At the risk of anticipating too much, I wonder whether the lead-in to tomorrow afternoon's Jim Rome is Burning will sound a little something like this:

Welcome.

What is up?

Here's what I'm burning on...

Memo to the Daddy, just because you've won four titles and a couple of MVPs doesn't mean you have the right to say the last two awards are tainted. You have your hands full trying to keep Miami from melting in the heat since Flash went down with the dislocated shoulder. Until you start playing like Superman, don't go running your mouth about Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki. After all, they know that I, Jim Rome, run the show and that there's never been a man so tough when two or three time zones separate us. So start showing me the proper respect, stop smearing Nash and Nowitzki and remember that Jim Rome is super awesome.

I went a long way to say this. But Shaq came out the other day and said that Steve Nash's two MVP awards are tainted. I think it was a little excessive, but I agree with him in principle. At the end of the day, all that matters in sports is that you've done everything you can to help your team win. I don't know that you can say that about Dirk Nowitzki or Steve Nash. You can say that about Shaq, as he has three rings. And I think you can say it about 2004, when the Lakers lost to the Pistons. Shaq played very well in the series, the rest of the Lakers didn't show up.

There is going to be a hellstorm of anti-Shaq commentary all over the World Wide Leader tomorrow. First, the media has to rally behind the MVP procedure since they vote on the award. Second, what compelling sports stories unfolded this weekend? Ohio State beat Wisconsin, and another Bronco tragically died. But that's only 10 minutes of commentary, tops. So Shaq is going to be hunted into hiding, since Steve Nash deserves more than two MVPs and no titles.

There is one other story of interest to me. If, as the old saying goes, ignorance is bliss then Jonathan Papelbon is most assuredly one of the happiest people on the face of the Earth. With apologies to the eminent historian Edward Gibbon, it would require the pen of Steve Buckley to relate a story like this. I really hope this is a joke.

There is no way that Papelbon is serious. He'd have to be some sort of Frankenmoron built in a lab from a series of garden-variety morons. I don't have as much of a problem with the ca-drillion dollar turn of phrase as I do with most of his business plan. First off, it seems like he's about 10 years late to the party when it comes to investing in the internet.

Second, at what point will the online community market be saturated? Myspace, friendster, facebook and the rest are already in place. I don't see a need for another of these sites. I don't see how they can make any money off an idea like this, but then I can't for the life of me figure out why some idiots pay for dog yoga.

Maybe it's a bigger attraction than I can foresee. I don't really understand myspace and the other sites like it. I am a bad user. I don't have a single myspace friend that wasn't my friend in the real world (as opposed to cyberspace) to begin with. I'm not looking to meet a lot of people on myspace, partly because I'm not entirely sure which of the total strangers that view my page are trustworthy and which are trying to hack my page in some half-assed plot to take over the world through spamming myspace users.

I am not one of those people who hits up famous people on myspace to be my cyber-friend. After all, it's not like I'm going to be going out for a beer with celebrity X. I can't think of any celebrity that needs me to post a comment telling them how awesome they are and thanking them for the add. But I guess that makes some people feel connected, so I suppose I should ease up on them. If people want to join this site to be friends with Papelbon or UnderArmour or the unnamed NFL players from the article. Good luck to them.

I will not be one of the legion who joins this new site. I can see a large number of lemmings from Red Sox Nation flocking to this community in a vain effort to attach themselves to the monster that is Papelbon, until he falls short of expectations in his first season as a starter. I have it on not so reliable authority that he has starter stuff. Whether or not he has starter endurance is another story. So if he's out of gas and on the DL in July after falling short of such lofty expectations, don't say I didn't warn you as you drop him from your friends.

At least Red Sox fans will be able to much their blues away with the products of Wise Foods, Inc - the official Potato Chip and Cheez Curl of the Boston Red Sox. On a lighter note, Matt Kenseth won the Wow, I didn't Realize That There Was A NASCAR Race This Week 500 in some loser town in California. This is significant because it marks the first victory of the stock car season for the newly formed Roush Fenway racing conglomerate. Today this race, tomorrow the world series, three weeks five days and two hours after that ...the world.

It's amazing how much has happened in the sports world since the last time I posted. I have so many to attack for so much. First, how elated we all are that the Celtics franchise record losing streak has been halted before it reached NBA record levels. While some are inclined to accentuate the positive (consider this slide show on Boston.com which tried to find one positive aspect of each of the 18 straight losses and highlight it), I choose to focus on the negative because I'm good like that.

While it's nice to get a win, and always good to get ESPN to stop beating the record losing streak angle to death, I think it does one good to remember the axiom of Winston Wolfe from Pulp Fiction and wait a bit before giving one another the gift of oral gratification. Let us not forget that not only are the Bucks a bad team, but they were also short handed. Michael Redd and Charlie Villeneuva were not in the lineup. You might not be tremendously impressed by either of those players, it is still a significant loss for a team with only 19 wins.

While I'm on the topic of the Celtics, I might as well attack the team's promotional "Guys Night Out/Girls Night Out" ticket packages. For $99 you and three friends/acquaintances can enjoy a Guys Night Out at the Celtics game where you will receive 4 hot dogs, 4 sodas and 4 autographed pictures of the Celtics dancers to go along with the chance to see the worst team in the worst conference of the NBA. Apparently women need even more inducement to see these "games." Their $99 gets them the same 4 hot dogs and sodas, but they also get 4 15% off coupons at the TD Bank North arena Pro Shop and free admission and line privileges to the Greatest Bar on Portland St. after the game.

That $99 package gets you seats in the balcony (if you want the four tickets in the loge section, it will set you back $149) for the following opponents: New York, Atlanta, Charlotte, Toronto and Orlando. If you want a higher class opponent, you can shell out $119 for balcony/$179 for loge to get one of these amazing four seat packages for Houston, Seattle, Philadelphia, Milwaukee or Detroit. It's a good deal, I guess, if you really want to see the Celtics. What I really resent is the patronizing gift of 4 hot dogs and 4 sodas to a party of 4 which probably represents a cost of $0.25 incurred by the concession people. Maybe throw in a bag of peanuts or two, or another round of soda, or even a second hot dog a piece to take a little of the sting out of the price.

The trouble with the Celtics as a team is that they are basically a poor man's version of the LA Lakers. Pierce is a slower, slightly less competetive, slightly whinier Kobe. Al Jefferson is a poor man's Lamar Odom. Perkins and the other spare parts at the 5 need to work a bit before we can consider them to be a poor man's Bynum/Kwame Brown/Brian Cook combo. But you get the general idea.

Then there is my hero, and yours, Jim Rome. Lately, he's been hammering Joe Torre for his handling of the A Rod situation in NYC. Now, there is probably some room for improvement in the way he dealt with A Rod, but I think Rome might want to step off his high horse before criticizing Torre for dropping A Rod in the batting order in the playoffs. It's not as though Torre sat in his office one day while he was bored and said "What can I do to Alex to make him fail and hurt this team?"

The fact of the matter is that A Rod was dropped to 8th in the order because he was underperforming by the standards of a player who was payed 1/25 of A Rod's salary. When I think back on Torre's decision, I am inevitably reminded of the scene in Patton when the General, as played by George C. Scott, slapped an enlisted man and said in his apology that his intention was to remind the young man of his obligations, both as a man and as a soldier.

Perhaps Torre thought that the gentle approach had brought little success, so maybe a sterner approach might work. And as for Jeter running the town and extending no welcome to A Rod, what should Jeter do? It was his town, and it is his town. Until some other player comes in and leads the Yankees to four rings, it will always be Jeter's town.

What we really need, as sports fans and as a nation, is a primer from the media on how all people ought to react to any given situation. Some commandments would be nice, but if there isn't a burning bush handy, some guidelines would be really help. Then we'd know what to do, and we wouldn't antagonize the reporters, talking heads and writers who, after all, only have our best interests at heart.

This brings us to the Tim Hardaway situation. The real issue isn't necessarily what he said. It would have been nice if he kept his motuh shut. He certainly hurt himself with his incredibly insensitive remarks. But some of the fault lies with Dan LeBatard, too. Until he put his foot into his mouth, no one in the whole wide world really needed to know, or cared to know, Tim Hardaway's position on homosexuals in the locker room. Or in the world at large, for that matter.

LeBatard said today on OTL that he asked all of his guests that question lately. That's a lame defense. If a gay athlete comes out then he should be treated like a human being. If he elects to remain in the closet, that's his business. It certainly isn't my business. Or Dan LeBatard's. Or LeBron James' business. Or Tim Hardaway's business. No one waits with bated breath to hear what Athlete X thinks about a given situation. Or at least they shouldn't.

Amaechi was right to an extent to shift focus away from Hardaway per se and direct his concern to what others who might be inspired to harm homosexuals because of his words. However, I think that Tim Hardaway bears no responsibility for any act committed against homosexuals. Unless he commits said acts. People have to be responsible for their own acts.

Almost as bad as the general insenstivity is when insensitivity masquerades as sensitivity. I thought Mark Cuban's response was as shallow as shallow gets. Perhaps there are more concerns than just the bottom line. And this writer from San Francisco who took a Utah columnist to task for mentioning that Amaechi was one of the worst players in Jazz history immediately after the announcement. But the thing about that is who even thought about Amaechi before he revealed he was gay? There is nothing particularly homophobic in saying that John Amaechi was one of the worst playes in Utah history if the stats support the argument. And if the piece had been written out of the clear blue sky, would we attack the writer for being mean-spirited.

In the end, there is very little any writer, TV reporter, politician, religious figure or athlete can do to stop homophobia. You can discourage it, punish it, ridicule it, but if we want to live in a free society people have the right to be ignorant. But I believe that in the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: "My right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins." People have the right to be homophobes, but they don't have the right to harm homosexuals physically or verbally. So Tim Hardaway shouldn't be punished beyond what the NBA has done so far, and maybe we should stop looking to our athletes for social commentary.

But I really hope I haven't ended up sounding like this guy. It's certainly not my intention. I certainly didn't want to go to the other extreme and imply that Hardaway's reaction might bear some similarities to Ted Haggard's. All I can say is that it's a very good thing for pro basketball that the Lakers Cavs game is going down to the wire as I write this. I am interested to hear Barkley's take on this whole mess, so I will stay up, edit this a bit and watch.

I will leave you with Charles Barkley's last words of the evening: "Ain't no 67 year old man in the entire world gonna outrun me." Amen Charles, Amen. I'm tempted not to do this, but I'm picking you in your footrace with Dick Bavetta this weekend. It's the one thing I'm looking forward to at the All Star Weekend.

Today was a banner day on Rome is Burning. In the middle of the host's gushing praise, the Benefactor managed to say that David Stern does some things as a commissioner that suck. And interestingly enough, that isn't the statement that bothered me as much as two of the other thing he said this afternoon.

First, he said that the NBA's product is better than it has ever been. That is not accurate. The NBA is not what it was when Jordan and the Bull were three-peating. Nor is it anywhere near what it was back in the 1980s when Jordan was an up-and -comer, and Bird, Magic, Dr. J and Barkley stalked the NBA landscape.

The problem with the NBA is that there are probably a dozen teams that are any good. And most of the rest of the league becomes unwatchable at the very mp moment that the game should be most interesting. Almost every team starts to stagnate offensively in the last four or five minutes of a game. The team's best perimeter player gets the ball and dribbles from half court into the teeth of defense.

And the average NBA team is a sickening joke of a sports franchise. Part of it is the economic system which rules the league. An overpaid stiff with an expiring contract is now a hot trading commodity. Theo Ratliff's chief value for the Boston Celtics is that his horribly bloated contract expires soon. But that doesn't change the fact that he shut it down for the season after playing only 44 minutes. When you realize that his salary for the year is $11.7 million, that means Theo earned just over $1 million for every four minutes he spent on the court. Nice work indeed provided, of course, that you can get it.

But the product is better than it's ever been. Which brings us to the real villain of the post. Our old friend, Danny Ainge is reaping as he sowed. Maybe Doc Rivers is a bad coach, but it doesn't change the fact that Danny Ainge came into town, dealt a valuable piece of a playoff team and promised to build a contender. Unless some amazing set of circumstances comes together involving seven or eight teams disbanding and joining cults, the Celics aren't contending for a championship any time soon.

The Celtics are 12-29. They are 2-14 since Paul Pierce got hurt, but they were 10-15 with him in the lineup. They have a better record on the road than they do in the TD Banknorth building (I won't call it the Garden). To add salt to the wounds, the team currently leading their division is under .500. Thank God for the Memphis Grizzlies, otherwise the Celtics would be the worst team in the entire league. In spite of all of this, Danny Ainge is still running a team that hasn't won since January 5th.

On top of this statement, the Benefactor compared himself to Terrell Owens today, which is a fair point when you remove TO's athletic ability and the fact that if push came to shove TO could intimidate more formidable adversaries than Bill Simmons, he and the Benefactor are practically identical twins. Ironically, in a moment that could have compromised Jim Rome's integrity if he had any, Cuban threw Don Nelson under the bus for suggesting the Mavs tank the season the first year Cuban owned the team to get a better shot at a top pick. After all, Jim Rome is always slamming TO for throwing McNabb and Garcia under the bus. But he had nothing to say to the Benefactor on that score.

On a lighter note, I happened to catch Inside the NBA on TNT tonight because there was nothing better on. I was glad I did, because Barkley was brilliant. He ripped today's players, calling them "nitwit-ass players" and suggesting that as "grown-ass men" they ought to behave better. Then he suggested that he will get out of any trouble that his remarks might bring him by telling the world that he's gay and he's on his way to rehab, which is what all the celebrities are saying these days when they make a mistake. A man that eloquent, or at least that funny, ought to get away with saying that stuff.

I know it's been a while since I last updated this blog. I've been more than a little depressed by this World Series. The Cardinals winning is not good for any one. I think we can all agree that no one in St. Louis really deserves to be happy. When your chief landmark is a big freestanding arch with no particular significance (I know the arch represents the gateway to the West, but it's still pathetic), you live in a loser town. No way around it. Given the choice between living in Missouri and death, I'm taking death.

A lot of people wonder why the World Series ratings are so low. Part of it may be the fact that the Tigers and the Cardinals did not get the national TV exposure during the season that the New York teams received. Part of it may be the fact that the Cardinals were dreadful this season. They finished two games over .500, and they went on an amazingly boring run in the playoffs. Part of it might be that baseball is no longer America's pastime. The NFL is the big sport now.

One thing that has not received enough attention is the network itself. FOX does an atrocious job of packaging and presenting baseball as a television sport. It is difficult to make baseball work as a TV sport, there is a lot of dead time in a baseball game. Do we really need to see managers spit and scratch themselves while the pitcher and catcher sort out the sign, the hitter steps in and out of the batter's box and boring announcers try to be amusing and fail miserably? But that is what we get. There are those who maintain that the beauty of baseball is that there is no clock. I disagree. With a clock there might be more consistent urgency, more motion and more action. Is that a bad thing?

Joe Buck and Tim McCarver have no business broadcasting games, together or separately. Think about it. Ask your friends (provided, of course, that you have any). Find some one who is willing to admit that they like these guys calling games. Is there one person in America not related to Buck or McCarver that looks forward to their brand of broadcasting? They have no charisma, they are boring, predictable and dragging the games down. The network attempted to bring some life to the booth for the championship series by including Luis Gonzales. That was a colossal failure.

Then there is Scooter, the annoying (to say the least) animated baseball endeavoring to explain the various pitches to the casual fan. Will any of us who saw it ever recover from Jeff Suppan's ill fated appearance with Scooter, rebroadcast during Game 3? I think not. I know he was trying to be funny, but I can't forgive him for failing so drastically. And if my name were Suppan, and you called me Soup, there would be both consequences and repercussions.

Baseball is really dying before our eyes. Yeah, they set an attendance record this season. That's nice, but when your marquee event's TV ratings decline year after year you have a serious problem. Crowning 7 different champions in 7 years may point to parity and competitive balance, but have teams leveled up or leveled down? I think baseball has leveled down. There are no great teams, and very few great players. There are even fewer compelling stories. When we look back on this postseason, will we remember it for having one of the weaker champions of all time, or for it bringing the demise of Steve "Psycho" Lyons?

As I type this, FOX put a fitting signature on this evening's broadcast. Joe Buck finally revealed the ultimate mystery of baseball. His final thought: "There can be only one champion." No way! Really? I was under the impression that there could be 13 or 14 or an infinite number of champions. And as the credits roll, what does FOX play? A cover of U2's One. And a very bad one at that. Apparently they couldn't get the Kenny G cover of Juicy by the Notorious BIG (I am aware that was also a cover).

This World Series was terrible because the media built up the Tigers until we were sick to death of them. And then the Tigers, whether because of the layoff, the team buying into the media coverage and letting down or a combination thereof, bombed and bombed badly. Now we have the Cardinals as a reigning World Series champion, and who cares? No one likes the Cardinals because they are eminently dislikeable.

Maybe Albert Pujols is the best hitter in the world, but he has no personality. He's not marketable the way Jeter or Ortiz or even Manny can be marketed to the masses. He has all the charisma of the Frankenstein monster in the original cinematic version. Then there is Jim Edmonds, the least likeable centerfielder since Ty Cobb. Duncan, Taguchi, Belliard, Molina, Rolen, Spezio. Those names don't exactly leap off the page, do they? Even with that stupid red beard on Spezio.

David Eckstein, the All American boy (Jim Leyland's words, not mine)? More like that hall monitor that always ratted you out for breaking whichever of the insipid rules elementary schools use to thwart the creativity of the individual (I was less than a model student as a youngster), without, of course, the bear mace and religious fervor that made Cartman such a success in a recent South Park. And if proud NH product (as though that weren't a massive contradiction) Chris Carpenter ever despairs of living free, I won't miss him should he try the other half of New Hampshire's glorious motto.

If you can't tell by now, I wanted to see the Tigers win. Alas, Placido Polanco didn't want to hit. The Tigers pitchers didn't want to field their positions correctly. And Curtis Granderson wanted to play centerfield like a drunken sailor in Game 3. There is more blame to go around, as is always the case with a catastrophe of this magnitude, but there isn't enough time to get into it now. I'll just have to deal with my disappointment.

Before I sign off, I think this point must be addressed. Jim Rome, among others, has discovered a disturbing trend in America today. Shawne Merriman tested positive for steroids, and it isn't as big a deal as the baseball steroid witch hunt. This double standard exists for two reasons. First, we expect more violence from our football players so we are willing to look the other way when they enhance their natural gifts with banned substances. We also focus so much of our energy on our fantasy teams and football gambling that we look the other way in these cases.

There is another way to look at it. Perhaps we reacted to the Merriman suspension the way we did because the NFL has a history of suspending players for steroid use that goes back more than two decades, and not until Congress wasted time and millions of dollars in a farce two years ago. I'm sure I'm wrong though, because my way of thinking would require Jim Rome and his followers to step down from the soap box and spare us the anger of the righteous. I don't think any of us want to live in world like that.

The other night I had some trouble falling asleep. I decided to do a bit of reading, so I picked up my copy of Orwell's Collected Essays. Not exactly light reading, I admit, but I find his blend of sarcasm, appreciation for everyday things and insight into human nature reassuring. I read the eighth of his As I Please columns he wrote, and it made me think that I should write this post.

In that column, written for Tribune and published on January 21, 1944, Orwell addressed the people who criticized the BBC and its programming. He concedes that there was a great deal wrong with the BBC, but none of the critics seemed to devote any thought to why this was the case and what could be done about it. When I read this again, it occurred to me that I have spent a lot of time criticizing various media outlets without analyzing how things could be better.

The most obvious target of my criticism has been the CHB. I suppose there is very little of intelligence or constructive suggestion in the statement that the CHB looks like Dr. Who. I think it's funny, though, so there will be no form of retraction or apology. And as for his colleague Bob Ryan, and fellow traveler Jay Mariotti, both of whom have been enshrined in the Max Mercy Hall of Fame, they deserved it.

There is a way to fix newspaper sports coverage. It's really quite simple, in theory. Hire better writers. Hire people with a modicum of creativity, who will not have to resort to the "there is something gravely wrong in the world of sports" column that attaches earth-shattering significance to each day's developments (like the Terrell Owens saga). Of course that's a pipe dream, what with the fact that the newspaper is slowly dying right before our eyes.

Lately, I have been critical of ESPN also. Perhaps I overreacted to their coverage of the Cory Lidle tragedy. However, there is a lot to be said for respecting a family's privacy and letting a story unfold before devoting an entire evening to covering it. I have a problem with ESPN because they air sports programming 24 hours a day on four networks. It sounds like a sports fan's dream scenario, but it isn't a good thing.

Because they have 24 hours to fill, the powers that be have to fill it with something. There just aren't enough sporting events and "sporting events" (darts, poker and billiards are not sports), and only so many times you can rebroadcast The Contender. In order to fill the time, ESPN rushes some stories to air. By doing so, they end up manufacturing stories. By that I don't mean they make up a story. They end up taking an event and covering it, and then their coverage becomes the story.

Consider the Terrell Owens episode. Will any one ever completely believe any version of his hospitalization? What would have happened had the network waited before it rushed to the air with the Dallas police narrative? So much air was wasted and ink spilled over what may well be a non-story. He could have deliberately ODed, or been the victim of a pharmaceutical interaction. We'll never really know, because the spectacle of an entire afternoon devoted to the incident and the press conferences held by the various parties from the Dallas PD, EMS, the team, T.O., Parcells and the PR assistant.

Then there is the Larry Coker situation at Miami. Every commentator and his/her brother has weighed in on that sordid scene. Has any one asked the question what responsibility resides with the media for the fight? I don't know if Larry Coker has lost that team. It certainly looked like it on Saturday. But if he has lost his team, might it have been adversely effected by the infinite number of has Larry lost this team stories that had already appeared since the loss to Florida State in the first game?

Of course, if ESPN (and the media in general) were to ask questions like that, it would question their very reason for being. We all know that no one needs 24 hours of sports coverage, but we want it as consumers. ESPN gives us what we want and if the Lidle family, Larry Coker or Terrell Owens must be trampled, then trampled they shall be. God forbid one think for oneself, or come up with something to say to one's friends without help from the Worldwide Leader.

In all of that, it seems that I have failed to provide a constructive criticism of ESPN's programming. There is no constructive criticism to the problems addressed above that I can see, except for waiting a bit before breaking a story. That won't happen, since every media outlet is competing not only with other media outlets, but with blogs like Deadspin (not this blog, since it takes me days to assemble my thoughts and ramble). I do have a constructive suggestion about the talk show rotation on ESPN. Here it is.

In this day and age, it is amazing that there isn't a female host on any of the ESPN talk shows. Think of their roll call: First and 10 -Page, Crawford and Bayless, PTI - Wilbon and Kornheiser (with luminaries like LeBatard, Ryan, Whitlock and Mariotti as stand-ins), Quite Frankly - Smith, Around the Horn - Reali and Rome is Burning - Jim Rome. Even among the panelists on Around the Horn, Jackie MacMullin is the only woman. Is there some reason I don't know of that a female host could not succeed as the men listed above have?

The first to go, if some one must go, from the list above is Jim Rome. While I am not acquainted with every demographic among the ESPN audience, I can say this. No one I know likes Jim Rome. The only segment of the viewing audience to which he seems to appeal is the phony tough, crazy brave frat guy, would be frat guy, future frat guy and former frat guy. Jim Rome must be their lizard king, since he is as phony tough and crazy brave as they come.

Memo to Jim Rome: everybody knows you aren't tough. Even if the famous incident with Jim Everett were staged, you were still dribbled on the set of your own show by a guy you called Chris Evert. Memo to Jim Rome: calling T.O. "to" is not funny. Nor is it tough. Memo to Jim Rome: now that you can see this in print, maybe you'll realize how ridiculous it is and give the "memo to" expression the rest it so richly deserves.

Can any body honestly tell me that one of the ESPN sideline reporters like Suzy Kolber, Michelle Tafoya, Lisa Salters or Erin Andrews couldn't do a better job? After all, Pam Ward does the play-by-play on ESPN college football telecasts, and she does as well as most of her male counterparts (not that that is a compliment, necessarily). Any one of the women I mentioned above would probably do very well as a talk show host. They would certainly be less abrasive, which is Jim Rome's one skill.

ESPN needn't fear losing the audience segment described above, they would watch the show merely because an attractive woman hosted it. For those who think advocating the termination of the show Rome is Burning is not a constructive suggestion, watch the show and tell me that the nation would not be better off if that tool were off the air.

It's been a while since I last posted. For that, I apologize. I also apologize for the rambling diatribe. If you couldn't guess from the hour or the incoherence, I was intoxicated when I wrote it. I can't promise that I won't do that again, but I'll try to make a bit more sense tonight.

At times, I intend to devote some space to a few other topics that bother me almost as much as the Red Sox. Tonight that topic is the current Celtics front office. For a long time, I considered myself a Celtics fan. I suffered through the Michael Smith era (the guy the Cs drafted from BYU, not Donovan McNabb's mouthpiece on ESPN). I wish I could forget Acie Earl and Dino Radja and a bunch of other stiffs that came into the Fleet Center and ruined professional basketball for a generation of New Englanders.

Just when I was getting ready to give up on the Celtics, they drafted Antoine Walker. For some reason, I really liked him. Maybe it was because the fans and the media didn't understand him. He was brash, it took him a few years to appreciate the value of an intense off-season workout program, he took too many wild shots, he complained to officials and he had the Walker Wiggle. He was criticized in the press and booed by the fans. But I liked him. I always have. I'm rooting for Miami now, because he's there and he's contributing.

I imagine that a lot of the reason I liked him had to do with the fact that the fans and the media didn't like him. I rarely see eye to eye with local fans (hence the title and stated purpose of this blog). Even less frequently do I find any thing of value in the local sports media. Sports writers strike me as lazy bullies. Just look at the CHB and his fixation on the curse, his inevitable and insufferable references to New England's Puritan past and the fact that every year he finds himself out of ideas and decides to attack some member of the local sports scene for no real reason. Two prime examples are Carl Everett (for his unusual religious views) and Manny (for not hustling enough).

Proof that the CHB is lazy could be found on Jim Rome is Burning, if you can watch the show with a straight face. I have a hard time forgetting that time the Rams QB dribbled ESPN's "hard edged" sports commentator, but that's just me. Recently, just prior to the Final Four, the CHB appeared on that show and took issue with those who called Glenn Davis "Baby Shaq." According to the CHB, Antoine Walker was a much more suitable analog because they're both 6-9, neither can jump and they both take 3s.

Outside of the fact that Big Baby's size and strength are much greater than Toine's, one should not lose sight of the fact that the 3 Davis hit in the Elite Eight was the 4th he'd hit all season. Then again I might be asking too much of a man who once devoted a column published in a major market newspaper to the fact that he runs a mile every day when I think he should know what he's talking about before he opens his mouth.

But I digress. I bring up Antoine Walker because he is the centerpiece of the case against Danny Ainge. When Ainge took over, he unloaded several of the players who were instrumental in the team's back to back playoff appearances (which included a trip to the conference finals). Fans were told that the team was at a crossroads. Management could keep the team intact and maybe add a piece or two to stay in playoff contention without seriously competing for a title. Or management could unload some of the players and try to build for the future. They chose the latter course.

Antoine Walker was sent to Dallas, along with Tony Delk, for what has amounted to very little in return. Jiri Welsch seems to have been a big part of Ainge's plans. I infer this from the fact that Jiri wore number 44 in his brief (but not brief enough) tenure with the Green. A more cynical mind than mine might speculate that Ainge brought in a swingman of middling skills and gave him the number which Danny wore in better days because it was as close as the new regime dared come to placing his own number up in the sanctum sanctorum, the Garden rafters. You must make that choice for yourself.

As far as Danny's stated purpose (to build an NBA champion) is concerned, I need only point to his results. Three seasons, no O'Brien Trophy. One playoff appearance. And that came last season when he reacquired Antoine Walker from the Atlanta Hawks at the trading deadline. This season, Antoine left for Miami. Miami is in the playoffs. The Celtics are not. They collapsed down the stretch, and left their fans wondering whether their young players will develop their potential or not.

To be fair, Danny Ainge did help build a champion, although I don't think he got credit for it. He involved the Celtics in a three team trade which sent Rasheed Wallace to Detroit in the 2003-2004 season. For compensation, the Cs got Chucky Atkins, Detroit's first round pick and the rights to Lindsey Hunter. The Cs did manage to get rid of Chris Mills (why they ever got him, I'll never know) and Mike James. When I think of Ainge's role in that trade, I'm left wondering whether Detroit gave him a ring for his trouble. I also wonder whether you could find a sap like Ainge without drilling a hole in a tree.