This was an eventful weekend. There were frauds packed on frauds packed on even bigger frauds. The LA Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox set an attendance record for a baseball game. This naturally disproves Hank Steinbrenner's contention that America is more of a Yankee nation than a Red Sox Nation. Which brings us to the first fraud of the evening.

The notion that this game means anything in any respect is absolutely goofy. From Kareem Abdul Jabbar throwing out a pitch (and throwing like a girl to boot), this was a festival of frauds. Of course they set an attendance record, they played in a bigger venue and one customized to fit as many people in as possible. The left field wall was barely 200 feet from home plate. How much more ridiculous could the farce have gotten?

The fact that over 115,000 people turned out to watch this game means very little. It certainly doesn't prove that more Americans root for the Red Sox than any other team out there. After all, had teams like the Yankees or Cubs been invited to a circus like this, could we have seen a similarly large crowd? I bet either of those teams could have helped the Dodgers set this record. To say nothing of the Giants, the Dodgers' archrival.

And to make a claim that America is overrun with Red Sox fans from this weekend's exhibitions, one would have to assume that there were more Red Sox fans than Dodger fans in attendance. From this Eric Neel piece on ESPN's Page 2, that doesn't ring true. But Red Sox Nation has always had a knack for spinning stories from nothing and making themselves look bigger and better than they really are.

And then there was the Bill James appearance on 60 Minutes. I find it hard to believe that any person who thinks that Chase Utley is the most underrated baseball player in the league and who would take David Wright if they could build a team around one guy is a baseball genius.

To start with, Chase Utley could cure the common cold in his spare time and still not manage to be underrated. I think it must be a Federal statute that commands ESPN to include him in as many highlights as they do. God knows it can't be his overall performance or his contributions to the Phillies winning ways, what with the fact that the Phils have yet to win anything with Utley. Or maybe it was his star turn as the heart and soul of the American entry in the World Baseball Classic.

And as for David Wright, he strikes me as a papier mache version of A Rod. He'll put up good numbers in a given season, but I'd rather depend on any other Met to get a big hit at a big moment. And if he's the long term future of baseball, then it's going to be a tough time for MLB going forward.

As an anonymous comment complained the other day, the Red Sox season is now two days old and I haven't mentioned the Red Sox in Sedition in Red Sox Nation yet. I don't really know what to say about the Sox vs. As games played in Japan, except that it was a total and complete fraud.

There is no reason why two teams should be 1-1 right now when no other team has played a game. There is no reason why teams should start the regular season and then come back to play more exhibition games. It's a shamelessly exploitative money grab, and it's beat.

If flying halfway around the world to play games in Japan were in any way, shape or form legitimate, MLB wouldn't have twisted the schedules the way they did. They might have tried something like this at the All Star break, since the All Star game has been a total fraud for years now, even though it decides home field for the World Series. But it's just another way for MLB to turn a profit off one of its two marquee teams (sorry, Dodgers and Cubs but you aren't in the same league with the Yankees and Red Sox, the pun is purely accidental and somewhat regrettable).

That said, it isn't the biggest fraud in sports at the moment. Far bigger is an ESPN panel ranking the top ten wide receivers of all time placing Randy Moss at number two. So what if he set a ton of records this season. He had plenty of time to rest up for that performance when he mailed in every single snap of his years in Oakland. That alone ought to disqualify him from the top ten.

Admittedly, I have a certain bias here, and it's a very big bias, but there is no way Moss should be ranked ahead of Terrell Owens. Moss has made a living of shining brightly in regular season nationally televised games. He has not, however, made a point of playing big in playoff games. TO, to his credit, has done exactly that.

Consider the fact that legend tells us Jason Sehorn shut Moss down in an NFC championship game because Moss was out of sorts after stadium security wouldn't allow his kids on the sideline. TO shook off an abysmal afternoon where he'd dropped four passes to make the best catch any one not named Lynn Swann ever made in a playoff game (sorry, David Tyree, even though that catch put a big smile on my face) when he caught the winning TD in triple coverage in the end zone against the Packers back in 1999.

And have we reached a decision on whether or not Moss could have caught that third down pass against the Giants this season had he but jumped? I think so, but I am biased against the player and the team. Bill Simmons thinks so, but he's kind of a whimp and has never slid into second base in his life (plus, rumor has it he bailed early on at least one world series game in 2004). Set that against the fact that TO signed a liability waiver, returned from a broken leg in six weeks, played with a pin in his shin, caught nine passes for over 100 yards against the Patriots back in Harrison's HGH days.

Check out this YouTube comparison and make your own decision.



I just wish the Moss section had included the moment from 2003 when the Vikings entered the final game in Soldier Field controlling their own destiny for the final NFC playoff berth. In the final moments, with the Vikings needing a TD to win and advance against the lowly Bears, Moss ran a fade pattern against then unknown Bears CB Charles Tillman. Tillman took the ball right from Moss' hands and the Vikings lost. Show me a 49ers, Eagles or Cowboys game that ended with TO in that situation.

So what if TO was less than pleasant to Jeff Garcia and Donovan McNabb. So what if we'll never know if he had a drug interaction problem or tried to kill himself in that media circus from 2007. So what if he has problems interacting with people in a normal, adult fashion from time to time. Throughout his career, TO has played with a level of toughness that has outweighed his personal inconsistencies and should command more respect than the media and too many fans have been willing to give.

That said, I found this piece on Bob Hayes' omission from the top ten wide receivers of all time interesting. I would suggest to the writer that there is ample evidence that zone defenses existed in the NFL prior to Hayes' debut (the Giants umbrella defense of the 1950s comes to mind, for one), but Hayes definitely changed the game with his speed. I think he deserved to be on the list ahead of Paul Warfield and Steve Largent.

I also think Art Monk should have made the list ahead of Largent, considering both were possession receivers and Monk beats Largent's career numbers and in single season performance as well. Plus, Largent and Monk pretty much came from the same era. I think the fact that Charley Taylor played in the 60s and 70s got him on the list, and then only on numbers. He was a rich man's Bobby Mitchell.

I don't really have anything to say against Don Hutson at number 3, how can one possibly evaluate a guy from the era before Unitas, when the only QBs I can name are guys like Baugh, Luckman, Van Brocklin, Waterfield, Graham and Connerly and none of them played with Hutson as far as I remember.

I don't think Raymond Berry should have made the top ten, but that's personal animosity from the time when he was coaching the Patriots. But he probably should have been in there ahead of Marvin Harrison. Unless you're putting together a list of people who have decided to maintain facial hair styles from adult entertainment features of two decades ago, there's no top ten list that should have Marvin Harrison on it. The only difference between him and Bill Brooks is the fact that Brooks played with bad QBs and Harrison plays with Manning.

As for Cris Carter, he's another lucky product of a pass-happy era. If a guy like Webster Slaughter had been 6 years younger, he'd have been able to produce numbers like Carter did. Perhaps Carter made the list because of the mortification Chris Berman must have felt when he learned that the Buddy Ryan "All he does is catch touchdowns" quote Boomer beat to death was really code for "I'm releasing him because I can't deal with his coked out narcissism any more."

I guess if I were making a top ten list of NFL wideouts, I'd grudgingly start with Jerry Rice because I always hated him. I'd put TO number two because he's my favorite athlete playing right now and he's a mean, nasty, cantankerous person, which is always a good thing when you hit and take hits for a living. I'd leave Hutson at number three, because I can't disprove his belonging there.

I wouldn't keep Irvin at number 4. He's another guy I always hated, and I thought he was a bit overrated because he was so charismatic and his teams were so talented. I guess I'd put Ray Berry there because of the numbers he put up, the contributions he made to those great Colts teams and because he played in a run-dominated era. And even though the Colts were an exception under Weeb Ewbank, they still had John Mackey who might be the best TE ever and Lenny Moore who was one of the best pass catching backs of all time.

I'd put Art Monk at number 5 because he was very quietly the best possession receiver of all time, light years ahead of guys like Largent. He was, after all, a huge part of the Joe Gibbs teams that won three titles with three different QBs. He caught over 900 passes on teams that are best known for the Hogs and power running games.

And before you get mad at me for ranking him ahead of Moss, think about this. If I told you that Charles Mann and Dave Butz played WR on those Redskins' team with him, could you disprove that off the top of your head? They were d-linemen on the Redskins. Guys like Downtown Charlie Brown, Gary Clark and Ricky Sanders played opposite Monk, not exactly John Taylor to his Jerry Rice. Monk definitely deserves to be in the Hall of Fame and should have made it a long time ago.

I'd put Moss at number six because he's incredibly talented but all but invisible in playoff games. I'd put Hayes at number seven because the ESPN piece convinced me and Landry was a guy whose offenses spread the ball around. I'd put Lynn Swann at number eight, even though his stats weren't there. No one was better in big games and no one had that artistic quality to his catches. I'd throw Charlie Taylor in at number nine for sheer weight of production in a running era. And put Irvin ten.

I would have posted sooner, but I have found myself once more in mourning for a tournament bracket sheet that died before its time. It doesn't happen every year (the catastrophic early collapse always happens, just not the reason why this particular year fell apart), but every now and then I talk myself into picking Georgetown to go deep.

I don't know why I do. I hate Georgetown, and odds are, if you know people who went to Georgetown as I do, you probably hate Georgetown too. Georgetown is dick central. Of the 30 or so people I know who've attended Georgetown, I can think of 3 who aren't total dicks. That's certainly not a large enough sample from which to make a reasonable assessment, but then I'm not necessarily a fair guy.

All signs pointed to Georgetown losing early in this tournament. We all know the cliche that March Madness is dominated by great guard play. Georgetown featured the closest thing to an NBA ready big man available to any of the field of 65, but they didn't have an answer for Davidson's quickness and shooting. So now I look like even more of a moron than usual, but I can live with that.

I did want to see what happened when Roy Hibbert got to play against Brian Butch and the Insane Clone Posse that makes up the Wisconsin front line. I know the entire state of Wisconsin is made up of 5 family trees, but these guys look enough alike that I wouldn't be surprised if they came off an assembly line.

On one level, Hibbert should have demolished the Badgers, based on talent alone. However, in the Coach K era in college basketball, sometimes pure talent is more of a liability than an asset. Far more important is the ability to swallow one's pride and sense of morality and hack, slash, hold and flop in the face of superior talent. And that is Bo Ryan's mission statement as a basketball coach. So Wisconsin would likely have won, especially considering they have vastly more experience than Georgetown (Brian Butch alone has been in college for 7 seasons now, after all).

Having my bracket come apart so spectacularly almost took away most of the joy I felt (and (I'm sure shared with all right-thinking Americans) when Duke lost to West Virginia. Almost, but not quite. Seeing Duke bow out this early in a tournament is always good, but it gives me hope that there might be a chance that teams who flop and whine might be losing their advantage with the officials. That said, I am still terrified by the prospect of another San Antonio vs. Detroit matchup in the NBA Finals. But time will tell there...

In other matters, actor Richard Widmark passed away on Monday. And all I have to say about that is who knew he was still alive? I am a big fan of old movies, and I like my fair share of Westerns. But I was never a big fan of Richard Widmark. I suppose I ought to be more sensitive, now that he's dead, but I am an imperfect person.

I also feel compelled to bring this story to your attention, if you haven't seen it yet. A Mississippi man "accidentally" shot his wife while trying to use a .22 pistol to put a hole in his wall during a satellite TV installation. Prosecutors are considering charging him with manslaughter.

Not for a minute is this manslaughter. Granted it's Mississippi and not civilization, but they ought to throw the book at this guy for everything and anything under the sun. I am not a big advocate for gun control, but I do believe in moron control. Only a total jackass would use a gun in a DIY job. So I'm thinking the guy shot his wife deliberately and came up with this ridiculous story under the Sam Spade principle that a sensible story would have gotten him arrested in the first place.

In a sad news item, somebody stole and torched Shawne Merriman's $180,000 Mercedes this week. Isn't that just awful? What's the world coming to when a fine, upstanding young man like that can't trust the rest of the world to respect his possessions? To add insult to injury, the perpetrators stole his wheels (literally) and left it on milk crates before they burned it.

I have to say it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. I may have mentioned in this space a time or two that Merriman is a fraud. After having read his official bio on his official website, I think it's time we upgraded Shawne Merriman to archfraud status. I guess one can't expect full disclosure from his own website, but it might have been refreshing to see some mention of Merriman's suspension for performance enhancing drugs not too long ago amid the description of how he became one of the NFL's most dominant (excpet in playoff games) defenders.

All too often, when I mention a story, it's to focus on the negative aspects. But today, I have to praise the courageous leaders of the great state of Maine. No longer can merchants in Maine sell novelty cigarette lighters. This is win-win for the people. First, children can no longer be tempted to play with the lighters and start accidental fires. Second, youngsters will no longer be tempted to smoke to look cool.

Shame on all 49 remaining states who rely on parents and other adults to take responsibility for the objects with which their spawn come in contact. Shame on the leaders of the other 49 states for assuming that their citizens might just be mature and responsible enough to handle decisions like this on their own. And shame on the rest of the nation for being slightly more mature and responsible enough not to be led around by the hand like our neighbors, the Mainiacs.

I know you don't need me to connect you with the news, and it is slightly hypocritical for me to provide this service when I try to avoid news on TV, radio and in the newspaper because it's too damn depressing, but I have two more minor items you may not have noticed. One is sad, the other is ultracreepy.

Al Copeland, the founder of Popeye's Chicken, passed away. This is sad, unless you are a total d-bag and you don't eat fried chicken. Popeye's is much better than KFC, and our world is a little poorer today, losing the man who brought Louisiana spiced fried chicken to the rest of the nation.

And the creepy story...LG is manufacturing a cell phone that feels like human skin. I find that to be beat on a number of levels. First, at this point cell phones can do much more than they should, with the capacity to send texts, photos, videos and play MP3s.

Maybe I'm hopelessly old fashioned, but all I need my phone to do is dial. I hate that I have a cell phone, and if it weren't cheaper than a land line and on very rare occasions useful, I'd throw the damn thing in a river or off the back of some tool's head as though I were a Red Sox fan and it were a slice of pizza.

This story also gives me the heebie-jeebies because it seems to send a message that we are so starved for actual human contact that we might want a phone that feels like a person. Either that or we're trying to get in touch with our inner Dr. Frankenstein. It's not good. In fact, it's quite gross.

About two weeks ago, I posted in this space to ridicule the Philadelphia Eagles for their terrible decisions this offseason. I couldn't conceive of a world in which a team could slap the franchise tag on LJ Smith and throw a mountain of cash at a cornerback who considers it beneath his exalted dignity to tackle. And then I took a quick look at the Oakland Raiders offseason transactions. Good thing I'm not a Raiders' fan.

According to John Clayton, Al Davis got the money to back his insane spending spree from selling non-voting shares in the Raiders. I wonder if the people who sprung for those shares are suffering from buyers remorse right now.

I think, and it's just me talking at this point, that when the dust settles, the trade and ludicrous contract extension that brought DeAngelo Hall to Oakland (at least until his next sideline hissy fit) will go down as the worst of these moves. Lest we forget, even as Clayton compared Hall to Lester Hayes and Mike Haynes, that this is the same man who whined to the league office that TO spat in his face (after TO torched him for two TDs in the game) and neglected to man up and throw down with TO.

It doesn't exactly sound like much of a pathway to the old Raiders mystique, is it? I can't say for sure what Hayes or Haynes may have done had a WR who torched them for two TDs compounded the injury with the insult of spitting in their face. But something tells me that their reaction might have been a bit stronger than crying to the League Office. I'm guessing guys like that just might have taken it upon themselves to kick the offender's ass. But maybe that's the difference between an NFL Hall of Famer and an overpriced fraud.

As you are all aware, the NCAA tournament is underway, and has been for a round and a half at this point. And all I can say is that I am very depressed. I tune into games desperately seeking the greatest broadcaster of all time and find that he isn't allowed to broadcast every game.

And don't give me any static about one man being unable to broadcast multiple games concurrently. Based on what I read from Bill Simmons and his legion of minions, Gus Johnson can eat lightning and crap thunder. So he surely can broadcast three different college basketball games in three different cities in three different time zones and fix the plot holes and inconsistencies in Shakespeare all at the same time.

I guess it's fair to say, at this point, that I am somewhat less than impressed by the cult of Gus Johnson. I've watched football and basketball games he's called for a few years now, and I just don't see what makes him so special. In fact, if I had to do some sort of blind test, a sort of Pepsi challenge for sports announcers, I don't know that I could tell the difference between Johnson and Kevin Harlan or Kenny Albert or mediocre broadcaster X.

This year's first round slate marked the longest span of time in which my sweet sixteen survived intact in at least five years. Generally, I lose at least one (and often a Final Four team) in the first set of games on the first day of the tournament. It's just a natural result of picking games based on personal animosities as opposed to logic and/or reason. But it can be embarrassing.

This year's casualty was UConn. And they played a very entertaining and nerve-racking game before falling in OT to the UCSD Torreros. The other teams I had picked to win in the first round who fell short were Winthrop (after watching Tom Tuttle from Tacoma fold in Communist indoctrination in Volunteers, I will never pick Washington State, plus they gave us Drew Bledsoe and Ryan Leaf), St Mary's, Arizona and Kent State. I didn't have any of those teams going anywhere, so it wasn't that bad a day and a half any way. For the moment, I am tied for first in the SIRSN challenge, with slightly better odds of winning than any of my competitors.

And as an aside and at the risk of making the same joke as 10 million other people, I should have seen this UConn loss coming. The UCSD Torreros were throwing Jim Jones' grandson at them, after all. It got me wondering as I watched the game, how many times do you think some friend's parent offered that kid Kool Aid without realizing that it was a trifle indelicate in his youth?

The Western Kentucky game was considerably more enjoyable for me, since I called that one correctly. Or more precisely, I guessed right. But this isn't the day for detailed game breakdowns. God knows, there will be at least 20,000 of them floating around the internet by this time. And there weren't any incidents that I feel compelled to complain about at length in the games.

However, there are a few things with which I had a problem in the last day and a half that I am sure will piss me off to no end before this tournament ends. Considering the fact that they are a division of Toyota and they presumably appeal to the higher end consumer demographics, I think the good people at Lexus owed us a little better or at least more imaginative ad campaign than this pathetic where did all the hs go drivel.

But the real villain of this tournament to this point has to be Coke. Maybe I am the only person who feels this way, but I hate the Coke Zero ads. The fake efforts to get a lawyer to sue Coke Zero on behalf of Coke for taste infringement were funny for all of about 13 seconds when they first came out a couple of years ago. Alas, even then the ads went on for 30 seconds, or at least 17 seconds too long.

Coke Zero doesn't taste like Coke. It tastes sort of like coke that has been distilled through a rag soaked in Windex. And don't ask me how I know what Windex tastes like, my childhood contained a series of ill-advised experiments which I am, in hindsight, lucky to have survived. The fact remains that these commercials weren't terribly imaginative to start with and have been on for far too long. And they play them fourteen times an hour it seems.

There is one more thing I need to complain about. Despite what Pat Forde would have us believe, I will not be rooting for Bruce Pearl and Tennessee this season. Or ever. Forde wrote a nice puff piece about the trials and tribulations Pearl experienced after he ratted out the University of Illinois for recruiting improprieties while he was an assistant at the University of Iowa. For that noble and self-sacrificing act, Pearl was blacklisted and relegated to Division II until he made such a success of himself his vast awesomeness could no longer be overlooked.

Truly it is a heartwarming story, until one recalls (as Forde admits) that Pearl taped conversations with the recruit in question to obtain the evidence to rat out Illinois. Despite the fact that I am myself a product of a Jesuit school, I do not find that the end justifies the means. One cannot really portray oneself as a martyr and a crusader for that which is right if one has stooped to questionably ethical means to do so. So it's not just that natty pale orange blazer that makes Bruce Pearl look ridiculous as he stands on the moral high ground, it's what he did to get there.

And if you need more convincing that Bruce Pearl is, in fact, a douche, don't forget that he went to BC, a notorious haven for douches from all walks of life. And he's a close friend of Bo Ryan, a noted douche in his own right, and the coach of the University of Wisconsin Badgers in Madison, Wisconsin, which is douche central in the Midwest.

So, the NCAA tournament is again upon us. I'm sorry that I haven't been posting much lately, but I haven't really had all that much to say. I'm staying away from commenting on the Celtics because my comments on the Red Sox throughout last season looked fairly ridiculous when October's travesty finally played itself out. And I just haven't really been all that motivated to watch a lot of college basketball these days.

One of the problems, I suppose, when it comes right down to it is that I hate Duke and I hate North Carolina. I just don't want to see either team do well. Nor do I want to see announcers grovelling at the feet of the coaches and players associated with either team. And unfortunately, while one can never escape the latter (especially where Duke is concerned), there was far too much of the former for my taste this season.

And then at the end of last week, Illinois launched an improbable, history making run in the Big Ten tournament. Too bad they fell short, but it was still a great story. And you can tell it was a great story, based merely on the reaction of the Chicago media's one man answer to the bubonic plague, Jay Mariotti.

I realize I spend a scandalous amount of time in a blog devoted (ostensibly, any way) to the Boston sports landscape shredding a columnist from Chicago. But if ever there were a person who deserves it, it's Mariotti. And since not every one has the time to read fine sites like Jay the Joke and Boise Wants Jay, there's always room in this space to let Chicagoans know that a few people on the East Coast feel sorry for what they have to endure.

I've been thinking this for a long time, but I am now just about convinced that Jay Mariotti is the biggest douche in the continental United States. It seems improbable that a moderately trained chimpanzee could spend a decade or so covering sports and manage after all that time to fail to understand why we watch sports. And yet Mariotti has not developed the faintest inkling of the curious appeal that a team like this season's Illini can have over even the most cynical, relentlessly negative, unpleasant people in America (i.e. me).

Illinois had, up until this month began, been one of the big disappointments in college basketball. They could do a few things effectively enough to hang in most of the games they lost, but they didn't do enough of those things well enough to win, or even be a particularly watchable team. And all of that changed this week, at least except the bit about being particularly watchable.

Although, as an aside, I should introduce this anecdote. I have a friend who did a semester abroad at St. Andrews in Scotland, mostly for the academics, naturally, but he managed to get in a round or two of golf. He came back with a term he picked up from the natives to describe what we might call a wormburner. In Scotland, some people call it a Sally Gunnels shot, after some female track star in the distant past. The rationale, as they put it: "She's not pretty but she sure can run."

Leaving aside for a moment that which is Scottish and very likely sexist, that was this season's Illini in the Big Ten tournament. In the words of Victor Frankenstein, it wasn't supposed to be this way, it was supposed to be a thing of beauty. But for three and a half games over the course of four days, Illinois reminded us that we look to sports as the last remaining area where David has a shot against Goliath.

In every other aspect of our lives, some one some where is probably micturating upon you in some sense and expecting you to believe that it's raining. It may be your boss. It may be Uncle. It may be the guy who lives three doors down from you and brings his dog to drop a deuce in your wife's flowers while you're just trying to get some damn sleep. Who knows. But odds are some one in life is making your life more difficult than it really ought to be and you probably can't do all that much about it.

And go figure it had to be Wisconsin who stopped Illinois. If ever there were a team custom tailored to play the modern American Goliath, it's Duke. But Wisconsin's a close second. In fact, I hate the Badgers and Bo Ryan second only to Duke in the NCAA landscape today. And for a lot of the same reasons. Wisconsin players flop shamelessly and whine incessantly.

If they wore blue and white instead of red and white, all Wisconsin would need to play Duke's mini-me is a Coach who looked enough like a certain German dictator to make me think there might have been something more than meets the eye behind the plot of the classic Gregory Peck film The Boys From Brazil. Too bad they have to settle for a cheese ball who looks like a frustrated, failing lounge singer, right down to the lame wardrobe and giant bald spot.

Not so in sports. Every once in a while, there's a team like Illinois that, despite all signs to the contrary, manages to pull off an inspiring run like this weekend's trip through Indianapolis. And when that improbable run occurs, there's going to be some douche like Mariotti out there to try to ruin that for the rest of us. He's the guy who's going to sit through the sub-prime meltdown, the Bear Sterns China Syndrome and the damn recession that's falling down around our ears right now and rip to shreds the few bright spots that might give us a reason to smile for 15 minutes. Even I won't do that/

I guess the lesson here is that if you find yourself on the other side of what the guy I go to for my Red Sox info blithely refers to as "the douche trade" and I'm not standing there with you, you must really be king douche. So once more, congratulations, Jay.

In other matters, I have decided to revive last year's failed experiment. If you want to enter the Sedition in Red Sox Nation bracket challenge and prove that you can pick college basketball games better than a bitter dude whose motivations stem from bizarre, yet deep-seeded, personal antagonisms against coaches he's never met on campuses he's never visited in towns he can't spell, have at it.

Go to this link, and sign up: http://sirsn.mayhem.sportsline.com/e
The group password is s3dition

And I promise to cheat only if I lose.

The other day, some one sent me a link to Simmons' What If NBA column. I figured I'd pass it on to you, since it was suprisingly good, good enough that I feel I have to give the devil his due. Not only was it good, but it was astonishingly funny. I'm not sure if he's incorporated some new jokes or recycling ones that he beat to death so long ago that I forgot all about them, but it's definitely worth a read.

It's time for another tools of note segment. This evening, we celebrate the toolness of an ecoterrorism cell. It seems too perfect, but this cell operates in the Seattle area. For some reason, every time Seattle is mentioned in this space, the post is highlighting something stupid, creepy, pointless or all three. I guess I ought not be surprised, just look at the losers who wrote in to whine to Sports Guy that some douche is stealing the Sonics.

This ecoterrorist group, the Earth Liberation Front or ELF, allegedly set fire to a row of unoccupied luxury model homes called the Street of Dreams in a Seattle suburb. These fires caused over $7 million worth of damage to the properties. The apparent motivation for the act was the claim by the developers that these luxurious homes were ecofriendly.

Now, I am always willing to condemn hypocrisy (except, of course, my own). And I imagine I am like most people in that regard. But isn't it just a little bit hypocritical to burn down homes that claim to be ecofriendly? It can't be all that ecofriendly to release whatever chemical byproducts of the arson were into the atmosphere, right?

This is one of the things that bothers me about the environmental movement. No matter what the lunatic fringe does, the rest of us are expected to act as though their excrement didn't have an unpleasant odor. And any invasion of a theoretically pristine area in the name of ecofriendly activity is perfectly acceptable.

I remember watching an Animal Planet documentary about polar bears and penguins, contrasting the two polar extremes as they deal with climate change. In the background of one of the penguin segments, I could see as clear as day some vast tracked monstrosity that the film crew used to cart their equipment around the ice shelf. I couldn't help but wonder what the carbon footprint from that behemoth was. And I couldn't help but think that whatever benefit the documentary might bring to the front lines of the war on climate change might be undone by the impact those vehicles and whatever conveyance conveyed them to the poles unleash on the pristine, vulnerable polar ecosystem.

I also remember ridiculing the tool who swam in the North Pole waters to point out the adverse effect human actions have had on our planet. I mocked him for calling himself an explorer (as though he were out there identifying terra incognita in the age of GPS and satellite mapping) and for using whatever means he used to get to the North Pole to point out that the climate is changing. And a reader pointed out that there are many different ways to grease one's body so that one can endure swimming in extreme cold conditions.

And I remember an old article from Gregg Easterbrook (Tuesday Morning Quarterback) where he mocked an environmental group who bestowed an award on two individuals who took a helicopter to monitor what residents who owned beachfront property in the Pacific Northwest were doing with their land. TMQB pointed out that helicopters are incredibly inefficient fuel guzzling machines, so whatever benefit might have come from the aerial reconnaissance probably vanished from the carbon emissions of the vehicle used.

And then there's old friend Al Gore, winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his global warming bandwagon. Meanwhile, while he jetsets all over the world to remind us that we use to much in the way of fossil fuels, he has three big mansions cranking the climate control apparatus as though it were good for the planet. And his socially maladjusted tool of a son is popping adderol and driving his hybrid as though he were coming down the back stretch on the last lap of the Indy 500.

And after all this, it's people like me who don't own cars, who leave the thermostat at 65 in the winter and keep the AC off in the summer, who recycle what can be recycled and don't throw away any more than they have to who have to change their lifestyles because they are responsible for global warming. What a world.

I guess it had to happen sooner or later, but I still wasn't ready for Brett Favre to retire. Obviously, no one plays in the NFL forever, and quarterbacks take a fair amount of punishment over the course of a season. But seeing Brett Favre go is like losing something I could always rely on.

I am 28, I remember a lot of NFL games before Favre broke into the league. So it's not like losing part of my childhood or my youth. It's just that Favre was the last of the great old style of NFL quarterback. Now we have the two Mannings, Brady and the rest who are sort of manufactured, prepackaged automatons on and off the field. Their play is pretty much the same, their sound bites are pretty much the same. They just aren't that interesting.

Sure Peyton Manning is in every third commercial for every fifth product and we get the rundown on all of Tom Brady's sordid off-field dalliances, but that doesn't make them stand out from the herd of celebrities that stalk the media landscape these days. And I think an NFL quarterback should stand out. Like Namath having the guts to rock pantyhose in that creepy ad campaign or sport a man fur on the sidelines. Or like Don Meredith (even though he was already retired and broadcasting at the time) who introduced MNF fans to a game in Denver saying: "Welcome to the Mile High City, and folks that's about how I feel right now."

Yeah, Favre had a recurring problem with the huge interception at the exact wrong time, but at least he had daring. A guy has to do a lot for his team just to get them into a position where he can kill them with a bad throw. And while Favre did make his share of mistakes, he did it with style. So now he leaves the NFL with Manning, Brady and their peers who talk like Junior Simple but cut a nice figure in a fancy suit. And I think we're all just a little bit the worse off for it.

Speaking of the NFL, I am enjoying the offseason moves for the Philadelphia Eagles. As one of TO's biggest fans, I still enjoy seeing the Eagles in the process of imploding. When all is said and done after this season, it will be the signing of Asante Samuel that draws the most attention, whether it works or fails. But as ludicrous as it was to give him a six year, $55 million contract, it isn't the worst decision the Eagles could have made, or did make for that matter.

That dubious honor has to go to the Eagles' front office brain trust who decided to slap the franchise tag on tight end LJ Smith. In case you don't know, the franchise tag forces the team to offer the player a one year deal equivalent to the average of the top three salaries at his position. So that means if you're franchising a guy, you probably ought to be damn sure that he is one of the three best players in his category in the league today.

There is no way LJ Smith is a top three tight end in the NFL. Perhaps he is as talented as draft gurus and Eagles execs have claimed, but I think if that were the case he'd have proved it by now. Hell, even Kellen Winslow II has had a breakout season, and he's been in the league half as long and missed almost two entire seasons to boot.

Out of curiosity, can you even tell me that LJ Smith is a top three tight end in the NFC East? Would you rank him ahead of Jason Witten, Chris Cooley and Jeremy Shockey? I don't think I would. And that's not even beginning to compare him to guys like Ben Watson or the likes of Gates and Gonzales.

Now, it may be that the Eagles franchised him in the hopes of trading him, but who the hell would give up anything of significance for LJ Smith, let alone two first round picks? I think if I were an NFL GM, I'd demand a late second day pick included in a package for LJ Smith where I had to send nothing back in return, or maybe a used kicking tee and worn out down and distance markers.

There are at times, other concerns when it comes to franchising or not franchising a player than simple statistical production. But is LJ Smith so important to the Eagles (who didn't even make the playoffs last season) that the entire football landscape in the City of Brotherly Love that the whole thing would collapse if he left town? This just might take the cake for dumbest decision made in the NFL this offseason, at least until the Eagles draft in April.

In other matters, Mountain Dew has come out with a new marketing campaign. It is called Green Label Art, and they are selling their product in limited edition aluminum bottles featuring six distinct designs from six of America's edgiest up and coming artists. I bet you James McNeil Whistler is shaking in his boots in the afterlife, fearing that his place at the pinnacle of artistic achievement in American history is about to come to an end.

When I saw this campaign, it reminded me of a scene from the classic film "The Third Man." The character played by Orson Wells delivers a famous line:

"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly."

If one were to modernize that quote to describe America today, I suppose one could say that we've had 220 years with a few ups and downs, but with unprecedented security, peace and prosperity and we produced six tools who adorned a soda that is little more than citrus flavored rat poison with six "works of art" that make a sane man want to weep for the future. I shudder to think that there will come a time when a person who owns unopened bottles with these images on them will make a fortune on eBay. What a world.

I think Jerry Garcia said it best when he said...

This has been a pretty good weekend in the wide world at large. The Patriots limp into free agency coming off one of the most spectacular Super Bowl chokes of all time. To be fair, they did resign Teddy Bruschi who will only get better in his next twelve seasons with the team. That said, both Asante Samuel and Randall Gay left town.

Obviously, the Eagles overpaid for Asante Samuel. The scope of this contract was so ludicrous that it defies description. Six years and $55 million for a guy who doesn't like to tackle and got 25% of his career interceptions from Rex Grossman (exaggeration) is a bit steep. That said, I think TO will call a press conference tomorrow to announce he's going to retire before he has to face Samuel twice next season.

I don't think any one is thinking Randall Gay is a future Hall of Famer, barring some sort of minor miracle. But that leaves the Patriots entering next season with a huge target on their backs from Spygate, from this season's blowouts, from choking away the Super Bowl and from the last seven years of douchery. And they're going to war with Ellis Hobbs, Brandon Merriweather and spare parts. I must say, I like the way that looks on paper. Short of teaching Matt Light how to play tackle, I can't see the Patriots coming vaguely close to the level of success they almost enjoyed this season going forward.

In other matters, I get a chance to do something I never anticipated doing in this space - complimenting a member of the Rolling Stones. I do like the Stones, but I was less than thrilled with their recent album entitled Neocons. Regardless of my personal feelings for neocons, I think it advisable for musicians and celebreties to stay out of politics, especially when they aren't Americans. And I regret the days of General Andrew Jackson, when an Englishman with funny notions on how Americans ought to be doing things would find himself limping back to London, are long gone.

That said, I liked the fact that Keith Richards took a shot at Led Zeppelin, saying that he wasn't even aware they had a reunion. Obviously, since these old rockstars are all buddies, I'm betting he was joking. But that said, what was the big deal about their reunion. I'm sure there are other bands that are more overrated, but there can't be many and I can't think of one at the moment.

If American middle school and high school school dance administrators had had to courage to get together and say enough Stairway to Heaven, then the great unwashed wouldn't nuture the soft spot for this band that they harbor at the moment. Perhaps they were the Godfathers of Heavy Metal, good for them. Let's face it. For the most part, heavy metal sucks. The root of their appeal rests in the memories of people who hear Stairway and recall slow dancing awkwardly with their pizza-faced first love and hoping to steal a kiss before the wood panelled station wagon came to whisk them away. I don't see how people can look back at things like that fondly, but then again people are morons and ought to be locked up for the good of society.

And let's not forget that they made a Lord of the Rings reference in Ramble On, which wasn't a good song to begin with and got worse. When they dropped Gollum and Mordor in, that was kind of risky, since the beat Peter Jackson movies hadn't been made and LOTR was not to be referred to in open conversation unless you were a LARPer. And maybe it takes a certain courage to admit that Gollum stole your woman. But it's still beat. To be fair, though, I do like You Don't Have To Go and a couple of their other songs, but I could do without Led Zeppelin.

So good work Keith. And good work telling kids to stay off drugs. Has there ever been a more shining example of do as I say, not as I do in action? Denis Leary was all over him for making similar cracks 15 years ago. But he had a point. Keith Richards did so many drugs he just might still be high, for the love of God.