I wanted to subtitle this, "Or... How Not To Ingratiate Yourself To DIME Magazine Judges"  Too wordy.

Why don't I care about the NBA any more?  I'm a huge fan of Lebron and D-Wade and Amare, and many of the young class.  I'm still in awe of Shaq and Duncan and Kobe, and Nash, Billups, Parker, B. Wallace, Rip, Dirk, and the rest of them give me plenty of jaw-dropping moments of basketball highlights.  I played basketball in my adolescence, and loved it so much that it took time away from my real talent, baseball, and probably cost me a paycheck down the road.  If I'd come to the realization a couple years sooner that I was a 6-foot white dude with nowhere near the stamina and speed to be a point guard, maybe I "coulda been a contenda" in baseball.  But, a few bone breaks and three CD releases later, here I am writing about it instead.

I'm crazy about the NFL, and I live for baseball season.  But when the NBA rolls around, I'm left as disinterested as Tom Cruise at a sorority mixer.  Why?  I'm sure in part it's because I'm left physically and emotionally drained after 7 months of daily baseball obsession.  Other than that, I think it's the fact that, even with the amazing athletes that the players are, the NBA just plays a shell of the real game of basketball. 

Run 'n gun offenses, with sloppily written and lazily executed half court schemes.  Virtually no offensive rebounding until the playoffs.  And defenses?  They make their matchups, and have at it.  "Hey you!  Guard the best guy!  You!  Guard the other good guy!  Everybody else get out of the way and rebound if you feel like it."  Again, in the playoffs, everything gets stepped up.  There are actually visible offensive and defensive schemes.  There's more intensity, and you see a lot more players with bloody noses and scratched up tattoos.  It actually looks like basketball.

Except, that is, for the real culprit -- officiating.  I'm certainly not the guy that blames the outcome of games on blown calls, and I don't scream and throw chips and queso all over my TV screen every time a call goes against my team.  In fact, I'm not even talking about changing individual games with bizarre or just plain bad calls, I'm talking about changing the game itself.

Basketball rules say you get two steps in a drive to the basket.  TWO.  Not two and a half, or three, or four, or five (Lebron, Kobe, A.I., I'm talking to you!).  There's also this thing called a "pivot foot".  It's called a "pivot foot" because you are supposed to keep it still and pivot on it.  Not drag it halfway across the backcourt, or pogo-hop it across the paint, or pick it up and try the other foot because it suits you.  In the real game of basketball, elbows to the face are generally frowned upon by referees, as are Larry-Moe-and-Curly digits to the eye sockets and vice-gripping some dude's jewels when he tries to box you out.

I realize that all sports evolve.  I understand that the fast pace of today's NBA prohibits full attention to offensive rebounding, because if you don't get three or four guys back in transition a Kobe or an A.I. will kill you all night.  I know that today's players are much bigger and stronger, so more physical force needs to be asserted gain position inside.  But the little things like never calling traveling, or calling it at absurd and inconsistent times, or the inconsistency in 5-second calls and jump balls, make for a totally different game than what was ever intended.  While we're giving basketball players 4 steps, why don't we just give baseball players four strikes?  Or maybe a first down should be thirteen yards from now on.  If we're changing games to make them more "fan friendly" -- those spectacular 4-step drives to the bucket put fans in the seats and $30 caps on their noggins -- why don't we just make hockey nets 10 feet wide?  While we're at it, lets move all the baseball fences in to about 200 ft, and turn Juan Pierre into the next Sammy Sosa for the Cubbies.  I'm sure I could make a mint selling "Juallopin' Juan" T-shirts!  All those things would be pretty much equivalent to what has become of the game of basketball in the NBA.

Why don't I care about the NBA any more?  Because it's barely even basketball any more, which makes me barely a fan.

I haven't been to The Yard to plunk out a sports blog in 4 months.  Why?  The first month or two was because I needed a break from sports blogging after a two-month deluge of them for NGS I.  But after that, it was mostly because I didn't have a whole helluva lot to say that wasn't already being said.  I've been writing other stuff, just not sports stuff.  So what made me come creeping out of my non-sportswriting cave, yawning and blinking and rubbing my eyes?

Paintball on ESPN.

The first time I saw it, I said, "Paintball?  You've gotta be kidding me.  Chuckle, chuckle...."  Flip, flip.   But it was a weekend afternoon, it was ESPN2, I thought it was a lark, like cheerleading championships or something.  Then I saw it again.  And again.  During the day.  At night.  Late night.  Prime time.  Oh my God, this wasn't just a one time thing, just for fun.  They're actually covering paintball tournaments!!

I hate that they show poker, but at least I understand it.  There's lots of money behind it, it's re-sweeping the nation as an online fad, there are people that actually watch it.  I can even tolerate the occasional spelling bees, cheerleading, and wide receivers trying to hit home runs.  But paintball???  We're so starved for sports that you'll show us dorks with "Red Dawn" fixations and a league?  Why don't we just go down to the park and cover the fake jousting competitions between those D & D rabble-rousers??  It would be just as riveting.

Thanks, ESPN, for taking up my precious sports-watching hours with more inane, unnecessary, unwatchable crap.  Special thanks for making me actually wish soccer was on, which is one of the signs of the apocalypse.  I'm going outside now to see if it's raining frogs.  Jerks.

I truly hate bad officiating as much as anybody else.  But how did Peyton Manning's famous arms-open-scrunchy-face-how-could-this-happen-to-me- look come clear across the country and get pasted on the collective face of Seattle Seahawks fans?  Yes, just like in every NFL game we ever see, the officials blew some big calls.  They also made about 100 not-blown calls.  On the biggies, here's how I see it:

1)  The Big Ben goal-line dive was NOT a touchdown.  How can you make a call like that after waiting 2 seconds?  If he didn't see it cross the plane immediately, then it's not a touchdown.  I think there just wasn't enough visual evidence to overturn it.  If the call on the field had been "down", they would have stuck with that after review too.

2)  Darrell Jackson DID push off in the end zone, committing offensive pass interference.  Ticky-tack as it was, it was a correct call.  I think when the defender (can't remember who right now) took that tiny little backwards hop after Jackson put his hand on him, that sealed it.  Without that, it's just a little hand-check, and shouldn't have been called.  Maybe even still shouldn't have been called, but it was technically correct.

3)  Calling Hasselbeck for a chop block, when he was actually making a tackle, was ridiculous.  The refs should have had a conference and overturned that one.  I think they just got caught up in the moment.  Then again, if Hasselbeck hadn't thrown an interception, that wouldn't have been a problem, would it?

Otherwise, why is nobody mentioning the huge blown call that went the Seahawks' way?  One of Jerramy Stevens many drops was actually a fumble, which was recovered by Palomalu.  The refs called it incomplete, but the replay clearly showed he had possession of the ball and "made a football move" before it squirted out of his hands like a hot buttered roll.   

Speaking of Stevens, Seattle fans should be throwing hacky-sacks and coffee spoons at him instead of the refs (sorry, just had to get in a little stereotype blast there.  Go ahead with your cowboy hat and tumbleweed zingers).  It was clear by the middle of the first half that the Seahawks had much of their passing game centered around him, and he blew it time after time.  Because of him, they had to try and rely on Alexander, to no avail, and then their receivers, without much more success.  They had streaks of efficiency, but due to turnovers, untimely penalties (just or unjust), and horrible clock management, they just couldn't seal the deal.

The Steelers endured the same officiating nightmares in the Colts game, and were still able to get the job done.  Like we've heard a million times, you have to be good enough to overcome bad officiating to win big games, and the Seahawks just weren't good enough on Sunday.

As a lifelong Cowboys fan, it pains the core of my being to say nice things about the Steelers.  I'm not a fan.  But, I'm happy for Bettis, Cowher, and Ward.  All were deserving of everything they got. 

Except for wearing those ridiculous gold Mickey Mouse ears on Monday.  Nobody deserves that.

I originally wrote this as a comment on thefoozle's blog, "Why does the NAACP still use "colored people...."  It got long (as usual), so I decided to post it here instead.

Yes, McNabb's comments were stupid.  But let's remember why Favre's name was even used -- it was Michael Irvin who asked T.O. the original question, and it was Irvin who used Favre as the example, not T.O. or McNabb.  I also heard Irvin explain that the only reason he used Favre was that they had been talking about him earlier, in particular about his failure this year because of the lack of talent around him.  When they started talking about McNabb's failure this year even with talent around him, Irvin used Favre as a converse example.  It had nothing to do with race.

When rich people use the "race card" or compare silly little word stuff to "black on black crime", they belittle the millions of black Americans who have actually had to deal with the real thing.  Just more proof that the richer you get, the farther removed from reality you are.

Activist groups like the NAACP (yes, I've wondered too why the most PC group in the country still uses that name), NOW, various Anti-Defamation Leagues, Greenpeace, and especially the ACLU are doing their causes more harm than good.  Since they've been such hard-core watchdog groups for so many years, they've become overconfident and self-righteous.  Over the years, those groups have been overzealous on small issues (because there are so few truly big ones now), which makes people tune them out.  The mentality of most Americans, regardless of race, is "Here they go again... now what?"  It's unfortunate, because their causes are good.  They just need to reorganize and refocus for today's world.

A prime example is the Bill Cosby thing from a while back.  Bill Cosby grew up in the projects in Philly, and has been considered a leader of the black community for 40 years.  But when he gave a speech that said young black people need to take responsibility for themselves, and stop blaming white America for its problems, his statements were labeled as "racist" by the NAACP.  What???  "Take personal responsibility for your life" is racist?  And those watchdog groups I mentioned above wonder why nobody takes them seriously....

Have you guys noticed how many bloggers here are using "Thoughts on...." in their blog titles?  I didn't really notice until about 10 different bloggers started doing it.  For example, there's one now from wolves413 called "Thoughts on Skiers reportedly used banned medicine man".  Why not just title it "Skiers reportedly used banned medicine man"?  It doesn't particularly bug me or anything, I just didn't know what that was all about. 

It's like "I think" and "I believe".  I learned early on that you don't need to use "I think" and "I believe" when you are speaking or writing.  If you are saying it, you obviously think or believe it.  And if you are writing a blog, then everything there is obviously your "thoughts on" the subject.  It' not like it's a grammar mistake or anything, or that you should never ever use "I think", etc., it's just something you should avoid when you can.

Before my haters get all fired up, I'm not calling anyone out or being a grammar hound.  I'm really just curious -- is "thoughts on..." some kind of blogger language that I just don't know about?  This is the first blog site I've ever been on, so maybe it's just something I missed.   I've been wondering about it, so I figured I'd ask you guys.