On this, the 4th of July, a day intimately associated with liberty, it is appropriate to reflect on the strides this nation has made to expand freedom in the world of sport.  Think of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play major league baseball.  Consider Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon.  Or how about Manny Ramirez, the first Dominican outfielder to take a leak behind a manually-operated scoreboard during a pitching change in an American League game.  Truly, as a nation, we have much to be proud of.

Kathrine Switzer, failing the Boston Marathon gender test.

But many are surprised to hear that, until very recently, there were still obstacles to full participation in the athletic endeavors that make this country great.  One such barrier fell the other day, as the state of Missouri made it legal, for the first time, to "noodle", or fish with one's hands.

A guy named Phil, with a giant catfish caught by hand

As a teenage boy in a small Missouri town, I often worked with country people who spoke of noodling.  Not having much interest in fishing, I never accompanied them on their clandestine trips to muddy creek banks, where they told me they would stick their arms into hollow logs, risking bites by snakes or snapping turtles, to catch catfish by hand.  As a result, I have wrongly assumed all these years that the fish they caught would fit on a dinner plate. 

It turns out these men were diving under water, holding their breath and sticking their arms into catfish "holes" where they would grab fresh-water behemoths, smaller than a jet ski but not by much, and wrestle them into submission.  Where noodling is permitted, a fish must typically be as much as two feet long in order to be a legal catch.  Catfish are bottom feeders who will remain stationary for long periods of time, eating anything that floats by, and as a result can grow to be enormous.

"He followed me home--can I keep him?"

You would think that the Missouri legislature, in its wisdom, would have long ago followed the example of the other eleven states where handfishing (also referred to as "hogging") is legal, and let man and fish fight it out fair and square.  Missouri's scruples in the area of man-fish relations stemmed not from fear for fisherman's safety, but from a solicitous regard for the fishes' sex life.  Handfishing, according to fish and game officials, depletes the number of sexually mature fish.  Well, what do you want noodlers to do--knock before entering?

Moby Catfish

Since moving to the east coast thirty-five years ago, I've gone deep-sea fishing a number of times and had naively formed the opinion that it is more challenging than fresh-water fishing.  Having conducted further research into hand-fishing, I now believe that the only way ocean fishing could measure up to the challenge of noodling is for the beer-sodden men who pay hundreds of dollars to fish off Florida or Cape Cod to crawl overboard, find a bluefish or a marlin and subdue their prey using nothing but wrestling holds learned on WWE Royal Rumble.

Exhausted noodlers

So here's to America's hand-fishers, true sportsmen who eschew fish-finders and other high tech doo-dads that unfairly tilt the pond in favor of humans.  I salute you, but I have one request. 

If you don't mind, I'd rather not shake your hand.

DALLAS.  With skyrocketing player salaries and rising materials costs undermining their ability to build state-of-the stadiums, owners of professional sports teams find themselves between a rock and a hard place these days.  "It used to be we could look to the state or the city for a little something to cover infrastructure," says Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones.  "Now they tell us they've gone and blown all their money on stupid stuff like schools, firemen and policemen, and we're left high and dry."  

Texas Stadium:  "Hey--I was sitting there!"

So Jones, who had already imposed "personal seat licenses" on long-time fans which, for as much as $150,000, merely give them the right to buy season tickets, came up with the idea of the "personal butt license" to cover his funding gap.  "The seat license gives you the right to buy the ticket to the seat," says Martin Zimwurtz, an economist who studies professional sports because it's more fun than poverty.  "The butt license gives you the right to put your fanny in the seat that is licensed to you."

"Dude--I got a personal body paint license!"

Other teams with new stadiums on the drawing board are looking closely at the Cowboys' move, and considering other add-on fees of their own.  "Many of our fans like to touch inappropriate parts of their bodies while the TV cameras are scanning the stands," says New York Giants' co-owner John Mara.  "That depresses our advertising revenues, so people are going to have to 'pay to pick' if they want us to win another Super Bowl."

In Arizona, where the football Cardinals just moved into the University of Phoenix and Mel's Weed-Wacker Supply Stadium, patrons can upgrade to body odor-free seats for a one-time Air Wick Room De-odorizer charge.

"A lot of our fans get kinda sweaty on the long walk from the parking lot to their seats, so we're putting six-foot room de-odorizers in designated VIP seating sections," says Arthur Bidwill, Vice President of Nepotism for the team.  "The addition of these fine Air Wick products will not interfere with play on the field, where our team always stinks."

WASHINGTON, D.C.  Senator Arlen Specter accused the Boston Celtics of "cheating like a lazy fifth-grader on a geography test" in winning their seventeenth NBA championship Tuesday night, saying New England Patriots' head coach Bill Belichick filmed the Los Angeles Lakers' shoot-around prior to the decisive game six earlier in the day.

Specter:  "There must be a grassy knoll around the Boston Garden somewhere . . ."

"This sort of dishonesty is contrary to everything America stands for, except for legislators who vote on bills that favor campaign donors," Specter said in a hastily-called news conference.  "To those who claim I'm obsessed with bringing down Coach Belichick, I say you'd feel the same way about someone who is always stealing your yogurt from the refrigerator in the Senator's Lounge." 

Belichick:  "You watch--Kobe's going to shoot now."

Belichick was fined $500,000 in 2007 by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for taping defensive signals of the New York Jets, a charge that the Patriots' coach did not dispute but which he said was due to a misinterpretation of the rules.  "As I understood it," Belichick said at the time, "I was allowed to take video of [Jets' head coach] Eric Mangini to see who was doing better on our Weight Watchers Diet competition."

Belichick and Mangini:  "Nice to see you, too."

According to Specter, Belichick's tape of the shoot-around enabled the Celtics to anticipate the Lakers' offensive plays in their 131-92 blowout win in Game 6.  "You can see it in their defenders' eyes," Specter said as he rolled three metal balls in his hands.  "They knew the Lakers' 'Give the ball to Kobe' play, their 'Clear out for Kobe play', and their 'Get yelled at by Kobe during a timeout' play."

Jackson and his "Triangle Offense"

Lakers' coach Phil Jackson said pre-game taping would help an opponent understand his complicated "Triangle Offense", which he has used to guide the Lakers and the Chicago Bulls to nine NBA championships.  "There's no way the Celtics could have known that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the two other sides," Jackson said bitterly as he boarded a charter plane back to Los Angeles.  "Unless they taped the practice or took high school geometry."

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

BOSTON.  As the final seconds ticked off the clock at the TDBanknorth Garden last night, Glen "Big Baby" Davis, the Celtics' massive rookie, stood by himself, savoring his team's triumph over the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals, his mouth wide open as he looked up at the confetti drifting down from the rafters.  "This is great," Davis said, a big smile on his face as stuffed the tiny pieces of paper in his mouth.  "All we get in timeouts is Gatorade, and I was getting hungry."

Davis:  "Hey ice cream man!"

In the locker room a few minutes later, Davis was overcome with emotion as he was handed the Charles W. Barkley Award for the Most Largest Player in the championship series by NBA Commissioner David Stern.  "This is for all my teammates," Davis said as he hoisted the trophy above his head.  "They cleared out on isolations and allowed me to attack the post-game buffet."

"Are you gonna finish that?

David is listed at 289 pounds on the team's roster, but he has recorded weights as high as 345 with the wind at his back since graduating from LSU in 2007.  "Glen is the kind of guy you can build a team around," said Celtics' coach Doc Rivers.  "You could also build a shopping center around him, as long as you had an anchor store like Nordstrom's at the other end of the mall." 

Barkley:  "Glen has a great future ahead of him, and a big butt behind him."

Davis turned in a breakout performance in the NBA Finals, scoring three points in a fourteen-minute appearance that helped clinch the Celtics' first championship in twenty-two years.  "We knew we wanted to close them out tonight in six games," an exhausted Davis told reporter Michele Tafoya, "so I ate game 7."

"Kids, you gotta stop the violence against childhood obesity."

Davis is a fan favorite who gives back to the community through the Glen Davis Fund to Fight Violence Against Childhood Obesity, a cause that is near and dear to him.  "I tell kids, we got to stop all this fighting childhood obesity," he says.  "You need to just chill and learn to live with it, like I did."

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

LOS ANGELES.  Frustrated by a disappointing game five loss to the Boston Celtics in which his Lakers blew a 24-point lead, superstar Kobe Bryant lit into his teammates today and challenged them to be as unselfish as he is.

"We got to play as a team so I look better!"

"I gave them the same speech I've been giving teammates since third grade CYO basketball," Bryant told reporters after emerging from a closed door meeting in which he reduced teammate Pau Gasol to tears by calling a "Eurotrash cream puff".  "I told them--there may be an 'I' in team, I don't know, but there's no 'I' in Kobe."

Gasol (right):  "I'm sorry I bumped into you."

Bryant is generally considered by himself to be the greatest basketball player of his generation, the equal of past greats such as Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Hot Rod Hundley.  He holds the career record among active NBA players for most commercials filmed in Italian (1) and biggest diamond purchased for a wife after allegations of sexual assault on a 19-year old (8 carats, $4 million).

Hot Rod Hundley:  Closed course, professional basketball player.  Do not attempt.

Bryant told teammates that their continued poor play would hit them where it hurts--in the pocketbook--if they didn't turn things around.  "The endorsement deals you all--I mean me--will get if we lose are basically car dealerships, men's clothing store openings and non-franchise pizza places, which are chump change."

Bryant had ten assists in game five, but criticized teammates for missing open shots.  "You guys gotta make those shots," Bryant yelled during one timeout.  "If you don't, I don't get an assist."

LOS ANGELES.  A look at the box score to Tuesday night's game 3 of the NBA finals was as revealing as the clipboard at the end of a hospital patient's bed, according to Dr. Wu Yi Lee, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital a court-length pass away from the TD Banknorth Garden.  "Big Ticket has Ralph Sampson's Disease," Lee said.  "He need to take it to hole."

The right way

Ralph Sampson was a number one draft pick out of the University of Virginia who was expected to transform the game when he was paired with Hakeem Olajuwon in the Houston Rockets' "Twin Towers" offense.  The 7' 4" inch Sampson opted for mid-range jump shots over low-post moves, however, and never realized his potential, causing college basketball scouts to apply the name "Ralph Sampson's Disease" to a big man's phobia of driving to the basket.

World's Largest Point Guard

Garnett was fouled only twice in Game 3, four times in Game 2 and 6 times in Game 1, causing Celtics trainer Ed Lacerte to call for help from high-powered basketball pathologists at Mass General, a hospital that has treated other NBA greats for ailments such as Iverson's Rock-Retentive Syndrome, colloquially known as "Ball Hog's Disease".

Dr. Lee:  "Take two Dance Team members and call me in the morning."

Garnett's long-term prognosis is good, but he is day-to-day in terms of his ability to overcome the limitations of the disease, says Lee.  "He is one very lucky man," Lee said.  "Medical conditions named after athletes can be fatal, like Lou Gehrig's disease, although Sampson ended up in the Spanish League with Unicaja Ronda, which merely sounds like it could kill you."

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

BOSTON. Coming off a dramatic win Thursday night in which forward Paul Pierce made a miraculous recovery from a knee injury to lead his team to victory, the Boston Celtics today announced that they have added faith healer Jimmy Ray Embree to their training staff.

Embree: "Jesus--make this small forward walk again so he can come back and drain back-to-back 3 pointers!"

"Miracles can happen, but you don't want to count on them," said Celtics coach Glenn "Doc" Rivers, who is not a licensed physician. "Paul's comeback saved us, just the way a good Bible-thumping televangelist can save you."

"He can walk! Praise the Lord!"

Pierce injured his right knee in a collision with center Kendrick Perkins, and was carried off the court by teammates Tony Allen and Brian Scalabrine and Dr. Brian McKeon, a team physician. "There's nothing I can do for him," McKeon said upon examining Pierce. "We'll have to put him down, like a racehorse."

"God wants you to spread the floor and create isolations for St. Paul!"

But Embree, an itinerant preacher who took a wrong exit leaving Atlanta and ended up at the TD Banknorth Garden when he was pulled into the Ted Williams Tunnel by the gravitational force of Boston's Big Dig, volunteered to minister to Pierce by "laying-on of hands", a faith-healing technique.

"Double-team Bryant--Gasol's no offensive creationist."

Lakers' coach Phil Jackson expressed skepticism over Pierce's injury, calling it a "pants malfunction" and a "broken drawstring" in a post-game interview. "People are comparing him to Willis Reed," Jackson said, referring to Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals in which his New York Knick teammate returned to action after a half-time heart transplant and vasectomy. "Compared to Willis, Pierce is a wuss."

Willis Reed, 1970 NBA Finals

But Pierce bristled at the suggestion. "I listen to rap, he listens to the Grateful Dead," Pierce said as he sat in the whirlpool. "You tell me who's a wuss."

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

BOSTON.  When the Red Sox returned to Boston last night from a road trip that saw outfielder Manny Ramirez join baseball's elite 500 home run club at Baltimore's Camden Yards, the slugger seemed distant, his mind elsewhere, as he was greeted by fans at Logan Airport.  "I got a promise to keep," was all he would say to a reporter who thrust a microphone in his face, paraphrasing Robert Frost, whom Ramirez adopted as his idol after discovering the flinty New England poet had urged readers to take the road less traveled.

Ramirez and Frost:  The poet had fewer strikeouts, but also a lower OBP.

Ramirez was deeply moved by a visit to Baltimore's St. Jude's Childrens Hospital, where he met ten year-old Timmy Kavanaugh who suffers from Osgood Schlatter's Disease, a knee ailment that primarily afflicts young boys.  Kavanaugh was unimpressed by the slugging outfielder's five hundredth home run--"Any mook can take some steroids and do that!" Timmy yelled as Ramirez walked by his bed--and the two struck up a conversation.

Ouch!

As Ramirez prepared to go, he asked if there was anything he could do to ease the boy's suffering.  Kavanaugh closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and in a voice that was barely a whisper, said "Could you--run out a ground ball for me?"

"There's a ground ball to short--Manny watches it go . . ."

"Sure, kid," Ramirez replied, his voice betraying emotion.  "I can't do it," the boy continued, tears filling his eyes.  "I want you to do it for me."

"What's Manny doing?"

So groundskeepers were surprised this morning when they found Ramirez harnessed to a Fenway Park lawnmower, pulling the bulky implement around the base path to strengthen his hamstrings in anticipation of an all-out sprint down the first base line the next time he hits an infield grounder. 

"Run, Manny, run!"

"There's no doubt Manny can do it physically," said manager Terry Francona.  "He just needs to focus on the job in front of him when he doesn't hit a home run and like, you know, start running."

But his teammates aren't so sure.  "If I made $18 million dollars a year," said backup catcher Kevin Cash, who is not related to the currency Ramirez is paid with, "I'd need a lot of time to figure out what to spend it on."

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

SAN FRANCISCO.  The San Francisco Giants today designated pitcher Barry Zito for reassignment and acquired the contract of Mariah Carey, a shake-up intended to "send a message" to the faltering left-hander that "everybody on this team has to earn their paycheck" according to general manager Brian Sabean.

Barry Zito

Zito, the former Oakland A's ace who is in the second year of a lucrative contract with the Giants that pays him $14.5 million annually, is off to the worst start of his career with a record of 1-8 and an earned run average of 5.53.  Carey, on the other hand, has become a fan favorite in San Francisco due to a ceremonial first pitch she threw out before a game last week that bounced to the infield turf almost as soon as she released it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d85o3Jpn68Q

"Barry's got the best 12-to-6 curveball in baseball when it's working," said Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti, "but I'd have to say that Mariah's went from 12 to like -1."

Carey:  "This sign means 'squeeze play'."

Carey is a singer-songwriter and alleged actress who made her debut in 1990, quickly becoming the first recording artist to have twelve singles in the Billboard Top Ten at the same time.  "I was never very good at math," she told Rolling Stone magazine at the time, "and it really helped when I started out."

Like Zito, Carey was accused of being overpaid when an $80 million contract she had signed with EMI's Virgin Records was bought out for $28 million.  "I was so mad I told them to just keep the change," Carey said of a period in which she suffered a physical and emotional breakdown.  "They didn't give me a personal assistant like they promised and I had to count some very big numbers all by myself."

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

MIAMI.  Emerging from his office with reddened eyes and a blank look on his face, Bill "The Big Tuna" Parcells tried to hide the pain that his players could detect from across the room sitting in the whirlpool.  "I have not been crying," Parcells said brusquely to a reporter who bravely asked the question that was on everyone's lips.  "I've been watching game film--lots of game film."

Jason Taylor and Edyta Sliwinska

The source of Parcells' irritation is the lack of attention Jason Taylor, star defensive end for his team, the Miami Dolphins, is paying to offseason training.  The six-time Pro Bowl selection has been spending time not lifting weights or pushing blocking dummies around, but dancing, in front of millions of people, with partner Edyta Sliwinska on "Dancing With the Stars," while Parcells sits at home, his hair up in curlers, waiting for Taylor to call.

"I love you, man . . ."

"I broke up with him," Parcells said as he drove away on a golf cart to supervise drills by quarterbacks, receivers and defensive backs.  "He didn't break up with me."

"This is way better than a crack-back block!"

Taylor's run at dancing ended last night as he and his partner Edyta Sliwinska finished second to Kristi Yamaguchi and Mark Ballas in Tuesday's Dancing With the Stars finale, but Hollywood is calling, leaving Parcells wondering when he'll ever see his down lineman again. 

"My partner is in there somewhere." 

"'Edyta Sliwinska' sounds like a triple-word score in Scrabble," Parcells said.  "I don't know where she came from, so I think I'll call immigration officials and see if they're looking for an illegal ballroom dancing immigrant."

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama.  Charles Barkley's revelation that he's lost $10 million gambling over the years has led to an outpouring of support in his hometown, where locals point to the good he's done for numerous charities.

Barkley and Doolin

"He's one of our biggest supporters," says Children's Hospital CEO Mack Doolin, M.D.  "We're going to stick with him until he gets this thing licked.  He just needs to learn how to set limits," says Doolin, who has counseled others with addictions.

And so Doolin is at Barkley's side as he enters Leeds Elementary School to participate in "Spring Fling", a fund-raiser for its PTO.  "It's a baby step," says Barkley, "but I've got to start out small."

Barkley draws a crowd of excited fans as he steps up to the Wheel O' Fun, where fifty cents entitles a player to a spin for a toy or stuffed animal.  "Fifty thousand on the red," Barkley says before Doolin can intervene.  "One ticket at a time, Charles," he says, and the man known as "The Round Mound of Rebound" during his playing days with the Sixers, Suns and Rockets agrees. 

"Okay," Barkley says sheepishly before laying down two quarters and winning a noisemaker that makes an annoying "clackety-clack" sound.  "I'm gonna shake this baby in Trey Wingo's face next time he asks me an embarassing question on SportsCenter," Barkley says with a mischievous grin.

Trey Wingo

He moves on to the Action Figure Fishin' Hole, where children drop a pole behind a bed sheet and the school's fourth grade class officers attach a plastic superhero to the hook.  "I want one of them Ninja Turtles," Barkley says.  Behind the sheet, Nancy Rouchka, class president, giggles as she picks Kimberly, the Pink Power Ranger, from a cardboard box and puts it on the line.  When Barkley sees his girlish prize he explodes at Rouchka, causing Assistant Principal Morris Byrum to come running across the cafeteria.

"What's going on here?" Byrum asks in an excited tone as the class president sobs loudly.  "What kinda clip joint are you running here?" Barkley yells at the hapless administrator, before picking him up and tossing him onto the conveyor belt that takes dirty plates back to the dishwasher.

Barkley moves on to the Pez Dispenser Ring Toss,  where he decides to try for the Popeye model.  "I like that dude 'cause he's like me--I am what I am."  Barkley plunks down ten dollars for twenty rings, but he soon needs to buy more as he collects Batman, Spiderman and Snoopy--but no Popeye.

A half hour later Barkley is down $50 when Doolin again intervenes.  "C'mon, Charles--just walk away--okay?" he says as he takes a roll of quarters from the former Dream Team member and leads him out of the building.

Even though he always said he wasn't a role model, the kids are sad to see him go.  "I wanna be as good as him when I grow up," says third-grader Tyrone Williams.  "Not everybody makes it to the NBA," his dad cautions him.

"Not at basketball," Tyrone says.  "Texas Hold 'Em!"

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

MILWAUKEE, Wis.  There have been ups and downs in the career of Guido, an Italian sausage who races during every game at Miller Park, but reporters who cover the Milwaukee Brewers say they've never seen him looking more dejected than he did this morning when team owner Bud Selig announced his suspension.

Guido, in the lead.

"Guys, I'd really rather not talk about it right now," Guido said as he turned towards his locker.  "I'm not having a good day, okay?" he snapped at a particularly persistent reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times.

In happier times.

Guido's suspension came after he tested positive for sodium lactate, sodium diacetate and sodium erythorbate, three performance-enhancing substances that produce a traditional "hot dog" color and improved texture in sausages.  "It's Guido's own fault," said Guy Randall, a sports reporter for the Milwaukee Sentinel.  "He could have stuck to monosodium glutamate like the other sausages, but no--he always wanted that extra little edge."

"Say it ain't so, Guido."

The race, sponsored by Klement's Sausage Company, is held after the bottom of the sixth inning at every home game of the Milwaukee Brewers.  Guido has consistently outpaced Bratt Wurst, Stosh, Frankie Further and Cinco over the years, leading some to suspect he was using drugs other than ketchup, mustard, relish and other approved condiments. 

Selig:  "What kind of trayfe junk is this--it's giving me heartburn!"

Selig has come under criticism for allowing the use of artificial ingredients in ballpark hot dogs to spread during his tenure, a fact that some attribute to the commissioner's dual role as baseball executive and Milwaukee-area auto dealer.  "Bud brings a kosher hot dog from home for lunch every day," said Mel Warner, a reporter for Condiments Today, a trade journal that covers Major League Baseball's ketchup, mustard and relish dispensers.  "He wouldn't know a nitrate if he fell over it."

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

BOSTON.  The worlds of modern ballet and stock car racing have rarely, if ever, intersected, but there's always a first time, says Jimmy Ray Haggart, a mechanic at Mel's Auto Service in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  "I don't see anything wrong with it," Haggart muses as he wipes grease from his hands.  "You might have to put the yellow caution flag out during a pas de deux, but that's just part of racing."

Twyla Tharp Dancers

If any choreographer could pull it off, it's Twyla Tharp, who often sets her work to unconventional music by contemporary artists such as Billy Joel and Bob Dylan.  "That's why we picked her," says NASCAR spokesman Gene Ray Embree," referring to "Crash!", a work that will incorporate dance and high-speed modified stock cars under the NASCAR brand.  "She's willing to push the limits, and she agreed to put NASCAR sponsors' decals all over her dancers' bodies." 

"Crash!", as choreographed by Tharp.

For her part, Tharp was persuaded to take on the NASCAR project by an unfavorable review of her work "In the Upper Room" that appeared in The Boston Globe.  "Perhaps the most exciting part of this otherwise unremarkable performance was the collision between two of Tharp's principal dancers that sent them sprawling to the floor," wrote dance critic Mona Helvig.

A little Balanchine, a little Hooters

"As angry as I was, I took inspiration from that harsh comment," Tharp recalls.  "I understand that many people go to stock car races for the crashes, so I said to my dancers, 'Maybe we can get us a piece of that action'," she says, doing her best imitation of the "good ol' boy" accent of a typical race fan.

"I think I just busted a shock."

The work will debut at the Toyota/Save Mart 350 on June 22nd, and Tharp's dancers say they are up to the challenge of working along the backstretch at the Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California.  "We are known for our fast footwork," says principal dancer Kelsey Salamanca.  "We will need it to get out of the way of Kurt Busch's Dodge Charger, because it is sponsored by Miller Lite."

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida.  As the New York Yankees slipped into last place following a 5-2 loss to the first-place Tampa Bay Rays last night, Yankees' senior vice president Hank Steinbrenner said he would petition baseball commissioner Bud Selig to break up the Rays, a team he says is ruining the game through its dominance.

Steinbrenner:  "It's getting out of hand."

"Do we want to end up like one of those lopsided college football rivalries where Podunk State thinks it's a big deal to beat Nebraska twice a century?" Steinbrenner asked as he kicked a stray dog and refused to sign an autograph for Timmy Salmon, a ten year-old Tampa Bay fan who dreams of working in sports management some day.  "I don't think so, and I don't think the American people think I think so either."

Kazmir:  "The Yankees?  I get up for them by watching tapes of high school girls softball games."

The Rays took three of four games from New York, causing Steinbrenner to call a team meeting at which he bit the head off a live squirrel to demonstrate the sort of toughness he expects from his squad, which has the highest payroll among major league baseball teams and Fortune 100 manufacturers.  "This place looks like the waiting room of an orthopedic clinic," Steinbrenner said, referring to the injuries that have crippled the Bronx Bombers in the early goings.  "If you can't get over your testicular anemia, maybe I'll send you back down to Wilkes-Barre," where New York's Triple-A affiliate is located.

Selig:  "Dear Lord, please let the Brewers sweep the Red Sox in inter-league play."

As commissioner of baseball, Selig has broad powers to take action he deems in the best interests of the game, subject to limits imposed by the collective bargaining agreement with players.  "He can require players to shoot up steroids out of view of fans, for example," says sportswriter Neil Kinnel of the Bergen County Register, who covers the Yankees.  "Or he could make Bartolo Colon lay off the Twinkies."

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman

CLEVELAND.  Jerry Burke is a Massachusetts State Policeman who hasn't played basketball since he was starting point guard for the St. Columbkill's seventh-grade Gremlins in Brighton, a working-class neighborhood of Boston, yet he found himself accompanying the Boston Celtics, the holders of the best regular-season record in the NBA, as they made their way through Cleveland Hopkins International Airport this morning.

Jerry, second from left, in his prime.

"It's a real thrill for me," he says as boards the team's chartered bus, "but I have to keep my mind on my job, so I can't really savor the moment."

Jerry, on the job

Jerry's job is to protect the Celtics as they face Cleveland in game six of the Eastern Conference semifinals tonight, a task made tougher by the fact that Gloria James, mother of Cavaliers' star LeBron, has been added to Cleveland's playoff roster as a defensive "enforcer" assigned to inflict physical punishment on any opposing player who roughs up her son.

 "Mom, don't embarrass me!"

"Gloria is an essential part of our game plan," says Cleveland coach Mike Brown, referring to the off-the-bench spark she added in game four, taking on Paul Pierce after a hard foul by the Celtics' small forward on her son.  "You don't come into a mother's house and mess with her son, that's all I'm saying." 

"Momma--you got to rotate to the weak side!"

Mother-son tag-teams were permitted in the American Basketball Association along with red, white and blue basketballs, but the NBA forced the ABA to drop the practice in much the same manner that the federal government forced Utah to abandon polygamy as a condition of statehood.

Marvin "Bad News" Barnes

The most famous maternal enforcer in the ABA was Toinette Barnes, mother of Marvin "Bad News" Barnes, who played with the Spirits of St. Louis.  She is credited with teaching her son the signature "tire iron" move he used on a Providence College teammate, an incident that resulted in Barnes' suspension.  As he left the locker room in his street clothes, Barnes said "News be back 'cause his fans be demandin' it," a quotation sometimes incorrectly attributed to General Douglas MacArthur upon his recall from Korea by President Harry Truman.  What MacArthur actually said was "You can take the general out of Korea, but you can't make him drink."

Copyright 2008, Con Chapman