In the past, I have found a few occasions to be delighted by strange, but pleasant events where the programming schedule of Turner Classic Movies presented neat parallels with a big defeat for the Boston Red Sox or the Cletics getting a bad draw in the NBA Draft Lottery. I guess sooner or later, I was bound to see an event like that shaping up and have it blow up in my face. I just wish it weren't tonight.

Turner Classic Movies showed the vastly underrated Cliff Robertson Michael Caine film Too Late the Hero. It looked like that would fit very nicely with Josh Beckett taking the hill and the Red Sox facing very long odds in this ALCS. However, Turner Classic Movies has been letting me down lately, with a month of biopics that haven't been all that good and a retrospective on star of the month Henry Fonda featuring Jane Fonda Peter Fonda used as a space filler between movies. I understand that they couldn't really do something like that and leave his kid's out of it, but I really hate Jane Fonda and Peter Fonda.

I also should have known something funny would happen, since In Harm's Way was on deck with Too Late the Hero on the air. In Harm's Way is a very vexing movie for me, since it has John Wayne and Kirk Douglas but also kind of sucks. It's a soap opera masquerading as a war movie. The scenes that dealt with the Solomon Islands campaign have the names of the islands replaced with fugazis as though it were one of those bad made for TV movie of the month "true crime" bits.

Come to think of it, that may have been the case since Admiral Ghormley may have been still alive and the incompetent admiral in In Harm's Way has a lot of his moves, and maybe a little of Admiral Fletcher who lost a lot more cruisers to Japanese forces than I would have thought possible without a court martial or at least a court of inquiry proceeding. But the two main problems with the film are these. First, Patricia Neal, John Wayne's love interest, was not a good looking woman. And most important of all, the movie is literally one hour too long.

I think Turner Classic Movies might have broken that curious, pleasant little power they had by showing the Jazz Singer. It's very rare that it's ever shown, and I always thought it was because of the black face scene. Now I am Caucasian and not as sensitive to that issue as some others might be. But I found one scene where there was a teenager dancing on a stage as though his feet were trapped in drying cement while he was being electrocuted and a piano player who looked as he had been unwittingly part of some half-assed undertaker's half-assed efforts at embalming played a piano with the most macabre attempt at a smile ever far more disturbing. Yikes.

And of course, Joe Torre rejected a one year $5 million contract offer from the New York Yankees today. To be sure, there were incentives in the deal which would, among other things, have triggered another year of employment had Torre accepted the deal and managed the team to a World Series appearance. So our long national nightmare is finally over, as is the 12 year run which saw 12 straight playoff appearances. Or perhaps, as a media frenzy the likes of which one rarely sees outside of election night in a Presidential year and a papal conclave will begin while the search for the next Yankee manager begins.

I am not sure how I feel about this situation. Not the end of the Torre era, per se, for once I was very clear about something when I wanted him fired. But I'm not sure this was the right way to do it. Plenty of people, I am sure are convinced that this was not the right way to do it. Buster Olney is one among many Torre apologists with a premise so nice he wrote it thrice, and while I know I ought to believe what he believes without reservation, I don't. Not even when Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports concurs.

Kevin Kennedy dazzled me by saying something perceptive about this situation. His take was that this deal let Joe Torre go out his way, with some measure of dignity. And in Kennedy's mind it was better than retaining Torre only to fire him unceremoniously should the Yankees stumble out of the gate next season. There is a strange method to his madness, or perhaps a even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time.

The problem is that there really was no way for the Yankees to resolve this situation whilst managing to be all things to all people. Based on his track record, as described by Buster Olney in a stunningly good piece for a change, of managing a very difficult assignment with quiet dignity, Joe Torre had so many friends and admirers in the media, particularly the national media, that the Yanks were going to catch hell for severing ties with Torre. Whether they fired him outright, or twisted his arm behind closed doors until Torre reached the point where he came out and quit, no one would believe that Steinbrenner didn't pull the trigger.

And as to whether the offer was disrespectful, how else could it have been done? This was as close to a win-win deal as could have been worked. If the deal had been good enough to accept and Torre took it, then the team would have been stuck with a nightmare situation of having to fire a very well-liked guy and changing horses in midstream next year. And they couldn't just call him in the office and boot him out the door, not after 12 years. But if he did take the deal, maybe it might have lit a fire under him and the team, which could have worked well in the end.

Torre had to go. Not to get any more biblical than I absolutely have to, but he was the guy from the Gospel parable of the talents (the ancient unit for measuring weight, particularly precious metals and not some ephemeral or ethereal skill for Red Sox fans). In the Gospel, a wealthy man gives three of his servants three different sums of money (talents of gold).

As the story goes, one guy invests and doubles his money. He gets to keep it when the master returns because he's so happy his servant did the right thing. The second guy doesn't generate quite as much in return for his initial sum, but he is also rewarded. The third guy digs a hole and buries his sum, so he presents it intact when the master returns. But he's also a jerk about it, so he complains about the master trying to reap where he didn't sow. The master gives him nothing.

To make a long story short, Joe Torre was given $1.2 billion dollars in talent (our sense, not the ancient sense) over the last seven seasons, and he might as well have buried it. A great many things happened, and some were beyond his control, to be fair. But at the end of the day, when George Steinbrenner opens his wallet, he wants a return on his investment. 12 straight playoff appearances isn't enough when the ultimate prizes eludes you for so long. To put it in perspective, Bill Clinton was the last President to host the Yankees at the White House. That's ancient history, if you're George Steinbrenner and it's your money.

Finally, I will conclude tonight with another installment of my impromptu series on the lower order organism that is the Cleveland Indians fan. Tonight, as I watched the game, I spotted a fat dude sporting a rally cap that stood out from the crowd for his vacuous appearance, which is in itself a feat I wouldn't have believed had I not seen it, what with the dismal view I have of the Clevelander's intelligence.

This tool wore a rally cap precariously perched on his massive noggin, which almost, but not quite drew attention away from his double chin. He also wore a terrible pair of glasses, which I initially mistook for Drew Carey glasses, probably because FOX insists on playing that shitty Cleveland Rocks song, which was a Drew Carey Show theme for a while. My friend the Cubs fan, however, shocked the world by noticing something I didn't for the first time in the last 5 years, and correctly identified the hideous glasses on his foolish fat face as Wild Thing glasses from Major League.

Oh yeah, the Red Sox managed to stave off elimination. I didn't want to say it, but I have to I guess.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there has been no change in the status of Joe Torre as Yankee manager today, but before I finally say what I have to say about that, I have some belated good news to relay. In case you missed it, Jimmy Kimmel has been banned from the Monday Night Football booth because of his conduct this week. I say belated, because we all would have been better off had ESPN banned him from the booth before he came on the air and acted like a jackass, and not after the fact.

I hate to be the one to break this to America, but Jimmy Kimmel isn't funny. He had a few moments on the Man Show, but the strength of that show was that little fat kid who was such a d bag. Unfortunately for Kimmel, kids can get away with that sort of behavior and old people can get away with it, but not average, every day people, they just end up looking like douches.

I don't know who told him it was a good idea to go on MNF and crack jokes about Joe Theisman, but he probably shouldn't have listened. First off, Theisman had the good grace to retire quietly and not cause a scene to remind every fan that, as bad as Theisman was, he was 1,000,000 times better than Tony Kornheiser. Second, it gave ESPN a convenient pretext for banning him when the real reason the World Wide Leader is upset at Kimmel has nothing to do with Theisman. The network is in a dither because Kimmel kept making mocking references to the size of the crowd and the theoretical size of the viewing audience for a game that wasn't tremedously compelling.

I suppose I shouldn't complain about the underlying hypocrisy, as it did punish Kimmel for a 15 minute appearance that felt like five years. He was dreadful. His timing was off, he had nothing worth saying and he acted like a little kid talking trash to someone who can't respond. Perhaps he is lashing out and feeling inadequate because Sarah Silverman is dazzling the world with the success of her dreadful show on Comedy Central, but his behavior was still uncalled for and will not be missed. I'm sure Comedy Central is lining up more bottom rung celebrities for roasts, so he won't have to waste his A material on small cable audiences for disappointing football games.

But back to Joe Torre. This extended seminar on his future in Tampa worries me. I want him fired. I must admit that I am not a Yankee fan, so I have no sentimental attachment to Torre from the championship years. I just want the Yankees to win as many games as possible because every good thing for the Bron Bombers is a bad thing for Red Sox Nation.

Torre has been in his current capacity for 12 years. That's a long time for any one to stay anywhere, especially in professional sports where constant change is the only constant. He has done some great things, never missing the playoffs and winning 6 pennants and 4 championships, but the Yankees haven't escaped from the first round of the playoffs since John Kerry liked what he saw in his polling numbers. That's ancient history in professional sports. By the way, I say escape the first round, because teams like the Yankees don't aspire to advance, they leave that to lesser mortals with 8 digit payrolls.

Since the Yankees last won the World Series, the Arizona Diamondbacks, Florida Marlins, Whatever We Feel Like Calling Ourselves Today Angels and some other disgraceful blight on the landscape team have all walked away with the trophy and beaten the Yanks while doing it. That's not exactly a who's who of baseball tradition there. Things have gotten stale in the Bronx.

It's gone from the Bronx Zoo to the damn Museum of Natural History before our eyes. Jeter, Rivera, Posada and even guys like Matsui have a lot more mileage on them than one would think based simply on their ages because of the number of playoff games they've played. It's more than an additional regular season because of the stress involved. Every at bat, every pitch, every ground ball is magnified because it could mean victory or elimination. It has to take a toll.

So the question then becomes: who replaces Torre? It's not an easy question because of all the factors involved. First, there's the fact that he's been there so long. Then there's the fact that it's the single most visible coaching job in pro sports. Then there's the fact that New York is full of savage and ignorant people. And on top of everything, there are 2 former managers with half decent resumes currently employed as coaches (Tony Pena and Larry Bowa). It's anybody's guess who takes the reins now should Torre get the gate.

I'm just guessing, but Bowa and Pena are probably out of the running. Bowa didn't do enough in Philly to make any one forget that his team turned on him as though he were Cpatain Bligh from Mutiny on the Bounty. Pena brought Kansas City as much success as it's had since George Brett and Saberhagen were there, but that's not good enough to appease New Yorkers or the media.

Don Mattingly is an intriguing candidate, but he has no credentials which would indicate that he can manage a professional baseball team. If I need a guy to play his heart out on an underachieving team, hit .340 with 20 HR and 100 RBI and it's 1987, Don Mattingly is definitely at the top of my list, but I'm not sure Donny Baseball is ready for this job.

Ron Guidry hasn't shown me enough as Yankee pitching coach to tell me he warrants a shot at managing in New York. Perhaps he may have been hamstrung by Torre's desire to see how many consecutive homers a rookie pitcher can allow in a national TV game before his confidence is irrevocably shattered, but I'm not sure Louisiana Lightning doesn't need to manage a second-tier team before he's ready for prime time.

There are a lot of candidates outside the organization who might be considered. There's always Lou Pinella, who might have to flee Chicago before Jay Mariotti runs him out of town as though he were Marshall Dillon from Gunsmoke. Or more likely before Mariotti challenges him to a fistfight, then threatens to sue when Pinella shows that even at age 68 he's more than up to kicking Mariotti's ass. Then again, if Mark Cuban buys the Cubs, perhaps Sweet Lou will want out of dodge before the Cubs become more of a national joke.

There are ex-managers hanging around all manner of broadcast booths who might be considered. Thankfully, the Reds snatched up Dusty Baker. I'm sure Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain must be thanking all sorts of divine beings that Baker and his determination to pitch every prospect he can get his hands on as though they could handle a workload to tire Cy Young and Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown to death won't be on the Yankees radar this offseason.

There's always Bob Brenley, and Brenley does have a ring. But is it just me, or does it seem like his Diamondbacks won the series a million years ago? Perhaps it's because the team was blown up and rebuilt to the point where none of his players was on this team that just lost the NLCS. And if the Yankees bring him in how will Cubs fans know what the wind is doing at each and every stadium during each and every inning?

I think that if Torre goes, and they can get him away from the booth, the logical choice as successor is Joe Girardi. He nearly won the NL wildcard in Florida last season before he was released from his contract due to a conflict with team owner Jeffery Laurie. He has a Yankee pedigree as a backup on the team that won it all in 1996 and bench coach for the team that lost it all in 2003. And God knows, he isn't a very good broadcaster. It could be win-win, if he does well managing and I don't have to see him calling games next summer.

And before I go, I just want to ask who at FOX sat down and said "I know what let's do. Let's get Jeanne Zelasko, Kevin Kennedy, Eric Karros and Joe Girardi and have them host a pregame show." It looks more and more like a very fortunate turn of events that the FOX NFL Sunday crew work well, know the game and entertain an audience. Karros has no business on TV, he's dreadful. And the four of them sit there and look like they don't want to spend a nanosecond longer than necessary together and have no desire to talk to one another. Now, if the job didn't seem to call for friendly banter, then they might have something there. Too bad for us a little chemistry goes a long way in a gig like that. Thanks FOX.

Ladies and gentlemen, as depressed as I am that the New York Yankees are no longer playing while the Boston Red Sox still linger on in these playoffs, I have a more pressing concern on my mind. In my understanding of the pass interference rules, a defender cannot cover a pass receiver by standing in his face and raising his arms. That seems to me to be the very definition of face guarding.

And yet that is exactly how Jabari Greer covered Terrell Owens in the end zone on the attempted two point conversion which would have tied the game. Of somewhat less importance, that two point conversion would have clinched the victory in my fantasy game this week. It also would have given Buffalo a chance to win their first home Monday Night Football game in 13 years.

Of course if Tony Romo had taken care of the football just once and spared me an interception or the fumble, I would have won and that two point conversion wouldn't have mattered for fantasy purposes. I would still be bent about it, as anything that adversely impacts Terrell Owens is anathema in Cincinnati Kid land. And no matter what happens, next Sunday when the Patriots go down to Dallas, Randy Moss will still be the second best #81 on the field. But I'll explain why I feel Dallas will win this game as the week progresses.

Before I leave aside the NFL for the week, I have two things to say. First, I jinxed Romo and Owens by taunting a close friend whose fantasy game had already been decided by 0.1 points in his opponent's favor. And finally, hopefully this kid Foulk nailing the 53 yard field goal even after that late timeout trick invented by Shanahan earlier this season wiped what we thought was the game winner off the bear will end the trend and the debate.

Other people will be more interested in whether, or perhaps when, Joe Torre posts his resume on Monster.com in the next few days. I felt it was time for a change last season after they got crushed by the Tigers. I just got the feeling as I watched him in the last couple of seasons that he looked tired. That he was managing this team as though it were 1998, and the last six or seven seasons hadn't happened.

The Yankees have an interesting blend of old players and prospects like Hughes, Cabrera and Chamberlain coming on strong. It just might be time for a change, not because Torre is a bad guy, not by a long shot, nor a bad manager. But he's been in one place so long, how could things not stagnate after so long.

Torre has had great success. Even though the Sox are still alive, and he's on his way out the door, it will be a very, very, very long time before any two Red Sox managers match that level of success for that long. It might even require a miracle with this ownership group in place. Hell, one could win 5 straight World Series in Boston and still get fired for wearing his shoes in the cabin of John Henry's yacht or failing to genuflect when the RemDawg walks in the door.

But what am I to do going forward? I don't really want to see these Indians win the title, but for the next few days, I'll root harder for the Indians than I feel comfortable doing. Because anything is better than a Red Sox win. As my friend the Cubs fan said while this nightmare unfolded in the Bronx: "It looks like we're Rockies fans now."

I don't want to see the Dbacks win. Maybe it's a lingering aftertaste from the 2001 World Series. Maybe it's their terrible uniforms. Maybe it's because the last thing a real fan wants to see is the half-assed media circus that would surround the meeting of JD and Stephen Drew should the Sox and Diamondbacks play a World Series. I imagine Joe Buck and Tim McCarver could beat that to death before the first pitch would be thrown.

I'm intrigued at the prospect of who replaces Joe Torre, and I'll be posting on it in some detail in the not too distant future, even if it is after Steinbrenner makes his decision. I'm just too tired tonight. I will sign off with this thought: God help us all should the Pats, Celtics and Red Sox win it all this year. With so many miserable bastards involved in pulling the strings of these ghastly marionettes, this level of success cannot be healthy for the Republic.

Perhaps it wouldn't have made much of a difference tonight, and maybe I'm more than a little tainted by bitterness, but kudos to Joe Torre for playing Doug Mientkiewicz and leaving Jason Giambi on the bench. Hindsight, as they say is 20-20, but going with a guy for his defense and leaving an infinitely better hitter on the bench is so National League. In fact, it smacks of Dusty Baker in his prime, and what a prime it was.

And then when it came time to pinch hit for Mientkiewicz, Torre threw Shelly Duncan out there instead of Giambi. I realize that Duncan is a right handed batter, and maybe Giambi didn't have terrific numbers against Sabathia. But wouldn't you feel better with a guy who has won an MVP award, even one tainted by allegations of steroids, over a guy whose greatest claim to fame is being the son of the Cardinals pitching coach.

The trouble with conventional wisdom is that it's conventional. So what if every body knows something? 95% of people are total nitwits. Derek Jeter came into the game batting .500 lifetime off Sabathia and sporting a very good postseason average in general, but he didn't exactly rip it up in this game. Hell, CC Sabathia walked six guys tonight (one was intentional) and none of them scored.

And if ever there were an omen that a given night would not be a given player's night, it had to come tonight. Mientkiewicz almost ended up a scratch from the lineup before the game even started when he tripped over a cameraman from a New York TV station getting off the team bus. Who in their right mind thought that things would break his way after that? What more did he have to do, walk under a ladder, cross paths with a black cat? For a profession that is notoriously rife with superstitious dudes, there is no way he should have seen the field after that.

Torre played the percentages right into a 0-1 hole in this series. Now things are looking good for Red Sox fans, which is always bad for America. This postseason is starting to remind me of the Beatles song Uncle Albert. I don't hear it very often, since I don't like the Beatles and I don't listen to the radio very much. But when I hear it, it confuses and vexes me.

Every time I hear the start of that song, I start thinking to myself that maybe I'm wrong about the Beatles, that they might not be as bad as I had thought previously. Then the second part of the song with the aggravating uptempo music and the random nonsense about Admiral Halsey kicks in, and I find myself hating the song and the band more than ever.

I've come a long way around to say this, but if the Yankees lose, the only other team I'd like to see win this World Series is the Chicago Cubs. So I find myself stuck rooting for teams that I can't stand simply because they stand in the way of the team I really hate. If neither the Yankees nor the Cubs advance, I am in a lose-LOSE situation. Either the Indians win, and I'm bummed, or the Red Sox win and their fans are happy, which is a nightmare scenario I'd rather not envision right now.

By the way, thanks to the Major League Baseball playoff promos, I have had to reevaluate my opinion of Dane Cook. At first, I never cared about him even though Bill Simmons whined about him, which is generally a sign a guy isn't a total douche. But now, I've seen way too many of those stupid "There's Only One October" ads and I hope he gets some wasting disease.

And kudos to the genius at TBS who went into a meeting and said: "I know what let's do. Let's put Tony Gwynn in a booth with Bob Brenley and Chip Carey and we'll have them broadcast the New York Yankees series." This guy should get a Peabody Award, or at the very least the Nobel Peace Prize. Those three worked together like vodka and anti-freeze.

Tony Gwynn is a nice guy, and he brings a lot to the table. Bob Brenley just might be brain-dead. I'm just glad he left his comments on the stadium wind situation behind on Cubs telecasts. But Chip Carey has to stand second only to Joe Buck in shaming a famous grandfather who is also a broadcasting legend. The shameful indecency with which he celebrated every single development in favor of the Indians this evening was sickening.

I found myself forced to switch over to the end of Twelve Angry Men on Turner Classic Movies before I was pressed into service in the Ryan Garko Hall of Fame movement. Yeah, he hit two home runs tonight, but I've missed a great deal if Ryan Garko is considered a big bat in a lineup. Speaking of Twelve Angry Men, if there aren't twelve angry men in the Yankee clubhouse (and with morons like Damon and Mientkiewicz, there might not be) then there ought to be.

And while I'm on the subject of TBS: how is FrankTV going to change the face of late night TV? Is it going to be the worst show ever? I know he has a good impression for John Madden and for the President. His Nicholson is passable, but his Pacino is terrible. And those are the four featured in the commercials that have run somewhere in the neighborhood of a quadrillion times now. He better be holding a hell of a lot of A material in the vault, or the American people have to be an order of magnitude dumber than I think they are for this show to succeed.

Bad times. Bad times, indeed. The Yankees couldn't get it done against the Red Sox at any point this weekend. But if I had a choice presented to me over the weekend where the Yankees could have won all three of the games against the Sox but Dallas would win game one of the series against Golden State, I would have taken the Red Sox sweeping the Yankees.

I hate the Red Sox much more than I hate the Mavericks, but they have over one hundred and forty more chances to lose this season. The Mavericks are much closer to an NBA championship than I ever want to see them. I don't think Golden State has any kind of a chance to keep this pace up against the Mavs, but the longer this series last, and the more competitive the games are, the less likely the Mavericks are to be at full capacity against better and deeper teams than the Warriors down the road.

I just don't see why Joe Torre went to Proctor to start the 7th inning. I thought Pettitte could have gone another 9 pitches. I think Proctor has been overpitched more so than any other Yankee reliever (even though overpitched isn't a word). I was pretty impressed with Chase Wright, though.

It would have been nice if he hadn't let up that epic barrage of home runs, but I have to respect his poise and class. There is no way on God's Earth that a team could hit four consecutive homers against the Red Sox. After the third straight homer, that next hitter would be better served wearing a suit of medieval plate mail armor to the plate. One or another of the gutless frauds pitching for the Red Sox would throw at his head.

That is another instance for the hypocrisy and fundamental dishonesty of Red Sox fans to rear its head. When a Red Sox pitcher throws at an opposing batter, it's part of the game. When some opposing pitcher hits one of the Red Sox, it is time for benches to clear and the Olde Towne Team goes to DEFCON 1 like they saw missiles in a satellite photo of Cuba. One would hope that a team with the unpleasant memory of the incident that essentially ended Tony Canigliaro's career in its past would show more sensitivity, but then what do I know?

I was very impressed with the overall quality of the play in the Devils-Lightning game this afternoon. Outside of one ill-advised pass by Brodeur which resulted in the second goal for Brad Richards, he was great. I know that after he's won 3 Stanley Cups, climbed to second all time in playoff wins and shutouts, I'm not breaking this story to you. But it's also the second time I've mentioned the NHL in this blog so bear with me.

Two things that bothers me about the Devils going forward. First, three Devils had breakaway opportunities on which they did not convert. Second, I still don't know why Lou Lamoriello fired his coach and took the team over (again) in the last week of the season. Last year, the team was sputtering when he did it. This year they had 102 points and the inside track on the two seed in the East. But they have the best playoff goalie currently playing pro hockey anywhere out there. Outside of Patrick Roy, I can't think of another guy I'd rather have in net, including Hasek.

Finally, I felt badly for the villain from the Chris Tucker film Money Talks. He did every thing he could to get the Tampa Bay Lightning to stave off elimination today. They came out with good energy in the second period, down 1-0 against Brodeur, who was great in the first. They almost came back and won.

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.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I write this evening to demand that the Dallas police arrest one Drew Bledsoe for triple homicide. With one throw, he killed the Cowboy's chances of winning the game, my prediction that they would beat the Eagles and my fantasy football team's chances for victory. All of my players are done, all of the other cat's players are done. I came up 3 points short.

I like Drew Bledsoe as a QB. I wish him well, but I am seriously pissed at this week's turn of events. I was 3-1, tied for the lead in my division and for best record in the league. Now I'll go to 3-2, the tool who beat me is now in sole possession of said best record. I may stay tied for first, if Tomlinson and Gates are stifled by the Steelers.

A TD pass from Bledsoe would have won me the game. Especially if he threw it to TO or Jason Witten, both of whom were in my lineup. His interception got him -1.8 points on the day. Not only did he bring nothing to the table, he actually took things away. Seven sacks, three interceptions and a lost fumble. That will offset 223 yards passing, 24 yards rushing and a rushing TD.

Every criticism of Bledsoe was present in today's game. The Eagles pressured him up the middle, big time. He held the ball too long, refused to throw it away and took big sacks. Especially on first and second down in the two minute offense. He did make some big throws, too, to be fair. Especially the one to Terry Glenn that drew the pas interference call which brought the team down to the 3 yard line. Ironically, if Glenn had caught the ball it wouldn't have meant a damn thing in the real world but it would have put me in a better position to win the fantasy football game.

And then, he took the jam out of the collective doughnut of Dallas fans, idiots like me who played him in fantasy football, his coaches and his teammates. He found a wide open defender and drilled a perfect pass to him for 6 points. It was a classic Drew Bledsoe moment. I like his competitiveness and his confidence, but I hate the ghost in the machine that makes him make the fatal mistake at the big moment in the big game. Visions of Reggie White devouring Max Lane danced in my head all day today (Super Bowl XXXI, for those with short memories).

I suppose I ought to explain myself and the thought process that cost me the game. If I played Byron Leftwich in a much better matchup against the New York Jets, I win the game. It's that simple. It's a risk you take each week with the decisions you make as a fantasy owner. It's an artificial feeling of power that makes games which might not be so compelling in their own right more interesting. That's why they call it fantasy football, and not the Cincinnati Kid wins.

I took a chance, playing the Jaguars defense after a game where they were shredded by Mark Brunell and Santana Moss. They were facing Chad Pennigton who was ripping it up, throwing for over 300 yards against the Titans and the Patriots. It worked like a charm. They shutout the Jets, sacked Pennington five times, intercepted him three times, recovered a fumble and blocked a kick. All told, they got me 23 points, so I can only complain so much about Bledsoe.

What kills me is that I'm in a league that gives points for return yards. My opponent threw Rock Cartwright, JJ Arrington and Wes Welker at me. Welker got 12 points from his return yards alone (to go with 7 points from his receptions). Arrington and Cartwright didn't touch the ball on offense, but combined to score . I went with a more conventional lineup, Bledsoe, Larry Johnson, Deuce McAllister, Ronnie Brown, TO, Torry Holt, Jason Witten, Lawrence Tynes and the Jaguar defense. In addition to the kick returners, my opponent played Peyton Manning, Kevin Jones, Santana Moss, Robbie Gould and the Saints defense.

It was a brilliant ploy, each time a kick returner touches the ball he's going to get about 20 yards or so. That's 2 points a touch. I have a much more traditional lineup, and I took it for granted today. I didn't even look at my team this week, I just figured my lineup was good enough that I didn't need to tinker with it. That's what cost me the game.

But my fantasy woes this week tie back into the real world issues. I tricked myself into going with the Cowboys this week, and Bledsoe in fantasy football using the same rationale. I thought the Cowboys could handle the Eagle blitz package. The Eagles weren't doing anything particularly exotic. They just sent more people up the middle than the Cowboys could handle. It was a brutally elegant and simply devastating.

The Cowboys thought they could handle the blitz, and didn't communicate well up front. After all, linebacker and safeties weren't the one running free and hitting Bledsoe. The guys hitting Bledsoe most often were defensive tackle Darwin Walker and especially defensive end Dwight Howard. That means the offensive linemen aren't communicating effectively. They have to close down to the inside, that's an offensive lineman's fist responsibility. If one guy has to close down to the inside, some one has to move with him, and Dallas failed to do that time and time again.

It wasn't all Drew's fault all the time. But the big play at the end of the game was all Drew. It looked like he had the time, but just rushed the throw. As for the Dallas defense, I expected them to play more consistently than they did. At times they were great, and at times they didn't execute at all. Ware got caught inside on Westbrook's TD run. I thought LJ Smith held him on the play, but it wasn't called. But it evened out when Greg Ellis forced the fumble Ware returned for a TD thanks to LJ Smith's lackluster effort to tackle him.

Patrick Watkins, the rookie free safety, was burned badly on the 87 yard TD pass to Hank Baskett. He bit on the first part of a double move, and bit hard. Then to top it off, he had a chance to make the tackle, but failed to bring down the Philly receiver. But the flea flicker wasn't his fault. He covered it well enough. Donovan McNabb just made a great throw, and Pro Bowl strong safety Roy Williams misjudged the ball in flight and took the wrong angle. Two mistakes, which added up to 14 points. Dallas had the chance to win. They made some plays, but the Eagles made more plays and made bigger plays.

In the baseball world, rumors are flying fast and furious in the Bronx. Will The Boss fire/buy out Joe Torre? It's should be harder to say this about a guy who's taken his team to six World Series and won four since 1996, but I think it's time for a change in the Big Apple. A month, two weeks ago I would not have said it. Of course, that was before the Tigers quickly closed the Yankees out of the playoffs. The Yankees looked old, tired and listless compared to the Tigers. And now the buzzards are picking at the Yankee failure.

It's time for a new direction. The Yankees haven't won a championship since 2000. They haven't won a postseason series since their tragic collapse in 2004. They looked out of sorts against the Angels last year. They didn't look any better against the Tigers. They will likely lose Sheff, and ARod and Mussina might also be elsewhere next season. That's life in pro sports these days. It will be interesting to see what sort of team they field in 2007.

By a new direction, I don't mean Sweet Lou Pinella. Yes, he has experience and a World Series ring as a manager. Yes, he has historic ties to the Yankees as a player who was on Yankee champions in the 1970s. He's also a Tampa guy, and Tampa is the winter headquarters of the Boss. Does he have the temperament to manage for Steinbrenner? I don't think so. The Yankees will let a team like the Cubs make that mistake. If Torre goes, my money's on Girardi.