LeBron James an all-time great? Hardly. Twenty-four points on 10-10 in the first quarter against the Bulls, 10 more points on 3-11 the rest of the way in a loss. Where was LeBron in the fourth quarter? And will he ever get a ring?

Major League Baseball and the player's union have reached an agreement not to turn over testing for performance enhancing drugs to an independent agency. The question is why? Better question. Why don't we notice the NFL program is worse?

UCF wide receiver Ereck Plancher died during an off season workout in March. Now four players have anonymously told reporters at the end of the workout Coach George O'Leary singled out Plancher for a lack of effort and told him, "That's a bunch of (bleep) out of you, son." The players say Plancher was already showing signs of distress and couldn't even look at O'Leary because he was trying to catch his breath. Where is the NCAA?

Penn State and Joe Paterno are dancing around each other about a contract extension and have agreed to wait until the end of the season. The truth is it no longer matters if Paterno stays or goes. Nittany Lion football is now just another eastern program.

Brett Favre should come back. Just not with Green Bay. Aaron Rodgers is ready to play, and the Packers were probably not grief stricken at saying goodbye to the quarterback who threw away their chance at the Super Bowl against the Giants. Favre can't say he wants out of Green Bay, the Packers can't say they don't want him. A quiet off-season deal to a playoff caliber team would serve both parties well.

Yankees-RedSox and the good guys win 4-1 behind Chien Ming-Wang's complete game. The Yankees the good guys? There, I said it. The Yankees are the under dogs this season, the RedSox the powerful favorites. Pull for the RedSox? It would be like rooting for Microsoft.

Speaking of Boston, how about Tito Francona pulling Josh Beckett with the game tied 2-2, 2 out in the 5th, bases loaded against Toronto? Manny Delcarmen comes in and gives up a grand slam to Frank Thomas. You've got a Cy Young caliber pitcher who the manager doesn't think can get out of a 5th inning jam because he's thrown 96 pitches? Just another big league manager screwing up a pitching staff and losing games by babying his starters.

Does anyone watch golf anymore? With so many sports choices golf has lost the "I'll watch this because nothing else is on" audience segment. Nobody has time or greens fee money to to even play golf , so the audience of duffers is thinning. Tiger Woods dominance means the tournaments are seldom in doubt. Strike three and golf is out by a mile.

The Carolina Hurricanes did a fold job worthy of mention with last season's collapse by the Mets and were shut out of the playoffs. You didn't hear about it? That's hockey's problem. You can't find the games on TV, ESPN puts alot of effort into pretending it doesn't exist, nobody writes about it, and sports talk radio is silent on the subject. Without a new TV deal and rules to increase scoring the NHL will become golf with uniforms.

And finally, the Detroit Tigers.