Big news today, at least for us Catholics - The Vatican has released a list of updated sins appropriate for the modern era. I must say that this seems more than a little unfair. After all, avoiding the previous Seven Deadly Sins was hard enough, but to now add another seven to the list - doubling it - well, let's just say it's going to get mighty lonely up there in heaven if we're not careful.

And how is it fair that my forefathers only had to avoid the traditional Seven if they wanted to get their tickets punched to the eternal reward in the sky and now I have all these other ones to worry about, too?

In any event, the part of this Vatican story that didn't get a lot of press was the fact that the Pope, recognizing what an important part sports plays in modern society, has thoughtfully issued an additional five "Sports Commandments" as an addendum to the original Ten we all already know so well.

Interestingly, in an attempt to show the church can keep up with the modern world, these Sports Commandments have been issued in a countdown format, much like Sportscenter's Top Plays. Since I know how busy most people are and that you may not have had a chance to review these Commandments yet in their entirety, here they are for your perusal:

Top Five Sports Commandments

5) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's head coach.
Not sure why they would stick with the "thous" and "shalts" if they're trying to modernize, but, hey, who am I to criticize? Anyway, this one sounds fairly straightforward, but it seems a lot of college and professional teams might already be in big trouble, and we're only at Number Five. No one said it would be easy.

4) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighboring team.
This is getting a little stickier. Number Five was straightforward, why cloak Number Four in such mystery? I think this one maybe relates to that little videotaping issue the Patriots are facing. Goodell said he was going to get tough, but this is ridiculous. Who knew he had such influence with the Man Upstairs?

3) Thou shalt not steal signs.
Hmm. Seems to be a trend developing here. If Matt Walsh is named specifically in any of these, I fear for Coach Belichick's eternal soul. There seems to be a baseball application here also. Who among us hasn't tried to figure out all those gyrations the guy with the helmet in the third base coaches box is doing? And batters trying to sneak a glance back at the catcher's signs while waiting for the pitch? Forget it. Never again, baby.

2) Thou shalt watch sports in HD.
Now we're getting somewhere! If you are having a little trouble convincing the wife to spend $2000 or more that you don't have on a new big-screen HDTV, this might be just the thing to turn the tide in your favor. Nobody wants to be turned away at the pearly gates because they tried to watch LSU win the National Championship on a twelve inch black and white with broken rabbit ears. Surround sound seems to be optional, since it's not specifically mentioned.

1) Honor thy father and mother. Also Charlie Weis.
I guess this answers the question about how long the big guy will have his job. Weis, that is, not God. We already knew God has His job for life and so now, apparently, does Charlie. It seems the "Pope for life" gig has worked out so well, that they're willing to try the same thing with the Notre Dame football head coaching job.

Everyone likes top-ten lists. They are a staple of posts on this site as well as a favorite of David Letterman since, well, since forever I guess.

In addition, everyone has people in the world of sports they just can't stand. After deep and serious introspection, and with full knowledge that there are plenty of deserving candidates who are being left out unjustifiably, allow me to present my first-ever Half-Baked Top Ten List of Most-Reviled Sports Figures!

Sports, like life, is ever-changing and fluid, so the people who populate the list at this moment may not be the same ones who would be on it in a week or a month or a year, necessarily, although some members seem like they would be perennial favorites.

And it wasn't easy populating a list of "Most-Reviled" without including seemingly obvious choices like George Steinbrenner and Bud Selig. But, again, careful consideration has led me to conclude that their recent performance does not merit inclusion. That could change at any moment, of course.

If you believe I have missed someone who should be an obvious entry, or have included someone unjustly, feel free to chime in. In the meantime, and without further ado, here is the first-ever Half-Baked Top Ten List of Most-Reviled Sports Figures!


10) Nikolay Davydenko

It takes a lot for a guy who plays a sport most people don't pay any attention to to make it onto a list this exclusive. But Davydenko has worked hard, or should I say hardly worked, to get in and here he is.

One of the top-ranked mens tennis players in the world, Davydenko has had to fight rumors swirling around him of match-fixing and betting irregularities. Anyone who loves tennis must be looking at this man as the key to the potential downfall of their sport. Read even a little about the situation in men's tennis right now and you will agree Davydenko is a worthwhile inclusion in this list.


9) Adam 'Pacman' Jones

The Tennessee Titans cornerback, who plead down to reduced charges in exchange for his testimony regarding a triple shooting in a strip club, applied to reinstatement to the NFL while felony charges were still hanging over his head and was summarily denied.

Jones has been a busy criminal since being drafted by the Titans in 2005, having been arrested an incredible six times in just two-and-a-half years. This impressive streak merits his inclusion on the list, especially since he still has criminal cases pending.


8) O.J. Simpson

The man who dodged a bullet, metaphorically speaking, when he was acquitted of double murder back in the mid-1990's, has once again shown that his stupidity and arrogance know no bounds. After vowing, to near-universal giggles of disbelief, that he was going to spend the rest of his life hunting down the "real killer" of his ex-wife Nicole and her companion, Simpson apparently decided the "real killer" was somewhere out there on the sports-memorabilia scene.

Breaking into a hotel room and retrieving, at gunpoint, items he claimed were stolen from him has earned the Juice another public trial. At least this time there was no slow-speed Bronco chase.


7) Alex Rodriguez

After resurrecting his image in New York with a monster regular season for which A-Rod should win the American League MVP award, he did his usual disappearing act in the playoffs and then raised eyebrows all over baseball by the timing of his announcement that he was opting out of his $252 million contract in search of even greater riches.

Agent Scott Boras attempted to take a bullet for Rodriguez, saying publically the timing of the announcement, during Game Four of the World Series, was his idea and not his client's, but the damage was done. If this were an annual list, A-Rod would probably merit inclusion every year. Congratulations!


6) Stephon Marbury

The self-proclaimed "Starbury" vaulted onto the list, coming out of nowhere to check in at number six with his bizarre threats against Knicks head coach Isiah Thomas when "Starbury" learned of the coach's plan to cut his playing time. He left the team and threatened to spill all of the juiciest tidbits of confidential information he has apparently been storing up against Thomas, but changed his mind and returned to the Knicks after learning he had been fined $195,000.

It takes a truly herculean effort from someone to make Isiah Thomas into a sympathetic figure considering his recent history. In fact, Thomas himself barely missed making this list. So, "Starbury," in honor of your efforts in going above and beyond the typical self-centered, arrogant professional athlete behavior, congratulations. You've made the list!



5) The Guy Who Came Up With the BCS Formula

Okay, I know it's not a guy, or at least, not one single guy all by his lonesome working up a secret formula like some mad scientist cooking up chemicals in his basement. No doubt it took a whole team of dedicated mathematicians and sabrmetricians and all sorts of other "icians" to dream up something so complicated. If Albert Einstien were alive, he would scratch his head and say, "beats me" after looking at how the BCS rankings are determined.

In any event, there has been a steady stream of complaints from supporters of virtually every team that has ever been ranked under the BCS formula, not to mention from fans of teams that haven't been ranked but their backers feel they should have been. So take a bow, Mr. BCS ranking formula inventor guy, you've earned a spot among the ten most reviled figures in sports.

4) Bill Callahan

3) Charlie Weis

Take two proud football programs with long histories of success, rabid fans, and alumni that look upon losing with all the patience of Ebenezer Scrooge dealing with the poor, and you have some idea of the distaste with which these two men have come to be viewed.

Both came to their schools straight from the NFL, where both had success in coaching. Both men have enjoyed varying degrees of success at their respective schools, but each program has fallen on hard times lately and each man is likely looking at walking the plank if things don't change soon.

Callahan, in fact, may already be a dead man walking. Athletic Director Tom Osborne has indicated he is still undecided about Callahan's future; not exactly a ringing endorsement in the sporting world. Weis may have a slightly longer leash, but unless things change soon under the Golden Dome, he will find himself joining the ranks of the unemployed as well.

2) Bill Belichick

The New England Patriots head coach has been viewed with disdain for years by opponents of New England and by fans of those opponents. He doesn't bother with the usual cliches and sound bites that are expected of an NFL head coach, he wears hoodies on the sidelines, he is arrogant, he wins too much. All these charges and more have been leveled at the three-time Super Bowl-winning coach.

Lately, though, the heat has been turned up on Belichick, after "spygate." The coach of the NFL's only undefeated team is revered in New England, reviled everywhere else. Success breeds contempt, earning Belichick a spot on the Top Ten.

1) Barry Bonds

This one's a no-brainer, which makes me the perfect guy to call it. There's arguably no figure in sports in recent memory who has inspired the sort of universal disdain outside of the town where he plays than the newly crowned all-time home run king. As much as he is admired for his athletic achievements, Bonds is held in contempt for his seemingly selfish and arrogant attitude and for the perception that he benefitted from performance-enhancing drugs in setting one of the most hallowed records in sports.

The recent news that he has been indicted after a four-year federal investigation on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice cements Barry Bonds's position as Numero Uno on this list of dubious achievement.

Good morning class, it's come to my attention that some of you have not been applying yourselves to your studies as diligently as you should. For this reason, and because I stayed up late last night watching the Dolphins-Steelers game instead of preparing a lesson for today, I've decided a pop quiz is in order. So put your books away, get out your sharpened #2 pencils and keep your eyes on your own work.

This morning's quiz is going to focus on your preparedness to enter the world of big-time sports. Each scenario puts you into a hypothetical situation, and you must choose the most correct action to take, based on the particulars of that situation. Don't worry ShooterB, it's a multiple-choice quiz, I'm sure you'll be fine.

HEY! Everyone stop crowding around CarolynT's desk! You think I won't notice you sneaking peeks at her answers? Do your own work, people. Oh, and FlyingPig, put the slop away, there's no eating in my classroom. Demonicume, I will not tolerate a debate over every question, like on the last quiz. Finally, The Sports Intellectual has not returned for the fall semester, so I'm sure there will be no paper airplanes or spitballs flying around this time when I turn my back.

Is everyone ready? What? No, UltraMegaOK, you're not exempt from this quiz just because you scored a 100% on last year's "Better Performance Through Chemistry" final. All right everyone, you may begin.

#1) You are an assistant coach in a big-time NFL football program. You are experiencing some problems in your personal life. You:

A) Suck it up and internalize your problems like a man, so you can focus on the all-important task of preparing your players for the upcoming season.
B) Seek appropriate attention from a qualified medical/psychological professional to help you get to the root of your problem.
C) Buy a bottle of Tennessee Sippin' Whiskey and quaff it as you tear off all your clothes and drive through town, naked as the day you were born.

#2) You are a professional football player with a history of destroying the chemistry of the teams you are on. You get another chance to resurrect your career in a new city. You:

A) Blast the organization of the team in the last city you played in.
B) Keep your mouth shut and try to fit in with your new team, especially after publically trashing that team's logo on the field in an incredibly unprofessional act a few years ago.
C) Miss most of your team's practices while simultaneously doing your level best to keep the media's focus where it belongs - on you!
D) A and C above.

#3) You are a world-renowned conservationist and wildlife expert who wants to film undersea wildlife for your television show. You:

A) Swim directly over the deadly sea life, trusting in its' innate goodness to not sting you with its' razor-sharp barb.
B) Make your assistant do it. What's the point of being a world-renowned conservationist and wildlife expert if you can't make your assistant take all the chances? It was good enough for Marlon Perkins.
C) Stay on land, where you are truly a wildlife expert.

#4) You are the head coach of a highly successful college football program, whose team will be playing for the #1 ranking this weekend. You are asked by reporters where you ranked your opponent on your AP Top 25 Coaches ballot. You:

A) Tell the truth, that you're way too busy for that poll nonsense and you have no idea, because your ballot is filled out by some unpaid student intern.
B) Tell the reporter what he wants to hear, that you ranked your opponent #1, when you really have no clue whatsoever.
C) Make a joke about Charlie Weis' weight problems and move on to the next question.

1) Is it just me, or does Charlie Weis look like he ate Lou Holtz?

The Notre Dame head coach had surgery to staple his stomach four years ago, and in fact nearly died after suffering complications from the procedure. In the time since, Weis has become larger and larger.

If I were the athletic director at ND, I would have serious concerns about the health of my $40 million dollar man. The prospect of him collapsing on the sidelines during a game or practice would be enough of a worry that I would be trying to take some sort of action to protect my investment. As it is, if Weis had chosen to wear a tan shirt instead of blue along with the tan slacks he wore on the sidelines during Saturday night's game at Georgia Tech, he would have resembled nothing so much as a walking, talking version of the school's Golden Dome.


2) Is it just me, or was Steve Irwin more than a little irresponsible considering he leaves behind a wife and two young children?

How someone chooses to live his or her life is a matter of personal choice, but there are undoubtedly safer ways to produce wildlife programming than some of the things Irwin did. While he was an expert on land wildlife, his venturing into the ocean, where he was less sure of himself, ultimately led to his death.

The biggest tragedy of "The Crocodile Hunter's" untimely death is that he leaves behind two young children, aged eight and two, whose clearest memories of their dad will be what they see on video clips, including the video of his last horrible moments.


3) Is it just me, or was winning the Super Bowl MVP award in February, 2005, simultaneously the best and worst thing that could have happened to Deion Branch?

Branch's long holdout was precipitated by the fact that he views himself as one of the top receiving threats in the league, and wants to be compensated as such, even though he still has one year remaining on the contract he signed when he was a rookie entering the NFL.

The problem is, Branch's stats don't bear that out. While he has had two outstanding games in Super Bowl XXXVIII and XXXIX, his regular-season numbers are much more pedestrian. Branch has never yet had a 1000-yard season or caught more than 78 balls in any one year.

His best bet would have been to come into this season prepared to have a breakout year, and if he did, his leverage would have increased dramatically. Even though New England would have slapped the "Franchise" tag on Branch after this year, he still would have ended up getting a lot more money, and perhaps would have been more successful in orchestrating a trade, if that's what he truly wants.


4) Is it just me, or are the phony "blogs" posted by Foxsports.com writers on this site a total sham?

It's Fox's website, and they are certainly entitled to do whatever they wish with it, but wouldn't it make just a little sense to have their writers check back on their posts once in a while, and occasionally answer a few comments? The whole purpose of blogging, and in fact the beauty of it, is in the ability of people from all over to share ideas and go back and forth.

Maybe I've just missed it, but every time I read one of the professional's blogs, they have never come back to the site to respond to questions or comments. Come on guys, those aren't blog posts, they are simply articles posted on the blog site to get your writers some exposure with the most fanatical sports followers, the ones willing to write and discuss sports on this site.

Either post blogs and check your comments like the rest of us, or simply run the articles on the front page of the site, and leave the real discussions to the rest of us!

Ah, it's probably just me....

On a night when the vaunted Notre Dame offense looked out of sync and could manage just two touchdowns, the Irish defense shut down Reggie Ball and Georgia Tech in the second half at noisy Bobby Dodd Stadium, giving Notre Dame a comeback 14-10 win in the season opener for both teams.

Notre Dame's offense, returning most of their starters from a year ago, looked sluggish in the first half. The receivers were mostly well-covered by the Yellow Jacket defensive secondary, and the few times a receiver was open, quarterback Brady Quinn appeared sluggish and tentative, misfiring on several throws.

The turning point of the game came late in the first half. Trailing 10-0, and with no timeouts remaining, Notre Dame had the ball on Tech's five yard line. Head Coach Charlie Weis called a quarterback draw which, if unsuccessful, would have left the Irish scoreless as time ran out in the half. Instead, Quinn burst through the line and into the end zone, enabling Notre Dame to go into the locker room trailing by just three points after being outplayed fairly decisively for most of the first half.

Georgia Tech received the kick to start the second half. After two slashing runs by quarterback Reggie Ball, who ran around and wreaked havoc all night like a low-rent Michael Vick, the much-maligned Irish defense smothered Tech, pitching a second-half shutout.

When tailback Darius Walker ran around left end and dived into the end zone just inside the left pylon with 6:33 left in the third quarter, the Irish took their first lead of the season, 14-10, and combined with the defense after that to grind out a tough win.


Points On the Board:

1) Every year there is one player, usually a quarterback, who is overhyped in the Heisman race. This year that player is Brady Quinn. He may or may not prove worthy of the hype as the season unfolds, but last night Quinn looked less like a Heisman candidate than a workmanlike football player willing to do whatever it takes to win. His quarterback draw for a touchdown as time ran down in the first half, as well as a big scramble for a first down early in the game when Tech was threatening to run away with the whole thing, showed what he's made of. For Notre Dame, the second Brady Quinn may be more valuable than the first.


2) Whoever writes the posts for Fox Gameday Blog might want to chill out and slow down a little. At 8:53 p.m. Eastern time, or less than forty minutes after kickoff, Fox Gameday Blog announced that the Yellowjackets were giving the Irish all they could handle, which was true, and pronounced Notre Dame as overrated and a team barely worthy of top-ten status. That may or may not end up being the case, but passing judgement on any team less than one-quarter of one game into the season looks like someone's wishful thinking to me.


3) The key to the Irish offense this season may be wideout Raymond McKnight. He had eight catches for 108 yards on a night when the passing game was mostly hit-or-miss. His presence on the field may allow more opportunities for Jeff Samardzija, who will be less likely to find himself double-or-triple-covered the more successful McKnight is in the offense.

Officials at the International Astronomical Union (IAU), in a surprise announcement Wednesday, said they are in the process of revising the definition of a planet. The end result of this revolutionary change is that our solar system, which for decades has consisted of nine planets, eventually may contain many hundreds more.

The new definition of a planet is as follows: "A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet."

Needless to say, this definition has scientists around the world abuzz. Mike Brown, the Cal Tech researcher who under this definition will be credited with the discovery of the twelfth planet, said "It's flattering to be considered discoverer of the 12th planet." He applauded the committee's efforts but said the overall proposal is "a complete mess. For example," said Brown, "under this new definition, Notre Dame Coach Charlie Weis would be considered a planet.

"As much as I believe Coach Weis fits the qualifications to be considered a planet in his own right, until we can agree on a definition which would include USC Coach Pete Carroll as a planet also, then the entire enterprise is nothing but a total sham."

When pressed, Brown admitted that had he known his discovery of the celestial body known as "UB313" would eventually be responsible for a sea change in the world of astronomy, he would "just have kept it to myself. Even if it is eventually discovered that Coach Weis is orbited by one or more moons, something which has yet to be proven, that doesn't make him qualified to be considered his own planet."

The scientific community as a whole, which has difficulty agreeing on anything and, in fact, has never been able to reach agreement on what constitutes a planet, is sure to be arguing about this change for years to come. For his part, Notre Dame Coach Charlie Weis said only, "All I want is to win a National Championship. Unless being a planet helps me do that, I'm not interested."

Stay tuned for further updates on this breaking story.