let me preface it by emphasizing that in no way are the sacrifices made comparable. But there was a moment late in the 4th quarter of last night's game when the ESPN cameras zoomed in on Steve Nash's face. The game was not over, but the score basically said that it was. You could see that Nash hadn't given up--he never would-- but that in his eyes was the realization that this magical season was over. And that this cosmic concatenation of unfair events had gone against him. That, despite his most valiant efforts, despite playing by the rules and doing things the right way, that he was going to lose. (and let's be clear here: the Spurs are a magnificent team; Duncan, Ginobili and Parker are sublime and Bowen, much as I despise him, shot the three better than any Sun this series).
And in that moment I saw another Phoenician. I saw Pat Tillman .
The Valley of the Sun has been blessed with two athletes in the past decade who embody every value of sportsmanship and courage that you'd hope your son or daughter would take with them. Both were/are undersized (for their respective sports) overachievers who possess traits that are far too rare in pro sports today, where we lionize athletes whose personal lives are so often a mess, whether it be because they're running dog-fighting rings or because their wife is sending their eight year-old son in to the locker room to snatch his cellphone so that she can discover whom he's hooking up with (answer: everybody).
And then you have Pat Tillman and Steve Nash. Two athletes who did it the right way. Who believe(d) that nothing worthwhile comes without sacrifice and dedication. And what happened? The very organizations whom they served, the institutions that should protect the most loyal and dedicated soldiers, have basically shat on them (excuse my French).
I don't have children .When I think about Tillman and Nash, I wonder how parents explain to them what happened and why. What lessons should any child draw from that?

--David Stern, I'm not arguing that you acted outside the letter of the law in your judgment. But you had the capacity to do the right thing, not just because of the circumstances (which amounted to--what's that term you lawyers use in civil trials?-- a "preponderance" of evidence) but because everyone knew what was just. This is the NBA; it's not the Texas penal code.
You messed up. Big-time. And if you don't think the Game 5 suspensions will be the lasting image of the 2007 NBA postseason, then you simply don't get it. You killed a mockingbird, Mr. Commissioner. That's what you did.

--The difference in this series is defense. San Antonio just never gives you an easy shot. And it's easier for the smalls such as Bowen and Parker to play perimeter D, knowing that as long as they funnel their man to the middle that the Big Fundamental is there to wipe it away.

--David Blaine is a magician. Magicians can make themselves disappear. I wish he would.

--Great lyric that opens a tune called "Must Have Done Something Right" by a band out of Canton, Ohio, named Relient K:

We should get jerseys,
Cuz we're such a good team,
But yours would look better than mine,
Cuz you're out of my league

--As he did in Game 4, Steve Nash has ome on to have a HUGE 4th quarter, but tonight it's going to be too little, too late. Nash just didn't play to his full potential in the 2nd and 3rd quarters and, especially in the 3rd, the Suns needed his leadership and it wasn't there.

--Spurs 110, Phoenix 101 with 17 seconds left. I'm going to tee-pee David Stern's house. Who's with me?

--The Spurs can field a backcourt of Tony Parker and Jacques Vaughn. One is from France and the other California, but if you didn't know better you'd probably guess wrong as to who was from where.

--Say you're a player for the Suns and the game is lost, and you see the Spurs kick it out to Bowen in the corner. You're running toward him and you know it's too late to block the shot. Do you just Urlacher him into the fourth row? Who besides Dave and Stu would be bothered by that?

--Steve Nash has just been released from the cryogenic chamber. Spurs are up by 18. If it weren't for Stoudemire tonight, who knows how far back Phoenix would be? During the regular season Phoenix kills you with the fast break and with threes. Tonight, none of that. Spurs by 20.

Watching the Suns-Spurs at home on a Friday night. Who rocks like I rock?

Mind Offerings:

--Is this the best postseason series of the decade? With all due respect to the Detroit Pistons, who just mow down opponent after opponent, when's the last time you saw two heavyweights play with such enmity and prowess? This series reminds me of the Celtics-76ers series of the early Eighties.

--Don't we all want to see the Phoenix Suns win it all just for the awkward moment that will create when David Injustice has to award them the Larry O'Brien Trophy (and Dan Patrick should be the guy holding the mic)? That'll be the most uncomfortable award ceremony since Peter Rozelle awarded Al Davis the Super Bowl trophy in 1981 or whenever it was. Since Reese Witherspoon won a Golden Globe and Ryan Phillippe had that, I wonder what my mistress is thinking right now? look on his face.

--I beat this drum all the time, I know, but how bizarre is it that four of the five best players on the court tonight were born and raised outside the United States? And the fifth, Amare Stoudemire, did not attend college. And you wonder why the college game isn't as good as it used to be.

-- Why doesn't Mike D'Antoni just send in Jalen Rose, point to Bruce Bowen, and say, "Chopper, sick balls!"

--By the expressions on Tim Duncan's face, he's never committed a foul in his NBA career.

--The beauty of the Spurs is that their three best players--Duncan, Parker and GINOBILEEEEEEEEE!--are so different from one another in style and really, from anyone else in the league. And yet the complement one another perfectly.

--Can you remember the last time Steve Nash was this hot at the officials? They don't play up the nickname much anymore, but the Suns used to be known as "The Purple Gang". Looking at the bruise on Nash's calf, that nickname has new meaning.

--How great is this game? No one has led by more than four yet. Although, watching Steve Nash, I haven't seen a guy look this spent since Jon Voight's bout in The Champ .

--Amare Stoudemire has 23 points in the first 30 minutes. So, no, the Suns didn't miss him at all on Wednesday.

--Admit it. You're watching Game 6 partly just to see what the postgame handshakes will be like if the Spurs win. I envision Steve Nash having a Tanner Boyle meltdown, and who can blame him? That's the difference between this series and that alleged playoff series that was played earlier this evening. After the Nets were eliminated, Richard Jefferson had a huge smile on his face while exchanging pleasantries with the Cavs. The look on his face said, "Cabo by Saturday night."
Can you imagine Kevin McHale or Magic or Michael ever leaving the floor after being eliminated with a smile on their faces?

--From the Gospel According to Bill Simmons (I'm not being facetious; I'm a huge fan....I'm sure he cares), he mentioned that he was giving Steve Nash the highest compliment he could, comparing him to Magic, Bird and Jordan in that you know he won't let his team get blown out. He just cares too much. How ironic is it, considering how the NBA and SportsCenter choose to market the league, that one of its very best players doesn't even dunk?

--Spurs are in the midst of a 14-2 run, the product of San Antonio's hot three-point shooting, the Suns' cold shooting, and Nash being completely out of sorts. He just doesn't have much tonight.

--Boris Diaw was named the NBA's Most Improved Player after last season. I'm naming him the NBA's Least Improved Player this season.

--

Enough time has passed. Enough sighs have been sighed. I can talk about the Gilmore Girls series finale now.

The final episode was not unlike the last stage of the Tour de France . Technically, yes, it's still a race, but there are no surprises to be had, just a lot of cruising and toasting of champagne (thank God there's still a sport that allows alcohol within its confines; it's down to just two now: the Tour de France and the World Series of Beer Pong). This final episode was a television version of comfort food: what loyal viewers wanted, and expected. This wasn't a fish-out-of-water series finale, as was the Seinfeld final episode, in which they plopped the entire cast down in some cozy hamlet in New England.

Wait a second. They did plop the entire cast down in some cozy hamlet in New England. But that's where they always can be found.

First thing the producers did correctly, and that was in the previous few weeks, was eliminating love interests Chris and Logan. They're not Stars Hollow fodder, those two, and they violate a cardinal rule of dating in general: Never go out with a guy whose haircut cost more than yours did.

So, with those questions answered, we were able to bask in the glow of what's always been the show's most satisfying relationship: the one between Lorelai and Rory (Is anybody still reading this?). Throughout the episode we were treated to their trademark banter, discussing such matters as lime green fanny packs and where you should sit on a bus and how you never should wear shorts to work, it's just not professional. Meanwhile, the show's numerous ancillary characters each got a scene in which to create one final moment. The best was Sookie, who's always been the cool, content supportive friend that everybody should have. She read right through what Luke was trying to do by throwing the surprise party for Rory, but she didn't become a gossip about it.

The Gilmore Girls has never been about being edgy. It's about being somewhat witty, a little tongue-in-cheek, but overall a show in which the characters are decent people. If GG were a band, it would be Fountains of Wayne .

And so the show bowed out at the right time. With Rory out of Yale, there was no chance of her returning to Stars Hollow. And how many more phone conversation scenes were the producers willing to subject us to? Meanhwhile, you couldn't take Lorelai out of Stars Hollow to follow Rory because that would eliminate Luke. And Lorelai was meant to end up with Luke.

The final scene was a perfect touch. It's pre-dawn, and Luke has opened up the diner exclusively for his two favorite customers. He and Lorelai are back together, but it was done without any overly wordy speechifying on their behalf. Lorelai and Rory are perusing the menu, and Luke asks if he can take their order. Lorelai claims to be unsure of what she wants (yeah, we've been watching the show for seven years, Ms. Gilmore; that much we know) and Luke, delivering his final line of the series, says gently, "You take all the time you need."

And then the camera fades out from the window as Lorelai and Rory discuss the prudence of walking around with a baseball cap that reads "World's Greatest Reporter" (funny, because I have one that reads "World's Tannest Reporter").

Like most everything else they did with this series, the producers hit all the right notes with the finale. And I was touched. Then I went back to ripping David Stern a new one.

Perhaps you're one of those types who only picks up Playboy when its August issue comes out, featuring the magazine's annual preseason All-American football team. Or maybe you only purchase it when Amanda Beard poses.
Or both.
The former issue is always quite popular (as opposed to the issues that appear the other eleven months of the year--"Girls of the NESCAC!") but this year it may suffer from a problem analogous to one many of the mag's loyal readers can empathize with: premature e-jockulation.
The folks at Playboy normally issue a release naming the members of its annual All-American team in late June or early July; that is, in the week's leading up to the issue's release. This year, however, someone snapped photos of the shoot, which usually takes place in Scottsdale, Arizona, and those photos wound up on the football page of the Boise State athletics page.

(UPDATE: Boise State sports information director Todd Miles just phoned. Miles was at the shoot, held at the Pointe Tapatio Cliffs in Phoenix, and was permitted to take shots with his digital camera. According to him, Playboy has no problem with individual schools announcing that one of their players [in Boise State's case, OT Ryan Clady] made the team. Just to be on the safe side, though, Miles will be taking down the team photo shot from BSU's site)

To see the shots, just go to:

http://www.broncosports.com/SportSelect.dbml?SPID=4061&DB_OEM_ID=9900

As for who's on the team? Find out after the jump....

This week on Breakfast with Tiffany, I interview LPGA star Natalie Gulbis. She is in town for the Sybase Classic .

On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being Tiger Woods, I rank about .05 with my golfing skills. Awesome, right? So here I am at the golfing range sporting sweet flip flops and shorts (very golfer of me). Natalie and I are hanging out at the driving range, where her adoring fans have been all morning to watch her hit balls. Dedicated fans. We start our interview and I'm asking her about the course and what she was working on during her practice when she throws out: "Why don't you try?" Inner thought: "Excuse me? Cause that's not a funny joke." I look back at John, my producer/camera guy. He's beaming, nodding his head saying: "Yup. Go for it. This is going to be funny."

It basically goes down like this:
I get the club.
Stand where Natalie tells me.
I swing.
Miss.
Take out a chunk of grass.
Applause from the people who are out to watch Natalie (not the other blonde) hit a golf ball.
What's a girl to do? I curtsy and laugh.

As embarrassed as I was, my competitive side won't let me make a complete fool out of myself.
I attempt again but not before doing a mini prayer for the ball to at least move.
Take 2: swing.
Ohhhh and there she goes. A hit!!

To quote the flim: Dumb and Dumber
"Just when I think you couldn't do anything worse, you go and do something like this... and totally redeem yourself!"

I may be .05 on the golf scale, but I'd say take two was redemption.

Now that he's mastered "Hungry Like the Wolf", here are a few tunes I'd love to see Bruce Campbell perform in that swanky lounge-act style of his in future Old Spice "Ahoy!" ads:

Eye of the Tiger , by Survivor

867-5309 by Tommy Tutone

Come on Eileen by Dexy's Midnight Runners

And We Danced by The Hooters

Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin

Any suggestions?

Let's get this out of the way first: The San Antonio Spurs are a great basketball team. They have incredible talent, sure--Tim Duncan is the most reliable superstar since Michael Jordan--but they are also consummate professionals. There's a reason that Bruce Bowen is always open in the corner or why the Phoenix Suns rarely got a good look from beyond the 3-point arc, or why Leandro Barbosa, the speediest man with a Jerry West silhouette on his shorts, has been unable to run past them.
In short, San Antonio plans the work and then works the plan.
It's a beautiful thing to watch.

However, there is a code, as Bill Simmons of espn.com adroitly pointed out, between basketball players. You learn it from the earliest pick-up games. You don't call a foul after your shot has already missed; you don't, as a defender, put your feet below the jump-shooter's (a move some %&#-wad did to me at Basketball City here a few years ago; my left ankle ligaments have never been the same); you don't undercut someone going for a layup, and on and on and on....

A few Spurs players don't abide by the code. They abide by the code, "Whatever it takes". I love Manu Ginobili , for the most part, but in my mind I can never forget what he did in a playoff series at Seattle a few years ago. Playing defense near the top of the key, Manu attempted to run around a screen set by one of the Sonics' bigs (exactly whom I forget). Then, as if he'd been shot, Ginobili crashed to the ground as if he'd been clothes-lined. His legs actually shot out from under him and he landed flat on his back.

Whistle.

Then they showed the replay. From a different camera angle, it was quite clear that the Sonic player had not touched Ginobili. No part of their bodies had even come close to touching. At that moment I lost a lot of respect for Ginobili, which is too bad because he's one of the most dynamic and unique players the NBA has seen in the past five or so years. He's a modern-day John Havlicek.

Late in the fourth quarter of last night's game Steve Nash had the ball on the dribble in the left corner. He dribbled around Bruce Bowen and had a baseline layup that he was going to take up with his left hand because that would allow him to use his body to shield off an oncoming defender. Nash missed the bunny. Seen in real time, the miss was inexplicable, and it was difficult to understand why he was whining to the refs since no one had come close to his left hand.

But then came the replay. And you know what? Bowen had reached and grabbed Nash's right wrist, in effect jerking back his momentum. It wasn't a damage-inflicting play, except for how it hurt the Suns' chances for a victory. Bruce Bowen is a sneak and a basketball felon and one can't help feeling that eventually he will get what he deserves.

Is the series over? No. But a fascinating stat is that the Suns have never won a 7-game series that was tied 2-2 (even though they have won a couple in which they were down 3-1). That stat hints at the Suns inability to go toe-to-toe with an opponent of equal measure. Unless the rest of the Suns' starting five play a consistent 48 minutes (Leandro Barbosa and Shawn Marion combined for just 6 second-half points last night), it is. One reason we'd all like to see a seventh game: to see the reception that Cheap Shot Bob gets when he steps onto the court at U.S. Airways Arena.

Who knew that Kurt Thomas had that kind of game left in him? That was a nice surprise.

After watching the Nets and Cavs shoot 4 of 32 in the 4th quarter of last night's Game 5 in Cleveland, wouldn't it just make sense to have the loser of the Suns-Spurs series face the winner of Detroit-Chicago?

I missed PTI and David Injustice's appearance on it yesterday, but caught the podcast this morning. I listened until Injustice said, "The spirit of the law and the letter of the law are, 'Thou Shalt Not Leave The Bench'."

Suddenly the NBA rule book is written on stone slabs? Listening to Stern I wonder if he's ever played a pickup game of basketball. Is there absolutely no appreciation or room for discretion in considering that here were the Suns, having just overcome a ten-point deficit late, having finally overcome San Antonio on the road with a courageous fourth-quarter comeback, and then someone hits their leader in the chops? How could any sanely wired person not have a visceral reaction to that, even for a second or two?

I thought of this analogy this morning. David Stern is walking down a busy New York City street and he spots a family member being mugged on the opposite side of the road. Does he sprint immediately to his family member's aid, or does he proceed to the nearest crosswalk, wait for the "WALK" signal, and then cross? What do you do, Mr. Stern? And if it's the latter, well, I don't want to live in a society with people such as you.
Go back to your tony Westchester-Fairfield County life, where the most rage you'll feel in sports is when the starter at your private golf club gets you off the first tee five minutes late. Go back to your Judge Smails world. You have no idea how many fans you sacrificed on your altar of "correctness" in the last few days.

Happy of all Happiness to my "little" (that would be in age ... height? not a chance) brother.

Boo, as I like to call him, turns 19 today.

He's basically the coolest kid ever. And my number one go-to for anything sports related. Growing up in a house of four kids, it was always necessary to divide and conquer. Everywhere we went things were done in two's: sitting in a car, riding the rides at Disney, whatever. Bud was always my partner in crime for anything we did. And he's the only person who gets away with calling me a hobbit.

Happy Birthday...
Love,
Your "Big" Sis

Thoughts about the league's Uncivil Action a day later:

1. The Suns will win this evening. Rage is as potent a motivator as there is, and when the always agreeable Steve Nash tells reporters "I'm too disgusted to comment", you can only imagine how focused he, Raja Bell, Shawn Marion, Leandro Barbosa and Kurt Thomas will be tonight.

2. It was the Nicholas Cage character "Hi" in the film Raising Arizona who uttered, "There's what's right and there's what's right", and by that I always interpreted it as, "There's what's rules and there's what's fair." There's the spirit of the law and the letter of the law. There's common sense and there's nonsense. David Stern--and make no mistake about it, this was Stern's call; Stu Jackson only reports his findings and makes a recommendation to Stern-- acted like the lawyer he is on this one and not the human being I hoped that he was.

3. Mr. Stern certainly projects an air of intellectual superiority, so I'm supposing that he has read Henry David Thoreau's On Civil Disobedience --as opposed to me, who simply Googled it and parsed the relevant statements. Anyway, here's a nice little ditty from the intro:

Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.

When a law-abiding people ( i.e., the Suns) no longer feels that the government (i.e, the NBA) protects their rights or treats them with fairness and justice, they are then compelled to act out for themselves. And when your best citizens no longer obey the law, society breaks down.
It's not just that Stoudemire and Diaw are out for a game, but the league had to consider the ramifications of their decision. By doing what they've done they've informed clubs that there is no reward for playing by the rules and that it may be to your benefit to incite the opposing team to leave the bench.

4. How'd you like to be the NBA stooge who has to approach the Suns next and inquire if Nash will do a PSA or appear at a league function on its behalf?

5. Stu Jackson: "This is a very unfortunate incident, but the rule is the rule. IIt's not a matter of fairness. It's a matter of correctness, and this is the right decision."

As one friend of mine noted, Aren't rules by their very nature supposed to make things fair? And by the way, as long as we're all of a sudden going to concern ourselves with rules, there's about 297 palms and travels that your refs have failed to call just this week.

6. Reportedly David Stern had planned on attending this evening's Game 5 in Phoenix. Now he's not. I wonder why.

7. Columnist Paola Boivin of The Arizona Republic had a nice take on the wisdom shortfall emanating from league offices yesterday. Here's the link:

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/columns/articles/0516boivin0516.html

8. Stu Jackson appeared on Mike & Mike this morning via telephone. Paraphrasing what he said, Jackson contrasted the incident of Tim Duncan leaving the Spurs bench in the second quarter versus the Suns' doing so with 0:18 remaining in the game. The difference, said Jackson, is that in the former there was no altercation.

To which any sensible person (and where were Greenie and Golic with this thought???) should have replied, "Oh, did Tim Duncan know that at the time he took three steps out onto the court?"

To say that Duncan and Stoudemire had any difference in intent (to come to a downed teammate's aid, perhaps?) or that they had any difference in expectation as to whether the incident in question would flare up when they left the bench area is ridiculous. It's as ridiculous as the Suns claiming that Amare was going to the scorer's table to check into the game.
Clearly, Jackson and Stern chose to interpret the intent of each player's actions. But then they come back to us and say that the "leaving the bench area" rule is not open to interpretation.
Despicable.

9. Jackson, making yet another specious argument on Mike & MIke (Will somebody tell me why I don't have any one of these three men's jobs?), said that, given how far Stoudemire wandered from where he began, that if the foul on Nash had occurred on the opposite side of the court, then Stoudemire would have been all the way into the free-throw area. Yeah, and if I were taller and hung like Milton Berle, I might be dating Tricia Helfer right now.
The incident occurred where it did, which is why Stoudemire reacted as he did. Players innately sense that the sideline is the bench area. That's why Duncan started to realize he was wandering into dangerous territory when he crossed the three-point line.

10. Whose fault is it if Suns fans act completely like idiots this evening, tossing garbage or drinks at Spurs players, especially if one of them should commit another hard foul or questionably legal play? Well, ultimately, it's the fault of the individual fan (see, Mr. Stern? It's called accountability for one's actions; as opposed to hiding behind an intransigent rule or blaming someone else for causing your behavior). However, the NBA, by their Stern Judgment policy, will certainly be complicit.

11. As you may have guessed by now, I'm a longtime Suns fan (No? Really? ). You can tell us by that look we got on our face the moment we saw Horace Grant (corrected; thanks) spot John Paxson wide open beyond the 3-point arc in June of 1993. It was the look of Edward Munch's "The Scream" figure. That was a knee in the groin, as was Mario Elie's dagger trey two years later in the Western Conference finals. But both of those miseries came within the course of the game and were decided by the players.
Given the magnitude of this series, given the Suns' previous record of clean basketball during the D'Antoni-Nash era--the exception being Raja Bell's hit on Kobe last year, because hey, everyone knows Kobe plays clean--it's abominable that the league would bring the hammer down this hard and insinuate itself this deeply into the outcome of the series.

12. What if David Stern's son were playing in the NBA? And what if an opposing player went Sprewell on his son right in front of his son's team's bench? The other eight players are on the far end of the court and one player has another in a choke hold? If your Stern's son's teammate, do you leave the bench to aid him? And if you do, does Stern punish you with a game suspension?
Granted, that's an exercise in extreme conditions. But, to a lesser degree, so were the circumstances at the end of Game 5. A wise judge rules in a manner that lets his populace realize that justice and fairness are the paramount values.

13. Here's something every Suns fan can smile grimly at: Once again Phoenix gets screwed by the Los Angeles Lakers, this time in the persons of former Lakers Kermit Washington and Robert Horry.

14. As one blogger on another site astutely noted, by Stu Jackson's logic (see No. 8) that Duncan's act is excused because there was no altercation, it would have behooved the Suns' James Jones to, the moment he saw Duncan on the court, wrestle Francisoc Elson to the ground. Bam, there's your altercation. Bam, there's your automatic one-gamer on Duncan.

15. I still believe that the Suns can win this series. But you know what? Have you been watching the Utah Jazz ? They are playing fantastic hoop right now. In fact, there are only two teams remaining in the playoffs that I believe have no chance of winning it all: Cleveland and New Jersey.
Meanwhile, teams such as Chicago, Utah and Golden State (and, before their meltdown, Dallas) have infused this postseason with excitement due to an up-and-down the court type of game that is light years more entertaining than the Shaq/Iverson drudgery we were subjected to earlier this decade. The game is so much more fun to watch.
And what single NBA team is most responsible for that transformation? That's right, those thugs from Phoenix.

Signed,

Hot and Bothered

Normally, I'm a huge fan of TNT's Ernie Johnson and his two cohorts, Kenny the Jet and Sir Charles. And I've been so for years. Whereas USA Today just did a cover story on their "Inside the NBA" program in the last week, I spent a day with them for a small piece in Sports Illustrated seven years ago.

I'm an Ernie Johnson guy.

But tonight, EJ is disgusting me. First, while it may be his job to be contrarian to former Sun Barkley, whom we knew would take the side that he has, his supercilious comment at the end of the first halftime segment ("And Amare Stoudemire was just trying to check into the game") probably launched a thousand middle fingers in the Valley of the Sun. Ernie, you may not want to visit the Valley any time soon.

Here are just some of the points, questions and thoughts that Ernie & Co. should have broached with the valuable time that they had:

1. Isn't it obvious that Boris Diaw took about two to three reflex steps toward Horry, then came to his senses and policed himself? No one stopped Diaw. He stopped himself.

2. Stoudemire went further, true; and it took Sun coach Mike D'Antoni to intercept him. But isn't it obvious as well that if 6'11" Amare Stoudemire was determined to reach Horry that he would have? He, too, came to his senses as soon as he realized the implications. That's not easy to do given the charged atmosphere of the moment.

3. Ernie kept beating the "20 to 25 feet" drum regarding how far Diaw and Stoudemire had strayed. Um, guess what Ernie? They're 6'9" and 6'11", respectively. They cover a little more ground per step than you or I or Stu Jackson.

4. It's easy to go Zapruder frame on this incident now, but in the heat of the moment how many of us would have reacted any differently than Diaw and Stoudemire? I hope I would have come to my friend's aid, too.

5. Does anyone even have footage of what was going on at San Antonio's bench while this was transpiring? I know I haven't seen it. So when Johnson said that nobody left San Antonio's bench, how do we know that? I'm not saying that someone did, I'm just asking where's the footage.

6. What if Horry, who's 6'11", had body-checked Nash, who's about 6'2", and then mixed it up with him. What if the much larger Horry had started pummeling the league's two-time MVP and the Suns' leader in every sense of the word? Would you still have expected Diaw and Stoudemire to remain on the bench? Would they have just been expected to sit and watch the carnage? And, in their minds, at that moment, considering how shockingly egregious Horry's act was, how could they know what was coming next?

7. Why--and here's the biggest point-- the *!*@ are we talking about Diaw and Stoudemire and not Horry in the first place!?! In "Inside the NBA's" pre-game and halftime segment all of the conversation was centered around whether Diaw and Stoudemire were guilty and whether the rule was bogus. So again we're blaming the victims? Why didn't anyone ask:

--Does this vindicate Stoudemire's assertion that the Spurs are indeed a dirty team?
--What does Robert Horry have to say for himself? Why didn't TNT lock him up for an on-air explanation of his actions?
--Where is Gregg Popovich's accountability in all of this? Players and coaches have been stating that Bruce Bowen is a dirty player long before this series. Manu Ginobili, despite being a unique and All-Star caliber player, is the league's worst flop artist and drives to the hoop with the intention of creating contact, not scoring. And Horry 's check of Nash was the most uncalled-for violence I've seen on TV since Christopher whacked J.T. Dolan. When does the league start asking Popovich to take some responsibility for his team?

I don't expect it, but if the Spurs organization had any class they'd recognize that it's not fair for them to benefit from Horry's flagrant foul. It's ridiculous. I'd like to see Popovich hold out the two starters who play opposite the Suns' Diaw and Stoudemire for at least the first half of tomorrow night's game. It won't happen, but it would be nice.

And you know what else would be nice? If Eva Longoria phoned Tony Parker and told him she was leaving him for Amare.

Meanwhile... I do believe that Phoenix is going to blow the Spurs out of the building tomorrow night. If the Suns go on to win the championship, Mike D'Antoni will be able to thank Stu Jackson for lighting a fire under his players (other than Nash, who never has required outside motivation to play with heart) to a degree that he'd never be able to do on his own.

The NBA did the wrong thing. Pure and simple.

Moments ago the league announced that Phoenix Suns Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw would be suspended for Game 5 of the Spurs-Suns series and that Robert Horry of San Antonio would be suspended for Game 6.

The move by the league is cowardly and niggardly, and displays an appreciation not for justice or common sense but rather for lawyering up. For being able, when considering all following cases, to state that their precedent has not been broken. No discretion or wisdom at all flows from this decision.

It took roughly 47 minutes and 42 seconds, but the San Antonio Spurs showed their true nature this evening.

The Suns, down by ten at one point in the fourth quarter, clawed back improbably (much of the time with Amare Stoudemire on the bench with five fouls) to take a three-point lead when Robert Horry body-checked Steve Nash out of bounds and into the scorer's table. And so, we must think about the following:

1. The taunting "DIRTY!" cat-calls that San Antonio fans have been tossing Stoudemire's way the past two games suddenly make the mockers look stupid.

2. I've been watching very good, often near-great Suns teams lose agonizingly close road playoff games since 1979. When it comes to beating an equal or superior team on the road in the postseason (which excludes the 1993 and 2006 Lakers, where the Suns won must-win games against low-seeded L.A. squads), the only siginificant wins that comes quickly to mind is last year's Game 1 win at Dallas in the Western Conference finals and Game 3 at Chicago in the 1993 NBA Finals (the triple-OT win). Tonight's win at San Antonio ranks right up there with those.

3. The Suns' win tonight guarantees that at least one of the four conference semis will have a Game 6.

4. If either Amare Stoudemire or Boris Diaw are suspended for Game 5 for taking two to three steps toward midcourt after their team leader had been blatantly checked by the 6'11" Horry, then the league has a problem. Neither Sun came anywhere near Horry or any other Spur and it's hard to imagine anyone not reacting similarly. Besides, if you really wanna see violence from an opposing team's bench in San Antonio, check out the YouTube clip of Avery Johnson's crotch shot on Josh Howard, his own player, in last year's Western Conference semis.

5. You have to give it up to the Suns for winning a game that was going against them most of the way. But you also have to credit the Spurs for being such an annoying team to face. The South Americans, Oberto and Ginobili, are all elbows and knees and unnatural angles. They're a Picasso painting. One reasons Ginobili is so difficult to guard is because he never drives straight to the hoop, but rather rumbles like Larry Csonka, actually searching out his defender and hoping for contact. Ginobili's last two drives this evening were vintage Manu, and most times the refs would give him the whistle. I don't know why they buried them in their pockets tonight, but I do believe the human element came in to play. The refs admired the Suns' mettle, and they too know that Ginobili lives for the bail-out call. Manu is a great player. He's also the most egregious flopper the NBA has maybe ever seen.

6. I don't know if Bruce Bowen is dirty or not, but he's a heckuva great perimeter defender. He does exactly what a perimeter defender should do: annoys the dribbler to the point of distraction. If the refs aren't going to call it, you cannot blame him for doing it.

7. Maybe Gregg Popovich should have kept Tim Duncan in the game when he got his fifth foul. The Spurs were up by five and Stoudemire was on the bench with five fouls of his own (after getting called for two on one possession).

8. The fascinating thing to see is how Horry's cheap shot will affect both teams. The cat's out of the bag with San Antonio: They are, if not a dirty team, a team with players who will play dirty. Horry proved as much this evening. There was no gray area there. How will that affect them? And Phoenix, having proven to themselves that they can overcome San Antonio when nothing's going their way, should begin Game 5 with a swagger they've not yet had in the Nash/Matrix/Amare era. Should be interesting.

9. Even with the little glimpses into Nash's personality you get in a post-game Craig Sager interview, it's hard not to like him. When Sager coined the term "Cheap Shot Rob", even Nash gave him dap. "Good one," Nash said. And when Sager noted that Nash had leaped off the canvas as if he wanted a go at the player eight inches taller than he, Nash joked, "I've been working out. Got these guns here."
A sense of humor can carry you a long way. I mean, just look at G.A.

10. Paging Leandro Barbosa, paging Leandro Barbosa....

Take your leg warmers off, Dorothy, Scrubs is returning for a 7th and final season next autumn. The most criminally under-hyped near-classic ( in my mind it is a classic) sitcom since News Radio will return in the fall to finally close all the sutures.

This year "Scrubs" took shots at both Grey's Anatomy and House , as if to say, "We're attendings...you guys haven't even passed your boards yet." Next season they need to take on Addison McDreamy and Sanjay Gupta, at least once.

And I'll walk around in a "The Todd" headband for a week if Tom Cavanagh does not make one guest appearance and while doing so, is not at least partially naked.

Last night two great shows on the same network took a character to the desert for a moment of catharsis. Coincidence, or is someone at HBO hacking into someone else's Scriptware software? You saw it, right?

On The Sopranos , Tony hits the right number three straight times in roulette (which is also the name of a Bruce Springsteen song...wonder if David Chase considered that) and collapses on the gaming floor in, what, a peyote-induced stupor? At this point I was really hoping that Josh Duhamel and James Caan would saunter past and tell Tony (the ultimate whale) either to get the hell out of the Montecito or go hang out in Hasselhoff's hotel room if he's gonna behave that way.

The next thing you know, Tony is sitting out in the desert with his coed/stripper companion (and who doesn't have/hasn't had one of those?), raising his arms up as he looks at the dying sunlight and yelling, "VICTORY!" (I may be getting ahead of myself there).

Is it correct for us to assume that Tony is literally seeing the light? Just as he stared up at the light after puking in the bathroom a scene or two earlier?

By the way, Tony/James Gandolfini walked right past me in the tunnel after Game 3 at Continental Airlines Arena on Saturday. Very cool thing. ( "Hey, T! Never mind the asbestos hauling racket, is Phil Leotardo also behind the Nets' move to Brooklyn? Marrone!")

Then came Entourage and Johnny Drama's own self-imposed exodus. Despondent over the negative reviews for "Five Towns", ("my hometown paper gave me no stars"), Drama drives east into Arizona and parks precariously close to an overhang at the Grand Canyon, where he spends the night. But then he, too, has his awakening moment after LLOYD! informs him that the show is a hit, F the critics. And that's when Drama has his "Victory!" yell.

Have you ever known someone like Drama? I did. A guy I once worked with was always walking around with a little chip on his shoulder because he felt as if no one respected his talent. Then one day he wrote a novel and it actually did very well. Critical raves plus he made enough money to quit the less-than-satisfying job he was at.

And you know what happened? He became a ten times better guy than he'd been before. Acceptance, and respect, brought him inner peace. He could laugh at himself and he became so much more likeable. I wonder if that'll happen with Drama.

If you watched both shows back-to-back, you must have had the same thought I did: Wouldn't it be great if Drama ran into Tony out in the desert? Or if they just drove past one another?

Meanwhile, goodbye Christopher. Seems that David Chase is a big believer in karma, after all.

Why do I get the feeling that A.J. is going to go on a rampage against his newly found friends?

One of my favorite teachers consistently used the word exquisite. Every class she would ask, "Did you have an exquisite moment in your day?" When looked up, synonyms for the word are: dainty, beautiful, elegant, rare.

Marla Simons is one of the most exquisite people I've ever known.

You can't describe my mom. You certainly can't categorize her. But you can admire and adore her for being so wonderfully complex. The term Steel Magnolia is often bestowed upon women who are elegant and polite yet possess strength and wisdom underneath. That is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my mom.

Few of us ever get to lead a life where we find ourselves doing what we are meant to do. Mom got lucky. Family is what she was meant to do. To anyone who assumes being a mom is easy - I can only hope intelligence catches up with you quick. It's one of the most important jobs we can ever take on. It's the very foundation that shapes and molds the future.

A lesson from a mom goes further then any ever learned from a book. My mom is an amazing teacher. She's ingrained within my siblings and I to have an open heart and mind, never to judge but to try to understand, and always be thankful for what we've been given. And damn it if she's not always right... about EVERYTHING! Not to say she's got some kind of psychic power, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised. She's got some intuition!

I titled this All My Mom's Children for two reasons. A) The only soap opera I was ever allowed to watch growing up was All My Children. B) I've grown up, moved a couple thousand of miles away from home to this crazy city I love. Yet I always carry with me all that my mom has taught me. Among all of my friends, I'm the sanctuary of advice. Always. Yet the truth of the matter is, I only pass along what I've learned from the lady I respect most. In a way, she's been a mom to people she's never even met. My friends, sisters, brother and I have always been grateful for the way she thinks and views the world.

And so mom... from all of us who adore you, love you and think you're the coolest: Happy Mothers Day! You're truly an exquisite part of everyday.

...but in baseball it's all about pitching.

Check out Major League stats this morning and you'll see that the Colorado Rockies have two of the top three hitters, in terms of batting average, in the National League. They are first baseman Todd Helton and outfielder Matt Holliday (Derek Lee of the Cubs leads the majors with a .393 average). In the American League the New York Yankees possess the league's top two hitters--both homegrown--in Derek Jeter (.376) and Jorge Posada (.369). They also have the majors' top home-run hitter (15) and RBI man (39) in Alex Rodriguez.

And? The Yankees, at 17-18, are tied for the seventh-best record in the 15-team A.L. The Rockies, at 16-21, have the 13th-best record in the 16-team N.L. The Yankees rank 24th in the majors in E.R.A., the Rockies 27th. New York visits Denver June 19-21. I'm putting the over/under for that 3-game series at 50 runs.

--Pretty solid season-ending Saturday Night Live this evening, and I'm not just saying that cuz it's on the home network and because they introduced a blind, prize-winning barbecue chef (played by Fred Arnisen) named Pep Walters .

Molly Shannon as host? Don't get me started. Don't even get me started. The '90s dream sequence had all the right touches (Mambo No. 5, "talk to the hand", Zima, "Not!") and Sally O'Malley at the Bada Bing was a good blend of an old character--I was never a big fan of it--and a hot series. Fred Arnisen is as good a Paulie Walnuts as Tony Sirico. "Hey, T! How old do ya think she is?"

I also liked Fringe Candidates debate and, as usual, Seth Meyers on "Weekend Update": "A 75 year-old woman set a record this week as the first African-American woman to reach the North Pole...in what has to be the worst Katrina relocation story yet."

Granted, reading a guy who works for NBC (and who now has his own namesake character!) praise SNL may turn the needle on your b.s.-o-meter, but I actually like this cast. Arnisen is funny in every scene he's in, Amy Pohler is already too big for this show, and Seth Meyers has eased in seamlessly in the role of head writer/WU anchor the way Tina Fey formerly did.

But it's the younger folk that give the show promise. Andy Samberg was the first breakout star of the group, courtesy of "Lazy Sunday", but as time goes on Bill Hader, Will Forte and Kristen Wiig are proving to be the best actors. Forte's "MacGruber" is inspired stuff, as is Wiig's "Penelope". Both are one-joke bits, and MacGruber is way funnier (you could see Lorne Michaels turning this into a movie; hey, if they can make "Joe Dirt", they'll make anything), but both are solid.

People have been writing that Saturday Night Live ain't what it used to be since about 1979 or '80, and granted it can be hit-or-miss. But you have to give it credit, the same credit you give to a couple that's been married for 32 years who, when they show up on the arena's KissCam, still finds the inspiration to smooch. SNL will never recapture the buzz it had in the mid to late-70s because it'll never be a new phenomenon again.

And it may be nowhere near as dangerous or as political as it once was. But if they can pull out a "MacGruber" or just let Fred Arnisen be Fred Arnisen every week, it's still pretty good comedy.

Well, Cleveland gave it a nice second-half run, but since it was 77-73 they've been outscored 13-3 and it's pretty much out of reach unless Dirk Nowitzki checks in for the Cavs.

The Cavs seem--I wouldn't call it content, but at least accepting-- of just winning this series via the homecourt advantage. But if I had to pick one of these teams being able to win on the other's court, I'd take the Nets.

Game 5 will be huge.

Jason Kidd's line this evening: 23 points, 14 assists, 13 rebounds. As if to ask, "Why y'all talkin' up LeBron?"

CBS Sportsline's Mike Freeman just pointed out something funny to me on the stat sheet. Next to attendance it says, "20,032 (Sellout)" despite the fact that you can count literally hundreds of empty seats here. It's not that the CAA is empty--far from it--but if this is a sellout, Bob's your uncle.

New Jersey Net seven-footer Mikki Moore has made the most of his opportunity with the Nets this season. Moore, who went undrafted after playing at Nebraska, spent some time with the Roanoke (Va.....Roanoke rides the fence between city that needs the state abbrev. after it and city that doesn't) Dazzle as well as six other NBA teams.

He's the black Paul Shirley.

Shirley? You can't be serious.

I am serious. And stop calling me You.

ANYWAY....Moore averaged 9.8 points per game this season in which he was given more time following the season-ending injury to Nenad Krstic. Moore impressively, Mikki (pronounced "Mikey", as in "He likes it") had the second-best field-goal percentage (.609) of anyone in the NBA this season who attempted at least 400 shots. Only Tyson Chandler (.634) of NOOK (my favorite acronym for an NBA town) hit a higher percentage of shots this season.

By the way, it's a game again. New Jersey led by as many as 15 points late in the 3rd quarter (70-55) but they've been outscored 18-7 since. It's now 77-73, Nets, with 8:50 to play. And, in keeping with Eastern Conference regulations, neither team will score 100 points this evening.

So LeBron James is "The Chosen One", right? And here at the CAA performing at halftime we have Def-Jam recording artist Ne-Yo. It's "The Matrix: Rebooted" here in Jersey.

Halftime thoughts:

--New Jersey Nets: What other pro franchise is named after a piece of sporting equipment? Does the NFL have a Los Angeles Pylons? Would you wear a retro baseball jersey for the Detroit Rubber? And how come simply doesn't name their franchise "Balls"? Gamblers would love this: Who you got tonight? "I got Balls!"

--Only three days until the final episode ever of The Gilmore Girls . Ways I see it ending:

1. Darth Vader strolls into the diner and announces, "Luke, I'm your father."

2. Taylor and Kurt are banished from Stars Hollow after photos of them attending a NAMBLA event surface on the internet.

3. Richard and Emily take off in a spaceship with Wilfred Brimley.

4. Special guest appearance by Throat Cancer Ump.

5. Sally Struthers' character, Babette, wakes up in the middle of the night and nudges her husband. "You wouldn't believe the crazy dream I just had," she says as the camera pans to her husband, Meathead.

--Oh, yeah, the game. This is supposed to be the Nets' statement game after falling down 0-2 on the road (see Golden State 125-105 over Utah), but it's only 45-43 at the half. And LeBron's engine has simply been idling the entire first half. LeBron's a freak, but remember how Michael Jordan used to come out for playoff games, especially in the first decade of his career. MJ played with a fury. He was a scoring machine in games such as this. LeBron has ten to lead the Cavs, but it's been a pick-my-moments kind of ten points.

It was fourteen years ago this June that Drazen Petrovic was killed in an auto accident in Germany. In the months before his death Petrovic, who played the last two seasons of his life as a New Jersey Net, had proven beyond a doubt that a European born and raised entirely outside of the United States could succeed in the NBA. In the 1992-93 season Petrovic led all NBA guards in field-goal percentage (52 %) and was namd 3rd Team All-NBA.

Petro was a pioneer. While Detlef Schrempf was a stud for the Supersonics in the eighties, he had finished high school and played collegiately in the state of Washington. Only Sarunas Marciulonis is, off the top of my head, in the same conversation as Petro as being the first foreign-born player who was a starter and top-tier player in the NBA. Toni Kukoc came over to the Chicago Bulls only after Petro's death.

And why do I mention this? Because of the eight teams remaining in the NBA playoffs, only two have All-American, in the passport sense of the term, starting fives: Detroit and New Jersey, Petro's former team (Petro's No. 3 jersey is retired and hangs in the rafters here). Petro helped lead the foreign invasion, and isn't that the biggest story in the NBA since Michael Jordan hung them up?

Consider: three of the four Western Conference finalists--you know, the teams whose games people prefer to watch-- start TWO foreigners. Golden State starts just one (Andris Biedrins) but French-born Mickael Pietrus sees plenty of minutes off the bench.

Consider: Four of the ten players recently named to the All-NBA first or second teams are foreigners and a fifth (Kobe Bryant) spent a significant portion of his childhood in Italy.

How did this happen? It's not as if all of a sudden just because America has the MLS and plentiful youth soccer programs that the Yanks have taken over the Premiership. It's a wild phenomenon.

And to think that a former Net helped start it all.

By the way, he may not start, but Slovenian reserve Bostjan Nachbar is a key player off the bench for the Nets.

Do you have any idea how lucky you are to be watching this game at home?

Seriously.

The first NBA team that recognizes that fans might just not mind watching and enjoying a basketball game, rather than attending a rave that just happens to have ten dudes wearing tank tops in the middle, will be hailed as geniuses.

After Cleveland called its first timeout, there was a T-shirt giveaway, Nets dancers, cheerleaders, a live sex act featuring a lemur at midcourt and the obligatory boyish, energetic, sexually ambiguous D.J. on the floor imploring all of us to (say it with me) "Make some NOIZE!"

And I know I sound like old curmudgeon guy, but how come the game needs a running soundtrack? And ThunderStixx? You know what this arena could really use? More people. It's only about 3/4 full, and you really cannot blame rush hour traffic when the game begins at 5 p.m. on a Saturday and its not head-to-the-shore season yet.

It's a good game. It's just that I cannot hear myself watching it. It's one thing when the fans at Oracle Arena in Oakland are themselves making so much noise you can't hear yourself think, but it's another when the audio guy is. The NBA Players Union is going to have to foot the bill for a lot of hearing aids in the coming years.

Here we are for Cavaliers-Nets, Game 3 of the Eastern Conference NBA semis, at Continental Airlines Arena. If Madison Square Garden, located just about seven miles or so east in Manhattan, is the "World's Most Famous Arena", then what is CAA? World's Most Heinous Arena?

Actually, it's a fine arena. It's hosted more than a couple dozen Springsteen concerts in its time. But the CAA (shouldn't we refer to all arenas that have a sponsored name, by the way, as "Until Someone Bids Higher Arena"?) is an anachronism, not so much for its actual design but for its location. The CAA was built at a time when owners thought, I need a place located on cheap (read: suburban) land with lots of parking. Surrounding ambiance played no role in the equation.

But then, some time around the early '90s, pro sports arenas started becoming the equivalent of the dinner-and-a-movie on Main Street, U.S.A., experience. Go to Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland or U.S. Airways Arena in Phoenix or Gilbert Arenas in D.C. (i..e, the MCI Center, which is a great anagram: Gilbert's Arena); they're all located just steps away from various P.J. TomFoolery's type-saloons.

There's not a watering hole within three miles of this arena. A diner, maybe, but not a watering hole.

And I should get this out of the way: I'm from Joisey. Born and raised in Monmouth County until age eleven. So we kid, but we care.

The NFL is exploring the concept of playing a 17th regular-season game, one in which teams would play abroad. Now, being a white middle-aged sportswriter, I have a reflex mechanism embedded in my wiring that screams "RESIST CHANGE" at any notion of innovation. However, that's not the reason that I dislike the idea.

No, I dislike the idea because I'm an even-numberist. If there are 17 games in an NFL season, we would not have been able to write, "Just a year after winning the Super Bowl, the Steelers were nothing better than a .500 team in 2006." Which is true. And translates easily to the least mathematically inclined of sports fans ("How many chicken wings do I get with a dozen?")

No. In the future we'd have to write that the Steelers were either "no better than a .471 team" or "no better than a .529 team" in 2006, both of which is too much AP math for us sportswriters, much less you readers. It's just not right.

The NFL is really the only one of the four major sports leagues yet to be infused with a healthy dose of talent from overseas. Oh, sure, there's your occasional Okoye here and there, but there's not an Asian Invasion infiltrating the league, with apologies to Dat Nguyen and Kailee Wong. Nobody talks about the Dominican defensive backs who learned that they had to hit their way off the island. Clean, open-field hits, of course, but hits nevertheless.

The NFL is attempting to, like all other capitalist ventures, become viral. To go global. Not so much to develop talent abroad as to develop interest abroad. Hell, if Spiderman 3 can be box-office boffo in South Korea, why not the Carolina Panthers. And who knows, someday the NFL may place franchises in cities with foreign-sounding names populated by people speaking a language other than English with a culture very much different from our own.

Like Los Angeles.

Hey, everybody. Just returning today from my trip to Macau. There's some dirt-cheap airfares to Asia right now if you know where to look. On to other stuff....

Did Falcon owner Arthur Blank actually tell SI.com's Don Banks that alleged puppy pugilism promoter Michael Vick is " in essence on a short leash" right now? Really? Did someone give him a rimshot for that?

Blogstalker Greg Auman suggests the following quips to be made the next time Blank shoots off his mouth:

"We're pinning our ears back to find as much information as possible."

"Even if he's made a mistake, we're not going to rub his nose in it."

And my personal favorite:

"We're not going to stop humping the leg of justice and truth until we find out what's happened."

By the way, how beautifully in harmony with the unbridled privilege that pro athletes receive is it that Michael Vick quite literally cashes Blank checks?

He's a former umpire. He's got a hole in his throat. And he's hot!

He's "Throat Cancer Ump", and he's my breakout TV star of the last month. Have you seen this guy? You watch baseball--of course you have! He's bigger than the Geico Caveman, bigger than the hilarious Sonic drive-thru duo ("May I sub-respond to your question? Do you?").

He's the dude who dreamt of being a Major League Baseball umpire but then developed cancer due to his nicotine addiction. I've dubbed him Carlos Emphyzema . And, sure, that's insensitive of me, but these ads are metastasizing all over my television. This guy hasn't just scared me away from smoking (not that he needed to). He's scared me away from watching baseball. And I tune into Tim McCarver on Fox.

Besides, I don't know why a tracheotomy and a voice box should preclude anyone from being a Major League umpire. I mean, after all, if we can have women (You did not just go there, girlfriend! You did not!)... Anyway, I myself would be entertained hearing someone yell, "Play ball!" or "Yer out!" through a voice box. If he's healthy enough to tape all those ads....

"Everyone has days and events in life they'd love to push the rewind button on, yesterday was one of those days"

Sigh. Don't I wish that button existed.

Here's Curt Schilling's newest apology.

Umm, I could think of 473 different ways to kick off the weekend.

However getting arrested because my buddy is an idoit and decided to speed while driving my car drunk is just not one of them.

Read more about Steve McNair's headache.

I can't even begin to describe how incredible the wedding was. As a professional bridesmaid/wedding guest, I can tell you when a wedding is good. This one was not good. It was AMAZING.

It was personal. It was about what mattered most: them-nothing more, nothing less. Gregg and I have shared many conversations about the wedding over the last few months. Actually the first time I met Gregg, he had just proposed (right before football season conveniently enough!) To see it all come together, knowing just how hard they worked on it, was such an honor.

Take some notes from the new Mr. and Mrs. Rosenthal:
The ceremony was all time record breaking fast. I'm talking "Do you Gregg? Do you Emika? Great, husband and wife! Let the party begin!"
A personalized wedding is key! From the different colored paper umbrellas to the fortune cookie gifts, they made the wedding their own.
They made cd's for all the guests. Thankfully they have good taste in music.
STUNNING MOMENT: Emika walking down the steps with her father. She decided to ditch the traditional wedding march and instead surprised everyone by playing I'll Believe in Anything by Wolf Parade. It was beyond cool. It also is the song I've had on repeat ever since.
Friday weddings rock. You still have the entire weekend to hang out.
The Best Man and Maid of Honor were so sincere in their speeches, they even spoke in Japanese for Emika's family.
Outside + California + top of a mountain + a ton of flowers = SIMPLY GORGEOUS.

GREGG'S WEDDING SLIDESHOW

More then any decorations or cool music, Gregg and Emika looked incredibly happy. They both come from amazing families who welcomed us with open arms. Gregg's mom and dad are fierce dancers. They owned that dance floor!! They are also quite possibly the sweetest people you'll ever have the pleasure of meeting. Emika's father and mother were as equally elegant as their daughter. As soon as Gregg and his wife finished their first dance, Emika and her father danced next. Gregg came over and we hugged. He then said: "No matter how much I try, her dad always looks better then me! Look at his tux." haha.. Gregg you looked great!

I could go on and on.. instead I will leave you with pictures. I think they, more then words, can give you a glimpse at just how special these two people are. Some things are just meant to be. I'm just lucky I got to share a small part in it. Congrats!!!!

In case you haven't watched the SI show today, please go back to the homepage and watch Matty Blake's take on the latest David Hasselhoff video. Classic.

Roger Clemens keeps coming back for more and NY'ers couldn't be happier. My roommate was at the game with her boyfriend when Clemens appeared on the big screen and made his announcement. She said you couldn't even hear what he was actually saying because as soon as fans saw his face on the screen, the cheers roared. The Bronx suddenly see a glimmer of hope to the rest of the season. April showers brings Clemens to the mound?

As for the title, no Roger will not be sporting a cone-bra any time soon. However he and the Material Girl do manage to have something similar in their careers: no matter how old they get, people still want more. Every next move is always a surprise, controversy, or at least gets people talking. Word on the street: NY is ready for this comeback.

My good buddy Adam Duerson, who writes the "The Beat" in Sports Illustrated each week and who understands better than most that New York City is just a giant amusement park (Why else do you only pay bridge/tunnel tolls upon entering the city and not leaving it?), hosted a killer barbecue on his lower East Side rooftop yesterday.

Duerson's apartment is right across the street from Tompkins Square Park, which is bohemian utopia, or "bohotopia". It was an afternoon filled with kielbasa, brewskis, the Kentucky Derby, poker games, the De La Hoya-Mayweather bout and even, yes, Ivanka Trump .

So as it happens there's some huge pugliistic public pummeling taking place at the MGM Grand this evening in Las Vegas. Undefeated Floyd Mayweather , 30, is finally getting the big payday of his career against Golden Boy Oscar De La Hoya , 34, in a 12-round, WBC-sanctioned junior middleweight, non-octagon title match.

If you're under 25 years old, this is called boxing. Like that Cinderella Man movie.

Lots of experts--and just as many non-experts-- are casting predictions for tonight's bout. Me? I like Street Sense .

Nearly as intriguing--who are we kidding? more intriguing--than the bout is the celebrity guest list for tonight's fight. My spies in Sin City (yeah, I have spies...and not all of them work at The Spearmint Rhino ) inform me that these are just some of the celebs who will be sitting outside in the desert this evening: Leonardo DiCaprio, John Cusack, Mark Wahlberg, Jack Nicholson and the cast of Entourage .

Ladies, Gregg Rosenthal is off the market!! Well, that becomes "official" in a few hours.

A few of us from work have made it to the City of Angeles and are about to head down to SoCal for the ceremony. I'm so excited for the soon to be Mr. and Mrs. Rosenthal. In a short amount of time, they've managed to plan a wedding, move to a new apartment and Gregg has still held it down as Fantasy Guru throughout the whole process.

You gotta admit anyone who can write on their invite: "join them in celebrating the coolest marriage of the century" has to equal good times and even better company. I'll keep the Wedding Crashers quotes for another entry, but will be sure to take a ton of pictures. I mean, Gregg in a tux is something YOU don't want to miss!

Dark, dark skies loom over the kingdom of Johntourage this a.m., my friends. The news, expected yet dreaded, has at last broken. Here is the headline, as per this morning's Hollywood Reporter :

Gilmore Girls is coming to an end.

No more Rory. No more Lorelai. No more of their eclectic, pop-culture-laden and wonderfully witty banter, which I've come to regard as Rorelai .

I won't miss Paris. Or Taylor. Or Kirk. Or Luke's annoying daughter. Or even Lane, even though she's cool.

I certainly won't miss Christopher, who after Lorelai dumped him a few episodes earlier hooked up with Tim Daly and co-wrote Cleaver . Or did he? I may be getting my classic 2000s shows coming to an end this spring mixed up.

Whatever.

But I will miss Luke. And Michel. And Emily, who is every mom that cannot understand why it's not 1956 any longer. Never bothering to pose the question if it was ever really 1956 even in 1956.

Imagine if this were Alex Rodriguez's line over the last ten Yankee games, eight of which New York has lost:

4 for 39, a .102 batting average. Nine walks, for a .270 on-base percentage.

Zero RBI. ZERO.

No extra-base hits. Not one.

Bobby Abreu bats third in the Yankee lineup, and he has been an excellent bat since New York acquired him in late July last season from Philadelphia. As a lefty situated in the batting order between righties Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, Abreu creates late-game matchup problems for opposing managers when it comes to choosing relief arms.

The Miami Heat are done. Season over. A repeat championship run finished. So the decision must be made, what to do with D-Wade.

From the Miami Herald: Dwayne Wade likely will decide in the next few days whether to have not only surgery on his left shoulder, but also on his left knee, both of which could potentially require an entire offseason of recovery and rehabilitation.

Wow.

Coach Riley: So it's not an easy time for Dwyane. He's absolutely distraught about the loss. The guy got hurt, came back, spent six, eight weeks rehabbing, and to go out in four games, he's really bothered by that.

Wade is expected to make a decision in the next few days.

Check out this guy.

Last night was kind of a big deal. Let's go down the list, shall we?

It was his birthday, he got called up to play for the Braves, got the runner out at second as the guy tried to steal, ALMOST had a HR against Phillies Freddy Garcia, they won the game, AND his last name barely fits on the back of his jersey. Call him Salty for short.

Here you go, read alllllll about it right here.

Fantasy Fix Baseball and Football will be up shortly, however a key piece is missing: GREGG.

Yes, our beloved Rosie is off in LA counting down the minutes to "I DO." So as hard as it is to have a show without him, we try. Tom Curran will be giving you all the info on football and Aaron Gleeman will be dishing about baseball. Be sure to look for the shows on the homepage.

If you keep an eye on the Billboard Top 40 albums chart, which is not as relevant as the iTunes Downloads chart, you'll see that last week's top-selling album was "Now That's What I Call Music!, Volume 24". The point is, most of us have moved from album rock (or rap...or country) to shuffle nation. How many artists create an album's worth of work any more in which you don't feel it's a better bargain to just pay $4 for the top four tunes as opposed to $15.99 for the CD.

The last album I can think of in which it seemed necessary to own the album in its entirety was Green Day's American Idiot .

I rarely listen to entire albums any more, but that's mostly because I have a good buddy whose hobby is baking home-made CDs for his friends. My friend Billy regularly burns up to 25 compilation discs per year for those of us lucky enough to be on his list. Currently I'm listening to his "Best of 2006: Part 20" disc, which has some songs you know (John Mellencamp's "Our Country" [how was he supposed to know Chevy would hijack it?] and The Killers' "This River is Wild") and some you don't but should. The following are tunes from "Now That's What I Call Billy, 2006, Part 20" which, if you have not yet heard of them, you may want to give a listen.

The list:

Pretty newsy night in the Metroplex.

First, Phillip Hughes no-hits the Texas Rangers in Arlington (leaving with an injury after 7 1/3; Texas would collect 2 hits against Yankee relief) and then the Mavericks crawl out of the grave against Golden State (Ian Thomsen, you're still treading water).

Dallas trailed 112-103 with a little more than three minutes to play, but Mr. MVP-to-be Dirk Nowitzki made four big plays down the stretch to save Dallas' season. What did he do?

1) Hit a three-pointer only moments after Baron Davis seemingly had buried the dagger with his hurried 3-pointer to put Golden State up by nine. Dirk's first three from the right arc made it 112-106.
2) Blocked a shot by a driving Matt Barnes (I'm calling him PowerGel for the energy he brings to the game).
3) Made a second three-pointer from the left side to bring Dallas within three.
4) Got away with a touch foul on a Jason Richardson shot from the left corner (It's one of the most effective fouls in hoops: touch the shooter's underside of his forearm just as he releases the shot. It screws up the follow through, which is key.)

So Dallas outscores Golden State 16-0 in the final three minutes and will not have to be "Gone Fishin'" with Kenny the Jet. And Mark Cuban gets to wipe that "You Got Got!" look off his face at least until Thursday night.

There's more than one way to jinx a no-hitter, apparently. In the bottom of the sixth inning of the Yankee-Ranger game earlier tonight, with Yankee rookie phenom working on a no-hitter, I posted about how he pitched well in his Major League debut last Thursday, too.

A few minutes later, with Hughes still working on his no-hitter, he pulled his left hamstring and will be out (according to early reports) four to six weeks. As my buddy Billy noted, "to continue with your 'A Few Good Men' theme, 'And the hits just keep on comin'."

That's New York's fourth significant hamstring injury this season. That's not kosher. The others were Mike Mussina, Chien-Ming Wang and Hideki Matsui.

You know who has less job security than Joe Torre right now (actually, I think Grand Concourse Joe is safe, very safe)? New Yankees strength and conditioning coach Marty Miller. I always thought the ol' right-over-left, switch, left-over-right stretch worked pretty well.

On SI.com, old friend Ian Thomsen assures us not to worry about Golden State winning their first-round series with the Mavericks. the Warriors are up 3-1. My two thoughts?

1) Who's worried? I'm hopeful.
2) Is Ian watching the same series we are?

Through five innings in Texas, New York Yankee rookie pitcher Phil Hughes is throwing a no-hitter--in his second Major League start.

Last Thursday I attended Hughes' big-league debut against the Toronto Blue Jays. New York last 6-0, and a day or two later I read a column by a colleague on this site that said his debut was subpar. Whereupon I went into full Demi Moore-as-Lt. Commander Galloway-meltdown:

"I strenuously object!"

Oh, you strenuously object?

Not that I've ever tried, but I'm assuming if attempting to go after a married person, one would use the email that husband doesn't share with wife.

Conclusions from this soap opera:
This guy must think he's awesome...
His wife couldn't have handled the situation any better...
I can't believe this woman actually sent bikini pictures in an email?? Maybe she should've started with a more subtle approach like "Hello, how are you?"

You should read this story. Even with all of this, somehow, they've still got time to report the news.

Sorry I've been MIA. It's been busy. Quick little shout out to my college girlfriend Brooke Williams, who this past weekend got hitched! She looked stunning and the wedding was beautiful. The best man speech was one for the ages and all had a great time. The happy couple is off to Tahiti for their Honeymoon.. enjoy!

So in between the "I Do's" and crazy wedding festivities, I caught a nice size portion of the first round of the NFL Draft. In spite of what anyone feels personally towards the kid, you must've felt something for poor Brady Quinn. My heart went out to him as he sat there waiting for an eternity to hear Roger Goodell say just once, "With the ____ pick of the 2007 NFL Draft, the ______ select Brady Quinn." Only took him 21 times to finally say it.

The Texans made a fantastic choice with Amobi Okoye!! Take a moment to read up on his story. He's amazing, young, eager, and talented. Right before the Draft, I spoke with Mario Williams, number one pick of 2006. Of course I told him I'm a huge Texans fan and at first I think he thought I was kidding. Once he realized I was serious, he told me how they are really excited for next season with the addition of Matt Schaub. Baby steps my friend. We'll get there.

Other point of interest... the Patriots. It will be interesting to see how they come out at the end of next season. Bill Simmons had a really really funny article about what Bill Belichick must've been thinking when he took Randy Moss. Just have to wait and see if it actually pays off. Or if it creates an absolute disaster. I'm an optimist. But a little drama is always fun.

Miami. Ted Ginn Jr. What?

And as if there wasn't enough going on, a little baseball game was going down in the Bronx this past weekend. Red Sox vs. Yankees. Man, the Yankess are doing bad. Honestly, even if you hate them, baseball isn't half as fun when the Yanks aren't in contention. Admit it. So if you can pitch, contact Joe Torre. I'm considering volunteering my dad. He was really good in the 70's. He's a lefty. Why not? With the way things are going, the Yankees can't be that picky can they? Dad, start warming up.