Watching the Cavs launch a five man protest against rebounding in the fourth quarter of tonight's game was extremely painful. Watching LeBorn James imitate the Great Number 8 from the Golden State was excruciating. I don't know what got into LeBron, but I think he may have been bitten by the curse of the Mamba at halftime. Too many times down the floor in the 4th, James left his teammmates standing around like the invisible men on the second best NBA team in Los Angeles. I wish I could say I don't know what happened to LeBron, but I do. All you had to do was watch him force drive after blocked out drive or shot after he doesn't have a shot to know the guy felt he had it all on his shoulders. Hopefully, he'll learn from this. Because frankly, he was plain awful. But give the Pistons credit. They made a few adjustments, and more importantly they have nothing against rebounding. I don't know which is more disgraceful, the Pistons having Flop Saunders as a coach, or the Cavs standing by haplessly as Detroit played tip-drill four consecutive times in the crunch. So let's be real here folks, if Larry Brown was still in Detroit, the Pistons are playing Miami right now. And if anyone else is coaching Cleveland, LeBron is sharing the ball (like he does when they win) and those statues watching the Pistons control every rebound down the stretch are leaving a time out with five feet up their asses. It may be too soon for LeBron, and I accept that, but I do have one wish. Please God, no more playoff scores in the 70's and 80's. I can't be the only who's aching to see basketball players actually put the ball in the hole like they did in the 80's, the 1980's that is. I'm sick of thug ball, sick of one man bands, and sick of Batman and Robin with special guest Steve Kerr, John Paxson or some other anonymous white guy. I want nothing more than to see the Cavs beat the Motor City Madmen. They're the original thugs. They ended the Laker/Celtics dynasty and ruined the NBA along the way. Worse yet, they ushered in the dark ages of the Jordan rules, the Zen Master, and offense so slow and lifeless it had fans longing for major league soccer season. I'd love nothing more than to see LeBron come of age at the Pistons expense. I'd like to see Donyell Marshall finally play up to half of his ability. I'd like to find out once and for all if Zydrunis Ilgauskis is Amish. (He sure looks Amish). The Pistons 2.0 are just not cool, and cool should count for something. Chauncey Billups looks like he just got off the short bus, and Rip Hamilton's Jason Voorhees look is really getting stale. The only thing Rasheed Wallace should ever guarantee is that he'll go to prison some day, and Tayshaun Prince, well something is just wrong there. If it wasn't for Ben Wallace, these Pistons are central casting for Revenge of the NBA Nerds. Right now, Shaquille O'Neal is one happy guy. Happy because the second best thing to not having to play the Pistons is playing them after they've been taken to the mattresses by a team that hasn't even learned how to win yet. Not that the Heat have it all figured out either. They're still figuring out who to play, what to do when and where, and most of all what the hell to make of White Chocolate and his propensity to make dazzling passes to players who aren't there. The Heat, finally coming together under their boss and deconstructionista, picked one heck of a time to figure it all out too. But here's the one thing all the guys in the playoffs have in common. Kobe Bryant is watching them. The guy who singlehanded ran the best player of the last decade and the best coach of the same period out of town in one fell swoop, isn't going to the dance. The guy who took two superstars in waiting and kept them waiting, sent Rudy T to the old folks home and collected a king's ransom for all that damage is watching. He and I both have the same chance of playing for the O'Brien trophy this year. I'm lovin' it. Mamba, Can you hear me?

It has been some time since Rush Limbaugh spoke the language he dared not speak and stuck a McFork in his ESPN Career. I still haven't gotten over it. Don't get me wrong. I studied Politics many years ago in my first college go-round. I learned enough to know that Limbaugh the Politico sounds a lot more like Adolf Hitler than he conjures memories of Ronald Reagan. I don't personally care for the guy at all. He's just another tubby windbag selling the politics of hatred and fear. But I still remember that Sunday, as well as I remember Limbaugh's missive on opening Thursday, passionately and beautifully describing the human microcosm that is the NFL. I've long believed that all the little dramas of human existence play out in that green rectangle every Sunday. What astounded me was how absolutely and perfectly Limbaugh got it. He got it and he told us how much he got it. I immediately started looking forward to NFL Gameday, more than I ever looked forward to a pregame show. And that says something, because Jimmy, Howie and Terry are incredible. But Limbuagh really got it, he was a football poet and his every word threatened to libreate the long suffering from more mindless blithering from wobbleheads like Theismann, Berman and Young. Can you hear Louie Armstrong singing "What a wonderful world" in the background? I can. I sat and waited that Sunday to hear Limbaugh deliver the kind of articulate and intelligent insight we always hoped we'd get from Dennis Miller. Maybe the Sword of Damocles and the NFL could live together in the same sentence. But nooooooooooooooo. Rush pulled the R Card (reversism), ESPN sat quietly for a day or two waiting to be told how enraged they were, and then pulled the plug on Rush. Forget the fact that Uncle Tom Jackson sat silently before deciding how angry he was a few days later, forget that Berman was his typically vacant "gee, I wonder if I should call him Rush "to judgement" Limbaugh, self, Forget the fact that in the moment, they just engaged Limbaugh as though he made a point about a football player. What bothers me still is that Limbaugh was not being a racist (at least at that moment) and he had a good point. The media has long been desirous of seeing black QB's make good and they have over rated them as a result. Wasn't Randle Cunningham the "Ultimate Weapon" a decade or so ago? Was I the only one who watched 700 continuous reruns of Mike Vick running rampant on a substandard Vikings D on Sportscenter a few years back? Good golly, I just can't wait to see ESPN rename "Sportscenter" "VinceYoungCenter". But the media has also long been desirous of Peyton Manning winning something and they overrate him too. The only thing I hate more than hearing about Michael Vick, is hearing about Paidton Manning. The media loved Alien Kurt Warner, and well, they got that one right. The media just wants stories. So as much as I believe Rush was right, I know he was also crazy. Just watch the game tape of McNabb literally choking in the SB to see if Rush had a point. Oh by the way, Randall Cunningham? Gone. Mike Vick? Mediocre QB on his best days. Kurt Warner? He sucks again. Peyton Manning? Never gonna win anything. I stil don't know what bothers me more, that the PC police dashed in to prove that they were still on watch, or that Rush was blind enough to think discussing race wouldn't cost him his job. I guess it's just another case of the Liberal Fascists championing the struggle for "freedom (of speech) their way". But just for the record, a lot of players are over rated, by the media, by coaches and by players alike. Heck, now that Pittsburgh got over the hump, people are talking about Hines Ward like he's in a class with John Stallworth. Don't ever bet the ponies with a Steeler fan, folks. They can't tell a plowhorse from a thoroughbred these days. The fact is, objectivity is alienating and it doesn't sell the game. What are the odds you'll ever hear Berman say, "that mike Vick can run like the wind, but he couldn't pass an English class if he took it as a second language". Wait, is that James Brown I just heard saying "Peyton Manning is a real student of the game, it's a shame he heasn't learned to win a big game yet." Few announcers take a chance even remotely as sensational as Limbaugh did on that Sunday, and naturally the folks on high didn't want him doing that again. Rush even added to the circus by issuing the statement; "duh, I was on drugs". So Theismann and the rest of the mush-heads are safe for now. We can rest easy knowing there will be blithe-spirited, empty-headed NFL commentary for years to come. Thanks for nothin' Rush.

What a thrill to watch the LeBronze cough, sputter and wheeze his way through the big finish last night. At one point, after tanking a layup and bricking too many free throws, I thought the refs would have to call time because the King launched an airball so fluffy it might never land. Whether he was just tired from having played nearly every second of the playoffs, or if he was feeling the heat, the King was dead last night. Long live the King. But I wasn't thrilled because he choked. I was thrilled because his team didn't choke. It's quickly becoming clear that LeBron is one of those unique athletes who makes his team better because they believe they are never out of game as long as he is present. The Cav's didn't win because of LeBron, they won because of the idea of LeBron. Nice. Write it down guys, last night the NBA's most important player was crowned. I hope he gets rid of the scowl though. He reminds me a lot more of Earvin Johnson than Michael Jordan. By the way, LeBron's biggest fan right now has to be Shaquille O'Neal. Basketball's author of "How To Win a Championship Without Even Trying" wants nothing more than to avoid having to show up for an entire series against Ben Wallace. So Joey Porter has a bone to pick with the President. What's the early line on whether he disappears from that confrontation too? Porter came out of the SB "okay" after running his mouth about Jerramy Stevens, but not because his game had anything to do with it. Stevens abused the Steelers D, running free all day. He just didn't finish, and it wasn't because Porter was stopping him. Now Joey has threatened to sound off on a wimpy little suit who flexes the collective muscles of others. Good for Joe. I can't wait to see if he comes through. Maybe it's time that the man with the plan realized that we're his boss. We hired him and we could have fired him too. Not that W will be writing Joey a refund check, but for once Porter has some beef behind his banter. I live in New England, which is kind of ironic because I hate the old one. But here, the place where we pahk cahs, and play in our yahds, Doug Flutie is a big deal. So when #2 announced his farewell, it was met with much commentary. My thought, so what? He made a drop kick, big deal. Fluite was an okay QB. He hung around forever. If there had been an Iranian football leage, he would have played there too. Yes he was 5'9" tall. Whoop de dooh. They still think Baseball is the National Past time here, so it doesn't surprise me that they celebrate a guy whose best play ever was still that hail mary to Gerard Phelan. The Carolina Hurricanes are playing well enough to win another Stanley Cup. That leads me to two questions. Who had the idea to put an NHL franchise in either Carolina? Doesn't having a hockey Champion in Carolina seem almost as unnatural as having teams in Florida win the Cup. Canadians must be crapping their pants. The Florida Panthers, the Tampa Bay Lightning, and the Carolina Hurricanes are the best that Hockey has to offer. How's that for a kick in Le BonBons? Me and the three other Americans who occasionally watch hockey get a real kick out of this. If I had to pick an NHL rookie of the year, it would probably be Sidney Crosby. Why, he's a teamer, not a scorer. It was really sad to see 86 year old Mario Lemieux retire this year. What was even sadder was knowing that Mario was the 2nd best player on his team. I had the pleasure of watching Mario in his prime and it always upset me when he was regularly ignored in comparisons to Gretzky. Lemieux was better than Gretzky, so much more talented it wasn't even close. But while Wayne Gretzky fashioned himself into the Pete Rose of Hockey, Mario skated alongside the Great Two, making moves, passes and shots of which Gretzky could only fantasize. Will we ever see another talent like Lemieux? We'd better pack our picnic baskets. But that's all stuf I've seen recently. Here are a few things I'd like to see: Larry Brown accepts a buy out from the Knicks, retires for 18 seconds, has his pelvis, kidneys and pancreas replaced and then becomes the Head Coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Brown tells the media "Hey, at least they play defense here", "besides that, if I can babysit Alan Iverson, Rasheed Wallace and Stephon Marbury, Joey Porter and Hines Ward will be a vacation". The NFL announces two expansion franchises, one in Hong Kong and one in Tokyo. That'll teach 'em for kicking our butts in math, science and cheap labor. Of course the NFL sends the 49ers to play the first game against The Hong Kong PointyLizards. Alex Smith throws 17 interceptions in the 1st half, before Trent Dilfer comes on to pull out the 3 point win in OT. Hong Kong paper sports page reads "Crouching Monster, Weeping Lizards". I'll wait for the movie. Lawrence Taylor leaps into the ESPN booth to crush Joe Theismann and break his other leg in half. 73% of the fans can't tell the difference between Theismann's continuous, agonizing screams and his normal, endless blather. The other 27% are just happy he'll be in the hospital for a while. Mike Tyson accepts one more big payoff to return to the ring against an 11 year old boy with Leukemia. Tyson is knocked out instantly in the first round by the sound of the bell ringing. Guinness immediately enters him in the Book of World records as the first man ever to be tougher before he went to prison than after he got out. David Letterman and Hollywood Hulk Hogan square off with Jay Leno and Stone Cold Steve Austin in Wrestlemania #whatever. Letterman and Hogan pull out the win when Rowdy Roddy Piper intervenes and smashes a beer keg and a 57 Chevy over the heads of Austin and Leno. Evidently, Piper never got over the way NBC treated Letterman when Carson retired.

That's what we called Barry back in his Bucco days, Mr. May. He earned that nickname. No player in the early 90's started a season more capable of making you think that a World Series was in the mail, and no player left you feeling more disappointed in September watching him tighten up so badly that you couldn't shove a pin up his butt with a jackhammer. So when the second biggest head case since his father (but that's another story) took the money and ran (if he felt like it) to San Francisco, Pirate fans had intensely mixed emotions about his departure. Fittingly, a decade or so later, baseball fans have intensely mixed emotions about his refusal to depart without a key personal accolade. There is symapthy and empathy for Giant fans though, just like Barry didn't bring Pirate fans a World Series Trophy he didn't bring one to the Bay City either, although he got much better in the postseason even carrying the Giants to a World Series loss in 2002. As a matter of fact, Barry got much better in the regular season too. Oddly enough, Barry did what no other athlete before him had done, he didn't just get much better in September, he got better in the September of his career. When you look at Barry's six full seasons in Pittsburgh, he's a 27 home run/yr. hitter, which is damn good by the way. When you look at Barry's 12 full seasons in SF though, he's a 44 home run/yr. hitter. Without drilling down into more detail, the most awesome achievements in Barry's career, the bulk of his home runs, the brutal slugging percentage, the .299 career average all resulted form Barry's getting better when most guys start to decline. And to what do we owe the tremendous, post-30 increase in muscle mass, the lofty stats and the solipsistic trot into the record books? Training, clean living, viatmins and flaxseed oil. Heck, even Jesse Jacskon says Barry's you-reen tests come back negative. I guess nothing makes an outrageous lie more fun than a broken-dwon mouthpiece so willing to butcher the english language on his behalf. It's a sad joke Barry played on major league baseball. But he wasn't the first, he was simply the best. Ironic that since he couldn't be the best player, he chose to be the best cheater. But it was always about Barry anyway, or he'd have a few World Series trophies by now. So Barry's you-reen comes back clean though, and we're all supposed to by into the fact that he grew into Superman naturally? Any statistics teacher though, will tell you that the way to foil a study is to deliver an answer the test isn't looking for. So Barry passed his tests, big deal. There are about a billion computer viruses out there, made merely for the entertainment of techno-jerks, flying under the radar of every antivirus program sold. But we're supposed to think Barry doesn't have a few Doctors smart enough to find the synthetic hormone for which MLB hasn't yet found the assay. Am I the only one who secretly wishes that Barry gets his left arm crushed by a plunging helicopter because a freak wind pulls the bird down into the Stick and he can't get out of the batter's box in time? I mean, I wouldn't want to kill him, or anyone for that matter. But Bonds breaking Babe Ruth's record, much less Hank Aaron's, is absolute sports sacrilege. I won't even touch on the Hank Aaron record for right now, because the damage that flaxseed oil creates has already made it very hard for broken-down Barry to heal or recover, so 755 appears safely out of reach. But I will delight in the conundrum it creates for racist bigots like Jackson who practice the very bias they claim to despise. Again, that's another story. Barry passing the Bambino is tragedy. It's everything wrong with baseball, sports and humankind all liquified and sucked up into one neat little hypodermic. I knew there was a reason the game ceased being fun for me anymore, I knew there was a reason the NFL has become the national past time and the best marketing machine on earth, I knew it, I just didn't know why. Now I know why. Of the big 4, assuming that Hockey is still a sport (I heard they're back from strike now), baseball is the game that gives the most and asks the least. Roger Clemens is what, 93 years old now, and he can command $14mm to pitch a half of a season. Bernie Williams will go from making twelve million dollars a season to collecting social security benefits. And these guys play for 10, 15 or 20 seasons if they want to. I'd love to see Rocket Roger take an elbow from Shaq, or Jason Giambi absorb a mean cross-check from Scott Stevens, or best of all see Barry get blindsided by Javon Kearse. That's why a pretty good baseball player can cheat the system and pass a legend. The only punishment for baseball players is time. I keep hoping for a miracle. That the knee that will never heal gives out altogether, that body snatchers invade earth and replace Barry with an alien who has a soul or that Barry recants his old faith (in Barry), joins the Mormon Church and immediately dedictaes himself to the more noble cause of polygamy. I keep hoping, but the likelihood is that the sickness that is major league baseball will not be cured in one fell swoop, and its poster child for petulance, selfishness and dispicable choices will shepherd it right into the gutter where it belongs. That is precisely why Barry will hit 714, 715 and maybe more. He found a short-term cure for time and baseball would much rather ignore the cancer in the hopes it will go away. Babe Ruth's record is safe. They don't play that game anymore.

I hated Jordan, hated him for the way he constantly bit the hand of every media mook that genuflected in his presence, hated him for the way he left the game and then didn't leave the game, hated his ridiculously tailored, shoulder padded suits, hated his arrogance toward an owner who quietly and willingly made him the most highly paid player of his era, hated his adherence to the most boring offense and thuggish defensive concepts this side of rollerball, hated the way he singlehandedly spearheaded Bird and Magic's showtime NBA of the 80's into the thugball, "me first" 1990's. Oh yeah, and I hated the way he singlehandedly removed grace and fluid movement from the game. But let me put my despising his airness in perspective. I was a Pittsburgh Steelers fan in the 70's (still am) and it meant I would hate the Dallas Cowboys, I couldn't help but respect them too. Being a lakers fan, I hated Larry legend in the 80's, along with McHale and DJ and Parish and the rest. But if you asked me who I would choose to take a last second shot to save my life if a man put a gun to my head and made me pick, it wouldn't be Earvin, or Silk, or James, it would be Larry. He was that good. Jordan, however, was the best. He was as good as I hated him, and that's really good. What a lot of folks fail to remember, or never knew is that he wasn't always the best. He didn't come ready made. Jordan came into the NBA with one of the ugliest outside shots, significant defensive liabilities and the kind of glue-handedness that sent a lot of great talents before him home. He was never the most physically gifted and certainly not the most graceful player, but what did that ever do for David Thompson or Darrel Griffith? Still, he made himself into the greatest ever, using his head and heart to do it. One of his opponents once said, if Jordan faked you right and dipped left on the 276th tile of the floor at the end of the third quarter and you bit it, he just catalogued that move and he never forgot it. You only had to watch Jordan at his peak to understand how real that was, because of the way he always seemed to choose the right move, the right shot, or the right pass at the right moment. He also knew how to lock a guy down on defense, because he never gave up and he never forgot. Jordan was so right so often, he just broke the other guy's heart. There's more to it than that, but you get the idea. I was so glad, though, when Kobe came along. You can say a lot about Bryant when comparing him to Jordan, but one thing is for sure, Jordan always looked like he was working. Kobe can make the impossible look easy. Kobe is so physically and naturally talented, one almost wonders why he doesn't drop 81 every night. Bryant threatens nightly to bring back the kind of grace, fluidity, and magic back to the game that we haven't seen since Magic. And he consistently falls short, because when Bryant is on, he doesn't even see the other guys wearing Gold and Purple. He doesn't want to. But I forgave Kobe forever because I knew he was just "young" or "growing" or whatever euphesim for selfish was handy. Still it was fun to watch the Shaq experiment, however doomed it was. The 3peat returned my Lakers to prominence, and it looked like the 4th trophy was in the mail. Then of course, the blow-up doll replacement for Jerry West, Mitch Kupchak had to go and get a career loser, Payton, and a career choker, Malone to try and close the deal. That move ranks right up with Leon Hess saying, "I want the Jets to win right now, get me Rich Kotite!" It was clear though, win or lose, that Bryant's contract would precipitate a move for one of the dynamic duo after the debacle ended. Maybe no team can bear the cost of two giant egos these days. And not many of us were surprised that PJax packed his bags too, Phil had his fill of the whole soap opera. So Bryant got what he wanted. He became the face of the Lakers. The face was the kind of "I could care less about the team or the coach, I just beat a rape case and all I want is the scoring title" ugly even I didn't expect from Bryant. He, unlike Jordan singlehandedly turned a loser into a winner on the court, turned a winner into a loser from off the court. Then PJax rides into town with a pocketful of I told you so for Jerry Buss and even gets the Lakers to impersonate a basketball team for a few games in the NBA's annual "you have to be utterly disgraceful not to make the" playoffs. Problem solved? Kobe's learned his lesson? No. What's the difference bewteen Kobe and Jordan? Jordan, love him or hate him, was all heart. Kobe, has a heart problem. Kobe will do whatever it takes to be a scoring Champion, Jordan did whatever it took to be a champion. Jordan was real and his team knew it. Kobe is Kounterfeit and his team knows it. Jordan scored when he had to, and it made his team mates more confident because they knew he'd show up when and if they needed him. Kobe scores when he wants to and makes his team mates less confident because they never know when he'll go into a pout to prove how important he is. Jordan made his team mates better by getting them the ball when it was the right thing to do. Bryant makes his team worse by treating his team mates like accessories when he's "feeling it". Why did the LA Kobe's krumble? Because Bryant playing team ball was just a mirage. When the pressure was on, Kobe was Kobe, Lakers lose. So will there be a "next" Jordan, probably not. But one thing is for certain, it won't be Bryant. Write this down folks. Unless PJax pulls the ultimate card and wheels this gutless, self-absorbed, punk out of town, we're gonna be hearing Kobe drops 50, Lakers lose, for a while. There's hope though. There's a guy in Cleveland who's so old school, they should call him "the calculator". It makes me sad to think he's going to be dispatched in just a few more games by the Lakers antithesis, the Pistons. But maybe there's some poetry in the idea that losing to the Pistons was the same lesson Jordan had to learn in order to raise his game. As for James eclipsing the resident disgrace in LosAngeles for top star power in the NBA, I can't wait.