I'm ready for my close-up

Tough on the Toronto Raptors who absolutely got killed by the ESPN analysts Tuesday for selecting Connecticut big man Charlie Villaneuva with their first pick in the NBA Draft. Steven A. Smith screamed what everyone else decided to just speak in a regular tone of voice: What are they thinking?

More accurately, as Smith bellowed, what is GM Rob Babcock thinking?

Well of course the following day the media in Canada had a hey day with the Raptors and their seemingly bumbling pick of a guy that many experts and mock drafts had going in the mid- to late-first round. Media outlets got on the joking bandwagon and ripped the Raptors for butchering the draft one year after they made arguably the worst selection in team history by taking Rafael Araujo with their first pick in '04.

So if everyone else is taking shots at the Raptors for this admittedly poor selection, CKY-TV Winnipeg's Kevin Armstrong shouldn't be any different. Nor should his equally out-of-the-loop colleague Shawn Churchill who did the half-hour 11 p.m. cast. Armstrong berated the Raptors using many of the same adjectives that the ESPN crew had done the night before. All well and good, but this is the same broadcaster that called Miami Heat forward Udonis Haslem (You-DON-is), Odonis Haseem during the Heat's playoff run this season. (Never mind that Haslem was one of the big contributors for the Heat all year, so anyone who followed a lick of hoops this year would have known his name.)

Churchill follows later in the night expectedly with the same script but adds a little flavour to his number by calling the Raptor pick "Villanova". Really, Villanova? The school in Philadelphia? Someone call Rollie Massimino and tell him he's got a new job north of the border.

On top of all that, neither of them chose to discuss any of the other three picks the Raps had in the two-round draft. They took Joey Granger, described as one of the best athletes in the draft, at No. 16 and then selected what ESPN.com suggested was the steal of the second round in 6-foot-5 Euro point guard Roko Ukic.

Not even a mention of who else got picked. There were three others, y'know?

Here's the thing. I will tend to listen to the ESPN analysts, who follow the NBA religiously, 365 days a year as their full-time job, when they disect each draft pick with the oodles of information they have at hand. It's called respecting someone's opinion. But when two guys like Churchill and Armstrong jump on board and feel like the broadcast is the soapbox for their obviously uninformed perspective, there's not a lot of respect for opinion being thrown around on my behalf.

The same reason I don't want much of the American media chiming in and discussing why Todd Bertuzzi should be banned for what he did to Steve Young I don't want the Canadian media ranting about basketball that they cover so lightly (NBA) or not at all (NCAA).

Hey, for those who haven't caught on yet, don't necessarily accept the fact that a sports guy on TV has any more knowledge than the guy that pumps your gas — he probably just has better teeth. That's how it works.

A TV guy on Detroit's ABC affiliate — the sports director in fact — said after the Pistons lost Game 1 of the NBA Final that "when Bruce Bowen, who's not much of a three-point shooter, beats you, then you're going to have a long night." The same Bruce Bowen who is largely regarded as one of the best dead-eye perimeter shooters in the league and the same Bruce Bowen that the San Antonio Spurs draw up plays for specifically to get him open looks in the corner. Well put. Have you seen an NBA game?

Listen, there's a reason why I don't go on bioengineering blogs and give my feelings on microelectrodes. And there's a reason why I don't apply for jobs in economics or offer my hand to perform a frontal labotomy. I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express, so I don't feel like the world needs me mucking around in those areas that I clearly am not fit for.

Very simply, if you don't know what you're talking about — and these two and many others who sounded off don't — then keep your damn mouth shut.

• • • • •

Talking about the draft itself, certainly the Raps puked on their first pick. But, almost in spite of what everyone around has said in the past 24 hours, I'm not ready to proclaim that pick a bust. What I will say is that they did not use their first pick well at all. If Villaneuva was your prized pick, and there's really no reason he should have been, then he would have still been available to you at the No. 16 pick when you chose again. Plus you selected a guy in a position where you've already got Chris Bosh, one of the league's best up-and-coming '4' men. And you missed out on crazy athletes like Danny Granger and high schooler Gerald Green. You missed out on a banger like Sean May. You missed out on a speedy point guard in Nate Robinson (not a lottery pick potential guy for sure, but still) ...

Teams like the Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers — who picked 17 and 18 in the first round — benefit from the idiocy of teams like the Raps who consistently pass up on the diamond-in-the-rough-guys allowing them to slip to the late rounds. In this case, playoff teams like the C's and Pacers basically got lottery picks by getting two of the most talented, exciting players in the draft.

Yes, Villanueva was the worst selection of the draft and Raptors fans have reason to be skeptical. But you know what? Given how misguided so many fans tend to be, I don't think they have any reason to be sinking the ship before the jump ball has gone up on the 05-06 season. Remember, this is the same legion that booed incessantly in 1995 when Toronto had the audacity to select Damon Stoudamire with its first-ever pick. The precious, sacred, deified fans, after all, wanted Ed O'Bannon. Stoudamire, you will remember at least gave Toronto two-plus seasons of solid play and became an icon in T-dot whereas O'Bannon ... well, I think he sold me a hot dog the other day.

Still, Babcock's tenure as GM in Toronto now has Araujo and Villanueva on the board, plus a Vince Carter trade that brought him nothing in the way of right-now talent and two first-rounders this year that we now see seem to have yielded very little. Babcock's days should be very, VERY short-lived.

• • • • •

The Los Angeles Lakers were feeling some heat over selecting Andrew Bynum, a 7-foot, 17-year-old, with their first pick. Also understandable that fans would be a bit vexed over a team that most would like to see improve now, deciding to go with a 'project' player with its first pick — a rare lottery selection for the Lake Show at that. I'm not angry over this, but I'm not elated either. I'd at least like to see how it may pan out before I start burning Mitch Kupchak in effigy. Well, burn him more.

I like getting Gonzaga's Ronny Turiaf early in the second round, a guy who doesn't mind banging a bit and shooting guard Von Wafer, if only for his name, is a nice addition that can maybe give the Lake the guy they've needed badly who can knock down a few shots when asked. Basically, I can't argue too much with the Lakers history in the draft, so that's why I'm once again openly, without hesitation putting my faith in the purple and gold.

One last note on the draft: Andrew Bogut as No. 1? I can't get comfortable over a big white guy being the future of any team. I say he's a buster by '08.

Well, instead, maybe I should call up Kevin Armstrong and see what he thinks.

Tee Martin debuts for the Bombers today. Fire it up. I'm ready.

The NBA Draft

Crashed. The running diary is no longer. Needless to say it was hilarious.

Highlights include the Raptors butchering their No. 7 pick. The Charlotte Bobcats pissing me off by taking Raymond Felton, who I wanted the Lakers to get followed by the Lakers pissing me off by selecting a 7-foot high school project. A team that needs to get better now, takes a project. And Tee Martin is starting this week for the Bombers. I'm excited.

My prediction (T by Week 4) has come true and I'm not so much excited for that as I am for Kevin Glenn not being the starter. (Who am I kidding? I'm absolutely giddy right now). This is simply the best thing that could happen for Winnipeg.

Fumble-aya

Y'know, the Bombers were atrocious on Saturday and deserve to be 0-1. My hand, however, is nowhere near the panic button. A couple of notes from Saturday's debacle.

• Was forced to watch only the second half because I was at the lake and my first realization: "Today's broadcast crew is Rod Black and Leif Peterson." If you want Glen Suitor to look knowledgeable, then take Peterson. There is arguably no worse tandem a network could come up with then Peterson and Black, the man best known for being loudly and repeatedly called out by me at a club in Halifax.

• Kevin Glenn's third-quarter fumble that resulted in a safety wasn't even addressed for what it was — a sack on the one-yard line in which the ground caused the fumble. Reason #4080 why CFL refs combined with CFL coverage is a horrible concoction. Glenn's ball-hand hit the ground and the ball popped out, clearly and unequivocally. The refs don't even discuss it and Peterson, there to enlighten the viewers, doesn't even acknowledge the possibility on the replay when it was staring him in the face. In fact, it was pretty obvious in real-time as well. This is not bitterness over the Bombers getting screwed — let's face it, the game was in hand at that point — but rather just frustration over the idiocy that everyone in the CFL just accepts.

• In another controversial third-quarter play, Wane McGarity drops a pass just before being smothered. The debate of Fumble vs Incompletion begins and the replays, because of the positions of bodies and TSN's lack of camera coverage (a fact I've brought up before as a reason why instant replay won't work in the CFL), shows absolutely nothing. Peterson decides to bring in the "If the CFL had instant replay right now" conversation and decides that the replay would have shown that the referees made the right call. Really? You can't even see the ball and you're telling us that?

Seriously, just hire me to cover CFL games now. There's NO possible way I could be worse than what's out there right now on TSN. Props to TSN for having Chris Cuthbert, one of the most talented and multi-faceted play men this country has.

The NBA draft is starting now. I will provide a running diary as best as I can.

Kicking off ... again

A little more than 24 hours from now the Winnipeg Blue Bombers will open their 2005 regular season in Regina against the Saskatchewan Roughriders, arguably the most infuriating team to be a fan of. You could make a case — a very strong one — that the Roughriders are absolutely the worst team to follow as a fan. Worse than the Cubs, worse than the Red Sox, worse than the Philadelphia Eagles, worse than ... well any team out of Philadelphia. Has there been a franchise that has shown its fans how utterly futile it is to follow it? One Grey Cup win and a pocket full of empty after that. On top of that, you're from Saskatchewan, which ain't helpin' things either. But fans from The Gap continue to come out in droves, and that you have to at least respect if not sympathize.

Hey granted the Bombers haven't been winning anything in awhile but you can't make the argument that they're in the same category of 'suck' historically as the Roughriders. In a nine-team league, you have to figure at some point your number is going to come up. Nope, not here. Instead fans hang around each year like the townspeople in The Lottery, only with usually grimmer results.

The Bombers will go with Kevin Glenn at QB with Tee Martin backing up, despite the fact Glenn was near atrocious in the preseason. I am still sticking with my prediction of Tee being No. 1 by Week 4. Glenn is not the guy to lead us to The Game. Which leads me to this: I met the woman of my dreams the other night, although I don't really know who she is or that I'll ever see her again. But long story short, we had an in-depth discussion about the Bombers fortunes and plans and she (not me) mentioned that the team needed to go to Martin to have a shot at it.

Now, finding a knowledgeable fan is a difficult thing. Rarely do people know what they're talking about when they say they're a fan, content to just spit the company line that makes them appear informed, but it doesn't even scratch the dust off the surface. Needless to say I was quite pleased to have an informed chat with someone on the subject of bleeding Blue and Gold, in Brandon no less.

Week 4, mark my words. (Hey, I was right that he was going to end up in Winnipeg.)

Back to work for me. But here, for those starving for it, is your

Lyric of the Day:
Lights, camera, tragedy, comedy, romance
You better dance from your fighting stance
Or you'll never have a fighting chance
In the rat race
Where the referee's son started way in advance
But still you livin' the American Dream
Silk PJ's, sheets and down pillows
Who the fuck would wanna wake up?
You got it good like hot sex after the break up
Your four car garage it's just more space to take up
You even bought your mom a new whip scrap the jalopy
Thousand dollar habit, million dollar hobby
You a success story everybody wanna copy
But few work for it, most get jerked for it
If you think that you could ignore it, you're ig-norant
A fat wallet still never made a man free
They say to eat good, yo, you gotta swallow your pride
But dead that game plan, I'm not satisfied

[Chorus]
The poor get worked, the rich get richer
The world gets worse, do you get the picture?
The poor gets dead, the rich get depressed
The ugly get mad, the pretty get stressed
The ugly get violent, the pretty get gone
The old get stiff, the young get stepped on
Whoever told you that it was all good lied
So throw your fists up if you not satisfied
J-Live, Satisfied

Where they're all true blue...

The Sea of Red of the University of Nebraska, long known for its football team, is overflowing into Omaha for baseball this weekend as the Huskers, the third-ranked team in the nation, are two wins away from the championship final of the double-knockout College World Series. But while the Huskers have won 16 of their last 17 games, it maybe won't matter coming up against a team like the Tulane Green Wave. As a superstitious guy, I have to say this is how every sports team should behave. Just a tremendous example of baseball superstition at its finest. But if any of that hoodoo voodoo goes against NU, I'm on the record as saying they're cheaters. Until then, whoop it up boys.

Just for the heck of it: This. And don't be afraid to sing along.

Hendo's page-a-day calendar here in the office is of the Dumbest Things Ever Said variety. One in particular I thought was quite funny and actually intrigued me enough to Google it. You can read about it here. On a side note, needless to say much of this calendar is populated by one George Walker Bush. Go figure.

On then to this week's list of five, the completely random barometer of what is and what isn't.

THE GAINERS
1. Joba Chamberlain ... local boy makes good.
2. Jack Johnson "Banana Pancakes"
3. Agent X
4. The Larky Awards (coming this week to a Brandon Sun near you)
5. Russ Michna
Others receiving votes: Phil Jackson, virtual Ben Roethlisberger on Madden 2001 (Rothlisbergr).

Cut this guy's headset off

This guy, might be the biggest jackass in all of sports. Honestly, does John Rocker even have anything on him?

Time out

Mike Webster's family continues to fight for his legacy, years after his death. Broderick Thomas' wife and kids only get to see a man who is a shadow of his former self and Terry Long's former teammates seem at a loss to describe what the former Pittsburgh Steelers' final days provided him before he died on June 7.

All three are stunning examples of what the rigours of life in the NFL — and the unexpected life without the NFL — can do to grown men whose status as icons put them in a rarified, and to be realistic, jaundiced standing.

Webster, long known for his steely toughness while wearing black and gold, died in September of 2002 but was left incapacitated six years prior to that due almost entirely to the pounding his body and mind took during a 16-year career in the trenches of the NFL. He was plagued by depression and lost on how to live in a world where football no longer defined him. Upon retiring in 1990, the once-revered Webster slipped off the radar and into a life tinged with homelessness and financial ruin.

Broderick Thomas is still alive — but he's attempted suicide twice. Since retiring Thomas barely has the inner will or physical strength to go about simple, everyday tasks. The former Nebraska Cornhusker all-American and NFL'er retired in 1997 with a myriad injuries that included complete degeneration of the cartilage in his knees and herniated discs that leave it impossible for him to sleep more than a half an hour at a time in any one position. His life was defined by being a star football player and while the pains of the game have ravaged his body, depression has taken over his mind, leaving him dependent on a handful of pills everyday to keep from finishing off the sad task he didn't complete twice before.

Terry Long's story is the cloudiest of the three, but no doubt just the same. Long also attempted suicide but, unlike Thomas, it came during his playing career, in 1991. He returned to the game that season but retired following it and, in total, two suicide attempts. He died this year at the age of 45, with autopsy results still pending. In the end, Long died as an unknown even to his former teammates, a friend that kept to himself, struggled with no longer having the identity he held for decades and riddled with depression and physical pain brought on by a sport and league that fails in its ability to prepare its players for life after the game.

Thomas called his sister before his first suicide attempt. Sobbing and apologetic, whole-heartedly convinced the only way to finally be at peace again was to put an end to the life that had recently brought him so much pain and suffering.

According to a Newsday report from earlier this year, within a year of being released from an NFL team, one-third of the players will report emotional problems, almost a third will be in financial trouble and of those who are divorced, half will get divorced in the first year of retirement. As a group, they commit suicide at a rate six times that of average Americans.

Football is a sport that rewards it warriors, lauds the ones that can play through the pain and shake off any adverse effects of the most physical game on the planet. It is also the sport that produces stories like Korey Stringer. And it presents daunting numbers that few people seem aware.

Broderick Thomas is still alive. Former Green Bay Packer Tom Neville isn't. After retirement, Neville was institutionalized with depression and alcoholism and, later armed with a gun, broke out of his treatment center, was chased, then shot and killed by police.

It shouldn't be a suprise that players who have spent their entire careers in a blinding glare of spotlight, often don't know where to walk when the lights go down.

Perhaps, because Broderick Thomas is still alive, his story can thankfully be known now as a testimony rather than an obituary.

And that light can be turned back on those who are regularly disregarded once they stop making headlines.

Substitution...

Mood: Khaki.

While waiting for the shift to end so Tiger Woods can be fired up on the PS, just a collection of thoughts on some pressing issues today.

• First and foremost, Phil Jackson is back as head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers' announcement was the only thing in the NBA that could have trumped Game 3 of the league Final: The city where scripts are born, adding another scene to its most dramatic, ongoing sports saga.

Everything that happens with the Lakers is big time and the team heightened that drama in the 21st century by providing onlookers with one of the great real-life soap operas of all time. But don't you think that drama just overshadows what is really a non-story anyway? Honestly, Phil Jackson is not going to be the saviour of this team. The Lakers are up against it hardcore when it comes to the salary cap and with no wiggle room there, the only hope is to find something golden in July's draft where they will, mercifully, have three picks in the two rounds.

The problem areas are not at the head of the bench for the Lakers. Not to argue that having Jackson around won't be a boost to what was a non-playoff team this year, but the glaring weaknesses are in the middle where they could really use someone like .... oh I don't know ... Shaquille O'Neal ... and at point guard where Chucky Atkins is outmatched. Moving Atkins to a back-up '2' would be a nice luxury if they could get someone to adequately hand the PG duties. Both of these will have to happen through the draft and perhaps UNC's Raymond Felton will be dressing in purple and gold next season. (Remember when the Lakers had O'Neal, Gary Payton, Kareem Rush and Derek Fisher?)

So it's with a cautious optimism that I look at the Lakers for 2005-06. I'm just not as fired up as the rest of the world seems to be.

• Michael Jackson. ... Man, maybe I'm one of the few that believe it, but I'm still on MJ's side here. I won't say that everything he's done has been the most normal or acceptable, but it still hasn't made him a child molester.

Remember that the impetus for this entire investigation was a completely slanted documentary by British filmmaker Martin Bashir which gave Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will a run for its money.

What Jackson has been most guilty of is poor decision making, from putting himself in the firing line time and time again. But this case is a perfect example of how the media can shape the public's opinion. Take into account the ungodly number of jokes, backhanded barbs and ridiculing pieces that comedians, news shows and entertainment programs have put together over the years and it's not a stretch to say the public can be swayed into just accepting the fact the guy is nuts and, for that, also a sexual deviant.

Still, very little in the way of concrete proof has ever surfaced about what he's done with these kids. Why? Because those that have surfaced to tell their stories have invariably been shown to be money-grubbers and con artists.

I don't disagree that The Glove has put himself in positions to be held up to intense scrutiny, but goofy outfits and peculiar behaviour doesn't add up to perverted criminal. As we saw with the evidence in this case, nothing added up that way and that's why Jackson is rightfully a free man today.

• Not to give up too much information about my regular day of work at the Brandon Sun, but my colleague in sports, Rob Henderson, and I tend to Google a lot during the course of an average day in the office. Hendo, I believe, shares my affinity for the mundane, random and useless pieces of information we all encounter in our day-to-day lives. As such, a new segment has been introduced to the Blog. So allow me to take you to ...

The Googleplex. The place to Google up.

• Mississippi Valley State University. Reason: Is it really an all-black school, because some white kid from Brandon golfed there on scholarship.

• Jason Alexander's wife. Reason: "He's probably got a hot wife," Hendo said.

• Bump J. Reason: "Who the hell is this guy on the new McDonald's commercial?" Well, according to his bio, apparently he runs the streets of Chicago the way one Alphonse Capone used to. Hmp, I see.

• Jordan Dumars. Reason: Curious about the height of the 14-year-old son of Joe Dumars.

Upon further review ... this needs review

Mood: Blue and gold

The CFL tested out its video replay review methods that it, by all accounts, hopes to implement for the 2006-07 season but if what happened in Halifax is any indication, it'd be a surprise to think anyone in the league would be in favour of it.

If you didn't catch the Hamilton Tiger Cats-Toronto Argonauts preseason game over in Hali, then you missed the CFL's incompetence at its best. Not just the officials, but the broadcasters as well — the two things that help ensure the CFL always looks bush league.

Ben Sankey's TD toss in the fourth quarter garnered the most attention and debate. Sankey approached the line of scrimmage on the run before releasing the ball, a flag was thrown for being over the line, which was then taken back when officials huddled and realized there was no infraction. Toronto head coach Mike Clemons challenged the play, referees said he couldn't because it was a judgement call and play went on. George Black, the director of CFL officials, said the refs were wrong in telling that to Clemons and that the play could have been reviewed, because it would have shown the right call was made.

Follow that?

Then TSN colour man Glen Suitor decides he should join in the discussion and proceeds to confuse the TV audience even more by repeatedly changing his angle and, all the while, still finding a way to be repeatedly incorrect.

Now, the two things that get me most irate about the CFL is the game-coverage the networks provide and the unbearable inconsistency and idiocy of its officials. With the CFL toying with the idea of bringing in instant replay, it has the chance of bringing these two worlds together to produce a heretofore unseen level of alarming incompetence. The blind leading the blind, shall we say.

One of the reasons the NFL replay works is because of the numerous camera angles available to an official when reviewing a debatable play. TSN, at best, will provide three angles with which to review a play. Anyone who has ever watched a CFL game on TV knows there isn't a lot of variance in the angles from which you can see a play again. The Sankey play was a perfect example. Despite the fact the angle settled on as the best for which to make a call couldn't tell you anything, everyone around the game seemed to be quite content to make bold statements that what was called on the field was unequivocally correct. Perhaps I wasn't looking close enough.

No one expected the CFL's system to be perfect in its first-ever game, and I'm not going to suggest the league shouldn't be going to instant replay, but let's be straight here. The biggest problem facing CFL officials is their inability to make even the most basic calls and their uncanny consistency in messing those up.

I wish the league the best with this and honestly hope it turns out for the better, but it just seems to have all the making of a situation that will infuriate fans even more than they already are. Remember, this is a league that has always insisted the emperor is fully clothed. It is isn't much of a stretch to suggest that when looking for "conclusive evidence" — the term the NFL likes to use — to overturn a call, that they just won't find any.

I love the CFL, like a parent loves its kid. But I'm also able to tell you that when the kid is trying to stick crayons into his ear, the parent needs to tell him that's not something they should be doing. But people with crayons drilled into their brains have been affecting this league for years, so maybe I'm missing something.

Pass the Crayloas please. Something in the navy-to-denim blue range, if you have it.

Other notes:
• The Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball team is in the quarter-final of the College World Series, held in Omaha, Neb. And meanwhile, the Huskers announced that now three of their football games this year will make national television. The usual Thanksgiving weekend clash with the Colorado Buffaloes, will go on ABC, but the network also picked up a September 17th match with the Pitt Panthers. TBS has signed on to do the game against Wake Forest. TBS has done a heck of a job of doing weekly games and giving audiences some different teams to look at rather than the usual marquis schools.

• Don't be fooled, the hottest team in baseball isn't the Chicago White Sox, Washington Nationals or even the Philadelphia Phillies. It's the Brandon Marlins of the Manitoba Senior Baseball League. Alright, maybe not but only six runs allowed in seven games is pretty good.

• Michael Jackson acquitted. (If you've been living in a cave). More on this tomorrow.

• Alright, one thing: The foreman of the Jackson jury was Paul Rodriguez. Apparently he was able to get some time off from his stint on Latino Comedy Fiesta.

• From one blog to another, Bill Simmons of ESPN.com's Page 2 has perfect analysis of not only the NBA final but of those who are paid to analyze it on TV. Specifically, he addresses the pundits' need to always take one extreme or the other. Find that story here, and tell me he's not right.

Lyric of the Day:
He was 13, brought up in Baghdad
Ate with his right and made money with his left hand
Prayed to the East, 5 times daily
His mother and father just had a new born baby
Now his father was an Imam who carried the weight
And built his family on 5 pillars of faith
Never trippin off Western ways, it meant nada
Pilgrimage to Mecca to circle around Kabba
300 miles away, British troops hit Basra
His cousin waged jihad and died with honor
He heard about the buildings on 9-11
And a man named Bush on a search for weapons
Now here come the U.S., to crush Saddam
Wit 88 thousand tons of missle and bombs
But his family's too broke to move or find shelter
If they all had to die, they would die together and that's cold
Xzibit, Cold World

Halftime show

Another random moment that I felt needed to be brought out publicly. So, just for the heck of it:

Homer Simpson on his many occupations:
"You know I've had a lot of jobs: boxer, mascot, astronaut, immatation Krusty, baby proofer, trucker, hippie, plowdriver, food critic, conceptual artist, grease salesman, carny, mayor, griftor, bodyguard for the mayor, country western manager, garbage commissioner, mountain climber, farmer, inventor, Smithers, Poochie, celebrity assistant, power plant worker, fortune cookie writer, beer baron, Kwik-E-Mart clerk, homophobe, and missionary, but protecting Springfield, that gives me the best feeling of all."

Spiked

My good friend Julio Garasa put me on to this, which, in it, provides an early contender for my "Rant That Didn't Come From Me of the Year Award."

As Garasa puts it, summoning the spirit of Homer Simpson, "Ahhh, alcohol.  The cause of, and solution to, all life's problems.
But I wonder what he really thinks of Warren Sapp?"

Well said.

Timeout

Early post today (or late, depending how you look at it) ... and I'm going to make it a quick one.

Shaquille O'Neal, I've always said, is one of the better quotes in the NBA and one of the finer guys too. He always got a lot of flack in Los Angeles because that team was so successful and confident, that he was lumped in as an arrogant ego. Certainly there's no lack of confidence there with Shaq, but he's a pretty genuine guy.

While a Laker, one of his annual rites was to give out gifts to kids in Compton and inner-city LA during Christmas time. He didn't just sign the cheque, he took it on his own. He was known to drive through the neighbourhood and hand out PlayStations, mp3 players, DVD players, etc., the price tag often in the range of $150,000.

He hosts "Shaqsgiving" each year in which he helps feed the homeless, has pledged $1 million dollars to Boys and Girls Club of America, is a national spokesman for Reading is Fundamental and through his "Shaq Paq" program invites underprivileged children to NBA games throughout the season.

And now this.

For all the talk about how selfish athletes are, and there are many, there are quite a few that do some great things and Shaq is one of those guys. This is a nice story. One of my favourite NBAers because of things like this.