As a way of apologizing for my extended silence of late, I have a tool of note segment for you. Tonight, we honor Chris Mannix, the Sports Illustrated writer, raconteur, bon vivant and all around tool. In case you didn't hear, Mannix went toe to toe with the WBC Superfeatherweight champion in a three round novelty act.

Reaching for the stars, Mannix compared this little escapade to George Plympton fighting Archie Moore. Personally, I think it was more along the lines of Johnny Knoxville's epic battle against Butterbean in the middle of a sporting goods store. Of course, I feel compelled to point out that Knoxville fought a much, much, much bigger man without head gear while Mannix fought a guy he outweighed by 50 pounds while wearing the head gear. But that's only part of the story.

I hope for the champ's sake that he pulled his punches as I suspect he did. Otherwise, he might want to think of a different line of work. If he couldn't put Mannix in the hospital, making a living with his fists probably wasn't the best of career choices. And one might think that putting a world of hurt on the guy who's supposed to write the story hyping this little farce might put a bit of a damper on the publicity that was the reason for the sordid spectacle in the first place.

And somewhere in the midst of the article, Mannix makes reference to his street fighting past. He concedes that he lost most of the brawls from his hard luck days on the mean streets of Anytown USA. I can't help but think that the closest he came to a street brawl somehow included Ralph Macchio, Mr. Miagi and a Peter Cetera song.

More than anything, the whole macho atmosphere of the article celebrating the fact that he didn't get his ass completely kicked reminded me of a scene in Platoon. Sgt. O'Neil is attempting to tell a story of his badassery to Staff Sgt. Barnes, who is obviously not listening. But O'Neil says: "I put him in the O'Neil death grip, he didn't know whether to defecate or go blind." Obviously, I cleaned it up a bit, since we try to keep this a family friendly site. But I like to think it still captures the spirit of the thing.

Then there is the grace and savior faire with which Mannix conducted himself whilst in the squared circle. I hate the fact that I am overusing this particular line, but he did look like a newborn wildebeest on ice. He neither floated like a butterfly nor stung like a bee. He moved as though he were wearing one of those old-time deep sea diving rigs with the big bronze helmet. And he punched as though he were afraid of breaking a nail.

So if you're scoring at home, a here's a handy way to tell who is and who isn't a tool. If you're even a little proud of not getting your ass kicked by a guy who's pulling his punches, you're a tool. If you mention your past history of street fighting and come off more like Elton John than the Rolling Stones, you're a tool. If you look like a jackass whose feet are encased in cement while doing any of the above, you're a tool. Of course, "" if your name happens to be Chris Mannix, you can skip analyzing those factors and just assume that you're a tool. QED, as they say in the math racket.

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).

I don't know if you happened to see this past week's episode of South Park. It was highly entertaining and strangely thought-provoking. The episode title is Lice Capades, and the plot revolves around an outbreak of lice in South Park Elementary. There is a parallel story from the perspective of the lice on one student's head where one louse tries to convince the others that the world has become aware of their impact and is trying to destroy them. No one listens, and tragedy ensues.

That one lone louse who tries to convince the community that they're wrong and he's right reminds me of me as spring training winds down. I know it's not a very flattering comparison, but it seems very appropriate since I am about as significant as a louse, writing an anti-Red Sox blog against a vast tide of material embracing the team. And it seems like I am the only one who has even considered the possibility that Daisuke Matsuzaka will not take the world of North American professional baseball by storm.

After watching a couple of spring training starts, Bill Simmons sees a young Pedro Martinez in him. Matsuzaka has a comparable array of impressive off-speed pitches, apparently, even though he isn't quite the intimidator that Pedro was. No word yet on whether the Baltimore game when two guys from the minor league squad took the fearsome Matsuzaka deep was one of the games Simmons happened to see.

I find myself wondering from time to time when I read something about sports if I am the last person who remembers minor, trivial details. But there is this little chestnut about Pedro. It happened about ten years ago, long past the point at which the statute of limitations on memory which enable the mental gymnastics that make a Red Sox fan a Red Sox fan expires.

The real difference between Pedro and Daisuke is that Pedro proved himself against real, honest-to-goodness major league batters before he came to Boston. Pedro even won a Cy Young before he came to Boston. Until Daisuke proves that he can handle a long season in a tough town, I think people would do well to give him a chance to fail before they canonize him. The way it stands now, if Daisuke has a bad run, it's on for him. I hope he can handle it. Personally, I am looking forward to the day this offseason's panic signings blowup in the face of the Nation.

Sports Illustrated has just come out and celebrated the arrival of Daisuke Matsuzaka in a cover that is sure to warm the cockles of Red Sox Nation's collective heart. Even if you don't believe in the alleged SI Cover Jinx (I don't, but anything that works against the Red Sox is good for me), it must stick in the throats of Red Sox fans to see Matsuzaka's picture with the tag line "Fever Pitch."

So many Red Sox fans must resent that movie so much. I just can't imagine it myself, not suffering from the curious mental deficiency that makes a person a Red Sox fan, but I wonder how it must hurt Red Sox Nation. After 86 years of heartbreak, how many of them must have wished they could have run onto that field in Saint Louis to celebrate with the team. And then to find out that the new celebrity poster child for Red Sox Nation, Jimmy Fallon, and Drew Barrymore were among the first to join the players celebrating that most improbable of events. Oh, the humanity.

Daisuke Matsuzaka is pitching in a foreign country, against teams with incredible resources for scouting their opponents, against some (if not all) of the best players in the world. And this time it's for real. It's not some bogus exhibition with a fancy title. This is how these guys earn a living. And on top of that, he is going to pitch every fifth day instead of every sixth day.

And then there's the fact that he's going to have to do a considerable amount of travelling this season. Much more traveling and more often than he ever had to do in Japan. I don't know if you've noticed (and if you're a Red Sox fan, odds are you haven't), but America is a big country. Much, much, much, much bigger than Japan. There are at least two or three more 3,000 mile flights in store for Daisuke than there were last year.

But I'm crazy, right? I'm just pointing this stuff out because I'm a bad person who wants the Red Sox fans to be as miserable as I am, right? As much as there is a grain or truth or two in the first statement, the second one isn't true. I want the Red Sox fans to be infinitely more miserable than I am. But even more than that, I want just once for fans and media people to wait until there is an event and a story before they cover it to death.

After all, should August 1 roll around and the heat of summer and the fatigue of the shorter rotation take its toll on Matsuzaka, I'm going to be writing this blog for my 7 readers saying I told you so. But the fans and the media will be saying and writing that we should have seen this coming with no mention of the fact that they created the hype that failed. And that's going to make me sick to my stomach and even more bitter than I am now.