Randomization: 06/30/06

Why ESPN really bugs me. I understand what ESPN is doing and why. The NFL Network has really invaded ESPN's territory as of late, first with the "Total Access" show that is basically a SportsCenter for NFL coverage, then with the decision to add live regular-season games to the network lineup starting on Thanksgiving Day, and now the addition of a weekly Sunday highlight show to compete directly with the Sunday night SportsCenter on ESPN.

ESPN, meanwhile, has more "name" guys on their NFL coverage team, including the likes of Tom Jackson, Joe Theismann, Mike Golic, Michael Irvin, Steve Young, and even Sean Salisbury. And they're trying to up their NFL coverage a notch or two, almost obviously in response to the increased presence of competing outlets on the NFL scene.

(NFL=ratings. It's just a reality at this point.)

Anyway, as a result of this, we're getting more "pre-training camp" NFL stuff from ESPN than ever before. The latest project they've taken up is something called "The Ultimate NFL Depth Chart". The basic idea behind it is that three of ESPN's NFL talkers, Salisbury, Mark Schlereth, and Mike Golic, get together and rank the 32 NFL teams based on their depth and talent at various positions.

It's completely pointless. Why? Because these guys are too much into hyping those who they feel need to be hyped. For example, I'm supposed to believe that the Green Bay Packers have one of the worst pass defenses in the NFL.

The Green Bay Packers allowed 167.5 yards per game passing in 2005. That would happen to rank them NUMBER ONE IN THE LEAGUE. Oh, and they signed Charles Woodson over the offseason. And they drafted A.J. Hawk. Now, I know that the Packers need to force more turnovers, and they need to get Ahmad Carroll off the field stop taking so many penalties in coverage. But the fact that they were #1 in pass yards allowed a year ago should pretty much disqualify them from only being 26th-best in pass defense, right?

Meanwhile, the same crew rated the New England Patriots as the tenth-best pass defense, even though the facts (sorry, I hate to use the word "statistics" anymore, because people have forgotten what that word means) state that New England was the SECOND-WORST IN THE LEAGUE in pass defense a year ago.

Now, my standards aren't too high when it comes to anything that Sean Salisbury is involved in. He sucked as a football player, and he's even worse as an analyst. ESPN needs to have a full-time fact-checker following Sean, and they don't. This is a shining example. Put Schlereth in the mix (another guy who likes to run his yapper before he knows the facts), and you're asking for disaster. But ESPN has to be capable of more than this. It's mindless listing and stupid hype, but it could still be a fun concept if they got some people involved who actually had a clue what they were talking about.

(During ESPN's usually exemplary coverage of the NFL Draft, Schlereth actually said that A.J. Hawk isn't much of a pass rusher. A.J. Hawk had 9.5 sacks last season, two more than Florida State's Kamerion Wimbley, who was described by analysts as a "great pass-rushing prospect".)

And to show this isn't all about the Packers, my favorite part of the various segments done so far was when they ranked the pass-catchers. When the panelists ranked Indianapolis number one (as they should), anchor Trey Wingo repeatedly asked them about the loss of Edgerrin James. Now, James was a part of the Colts' passing game, no question. But HE'S A RUNNING BACK, and it's not like the Colts lost LaDainian Tomlinson (additionally, the panelists discussed Ray Lewis' impact on the Ravens at length when rating their pass defense, though Lewis' obvious strengths at this point are against the run). They still have great receivers and a great tight end in Dallas Clark.

Also of note, the Seahawks pass defense was rated in the top ten after a rather mediocre performance in 2005 and the loss of a starting safety in free agency. The Bears pass defense, last seen getting abused by the Carolina Panthers Steve Smith, was ranked fifth. The Chiefs' pass-catchers, who helped Trent Green to a 4,000-yard passing season in 2005, were rated 22nd.

Hockey free-agent frenzy to begin. July 1 starts free agency in the NHL, where the salary cap has been upped to $44 million (minimum of $28 million). The league saw great improvement in the style and level of play this past season, as the fans really took to the numerous rule changes that were designed to open up play. This year's free agent frenzy should be a good one. Teams like Pittsburgh, Washington, Atlanta, Florida, Minnesota, Columbus, and others will be looking to bolster their lineups around young stars (and also, in many cases, increase the payroll enough to reach the minimum). Teams like Detroit, Dallas, Colorado, and Philadelphia will try to use their "big-market muscle" to get better for longer playoff runs.

We've already seen a few big trades. The Wild shockingly acquired a good veteran player, picking up Pavol Demitra from the Kings during the draft. The Vancouver Canucks got a real goaltender, dealing Todd Bertuzzi to Florida for Roberto Luongo. And we're going to see at least one more big trade, as Edmonton ice-time king Chris Pronger has asked out of Edmonton for "personal reasons".

And, finally...Sad note out of the Big Ten, where Northwestern football coach Randy Walker died of an apparent heart attack last night in Chicago. Walker, 52, led Northwestern to four six-win seasons and three bowl games, truly high points for this oft-downtrodden program. Walker was a great ambassador for Big Ten football, and he will be missed. Our condolences to Walker's family, as well as the Northwestern football family on their great loss.

Randomization: 06/29/06

Please stop yelling at me...Stephen A. Smith. I didn't do anything wrong. So why are you shouting so?

You see, I can tolerate Stephen A. in small doses. And lately, I've been getting them. Haven't seen him on SportsCenter in a while, because I basically ignored their NBA Playoff coverage. And I don't watch "Quite Frankly".

But they let him on the NBA Draft show last night. And I was watching.

SO I WAS EXPOSED TO THREE HOURS OF AN ANGRY NBA ANALYST YELLING AT ME FOR NO REASON. HE YELLED ABOUT ANDREA BARGNANI. HE YELLED ABOUT RUDY GAY. HE YELLED ABOUT RANDY FOYE. HE YELLED ABOUT ISIAH THOMAS (well, who can blame him for that?).

STOP YELLING AT ME. YOU ARE WEARING A MICROPHONE. THE MICROPHONE WORKS. I CAN HEAR YOU.

Jay Bilas was pretty good. Dan Patrick did a great job anchoring the whole thing, especially when David Stern came out to take a shot at him (something like "I'm in the back waiting for you to say something nice about one of our draft picks" - it was gold).

(That, by the way, is the best part about the NBA Draft. The people in the theater can hear what the ESPN guys are saying, and they react to it. So I can take some solace in that Stephen A. was yelling at all of them, too.)

Personally, I can't wait for Bill Simmons' ESPN.com draft diary, which should be up shortly. He always picks through everything with a fine-tooth comb, so to speak. And I'm sure he'll have something to say about the insane overuse of words like "long" and "upside", along with the phenomenon that is the Yelling Man.

OMG THE WOLVES DIDN'T SCREW UP. Really. They didn't. And I salute Kevin McHale. You could argue that Brandon Roy is a better player because he's "longer" than Randy Foye. You could argue that Roy is a better fit as a "tweener" point/shooting guard because he'll handle the ball better. But Foye can slash the lane, and he can distribute the ball. Not only that, but he's a very good three-point shooter. Either way, the Wolves would have been in good shape, but you could probably argue that the "Dwyane Wade" comparisons floating around Foye were too attractive for Minnesota to pass up when they had a chance to make this deal.

Also draft-related...
--> The Blazers were stupid not to take Adam Morrison with that second pick. Then again, they're known for being stupid. In their defense, trading for the rights to local boy Roy was the right move when they passed up on Morrison.
--> I really like what the Knicks did...if the plan was to destroy the franchise. It was great that New Jersey took Marcus Williams after Isiah insanely passed on him. It ensures that Williams will be torturing the Knicks for years...long after Isiah gets fired next spring.

Is this really a punishment? Hall of Fame Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker turned in a woman for stalking him. That woman, Ann E. Ladd, has allegedly been stalking Uecker for six or seven years, going so far as to follow the Brewers to out-of-town games and finding the hotel that Uecker was staying at on the road trips.

Anyway, in advance of a trial, Ladd has been ordered to stay away from Brewers games, along with staying at least 1,000 feet away from Uecker at all times.

Don't you think that a potential punishment of "having to stay away from Brewers games" would potentially drive many Brewers fans to stalk Uecker?

"Want to go to the game today, Dave?"

"Can't. I got a restraining order after I threatened to lay on the hood of Uecker's car until he signed my Brewers hat. Oh, damn. I can't go to the stadium to watch the Brewers lose to the Pirates. I'm so heartbroken."

BlogPoll Roundtable #3,719: EDSBS gets personal

Apparently, football season is getting close. The BlogPoll roundtables are coming fast and furious now, and the latest to jump on the bandwagon is the wonderful Florida fan blog Every Day Should be Saturday.

And for the first time, I think, in BlogPoll history, the poll isn't all about college football.

It's personal.

You'll see what I mean.

1. Education. List the region of the country you were born in, what universities you attended and at least one other you would have attended if your alma mater didn’t exist.

I was born in the lovely metropolis of Superior, Wisconsin (right across the MN/WI border from Duluth).

I attended UW-Eau Claire and UW-Superior in my fruitless attempt to get a real college education. If Madison wasn't a five-hour drive away from home, I would have gone there (I did get accepted there). Well, there was the five-hour drive and the whole probation issue. But that's in the past, and I'm not here to talk about the past.

Wait.

(OK. I made up the "probation issue" part. Or at least that's what I'm telling you.)

2. Sports Affiliations. List your top 10 favorite teams in all of sports in decending order. For instance, your alma mater’s football team may be number 1, but perhaps there is a professional team that squeezes in before you get to your alma mater’s lacrosse team.

10. Minnesota Timberwolves
9. Minnesota Wild
8. Wisconsin basketball
7. Wisconsin football
6. UMD basketball
5. UMD football
4. Milwaukee Brewers
3. UMD hockey
3 (tie). Wisconsin Badger hockey
1. Green Bay Packers

I could work as the play-by-play guy for UMD hockey for another 20 years, and I will probably never lose my Badger fandom. It's hard to do that when that's where I grew up and that's who I grew up rooting for.

3. Movies. List the movie you’ve watched the most, your favorite sports related movie, the movie you secretly love but don’t like to admit it (possibly a chick flick or b film), and the movie you were (or still are) most looking forward to from this summer’s season.

Movie I've watched the most: Major League
Favorite sports-related movie: Field of Dreams
Guilty movie: The Girl Next Door
Looking forward to: Cars

4. Music. List your favorite band from middle school, high school, college and today. Also, as with the movies, include the song you secretly love but don’t like to admit. If Nickleback is involved in any of these responses, please give a detailed explanation as to why, god, why.

Middle school: Alice in Chains
High school: Alice in Chains/Metallica/Nirvana
College: Alice in Chains (the three-legged dog CD and Unplugged both came out at this time)
Today: Nickelback Disturbed

(I have to say something in defense of Nickelback, if only because I have received plenty of exposure to them. My wife likes them, and my son adores them. Of course, he's only four, but it's hilarious how many Nickelback songs he can sing. And even Nickelback sounds cool when being accompanied by a four-year-old boy.

Anyway, my theory on Nickelback has stood since their first major-label release, "The State", which still stands as their best work by a pretty large margin. They're one of those bands that can be tolerated in small doses. As long as the exposure is to either their first CD or the most recent one, because the two in between are less than good. I would never pay to see them perform. Hell, I probably wouldn't open the window if they were playing in my front yard, because they're awful live. But I did want to mention this, even though it may subject my family to undue ridicule.)

Song I secretly love: "Lose Yourself" by Eminem would make this spot, but I'm not ashamed to enjoy that song. I'm going to have to go with "Hazard" by Richard Marx. Yes, I just typed that. So sue me.

5. Books. Favorite book you’ve finished, worst book you’ve finished and the book you really should read but haven’t gotten around to it.

Favorite: "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis. My goal in life is to convince Joe Morgan to read it. Honorable mention to "Why My Wife Thinks I'm an Idiot" by ESPN Radio's Mike Greenberg, which reads like someone wrote my life's story. It was so much fun for me to read that I made my wife read it so I could see if she would have the same reaction. I was frightened when she did.

Worst: "Game of Shadows". I'm not a Bonds apologist, but much of this book has "witch hunt" written all over it, and much of this book is uninteresting drivel about people you can't possibly care about.

Book I really should read: "Wisdom of our Fathers" by Tim Russert.

6. Travel. Favorite city you’ve every been to and the one place you still must visit before you shuffle off this mortal coil.

Favorite city: Bonita Springs, FL. Especially since I got to go there the day after Christmas. That ruled.

Place I must visit: Tokyo.

7. What do you love most about college football in 20 words or less?

Passion, effort, Jump Around, College GameDay, goalpost destruction, and making fun of Ohio State, Minnesota, and Phil Fulmer.

BlogPoll: The Roundtable...Revisited

Note to BlogPollers: I might not have gotten everyone. If I didn't (some of you didn't post responses, preferring instead to e-mail them to me), please post a link to your response so everyone can see, and then feel free to flog me severely for my stupidity. Thanks.

Thanks to all who did play along. I got a better response than I had expected. I figured that only Orson and Brian were big enough losers to give this a whole lot of time and effort during A) the summer and B) the World Cup.

I decided to do this summary a little bit different than I first planned. Before I get started on the individual questions and such, here are links to all the responses I received, in no particular order:

Badger Sports Blog (not a BlogPoller, but this is my roundtable, and he's welcome)
Maize n Brew
Eagle in Atlanta
Sexy Results! (!)
Orange 44
MGoBlog
My Opinion on Sports
Burnt Orange Nation
Sunday Morning Quarterback
MDG College Football
View From Rocky Top
I'm a Realist
Dawg Sports
Every Day Should Be Saturday
Bruins Nation
Kanka Sports
Pitt Sports Blather
Pitch Right
Have You Met Tony?
Oh, and me

As I went through the questions and some of your answers, I also tallied the votes on questions where votes were talliable (word?). On questions like "overrated" and "underrated", I only counted certain mentions of teams, but I did count more than one team from many of your responses, depending on how you answered. Same went for the H*i*m*n question.

Which preseason college football magazine is your favorite?

This went as expected. Phil Steele got a lot of votes. Many, including Pitch Right, made it clear that it wasn't that other major national magazines "sucked", it was that Phil was so good.

I think Sexy Results voted for Phil. I know EDSBS did. And you all know what I think.

Orange 44 voted for Blue Ribbon, which I believe is available in book form or on ESPN Insider later this summer. And if I'm right about the ESPN Insider part (I think I clipped and read the previews last year off ESPN), Blue Ribbon is also a good choice, only it lacks Phil's run-on sentences, gambling info, VHTs, pictures of alleged hotties in bikinis, Turnovers=Turnaround, and really small print.

Tony still likes Athlon's, but he admits he hasn't really paid much attention to the magazines. This is like saying Shasta Cola is really good when you've never tasted Coke, Pepsi, or about 35 other different kinds of pop soda soda pop ah, whatever the hell you all call it.

Totals
Phil Steele 10
Sporting News/Athlon 2 each
Blue Ribbon 1
Sunday Morning Quarterback 1*

(* In case you're wondering, SMQ, Burnt Orange Nation is the suckup vote.)

Which team is being supremely overrated in the preseason rankings?

This was fun. OU fan My Opinion on Sports picked Texas. Burnt Orange Nation picked Oklahoma. Stunning.

MOS probably doesn't want to know that he was the lone wolf on Texas. BON has company in picking Oklahoma, including Orange 44, who has a lack of trust in Rhett Bomar (who can blame him?).

Some, including SMQ, jumped on West Virginia (Phil did, too). I'm humored by this because of something I'm about to point out...just hang on.

Oh, and Notre Dame and Ohio State were sitting ducks for this question, so much so that there were a few of you who refused to acknowledge them (or barely did, like me).

USC received consideration, as well, even though about the only way they'd be overrated in my view is if they were a preseason top 3 team that got the "All-Access" treatment from ESPN while the "Worldwide Leader" ignored real title contenders like, say, Texas (though at least Longhorn fans would be used to this treatment).

Totals
Oklahoma 7
Notre Dame/Florida State/USC 4 each
Ohio State/Miami (FL) 3 each
West Virginia 2
LSU/Texas/Florida/Louisville 1 each

Turn the tables. Who is underrated?

This question received the largest number of different responses. I counted a total of 25, and even more teams were mentioned in passing by various posters (I tried to read your minds in a way to figure out the most important responses to retain for this count).

A surprising love for Boston College (led by SMQB), even though there are those who think they will plateau now after a fine ACC debut. West Virginia is the only team to get multiple mentions as being both overrated and underrated, which leads me to believe that the preseason top 5 love might actually be accurate.

I never thought I'd see a day where I would post that Michigan and Nebraska were, in my view, underrated, but it happened.

And I wasn't shocked to see some mentions made of the Tennessee Volunteers. View From Rocky Top chimed in on the Vols before boarding the plane. And he's probably right. After all, they're not going to go 5-6 again, no matter how much we all would enjoy it.

The Badger Sports Fan selected Michigan State, and Brian from MGoBlog tried to have him whacked for it.

Totals
Boston College/Tennessee/Iowa/Michigan 3 each
Nebraska/LSU/West Virginia 2 each
Navy/Virginia Tech/Temple/Indiana/Wisconsin/LSU/Pittsburgh/Arkansas/Fresno State/California/Texas/UCLA/Auburn/Georgia/Oregon/Purdue/Iowa State/Utah/Michigan State 1 each

Which conference will be best in 2006?

Some, who shall remain unnamed here (COUGHbruinsnationCOUGH), backed away from this question. Others actually tried to answer it.

Eagle in Atlanta likes the Big 12. I like the Pac 10. Dawg Sports homered on the SEC. MGoBlog voted for four, which is, I think, cheating.

Orange 44 digs the SEC, and I don't blame him for that. It's a really good league.

Totals
SEC 6
Big 12/Big 10/Pac 10 2 each
ACC 1

Which "non-BCS" conference will be best in 2006?

No one voted for the Sun Belt.

In fact, MGoBlog voted for "anyone but".

You people suck. And you're boring.

Since your responses were boring, I'm not going to cite any of them. Take that.

Totals
Mountain West 8
Western Athletic 6
Conference USA 3

Which non-BCS conference team will have the best season?

Maize n Brew voted for SMU. And he actually brought a decent argument to the table (I'm not high on SMU, but I really think they have a chance to steal a bowl bid if they can get some QB play).

The Badger Blogging Dude sort of cheated and picked Notre Dame. I should have excluded the, but I counted on you guys to avoid them, since they are a BCS conference by themselves. Somewhere in that mountain of a post, I think Sexy Results! gave some love to Navy, as did I. SMQ is all over Boise State...or Fresno State. MDG had trouble picking between Boise and Utah. I'm a Realist tabbed Fresno State, while EDSBS jumped on the Horned Frog bandwagon, if such a thing exists.

Totals
Utah 4
Navy/Boise State/TCU 3 each
Fresno State 2
SMU/Notre Dame 1 each
Wyoming 1 (though I'm not sure if it was a serious one)

Let's get your first read on this one...who will win the H*i*m*n? Oh, by the way, players whose last names begin with the letter "Q" are ineligible.

Kanka Sports likes Chauncey Washington out of USC, and also the most mentioned choices, Adrian Peterson and Troy Smith.

MDG was the only one to unearth Michael Bush out of Louisville. MOS shocked the BlogPoll world by choosing Peterson. Orange 44 picked Brendan Carney, even though I didn't think NFL kickers were eligible for the H*i*m*n.

Eagle in Atlanta cheated. I'm very upset. I should sentence you to a 1,000-word essay touting a H*i*m*n candidate not named "Quinn", but you'd probably give me the latest Beano Cook rant on how OMG QUINN UNBELIEVEABLE!.

Totals
Peterson 9
Smith 4
Quinn/Carney/Bush/Washington/Kenny Irons/Marshawn Lynch/Chris Leak* 1 each

(* You'll never guess where this came from. I couldn't believe it, either.)

Apologies

Real life has interfered. I hate having a job, but sometimes work interferes in the fun.

I will try to post the college football stuff tomorrow, but I know enough now not to make any promises.

Randomization: 06/22/06

Roundtable last call! If you are a BlogPoller who wants to get responses in for the roundtable, do it today. I'm going to post a summary tomorrow, if all goes well between now and then.

North Dakota has Bison Envy. It was announced yesterday that the University of North Dakota is going to move all their sports teams to Division I. Right now, everything except hockey is Division II, but UND will push them all up, which will cause them to leave the North Central Conference.

A few things. First off, this is a really nasty case of, well, Bison Envy. I'd use a different five-letter word, but my mother might be reading this.

UND just can't stand seeing North Dakota State, a longtime rival, being the only Division I school in the state. NDSU moved up a few years ago, and their men's basketball team made national headlines last January when they beat Wisconsin. Now, UND can try to best NDSU at the next level.

It's a move that will add around $2 million per year to UND's athletic budget, and it's a move that could work well for the Sioux. The athletic programs all compete at a high level in Division II. They're pretty much all competitive in the NCC, and many of them are usually competitive on a national level. They have well-coached teams, they recruit great athletes, and UND has top-notch facilities for their programs.

On the other hand, does anyone really believe that North Dakota is a state that was screaming to have two Division I schools? It should be interesting to see if both schools can thrive after moving up.

Also noteworthy is the future of the NCC. Since NDSU, South Dakota State, and Northern Colorado made the jump, the NCC has been short on teams. They added UMD in response to losing those schools, but were down to seven teams in most sports (the NCC has added Central Washington and Western Washington for football). With UND gone, the NCC could be facing a crossroads.

The Grand Forks Herald reports that South Dakota has formed a committee to explore the move, and St. Cloud State AD Morris Kurtz is quoted in the article as saying that they, too, will explore their options. I'm relatively certain that USD is gonzo. They'll go because their main NCC rivals, South Dakota State and now North Dakota, have departed. Meanwhile, the Omaha World-Herald says that Nebraska-Omaha isn't going anywhere, and various reports have the NCC looking to add teams from either the Northern Sun Conference (which used to be UMD's home), the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (teams such as Michigan Tech and Northern Michigan), the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletic Association (Central Missouri State, Pittsburg State, Washburn, etc.), and/or the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (Chadron State, Colorado Mines, Nebraska-Kearney, etc.).

Immediately, a short wish list comes to mind for the NCC. This is not based on any real insider information, but instead is only how the NCC would look if I had free reign to pick the teams. I'd say that an eight-team league is ideal. It would allow for a total of 14 conference games in basketball (home-and-home), and that gives schools plenty of opportunities to boost their schedule strength with non-league games, and seven conference football games, which is a good number, though some might say that eight is preferable.

Anyway, here is a run-through of the teams that I could realistically see joining the NCC.

NSIC
Winona State, Concordia (St. Paul), Northern State

GLIAC
Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan

RMAC
Nebraska-Kearney, Chadron State

I don't see anyone out of the MIAA leaving, though I guess nothing can truly be ruled out.

Of this short list, I can see the NCC taking three, maybe four teams (assuming that USD leaves for Division I and everyone else currently in the league stays in the league). I think Winona State is a good fit, but can they fund the jump in scholarships they'll need to be competitive? Concordia is competitive in a lot of sports, but the question with them is the same as Winona. The NSIC teams don't offer as many scholarships as the NCC schools do, and many NSIC schools don't "spend" to the limits allowed by their league. Any of them would have to make quite an investment in scholarship money (and some in facilities, too) to make the jump to the NCC.

I really like the idea of Michigan Tech and/or Northern Michigan moving in, though I'm not sure how much they'd want to. I'm not a huge fan of Chadron State because of how hard it is to get there, but it is a nice school with good facilities. Kearney seems like a decent fit geographically, as well, though I'm not sure how interested they'd be.

These are uncertain times for the NCC. They're probably better off adding teams than they would be in merging with the NSIC, because there are many NSIC schools that would have virtually no chance of being regularly competitive in a league with the five current NCC schools.

Ozzie's mouth has him in hot water again. I'm no fan of Jay Mariotti, but I'm pretty sure I've never thought of calling him a "(bleep)ing fag". And I'm pretty sure that even the biggest Mariotti detractor thinks that is over the line.

I'm not going to get into this too much into this, because I've talked about Ozzie before and, frankly, I'm sick of giving him attention when his baseball team is so damned good - and they're virtually forgotten about because of Guillen's mouth.

But if the White Sox don't suspend Guillen, and thus show no standards of behavior for their employees, baseball needs to step in. If Jay Mariotti (or any other reporter, for that matter) were to take such an insanely personal shot at Guillen, that person would lose their press credential, probably permanently, and there is at least an even-money shot that they would also lose their job. For the Sox to hold non-employees to a specific standard of behavior (as laid out on a press credential), but to turn the other cheek when one of their own people calls a reporter a "(bleep)ing fag" is beyond hypocritical, especially when you consider that Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf was front-and-center when baseball punished then-Reds owner Marge Schott for her racial and ethnic insensitivities. Eventually, Schott was basically forced to give up her ownership of the team.

The old excuses of "Well, he's winning" and "Well, he does have a point" aren't truly valid. Guillen needs to understand that it isn't 1982 anymore. You can't just say what you want in front of a bunch of reporters and expect to get away with it.

Randomization: 06/20/06

There's something about Stanley. It's just a silver trophy, and in all honestly, it's not that attractive.

See? Really...why does this have such an effect on hockey fans?

It's funny, really. I've watched pro sports championships play out for as long as I can remember. And, discounting the year Green Bay won the Super Bowl, there hasn't been a single year where the mere sight of the Vince Lombardi Trophy has made me smile. I don't grin ear to ear when I see the Larry O'Brien Trophy.

(Hell, most of you are probably going to have to Google "Larry O'Brien Trophy" just to find out what league it is handed out in.)

I don't get the chills when I see Bud Selig hand the ugly World Series trophy to someone. NCAA Championship trophies are nice, but it's not the same.

There's just something about Stanley.

Maybe it's the fact that one glance at the Stanley Cup reveals a snapshot of the history of hockey. See, everyone who has ever won it has their name on it. And there is legend to that. Every name has a story attached to it. A story of sacrifice. A story of grit. A story of determination. A story of greatness.

Every name. Even the guys who sit upstairs in their nice suits matched with their ugly playoff beards. Even the guy who skates on the fourth line and scores about as often as A.C. Green. The sixth defenseman. The third goalie. And they all have a story. They'll never forget the night they won the Cup.

Maybe it's the fact that the Stanley Cup is the only trophy in pro sports that is handed first to the captain of the winning team. Before the owner gets to touch it, everyone on the team gets their chance to hold it high. The owner isn't front and center for the trophy presentation like he is in every other sport. The players are. That's the way it should be, and hockey is the only sport that gets it right.

Everyone who follows hockey might have their different reasons why, but there's no doubt that there is something about Stanley. Something that makes it okay for a distasteful, diving thug like Rod Brind'Amour to win his first Cup. Something that makes it okay for grown men to grow ugly beards for two months. Something that makes it okay for those grown men to blubber like broken-hearted toddlers when they get to touch the Cup.

There's something about Stanley. Congratulations to the Carolina Hurricanes and their fans. What an awesome experience that must have been.

Check out the LiveBlog. I did do my first-ever LiveBlog, with regular updates on game action and other things. Enjoy. I only have a couple more things to add:

1. I have no problem with Cam Ward winning the Conn Smythe, though I probably would have voted for Brind'Amour. I have no bias against goalies, but it's worth pointing out that Ward faltered badly in the Buffalo series, to the point that Martin Gerber got a start in Game 4, and his shutout win over the Sabres probably saved the Hurricanes' season.

2. After doing a great job for the most part in these playoffs, I felt that Brad Watson and Bill McCreary let too much go last night. It didn't ruin the game at all, but there were three or four really nasty hits (and it was probably split evenly between the two teams) that needed to be called and weren't. In Edmonton's case, it was probably a good thing, since their penalty kill was hanging by a thread when they weren't allowing a quick goal to Frantisek Kaberle, and their power play was about as putrid as anything imaginable at that level.

Congrats to both teams. It was a great series and a great way to re-introduce the NHL to a ton of sports fans. Hopefully, those available sports fans sampled last night's game, because I find it hard to imagine that they wouldn't have liked what they saw. And it's a credit to both teams. They laid it all out on the ice and gave us seven games that were very entertaining. The only periods that were bad were the third periods of Games 2 and 6, because those were lopsided shutout wins where the losing team fell out of it early in the third and never got back in it.

Even though overtimes and Game 7s were somewhat rare this year, the NHL got off to a great start. Now it's time to focus on building up the fanbase a little bit. There's no question that hockey has a loyal following, and they have great fans in pretty much all of their cities. But in order for the sport to gain the heights we'd all like to see it gain, the league has to do a better job of marketing itself in cities that don't have teams.

(After all, do you think that the NFL is only viewed by fans in areas where there are teams?)

LiveBlog: Game Seven

Need I say more?

Check back for all the fun.

7:00pm - No beer. No chips. No pizza. Just me, the computer, the television, and a bottle of Propel. Game on.

(Nothing like a little "Lingo" on GSN to warm us up. And the weather here is good, which probably means that the satellite dish won't fail me at any point *fingers crossed*.)

7:02pm - Eddie Olczyk has just made his first dumb comment tonight. He'd rather be in Carolina's room because "they're at home". Hey, Eddie, the last time they were at home, they got pretty thoroughly outplayed, especially in the third period and overtime (all 3:31 of it). And need I remind you of the last game these two teams played?

Carolina might win, but it won't be because they have momentum or they're at home or OMG A BUNCH OF HOME TEAMS WON GAME 7s 30 YEARS AGO. They'll win because they played better.

Edmonton has momentum, and history doesn't matter a lick right now.

7:06pm - Hats off to the music peeps at RBC Center. They've played Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" after visiting team goals, and they just played Aerosmith's "Dream On" during the pregame.

Nice touch.

By the way, if you're keeping score on "Really dumb comments", Olczyk has a 1-0 lead over Ray Ferraro. He's gone into a trap to try to hold the lead.

And if you missed it earlier, Barry Melrose flip-flopped, going against the team he picked at the start of the playoffs (Carolina) in favor of Edmonton. I really don't like Edmonton's chances as a result. The hockey gods don't like flip-flopping.

7:10pm - Doc Emrick announces that Rexall Place in Edmonton is sold out tonight. The game is in Raleigh. I wonder if RBC Center was sold out for Game 6 in Edmonton...

7:17pm - Thank you, Edmonton fans, for setting such a fine example in how you treat both national anthems. The Carolina fans have clearly taken your cue, led by some hot young female college student.

7:19pm - GAME ON!!

7:21pm - Uh oh. Too much traffic, and Aaron Ward beats Markkanen down low. Oilers got caught running around a bit, but still a lot of time.

7:27pm - We've had our first horribly bad call of the night, and Edmonton has had their first horrible power play of the night, though they did pull a couple chances out in the final seconds. Carolina definitely getting the better of things right now, but Edmonton is getting their legs.

(The call? Eric Staal went for a collision in a tight space behind the net on the goalie. Three seconds later, Erik Cole got away with a pretty blatant hit from behind right in front of the referee, and on the Staal hit, you could blame the goalie for the contact as much as Staal. But such is life. DON'T EVER TOUCH THE GOALIE.)

7:35pm - Yes, Carolina has the early goal, but Edmonton is clearly not phased. Ward, however, is off to a shutout-worthy start.

7:38pm - That won't rate as the smartest penalty Jaroslav Spacek has ever taken. Power play Whalers. Oops.

7:40pm - John Davidson said that Doug Weight has a third-degree shoulder separation. Credit Weight for even TRYING to get ready for this game, but there's no way any doctor with a license could let him play with that injury.

7:45pm - Edmonton needs to a better job of responding physically to Carolina. The 'Canes are hitting because they have to, and Edmonton needs to hit because it's what they do.

And Carolina needs to stop bringing the puck in offsides.

7:50pm - Matt Greene just took a dumb penalty. Shocking, I know.

(On a side note, they're letting a lot of high hits go for both teams. The officials better be careful, because I know the players will do what it takes to win, and the officials have to keep a certain amount of control over this thing.)

7:55pm - I think Steve Staios just saved a goal. For now.

And they were about to make a really bad call against Ethan Moreau of Edmonton. Really bad call. Awful. Homer-esque call.

8:00pm - John Davidson is stupid. When he goes to bug the replay booth for an official explanation of a call that only he fails to understand, maybe he can look up the official rule regarding touchups on delayed penalties, because he's sorta fuzzy on that, too.

End 1, 1-0 Carolina. They'll have 1:56 or so of Moreau's lame penalty left to start the second.

8:21pm - Apparently, I missed an explanation of the no-goal call at the end of the first period while watching the bra and panties match on RAW. Meanwhile, NBC needed 10-12 minutes, but their crew was able to render a replay that showed the puck apparently crossing the line. Can't blame this one on the league, because even the best technology would take far too long to allow such a view to be used.

8:26pm - Dumb penalty. Goal Carolina. Why isn't Carolina called when they use their sticks to interfere with Edmonton players' sticks, but Edmonton guys are called for doing the same thing?
(Side note: John Davidson just made another really dumb comment. He is apparently shocked that all these fans are standing as much as they are.

JD: When have you ever seen fans stand straight into the second period?

The answer, John, is "Pretty much any college hockey game in the United States outside of Minneapolis."

You're welcome.)

8:36pm - Memo to Edmonton forwards: STOP DROP PASSING. YOU SUCK AT IT.

8:46pm - More drop passing by Hemsky, who is officially a piece of crap.

Wow. They actually called a penalty on Carolina. The nerve of those evil officials.

This is a must-score power play for the Men of Oil.

8:49pm - Here you go, Edmonton. Two-man advantage for 1:56. They won't get a shot.

8:50pm - Told you. Game over.

8:57pm - 2-0 after two, and it looks a lot worse. It's Game 6 with the wrong team winning this time. Congrats to Edmonton on a great run, but it appears to have fallen short. They have themselves to blame, really, with all the great chances they've squandered tonight with bad passing and tepid shooting. You can't play like that, and Edmonton has played like that wayyyyy too much in this series for the Oil to successfully overcome.

9:03pm - Oh, and because I'm a relatively gracious individual: Congratulations to Carolina and their fans. I hope they stick around for more next year, because besides the cagy veterans, they have some great young players. This has been a great series, and for many people, a great re-introduction into this great sport. I couldn't be happier about the playoffs I've witnessed, even though it appears that the team I wanted to skate with Stanley will fall just short.

9:16pm - Third period underway. Taken out of context, admittedly, here is a quote from JD:

"If Edmonton doesn't get a power play in the period, it will certainly help them."

Good call, JD. You've clearly been paying attention to the Edmonton power play.

GOAL! Conn Pisani makes it 2-1.

9:35pm - Bret Hedican just took the dumbest penalty of his life. Well, he played at St. Cloud State, so that might not be true. Then again, a post-whistle roughing minor in Game 7 of a Stanley Cup Final is about as dumb as you can get.

Oh, what's that? Edmonton's getting a power play? DAMMIT BRET!

(Correction: Penalty was dumb, but not post-whistle. Confirmed after the commercial by replay.)

9:40pm - Typical Edmonton power play, featuring tons of passes between the wings and the points, and not nearly enough shots. You'd think they would have learned by now, especially after the "get to the net and take some shots" approach worked so well in Game 6.

9:46pm - Timeout Carolina, 3:04 left. Good move, because the Whalers (oops) just iced the puck after a rather long shift.

Still 2-1. Should be a fun finish, which is all we can ask for.

9:50pm - That should do it. Empty-netter, and the rednecks go nuts. Great scene for the sport, even though no one is watching.

(Actually, that's not necessarily true. The ratings have made marginal improvements over the last three games. We'll see what Games 6 and 7 look like in the coming days, but they went from a 1.7 in Game 3 to a 3.0 in Game 5. It's not a good rating, but it'll work because it got better as the series wore on, assuming the improvement continued.)

9:53pm - Don't let this get chippy. 3-1 should be your final. Thanks for following along, either live or post-mortem, or both. I may never live-blog again, or maybe I will. Who knows?

I'll have more on the game tomorrow morning. And I guarantee you I won't be live-blogging any NBA games anytime soon.

Randomization: 06/19/06

Roundtable update. Thanks to all the BlogPollers who have taken part in the latest college football roundtable. I'll be posting some summary-type stuff on it later this week, so if you haven't answered the questions yet, there is still time. Just send me an e-mail or click the comment link on the BlogPoll post here to make your participation known.

Game 7, awesome hockey edition. I know where I will be tonight. I don't care if I'm passing up one of the nicest days imaginable in Duluth (sunny and 75). I'm going to be in front of the TV tonight for Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Not only will it be the last live hockey I get to see until October (barring the annual high school summer hockey tournaments in Minnesota), but it should be a good one. Edmonton and Carolina have battled through six very physical games, and it seems like Edmonton is the fresher team heading in to Game 7, especially after Saturday's 4-0 whitewashing in Game 6. Momentum? Undoubtedly with Edmonton. But momentum can turn on a dime, and it can turn without warning. How else does one explain the Oilers winning Game 5, when momentum and history were definitely on Carolina's side.

History, however, is again not on Edmonton's side, unlike momentum. Home teams are 11-2 all time in Stanley Cup Finals Game 7s, and Edmonton is trying to become the first team in 64 years (!) to successfully overcome a 3-1 series deficit to win a Stanley Cup Final.

Now, back to momentum for a moment, with a dosage of "Why it's a bad idea to fail to seize the moment at the first chance".

Let's travel back to 2003. I see at least some similarity between the Minnesota Wild of 2003 and the Edmonton Oilers of 2006. The Wild were down 3-1 to the Vancouver Canucks in the West semifinals. They looked dead in the water after losing two heartbreaking games on home ice. But Vancouver, in the driver's seat to move on to the conference final, forgot to show up for Game 5 at home (7-2 Minnesota) or Game 6 in St. Paul (5-1 Minnesota). The boring, trapping Wild skated circles around the Canucks in those two games, and they were suddenly emboldened by the Canucks' inability to close the deal. Minnesota fell behind 2-0 in Game 7, but were again emboldened when Todd Bertuzzi, in a story that became Wild hockey legend, allegedly told Wild D Willie Mitchell that it was "time to get out the golf clubs". Minnesota would win the game 4-2 with three third-period tallies against Vancouver sieve Dan Cloutier.

Anyway, it is true that momentum can turn on a dime for no real reason. And the day off, combined with the travel from Edmonton to Carolina, and the Hurricanes' raucous home crowd, may be enough to swing things in the 'Canes' favor. However, Edmonton knows going in that they don't have to make any major adjustments. They're playing as well now as they've played since the Detroit series, and if they can do it again, they have every reason to believe that they'll skate with Stanley tonight, backup goalie and all.

You want a prediction? Go somewhere else. I don't predict Game 7s. Read back and find out who I picked to win the series before it started, and if that pick ends up being wrong, feel free to hold it against me. But I'm not making any predictions, outside of that I'll be watching enthusiastically tonight.

Enjoy. It doesn't get any better than a Game 7 in the Finals.

Highway robbery, international edition. Sounds like plenty of people were watching it, and now many of you who did watch know why so many people like to rip on soccer. The US-Italy World Cup match drew a 5.2 overnight rating, according to USA Today. The rating means that ABC's coverage had more viewers than NBC's coverage of the US Open golf tournament (note to USGA: I like watching big-time pros have big-time issues, but that was ridiculous - apparently, others agree).

Anyway, I have a point here.

The referee was not good. In fact, he was so far away from "good" that he should probably avoid future World Cup assignments.

I had no problem with the decision to send off the Italian player in the 28th minute. He did, after all, deliver a blatant elbow to the face of an American player while he was going up to head a ball in the air.

However, the subsequent ejections of Pablo Mastroeni and Eddie Pope are relegated to the list of the worst calls made in World Cup history. The red card for Mastroeni was especially bad, as he went in for an admittedly late challenge, but got the ball before he got the player, and the contact was rather innocent. The calls were defended Sunday by FIFA, which makes FIFA one step below the NFL in terms of legitimacy, as the NFL will - at least on occasion - publicly state that officials' calls were erroneous. FIFA chooses to instead remain disconnected from the reality, which is that their officiating system is corrupted by incompetence, and it is ruining a great event.

Besides Mastroeni and Pope, the officials also got to the likes of French superstar Zinedine Zidane, who is suspended from France's group finale against Togo, and if France doesn't beat Togo, Zidane's illustrious career will end (/end run-on sentence). Over 100 yellow cards have been issued already, and while I'm all in favor of cracking down on hard fouls and late challenges on attacking players, I'm not seeing that.

I'm seeing players getting rewarded for diving. And it's killing the sport.

Italy probably got away with about 10 dives in the first half alone against the US. One of their blatant dives led to the only goal they scored (full disclosure: The Americans did a horrible job defending the free kick, but the fact is that the free kick never should have happened). Those dives not only can cause guys to get unwarranted bookings (cards), but they also lead to dangerous free kicks, and they make other rather innocent contact (like Mastroeni's and Pope's on Saturday) look exceptionally physical and booking-worthy. Meanwhile, no one is being called or booked for diving. And FIFA continues to insist that officiating has been good.

There are a lot of people in the States that won't watch this sport. After all, if even the best players in the sport have no respect for the game (and someone who regularly dives to try to draw a foul or a booking on an opponent has no respect for the game), why should the average fan?

Clean it up, FIFA. Burying your head in the sand will only hurt you.

Highway robbery, Joe Crawford edition. Who needs Dick Bavetta when you have Joe Crawford available to screw with Mark Cuban?

And, no, I'm not referring to the botched timeout in the final seconds of overtime that was the real nail in the coffin for Dallas' chances in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. I'm referring to the slanted officiating that got the game to overtime in the first place.

The first blow came on Friday, when Dallas' Jerry Stackhouse was suspended for Game 5. Stackhouse was apparently too hard on Shaquille O'Neal for the NBA's liking. The suspension was a joke, as Stackhouse (6-6, 218) couldn't do any serious harm to Shaq (7-1, 340) if Vince McMahon threw him a chair. It was also a joke, because Stackhouse really didn't do anything wrong, except deliver a couple of hard fouls. They were flagrant fouls, they were "intent to injure" fouls. They were hard fouls, something that is now an accepted part of the NBA "culture". And Shaq has probably taken harder contact in practice.

Then came the game. Despite taking 24 more free throws than Dallas (!), the Heat needed overtime to win, and they needed a shady foul call on Dirk Nowitzki to get the game-winning points. Miami outscored Dallas by only eleven points at the line, despite the discrepancy in attempts.

Anyway, it's not like either team should be fouling the other by such a large margin, and it's not like either team should be taking such a large number of free throws. We're not talking about a "drive the lane and force contact" team playing a pure jump-shooting team. These are two teams playing similar styles, both with guys who can drive to the basket and draw contact, and both with guys who can hit jump shots.

Then again, we're used to this. The NBA Playoffs have to deal with officiating issues EVERY SEASON. And as angry as I get with NHL officials (well, hockey officials in general), the NHL playoffs are rarely marred by controversies involving the officiating. Are there issues? Sure, but they rarely, if ever, draw the amount of scrutiny from the players and fans as the issues in the NBA do.

Randomization: 06/19/06

Roundtable update. Thanks to all the BlogPollers who have taken part in the latest college football roundtable. I'll be posting some summary-type stuff on it later this week, so if you haven't answered the questions yet, there is still time. Just send me an e-mail or click the comment link on the BlogPoll post here to make your participation known.

Game 7, awesome hockey edition. I know where I will be tonight. I don't care if I'm passing up one of the nicest days imaginable in Duluth (sunny and 75). I'm going to be in front of the TV tonight for Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Not only will it be the last live hockey I get to see until October (barring the annual high school summer hockey tournaments in Minnesota), but it should be a good one. Edmonton and Carolina have battled through six very physical games, and it seems like Edmonton is the fresher team heading in to Game 7, especially after Saturday's 4-0 whitewashing in Game 6. Momentum? Undoubtedly with Edmonton. But momentum can turn on a dime, and it can turn without warning. How else does one explain the Oilers winning Game 5, when momentum and history were definitely on Carolina's side.

History, however, is again not on Edmonton's side, unlike momentum. Home teams are 11-2 all time in Stanley Cup Finals Game 7s, and Edmonton is trying to become the first team in 64 years (!) to successfully overcome a 3-1 series deficit to win a Stanley Cup Final.

Now, back to momentum for a moment, with a dosage of "Why it's a bad idea to fail to seize the moment at the first chance".

Let's travel back to 2003. I see at least some similarity between the Minnesota Wild of 2003 and the Edmonton Oilers of 2006. The Wild were down 3-1 to the Vancouver Canucks in the West semifinals. They looked dead in the water after losing two heartbreaking games on home ice. But Vancouver, in the driver's seat to move on to the conference final, forgot to show up for Game 5 at home (7-2 Minnesota) or Game 6 in St. Paul (5-1 Minnesota). The boring, trapping Wild skated circles around the Canucks in those two games, and they were suddenly emboldened by the Canucks' inability to close the deal. Minnesota fell behind 2-0 in Game 7, but were again emboldened when Todd Bertuzzi, in a story that became Wild hockey legend, allegedly told Wild D Willie Mitchell that it was "time to get out the golf clubs". Minnesota would win the game 4-2 with three third-period tallies against Vancouver sieve Dan Cloutier.

Anyway, it is true that momentum can turn on a dime for no real reason. And the day off, combined with the travel from Edmonton to Carolina, and the Hurricanes' raucous home crowd, may be enough to swing things in the 'Canes' favor. However, Edmonton knows going in that they don't have to make any major adjustments. They're playing as well now as they've played since the Detroit series, and if they can do it again, they have every reason to believe that they'll skate with Stanley tonight, backup goalie and all.

You want a prediction? Go somewhere else. I don't predict Game 7s. Read back and find out who I picked to win the series before it started, and if that pick ends up being wrong, feel free to hold it against me. But I'm not making any predictions, outside of that I'll be watching enthusiastically tonight.

Enjoy. It doesn't get any better than a Game 7 in the Finals.

Highway robbery, international edition. Sounds like plenty of people were watching it, and now many of you who did watch know why so many people like to rip on soccer. The US-Italy World Cup match drew a 5.2 overnight rating, according to USA Today. The rating means that ABC's coverage had more viewers than NBC's coverage of the US Open golf tournament (note to USGA: I like watching big-time pros have big-time issues, but that was ridiculous - apparently, others agree).

Anyway, I have a point here.

The referee was not good. In fact, he was so far away from "good" that he should probably avoid future World Cup assignments.

I had no problem with the decision to send off the Italian player in the 28th minute. He did, after all, deliver a blatant elbow to the face of an American player while he was going up to head a ball in the air.

However, the subsequent ejections of Pablo Mastroeni and Eddie Pope are relegated to the list of the worst calls made in World Cup history. The red card for Mastroeni was especially bad, as he went in for an admittedly late challenge, but got the ball before he got the player, and the contact was rather innocent. The calls were defended Sunday by FIFA, which makes FIFA one step below the NFL in terms of legitimacy, as the NFL will - at least on occasion - publicly state that officials' calls were erroneous. FIFA chooses to instead remain disconnected from the reality, which is that their officiating system is corrupted by incompetence, and it is ruining a great event.

Besides Mastroeni and Pope, the officials also got to the likes of French superstar Zinedine Zidane, who is suspended from France's group finale against Togo, and if France doesn't beat Togo, Zidane's illustrious career will end (/end run-on sentence). Over 100 yellow cards have been issued already, and while I'm all in favor of cracking down on hard fouls and late challenges on attacking players, I'm not seeing that.

I'm seeing players getting rewarded for diving. And it's killing the sport.

Italy probably got away with about 10 dives in the first half alone against the US. One of their blatant dives led to the only goal they scored (full disclosure: The Americans did a horrible job defending the free kick, but the fact is that the free kick never should have happened). Those dives not only can cause guys to get unwarranted bookings (cards), but they also lead to dangerous free kicks, and they make other rather innocent contact (like Mastroeni's and Pope's on Saturday) look exceptionally physical and booking-worthy. Meanwhile, no one is being called or booked for diving. And FIFA continues to insist that officiating has been good.

There are a lot of people in the States that won't watch this sport. After all, if even the best players in the sport have no respect for the game (and someone who regularly dives to try to draw a foul or a booking on an opponent has no respect for the game), why should the average fan?

Clean it up, FIFA. Burying your head in the sand will only hurt you.

Highway robbery, Joe Crawford edition. Who needs Dick Bavetta when you have Joe Crawford available to screw with Mark Cuban?

And, no, I'm not referring to the botched timeout in the final seconds of overtime that was the real nail in the coffin for Dallas' chances in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. I'm referring to the slanted officiating that got the game to overtime in the first place.

The first blow came on Friday, when Dallas' Jerry Stackhouse was suspended for Game 5. Stackhouse was apparently too hard on Shaquille O'Neal for the NBA's liking. The suspension was a joke, as Stackhouse (6-6, 218) couldn't do any serious harm to Shaq (7-1, 340) if Vince McMahon threw him a chair. It was also a joke, because Stackhouse really didn't do anything wrong, except deliver a couple of hard fouls. They were flagrant fouls, they were "intent to injure" fouls. They were hard fouls, something that is now an accepted part of the NBA "culture". And Shaq has probably taken harder contact in practice.

Then came the game. Despite taking 24 more free throws than Dallas (!), the Heat needed overtime to win, and they needed a shady foul call on Dirk Nowitzki to get the game-winning points. Miami outscored Dallas by only eleven points at the line, despite the discrepancy in attempts.

Anyway, it's not like either team should be fouling the other by such a large margin, and it's not like either team should be taking such a large number of free throws. We're not talking about a "drive the lane and force contact" team playing a pure jump-shooting team. These are two teams playing similar styles, both with guys who can drive to the basket and draw contact, and both with guys who can hit jump shots.

Then again, we're used to this. The NBA Playoffs have to deal with officiating issues EVERY SEASON. And as angry as I get with NHL officials (well, hockey officials in general), the NHL playoffs are rarely marred by controversies involving the officiating. Are there issues? Sure, but they rarely, if ever, draw the amount of scrutiny from the players and fans as the issues in the NBA do.

Randomization, 06/15/06

I forgot. Yesterday was Flag Day. I hope you're not upset that I didn't get you a gift.

Hey I...ohhh I'm still alive! The Men of Oil aren't dead, yet. Fernando Pisani rules.

You have to bury these. Just ask the Buffalo Sabres.

I remember when Pisani scored his first goal of the playoffs back in the first round. I looked at my wife and said "Who the hell is Fernando Pisani?". Now, he's a hero in Edmonton, because he saved his team's season with a two-goal performance in the Oilers' first elimination game of these playoffs. It's the third time in four playoff series that the Hurricanes lost when they had a chance to eliminate an opponent.

It will be Saturday before we find out for sure whether Edmonton can make them pay for this. The Oilers have some momentum now, but the extra day off won't help them maintain that. They played their best game of this series on Wednesday night, but there is still work to do on that putrid power play. They need to do a better job of getting the puck down low, and their puck movement is still too slow and predictable, making it vulnerable to an attacking penalty kill like Carolina's.

For now, the Stanley Cup must stay in the box. Considering how few Game 7s we've had, here's hoping it stays in there a few more days.

Poor Michael Campbell. He's the defending US Open champion.

Did you know that?

After all, all we've heard about this week is Phil trying for a third straight major and Tiger playing for the first time since the death of his father. Now, these are valid and important stories. But has there ever been a defending major tournament champion as completely forgotten about as Campbell?

(Answer: Yes. Two words: Shaun Mickeel. The Heartbreak Kid won a PGA Championship, and then presumably vanished off the face of the Earth.)

Anyway, golf generally sucks, but the majors are usually okay. Especially the US Open, which is known for making even the best golfers in the world look horribly inept. That's something that I'm absolutely in favor of, but it needs to be done in moderation, and the US Open sometimes tows that line, and it can lead to frustration, as it did for John Daly in 1999 (quote from an Associated Press story):

"It's not worth it. This is my last U.S. Open -- ever," Daly said Sunday as he walked to his car after an 83 that left him in last place at 29-over-par among those who made the cut. "I've had it with the USGA and the way they run their tournaments."

"The USGA loves to embarrass guys who play in their tournaments," said Daly, a former PGA and British Open champion. "I don't mind hitting the ball bad, but when I feel like I've hit the ball pretty good for four days and shoot an 81, it's not golf. It's crazy. My hat's off to whoever wins, and it's a major, but ... I don't consider the U.S. Open a major anymore."

Daly couldn't keep his word. He's played the Open since then, but he hasn't done terribly well.

Anyway, I feel badly for Campbell. No one remembers that he was the defending champion. If Phil or Tiger (or, for that matter, Vijay) had won this thing last year, do you think everyone would have so easily forgotten about it? And how do you think the media would have gone about covering the event this year? Do you think they would have dismissed any chances for the defending champ?

Probably not. But that's what makes the media great.

Gather 'round the table, college football gurus

I feel as if I have been overtaken by a higher power.

After spending a few hours reading through Phil Steele's 2006 College Football Preview (thanks, Barnes and Noble, for having it in stock so I didn't have to go on a three-hour search around the Duluth area), I am primed and ready to talk some college football.

I want to invite my fellow college football bloggers to join me for a roundtable discussion of a few preseason issues. I'll post a few questions, provide some answers, and I'll go digging for responses and post a few nuggets sometime in the next week or so. Copy and paste my questions, if you will, and post them on your blog. Leave a comment here to link to your post, or send me an e-mail with the link.

Which preseason college football magazine is your favorite?

Plenty to choose from. Lindy's, Sporting News, Athlon's, Phil.

I think my answer is already obvious.

I'm not going to trumpet Phil's predictions as being OMG THE MOST ACCURATE, because I don't care. For me, it's not about the predictions. I could skewer anyone over predictions. Phil's magazine is just plain more informative. Stats, scores, trends, rankings. Actual detail in the depth charts and solid positional analysis on every team.

Of the rest, I'd rate the Sporting News as the best.

What team is being supremely overrated in the preseason rankings?

Try to make your case. There are plenty of candidates for this honor. Among last year's favorite targets in the preseason was Tennessee, who failed to qualify for a bowl game, along with Texas (so we're not always right around here).

I saw Oklahoma rated #1 by Phil Steele, and they become an immediate target as a result. That offensive line might have trouble opening enough holes for Adrian Peterson to have a big season, and protecting developing young QB Rhett Bomar could be a problem. And, by the way, it's not like defending champion Texas is going to experience a HUGE drop-off, especially now that Mack Brown has officially removed that "HAHAHAHA YOU NEVER WON THE BIG ONE" monkey from his back.

Another obvious target, at least to me, is Miami. Most will pick the Hurricanes to win the ACC Coastal Division, citing a relatively soft schedule, along with motivation from last year's disapointing finish. However, the 'Canes were up and down much of last year, struggling with the likes of Virginia, Georgia Tech, and even North Carolina. Miami got lucky in a win against Clemson, and they held Florida State to 170 yards of offense but lost because of turnovers and poor special teams. And, oh yeah, they lost their bowl game 40-3. Yes, I said 40-3. Got outgained 368-153. I think Miami has a shot to win the division because it is so weak, but I don't buy for a second that Miami is a legit contender on the national stage.

Honorable mention should be given to Ohio State and Notre Dame, who will try to win national championships without playing defense.

Turn the tables. Who is underrated?

I really like Michigan (sorry, M bloggers, I know this is a kiss of death). They were strikingly unlucky at times last year, both with injuries and crappy on-field bounces. With a top-notch QB, potentially great RB, and one of the best linemen in the conference (Jake Long), along with tantalizingly talented WRs Steve Breaston and Mario Manningham, Michigan should be able to score with anyone this year. And the defense, which was okay last year, returns eight starters. No way Michigan loses even half as many games as they did last year, unless they are equally unlucky this year.

I also think Nebraska is in for a big season. The Blackshirts are back, having seven starters returning from a defense that had some high spots a year ago. Zac Taylor is only going to get better, and as much as I may dislike Bill Callahan, he's done a great job amid heavy criticism at the start of his Nebraska tenure. Expect great improvement from the running game, and continued development from Taylor. If Nebraska can come out of USC alive (in other words, if they don't lose by 40), they have a shot at a ten-win season, or better.

Which conference will be the best in 2006?

Please keep in mind: It doesn't matter what happened last year. It doesn't matter what happened in 2004.

Get out your crystal ball and dust it off. Who's going to be the best this year and why?

I am obviously biased toward the Big Ten, but I like the Pacific Ten this year.

I expect USC to come back to Earth a bit, but the rest of the league is going to do their part to catch up. California is better, with Marshawn Lynch poised for H*i*m*n candidacy if they can find a quarterback. Arizona State is a defense away from being a legit contender. Oregon and UCLA have a chance to be pretty good, and Arizona could be poised for a breakthrough.

You're looking at the possibility of as many as eight or nine teams in a ten-team conference being at least on the cusp of bowl eligibility. Only Washington doesn't appear to have much of a case for a bowl run, though it's hard to imagine the Huskies going 2-9 again (and not just because they're playing 12 games this year).

(The Pac-10 also deserves props for this reason...with schedules now expanded to 12 games for everyone, the conference has gone to a nine-game league schedule. I'm sure some coach in the league will whine about how it's unfair for some teams to get five home games while others only get four, but it's exceptionally fair to have every team play everybody in the conference once each.)

Which "non-BCS" conference will be the best in 2006?

In case you're wondering, your options here are Conference USA, the MAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt, and WAC.

The worst of the group will be the Sun Belt. Unless we have a goofy year like 2004, where no one was bowl-eligible, the Sun Belt will get their champion into the New Orleans Bowl. That team will probably be lucky to go 7-5 in the regular season. They'll have three or four teams at the bottom of the league that are among the worst in college football, and their champion will probably be beaten decisively by a Conference USA team in the bowl game.

I'd rate the MAC as being the fourth-best in the group, though they're much better than the Sun Belt. The MAC West Division is good, with Northern Illinois and Toledo expecting challenges from Central and Western Michigan. But the East is brutal. Miami (Ohio) and Akron are the best of the bunch, with Ohio trying to break the door down.

Conference USA comes in third in my view. It's an improving league that didn't lose as much as people thought it would when Louisville and friends left. In fact, teams like UTEP, Houston, and Tulsa appear poised to have big seasons, and Central Florida is coming off a storybook campaign. Don't sleep on Southern Miss, either.

I'll put the WAC just ahead of CUSA. Not only do Fresno State and Boise State have tough teams...again...but Hawai'i has the personnel to make a run at the league crown, led by rubber-armed QB Colt Brennan. And Nevada, coming off a surprising season where they tied for the league title, won't fall off that much. The Wolf Pack have that unique pistol offense, and their defense will be among the WAC's best.

The best non-BCS league is the Mountain West. TCU was awesome in their league debut. Utah finished strong and will be better this year. BYU continues to get better under Bronco Mendenhall (this gave me a great excuse to type the name "Bronco Mendenhall"). San Diego State has a new coach, Chuck Long, and might actually figure out this "offense" thing in 2006. And UNLV, Air Force, New Mexico, and Wyoming may all bring up the rear in the league, but all four have a realistic shot at a winning season.

Which non-BCS conference team will have the best season?

I pegged UTEP last year. Close, but no cigar.

I like Navy this season. A lot.

I even liked Navy before I got the Phil Steele preview, which ranks Navy 30th (!) in the nation.

This Navy team has 16 returning starters, a favorable schedule, and a great chance at a ten-win season. I'm not sure their undersized defense can hold up for a twelve-game run, nor do I think they'll be able to topple Notre Dame, but the Middies have a realistic shot at a huge season for Paul Johnson.

Adam Ballard did a nice job trying to replace Kyle Eckel last year, and they have dynamic athletes at halfback in Karlos Whittaker and Reggie Campbell. Navy has a bigger offensive line than in past years, too.

Let's get your first read on this one...who will win the H*i*m*n? Oh, by the way, players whose last names begin with the letter "Q" are ineligible.

I know I took some shots at the Sooners' offensive line earlier, but I'm picking Adrian Peterson. He's a great inside/outside running threat, and even with Bomar being improved at quarterback, Peterson is the key to OU's offense. If they beat Texas or even stay competitive and then run the table against everyone else, the Sooners will be visible enough for Peterson to be a real candidate.

Randomization: 06/13/06

OMG PHIL STEELE!!! It's out. And it's time to cram. 328 pages of college football. For crying out loud, Phil writes two pages on EVERYBODY, including I-A stalwarts like Florida Atlantic, Buffalo, and Temple. You'll know more about every team in college football than you'd ever care to know, and his predictions are, annually, better than any other preview magazine on the market.

If this sounds like a shameless plug, it is...kind of. I don't work for Phil. I've never met Phil. However, I've been on board with Phil and his magazine since 2000, before the current groundswell of support for Phil's work among college football bloggers nationwide. I've interviewed Phil on the air, given away copies of his magazine, and it's the only magazine that I will enthusiastically endorse on the radio or on this blog.

(Full disclosure: I usually will pick up the Sporting News book, and I bought the Lindy's preview this year for the first time. After reading Phil's book, any other pales in comparison, and I usually only buy them to track predictions and look at pretty pictures of football games.)

Phil's book is everything a college football junkie could ask for, and it also satisfies those who are into betting on games, as Phil covers betting trends pretty thoroughly, too. He has complete depth charts for everyone, full schedules, results from the past five years, and offensive and defensive statistics from every game in 2005. It's simply an incredible season-long resource, and it's also a great bathroom read for, you know, the next two months.

Go buy it. And enjoy.

Can we get the World Cup banned from Europe forever? I'm not into old history playing a role in present-day stuff, especially stuff like the World Cup, where there is severe roster turnover all the time. So I don't buy that our soccer team just sucks in Europe. I don't think that guys like Eddie Johnson and Josh Wolff really care that this team has had virtually no success in Europe over the years, because they weren't part of those teams.

But with that in mind, let's stop having World Cups in Europe so we can remove any doubt about it. In fact, I'm fully in favor of moving the rest of this year's event to, say, Chicago. Let's just make sure this isn't a Europe problem.

In all seriousness, this isn't a Europe problem. It's a character problem. The Americans played like they should have been handed the match on a silver platter, and the Czechs took advantage of the poor effort from start to finish, punishing every mistake and making the American team look every bit like the Trinidad and Tobago outfit that everyone expected to be the worst side in the tournament.

Where the hell was Landon Donovan yesterday? Watching the first half a second time later yesterday, I was horrified to see Donovan basically disappear after drawing a rather hard foul from a Czech defender (who was carded on the play). I didn't bother to watch the second half, as the game was over, the pressure was off, and I'm sure that, as a result, Donovan played just fine.

Donovan wasn't the only one. Oguchi Onyewu, as already pointed out, was terrible. Claudio Reyna didn't have a lot of help in the midfield, but he wasn't very good outside of the early shot that clanked off the goalpost.

And Bruce Arena is to blame, as well. It looked like Arena set his team up to try to win 1-0 against a team that is too powerful to shut out, no matter how good the defense is. The team isn't built for that kind of philosophy. They're at their best when they are attacking, but when they are more focused on defense, it seems as if they are less creative when they do get the ball in the midfield. Arena seemed to take them right into that weakness yesterday, and the offense lacked spark the whole match.

That said, this is on the players first. They simply have to bring a better effort Saturday to avoid being labeled another US disappointment. And as of late, it seems like we've had too many disappointments on the world stage (hockey, basketball, baseball, and now soccer).

EMBARRASSED

I don't know how anyone who follows US Soccer could be anything but.

A 3-0 loss to the Czech Republic has everyone thinking back to a dark day of American soccer: 1998.

Maybe one or two guys played well. Landon Donovan...where were you? Looked so promising until you took that hard foul in the first half. Did you think the match was over after that?

And poor Oguchi Onyewu. He played like an inexperienced kid who was scared to death, and he was beaten for all three Czech goals.

More tomorrow. Time for the "reset" button if you're Bruce Arena. Whatever you tried today...well, it failed. Miserably.

Good luck picking up the pieces, because the bandwagon just got a lot lighter in the States.

Randomization: 06/09/06

Crickets chirping. Imagine being NBC. Imagine having to pay your NHL on-air talent and production crew to beam a game broadcast back from Edmonton, when color bars and a loop of "Rainbow Connection" would draw a higher rating out of pure curiosity.

As pointed out by USA Today today, NBC is facing the prospect of having the lowest rating in the history of prime-time television on Saturday, when it does Game 3 of the NHL Stanley Cup Finals in Edmonton.

Even the slighest possibility of a competitive series drawing more viewers appears to have gone by the wayside, as the Hurricanes enter Game 3 having scored ten of the last 11 goals in the series. NBC is trying to put a positive face on all of this, saying that they believe in the NHL. But they apparently don't believe in it too much, because in two hours of prime-time programming I watched on NBC last night, I didn't see one promotional spot for the NHL playoffs. There isn't a single mention of the NHL playoffs on the front page of NBC.com, where they are choosing instead to promote "Saturday Night Live" and select stupid prime-time shows that don't air anytime soon.

So we apparently have two different ideas on how to promote the NHL. OLN saturated their programming with hockey during the playoffs, and no one watched. NBC is giving the impression that these games are nothing more than a burden for them, and no one will watch.

Tell me again why ESPN was so bad for hockey. The argument, that they ignored hockey, isn't valid anymore, because you can't blame ESPN's treatment of hockey for the sport's poor ratings on the network. Maybe it's time for everyone who follows the sport to stop worrying about the ratings and start admitting that it is what it is. Let all these other people miss out on the fun.

Oh, yeah. Basketball. See? I forgot about the NBA, and I'm sure it didn't affect their ratings (of course, I'd have to have readers for something like that to happen). The Finals started last night, as Dallas defeated Miami 90-80. The Mavericks showed why they will probably win this series, as Dirk Nowitzki and Josh Howard were horrible, but they won anyway. Instead of Nowitzki and/or Howard carrying the team, Jason Terry scored a game-high 32 points. The Mavericks were very good defensively, holding Dwyane Wade to just 15 points after a huge first quarter, and they were helped by Miami going just 7-for-19 on free throws.

In the end, I think Dallas is deeper. They have Howard to smother Wade as much as possible, and Terry and Devin Harris will really make Wade work defensively, which will keep him from maintaining a high energy level. Meanwhile, the Mavericks' secondary scorers can carry the team at least once in a while. Who do you trust more, Jason Terry/Josh Howard/Jerry Stackhouse or a broken-down Shaq/Antoine Walker/Jason Williams?

I know who I'd pick.

As for Shaq, he'll have one or two 30/15-type games, and that's about it. The Mavericks can keep running Erick Dampier (motivated by Shaq's well-publicized "WNBA" bomb earlier in the season) and Desagana Diop at Shaq, and they can always throw Keith Van Horn out there if they need the extra six fouls for some reason. The Heat won't go to Shaq in crunch time, especially after his 1-for-9 free throw performance in Game One. And Shaq can't keep up with the likes of Nowitzki and Howard in a seven-game series.

First, it was steroids. Now, it's HGH. Not good for baseball. Even though names haven't been publicized yet, Jason Grimsley has named them. Grimsley, a veteran relief pitcher with a sparkling career ERA of 4.77, has apparently been cheating. Grimsley admitted to investigators that he used steroids, human growth hormone, and amphetamines, three no-nos in baseball, even though baseball has no means of testing for HGH.

There are a number of meaningful things that develop out of this story.

Jason Grimsley sucks. How is he cheating? Seriously, how is he cheating and still not pitching well? Doesn't this change your view of this story in baseball? If a player with a 4.77 career ERA is cheating, who else is cheating and not getting anything out of it?

He named names. Who are they? Something like ten names were thrown out in Grimsley's affidavit. When it was released publicly, the names were blacked out. Let the speculation begin. In fact, it already has. And if this is true (I've never read anything on this site, and I have no idea if this is at all credible, so don't shoot the messenger...I just provided the link), baseball might be dead as we know it. Baseball can handle Barry Bonds being implicated, because nobody likes him. Baseball can handle Jason Giambi being implicated, because enough people hate the Yankees that it doesn't matter what Giambi does or has done. Baseball can't handle two people being implicated, and one of them is Albert Pujols, named in the above-linked story (the other, by the way, is David Ortiz). If Pujols is on something, everything that is good about this baseball season becomes questionable.

Where do we go from here? If Grimsley is right, and the use of HGH is rampant among baseball players, what exactly is baseball going to do? There is no reliable test for HGH at this time.

One thing is certain: With how hard baseball has tried to improve their public image when it comes to steroid use, this is that last thing they need. A crappy relief pitcher admitting that he has been cheating.

Randomization: 06/08/06

Is Edmonton done? Sure looked like it last night, as the Oilers came tantalizingly close to packing it in, losing 5-0 to Carolina and not putting up much of a fight after a late second-period goal made it 3-0. Edmonton needs to battle back and at least show some pride in Game 3 on Saturday night, or this series will end quickly (something NBC might not mind, since the broadcasts on NBC will be very low-rated). With an extra day of rest, the Oilers won't have any excuses if their effort is similar to the putrid performance we saw last night.

And before I move on, credit to Carolina. It's easy to get lost in being critical of one team or the other, but the Hurricanes are hitting on all cylinders right now. It's actually quite incredible to watch. Their passing has been sharp, their goaltending great, and their defense has been solid, blocking shots and keeping forwards away from Cam Ward. And Carolina has outscored Edmonton 10-1 since the Oilers took a 3-0 lead in the second period of Game 1. Ouch.

World Cup Preview...Part Two. I'm going to examine the other four groups today (covered Groups A-D on Wednesday).

Group E
Czech Republic
United States
Italy
Ghana
--> More on Team USA in a moment. The Czechs might be overrated a bit in the overall scheme of things, but they're good enough to run the table here.

Group F
Brazil
Croatia
Australia
Japan
--> Duh. Australia might be able to claim second, but I think Croatia will hold them off.

Group G
France
South Korea
Switzerland
Togo
--> I think the Koreans will give France a run for first. I see Le Bleus as being somewhat overrated. This isn't as good as the side that won the 1998 Cup, but it isn't nearly as bad as they looked in 2002, either. France could run to the quarterfinals, but probably nothing more.

Group H
Spain
Ukraine
Tunisia
Saudi Arabia
--> Spain is a perennial underachiever internationally, but they should survive group play. Ukraine will live and die with striker Andrii Shevchenko.

Team USA preview
Those who follow the sport closely (and some of us who don't) know that you can't put too much stock in the FIFA rankings, though it is nice to see Team USA ranked fifth. The Americans came out of CONCACAF qualifying with a 7-1-2 record and a better goal differential than Mexico. The success in 2006 will likely be held up to the quarterfinal run of 2002, even though that is insanely unfair to this year's group.

The American team has elite goalkeeping, led by veteran Kasey Keller, who will play as long as he's healthy. The defense isn't elite, but it's pretty good. Eddie Pope and youngster Oguchi Onyewu key the central defense. Eddie Lewis is one of four projected starters in the back (including Keller) who play professionally in Europe (Pope, who plays in MLS, is the only one of the five who doesn't play in Europe).

I love our midfield. Captain Claudio Reyna is apparently healthy after suffering a hamstring injury during a warmup friendly. Reyna is joined by World Cup veterans John O'Brien and DaMarcus Beasley, along with the creative Clint Dempsey. Young star Landon Donovan, who is inconsistent but often brilliant with the ball, joins steady veteran Brian McBride up front.

In a sport that is often considered a "young man's game", you still need some experience. And the United States has started to reap the benefits of their hard work at the youth level to build a respectable national team. Donovan, Dempsey, Onyewu, and Beasley have played together for a long time, and will continue to be the rocks of Team USA for at least a few more years, long after Reyna and McBride (two guys, by the way, who have made an unbelieveable impact on the growth of US Soccer) are gone.

Unlike some teams that lack bench depth, you can expect to see most of the 23-man roster to see at least some action in this tournament. Manager Bruce Arena, the longest-tenured coach for any World Cup side, knows his players and knows how to exploit matchups, and he isn't afraid to change up the lineup.

With Arena, a good motivator and tactician, running the show, the United States has a money chance to move on out of a tough group. Italy isn't as good as they've been before, and the Czechs are not unbeatable. The Americans have a dismal history on European soil, but they have never been this good before.

Round of 16
Germany over Sweden
Argentina over Portugal
England over Costa Rica
Netherlands over Mexico
Czech Republic over Croatia
France over Ukraine
Brazil over United States
South Korea over Spain

Quarterfinals
Argentina over Germany
Netherlands over England
Czech Republic over France
Brazil over South Korea

Semifinals
Argentina over Netherlands
Brazil over Czech Republic

Final
Argentina over Brazil

Ann Coulter makes me shudder

You all know Ann Coulter. Conservative commentator, author, general witch.

She has a new book coming out, which means she'll be showing way too much of her desperate-for-a-trip-to-White-Castle body on national television as she tries to rope you into buying her new pile of crap book.

(This is an aside to my point here, but people like Ann Coulter, who is convinced that I want to look at her bones protruding through her skin, really drive me nuts. It's a miracle of the human body that her legs don't snap in half when she walks.)

Anyway, her book, "Godless", doesn't need to be plugged here. But I am confident that most of you are capable of thinking for yourselves, so I'm not worried about you being stupid enough to spend money on this trash. It'd be like buying a "Best of American Idol" CD, and you know you're above that.

Coulter appeared on the Today show on NBC this week (yes, the show is still on the air even with Phony Miss Katie gone). Host Matt Lauer, not known for hard-hitting content in his interviews, at least had the guts to bring up some of the more ridiculous passages in Coulter's published diatribe, like this one about some of the 9/11 widows who had spoken out in favor of the 9/11 commission:

"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I have never seen people enjoying their husbands' death so much."

There's also the fact that Coulter personally attacks these widows. The women are Kristen Breitweiser, Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg and Patty Casazza of New Jersey. Not only does she call them "broads", which I'm guessing isn't designed to come across as "respectful", but Coulter also refers to them as the "Witches of East Brunswick," the New Jersey town where two of them live.

But let's focus on one line.

I have never seen people enjoying their husbands' death so much.

This is ridiculous in about 3,279 ways. And while I probably shouldn't respond to any of this, I'm going to anyway.

Do you honestly believe, Ann, that these women enjoyed watching their husbands burn? Do you honestly believe that they enjoyed trying to explain to their young kids that their Dad wasn't coming home?

Unfortunately, there are enough sheep in the herd to allow someone like Coulter to continue to spew her hatred towards basically anyone who would dare have a different point of view from hers. These are the same sheep that go crazy whenever Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh take a vacation, but Hannity and Limbaugh are exponentially more tolerable than Coulter. Her book will sell in the millions.

Too bad, because a sanctimonious, self-righteous, hateful skank like her shouldn't ever be able to sell millions of books.

Randomization: 06/07/06

What a ripoff. The world didn't end yesterday. I feel more used than I did with the Y2K crap.

Apparently, only illegal immigrants watch the World Cup. I'm pretty sure St. Paul Pioneer Porn columnist Tom Powers was, in all likelihood, kidding. Well, I hope he was.

If the government really is serious about identifying illegal immigrants, it soon will be provided a unique opportunity to record their whereabouts.
All the Department of Homeland Security has to do is monitor the city-by-city television ratings of this month's World Cup soccer tournament. Agents should be dispatched to any area in which the ratings reflect an unnaturally high level of interest. That likely signals a concentrated pocket of illegals.

Um...OK. Did someone kick a soccer ball really hard and hit you in the groin when you were a kid? Did Pele once stiff you for a post-match interview?

No one who actually is from here cares about the most over-hyped, mind-numbingly boring event in the world. Nevertheless, ABC and ESPN will combine to broadcast all 64 games live and in high definition starting on Friday. High definition means that over the course of a 90-minute contest, both scoring chances can be viewed with crystal clarity.

Here we go again.

"Mind-numbing". "Boring". "Both scoring chances".

So clever, Tom. And so, well, 1986.

Is it really the place of a sportswriter who covers the Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Wild, franchises that could advertise themselves as cures for insomnia, to talk about the level of excitement in a particular sport? I didn't realize that the only way for something to be exciting was for there to be a lot of scoring. I guess this guy hates no-hitters, perfect games, and shutouts.

Then again, when you're forced to regularly watch guys like Brad Radke, Kyle Lohse, Carlos Silva, and Boof Bonser pitch, and you spend your Sundays watching E.J. Henderson and friends miss tackles and blow coverages, you don't see many shutouts.

There's no word yet on whether any of the games will be presented "commercial free." The networks usually make a big deal out of doing that. It's their way of telling us how important the World Cup is.

Call me picky, and I don't expect a blockhead like Powers to know this, but all televised soccer matches are commercial-free. I've never seen an ad during a match on ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, GOL TV, or Fox Soccer Channel. You see, and this is part of why so many media types HATE soccer, it's a sport that hasn't been Americanized yet.

You don't get three timeouts per half. You can't stop the game by throwing the ball down to the other end of the field to get a whistle. You can't call five timeouts in the last two minutes of regulation time. You don't get to change players every five minutes to get a stoppage. And there are no television timeouts.

That means that guys like Powers can't get up during a timeout to relieve themselves without risking missing a goal. They can't go hit the media buffet line and get back to their seat before play resumes. And they can't stand it.

Look, Americans are an industrious people. We use our hands. We catch footballs. We throw baseballs. We hit golf balls and tennis balls by gripping a piece of equipment. It is unnatural for us to put our hands behind our backs and try to "pass" a soccer ball to a teammate by bouncing it off our heads. We aren't circus seals, and no one is going to toss us a fish if we do it right.
It also offends our sense of fair play to watch a lone referee try to police an area the size of Rhode Island and then get blamed for the outcome by whichever team loses. And regardless of how passionate we are about our sports teams, we draw the line at pipe bombs.

The first paragraph is the closest Powers comes to a rational anti-soccer argument. It's primitive.

Response: So?

You mean it's not primitive to drop the gloves you're wearing and punch another grown man in the head, which happens to be protected by a helmet? Look, I love hockey, but this is just one example of really stupid things that we do in other sports.

And since you brought it up, Tom, there is possibly nothing more boring and un-exciting than watching a bunch of middle-aged men smack a little white ball around the woods for four hours on a Sunday. It's really not a good idea to bring up golf when trying to make fun of soccer. Tennis isn't too far behind, either.

As for the second paragraph above, read a message board, Tom. Read a newspaper article, Tom. Hell, read some of the stuff in your own paper last fall, because no one whines about officiating like the Minnesota Vikings, who act like the zebras are out to get them whenever they lose. Not a game goes by these days where fans, coaches, and/or players don't go on a "that #$%^&ed (name of referee/umpire)".

Honestly, is "whining about officiating" really an activity exclusive to soccer? And since soccer isn't hockey, where guys are prone to taking the occasional run at someone who isn't anywhere near the puck, does soccer really need multiple referees running around? Maybe, but it's not as urgent a problem as Powers tries to insinuate.

As the World Cup rolls around again, I refuse to apologize for saying I'd rather have a colonoscopy than watch a minute of it.

And no one is going to ask you to.

Judging by the ratings for the NHL playoffs, which will be worse than those for the World Cup in the States, there are a lot of people who feel about hockey the way you feel about soccer. And I'm not asking them to apologize for that, either. The fact that you think soccer sucks doesn't make you a good American, just like the fact that I think golf sucks doesn't make me a good American.

Just try to stay out of the way.

As for the games...The World Cup does start on Friday, despite Powers' protests. They're not going to cancel the event because some hack in St. Paul thinks it's boring.

As I said on Monday, I think this year's field is more wide open than it's been in a while, so these predictions were difficult to draw up. It was a process made more difficult by the fact that I really don't know much about soccer. That said, I'm going to be watching with great interest, so I figured I'd try to draw up some picks.

As an aside, Brazilian star Ronaldinho is already working the officials, and the tournament hasn't even started yet!

"All the teams are waiting for us and will be doubly alert in paying attention to our attack. It's vital the refereeing is rigorous because of our style of playing. Every team we play regardless of their normal style of play defend against us."

By "our style of playing", Ronaldinho obviously means "flopping and diving whenever a defender sneezes on us". And with FIFA still talking tough about diving, it's probably not a good idea to say anything that draws attention to such behavior.

Anyway, here are my picks for Groups A-D:

Group A
Germany
Costa Rica
Poland
Ecuador
--> Costa Rica-Poland will be a fun match. If anyone has a chance to knock Germany off their perch, it's the high-flying Ticos, but they'll have to settle for second.

Group B
England
Sweden
Paraguay
Trinidad and Tobago
--> Sweden edges Paraguay, probably via goal differential in the end, for the second spot in the round of 16 for this group. T & T will not be overly competitive. England makes noise, but not as much as they would if Wayne Rooney didn't have that dag-nabbin' thing on his foot.

Group C
Argentina
Netherlands
Côte d'Ivoire
Serbia & Montenegro
--> There is actually a law in Côte d'Ivoire that mandates their country be called "Côte d'Ivoire" instead of "Ivory Coast", which is the English pronounciation. Since I am a law-abiding blogger, I will follow. I like the Ivorians to beat out S&M for fourth, while Argentina edges Netherlands at the top of the table.

Group D
Mexico
Portugal
Iran
Angola
--> Newsworthy item in this group: Iranian president Ahmadinejad might go to the matches. Should tell you how exciting this group will be. I think Canada could finish third here. It's a group that makes the 2005 National League West look formidable. It's so bad that I had to pick Mexico, which is as painful as picking the Cubs to win the National League. Portugal is too inconsistent to trust, and Iran and Angola aren't competitive here if you combine the sides.