An Unlikely Hoops Hero

Because the sports world seems to provide such fodder for negativity due to some of the jackasses who play its games, it's often hard to remember why we love it. Because I still love sports, this story needs to be shared, although it's getting around pretty well on its own (this originally aired on CBS News but ESPN picked it up -- sound and video):

The Unlikely Hero -- Jason McElwain

Good Riddance Turin

At a time of the year when television is at an all-time low, in one of the most desolate months of the year when all we've wanted is the beginning of spring, a little March Madness, sweeps weeks for our favorite shows, summer blockbusters in our movie theaters instead of Oscar crap, the national pastime and the unveiling of women's summer wear -- we were saddled with these miserable Olympics.

The Games of Turin are mercifully over, and the 13 collective people who watch NBC on a regular basis can now go back to their nightly TV viewing. The rest of us will be happy to know that we get My Name is Earl and The Office back. I wrote a piece (see Archives) before the Games that pretty much ripped them to shreds, but I've decided after these two weeks that they are worse than I thought. Lets go over some of the reasons why, and for the sake of structure, we'll make it a top 10 list. So, here are:

Top 10 Reasons The Winter Olympics Were As Fun As Cleaning Septic Tanks

10.) Bryant Gumbel's quote on the Olympics was actually dead on accurate in terms of the unathleticism of many of these participants, and I like agreeing with Bryant Gumbel about as much as I want a venereal disease, "Count me among those who don't care about them and won't watch them. So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention." He sadly is correct, but lets get something straight, Gumbel...it's not Finland and Sweden's fault they didn't illegally import slaves in the 1600s and all their citizens are white, likewise for all the other European nations that are "cold weather" nations. Blacks are by and large the superior athletes, so if you want to take over the Winter Olympics I'm sure you could. Take a lesson from the Jamaicans and buy a bobsled, or pour some water down an alley in downtown Harlem in the dead of winter, get a rock and two busted up brooms, use your spray paint cans to paint a target instead of your own buildings and learn how to curl. Otherwise, shut up, no one cares about your racially motivated agenda. It's the freakin' Winter Olympics for Christ's sake.

9.) The U.S. men's hockey team lost to Latvia, and there were only 3 Latvians watching because they didn't even care.

8.) The entire ice dancing competition didn't involve Italian couples blaming each other for their own incompetence, ignoring each other, burning glances of hot lava through each other, and then smiling widely to go out and perform again. Don't get me wrong, most of the ice dancers fell according to the blooper reel on ESPN, but it was much funnier when they were Italian. That chick was scary.

7.) Bode Miller did not end up with a scratch on him, let alone a medal.

6.) Jeremy Bloom could have been entertaining college football fans for two more years at Colorado. Instead, he left the sport to build up for one knee-buckling (no pun intended) moguls run that was more anti-climactic than high school graduation. I hope he drops out of the draft.

5.) Germany, winning the medal count, gets its revenge for WWI and II. Somewhere in the depths of hell, Hitler flashes a toothy grin in between the piercing screams of eternal damnation.

4.) We can't even win the medal count but our speedskaters fight with each other. Oh, and Gumbel, one of them was African-American.

3.) Lindsay Jacobellis....ok, here's athleticism for ya -- you are about to obtain the most coveted prize in the entire entity you've dedicated your life to and you pull a Leon Lett, try and throw a trick in, and face plant to lose gold. I just saw this woman on a magazine cover. What a joke. If bad sportsmanship is being celebrated, why do we have a team there? And moreover, why would I care that we didn't win the medal count? She should be embarrassed for the rest of her life.

2.) The biathlon. Seriously, they ski around and shoot things. It just dumbfounds me.

1.) The athlete who is currently the poster boy for American success in the Olympics -- Shaun White. Yep, our best athlete at the Winter Games is a 139-pound Carrot Top look-alike nicknamed "The Flying Tomato." Hey Bryant, your boys have a lot of work to do the next Summer Games to get us our reputation back.

The Hot Corner Has Gone Cold

Growing up, I always thought there was a certain aura around third base. I played every position on the diamond at one point or another as I grew with baseball, but besides catching, I probably spent less time at 3rd base than any other position. I wasn't a big guy, and therefore, I told myself that it just wasn't for me.

Third base always seemed like a place for the boldest of men. If there was a center of hell on the baseball field, that was it. It was the hot corner, and only the bravest of mitts patroled the cutout around its grass and dirt. It was the one position on the diamond that drew you toward the hitter more than any other, toward harm's way, toward screaming seeds belted by sweet spots. It was where reaction wasn't a weapon, but more appropriately, a defense.

I remember the legends of third base growing up, guys my pop would spout off about. Guys like Eddie Matthews and Brooks Robinson stole the shows he went to see. He told me about Pie Traynor from his pop's day, but said that it wasn't a position that spawned too many legends and I should pay attention to Mike Schmidt and George Brett, because I might not ever see anything like them again.

He was right.

Third base is a dead art. Its inhabitants nowadays seem to be there for lack of anywhere else to put them. Growing up, legends seemed to grow out of the dirt there, but now, a third sacker seems to come out of the ash. Looking around the league, there is only one third baseman who through any longevity, deserves the notation of "natural" at that position, and that's Scott Rolen. The rest of the position's elite seem more like a hodge podge of the disenfranchised. They travel from team to team to play out one or two year contracts. Of course, that's the age of baseball we live in.

Baseball's most popular third baseman is Alex Rodriguez, who is a shortstop! He, along with the similarly displaced Melvin Mora, are currently the best bats in the American League. They're joined in the Junior Circuit by the inconsistent Mike Lowell and Adrian Beltre, and the slightly underachieving Eric Chavez as the core of the league's hot boxers.

Andy Marte and Joe Crede are the up and coming in the AL, but there aren't any pitchers with the fear of God in them because of their arrival.

In the National League, there's Rolen, and then a long fall off before anything to write home about. David Wright is the "next one" at third. He's the kind of 5-tool player that the new game of baseball drools over. He can run, hit, throw, has power, and seems to have the baseball acumen to become a machine in this league over the next few seasons. And, most importantly, he's a natural 3rd baseman. Morgan Ensberg is another young gun who showed some hot corner power last season. Chipper Jones is back at third, but his days of being an MVP-type player are long gone -- not because he can't produce, but because I doubt he will stay healthy for a full season the rest of his career. The rest of the National League, new transplant Bill Mueller not withstanding, is awful.

So, check out the names I've typed in as the elite at the hot corner in this blog: Alex Rodriguez, Scott Rolen, David Wright, Morgan Ensberg, Chipper Jones, Eric Chavez, Bill Mueller, Melvin Mora, Mike Lowell, and Adrian Beltre. Now let's harken back to 1980, just 26 years ago, and compare them with these 10: Mike Schmidt, George Brett, Bill Madlock, Ray Knight, Craig Nettles, Doug Decinces, Carney Lansford, Ron Cey, Bob Horner and Darrell Evans.

Why are the second group of names just as familiar to me 26 years later when I watch baseball more now than I did all that time ago?

The Dustbin of Dumbasses

At my former blogging home, I used to do a Monday morning piece called (and this might sound familiar) Running the Count Full. I'd like to do that again here, but since I took that name for the site's name I'll need to come up with something different. I'd also like to use this section to do nothing but make fun of people, which seems to be the common theme of most of what I write in my blogs. So, without further ado, I will unveil the weekly Dustbin of Dumbasses. I hope you enjoy it. Here's this week's crew:

The NBA -- Why do they even have All-Star Saturday night anymore? Nobody that anyone cares about participates in anything meaningful, i.e., the 3-point competition or more importantly, the Slam Dunk contest. And the guys that do participate get hosed by the paid-off judges. Nate Robinson's leap over that other midget notwithstanding, Andre Iguodala was absolutely robbed after the judges decided to inexplicably change their scores to get the mighty mite the trophy. That might not be the worst tragedy of the weekend though. The NBA needs to take fan voting off of the Internet. They say 100 million Chinamen can't be wrong. Well, they are. For the second straight year, that over grown lo mein noodle, Yeo Ming, led the All-Star voting. Let's get something straight right now, this guy is about as talented as Shawn Bradley. He's just fatter. The Chinese community doesn't pay the bills for the NBA. They aren't putting asses in seats over here, so they shouldn't vote. I want to watch people that can play run the floor, dunk, attempt ridiculous passes and unabashedly launch 3s from 40 feet. I don't want to watch Yeo Ming, and the reason Chinese people want to is because you could blindfold him with dental floss. It has nothing to do with hoops.

BODE MILLER -- After failing to win a medal in four events at the Olympic Games, this is what our skiing prodigy had to say:

"One of the good things about my career is I have such extensive knowledge, so I always go as hard as I can," Miller said. "Some guys can go 70-80 percent and get results, but I wouldn't do that. If things went well, I could be sitting on four medals, maybe all of them gold."

Bode, if you have such extensive knowledge, how come things didn't go so well? If you went as hard as you could, how come you've gotten your ass handed to you in every race you've participated in? If those guys going 70-80 percent are going home with the pinnacle award of your sport, shouldn't you reconsider your strategy? All we want to hear from you is that you did the best you could on that day, and your best wasn't good enough. Be a man you snow bunny loser.

RICKY WILLIAMS -- If you haven't heard yet, apparently Ricky Williams is back on the people's peace pipe. Williams has allegedly been drilled for violating the NFL's substance abuse policy yet again, which will come with a year's suspension. He might as well dust off the dashiki, have his shower removed for a solarium and throw away all hygiene products. That's all he's got left to look forward to. The only thing I don't understand is that the average careerspan of an NFL running back is just a few years. Why wouldn't he stay off the weed long enough to play out his career and earn as much cash as possible, and THEN become a lifelong pothead. Priorities, Ricky!

Check in Mondays to find out each week's dumbasses. Have a great week.

Pitchers & Catchers

I got to thinking this morning about how many newspapers and Internet venues and blogs would be written trumpeting the dawning of a new spring because pitchers and catchers reported to camps in Florida and Arizona yesterday. I wondered how many people would write about the smell of pine tar or softened leather, the reemergence of hope, the peace of melting snow, or high and spectacular blue skies. There was a day as recent as last year at this time when a blog like that would have been a given from me, and the words would have poured out of me with vehemence, and it would have been sappy, and it would have been rich with sentiment, but even all my friends, whose chief activity in life is belittling each other, would have agreed with it because we are baseball junkies.

I flipped around the Net this morning. There they were. Phrases like, "there was the sweet sound of leather meeting leather," riddled the pages. They've been written so many times before by writers far superior than the paltry $40,000/year columnists who petter to the masses to try and get readers. They were written first by writers who found the words out of love not obligation -- by Lardner, by Giamatti, by Harris, by Malamud, by Thayer, by Mencken, by Pierce, by Hemingway. But I'm not going to write that blog this year. I'm not going to conform to the mainstream. I'm not going to talk about how yesterday in Philly, just a mere 5 days after more than a foot of snow fell to the ground, it was 56 degrees in the middle of February, and the remaining snow was wet enough to make perfect snowballs, and the ground looked as though it had seen enough, and it was ready for the new life that would spring from it.

Spring.

Everything about that word begets "inception," "beginning," "start," "birth." Does it get old year after year? I don't know the answer to that, but I know I won't be writing about how at 31, I find the time to oil up my own glove around this time of year. I find myself grabbing one of the bats that sit in the corner of the house all winter, unfettered, and find myself taking cuts in the living room. I won't tell you about how after watching the chess board of the Hot Stove off-season, I get thrilled to begin my own chess game, hunting furiously for the possibility that comes fresh with every new season. I won't write that.

I won't write about how each year, when you're a Phillies fan, you're left holding the bag, but each year, like clockwork, because baseball marks time more than any of our seasons, die hards re-ante.

I won't write about how I can't wait to watch the first World Baseball Classic, where you just have a feeling that the commitment of foreign nations to win the prize of this "American" sport is deep, and how somewhere you'll see the Americans catching on and realizing what it is about, and the intensity levels rising through summer and right to October in the middle of March.

I won't write about how intriguing it is that a young stud prospect like the Phillies Gavin Floyd, who worked with Johnny Podres in Puerto Rico all this off-season, has another chance to start the lawnmower -- maybe his last chance. I won't write about how the thought of the potential of Cole Hamels, Gio Gonzalez and Scott Mathieson in the starting rotation at AA Reading of the Eastern League doesn't get me a little bit pumped for the future at Citizens Bank Park.

I certainly won't write about baseball marking the end of winter. Our winter was a lamb and there might still be a lion out there. I won't write about a longing for the first weekday night game at the ballyard with a light sweater and 3 dogs and 6 Miller Lites and a few strategically placed comments to the opposition about how their last name is a pun for something that is funny, or how they hit .212 with runners in scoring position last year. I won't write about how I miss calling "Chipper" Jones "Larry" in the same intonation that college basketball crowds yell "asssss-holllllle" to the refs.

No matter what, it's most important that I don't write about how in the deep, recessed, utterly obsessive, completely deranged inner sanctum of my mind, I believe my team can win this year. I believe they can play in October. I believe they can challenge for a ring.

Or do I believe? Do we just believe self-consciously? Do we just believe because all our lives it's what we are conditioned to do this time of year? Is it Pavlovian? I'm not smart enough to know that, but I know those first few weeks will be glorious, heartbreaking, or frustrating. Glorious if the subconscious beliefs are fulfilled by a rapid start. Heartbreaking if the track record of proving my subconscious wrong continues. Frustrating if it's in between, if I see signs that it could go either way, and I'm left to ride that ebb and flow that is a baseball season. There's nothing to do but muddle through spring training though, wait for the grass to turn green again, wait for that first official starting lineup, that first official national anthem, that first official hallowed call by the masked man behind the plate to "play ball." But all of life is waiting, and yesterday was only pitchers and catchers.

And I won't write about that.

Villanova Making All the Wright Moves

If you come from Philadelphia and you find yourself a part of basketball's fraternity, you become a part of a network that goes back more than 50 years to the inception of the Big Five. It goes back to Wilt and to Earl "The Pearl" Monroe, and up to "Cat" Mobley and Rasheed Wallace. Philly hoops careers start in grade school. If you can play, you'll have the right AAU coach in the summer and a guy named Sonny Hill beating down your door. The network will make sure of that. The network will try and keep you in house as well, try to send you to one of its six local colleges, try and grow the legend of Philly hoops. For that reason, it's important to have coaches at those schools who understand what it means to be a part of Philadelphia basketball. Villanova's Jay Wright gets that, and it's paying dividends in his program.

I was one of the 20,800+ to pile into the Wachovia Center for Monday night's Big East battle pitting No. 4 Nova against No. 1 Connecticut. If the crowd at the Wach was any indication, Jay Wright has a program that will no longer fluctuate between mediocrity and competitiveness. Based on that building the other night, this program has arrived. From way atop the building where I hung my hat for the first half, to the tunnels at floor level where I snuck around during the second, there was enough electricity in that building to overload the Hoover Dam. Perhaps it was aided by a 12-point second half comeback highlighted by the scintillating (sorry Dickie V) stroke of Allen Ray's four 3-pointers, or the unlikely and confident contributions of seldom utilized big man Will Sheridan. Either way, Wright's team, with its fearless attack and tenacious pressure defense, cranked up the generators high enough to get them their first win over a No. 1 since 1995 and make them 10-1 in the deepest conference in college basketball.

Wright comes from Churchville, PA, a suburb of Philly. He was an assistant at Nova during the Rollie Massimino years, when the school and team were ostracized by the rest of the city's basketball community for trying to break away from the Big 5. Much of that animosity still exists against Nova from basketball fans in the city. There is also a feeling that the school and its students are pompous. Villanova is located in the heart of "The Main Line," a name as self-promoting as it gets. It's kids come, in many cases, from some of the richest families in PA, New York, New Jersey and Delaware, and for blue collar schools like St. Joe's, La Salle and Temple, that just doesn't fly.

When Wright came back to take the program over for Steve Lappas in 2001, he set about the process of healing its relationship with Philadelphia, and he's said and done all the right things. He lauds the Big 5, embraces its importance and took great pride in winning the City Series this season. The powers that be at Villanova have taken notice, and rewarded Wright with a 7-year contract extension, which on the Main Line, will come with financial security. And while Wright might be a hot name in the coaching market after this season, not taking the extension was never really an option.

"My family's here. I'm from here," Wright said. "It just doesn't get any better."

Olympics are a Broadway Joke

My mother will invariably read this article and have a look of woe on her face that says, "I can't believe this is the son I raised." I'm sorry, mom. I am, but I just can't bring myself to find the same fervor for the Olympic Games that you can. See, mom loves the Olympics, and since she's lucky enough to live in the country that holds a complete and utter dynasty over the "team" medal competition every time the world gets together, then I guess that makes sense. Hell, even some Braves fans still show up to games after 14 years (not many, but some). Ever since the '84 games in L.A., the earliest that I can clearly remember at the age of 10, I can recall my mother's pride of country and swelling of compassion toward the human interest angles brought to the fore by these exhibitions of athleticism held every four years.

There are some great stories, some tales of overcoming insurmountable odds to just be at the Olympic Games, but I'll tell you now, it is rare that those stories come out of the team I'm rooting for. I just can't buy that I'm supposed to be compassionate toward the plight of little Suzie ice skater, whose mother and father got her up at the crack of dawn 8 days a week and removed the silver spoon from her ass long enough to force her to the rink like some Haitian shoelace maker to be whipped into shape by a Romanian import that was taken out of the toilet paper line to come to America to coach our kids. The whole thing is a joke.

There are classic sports in the Winter Olympics that will always be respected and they are time honored traditions where the Olympics become the pinnacle of their competitions. I have complete and utter respect for speed skating, cross country and alpine skiing, bobsled, luge, ski jumping (because anyone willing to hurl themselves into space that far without a parachute is a hero in my book), and figure skating (because it does take incredible precision and athleticism, even though it's gay). Every other sport represented at the Winter Olympics is either assinine, or in massive need of change in its presentation. So, lets go over those one at a time:

HOCKEY -- Before the puckheads freak out...I'm a hockey fan. I'm a Flyers fan. I'm glad the NHL's back. I'm sorry they are going to take a hit because people who had their Cheerios peed on daily are going to turn this Tocchet gambling thing into a three-ringed circus. That being said, they need to get the NHL players out of Olympic hockey. It kills the season. The break is too long for those that don't go because we are heading into the stretch run. The strain is too much for those that do go because by the time they get back to resume the hockey season, they're tired and may have further aggravated injuries that were already nagging during the season. I have no problem with pros participating in the Olympics. Every other country has always had their best talent so why shouldn't we, but hockey is an International sport, and to have this in the middle of a season is just not working, no matter how intriguing Olympic hockey is. I'll watch it with baited breathe looking for the U.S. to battle to a medal, but I still don't agree with it.

ICE DANCING -- I'm cool with figure skating, and I'm cool with pairs figure skating, but although there is probably a defined difference between pairs and ice dancing, I don't care, and I don't need to see it. Here's the thing, you have artistic and technical marks, right? So, chuck two people out on the ice and call it pairs ice figure dancing and get it all out of the way in one shot. They can fulfill technical requirements on whatever Dewey Decimal System degree of difficulty sham they want to adhere to, and make the thing "pretty" by looking graceful. There you go. One event, less time with women demanding the remote. Just get it done. What's next, alternative jazz tap skating. No. Beat it.

CURLING -- I have a lot of friends that will be upset at my including this bedknobs and broomsticks sport that I admit to being captivated by in the 2002 games. However, come on, honestly, they are playing shuffleboard on ice with bigger pucks. I just can't promote it as a sport. I'm sure there is even an intense training regiment, but I just can't envision the sweeper lifting weights to Eye of the Tiger thinking about pushing enough ice to make the puck (or whatever its called) slide just another inch to the left. I enjoyed it in 2002 because I couldn't really believe what I was watching. It was one of those dumbfounding experiences where you know you shouldn't be enthralled by something, but like a bad car wreck, you just can't look away.

FREESTYLE SKIING & SNOWBOARDING -- I'll keep this short and sweet, and feel free to argue your incoherent points about how "stoked" these sports get millions of people all over the world in the comment section. Any sport dominated by "athletes" who typically ingest more marijuana than the cast of the movie Half Baked and Woody Harrelson combined does not, in my jaded opinion, constitute Olympic status. I'm sure the chiseled athletes of the early Greek games would agree.

BIATHLON -- I don't even know where to begin with this so-called sport that should be called "Hunting on Skis." Many years ago, two avid deer hunters wanted to go shoot animals, but the snow was much too deep to trudge through to find their prey. Being MacGyver-esque, these brilliant people donned skis and swooshed through the countryside looking for Bambi, rifles in toe. One of them must have seen something off in the distance, and both wanting the kill, they began to race furiously across the landscape to see who could get into position for the kill first. And there ya have it, the most ridiculous "sport" ever created. Baseball and softball are no longer Olympic sports, but some jackass can run around the woods on skis shooting things with a rifle and this brings out the spirit of competition that the Olympics supposedly define. Jim McKay would be rolling over in his grave....that is, if he were dead.

That all being said, hey, enjoy the Opening Ceremonies tonight. Nothing like a big Italian Broadway production with Pavarotti at the helm. For comedy anyway.

The Decleated: Dennis Erickson Vandalizes His Career

In the middle of February, with baseball gloves not yet fully oiled up, the Olympics ready to launch (or more appropriately sputter), the NBA being, well, the NBA, and hockey about to take its international hiatus, there isn't much to dive into besides a hodge podge of B-level sports news stories. However, some of these stories leave room for a little levity, open themselves up for a little poking. Hell, who am I kidding? They are just asking to be bitch slapped. As time permits throughout the rest of the week and now and again through the blog's tenure, I'll take a shot at some of them under the theme name, The Decleated (the headlines will link to the articles):

Erickson Named Head Football Coach at Idaho

Dennis Erickson started his head football coaching career at the University of Idaho in 1982. We'll refer to them by their nickname -- the Vandals (based, of course, on the rampant graffiti and tee-peeing epidemics enveloping the Moscow, ID area). He toiled his way up the ranks, as any good coach would, and ended up the head coach of the Miami Hurricanes. We'll just call them "The Convicts." At Miami, Erickson took over a powerhouse program and arrested (no pun intended) two national championships during his tenure. He then went on and took an Oregan State program out of utter obscurity and got them in a BCS Bowl, where they promptly spanked Notre Dame, 40-9. We'll just call them "The Beavers," well, because that's their name and there just isn't any better name that I know.

After sufficiently succeeding at the college level, Erickson moved on to coach the Seattle Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers, where over 6 seasons as a pro coach, he never celebrated a winning record and finished at 40-56. Like Steve Spurrier, his offensive ingenuity simply didn't mesh well with the speed of the NFL, but it doesn't mean that he isn't still a great college coach. The Niners promptly kicked him to the curb with 3 years remaining on a five year deal, so Erickson has been golfing since the end of the 2004 season, and will collect $2.5 million a year till his contract runs out.

Is that why he went back to The Vandals and took the head coaching job he had in 1982 yesterday? I understand that Erickson is a Northwest native, but don't people who are forced to start doing anything in Idaho do so with the goal of getting out, and never going back? When Erickson's contract runs out with San Fran, he'll be enjoying a $200K per year salary in potato country (with incentives). So, essentially, with $200K being a pretty nice salary in today's world, he just lost 11.5 jobs equal to the one he took. You can't tell me there weren't better opportunities out there for a guy with this kind of college pedigree.

I guess life takes you on a strange trip, but for Erickson, it's just a little surreal. How many guys do you know start out a mere Vandal but get caught and end up a Convict, then get released and embrace as much Beaver as possible before panning for professinal gold with the 49ers? And after all that escalation to become one of the gems of coaching, after earning himself a reputation, he's regressing back to his Vandalizing days in The Gem State. Sad irony, Dennis. Have fun getting your ass kicked by Boise and Fresno State.

What's the Bigger Scandal? Tocchet's Gambling Ring or The U.S. Women's Hockey Team Photo Shoot

Yesterday was a disturbing day in hockey on multiple levels. We'll be hearing about the alleged gambling ring headed by reputed hockey capo Rick Tocchet for weeks to come. Everyone and their mother seems to be involved in this mess, from the apparent queen mafiosess Janet Jones, to the newly retired legendary owner Mario Lemieux. Perhaps if Mario wasn't gambling so much, his new heart condition could have been staved off for it bit.

Let's look at this objectively though. If Tocchet were taking bets illegally and has to deal with the consequences of said venture, that's fine, but I'm not about to get high and mighty and ostracize any player, coach, owner, clergyman, doctor, lawyer, deity or otherwise who places a wager on a football game with the local book now and then. I do it. You do it. We all do it or have done it one way or another in the past. It's a hypocritical scenario in this country as it is. Some states say it's legal, others not. It's ridiculous. If people want to be jackasses because they think they know sports and throw away their money (kind of like me...yep, I had Seattle), then that's their prerogative.

Tocchet and whatever mob kingpin roped him in as the spokesman and collector in this scenario could be construed as geniuses. Think about it -- an entire community of rich Canadians betting on American football. I smell a lot of vig. Most of them are probably trying to figure why the field is so short.

Were they betting on hockey? I'm sure somewhere along the lines, some of them did somewhere, but we'll never know about it. Tocchet will own up to the "ring" and stick to the "no hockey" story, and why not believe him? I mean, who the hell bets on hockey, especially in today's NHL? If you're slapping thousands down on NHL games every night, then you've already taken too many pucks to the melon (that last sentence was brought to you by the Canadian accent).

So, hockey fans everywhere will tremble in fear for a few weeks about the state of their already recovering sport. Pond hockey teams in Canada will be ready to sue for the rights to the Stanley Cup should the league shut down again (don't laugh, this actually happened). But by the time the toothless melting pot come skating back from representing their countries in Torino, this will have all blown over.

Speaking of Torino, there was an even more devastating blow to hockey's face yesterday than the gambling scandal. And it involves hockey's faces, well, at least the faces of the U.S. Women's Olympic hockey team. I warn you that clicking on this link could cause nausea, dementia, rash, uncontrollable shuttering, and possible catatonia.

I give you the off-ice photo shoot of our ladies of hockey! And I ask you who in the name of all that is decent and holy in this world, was the marketing genius who decided that we needed to put a face on these women? I think there are two that look like pro-creating won't set the world back 50 years. And what is with the horse ranch setting? Most of these pictures are taken on the ice without helmets in poses, as if the photographer thought, "maybe they'll look a little better if they're in their own element." Some of them, however, are taken at what looks to be a farm, with the girls leaning on fence posts with that "I'm in 7th grade and I'm not smiling so I don't show my braces" look on their face. Either way, they should have left the helmets on.

I don't know if these girls can play hockey or not this year. I'm sure they are one of the favorites, and sure, I wish them all the best as they go to represent our country, but I think it's pretty safe to say that the names Lindsay Wall, Chanda Gunn, and Caitlin Cahow (that last name is too priceless) won't be etching a visual in your memory anytime soon -- at least in that part of the memory we don't want to erase.

The Holy War Tonight in Philly

Since 1955, when the Big Five began the City Series in Philadelphia, with the five major college basketball Division I schools playing each other, only three times has the last game pitted two teams with undefeated City Series records for that season. Throughout the years, parity has stuck a fork in these heated rivalries, whether teams were nationally ranked and looking ahead to the Big Dance, or scratching and clawing at the goal of staying above .500. When two Philly schools get together at the Palestra, it's going to be something special.

For those who don't know, the Big 5 in Philly are Temple, Villanova, St. Joseph's, LaSalle, and Penn. Drexel, the little brother who got kicked out of the treehouse, could be considered a sixth, although they aren't involved in the City Series.

All of these schools have rivalries with one another. Three of them play in the same conference, the Atlantic 10. But none of them hold the deep-seeded hatred that can only really come to a boil when Catholics are involved. Tonight at 7:30, we will be treated to this year's rendition of the Holy War in college basketball when St. Joe's takes on Villanova in the hallowed halls of the Palestra on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. Both schools would be considered small by national standards. VU enrolls around 6,300 undergrads, while there are around 4,200 Hawks circling the City Line Ave. area. They are mere miles apart and you can feel the ire burning through the Main Line and toward West Philly each time they get together. Their students hate each other, and when they get to their schools as bug-eyed freshman, they usually don't even know why.

They hate each other because they are told to at first, but then it takes on a theme. The Wildcats are the spoonfed rich kids and the Hawks are the suburbanites that lived one step below them their whole lives. Of course, at the University level, that's a pretty loose blanketing theory to throw out there, but to a neutral party in the area, that's what it always has and always will look like.

So how big is this rivalry? Well, this week is Rivalry Week on ESPN, and take a shot what game is kicking it off? Most of the country would never have heard of either of these schools if it weren't for 1985 and Brian Westbrook for Villanova, and coaching greats like Jimmy Lynam and Dr. Jack Ramsey, or Jameer Nelson, and the 27-0 regular season Hawks of two seasons ago, yet ESPN wants to put it front and center as it kicks off its post-football run toward March Madness.

The Palestra is like a brick sardine can. The tickets for tonight's game are split right down the middle, half to each school, and they will pack into this mecca of round ball so tightly that it will be a dieters dream sauna, and a claustrophobics nightmare closet. The gym is hot, the pressure and intensity are thick, and the hoops will be frantic, because that's what the Big 5 delivers. All sports have their little anomalies that many people don't know about that make them great. There are many in college basketball, but none more meaningful, more energetic than Big Five hoops.

For the fourth time in 51 years, two City Series undefeateds will put the title on the line in Philly, and it's only fitting that the combatants are the biggest rivals in a series defined by the word rivalry.

Terrible Towels Doom Seattle

Welcome to Running the Count Full. Those of you who followed me over from The Sports Blog (mostly because I sent you an e-mail begging you to) will recognize the name of the blog from my weekly theme articles over there. Well, since this site is all mine, and I can stick the gloves pretty much anywhere I want, I figured this would be a good name for this site, where we can push sports discussion to the limit, challenge the idiocy of mainstream media, bludgeon the indiscretions of the athletes we follow, and once in a blue moon, actually enjoy the glory of sport. Although a baseball term, this site will run the gamut on the four major sports, college and pro, and touch on some ancillary sports topics as well, but perhaps it's fitting that I'm launching just 10 days from pitchers and catchers. I can already smell the linseed oil. We won't have to wait long for meaningful baseball discussions this year either, as baseball's excuse to be worldly kicks off at the beginning of March with the World Baseball Classic. I don't know about you, but I'll be rooting for Mike Piazza, whose heartwarming patriotism toward Italy stands as a poignant example of what the word "asshole" means in the dictionary.

But, we can't get to a diamond without going through a gridiron (or so I just made up), and I'll start the blog off talking about last night's sports viewing experience, one that can only be described as surreal.

Super Bowl Sunday is a national holiday. It's bigger than Valentine's Day, Arbor Day, Flag Day, MLK Day, President's Day, and it would be bigger than Memorial and Labor Day but for the fact that most of us get a 3-day weekend out of those. It's another excuse to party in a country always looking for an "excuse" to party, instead of just doing it guilt-free like the rest of the world does.

In tuning in for the last hour or two of the pre-game last night, after setting up our second big screen on the bar (because for 8 people, one big screen is apparently not enough), I found one common theme flowing through the entire day. Nobody involved looked like they belonged doing what they were doing. It started with the introduction of the previous Super Bowl MVPs -- a veritable Who's Who of football history, until of course guys like the Cowgirl's Larry Brown were introduced. Brown had a look on his face that said, "Damn, I know these people are just wondering why they're introducing the Knicks coach with the Super Bowl MVPs." It went on from there to a disturbing rendition of the national anthem, where Aretha Franklin, Aaron Neville and some strange guy I've never heard of did about as much for the reputation of the Star Spangled Banner as malaria did for the misquito. Following that debacle was the ever-popular, oft-wagered upon coin toss. Apparently, whoever was supposed to do it forgot to show up, because when Tom Brady ended up at the stadium because he forgot he wasn't playing this year, they just grabbed him because they figured he'd have a good enough arm to get it up in the air. And as that occurred, I looked at the captains....can someone tell me what Sean Morey was doing staring down the Seahawks at midfield of the Super Bowl? Honestly, read that sentence again. Go ahead. I'll wait. Read that sentence again. NOTHING about that sentence makes any sense!

As if that weren't enough, they actually let these two teams play football, and what occurred was sloppier than Star Jones after being locked in a freezer for a week. Disregarding the play where Big Ben scrambled and had the wherewithal to know where the line of scrimmage was before chucking up a dying quail that was begging to be picked off, he was God awful. In the first half, Pittsburgh's offense was more offensive than 2 Live Crew in the Banned in the USA days. And Seattle, who I'm about to defend when I get to the real mess of this game, should not be defended because Hasselback and Holmgren, at the end of BOTH halves, made Donovan McNabb and Andy Reid's exercise in retardation look like Patton and McArthur charging on the Germans. What in the HELL was going on when Hasselback decided to go to Page 349 of the playbook to audible with less than 20 seconds left in the half? How is it humanly possible for them to go into the locker room with a timeout still tucked in their shorts? I find the whole thing dumbfounding.

So, the football was about as well played as, well, every other NFL game this season (save a few) -- sloppy, undisciplined, neurotic, erratic, and just plain bad for that level. But the football wasn't the worst thing on the field. I'm only going to touch on it briefly because cruising around the net, I see that it's been touched on by plenty, but the officiating in this game was atrocious, and the fact that every call bordering on controversy went toward Pittsburgh is an anomaly I'd rather ignore to save my fragile love of the purity of sports.

I hear people talking about the blatantly obvious Matt Hasselback "cut block"/tackle, and how 15 officials can be on the field without seeing that he didn't touch anyone else is beyond me. But to me, it all starts in the first quarter with the most ticky-tack offensive pass interference penalty I've ever witnessed in my life. How that flag comes out against Darrell Jackson is a wonder on scale with the Hanging Gardens of Babylonia and the Colossus of Rhodes. That play was huge. With Pittsburgh playing more like the University of Pittsburgh instead of the Steelers, Seattle needed to capitalize more often.

On a night when the terrible towels waved in abundance at what is supposed to be a neutral site, the most terrible towels of all, and the same color to boot, came from the pockets of zebras. As Hasselback charged down the field for the go ahead score in the 4th quarter and hit his tight end Jeremy "Hey Porter, Carry my Bags" Stevens at the 4 yard line, the weight of never having contributed much more than weird coffee, grunge music and the industry that sprung an IPO craze that caused the economy to eventually drop through the floor, lifted from Seattle's shoulders. However, being a gentleman, and seeing that Seattle had dropped something, the ref picked that weight back up and bashed it over their heads with that horrendous holding call on Sean Locklear.

The whole thing's a scam, a sham, and the NFL should be embarrassed that this group was apparently the best they could supply for the biggest single sporting event in the world each year. You would think for its popularity, it would have the resources to produce better. But then again, had it done so, there just might have been a parade in Seattle today or tomorrow, and hell, nobody likes a parade in the rain.

Please come back and visit and feel free to click on any ads on the way out...it's like throwing coins into the blind mans coffee mug!!!