Lists, part 1

It's Friday, people are tired and there really isn't anything going on aside from the types of things that require too much energy and lots of righteous indignation. So instead of focusing on the bluster, and because there is some market research out there that indicates that people like to read lists, here is a list of things that were viewed, used and consumed in the past 24 hours that we really, really like. Ready?

• Coffee
• The Pogues with Shane McGowan
• The Food Network
• Celestial Seasonings Sleepy Time tea
• David Maraniss' Clemente
• Baseball-Reference.com
• Clif Bars
• SportHill running gear
• Bananas
• The Backyardigans
• Brooks Defyance
• Crazy Richard's 100 Percent Natural Peanut Butter
• Morning Star Farms veggie products
• The Australian Open
• Most local blogs
• $600 to shove under the mattress
• The idea of Clearwater in February and The Grand Mayan at Riviera Maya in June

Funny how?

From the everyone needs to take a step back and chill out file we urge folks to avoid roasts and rallies... or not. Let's get this straight: a woman, apparently one who appears on television regularly, makes "off-color" remarks at a roast for some colleagues and she gets suspended? Really? Mind you, it was a roast where points are given for the most outlandish and most rude comments one can make. Rickles used to kill at those old Dean Martin roasts back in the ‘70s and Bea Arthur turns up at the Friars Club just to get torn up.

Apparently, ESPN decided to suspend Dana Jacobson (the TV broadcaster that no one ever heard of until now) for going so far over the top at a roast that she probably could have held her own with the Friars. This is just plain silly - why is it her fault she was with a bunch of amateurs? No, I've never been to a roast. But trust me, I've been practicing. If I ever get the chance I'm going to make the paint bubble off the walls. I'm going to make Redd Foxx look like Bill Cosby.

If the folks that Jacobson dropped her pearls on wanted someone equally as un-funny, they could have booked Dane Cook.

Truth be told, being on the dais at a roast is the dream - that and delivering the mail. Think about how much fun it must be to walk around all day outside dropping off a bunch of stuff folks are pretty ambivalent about. Is there anything more fun than being outdoors just walking around and looking at stuff?

No, there is not.

Well, having fun is fun, too. However, the folks that invited Ms. Jacobson over to make fun of a couple of colleagues don't really understand the concept of the roast. Or of fun. Or both.

Mother Nature 1, Everyone else 0

The weather has a tendency to get a little chilly in the month of January as folks may have noticed from walking outdoors, watching football on television or from watching the little soft-shoe routine those suspenders-and-sports coat frocked slicksters pull off every night on the evening news. The weather is big business on local TV news. In fact, it is such big business that there are song lyrics that go: "Murder and weather is our only news..."

If those lyrics don't exist, they should.

Anyway, the middle part - the part about football, the outdoors and that nip, nip, nip at your nose - is the intriguing part. The truth is I tuned in to last Sunday's Giants-Packers just to see how cold it was. Oh sure, I had a sneaking suspicion that Packers' quarterback Brett Favre just might do something crazy enough to sabotage the game for his team, and in that regard I suppose no one was disappointed. But really, the outcome of the game was pretty meaningless. All I wanted to see what Favre's breath turn from a plume of carbon dioxide and crystallize into a free-floating diamond-shaped ball of ice.

My guess is that it was something that other folks wanted to see, too. Actually, it appeared as if the only story of the game wasn't Favre trying to get back to the Super Bowl one last time or Eli Manning attempting to copy his big brother and make it to the big game, but instead it was the coffee-sicle that formed in Terry Bradshaw's mug during the pre-game show. Because, as it is, if it's negative-three degrees without the wind chill in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the smart thing to do is hold the pre-game show out of doors. That way the frostbite that forms on Howie Long's exposed extremities can be used as a tax write-off because technically it was a live experiment kind of like the stuff they do on Nova.

What, do you really think people cared if Howie broke down the Cover-2? Hell, the viewers at home wanted permanent scarring. It makes the frozen coffee go down smoother.

Now I don't know where the idea that meteorology is a pseudo-science came from. It didn't come from me, I can tell you that much. But what they don't tell you during football games and TV weather reports is that cold weather hurts. It actually causes pain to a person more than a muggy scorcher in August ever could. No, cold temperatures don't make one wake up screaming in the middle of the night and running off to find a doorway with your sleeping cap slouched to the side. That's the move for an earthquake. But cold weather can freeze pipes and cause them to burst making floods or fires or both. Certainly that's no picnic.

Interestingly though, the pain of cold temperatures in this part of the world only lasts a little while. At least that's the way it worked out for me on Sunday and Monday when I decided to go out for a run. Hey, if they're playing football all the way out there in Wisconsin, which is close to Canada and very near outer space where it gets as nippy as your Aunt Tilly's gazpacho, I figured I ought to get out there and get my work in.

So out I went during the coldest part of the day, which, according to the Accuweather web site, was a raw negative-1 degree on the ol' real feel index. Apparently such numbers are deduced when one accounts for the temperature, wind speed and direction, the time of day and on-base percentage. In other words it's the Moneyball of weather. But the thing I learned about running around in ultra-cold weather was that it's all about the wind. When the wind blows at one's face it's bad. When it blows at your back, it ain't all that.

But you get used to it. At least that's the way it went down on Sunday thanks to some effort and creative rambling. During a 60-minute effort the first few moments are the key. That's when one decides whether to keep at it, thus proving oneself as an evolved life being that continuously takes strides at improvement. Or, it's when one says out loud to no one, "This is stupid. I'm going back home so I can strip down, flop on the couch, order up a mushroom ‘boli and watch Rachel Ray... or whatever."

Clearly I'm evolved, but during the first couple of minutes as I negotiated through the neighborhood, I thought, "Wow! It's cold! It's really, really cold! Oh well, I guess it will be OK when I warm up."

The notion of personal evolvement disappeared approximately five minutes into the run when I passed by a friend's house, turned to look to spy someone moving around inside and realized that I couldn't feel my face. Oh, I could touch it, but I couldn't feel it.

"Is this dangerous?" I thought. "This feels like it could be dangerous. This isn't dangerous is it?"

I realized I made a mistake when I put a gloved hand to my face and it felt like a bee sting. That sensation soon went away when my toes felt as though I had just dropped a canned ham on them. But oddly enough - after just 15 minutes of running - everything was back to normal. The wind had shifted, the swarm of bees that peppered my face had rubbed it with aloe and everything was back in order. The strut around the ‘hood was no longer dangerous. Instead, it was fun... as long as the wind remained where it was.

It looked as if the football players were out there having fun in Green Bay, too. Better yet, it didn't look as if the cold temperatures changed much about the performances at all. Plaxico Burress made Al Harris look like his personal hand puppet, Tom Coughlin was typical full bore jackassery, and Brett Favre caught a late case of the crazies when his passes suddenly began to behave as if they were punts.

More than the Giants, the Super Bowl, or the Fox network, the weather was the winner last weekend. It showed that it will always be the topic of discussion in ways beyond the banality of, "Some weather we're having, huh?" Yep, it got cold and none of that silliness about "Global Warming" reared its un-ironic head as the great misnomer of the past decade.

You know, global warming... kind of like jumbo shrimp.

Who doesn't love those hacky 'Where are they now' pieces?

Ed. note: I forgot to add on the Lance Armstrong part on Friday night... it was added Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m. With the news that ex-Phillie Jon Lieber signed a one-year deal to pitch for the Cubs in 2008, it seemed like it would be a fun exercise to see what a few other former Phillies were up to these days.

But in the way of saying adios, muchacho to big Jon, it might be fair to add that his monster truck will probably go over just as well in Chicago as it did in Philadelphia. It should also be mentioned that when Lieber ruptured a tendon in his ankle while jogging off the mound that day in Cleveland last season, gravy poured out and soaked into his sock.

I'm not saying anything, I'm just sayin'.

Nevertheless, all-time favorite Doug Glanville took a break from his real-estate development business near Chicago to write an op-ed piece for The New York Times about why some ballplayers decide to use performance-enhancing drugs. Glanville, obviously, was not a PED user so he can only guess as to why players do what they do. But as an involved member of the players' union, Glanville didn't offer much in the way for solutions to the problem. That's not to say it wasn't a thoughtful story by Glanville, it's just that I think we're way past wondering why players decide to cheat. Perhaps it's time to accept the fact that with some guys if they are given an inch, they'll take a yard.

Still, it's a shame Doug isn't around anymore. I figured him for a front-office type, but maybe he's on to bigger work.

*** Elsewhere, Scott Rolen made his introductions to the Toronto baseball writers this week and from all the reports it sounded like it went over as well a Slappy White show - maybe even better than that.

According to reports Rolen joked, joshed and cajoled. Basically, he was the way he always was without the misunderstandings from certain media elements. Oh yeah, neither Larry Bowa nor Tony La Russa showed up, either. That means everyone was in a good mood.

"Hmmn, I didn't think it was going to come up. That's surprising," Rolen answered when asked about his old manager.

Better yet, when given more openings to get in his digs at La Russa, who gave a rambling and bizarre soliloquy on the affair during the Winter Meetings in Nashville last month, Rolen again took the high road.

"I'm not sure if that's healthy," he said. "I want to go back to playing baseball, I want to focus all my attention and my competition on the field. Too many times the last year, year and a half, I think that some of the competition, some of the focus was off the field, not on the field where it should stay."

Aside from that, Rolen explained how his three-year old daughter selected his uniform No. 33 for him. It's kind of a cute story... on another note, my three-year old son has chosen a new name for me -- from now on I'm Buzz Daddy Lightyear Finger. I'm going to the courthouse to have it changed next week.

*** How about this for the best story involving a former Phillie... Newly signed San Diego Padre Randy Wolf bought Slash's house in the Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills.

Yeah, that Slash.

From what I know about both guys, Randy's parties might be a little wildier. During my days on the road with Slash all we ever did was visit the local libraries and modern museums of art -- If you've seen one impressionist, you've seen them all.

Again, I'm not sayin' anything, I'm just sayin'.

Anyway, apparently the joint cost just under $6 million and is approximately 5,500-square feet. There is a pool, a gym, a chef's kitchen and if I'm not mistaken by looking at the photos, there is a lot wood... Me? I'm an oak man myself.

*** Finally, speaking of guys who know how to party, Lancasterian turned San Diego suburbanite, Floyd Landis, has a full season of racing lined up regardless of the outcome of his appeal to the CAS. According to a published report, Landis will race in the eight-race National Ultra-Endurance Series. Locally, a race is scheduled for July in State College, Pa. in a series that is described as, "old-school mountain biking."

Yeah.

Meanwhile, Floyd gave a rather revealing interview to the Velo News on Friday where the proverbial gloves came off. Then again, what else is new?

*** Speaking of cyclists and racing, Lance Armstrong is supposedly running the Boston Marathon in April. Lance qualified with a 2:59 and 2:46 in the past two New York City Marathons, which would likely put him in the starting corral as me -- not that Lance is going to have to get up super early to board a bus at the Boston Common for the long ride out to Hopkinton just so he can sit on the cold, wet grass in the Athlete's Village. Or, Lance can join the multitudes in a long wait in line for one of the port-a-potties that turn the otherwise bucolic setting into into a veritable sea of domed-lidded huts of human waste... complete with that fresh, urinal cake scent.

I wonder if Lance will take a wide-mouthed Gatorade bottle to the starting corral with him, too... you know, just in case.

Yep, that's marathoning -- there are no façades in our sport.

Anyway, it's cool that Lance is headed to Boston. Perhaps I'll re-evaluate my spring racing plans and show up, too, if I can find a place to stay... seems as if all the inns and motels are sold out that weekend.

Arbitrarily speaking

The Phillies and Ryan Howard are beginning yet another contract dance as the slugger is poised to enter the arbitration process for the first time. Of course the big question is whether or not the Phillies and Howard will avoid the arbitration hearing and iron out a multi-year contract. Though he isn't eligible to become a free agent until after the 2011 season, Howard is expected to fetch at least $7 million in salary in 2008 if a long-term deal isn't brokered. That's where it gets fun because it's not as if the Phillies don't want to have Ryan Howard play for them for a long time. Why wouldn't they? In his first two full seasons in the Majors, Howard smashed 105 homers, including 47 last year when he missed a most of the month of May. In 2006 he smashed the club single-season home run record on his way to winning the MVP Award. Kids wear Phillies shirts with his No. 6 on the back and everything seems to come to a halt at the ballpark whenever Howard comes to the plate.

Simply, Howard is one of the biggest reasons why folks pay money to go out to the ballpark.

When one considers that the Phillies signed Chase Utley to a multi-year deal worth $85 million in his year of arbitration eligibility, it would make sense that Howard would get a big offer, too.

Right?

Well...

There's a big difference between players like Chase Utley and Ryan Howard. For instance, if he can stay away from accidents like running into his centerfielder, getting in the way of inside pitches before they break his hand and avoid overtraining at Athletes' Performance with Mark Verstegen, Utley should be able to play well into his late 30s and early 40s. With five years already under his belt before he turned 29, Utley looks to be putting together a long career. A seven-year contract could be a bargain for the Phillies.

On the other hand, guys like Howard don't last as long. Already 28, Howard is seemingly in the prime years for a big, slugging type of player. The truth is the big fellas just don't last that long - especially if they have to play in the field. Baseball history is littered with guys like Howard who were washed up before their 35^th birthday. Greg Luzinski was washed up at 33; Boog Powell at 34; Mo Vaughn at 34; John Kruk at 33; Kent Hrbek at 34... the list goes on and on. The one big guy who has lasted a long time is Frank Thomas and that comes in part because he's played just 36 games in the field since 2001, and missed nearly 2½ seasons because of injuries.

Need more? Baseball Prospectus suggested that Howard could be peaking in its 2007 yearbook:

Historically, players like Howard, big-bodied guys with limited defensive skills such as Mo Vaughn and Boog Powell, tended to have high but brief peak periods. Their legs just couldn't carry that much mass for very long, and around 30 their defense plummeted, their playing time dropped due to nagging injuries, and their singles dried up and disappeared. The Phillies should have a three-year window in which they can expect this kind of production from Howard, but should not plan beyond that.

Based on how the contract-negotiations are going - word is Howard and the Phillies are $3 million apart - the Phillies are not doing anything more than they have to.

Picking on Bud

In the interest of full disclosure and with the idea that Big Brother (or at least George Mitchell) is watching or that everyone else is into that whole cleansing of the conscience thang (yes it's a thang) after being accused of being a doper, I decided that I'm coming clean. From now on whenever I write about the Mitchell Report, USADA, WADA, Rep. Waxman, or perhaps even baseball, I am going to submit my morning performance-enhancing buffet. Here's what it took to get me going this morning:

• 20 ounces of Starbucks Colombian coffee - my stash of Kind Coffee is gone
• 1 ibuprofen tablet (my hamstrings are killing me)
• 1 Clif Bar (crunchy peanut butter)
• 64 ounces of Brita filtered water
• 20 ounces of Turkey Hill diet green tea - since it tastes like it's loaded with chemicals and has no green tea flavor whatsoever, I figure it's on the IOC list of banned substances. While we're at it, does anyone remember the old Turkey Hill iced tea and good it tasted? Of course that was back in the good old days when Turkey Hill was a local dairy and neighborhood "minit market" and not a soulless corporation.

I also had a banana and some pad Thai with tofu from Trader Joe's, but tofu is hardly an enhancer.

Anyway, the point is that if a Congressional subcommittee wants to question me or pick on me for one reason or another, I'm ready. I have witnesses, too, which may or may not have been a good deal for Bud Selig, Don Fehr and Major League Baseball. You see, these days Congressional committees convene for the sake of moral proclamation - kind of like Senator Geary's grandstanding in The Godfather when he got it on the record that America has no better friend than the Italian-American community.

And then he excused himself so his colleagues could attempt to bust up his sugar daddy.

Bud Selig, Don Fehr and Major League Baseball are used in the same manner by Congress. They are easy pickings - a moral carwash if you will. Whenever Congress members are feeling low or their conscience is bothering them, who better to call in than the dirtiest bunch of dudes around? Even more than Alberto Gonzalez or the current group of criminal minds in the executive branch, Bud Selig is the best verbal punching bag out there for the moral miscreants on Capitol Hill. It's gotten to the point where Bud doesn't even fight back any more - he just sits there as if he's a character in a Biz Markie song and takes it.

When asked by Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind. if they were "complicit" in fostering the culture of drugs that has defined this era of Major League Baseball, Selig and Fehr shrugged the affirmative. Yes, they said, there is a lot of blame to go around. Both men accepted and conformed that their legacies will essentially be defined as the drug era - one in which the results must be set aside in order for the game to maintain its cherished historical perspective.

Speaking of perspective, the best of that lot and perhaps even the most indicting of Selig came from Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., who stated, "Fixed games played by drug users that illegitimately altered the outcome of the games. It's my opinion we're here in the middle of a criminal conspiracy that defrauded millions of baseball fans of billions of dollars."

Can you say, "Class action suit?"

Better than that, McCollum asked if there really was any difference between baseball, Britney or pro wrestling? But that's the million-dollar question isn't it? For some reason sports fans have it buried into the locus of their minds that their form of entertainment is on a higher level than other elements of the entertainment business. It's like they are evolved or advanced or something because the carry a stick and whack at a ball instead of watching a movie or digging the latest dish.

They can't all be the same can they? No, of course not.

But that didn't stop McCollum from asking:

"If baseball is simply another form of entertainment like going to a concert or attending a professional wrestling match, in which an audience attends solely for pleasure and they do not attend under the presumption of some form of fair athletic competition, then there would be no difference between Barry Bonds and Britney Spears.

"But in fact Major League Baseball is sold as a legitimate competition. ... This demonstrates to me fraud to millions of baseball fans."

Did Major League Baseball knowingly allow players using illicit substances play in games in front of paying customers? Yes. Yes they did. Is it consumer fraud? That's for the lawyers to decide, but at the very least it's very mean to present juiced up ballplayers as authentic and ask hard-working families to shell out big money.

It's very mean.

And that leads us back to Bud, Don and Congress and Tuesday's dog-and-pony show. The point is we get the point. We don't need grandstanding or televised hearings in the place of revenue-generating TV shows to know that drugs are bad and kids copy the things that pro athletes do.

But until baseball and the players' union decides to take the lead to develop proper testing - as opposed to more investigations and witch hunts - Congress is going to keep calling in Bud and the gang for more checkups. Yeah, there are more important things to do and sure, they can pick on someone their own size, but Congressmen and women like knocking them out of the park, too. In this case Bud and Don are throwing the meatballs to the juiced up folks in Congress.

And the Oscar goes to...

By now most folks have seen Terrell Owens’ post-game “act” in which he cried as if he were running for President of the United States of America following the Cowboys big choke job in their first playoff game. For those that haven’t seen Terrell Owens’ post-game drama, here it is:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMue5XOGX94&rel=1]

For the most part the T.O. video has been posted, talked about and then shrugged off as if it were a another bad episode in the most banal sitcom. Most folks don’t even really think it was funny or even surprising that a professional football player with diva-like tendencies would cry during a post-game press conference following a loss in the playoffs when asked about the poor play of his quarterback, Tony Romo. The reason why it wasn’t a big deal compared to when Hillary Clinton supposedly cried in New Hampshire is because there doesn’t seem to be anything remotely authentic about Owens. Owens is a drama queen so when he pretends to emote, it’s a yawn fest. Conversely, Ms. Clinton has been accused of not having a soul, so when she allegedly cried during the last days of the campaign in New Hampshire it was monumental.

But as far as Owens goes his ex-teammate Jon Runyan said it best during his appearance on Daily News Live: “That wasn’t about Tony [Romo] it was about T.O. It’s always about T.O. …”

After another choke, watching T.O. was more like that crying Britney fan video that made its way through the Internets. It wasn’t funny, sad or interesting – it was just bizarre.

Really, really bizarre.

When Mike Schmidt retired and broke down blubbering and crying midway through his announcement – now that was funny. There he was with his Flock of Seagulls ‘do and up-to-the-second ‘80s style and the most composed player ever to wear the Phillies’ uniform couldn’t get through a sentence without the water works.

Bret Boone bawling after his ouster from Seattle was a good one, too, and Fred Couples falling apart following a tournament victory is spit-take worthy. Likewise, anything with the emoting Jim Mora is hilarious simply because he always tries so hard to remain as sullen and composed as if he were General Douglas MacArthur delivering his farewell address to Congress on April 19, 1951.

But instead of getting, “I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that "old soldiers never die; they just fade away…” as with General MacArthur, we get “Playoffs!”

As for Dick Vermeil – that’s not even a contest. In fact, let’s just turn it over to the great Jeff Johnson and his old NFL writing for Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern:

The first time I saw Dick Vermeil cry, I thought: What a jagoff. What is an adult man doing crying about football?

The second time I saw Dick Vermeil cry, I thought: Okay, Vermeil. Calm down. And also, what a jagoff.

The third time I saw Dick Vermeil cry, I thought: The problem is with you, Johnson. You're the one who has to loosen up. Vermeil is in touch with his feelings. Vermeil has a ring, you don't. Let Vermeil cry.

The eighth time I saw Dick Vermeil cry, I thought: Okay, Vermeil. Get on some meds, amigo. Take a deep breath. Let it go.

The fourteenth time I saw Dick Vermeil cry, I thought: This is getting weird.

The thirty-ninth time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: I had just gotten done polishing off a bottle of Drambuie with him. We were at a golf tournament outside Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He told me he wasn't sure if he'd ever eaten a better salad than the one we'd had at dinner. "Those farmers," he wailed, "who are they? The romaine was exquisite. What are you looking at? If you can't—if a grown man can't enjoy a leaf of lettuce—"

The eighty-first time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: It was back on TV. The folks at UW-River Falls, where the Chiefs spend preseason, hadn't followed through on a team-catering request for Rice Krispies. Vermeil was melting down. "Just how tough is it? I'm sorry. I gotta go public with this," the waterworks were on. "My men love their cereal. And now, I don't know what kinda season we're gonna have."

The three hundred and fifteenth time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: It was because of a traffic light that he thought was on the verge of burning itself out. I was on a three-speed in Locust Valley, MO, and I saw him pointing and howling from the driver's seat of his Lincoln. "Some family's gonna get killed!" Several cars honked behind him, but he wasn't budging.

The nine hundred forty-first time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: I was on a cruise ship. Vermeil was at a press conference. One of his kick-returners kept an adult video late and there was a fine. Vermeil, to that day, was unaware of a phenomenon known as porn. It did not make him happy.

The 33,872nd time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: I didn't. It was just an editorial that he wrote for USA Today about the dangers of using magic markers to write kids' names on athletic tape to identify them on football helmets. I assumed he cried the whole time he wrote it. He thought the markers were a bit toxic, that an addiction could develop.

The 198,440th time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: It was an Arby's. A packet of Horsey sauce dared him to open it. He could not.

The 708,814th time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: He said six words and broke down, "Oh, the majesty of a sauna."

The 1,933,336th time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: I only sensed it. God had begun wiping out whole cities with His own vomit. Vermeil's crying caused it. I was in Murfreesboro, TN. We were covered in slime. God had registered his disgust. Vermeil was somewhere, bawling with joy about microwave technology. He stopped abruptly and ate a corn muffin before it cooled.

The 174,999,044th time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: He was dead. Vermeil was a damn ghost and he still would not quit crying. He'd met up with Tony Franklin, the old Eagles place-kicker. "How could you have possibly gone through life so darn short, Tony? It just is not fair."

The 12,000,000,000th time I saw Vermeil cry: I got a lousy T-shirt.

The 38,555,400,093rd time I saw Dick Vermeil cry: It wasn't so much Vermeil as the whole world. A book had been written about Vermeil's penchant for tears. It was called The Vermeil Approach. A religion was involved. Millions of people wept. Of course, looking down and seeing this, Vermeil wept.

Why is it that I find the crying of sports figures so funny? That’s simple – because it’s easy to laugh at things that don’t matter. No, I don’t doubt the sincerity of the sadness in dealing with a retirement, a victory or a 2-2 circle change up, it’s just that people without real problems have lousy perspective. At some point we all had to quit playing sports, but did you cry after the last game of the 10th grade JV basketball season? As far as we can tell Mike Schmidt did not cry when announcing his retirement all those years ago because he was sick or injured and forced out of the game. Nor was anyone in his immediate family facing some sort of hardship that required his immediate attention. In fact, there was no real sadness involved at all. All Mike Schmidt cried about was that he was lucky enough to have a great baseball career.

If that’s not funny I don’t know what is.

A slight return

With former Phillie Scott Rolen headed for the Toronto Blue Jays (pending a physical) and their spring training camp in Dunedin, Fla. -- just five miles and two turns from the Phillies' training site in Clearwater, Fla. -- who wants to make a bet that one day the new Jay forgets what year it is and accidentally drives over to the Carpenter Complex? Anyone?

On another note, a trade from the Cardinals and, most importantly, away from Tony La Russa is just the first step... the time spent in Dunedin and the two trips to Citizens Bank Park in 2008 will convince Rolen that Wes Helms and Greg Dobbs aren't the answer for the Phillies at the hot corner and in the interest of karma, the cycle of life and what-goes-around-comes-around, Rolen must return to where it all started...

... If he's healthy, of course, because they always come back.

For amusement purposes only

We usually don't pick games here because that was so last year. Plus, offering point-spread picks of professional sports is de facto gambling and even though we aren't gambling nor are we encouraging others to gambling, it's kind of like watching a person being assaulted without stepping in to stop it. No, we didn't dive in and rain haymakers down on some poor fella, but we didn't do anything to stop it. In other words, adjacent to refuse is still refuse. I was part of the problem and that's why I stopped the pretend gambling.

Besides, professional leagues and teams have rules forbidding gambling and claim they will revoke press credentials from those who knowingly engage in professional gambling. The leagues and teams also say they will penalize players and team employees who associate with known gamblers, too. They don't do it, but it's a rule nonetheless.

So just to be on the safe side, I'm going to begin my prognostication with a disclaimer... Don't gamble and don't use the wisdom herein for gambling. Though I am not morally opposed to gambling and even enjoy partaking from time to time, I must admit that I am a supercilious snob. For my brand of snobbery, the caricature version of the gambler with his gaudy clothes and jewelry - one which gives off the image of not only questionable character, but also of one who lives his life with a personal philosophy based on Exodus 21:23 - 27 - well, that's not the kind of person one would want to invite over for hot wassail.

Really... who can take those people seriously? And who are those folks fooling with their flashiness and hair coiffed oh so delicately with blonde highlights that is about as subtle on a man beyond middle age as a kick in the crotch?

They aren't fooling me. A person is known by the company they keep, is what I always say.

That said (or written) lets dive into the big football games that will be held this weekend at various times suitable to nestle gently into the nation television schedule.

New York Giants vs. Dallas Cowboys I suppose this is the biggest game of the weekend. I suppose that's the case because it features a team from the country's largest media market and another team that supersedes such triviality as media markets. "America's Team" is what the Cowboys and their fans refer to themselves without irony. Any group that can make such a proclamation and not stifle a laugh midway through is one to keep at a distance or trapped in a reinforced box as if they were a wolverine on greenies.

The New York-Dallas matchup is also an interesting one for folks from Philadelphia, too. One reason is that both clubs come from the NFC East, just like the Philadelphia Eagles. Additionally, the Eagles fans claim Dallas as their biggest rival even though it should be the team from New York. In fact, the Eagles' hatred of Cowboys is a lot like a song by the J. Geils Band set on its head. Fans of the Eagles have manufactured a bitter rivalry with Dallas that goes unrequited because the Cowboys' biggest rival is the Washington Redskins. This makes perfect sense, because if historical precedent as our guide, Cowboys and Redskins should despise one another. Moreover, everyone should hate Giants, Raiders, Titans, Buccaneers and, of course, Texans.

Since we're doing some good ol' hatin' let's add racism in there, too. If a Giant is a good thing to hate, I suppose racism is a good thing to hate, too.

It would be one thing if the game was simply a matchup between the teams from New York and Dallas and that was it. Instead, there are subplots. No, it's nothing too interesting or odd like the little subplot involving Mike Yanagita in the film, Fargo. Instead, it's more like a dumb reality-show subplot like, "Puck put his finger in the peanut butter so let's kick him out of the house and cry." In this instance it's equally as lame...

Ohmigod Tony Romo went to Mexico during his week off with Jessica Simpson and some teammates and her dad! My world and my wife's world are colliding!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

OK, I can understand why this is a big deal to sports fans. Actually, there are a lot of reasons why the quarterback of a football team gallivanting at a resort in a foreign country is such a big deal. For one thing to the average, factory-assembled fan, sports and women do not mix. Oh sure, they can hang around as long as they are dressed in a bathing suit and serve dead animal carcasses and other fatty food to the rest of the gang, but if they sit in the room with the other guys and watch the game and - gasp! - ask questions... oh no! Like hunting or being an elite-level chef, sports is a man's domain. Better yet, most men only want to watch sports with other men. And yes, the notion that a bunch guys that only want to hang around with a bunch of other guys and share their turbo-charged feelings is... well... gay[1], is completely lost.

Perhaps that's because sports fandom, by nature, is a conformist activity. All sports fans speak the same language because they engage in all of the same media. Sports seem to be the only subset of the news or popular culture in which there is no alternative media or ideology. Yeah, there are different Internet sites and all of that, but though the style might deviate slightly, the tune is always the same.

Think about what it's like to go to a game... everyone waits in line, dresses alike, eats and drinks the same things and recites the same slogans.

"LET'S GO HOME TEAM, clap, clap, clapclapclap!"

So yeah, with everyone receiving their marching orders from the same sources it's easy to see why a guy going on a trip with an actress during his week off is a bad thing.

The Tony Romo-Jessica Simpson thing was such a big deal that the football stuff kind of got lost in the shuffle. For instance, Terrell Owens, the ex-Eagle, is attempting to play despite a diva-like injury. I'm not saying Terrell Owens is faking the injury for a little extra dramatic flair, but let's just say he's probably not pleased that it's another teammate involved in some sort of controversy instead of him. To make it worse, the controversy involves the quarterback and a model. All T.O. ever had was Drew Rosenhaus.

Oh yeah, there is Giants' quarterback Eli Manning, too. Manning, of course, is the underachieving little brother of MVP Peyton Manning and youngest son of ex-NFL quarterback Archie Manning. He also reminds me of the little brother who cried his way into the pick-up basketball game with his older brother's friends and followed that up by making a whole bunch of jump shots in a row. But just when little Eli pressed his luck and drove to the hoop, one of Peyton's classmates sent the kid flailing into the shrubbery bordering the driveway with a slight forearm shiver. Crying again with his bottom lip quivering while prone in a chalk-outline position half in the bush and the driveway, little Eli shouted, "C'mon dude, I'm only seven!"

For the Giants to have any chance of winning, little Eli is going to have to stay out of the lane and bury those shots from the outside.

Take the Cowboys.

While you're at it, take the Packers, Colts and Patriots, too.

What, do you want point spreads and statistics? Are you a degenerate?

---

[1] The word "gay" is being used in the fifth-grade sense of the word and is in no way being used as a term of derision or as a slur of any type. But then again if you couldn't figure that out after reading the rest of the crap in this essay, you're... um... dumb. Or possibly a supercilious snob.

Just the money, please

It's easy to tell when it's an election year when the phone calls soliciting money roll in faster than those annoying calls from Verizon (how they get past the No-Call List is befuddling). Nevertheless, my name is on some list, which means the relatively nice folks begging for money for presidential candidate Barry Obama ring me up more than occasionally. And since I have strong jackass tendencies I pick up the phone to listen to the spiel even though I have caller-ID and know exactly what they want. After all, who doesn't want a little manufactured self-righteous indignation to share with the other folks hanging out with the kids at the monkey bars.

Anyway, Obama's beggars called up again yesterday and the conversation went a little something like this:

Me: Hello.

Me: Hello!

Me: HELLO!

Beggar: Mr. Finger?

Me: Yes.

Beggar: Uh, hello John, how are you? I'm calling from the campaign for Barrack Obama and...

Me: Wait, we're on a first-name basis?

Beggar: What?

Me: What?

Beggar: Excuse me?

Me: Never mind.

Beggar: Uh, yeah, I'm calling from the presidential campaign for Barrack Obama and as you know he was just three points behind in New Hampshire, so we're really trying to work hard to drum up the support and ...

Me: Yeah, looks like it's a two-person race from here on out.

Beggar: ... also we had a really good weekend where we raised $XX million for Barrack for President, which is one of our best weekends to date.

Me: Wow. Congratulations.

Beggar: Yeah, so we're looking to keep the momentum going and we're asking for your help by...

Me: Great. What can I do? Canvassing? Hand out leaflets at the community center? Hang up posters. Back when Mondale ran against Reagan in '84 my school project was to get involved with a campaign, but interestingly the local Mondale group was more like a ...

Beggar: ... sending us $250.

Me: Huh?

Beggar: If you could send us $250 it would really help.

Me: $250? You want money from me?

Beggar: Yes. If you could send $250 it would really help the momentum we have coming out of New Hampshire.

Me: But I thought you guys had a really good weekend?

Beggar: We did.

Me: Really?

Beggar: Yes, we raised $XXX million.

Me: So what do you need my money for?

Beggar: What?

Me: Yeah, what do you need my money for? You called here to brag about how much money you raised last weekend and how you had all this momentum and how you needed my help.

Beggar: Yes, we need your help. Can I put you down for $250?

Me: Don't you want my vote instead?

Beggar: What?

Me: Let me ask you this question?

Beggar: Go ahead.

Me: Would you rather have my vote or my money?

Silence.

Me: Yeah, that's what I thought. That one isn't on the script is it?

Beggar: So can we count on your help?

Me: I might vote for your guy, but then again I might not. To be honest, calling around asking for money instead of votes makes your guy sound like less like a politician or a statesman and more like a whore.

Beggar: A what?

Me: A whore.

Beggar: A whore?

Me: Yes, a whore. If your guy has good ideas he won't need to go around asking for working folk's money.

Beggar: So can we count on your help?

Me: Maybe. I might vote for your guy but it depends.

Beggar: What does it depend on?

Me: Whether or not your guy would rather have my vote or my money.

Click.

Sir Edmund Hillary

Have a safe trip, Sir Ed.

Nothing doing

It's easy to tell when there is nothing going on in the Philadelphia sporting scene. For one, media types begin to look at the blogs. Usually it's the other way around. Blogger types[1] need the professionals or else there wouldn't be any substance. It's the commentary or the parsing of the information that makes each so-called blogger unique. Or something like that... we generalize because we have nothing else to go on.

What? Do you think I'm going to dial up Conlin to ask what he thinks about the subject? He's too busy chasing the neighborhood kids off his lawn.

Anyway...

Yet when there is nothing going on and media types read those blogs, sometimes they react to something. Take Donovan McNabb, the quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, for instance. As most folks who follow this sort of thing have come to learn, Donovan McNabb is a blogger, too. And like most bloggers Donovan McNabb reacts to the news being reported by the pros.

Hey, a guy needs to dig up material from somewhere.

Nevertheless, in reacting to news that the Eagles were 8-8 during the 2007, McNabb opined that his team just might need a few "weapons" in 2008. No big news there. After all, McNabb had pointed out as much after the Eagles beat the Buffalo Bills in the final game of the season on Dec. 30. That was nearly two weeks ago. But in a struggle to fill space on his Yardbarker.com page, McNabb reiterated the idea that the Eagles need "weapons."

Let's digress a bit and give the situation some perspective, because it really is a "situation." In most cities if the quarterback of an 8-8 team expressed a desire to add some better players to the team it might be met with a yawn or a rolling of the eyes with the comment, "Tell us something we don't know" attached to it. That's because in most cities 8-8 isn't very good. Actually, in a lot of cities the fans and media of the local football team would admit that most 10-6 teams have a little room for improvement. Hell, even the New England Patriots have areas where they can get better and they went 16-0. For one thing, the Patriots have to do a better job at not getting caught when spying on the opposition. That little misstep cost them a draft pick.

But in Philadelphia it isn't that the folks don't agree with the notion that the Eagles - an 8-8 team that was lucky to be 8-8 [2]- it's just that there isn't anything else going on. Sure, there are other sports teams in town, such as the punchless 76ers who are in the midst of a season-worst five-game losing streak. At their current rate, the Sixers could end up 31-51, which would put them right there with the Charlotte Bobcats.

There is also the Flyers in the NHL, who might be a team to make a little noise in the playoffs. The Flyers are a young team and prone to streaks as well as multiple-game suspensions for things like unsportsmanlike conduct. But let's not kid ourselves, it's hockey and this is the United States. It's not exactly a fringe sport (though the national television ratings indicate otherwise), but it's not the glitzy and glamorous Hollywood sport either. It's more like non-fiction book publishing.

College basketball is in full swing, too, but in a sports/media saturated market place it's hard to get excited about things like conference play until March. Mix that with folks settling back into routines following the holidays and the new year, as well as the fact that Philadelphia lacks the excitement outside of sports such as places like Washington (it's a presidential election year), New York (it's New York), Boston (the Patriots are streaking to the Super Bowl and the World Champion Red Sox report to spring training in five weeks) or Baltimore (The Wire kicked off its new season last week) and it's easy to see why a sigh or a leer from the quarterback of the local football team gets scrutinized.

How would have people reacted if McNabb wrote that the team was on the right track?

Perhaps he's trying to talk himself out of town?

How would his blogging have gone over if the Eagles finished the season 7-9?

Better yet, how would have folks reacted if he and the gang had gone on a trip to Mexico with Jessica Simpson?

---

[1] What? Do you think I'm excluding myself? Hey, I might be a jackass but I'm a self-aware jackass.[2] Not only were the Eagles lucky to be 8-8, but also they could have very easily won 10 games. The truth is that every other team in the NFC East was not very good.

Mark it zero, dude

Goose Gossage finally was elected to the Hall of Fame after it seems as if the BBWAA voters were shamed into giving him his due after last years' snub. Perhaps it was the fact that Goose narrowly missed out on getting elected last year sealed the deal this year. For one thing it forced some folks to go back dig deeper into his record. The thing about Gossage's career is that it's one thing on paper and something much deeper on the game logs. Sure, Gossage was the most dominant closer in the game for a handful of years. In fact he was so good that the Yankees went out and signed him to a big deal before the '78 season even though Sparky Lyle won the Cy Young Award as the teams' closer in 1977. But Goose spent the last decade of his career bouncing around the league from team to team and fighting injuries.

At a quick glance, the last bunch of years for Gossage hardly looked like the ledger of a guy headed for the Hall of Fame... and aren't Hall of Famers supposed to be as consistent as clockwork?

But what the stat page doesn't show is how Gossage put together a bunch of those saves - especially during the early years. These days when a closer is considered a workhorse for getting the occasional four-out save from time-to-time, it is fun to look at Gossage's 1977 game log in his lone season with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

A quick glance there shows that of his 26 saves, only five were of three outs or less. Nine of them were two innings, three were two-plus innings, three were three innings or longer and the coup de grace, a mid September four-inning save in which Goose gave up one hit and struck out five.

Yeah, that's right, a four-inning save.

So is Gossage Hall of Fame worthy... yes, absolutely. But then again based on some of the other folks enshrined in Cooperstown, Gossage wasn't the only player who should have earned election to the Hall today. Gossage was baseball's most dominant relief pitcher in the 1970s and the early 1980s so based on that criteria, Jim Rice should have been elected today as well. Why? Because Jim Rice was the game's most dominant hitter from 1977 to 1979 and continued to be a perennial All Star to the mid-1980s by posting some gaudy numbers in an era before performance-enhancing drugs.

And if Tony Perez was good enough to be in the Hall of Fame, then Andre Dawson should be enshrined, too. And if Gaylord Perry or Robin Roberts are in then Bert Blyleven should be, too.

With that in mind here is how I would vote if I were a Hall of Fame voting member of the BBWAA, keeping in mind, of course, that I will never actively choose to be a member of the BBWAA. There's a better chance that I would join the GOP or local Aryans group than be asked to join to BBWAA.

Anyway, here's how I would have voted in the current system:

Rich Gossage Jim Rice Bert Blyleven Andre Dawson Lee Smith Jack Morris Tim Raines Dave Parker Dale Murphy Tommy John Don Mattingly

In this ballot I give points for guys who were the league's best players at their position for a bunch of years in a row. I also give kudos to players who have remarkable seasons/performances, etc. In that vein, though most of his career was underwhelming, Roger Maris would get my vote.

This is how I would have voted if the Hall of Fame wasn't so watered down with the likes of Perez and Ryne Sandberg:

Gossage Rice

That's it (though it's pretty hard to ignore Raines... maybe his 808 career stolen bases will garner a second-look next year).

As far as Mark McGwire goes, the answer is simple:

No.

It will remain that way until baseball decides what to do with the records of the Steroids Era players. My suggestion is to separate them in the same way that the records pre-1900 were differentiated. Baseball calls the seasons after 1900 "The Modern Era." Perhaps the seasons from 1990 and on can be called "The Post-Modern Era."

Why not, postmodernism certainly worked well for Beckett.

He yam what he yam

Poor Roger Clemens. After decades of making baseball fans and the baseball media believe the unbelievable, things have changed. It seems as if people have stopped buying what he's been selling despite years and years of turning a blind eye and swallowing it whole. So yeah, poor Roger Clemens.

Clemens, of course, made a much heralded appearance with company man Mike Wallace on "60 Minutes" last night. It was on that show where Clemens admitted that he injected B-12 and lidocaine. He also told Wallace that he would submit to a lie-detector test because we all know that just like a negative drug test, a polygraph reveals everything.

But where Clemens made his mistake isn't from admitting that he injected B-12 and lidocaine with the help of his ex-trainer turned George Mitchell's rat, Brian McNamee. He made his mistake by thinking that sporting press was still largely ignorant about performance-enhancing drugs, injections and vitamins. Hey, he figured he had them believing everything he threw out there to begin with, especially the part about how "intense" his workout regime was[1], why not trot out the B-12 line?

Certainly what Clemens didn't think was going to happen was that there would be a backlash about his revelation. Really, B-12? Was he anemic? If so, why didn't he eat some spinach? You don't see Popeye injecting B-12 into his ass, do you?

Look, athletes - especially endurance athletes - get anemia. I would go so far as to call it a common malady for runners and cyclists. In fact, amongst the elite American runners out there working today I can name a bunch who struggled with bouts of anemia. Of the few of those runners that I have talked to about their iron deficiency, not one said anything about getting injections of B-12. Instead, they told me they took multi-vitamins and ate more vegetables.

That's it.

Unless Clemens was using the B-12 shots for something else, such as masking a urine test, it doesn't sound like he is being completely forthcoming.

As far as lidocaine goes, a non-anabolic steroid and anti-itch agent, couldn't Clemens just roll around in some aloe leafs?

Hey, maybe Clemens is telling the truth. Why shouldn't he? Maybe he learned how to pitch as he entered the "twilight of his career." It's not out of the ordinary for a pitcher... come on, it's not like he re-wrote the record books as came into his late-30s. Greg Maddux is still a standout pitcher in his early 40s. For the Phillies, 45-year old Jamie Moyer is just as good now as he was a decade ago. Tom Glavine shows no signs of slowing down, either. And like Clemens, Maddux, Moyer and Glavine have kept away from injuries by staying fit. The key to consistency, oddly enough, is being consistent.

So now Clemens enters into the always murky waters of public opinion, which always matters more than what a guy can prove. 

---

[1] Yeah, I remember a time when a few sportswriters were discussing a story about Clemens in Sports Illustrated that detailed his out-of-season and in-season workouts with a curious Phillie. The part that had me on the ground laughing was when a scribe said, "He does a whole bunch of weights stuff and then he runs five miles!"

Let's caucus!

Yesterday was caucus day in the little breadbasket state of Iowa, which got me to thinking a little bit. No, it wasn't the absurdity that a state in which the largest city is only slightly more populous than Allentown, Pa. gets to decide who the viable candidates are. Nor is it that with Iowa and New Hampshire setting the pace, the entire selection process will be just about wrapped up by the time of the Pennsylvania primary in April. What got me to thinking is the idea of the caucus... it's just so civilized. Who knows if it's the best way to elect someone to public office? But the idea that folks leave their homes to gather in someone else's house on a cold, early January night to talk about the future of our nation cordially (perhaps?) over a few hot toddies and maybe a piece of bundt cake makes me feel good about the United States of America.

They ain't having a caucus in Pakistan.

Anyway, the caucus-ers in Iowa were good Barry Obama and Mike Huckabee even though the Arkansas governor believed (believes?) Americans with AIDS should be quarantined in some far off island as if they were lepers from the bible.

Sheesh... I wonder if there is anymore bundt cake sitting around?

What... no secret handshake?

I'm not much of joiner. Actually, I subscribe to that line from an old Woody Allen movie that I would never want to be a part of an organization that would have someone like me as a member. Oh sure, I like the idea of joining things and being part of a community or a group and all of that. In fact, when I was in high school I was a member of a street gang called The Wilson Drive Cobras. We ran the turf from Race Avenue west to River Drive with an iron fist. We still do. Watch your step.

But the truth is I don't like leaving the house. I once almost joined the Elks Club until it dawned on me that I might actually have to go hang out at the local Elks Club. Come on... there's only so much duck pin bowling a guy can do.

Nevertheless, I can't help but be intrigued by the recent carping amongst some media types regarding membership into the Baseball Writers Association of America, or BBWAA as they like to call themselves. Just like the Elks Club, I am not a member of the BBWAA because I work for the web site of a regional cable television sports station. Food chain-wise that makes me a bottom feeder, but what are you going to do?

The requisite for membership in the BBWAA was that one had to be a full-time employee of a newspaper and also cover baseball regularly. That was until this winter when some of the ex-newspaper writers working for big cable TV sports station web sites were re-admitted to the club. No big deal, right?

Well...

Apparently there are a bunch of people out there who are joiners. Not only do they join clubs that want them as members, but also they want to join groups that don't want them. No, we aren't talking about racist or sexist groups because that's totally different. It's illegal, too. Besides, the most boring club in the world is the one where everyone is exactly like you. Who wants that? Not to sound like a Benetton ad or anything, but there's nothing worse than being around a whole bunch of people that think the same way. Diversity in ideas is the best thing that can happen to any gathering.

Anyways, whenever people get left out of something there is always a big stink and that seems to be what is going on with the BBWAA these days. It seems as if a handful of well known Internet baseball gurus were denied membership into the BBWAA because, it seems, they don't actually attend baseball games.

Now I'm not going to name names because the BBWAA rejects really don't need the publicity. One of them, in particular, is pretty good at drawing attention to himself enough as it is already having been accused of leaving fake reviews for his stat-soaked baseball book(s) on Amazon.com. Nevertheless, it appears as if those dudes really don't understand the purpose of the BBWAA and its mission. And frankly, why anyone really needs membership in that particular association is beyond me.

Aside from being a secret society, a lot like the Elks or Skull & Bones without the pedigree, the BBWAA's aim is to provide access and convenience at the ballpark for its members, and provide oversight on working conditions for its members and the media. Additionally, certain members who travel regularly with the team they cover vote on the BBWAA awards that are given independent of Major League Baseball, and other media organizations. Writers who have 10 consecutive years of membership are given a vote for the Hall-of Fame, though that's an honor bestowed by the Hall of Fame. If the folks who run the Hall decide to give the vote to any other group, there's nothing the BBWAA can do aside from open up its own Hall of Fame and Museum.

If that happens I don't think too many people would go. Cooperstown is really quite lovely.

The fact is that folks like me who are adept at sending out faxes or e-mails to clubs to ask for credentials don't need the BBWAA. Neither do those whiny rejects from ESPN and other outlets.

Besides, clubs have certain criteria. The Elks insist that its members be Americans and believe in God. The folks at the Augusta National Golf Club want its members to be (white) men with $250,000 to $500,000 for yearly fees. The BBWAA wants newspaper writers, a select few Internet dudes and regular attendance at the ballpark... that and $50 gets one in. That's it. So as far as clubs go, it kind of sucks.

Hell, there isn't even any hazing -- no ass paddling, pin wearing or binge drinking...

But if they get duck pin bowling, I want in. Until then, I'll keep avoiding all clubs that want people like me as members and I'll keep sending out those faxes.

Get to work

Believe it or not, there are some folks that come to this little site to read about the running stuff. In fact, these people could care less about the Phillies, Eagles or any type of the mainstream spectator sports where one of the goals is to actually feel one's ass grow. Instead, they are much more interested in participating in sports. Come on, who can sit inside and watch a game on TV when 5x1 mile in 5:10 is on the schedule? Anyway, there are names for these people. Lots of them, I suppose, based on some rudimentary lip reading of the lemmings hurtling around in the cars clogging up the roads. "Dork" seems to be one of the few that can be published here, but to me there is a different name.

I call them warriors and they are my people.

Actually, I don't call them warriors. I just made that up to be dramatic because I couldn't think up anything better. Truth be told, whenever I'm inside or driving around in a car I always stare like at the runners that cross my path like a guy who just left an Eagles' game and headed to the "gentleman's club" to take in the late afternoon matinee. But rather than some sort of deviant intent, I watch because I'm jealous that there are people out running around while I'm not. It's enough to make me crazy and go out and do something rash. But since I'm conserving energy for the second run of the day later in the afternoon, I just stare and roil with envy.

Like a dork.

Of course there are subsets to this dorkdom, just like there are in anything else. Perhaps it is like the sects of Eagles' fans where some like to get dressed up in a jersey and/or uniform and paint their faces as if they were Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans, while others just go to the game and cheer or boo accordingly.

In running there are differences, too. There are runners who simply run and runners who train. There is no in-between because as the old saying goes, "You are either training or you are not." Still, defining the difference between the two sets isn't as easy as all that. Sometimes one is training and doesn't know it and other times a person is training so poorly they might as well just be running.

Or something like that.

Anyway, I think I'm training. After two months of running simply to put together some semblance of fitness, it's time to dive in. The focus, of course, is another marathon, which at this point is a lot like banging my head against a wall. Yet for some reason there is a thought that there is a chance that something elusive is there for the grabbing. Still, running is easy and training is hard. Oh sure, it's fun and all of that, but it's fun in the way that building an addition to your house is fun or drinking so much coffee that you can see the hair growing on your face.

Yes, it's all fun but certainly not for everyone. Actually, I wouldn't recommend any of it.

But we're going back into the breach again, my friends. So far we're three days and 45 miles into it and all of the old obsessions are on the way back. Make it obsessions about obsessions. Suddenly everything matters - sleep, food, weight, miles, the weather, pace, more miles as well as the glancing thought that my calves will spasm chronically for the next five months (at least) and if it's possible if those perpetually black toes can get blacker.

And for what? A little self masochism? Self medication? The idea that 2:30s means something?

Well... yeah.

One of my lines about all of this is, "I'm not doing it for my health." I don't buy all that new agey stuff about feeling free or a oneness with nature or any other such thing. Like the sleek, vigilant puma, most runners who train are hostile and aggressive. They would like nothing better than to slash your throat to a bloody, messy slab of spongy flesh. But since most runners go to one extreme or another and a much too small to for the local Fight Club, the puma metaphor is all they have.

Besides, it's healthy than face painting.

*** So there it is. After talking to my management team (OK, just my wife), it looks like the plan is to hit the Pocono Mountain Marathon on May 4 and the Richmond (Va.) Marathon on Nov. 15. All systems are go - no one is pregnant, the kids are settled, schedules are set and playoff baseball won't interfere... that is if there is playoff baseball.

All that's left is the work.

It's the end of the year as we know it

OK. So I ended up taking a little time off from the ol' Finger Food site. Sorry. I'm sure there were a handful of people that kept clicking onto the site every day to see if I added to the pile of dementia chronicled therein. I'm sure it will all be used against me during the commitment hearing, which is inevitable. Anyway, for the folks who kept checking in I say, "thank you," and "I'm sorry that you have nothing better to do." But then again I'm pretty sure my core audience is shut-ins and the socially inept. Come on... just look at yourself sitting there. It's New Year's Eve and you took a detour in your web surfing to visit "Finger Food."

Really, I'm truly sorry for you.

I had planned a trenchant delving into The Mitchell Report, which is half finished, but I was unmotivated to finish it. I'll probably finish it a few days from now and back date it, but in the interim the Cliff Notes version is:

Drugs are bad. Baseball management/unions are stupid. Bureaucrats in charge of investigating, testing and protecting the dopers are the worst of all.

Be that as it is, I guess it's fair to reveal what kept me away from adding to the blogs ‘o crap that dictate the course of discourse in our age. The truth?

Nothing. I didn't do a damn thing.

Oh sure, I attended the requisite catered affairs here and there and took my 3-year old boy to Washington for an afternoon at some museums and a high-powered lunch at Old Ebbitt. Other than that my biggest decision was to go out for coffee or make it myself.

In other words it was blissful and I ignored everything. That was especially the case when it came to Philadelphia and its sports teams. I almost watched a football game, but then didn't. I heard that the Sixers made a trade, but wasn't sure about the details and apparently a sport called "hockey" still exists.

Kudos. Kudos to them.

Oddly enough, I spent a few moments looking back at 2007, which is something I never do. That's mostly because the end-of-the-year retrospectives are always cheesy. Velveeta, actually. But then again most things that fall into the hands of local-TV types turn out to be over-dramaticzed and, well, fake. Worse, writer-types who put together those best-of-the-year lists always have that cooler-than-thou feel.

You know what I mean... it's like you're super lame if you didn't play the newest Deerhoof record until the MP3 files morph into the code of your operating system.

Yeah, Deerhoof.

So without further ado, here come the lists:

Best sports moments of ‘07

• Phillies win the NL East, a.k.a. the Mets really, really, really blew it. Really.

Hey, the playoffs don't happen for the Phillies all that often. In fact, with just 10 post-season appearances in 124 seasons the Phillies should be happy with anything they get.

• Marathon Olympic Trials

Not only did Ryan Hall run one of the greatest marathons ever by an American, but also young rough-and-tumble runner Dathan Ritzenhein and hard-nosed Brian Sell made the Olympic team by finishing in the top three of the marathon race through Manhattan's Central Park. Western Pennsylvanian Sell fit in his 150-miles per week of training between shifts at the Home Depot and ran a savvy race from off the pace while Hall and Ritzenhein broke away early.

Sadly the Trials will be remembered for Ryan Shay's death, but for a little while it seemed as if it was going to be viewed as a coming-out party for American marathoning.

And, as we all know, Philadelphia sports fans were completely riveted to the streaming webcast.

• USADA arbitrators rule against Floyd Landis

Why was this good? Simple. It proved that the anti-dopers were just as crooked and would go to any lengths to win as anyone else.

• The Eagles went to the playoffs

They didn't win the Super Bowl, though. Actually, the Eagles have never won the Super Bowl and they haven't won anything since 1960... yep, worse than the Phillies.

• Phillies vs. the tarp in Colorado

Yep, that was cool.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNK9L9kLZa8&rel=1]

Best records (not in order)

• Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond
• Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Living with the Living/Mo' Living
• Eddie Vedder - Into the Wild
• Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends
• Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity
• Radiohead - In Rainbows

Best moments (in order)

• Theodore Finger is born on Aug. 25

That will do it.

Funniest moments (not in order)

• Being left on M St. at 2 a.m. after a Phillies-Nationals game

• Hearing Ken Mandel say upon learning about my vegetarianism: "How about that... I never knew that [deleted] was a vegetable."

• The Thomas Jefferson re-mix before the copyright infringement

• In some true 2001 Space Odyssey innovation, The Inquirer's Bob Ford hosts a webcast called "Riffing with the Writers" with a live-sized cardboard cut-out. Meanwhile, Phillies' scribe Todd Zolecki co-hosts a podcast with his imaginary friend, Shiloh.

• The Mets choking during the final weeks of the season

Looking forward in 2008

• Despite a 15-win season from Adam Eaton, the Phillies finish third in the NL East

• After drafting an offensive lineman with the top pick, Andy Reid replaces Joe Banner as COO of the Eagles

• Curt Schilling writes an entry on his blog telling himself to shutup

• Scott Rolen finally finds a manager he can play for... it's Charlie Manuel!

• The Patriots lose in their first playoff game after the 16-0 season

• It turns out that Roger Clemens never took performance-enhancing drugs, but, as it turns out, he shot Ol' Yeller

• No athletes test positive in the Tour de France and Beijing Olympics

Sit tight...

I'll post something tonight and/or tomorrow (or the next day), so hang in there... topics might include The Mitchell Report, sports as entertainment (what else is it?) and how Brian Westbrook just might have destroyed fantasy football forever... Or at least for one week.

Separated at birth?