For a little while, I found myself wondering whether I had been a bit unfair in my diatribe against the state of Connecticut. However, it is with a clear conscience and a wish that I could add even more unpleasant things to what I said earlier that I sit down to write this post tonight. You see, today I found myself driving through Connecticut and stuck in a traffic jam because for some reason, the right hand lane of I-95 North had to be closed so that the grass on the shoulder could be manicured with a weed whacker.

Now of all the days to do this, a Friday in the summer seems like an extremely poor choice. Perhaps no one alerted the powers-that-be in the CT Highway Department, but people like to flee NYC for summer destinations on Friday at noon. So closing off a lane of traffic so that a guy could trim the grass is not tremendously cool. Especially since that artificial traffic jam south of New Haven at noon puts people heading for Boston, the Cape or points north in pole position to hit traffic coming through Providence and then again as they get closer to their ultimate goal.

Of course I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that the Massachusetts transportation bureaucrats managed to turn the terrible tragedy of the manhole cover on 128 North into a traffic catastrophe of epic proportions today. But to be fair to MA, that was an unforeseen event that called for an immediate reaction and not a poor decision by a bureaucrat.

But there are other things to talk about tonight. We have one more feud where it seems impossible to take a side. Barry Bonds didn't like the Bob Costas show about him, so he called Costas a midget. Costas shot back that he may be all of 5-6 and 150, but he came by that physique naturally. Personally, I think some kind soul out to play the scene from Full Metal Jacket where the Drill Sergeant has unkind words for the Texan who tried to exaggerate his height for Mr. Costas, but that's just me.

I don't like feuds like this because they put me in a position of choosing between two people that I can't abide. In this instance, I think I have to be with Bonds because I hate Costas even more than I hate Bonds. Costas is a whiny midget and a jock-sniff who desperately tries to bring gravitas to the stories he covers. Unfortunately for him, pipsqueaks can't bring gravitas to much of anything. Thanks, though, for carrying your Mickey Mantle card in your wallet for so many years. That gives you street cred...

In other news, we can leave off worrying about the surging New York Yankees. Curt Schilling was phenomenal in his second rehab start. The season is once again over. One good thing about the return of Big Schill is that we now have a ballpark date for when the World of Warcraft craze will end. 38 Studios comes out with their own game along that line (but allegedly much better) sometime in 2010. So America's fascination with these games will end sometime about a week before the 38 Studios title hits the shelves.

I thought it was mighty decent of the Globe to throw the picture of Schilling's image as Everquest character on the front page of the business section. Since he's been on the DL, I've had very few opportunities to criticize Humpty Dumpty. But seeing his animated likeness in a suit of red armor, that's like a gift from Heaven. You didn't hear it from me, but rumor has it he chose Everquest over World of Warcraft because his online persona lives in mortal fear of our old friend Leeroy Jenkins and his penchant for leading unsuspecting gamers into ambushes.

Finally, tonight marks an auspicious night for the performing arts in the Greater Boston Area. Not in the 377 years since the Puritans settled Boston has one night seen such cultural significance as tonight, and maybe tomorrow. Two acts of tremendous eminence will grace stages in our city and we can tell our grandchildren we lived to see it.

In case you can't tell, I am unimpressed with the two showstoppers playing the Tweeter Center and the House that John Henry uses to shake down New England. I am so unimpressed that I am having a hard time determining which show impresses me the least. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have to say Kenny Chesney, as he basically ripped off his entire musical persona from Jimmy Buffet (whom I do not particularly like, as I don't smoke dope and prefer beer to tropical drinks) without the redeeming quality of having received a beating from the real life inspiration for the sheriff from Walking Tall (as Buffet did).

But the Police are impressing me less than Kenny Chesney at the moment. First, they were never that good, not even in the 1980s. Their hits are vastly overrated. Roxanne isn't good, it's annoying. Every Breath You Take was actually improved by Puff Daddy when he covered it. Take a minute to let that sink in. That's how bad the song was. A notorious cheese ball like Puff Daddy made the song better.

But since the Police had the good manners to have a controversial break up and flirt with this reunion tour for the last 20 years, people forget just how pathetic they were. Let's not forget, either, that Sting was in Dune. It's like the John Cougar Mellencamp comeback all over again. These frauds stay away for so long that people forget how bad they were, then people realize they like the political stances the artists have taken and next thing you know, the inherent artistic deficiencies are dismissed and we have this comeback.

Without a doubt, what bothered me the most about this Police appearance at Fenway is the fact that all of a sudden tickets for the previously sold out shows all of a sudden went on sale again 10 days ago. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I can't shake the feeling that something underhanded is going on here. I don't buy the cover story that due to a change in the positioning of the stage more seats suddenly became available. I think the shows weren't selling out, so they pulled back some tickets and trumped up this little gimmick to add a sense of surprise and urgency to unload tickets at the last minute.

That bothers me to no end. I can't really fault the Red Sox or the promoter who came up with that little scheme. It's a nice one, after all. If Red Sox fans weren't sheep, the team ownership would have a lot of trouble shearing them. But Red Sox fans are sheep, so management can manipulate them and shake them down as they see fit.

If you've been reading this space regularly, I think you probably know that I hate Barry Bonds by now. And if you haven't, then I guess I ruined the surprise. But every once in a great while, a writer of such talent, perspicacity and eloquence comes along and makes me think for a fleeting moment that I ought to reconsider my opinion of the man who will hold the MLB record for most home runs hit over the course of a career any day now.

Tonight, that writer is Jay Mariotti. I know I spend a great deal of time in a blog that is supposed to be about my hatred for the Boston Red Sox ripping a "man" who writes for a newspaper 1,000 miles from Boston. Sometimes I almost feel badly about it, but then I read his columns and I grieve for Chicago. Mariotti's recent piece that comes dangerously close to being about something but degenerates into an incoherent rant about Bonds is more a cry for help than anything else.

I know I'm no stranger to an incoherent rant in this blog. But I'm generally drunk when I post jibberish, and I usually apologize for it. Also, this site is free. I don't get paid for it. I don't have any ads to click. So I think I have the right to criticize people who are paid handsomely to do a job and who are covered by an editing staff yet somehow manage to submit disgusting mishmashes of sentence fragments and run-ons for profit.

I wonder why an organization like NOW hasn't noticed that Mariotti is as capable of sexism as any figure they've protested recently. If I started a post with a line like: "Swollen ankles? What is he, pregnant?," I imagine I would get some nasty comments back, but Mariotti's piece was published in a big city daily. Where was the righteous indignation?

What worries me is that Cubs fans are signing petitions and hoping that Mark Cuban wins the bidding process for ownership of the team. You know how I know that Mark Cuban isn't the answer to the Cubs' problems? Jay Mariotti thinks it would be great if Mark Cuban bought the Cubs.

Considering the fact that the Mavericks have not only won every NBA title since Mark Cuban purchased the team but have managed to scrape together 3 Super Bowls, 4 Stanley Cups (they might have had the 5th if not for the lockout) and a runner-up finish in the English Premier League, Cuban will bring 5 or 6 World Series championships to Chicago from jump street. Or maybe I'm the one that thinks an epic collapse in an NBA Finals and a quick exit at the hand of the eight seed the following year isn't much of a resume. Cuban is a shameless self-promoter, not a winner.

Yes, Mariotti loves Cuban now. Just wait until that day when the Benefactor brings his act to Chicago. Mariotti will be the first guy to rip him for acting like a spoiled 3 year old when the Cubs end up on the business end of a close call. Or wait until Cuban can't get into a nightclub and acts like one of the princesses from My Super Sweet 16 when she finds out that Cindy down the block is having a more expensive party.

That's probably why Mariotti wants Cuban to buy the Cubs. That means at least 15 columns a year without any thought on the part of the writer. That's like catnip to a writer of Mariotti's eminence. I don't think a writer owes it to a city to root for its teams, but I do think I writer owes it to himself to be honest about his motives.

I really wish I didn't have to keep saying the same things over and over again, but Cuban can't be allowed to purchase the Cubs. Plus I'm sure John Henry is in favor of Cuban buying a franchise. That way there will be at least one owner who is a bigger tool than Henry with his quaint little Howard Hughes mania for cleanliness. I couldn't begin to think of an executive who would be a bigger waste of oxygen than Larry Lucchino, so I don't know who Cuban's right-hand man will be.

This story arc is taking the jam out of my doughnut, and that's not cool. The Red Sox lost again to the Royals, dropping two out of three to KC. And the Yanks beat Toronto, picking up yet one more game. I should be much happier than I am.

On the plus side, Dave Chapelle said his recent trip to the ER was due to exhaustion. Perhaps it's not as easy to bear the burden of being one-fifteenth as funny as you think you are as I thought. I'm not going to lie, I did like the first two seasons of his show on Comedy Central. And I didn't care one way or the other when he left the way he did. It was his business.

But when I saw him on Inside the Actor's Studio, that was it for me. For a guy whose credits are very meager, Dave Chapelle is an arrogant, obxious dude. My first problem is that there was no mention of the very prominent role Dave Chapelle played in Robin Hood Men in Tights. And the complaints that the studio turned Half Baked into a weed movie for kids didn't sway me. Even if it were the Citizen Kane of weed movies before the studio bastardized it for mass consumption, that doesn't mean the movie deserved to exist in its own right. If you don't want your movie to be altered, don't sell it.

So it's been a few days since my last post. I must confess, I haven't bothered to watch any of the NBA Finals. I've resigned myself to the Spurs winning it all, again. But that doesn't mean I have to watch it unfold. The NBA is rapidly becoming dead to me. LeBron is the only guy on either team that can play above the rim and play the game at the same time. The only other thing remotely interesting about this series is the fact that Tony Parker is about to marry an incredibly beautiful woman. Since that is all the NBA Finals have going, I have better things to do.

I wonder now, how Red Sox fans feel about their team. Roger Clemens is back with the Yankees. All of a sudden, the Bronx Bombers aren't bombing any more, at least not in the sense that had Red Sox Nation revelling not so long ago. I take it you remember those days, when the lead was 14 and 1/2 games. Now it's down to 9 and 1/2. And there are a whole lot of games left to be played.

Today, following Randy Johnson's solid outing, I find myself wondering if there is a little trouble brewing in paradise. Timlin did not look very good in his return to the big club. The trouble is, the Sox get a chance to bounce back from a stretch where they lost 5 games out of 7 against two playoff teams from a year ago. First they had the three game set with the Diamondbacks, and now they come home to play the Rockies and the Giants. Let's face it, neither of those teams are particularly good.

The worst part of the Giants series is that I will be forced to root against both teams. There is a maddeningly little conundrum for you, rooting against two teams one of whom is almost assured to win barring some sort of cataclysm like a meteor hitting the stadium. That might not be so bad, but for the fact that if a meteor hits Fenway, I'm pretty sure that it's not going to end well for me. I'm no astrophysicist, or any kind of physicist for that matter, but I'm willing to bet that I'd be in a world of hurt in that scenario.

I just can't root for Barry Bonds, at least not until someone tells me how he became the only power hitter to age like wine without turning into vinegar. I'm also not sure how he managed to develop shin splints at his age. I thought that was a malady that affected teenagers going through puberty, but then I'm not a doctor in addition to not being any kind of physicist. I just don't like Barry Bonds, and I never will.

Every now and then, I notice something and wonder if I'm the only person in the world that reacts to it in a certain way. Today it's the trouble I see brewing in paradise. Buried in the middle of Gordon Edes' Red Sox Notebook column in the Globe, there is this comment from Julian Tavarez: "Tavarez revealed he has been pitching with a blister on the middle finger of his pitching hand. "[Josh ] Beckett would be on the DL with this,"." It seems frightfully rude of him to say a thing like that.

In certain circles, one would consider that throwing a teammate under the bus. If Terrell Owens dared say a thing like that, villagers would be chasing him down with torches and pitchforks. Or failing that, every sports writer with a deadline and more paunch than brains would be after him as though he'd sold poisoned milk to school children. Maybe Tavarez is free to say what he pleases about whom he pleases when he pleases because he's the only guy in the organization that can talk to Manny Ramirez.

Part of the reason that Tavarez has not been called on the carpet for his comment about Beckett has to stem from the fact that the organization and the fans are unusually slow-witted. No one in Red Sox Nation will even grasp the meaning of the blister comments for another two or three news cycles. So if the team plays well, it will all blow over. But if they keep giving games back to the Yankees and the atmosphere around the team turns negative, this is a story that could come back to haunt them. Give them another run like they had against NY and Oakland and the CHB will be on this like noxious odor on horse manure.

I meant to do this last week, but other matters intruded. In the past, I have been critical of Bill Simmons. That was before I realized that the Sports Guy is tough. Consider the way he laid the smack down on a Cavaliers beat writer who dared blaspheme against the mighty Simmons. Maybe I'm wrong, but that segment of his blog post had to be the online journalistic equivalent of the studio boss waking up to the horse's head in his bed. You simply don't trifle with Bill Simmons.

I really don't care if the writer from Cleveland criticized Simmons fairly or unfairly. Whatever claim to sympathy the Sports Guy might have had went out the window when he threw the coy little reference to the fact that he makes considerably more money than the beat writer in question. There was a time when Simmons was writing on high school sports for the Boston Herald as long as he could fit that into his schedule between shining Michael Gee's shoes with his face and serving as Steve Buckley's human footstool.

I couldn't help but chuckle at this little gem: "Bottom line: If you're going to rip another writer, make sure you've actually read the guy first." When did Bill Simmons become Stone Cold Steve Austin? Where did he acquire the right to set the bottom line in any question? At the risk of transgressing my new rule about people with no right to set the bottom line setting the bottom line, I have a bottom line for Simmons. He's a bully. And a fraud.

He has no problem ripping Art Shell. Or Isiah Thomas. But Heaven forbid that some minnow should dare think that turnabout is fair play and that mean things can be said about Bill Simmons. If one can say or write harsh words about another person, then one ought to be able to take a little bit from another person. Alas, lessons like that must not be taught on the mean streets of suburban Connecticut.

I must apologize for my long silence. I had some personal business which occupied my time for a few days and I had some travelling I had to do. I really hate flying, so I wasn't in much of a frame of mind to post. The problem with the long delay, beyond the fact that it puts a dent in the slowly increasing stream of visitors to my site, is that I have a few topics I need to cover in a hurry before they get too stale.

First, toward the end of last week, an unnamed source close to Ron Mexico informed a Sports Illustrated writer that the embattled Falcons quarterback (my three word effort at conventional sports journalism) almost certainly knew of the dog fighting ring that allegedly operated out of a Virgina house owned by Michael Vick and inhabited by some of his relatives. This story has been covered thoroughly, but I have to discuss it because it's been bothering me.

I have never understood the rationale that allows sportswriters to cite unnamed sources. Investigative reporters like Woodward and Bernstein need to use unnamed sources because they break important stories which could result in death or serious injury for the whistle-blowers who leak key information. Sports journalists use unnamed sources to carp at athletes, coaches, team executives and owners with immunity for both source and writer with little or no reason to fear anything more than an ass kicking.

Journalists who cover sports aren't breaking stories that will cause the planet to spin off its axis, literally or metaphorically. Even Game of Shadows was little more than a series of leaks from grand jury testimony that did not conclusively prove what 99.9% of sports fans suspected about Barry Bonds in the first place. I have long suspected, with neither the access or to be honest the inclination to ferret out the cold hard truth, that those who use unnamed sources in their coverage of a team or a player are simply protecting a good man for a sound byte because said source makes their jobs easier. To wrap that up in a mantle of journalistic ethics fails to impress me.

But long story short, back to the Ron Mexico story. Don Banks, the SI writer in question, has an unnamed source who has the dirt on the nature of Vick's association with a family member who allegedly ran a dog fighting ring out of the notorious Virginia home and on the nature of Vick's relationship to Falcons owner Arthur Blank. The writer claims that the multiple sources whom he consulted in writing his piece on Michael Vick had to remain anonymous because of their close relationship with him. Perhaps you are willing to accept this, but I am not.

Reviewing the small segments of quotations from these sources provided by Banks, I just don't believe that they came from a member of Vick's inner circle. I know next to nothing about Vick's entourage, but I bet there are very few (if any) guys in his crew who make a habit of using words like affinity. It just doesn't strike me as a word that makes the rounds of those connected to the dog fighting subculture (another choice phrase from the Banks article).

The sources go on to talk about Vick's posse and circle of friends being a part (if not all) of the problem. My question here is simple - if Vick's posse surround him at all times, who is telling Don Banks about his affinity for barbaric sports best left in the medieval period? Sources go on to say (it was unclear whether these were the same unnamed informants or a whole new crop) that Arthur Blank and his wife coddle Vick and let him get away with murder.

Not being a journalist, I can indulge in all sorts of wild speculation. When I first heard the quotes from the article on ESPN, I was no more convinced of the authenticity of the source close to Vick than I am now. For some reason, I got to thinking that it could have been a guy like Jim Mora (Sr. or Jr.) or Greg Knapp who made the comments to Banks.

There is no easy way to prove that either Knapp or Mora made the comments. It would make sense for either one to stay anonymous if they had any hope of landing another coaching gig in the NFL but still wanted to air some grievances against Vick or Blank or both. I couldn't find any smoking gun to that effect, however (this was about as close as I could come).

Even with a 21-10 start and Josh Beckett pitching very well for the moment, there just might be a little trouble in Paradise. And it's brewing over something of marginal importance at best. Curt Schilling and David Ortiz have found themselves on the opposite sides of the Barry Bonds question. The real question is why are they talking about Bonds when they don't play the Giants for weeks?

To be fair, Schilling was responding to a question asked while he was appearing on Dennis and Callahan when he made his comments about Bonds. It probably would have been better had he no commented, though. Why give your opponent bulletin board material? Why take attention away from important stories like Josh Beckett preparing to fall back to Earth any day now?

Schilling is right that this whole thing has nothing to do with race, at least for the vast majority of fans. What people seem to ignore when they try to make this an issue of race raised is the Barry Bonds is an African-American chasing another African-American's career home run record. This is an issue of a guy who spent 20 years alienating people wanting them to embrace him now as he rides off into the sunset.

The real problem with Barry Bonds is that he spent his entire professional life being a douche. He isn't a good guy, he's been abrasive with fans and media. He has not honestly and genuinely addressed the steroid issue. He hasn't even had the good manners to come out and lie to us. At the end of the day, most people think he doesn't deserve his record because one cannot explain why he looks so much different now than he did when he came up with the Pirates.

Roger Clemens came into the league around the same time Bonds did, give or take two years. Clemens is now bigger than he was at twenty, but it doesn't seem unnatural. Who maintains the same weight into their mid-40s as they did when they were twenty? Barry Bonds came up as a leadoff hitter. Life may begin at forty if you're a menopausal baby-boomer, but even with advances in nutrition, weight training and medical care, life doesn't begin at forty for a baseball player.

Far more interesting were the comments made by David Ortiz in support of Barry Bonds. David Ortiz must know that this could be the last mistake he ever makes. You just don't disagree with Schilling. That's how people end up having to pay a clubhouse attendant to start their cars. It's like trying to kill the don in a Godfather movie.

I found it odd that Ortiz admitted that he may have taken steroids unwittingly with very little prodding. It seems like the sign of a guilty conscience. Maybe that and not the inspired tutelage of former hitting coach Ron Jackson is the real secret of how he went from a marginal player on a marginal team in Minnesota to the most feared left handed hitter in New England in the span of a year. Maybe Theo isn't quite the genius we thought. I guess it explains why Jackson was expendable in the purge of the staff following last season's collapse.

Over the course of this blog's history, I have not had many occasions to compliment Schilling very much. But, as the cliche goes there is a first time for everything. So tonight, I think I ought to congratulate Schilling for saying that he won't bean Bonds. After all, I have criticized the team for its penchant for sending messages by beaning opposing hitters.

So I salute Schilling for that particular comment. I like the idea of a pitcher matching his skill against the batter's hitting prowess. It seems to me that when you get right down to it, that's the object of the exercise. I like to see a strong power pitcher throw his best stuff up against the best hitters in the game. Schilling is proud, maybe too proud, but a proud pitcher ought to challenge a guy like Bonds.

Red Sox fans ought to be ashamed if they're afraid to have what they deem to be the best pitching staff in baseball pitch to Bonds. And if they really want to admire the pitchers for whom they cheer, shouldn't they want to see those pitchers deflate Bonds' massive ego? At the very least they ought to think twice before they puff out their chests with pride in a team that has to bean the best hitter on an opposing team to win games.

PS - I don't think that Bonds has actually lied about steroids. I think that nonsense about flaxseed oil and arthitic balm is more a half truth than a lie. I'd have much more respect for him if he came out and said: "Hell no, I never took steroids."

Even if you've been living under a rock lately, you have likely heard that the NFL is preparing to implement a three strikes personal conduct policy for its players. Many people have been wondering exactly what will count as a strike under the terms of this policy, which is still very much in the preliminary stages of development. Unlike most of the disciplinary reforms in the NBA and MLB (dress code and new drug policies), this new conduct reform initiative was not suggested by the league office, but by a group of players.

Even though a panel of NFL players presented the idea to the league, I think it's a bad idea. It bothers me because it seems like an artificial reaction. I'm not convinced that these players particularly care about standards of behavior as much as they care about getting press exposure. I also think that they're overreacting to the problem, just like the NBA overreacted to the Artest incident in Detroit. For the life of me, I don't see how a new dress code for a group of overpaid athletes is going to change the culture of the NBA.

The panel of players include such luminaries as TJ Houshmanzadeh, Troy Vincent, Steve Smith, LenDale White, DeAngelo Hall, Jeff Saturday, Ernie Conwell, Jason Witten, Ken Hamlin and Kevin Carter. That doesn't exactly read like who's who of people to trust with anything of importance. LenDale White fell to the second round of last season's draft because scouts were concerned he gained too much weight and used a trumped up hamstring injury to avoid the predraft workouts.

Then there's DeAngelo Hall. As TO's last fan, I can't stand Hall. He is a shameless fraud of a cornerback who's reputation is built on the back of two high profile games. First, on the Monday Night Football opener in 2005 he held TO to 112 yards receiving and kept him out of the end zone. Earlier this season, Hall shut down Chad Johnson. And his wikipedia page reads like a bad middle school book report.

But I think we'll remember Hall as the man who took a courageous stand against TO for the infamous spitting incident this season. A lesser man would have gone after TO on the field, incurring a 15 yard penalty at the least and probably an ejection. A smarter man would have confronted TO after the fact to kick his ass (make no mistake about it, spitting in somebody's face merits a whooping). But it takes a true tough guy to cry and whine to new commissioner Roger Goddell. Unfortunately for Hall, and the country as a whole, the league refused to step in to fight this battle.

As for the heart of the issue, I am not convinced that a one size fits all personal conduct policy is the answer to the league's problem. The Bengals off field issues were an embarrassment to the team and to the league, but were they the worst thing that has ever happened to the Queen City? 9 professional football players were arrested over the course of a year. It's not like they were part of a COBRA plot to conquer Cincinnati by selling poisoned milk to school children.

What worries me is the fact that this policy is reactive rather than proactive. The league is slightly embarrassed. Columnists and talking heads across the country can bury us with the woe is the sports world routine, and God knows they have. Which brings us to this point. These situations ought to be handled on a case by case basis. The NFL has survived for over 80 years without a personal conduct policy. I think this will end up doing more harm than good, especially if they rush it into effect.

In the end, what do the arrests and incidents mean for the overall health of the league? Everybody has been told to be afraid lest the NFL lose fans because a small handful of its players are out of control. Maybe I'm a bad person, but if 9 or 90 Cincinnati Bengals or Seattle Seahawks or Barcelona Dragons run afoul of the law, I'll still watch all the football I can. I doubt very highly that the average fan will leave the league either.

If you don't believe me, just look at the disaster area that is the sports world at the moment. NFL Live still holds the 4:00 time slot on ESPN. The entire NBA season might just have gone up in smoke with the injury to D-Wade. A possible second half run by the Miami Heat was the second biggest story of All Star Weekend, right behind Barkley vs. Bavetta. We're so starved for sports that Daisuke Matsuzaka bedazzling some Red Sox farmhands was a national story. So the NFL isn't losing any prestige over this situation.

They ought to reconsider the 3 strikes policy. I don't see why the new commissioner simply can't review the roster for the Pro Bowl and postseason awards and say player X was suspended for offense Y, QED he's not eligible for the honors in question. Or if we can't trust one man with this grave responsibility, I'm sure an ad hoc committee of coaches or GMs could do it. If we want everything to be decided to the most exacting standard of probity with a minimum of personal rancour and self aggrandisement, I'm sure Jay Mariotti or Dan Shaughnessy could be coaxed from the ivory tower.

On another note, America is not rallying around the underdog the way it ought. Barry Bonds is receiving death threats again. At this point, I just don't care anymore. He's almost certainly going to break the home run record with the least amount of class and dignity conceivable. No one believes the this is legitimate except Barry. No one seems to like him except Barry. And it's his fault. It seems like every time he had a chance to do something nice, or cool, or human he's gone the other way. So he'll get no sympathy from me, which is strange since I usually regard widespread dislike as a credit to a person rather than a demerit.

And so it seems that Barry Bonds has tested positive for a banned substance.

Spoiler alert: There will be no links for the Barry Bonds section. Every single person in America has said more or less the same thing about him, so all you have to do is sit still for five seconds and a story or two or ten will find you. Yes, it's not really a spoiler alert, but I didn't want to postscript it either.

The only surprise is that he allegedly tested positive for amphetamines and not steroids. The real tragedy here isn't that he'll break Hank Aaron's record while looking like a total fraud. The real tragedy is that he has given the media one more chance to react like the Claude Rains character from Casablanca during the famous scene where, in his capacity as prefect of police, he shuts down Rick's for gambling an instant before the croupier hands him his winnings.

99.9% of Americans believe Barry cheated, but what can you do? Unlike everybody else who has taken an image hit in the fallout from the Grand Steroid Conspiracy, Barry Bonds was always a dick. I'm sorry about violating the policy against obscenity I've had since jump street (but on the plus side I got to use jump street, I've been trying to work that in for a while now), but even in my vast vocabulary of insult and invective, there is no other word that can encapsulate my distaste as brutally and succinctly.

This is a guy who went to a judge and asked for a reduction in his child support payments during the player's strike of 1994. I imagine he was paying a monstrous sum, and maybe it was hard for him to cover it with his other expenses. That's life. Many other people have to deal with the same type of problem, but they might not have the luxury of economizing the way a very wealthy man who plays a professional sport can. Maybe he could have gone without creatine for a month or two, until he got back on his feet. Better that than going into court with his hat in his hand to cry poor mouth.

I must say I enjoy his explanation of past conduct. Poor Barry did not know that the substance he thought to be flax seed oil was a banned performance enhancer. Amazing. I should go out and do something illegal and plead ignorance. I wonder how far that would get me. "Sorry, officer. I didn't know it was illegal to jump a stolen car into a school like I was driving the General Lee on the Dukes of Hazzard." I think if I did that, I'll probably do a fair bit of time in a government facility, even if I said I didn't know it was illegal. But Barry Bonds can't be constrained by mortal bonds like laws and rules.

Then there are those who loathe Barry less than I, who rationalized his conduct by saying: "He saw what cheating did for McGwire and Sosa. Of course he was going to do the same thing." Is that so? What if he saw McGwire jump off a bridge? Should Barry do that too? Obviously, it's too much to ask for a person with wealth and fame to be held responsible for their actions.

I have oversimplified things to this point. I don't think athletes should be treated like Caesar's wife, and be expected to be above reproach in all matters. I have defended Terrell Owens in this space, and will continue to do so, even though he proves himself unworthy of it from time to time. But a smart athlete tries to stay as squeaky clean as possible. Look at D Wade or Lebron or Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. They make millions of dollars in endorsements because they make it very hard for people to hate them (I do not hate Wade or King James, but I have the strength to hate Brady and Manning). Imagine how much more money Barry could have made if he'd stayed off the roids and been a nicer guy.

Of course every reporter and his brother were scandalized by Barry's claim that he took the pills from a teammate's locker. I wasn't surprised. He is, as I said, a dick. That is what dicks do. The better question is what manner of man goes into another person's stuff and starts taking his pills? Is Barry psychologically compelled to just grab bottles of pills and start cannonballing them? Does it justify taking a banned substance to say that they belonged to some other person? What a world.

But enough about Bonds. The NFL playoffs are in full swing. And even though I got to thinking that it was time to lay off the Sports Guy for a while, he just keeps right on being a tool. He has presented the Little Big Horn award to Herman Edwards for steadfastly running LJ into 8 man fronts. I must confess that I am no fan of Herman Edwards as a game coach, but he has one thing going for him that Bill Simmons doesn't. Herman played the game.

As Bill Simmons astutely notes, an eight man front means one-on-one coverage on the outside receivers. With the vast experience gleaned from years of playing Madden football on various video game consoles, Simmons thinks that it would have made sense to throw the ball to wide receivers covered by one man rather than run the ball into the teeth of a defense expecting the run. It does seem logical. Then again, on paper the Spanish Armada wins any day of the week (but not twice on Sunday). That's the problem with things that seem logical on paper, in the real world strange things can happen.

For instance, you could be playing a team with defensive ends who are considerably quicker than any of your blockers, even if you chipped with a back or max-protected (I'm not sure about the hyphen, but I think it looks better) with two tight ends. Your options at quarterback could be a very shaky Trent Green, Damon Huard who showed some potential but not enough to inspire confidence and untested rookie Brody Croyle. Your wide receivers could be past their what can only charitably called primes making one-on-one coverage a situation where you are vastly outnumbered by an Indianapolis defensive back from a very average secondary. Do you still want to pass?

Maybe Arizona could hire Simmons as their coach. Why not? No matter whom they hire to replace Dennis Green, that organization is almost assuredly about to squander the incredible potential of Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin and Matt Leinart. The least team management can do is to give the rest of the country a few laughs in the process.

Hell, I'm available. As a former second string high school lineman, I have no illusions of being able to command a team's respect. Nor do I have a wealth of practical knowledge, or relevant experience for that matter. But I guarantee my press conferences will be entertaining and memorable, more in the manner Ozzie Guillen or Parcells in the day. If there is a "They are what we thought they were" moment, it won't be so repetitive, even if it is as incoherent. I'll work for short money, too. I figure $1,000,000 is reasonable for a guy like me, so I want $2,000,000. And a decent severance package. Bill Bidwell, think about it.

To the Sports Guy's credit, I do agree with him 100% about Dante Hall, which is why I left the ex X factor's name out of the attack on KC's wideouts and decided to work that joke in here. But he has to give his man crush on Cris Collinsworth a rest. Collinsworth sucks as an announcer. He sucked as a pregame show talking head. He probably sucks at life in general. And on top of that, he called the game in Chicago on New Year's Eve dressed like he was auditioning for the Rex Harrison role in a remake of the Ghost and Mrs. Muir. I understand that if you held a gun to Simmons' head and asked him to admit honestly what athlete of the last 50 years he most resembled, he'd answer Collinsworth, but enough already.

It's time to wrap this up. So, in case you are wondering, if you held a gun to my head and asked me that same question. The answer is Art Donovan. I refuse to provide a link here. It's a damn shame, but he is quite simply the best professional football player to emerge from the fraudquarium that is Boston College ever. Period. End of list. Including Flutie, who won the Heisman, and the other Flutie and Hasselbeck, and the other Hasselbeck.

It's not my fault you (rhetorical, not specific to the unfortunate few who read this space) don't know NFL history. And it's a damn shame that a player that talented and a man that eloquent had to emerge from an institution I loathe, but that's life in the big city.

By the way, I only recently (as in the last week or so) realized how much I sound like O'Neil from Platoon's character from Scrubs. I did not watch the show until I read the interview he did for a recent American Airlines in flight magazine (no link, do your own leg work here, I will never link to an in flight magazine site). I will not give the character's name. I just started watching Scrubs, and I am still coming to terms with that fact.

I hate Zach Braff, and the character O'Neil from Platoon calls Barbie. But I like the janitor and the unpleasant old doctor. So I have a lot to try to understand as I go forward and watch the show. But I'm late for drinking time now.