Hey guys, I really enjoyed the three years or so I spent blogging here; I'd still be doing it if I hadn't decided to get serious about writing fiction.

Since I left, I've written three novel manuscripts and a bunch of short stories, having gotten published (or soon to be published) in Crime and Suspense, FlashShot, Black Hound Magazine, Twisted Dreams Magazine, Mysterical-E, and Shroud Magazine. My short fiction has been included in two print anthologies: Ten for Ten (2008) and Northern Haunts (2009)

I tell you all this because I could use your help. I have a manuscript entered in Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award contest, co-sponsored by Penguin Books and Publishers Weekly. The book's title is PASKAGANKEE, and it is still alive in the contest's quarterfinal round. At stake is a publishing contract with Penguin and valuable exposure.

If you're interested, you can visit the contest site and download a copy of my novel's excerpt - the first 5000 words - FREE at the following link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UG3BI6. You can also post a review of the excerpt if you like.

I realize this isn't sports related and I apologize, but I got to know a lot of you folks pretty well while I was here and thought you might like to know what I've been up to. Thanks a lot for checking me out if you decide to do so, and we now return you to your local sports programming...

Okay, so you're Sean Avery of the NHL's Dallas Stars, and you've made a career out of being one of the biggest pains in the butt in the entire league. You've played in the NHL on and off since 2001, never scoring more than fifteen goals or 39 points in a season. You have, however, racked up over 1000 penalty minutes, or roughly 16.4 minutes in the penalty box for every goal scored. You're a goon, in other words. A real-life Hanson brother.

So it shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone that you've been suspended - trouble makers get in trouble, right? But here's the problem: Avery hasn't been taken out of action for anything he did on the ice. He's been suspended by the NHL for being a wiseguy, for ridiculing Jarome Iginla and other players for dating his "sloppy seconds," specifically actress Elisha Cuthbert, among other Hollywood hotties.

A couple of thoughts:

1) If Avery thinks he was the first with Cuthbert, he's even more delusional than he is rude, crude and uncouth. If Iginla's getting sloppy anything, Avery probably did, too.

2) It's a source of constant amazement to me that an idiot like Sean Avery can get any woman to date him, much less someone like Elisha Cuthbert, who is young and beautiful and at least as successful in her field as Avery is in his. Even if it's true what they say about women going for the bad boy, doesn't Avery strike you as representing the outer limits of that theory?

Having said that, I believe the NHL is absolutely in the wrong to suspend this joker. Have we really gotten to the point where someone can have his ability to earn a living taken away, even for a few days, because of something he said; something that was completely unrelated to his job?

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not in any way defending Avery. In my book he's a hurtful lout who apparently suspended his brain before making those remarks. If Cuthbert were my daughter or sister I would despise Sean Avery with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns.

But still, aren't we supposed to be blessed with free speech around here? Isn't one of our founding principles the right to sound like a total jackass if we're stupid enough to do so? Avery wasn't threatening anyone with physical harm, he wasn't shouting "fire!" in a crowded theatre, he simply said something that reflected worse on himself than it ever could on Elisha Cuthbert, or on Jarome Iginla for that matter.

Last time I checked, he shouldn't have his ability to earn a living taken away for that.
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If you love fiction and have a few minutes to spare, check out my website, www.allanleverone.com

Once you move past the obvious glee fans of so many other teams are exhibiting and the obvious dejection of New England Patriots fans regarding the loss of Tom Brady for the remainder of the season, the natural question becomes, "How will the Pats be affected?"

Can they still win the AFC East? Are they even a playoff team? Did Bill Belichick and the rest of the New England brain trust drop the ball, as suggested by more than one national columnist, by not having a more experienced backup than Matt Cassel on the sidelines, ready to take the wheel of what last season was the league's most prolific offense?

To those who are ready to jump off a bridge as well as to those who are hosting victory parties and buying T-shirts commemorating a player's injury (Shame on you), I say this: Slow down and take a breath!

Are the Patriots going to go 16-0? Of course not; they weren't going to do that even with a healthy Tom Brady. Some people - okay, at least one - feel that the mental and physical toll of trying to maintain their perfect record contributed greatly to the stunning upset in the Super Bowl last February anyway. Think about it - The Giants were trying to win a Super Bowl while the Pats were trying to make history.

As far as everything else goes, though, it's a little premature to write off New England - do it at your own risk. They still have Moss and Welker and Gaffney and Maroney and a dominating defensive line. The question mark becomes the ability of the offensive line, exposed in the Super Bowl by the Giants relentless blitzing from anywhere and everywhere, to protect the inexperienced Cassel.

If they can manage that, New England will be fine. Maybe not First Round Bye fine, but they will certainly have enough to make the playoffs and probably to win the division. If the O-line can't stop all the defenders who will most certainly be storming the Cassell, though, it becomes another story entirely.

Just getting to the playoffs - making the tournament, as Bill Parcells used to say - now becomes the focus for the Pats, or at least it should. Never mind perfect records or regular-season winning streaks or consecutive starts streaks for your quarterback; work on winning the division and see what happens once you get to the tournament.

In any event, it makes for fascinating viewing, starting this Sunday in the Meadowlands, where the Patriots take on the revitalized Jets in an early-season showdown. Pass me my chips and dip; this could be good.

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If you love fiction and have a few minutes to spare, check out my website, www.allanleverone.com

Shouldn't it have occurred to someone in the MLB offices when the master schedule for Major League Baseball was made up last winter that, oh yeah, this will be the final season in the long and storied history of Yankee Stadium and maybe it would be a good idea to have the Yankees finish the 2008 regular season at home, so their fans could give the old ballpark a fitting sendoff?

As it is, the final home game for the Yankees takes place Sunday night, September 21, against Baltimore, then the team goes on the road for the last week, finishing up in Boston, of all places, September 28. The schedule gurus, if there are such things, probably assumed New York would be making a postseason appearance, as they have every year since 1994, so what difference would it make whether the Yankees finished the regular season at home or not?

The kick in the teeth, of course, is that barring a miraculous Lazarus impression by the Yankees over the final three weeks, they will miss the postseason this year, so the Stadium will close with a whimper after so many big bangs over so many decades of baseball. I am by no means a New York Yankees follower, but as a lifelong baseball fan it seems to me the building that has played home to Ruth, Dimaggio, Berra, Ford, Mantle, Hunter, Jackson, Williams, Jeter and so many other transcendant stars deserves a more appropriate sendoff, and should have gotten one.

What would have been wrong with the Yankees hosting the final game at the Stadium the day after the regular season ended for everyone else? The attention of the entire baseball world could have been directed at the shrine just before the playoffs started. It seems to me that would have been far preferable to the ignoble finish in store for Yankee Stadium the way it is going down. It would have added one day to the already endless baseball season; big deal.

Instead, even though the final Yankee Stadium game will be televised nationally on ESPN, it will seem as though there is unfinished business when the lights are extinguished for the final time. Maybe that's how it seems to Yankees fans anyway, given the disappointing performance of their team during the 2008 season. They will be opening 2009 with a sparkling, brand-spanking-new ballpark, but things will never be the same.

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If you love fiction and have a few minutes to spare, check out my website, www.allanleverone.com

In professional sports, it's all about how you perform on the field. Can you execute in clutch situations? Can you do your job when the chips are down? Nothing else matters; that's what makes you a professional.

Unless, of course, you play on the the LPGA tour, where, starting in 2009, players who have been on the tour for at least two years "must pass an oral evaluation of their English skills," according to a report on Golfweek.com. The tour justifies this brand-new rule by stressing "the importance of being able to entertain pro-am partners. Players are already fined if the LPGA receives complaints from their pro-am partners."

Wow. What's next? Presumably most of the pro-am partners are men, wouldn't it be more "entertaining" to mandate short-shorts for the LPGA players on pro-am day? What if a pro-am partner wants a little cuddle time from his playing partner during the round? That would be the ultimate "entertainment," wouldn't it?

Ridiculous? Sure it is, but so is the idea that all of the golfers on the LPGA Tour should be little Barbies that can carry on conversations in English with their stuffed-shirt pro-am partners. The men's PGA Tour has no such English-speaking mandate and they seem to be doing okay.

According to the report at Golfweek.com, 26 different countries are represented on the LPGA Tour this year by 121 different players; 45 of them are from South Korea.

I don't know if you've ever noticed, but the Korean language is just a little bit different than English, and now, in addition to telling these people - who are professional golfers, not linguists or diplomats - that they must drive and chip and putt against the best women in the world if they want to be successful on this tour, that, oh yeah, by the way, learn a totally foreign language just in case you win a tournament. We wouldn't want you foreigners embarrassing a sponsor by playing magnificent golf over an entire weekend but not being able to pronounce the company's name in the post-tournament interviews.

The most incredible part of this story is the reaction of the players, most of whom seem to think it's perfectly reasonable. I wonder what the reaction would be if the players were told they had a year to learn Korean or face being banned from the tour until they did?

And, yes, I do realize that many, if not most, of these young ladies have played college golf in the states and thus should be able to speak at least passable English. I understand that, and good for them if they can, even if they're not from the U.S. But if even one deserving player is prevented from earning a living, not because she isn't good enough, but because she doesn't speak the right language, then it will illustrate the absurdity of only allowing the "right" people to compete.

Rightly or wrongly, the sport of golf is viewed among many as an elitist game. Is this really the message they want to send to people over at the LPGA? That you can only play if you speak my language? Haven't we gone through decades of strife with a little thing called the civil rights movement? Aren't we smarter than this?

I had intended to cut and paste the Korean translation for the phrase "Speak English or beat it" here, but this board doesn't support Korean - all I get when I do it is a bunch of question marks which, the more I think about it, the more I believe that's incredibly appropriate.  So, LPGA, here's what I think of your message of inclusion and good sportsmanship: ??? ?? ???? ???

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If you love fiction and have a few minutes to spare, check out my website, www.allanleverone.com