Bullets & Bits for Saturday May 13, 2006.

OJ Is All About The Steelers:  I admit I’m extremely partial to the Buffalo Sabres.  Why wouldn’t I be? I’m from Buffalo and after going five-plus years without a single Sabres or Bills playoff game in my hometown, it’s nice to see so many rabid fans as well as band-waggon hoppers get excited about a Buffalo team. I’d mention the Buffalo Bandits are playing in the NLL Lacrosse finals tonight at home versus Colorado, but I tend to think that one doesn’t really care.

Anyway, I am all for fans and celebs around the world jumping on the Sabres bandwagon. I just don’t want O.J. Simpson to be one of them.  He was spotted at last week’s Kentucky Derby.  My initial fear was he would don a Buffalo Sabres hat. Love him or hate him, OJ is still big news in Buffalo and always will be.  I simply don’t want him associated with the Sabres.  Fortunately I was wrong about him wearing a Sabres hat.  Unfortunately for the Pittsburgh Steelers faithful, you have a new fan.

This pretty much kills any hope of a Steelers repeat in 2006, and yes I realize I just used Simpson and the word “kills” in the same sentence.

Senators = Colts?  The Ottawa Senators, down 3-1 to the Sabres, might not be dead yet.  But they are certainly on life support.  If you’re searching for the biggest reason how this happened (besides Ray Emery), look no further than the star studded line of Jason Spezza, Danny Heatley and Daniel Alfredsson, who have combined for exactly ZERO points while at even strength over the past three games.  The feeling here is Ottawa will blow the Sabres out at home tonight before losing game six on Monday at Buffalo.  While they are getting little respect around the league, the Sabres are very much for real. Meanwhile, If the Sens lose this series, one has to start really wondering if the Senators are the Indianapolis Colts of the NHL. 

Smith Calls It Quits:  When Jimmy Smith quietly retired from the NFL this past week, the league lost one of the all-time most underrated receivers. When the greats of the WR position are pointed out, Jimmy Smith isn’t expected to be the first, second or even third names out of anyone’s mouth. That’s fine, but the man’s production just can’t be denied. Even this past year, competing in the league at the tender age of 68 (Ok, he’s really only 37), Smith caught 70 balls for 1,023 yards and 6 TDs. Since 1996, the only guy who has more catches or yards is Marvin Harrison.  For his career, he caught 862 passes passes (seventh all-time) for 12.287 yards (11^th) and scored 67 touchdowns. Byron Leftwich will miss Smith a lot more than you may think.

Marion Can Ball:  Whether he’s the beneficiary of a perfect system fit or not, there is no denying that Shawn Marion is one hell of a basketball player.  After dropping game two at home and seeing his Suns lose the home court advantage to the Clippers, Marion made sure Phoenix got it right back last night.  All Marion did was score 32 points and grab 19 rebounds to lead the Suns to a 2-1 series advantage after a 94-91 victory in Los Angeles.  Even more impressive than the offensive outburst was his defense on Clippers point guard Sam Cassell.  Marion made it impossible for Cassell to post up the Suns defense, something he was successful at throughout the Clippers 25 point route in game two.  Cassell was held to only six points on 2-of-10 shooting.

Cliff… Cliff..  Cliff: While every writer in America seems to get off on bashing Barry Bonds, let us see how the reaction to Cliff Robinson will be.  The sometimes-valuable New Jersey Nets reserve was just suspended for five games (without pay) after violating the league’s substance abuse policy for the second time in two years.  Talk about great timing.  The Nets are locked in the fight of their lives against the Miami Heat right now, and losing Robinson couldn’t have come at a worse time.  To make matters worse for the Nets, they are not allowed to replace Robinson on the roster, forcing them to play with only 11 players on the active list.  Way to go, Clifford. Then again, would you expect anything less? He once did play for Portland.

Juwan’s Future's So Bright, He’s Gotta Wear Shades:  Congratulations to Houston Rockets forward Juwan Howard.  While ‘paying’ for a $192 pair of Sunglasses at a store in Miami with a credit card, Howard stashed a pair of $1695 Cartier shades and walked off.  According the area police, the incident was recorded on video. I can totally understand while Howard would feel the need to swipe some shades free of charge.  I mean he did only make about $5.9 million with Houston last year and his 2007 raise is only scheduled to be around $400 thousand. 

Being a Yankee Has Its Privileges: Baseball recently threw the book at Delmon Young for his bat tossing incident with a replacement umpire. MLB really sent a stern message by administering a 50 game suspension. On the other hand,  Major League Baseball also made a statement by not suspending the Yankees Bernie Williams who ‘accidentally’ hit an umpire with a batting helmet he tossed in disgust during the team’s 14-3 loss to Boston on Tuesday night. The moral of the story is, if you want to abuse an umpire, you had better be a card-carrying member of the New York Yankees. They evidentially can do whatever they want.