One of the many pleasures about being on the eastern end of Long Island at this time of year is that I’m not bombarded every time I turn on a radio or a TV with talk of The Washington Redskins.

To be fair, Washington has improved as a sports town since the arrival of The Nationals, because a baseball team—even a bad one—gives people something to talk about and write about every day from March to October. This year, with signs of hope and the arrival of Stephen Strasburg, there has been interest in the Nats that goes beyond the hard-core baseball fans. Even the usually Redskins-obsessed sportstalk radio hosts in D.C. are willing to talk baseball on occasion.

That’s a major improvement. I still remember going on vacation to Boston in September of 1978. That was the year, of course, of the classic Yankees-Red Sox race that culminated in the Bucky Bleeping Dent one-game playoff won by the Yankees. Being in Boston that week was thrilling. Reading The Boston Globe every morning was fabulous. One Sunday afternoon a friend of mine and I drove to Salem and Gloucester. Along the way we switched back and forth between the Red Sox game and the Yankees game—picking up the Yankees signal on a Connecticut station. I think BOTH teams won in extra innings that day.

When I went back to Washington I walked into sports editor George Solomon’s office. He asked how my week off had been. “It was great,” I said. “The baseball writing in Boston is SO good. You know, it’s sad, you can’t really be a good sports town without a baseball team to write about.”

George went ballistic, told me I didn’t know what I was talking about and banished me from the office. I went back to my desk, picked up the sports section and counted EIGHT Redskin stories. There were brief wire stories on the Yankees and Red Sox. Case closed.

How important were the Redskins then—and now? My friend Terry Hanson was the publicity director in those days for The Washington Diplomats, the NASL soccer team—which was my first beat at The Post. Needless to say ANY publicity from The Post was a big deal for the Diplomats. The Diplomats offices were in RFK Stadium, a few yards away from the press box that was used for both soccer and football. It was just a little bit more crowded on football game days.

One morning Terry was in his office when his secretary came in to say George Solomon was on the phone. Terry practically jumped out of his chair. Maybe The Post wanted to do a long story on new coach Alan Spavin? Whatever it was, this was BIG—the sports editor of The Washington Post was calling HIM.

Hanson picked up the phone. George was almost breathless. This really was BIG he thought. “Terry I need a favor,” George said.

Trying to sound cool, Hanson said, “Well George, if I can arrange something, I’ll certainly try to help. What is it?”

“The Redskins play their first exhibition game tonight. I need to be sure our phone in the press box is working. Can you walk out there and check it for me?”

It was at that moment that it occurred to Hanson that George had probably never HEARD of Alan Spavin.

Even though I’ve lived in Washington since graduating from college, I’ve always felt somewhat adrift because I’ve never been able to wrap my arms around the local teams. I have come to like and enjoy the Capitals even though the Islanders will always be my hockey team—unless they move to Kansas City because the politicians on Long Island refuse to cooperate on a desperately needed new building—and I enjoy any success the Nats have unless it involves beating the Mets. I’m ambivalent about the Wizards because the last time I really cared about the NBA, Willis Reed and Walt Frazier were still suiting up for the Knicks.

Nowadays, with the internet and TV packages, someone like me can easily keep track of the Mets and the Islanders even while living in DC. What’s different being here (Long Island) versus being in DC is simple: the Redskins. Being in DC there is no escaping from them 12 months a year. They are a monolith and they know it, which is one reason why owner Dan Snyder can treat the media with disdain 90 percent of the time and get away with it.

Snyder came onto my radar—sadly—yesterday when I was in my car after hosting Jim Rome from a studio in Southampton and flipped on WFAN, expecting to hear talk about whether the Mets were going to trade for a starting pitcher. Instead, for some reason, the hosts were interviewing new Redskins coach Mike Shanahan.

I was about to hit a button to change the station when one of the hosts asked Shanahan about his decision to go work for Snyder. Look, there are about eight million reasons (a year) why Shanahan went to work for Snyder. Nothing wrong with that. Of course Shanahan wasn’t going to say that so he reverted to the old, “you know no one wants to win more than Dan Snyder,” line.

Almost all owners want to win. Some don’t have the kind of money Snyder has but they all want to win. Snyder wants to win for Snyder; for his ego and for no other reason. Clearly he has no respect for his fans because he has gouged them every chance he’s gotten since day one and last year, when they finally turned on him after 11 years of mis-management, he had his security people treat them like suspicious-looking characters trying to board an airplane.

The Redskins will be better this year—they pretty much have to be after last year’s 4-12 debacle. Donovan McNabb is a clear upgrade at quarterback; they finally drafted a left tackle and made improvements in the offensive line and Shanahan is an upgrade at coach. It finally occurred to Snyder that being the most hated man in Washington wasn’t really a good thing and he has been trying to rehab his image this offseason—staying in the background during free agent signings; talking to the media on occasion (almost always at a charity event so people HAVE to mention that a billionaire is doing charity work as if that somehow makes him a good guy) even jettisoning his long-time pit-bull PR guy who loved threatening the media members with banishment from Redskins Park if they didn’t behave properly.

I know if the Redskins start to win this fall, people in DC will jump back on their bandwagon so fast it will make heads spin. George Steinbrenner went from constantly booed to canonized in New York not so much because he changed—although he clearly did—but because the Yankees became winners. Snyder has none of Steinbrenner’s charm OR his sense of humor. But if his team wins this fall, few in Washington will care.

Maybe I’ll take another vacation in Boston in September.



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John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases

Some time later this week the suspense will finally be over.

No, believe it or not, I’m not talking about LeBron James or any of the other NBA free agents. I’m talking about the new NCAA basketball tournament format.

I know this because last week I received an e-mail from the NCAA announcing that the basketball committee had, in fact, reached a decision on how to deal with the new 68 team format. The press release basically said this: the committee has reached a decision but we’re NOT telling you what that decision is until next week. It went on to add that none of the committee members would DISCUSS the decision or what went into it until next week.

Full radio silence.

Imagine if the committee had been making a decision on something that was actually important. They might have been locked in hotel rooms with no access to TV, cell phones or the internet until the announcement was made.

What’s strange about the remarkable self-importance of the committee through the years is that I’ve had the chance to know most of those who have served on it dating back thirty years. I LIKE most of them individually—there have been notable exceptions, led by Jim Delany, college athletics’ answer to Darth Vader—but when they gather as a group it gets almost scary.

Years ago, after the committee had done an especially horrific job seeding the tournament I said to Tony Kornheiser on his radio show: “They should all be lined up and shot.” (Okay, I get a bit carried away sometimes).

Noting this Tony said, “But Jack Kvancz (the AD at George Washington and then a committee member) is a good friend of yours.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Just shoot him in the leg.”

Jack, who was listening, told me later he was grateful.

Now, I’m all for giving credit where it is due. The committee did NOT decide to expand the tournament to 96 teams beginning next year as most of us believed they would this past spring. I think when they realized they could still get huge money from CBS/Turner for a new long term contract without getting pilloried—as they knew they would—for rewarding mediocrity by going to 96 teams—they backed off. How long that back off will last none of us knows but at least they held off for now.

But seriously folks, a press release announcing that you’ve made a decision on a minor issue but you aren’t announcing it for a week? Is there some curiosity among those of us who love college hoops about the new format? Sure. But there really aren’t that many options out there.

The committee will either make the last eight automatic bid qualifiers play-in against one another to reach the round of 64 as No. 16 seeds or it will make the last eight at-large teams play-in to the round of 64 as No. 12 or No. 13 seeds—which is the right thing to do. You might wonder why not compromise and have four at-large teams play four automatic bid teams. That really can’t work because you can’t say if the at-large teams win they’re No. 12 seeds but if the automatic bid teams win they’re No. 16 seeds. It just makes no sense.

The committee then has to decide where to play the four games. It can send all eight teams to Dayton, which has been an excellent host for the dreaded play-in game for nine years or send the eight teams to first and second round sites. My guess is eight automatic bid teams to Dayton, but we’ll see.

My other guess is, if I’m right, the committee will try to make the announcement the same day James makes his, in the hope that it will be completely buried in the James hype. No doubt it will be. Then again, if it had made the announcement last week, it probably would have been a five-paragraph story most places rather than a four-paragraph story. I’m surprised the committee didn’t also announce that it had decided to designate the coming weekend as The Fourth of July.

As I said, I like most of these people individually although I did almost gag out loud last April when Texas San-Antonio Athletic Director Lynn Hickey tried to explain during the annual Final Four meeting between selected committee members/NCAA staff and the U.S. Basketball Writer’s Association that we writers needed to understand that everything the committee did was, “for the good of the student-athlete.”

And it don’t rain in Indiana in the summer time. I realize that a lot of people don’t have much respect for the media but did she really think we were THAT stupid. Apparently so.

Anyway, I’ll wait to see what the committee announces this week. Maybe it will announce that it has decided to make a final announcement next month.

*****

I know most people were focused this weekend on Wimbledon (exciting finals, huh?); World Cup soccer, the announcement of the baseball All-Star teams (Omar Infante?) and the pennant races but I was on the edge of my seat waiting for Ilya Kovulchuk to make a decision.

For those of you who aren’t hockey fans, Kovulchuk is a perennial 40-goal scorer still in his 20s traded by Atlanta to New Jersey last winter. On Saturday, Newday reported that The New York Islanders might have a shot at Kovulchuk. On Monday, the Los Angeles Kings dropped out of the bidding. By late morning, I was hearing Kovulchuk might actually be headed to Long Island, giving them the kind of scorer they haven’t had for years, the star they desperately needed to take some pressure off John Tavares.

I almost got excited. Then a few hours later The New York Post reported Kovulchuk was going back to New Jersey. The Post doesn’t get hockey stories wrong. It didn’t when I was a kid, it doesn’t now. Of course Kovulchuk’s agent would only say he had “narrowed,” his choices. Maybe he’s angling for a spot on the NCAA basketball committee.

Having read that several other free agents backed away from the Islanders because The Nassau Coliseum is so outdated and there is no sign that a new building is coming along anytime soon—it is completely mired in political muck in Nassau County and the Town of Hempstead—I am completely and utterly discouraged.

I’m amazed at my age and having seen what I’ve seen through the years that I still care about a hockey team, but I do.

I also still care about the Mets and I’m encouraged by what they’ve done the first half, especially without Carlos Beltran, but I’m still skeptical. If they actually pull off a deal for Cliff Lee, then we can talk.

Maybe they’ll announce that they’re going to make an announcement about a deal. If it is next week, that’ll be fine. In the meantime, I’ll sit here on the edge of my seat waiting for the basketball committee to share its wisdom with the rest of us.


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John recently appeared on The Jim Rome Show (www.jimrome.com) to discuss 'Moment of Glory.' Click here to download, or listen in the player below:



------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases

Last night was a bit melancholy for me. The hockey season ended. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy for The Blackhawks and for long-suffering fans in Chicago who went almost 50 years between Stanley Cups. There are few things in sports more dramatic than any overtime playoff game in hockey but when the Cup is decided in overtime it is quite a sight and a scene. That said, you had to feel something for The Flyers and their fans, seeing an unbelievable run end on what has to be considered a soft goal.

If it sounds like I’m Billy Martin on this—feeling strongly both ways—I am. I don’t have any special feelings, either yay or nay for either franchise. I like both cities a lot. I love going to Chicago, especially in the spring or fall. One of my favorite days in recent memory was last November when I flew in (yes, I actually flew) there from a speaking gig in Phoenix the day before Navy played at Notre Dame. I spent the afternoon just walking around The Magnificent Mile and over to Lake Michigan before meeting friends for dinner. The next morning I drove over to South Bend—the weather both days was spectacular, it was 67 (!!) at kickoff inside Notre Dame Stadium—and saw Navy beat Notre Dame. It was a great two days.

I also have a warm spot in my heart for Philly. I laugh when people here in Washington put down Philadelphia. There is no comparison between the two as sports towns. For one thing, all of Philly’s major sports venues are right in the same place in South Philadelphia. The politicians there managed to get it right rather than fighting with one another so that the football stadium ended up in a cow pasture somewhere out in Maryland the way it did here.

Wachovia Center and Verizon Center are similar. Lincoln Financial Field is about 100 times nicer than the stadium formerly named for Jack Kent Cooke because almost any stadium is 100 times nicer than that place. Nationals Park is a fine facility but Citizens Bank Park is magnificent, built so that one can see the Philadelphia skyline from almost anyplace inside the park.

Washington is a transient town and a Redskins town. Philadelphia is a SPORTS town. Oh sure we hear the stories about the drunks who makes fools of themselves at ballgames but I’d rather deal with that than an owner who has signs confiscated from fans trying to send out a message to their husband who is serving overseas.

There’s also The Big Five. While most of Washington’s college basketball teams play silly games to avoid playing one another, Philly’s five major D-1 teams (and you can add Drexel too) play each other every year—many of those games in college basketball’s best arena, The Palestra.

But I digress. Hockey. I love hockey and always have. This winter I actually saw some hope for my long-beleaguered Islanders and my schedule fell in such a way that I got to watch the team play on the hockey package a lot. The Olympics were spectacular—and, in my mind part of the reason the ratings for the finals have been so high. The NHL did a brilliant thing starting the Winter Classic and these playoffs, with the No. 7 seed facing the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Finals and one of the sport’s truly classic franchises ending up with the Cup, have been fabulous.

So here’s to the Blackhawks—present and future. Given the youth of their best players, they should be contenders for a while. Just hearing The United Center rocking again after several miserable years did my heart good.

So why melancholy? It’s something that dates to boyhood. I always feel a little sad when a season ends. I have this distinct memory of watching game seven of The Blackhawks-Canadiens final in 1971. It was a tough series to watch because the Rangers were my team then (no Islanders until ’72-’73) and they had lost to the Blackhawks in seven games—even though they had won game six in triple overtime on a goal by Pete Stemkowski.

I remember that game vividly because it was a school night (Thursday) and a lot of fans came with signs to Madison Square Garden that said, “Let there be Sunday.” I brought my radio, as I always did, to listen to Marv Albert during the game and remember him saying at one point during the overtime something like, “I just want to let our babysitter (can’t remember her name) know we’ll be home as soon as possible.”

There was Sunday, but the Blackhawks and Bobby Hull were too good. In the meantime, Ken Dryden had announced his arrival as a hockey force by single-handedly beating the defending champion Bruins. When the Canadiens then forced a game seven on a Sunday afternoon in Montreal during the finals, I was bereft: I wouldn’t get to see game seven because CBS only did Sunday games. Except CBS made arrangements to televise game seven—first hockey game on network TV in primetime I believe. The Canadiens came from 2-0 down in Chicago to win.

What I remember most about that game—besides Jacques Lemaire’s goal from about 80 feet—is feeling sad that hockey season was over. When did training camp begin? When could I go and buy tickets in the blue seats for early season Rangers games?

As much as my life has changed through the years, I STILL feel that way. The Islanders start camp when?—heck it’s a little more than three months away. Who will they take with the fifth pick in the draft? How good will the Caps be coming back from their disappointment in the playoffs? I’m PSYCHED.

Of course I feel the same way at the end of The World Series and The Final Four. I saw a story in the paper yesterday about the fact that college hoops season will begin on November 8th (I will get into the bogus nature of The Coaches vs. Cancer season-opening event another day. Put simply: Even if Maryland, Illinois, Pittsburgh or Texas LOSE one of their first two games they will still ‘advance,’ to the semifinals in New York. What a joke). And did the math in my head: five months until college hoops starts.

I’ll admit I don’t get as sad about the end of the NFL season or the NBA season in part because the NBA season never ends. (Note to Michael Wilbon: those of us who don’t love all things NBA as you do are not ‘meatheads.’ Come on, quit selling the product so hard all the time). I fall in the middle on college football because it SHOULD end on New Year’s Day and night. In the old days, when the Orange Bowl ended, I would get up after 10 hours of football, sigh and wonder what the best games would be of the first weekend in September. I’m willing to give that up for a true PLAYOFF but not for the ridiculous BCS. By the way, this coming season’s so-called national championship game is on January 10th. January 10th! You could have a full-blown eight-team playoff and the season would last exactly ONE week longer than it does now. What a joke.

Anyway, I was happy for the Blackhawks when Patrick Kane’s shot went in the net last night but a bit sad there would be no game 7. A game 7 in The Stanley Cup finals is about as intense and cool an event as there is in sports. On the other hand, the draft is in two weeks and the Islanders report to camp in, by my calculations, 93 days.


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John recently appeared on The Jim Rome Show (www.jimrome.com) to discuss 'Moment of Glory.' Click here to download, or listen in the player below:



------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases

The Golf Channel will be airing a documentary based on the book "Caddy for Life: The Bruce Edwards Story," with the premiere showing Monday, June 14 at 9 p.m. ET.
I can’t wait.

There was a very good story in this morning’s New York Times about the fact that today is the 30th anniversary of The New York Islanders first Stanley Cup victory. (Note: Click here for NY Times article) A lot of the piece focused on the fact that many hockey fans don’t credit the Islanders enough for their four straight Stanley Cup wins from 1980 to 1983 or the fact that they won 19 straight playoff series—a record that still stands.

I give the Islanders lots of credit since—as I’ve mentioned here before—I was one of their first fans. In fact, that day 30 years ago remains an indelible memory for me. I was in a hotel room in Atlanta, getting ready to cover a North American Soccer League game that night between The Washington Diplomats and The Atlanta Chiefs when Bobby Nystrom scored the winning goal on a cross-ice pass from John Tonelli at 7:11 of overtime to beat the Philadelphia Flyers. For those of you who might not remember, it was Lorne Henning who started the play, feeding Tonelli as he steamed down the right side.

That was a fun period in my life. I was a young reporter at The Washington Post which happened to have a sports staff that only had one other person who had much interest in covering hockey: That was Bob Fachet, who had been the beat writer for the Capitals from day one of their existence. The approach taken by the rest of the staff when it came to hockey was best summed up by something Ken Denlinger, who along with Dave Kindred, split the column-writing at the time. After being sent kicking and screaming to a hockey game one winter night, Ken walked into the newsroom and announced, “I have built an insurmountable 1-0 season lead on Kindred in hockey columns.”

Turned out he was right.

Every April I would come home from The Final Four and would be sent to cover the hockey playoffs as the second guy, backing up Fachet on Caps games and often covering whatever series Bob wasn’t covering once the Caps were eliminated. Sadly for me, the paper only sent one guy to the finals in 1980—Bob—leaving me to cover what was my true second beat in those days, the Dips. That’s why I was in Atlanta and not on Long Island 30 years ago today.

It didn’t really matter. As soon as Nystrom poked the puck past Pete Peeters, I leaped off the bed, arms in the air and began celebrating. My greatest moments as a sports fan had all come within 16 months of one another: The Jets in January of 1969; The Mets in October of 1969 and the Knicks in May of 1970. So, it had been a while. It is worth remembering that in my college years Duke’s best record in football was 6-5 (turned out those were the golden years) and its best record in basketball (I swear I’m not making this up) was 14-13—and that was my senior year. So, I hadn’t done a lot of celebrating.

The Islanders had come into existence during my senior year in high school—shortly after I’d bought my first car. Since I had always been a fan of expansion teams (in one form or another) I was already a Mets, Jets and Nets fan. Since the Nets were still in the ABA in those days I could also be a Knicks fan. (If you don’t believe I was a Nets fan quick tell me who did their radio broadcasts during their first year of existence when they were the New Jersey Americans and played in the Teaneck Armory. Answer: Spencer Ross. If you got that one right here’s a bonus question: How did the Americans miss the playoffs that year? Answer: They tied for the last playoff spot with (I think, not 100 percent sure) the Pittsburgh Pipers and were designated the home team for a play-in game for the last spot. But the Armory was rented to the circus the night of the game and the Americans had to forfeit. Seriously).

So, with my new (very old) car I decided to make the trip to the brand new Nassau Coliseum to see both the Nets and Islanders on a regular basis during that first Islanders season. As luck would have it the Islanders went 12-60-6, the worst record in NHL history. Al Albert, younger brother of Marv, did the games on radio.

I stuck with the Islanders and they got better fast—making the playoffs in 1975 and upsetting the Rangers in a best-of-three mini-series in the first round when J.P. Parise scored 11 seconds into overtime in the third game. They went on from there to come from 3-0 down to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins and then came from 3-0 down to tie the Flyers at 3-3 before The Flyers brought out their (not so) secret weapon, Kate Smith for game seven. Flyers-5, Islanders-2.

The next few years, the Islanders were good, but not good enough, the low point being a loss in the semifinals to the Rangers in 1979. But the next spring made up for all that had come before. The Islanders were the No. 5 seed but blew into the finals to play the Flyers, who earlier that season had set a record by going 28 games without a loss. I covered the game in which they broke the old record (I think it had been 23) in The Boston Garden.

Of course Nystrom’s goal was just the beginning for the Islanders. They won the Cup again the next three years and I got to cover them quite a bit during that time. What made it so cool for me was that they were a fun group of people to be around: Al Arbour, the coach, was a wonderful story-teller. The superstars were all cooperative: Denis Potvin, Brian Trottier, Mike Bossy and Billy Smith but the best guys were Nystrom and Tonelli and Bob Bourne (still perhaps my all-time favorite person among the athletes I’ve met through the years) and Clark Gillies.

Those were innocent times when you’d show up at practice on an off-day or at a morning skate and just wander into the locker room and talk to whomever you needed to talk to. I remember going to the old ice rink where the Islanders practiced on off-days during the playoffs and walking into the locker room without so much as showing anyone a pass of any kind. Even though I was from Washington and never covered the team during the regular season a lot of the players knew me (and most of the guys who covered the team at all) by name.

The streak ended in the finals in 1984 when The Wayne Gretzky-Mark Messier-Grant Fuhr Edmonton Oilers started THEIR run (five Cups in seven years) by beating the Islanders in the finals in five games. There hasn’t been much glory since then—the last real run was 1993 when the Islanders upset the then two-time champion Penguins in the conference semis before losing to the Canadiens in the conference final.

Still, unlike with a lot of the New York teams, I’ve never wavered from the Islanders. I pay for the hockey package mostly to watch them. There was some hope this past year, especially with the young players, but the Rick DiPietro contract continues to haunt the franchise as does the lack of a viable arena with no sign of an agreement between the town of Hempstead and team owner Charles Wang anywhere in sight.

But I still haven’t given up. And I still have a lot of fond memories—both as a fan and as a reporter. That Saturday afternoon 30 years ago is still vivid in my memory. Which, in the end, is what makes being a sports fan worthwhile, right? I’m sure every person reading this has a memory just as vivid. Good for all of us.

--------------------------------------


John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases


To listen to 'The Bob and Tom Show' interview about 'Moment of Glory', please click the play button below:

I was making my weekly appearance yesterday on “Washington Post Live,”—which is a pretty good show except for the fact that there has to be a Redskins segment EVERY DAY—when this question popped into my head: If the United States makes the gold medal game in Olympic hockey (which is now distinctly possible after the remarkable 5-3 upset of Canada on Sunday) and it faces Russia, will fans of The Washington Capitals be torn at all?

After all, Alexander Ovechkin may be the most popular non-Redskin in the history of the town. The only person I can think of who might have been as beloved as Ovechkin is Wes Unseld. Frank Howard was certainly popular years ago with the Senators but they were a bad team throughout his years in Washington.

You can’t walk 100 yards in downtown DC right now without encountering someone wearing an Ovechkin jersey. People here are firmly convinced the Caps are going to win The Stanley Cup this spring and if they do Ovechkin is going to be the main reason. It can be argued that Ovechkin is the first athlete to represent Washington since, I don’t know, Sammy Baugh? Who was THE best player in his sport. (Save your Sidney Crosby argument for another day. The point is he is 1 or 1-A at worst).

So, I wondered aloud on the air if Ovechkin—and fellow Cap Alexander Semin—are out there representing Russia, do Caps fans root for their guys or for their country?

Based on text messages sent to the station the verdict was overwhelming: USA-USA-USA. Naturally some people wondered if I was “crazy,” for even thinking there was a debate.

All of which reminded me how doing what I do gives you a different perspective than most people. When I was a kid I rooted ardently for the Mets, the Jets, the Knicks, the Rangers and, after I had bought my first car and could drive to Long Island as a high school senior, the expansion Islanders. I even rooted for the Nets while they were in the ABA and never hated the Yankees or the Giants. My instinct has always been to pull for underdogs so I was drawn to the expansion Mets. With the Jets it was more basic: I could get into the games.

I loved my teams. Like any fan there were individuals I picked out as my favorites: Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Cleon Jones and Tommie Agee with the Mets; Joe Namath, Matt Snell and Verlon Biggs with the Jets; Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Dave Debusschere and Bill Bradley with the Knicks; Brad Park and the GAG (Goal-a-game) line with the Rangers: Vic Hadfield, Jean Ratelle, Brad Park and, later, Billy Smith, Denis Potvin, Brian Trottier and Mike Bossy with the Islanders although I always had a warm spot for Billy Harris even though he was traded before the team started winning Stanley Cups.

But in the end, I was a typical fan. To quote Jerry Seinfeld, I rooted for laundry.

I was furious with the Mets when they traded Seaver in 1977 and never stopped being a Seaver fan. In fact, one of my great thrills was covering the game in Yankee Stadium in 1983 when he won his 300th game while pitching for the White Sox.

But I was still a Mets fan—even after the Seaver trade.

I can’t pinpoint exactly when I stopped rooting for laundry and started rooting for individuals. It might have been while standing in the Red Sox clubhouse in 1986 watching Bill Buckner answer question after question without blinking or complaining after his infamous boot of Mookie Wilson’s ground ball in game six of The World Series. As a Mets fan, I was thrilled with the way they had come back to win the game. Watching Buckner handle the situation with such grace made me feel awful for him. During game seven, even as I rooted ardently for the Mets, I couldn’t help but think about what this would do to Buckner.

To this day, when that World Series comes up, I point out to people—many of whom don’t remember—that the score was already tied when the ball went through Buckner’s legs. He did NOT lose the World Series for the Red Sox.

When Pat Riley became the coach of the Knicks, I stopped being a Knicks fan. I just didn’t like him and I hated his style of play. I’ve never gone back to the Knicks. In fact, I became a Celtics fan—a team I DESPISED as a kid—because of my friendship with Red Auerbach.

Other than being consistently lousy, the Jets never did anything to make me dislike them but when I did my book on the Ravens in 2004, I couldn’t help but want to see the Ravens do well since I got to know almost everyone in the organization. As luck would have it, the Ravens and Jets played that season, in the Meadowlands.

Darin Kerns, who was one of the Ravens equipment managers, had mentioned to the Jets equipment guys that I had grown up a Jets fan. So, before the game, Darin marched me to the Jets locker room where the Jets guys gave me a box of equipment—most of it for my kids. I walked back to the Ravens locker room carrying the box. When I walked in, Brian Billick said, “what’s that?”

“It’s a box full of Jets gear.”

“So let me get this straight, you’re in our locker room, you’re on our sideline, you’re in our meetings and you’re carrying a box of Jets gear around to take home to your kids.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay. Just so I’m clear on where you stand.”

Billick knew where I stood which was why he gave me a hard time about it. Now that Rex Ryan, who was an assistant on that Ravens team, is running the Jets I find myself pulling for the Jets again. If the Jets and Ravens played today, especially since a lot of the guys I knew back in ’04 are gone, I’m honestly not sure whose side I’d be on. I’d probably root for the team that needed to win the game more.

I AM still an Islanders fan. I covered the team in the 80s when they were still great and was thrilled to find that the players I’d loved watching play were, almost to a man, really good guys. (Of course hockey players in general are good guys). Al Arbour, the coach, was terrific to be around and, in addition to the big names, guys like Bob Bourne, Bobby Nystrom, Clark Gillies (who was actually a pretty big name) and Ken Morrow, made the job easy and fun. Even though the team has been mostly awful since it last played in The Stanley Cup Finals in 1984, I still have warm memories of that group that make me occasionally shout at the TV when the current team, still very young but (finally) with some potential, blows a 3-1 lead in the third period the way it did in the last game before the Olympics.

As for Duke, my alma mater, I’ve discussed my relationship with the school here in the past. I still pull for Mike Krzyzewski, because he’s been a friend for a long time but so have a lot of coaches including Gary Williams and Roy Williams and Oliver Purnell and Leonard Hamilton—just to name a few guys in the ACC. The games I get most into these days usually involve Patriot League teams. In fact, I think the most emotional I’ve been watching a game in recent years was the night Bucknell stunned Kansas in the 2005 NCAA Tournament. I still get chills thinking about that game. George Mason beating Connecticut to go to the Final Four in 2006 is right up there too, not because I don’t like Jim Calhoun (I do) but because it was one of the great underdog stories EVER and I got to cover it.

When Jim Larranaga raced over to where I was standing shortly after that game had ended and said, “I can’t wait to see (Jim) Nantz and (Billy) Packer in Indy,”—both had dissed the committee for putting Mason in the tournament—it was a truly sublime moment.

As luck would have it, I was having dinner in St. Elmo’s, the great steak house in Indy on Wednesday night that week when Nantz and Packer walked in. I’d already run into Larranaga because he and his team were eating in a private room in the back of the restaurant. When Jim and Billy stopped to say hello, I couldn’t resist.

“The George Mason kids are eating in a room in the back,” I said. “They can’t wait to see you guys.”

Nantz immediately headed back there to deliver his official apology. Packer never moved. “You aren’t going to apologize?” I said to him.

“I don’t have anything to apologize for,” Packer said.

That’s one reason I loved Billy—he always stuck to his guns even when they were empty.

So, if the U.S. does play Russia in the gold medal game, I’ll be no different than most Americans, I’ll be pulling for the U.S. But it will have more to do with my affection for underdogs than with the letters on the front of the sweater.

So here’s some of the news of the weekend:

--Serena Williams and Roger Federer won Australian Open titles in matches that tipped off at 3:30 a.m. on the east coast because the Aussies like to play their finals at night to avoid the searing heat that often hits Melbourne in January.

--They played The Pro Bowl. Somebody won. Driving home from the Holy Cross-Lehigh game (more on that later) I could not find a single sports-oriented radio station that was NOT broadcasting the damn game. My God, someone please help me.

--The ACC is a complete mess. Duke, which everyone in the league alleges is the most talented team the ACC has to offer this season got smushed—to use my daughter’s word—by Georgetown on Saturday. The final was 89-77 only because Duke finished the game on a 16-5 run. North Carolina was embarrassed at home by Virginia on Sunday night. Maryland, a team Virginia Tech’s Seth Greenberg said was, “playing as well as anyone in the country,” turned the ball over 26 times and lost to a Clemson team that shot 32 percent. Hey ACC fans, the league is still REALLY good in soccer.

--Ben Crane won the golf tournament in San Diego. Someone wake me when LA starts on Thursday. Crane is one of those guys the Rules Officials like to say takes a lantern with him as his 15th club. Meanwhile, Phil Mickelson is using a wedge with square grooves that is legal in spite of square grooves being outlawed by the USGA because of a court case settled more than 20 years ago. Scott McCarron says Mickelson is “cheating,” the spirit of the new rule. Mickelson says that McCarron has “publicly slandered,” him and is threatening legal action. One thing worth noting: you can’t PRIVATELY slander someone.

--The Islanders have tanked. Five straight losses with six goals scored in those games. Even their last win was 2-1 in a shootout. That makes seven goals in six games. That’s okay in soccer. Not so much in hockey. Meanwhile, the Capitals have won 10 in a row and I think the average score has been something like 14-2. Prediction: Barring injury, they win The Stanley Cup although I’m still not sure about the goaltending. It may not matter if they continue to score 14 goals a night.

--The NBA is still going on. At least I think it is. ESPN is still running those silly commercials so I guess it’s going on. No reported arrests in the Wizards locker room last week. Great line by a radio guy in New York before the Wiz and the Nets played Friday night: “The Nets are going for one for the thumb tonight.” That would have been their fifth win of the season. They didn’t get it. The announced attendance in the Meadowlands was 11,384 that night. Yeah, right. I believe the 384 part.

--I was listening this morning to a radio show and the subject of Cornell came up. I’m amazed sometimes that people who call themselves college basketball fans think that only the teams from the BCS conference matter or are any good—especially since that’s disproven every March. Someone had the temerity to call in and say Cornell deserved some respect and attention. The hosts started laughing at him, saying Cornell couldn’t possibly compete in the ACC. Guess what? The Big Red might not be able to keep up with the entire league for 16 games but one game on a neutral site? There’s not a soul in the ACC that wants to play them. This is a team that’s won At Alabama, At Massachusetts, At St. John’s and almost beat Kansas at Kansas. Its other two losses are at Syracuse and to Seton Hall—very early in the season. One host said, “yeah, I guess they’ll be a No. 14 seed.” Guess what: If they aren’t at least a single digit seed (assuming they win out which they should) the committee should be investigated.

Now, a few words on my weekend. After getting home late Friday night from the Florida trip for the ‘Caddy For Life,’ documentary, I had to drive Saturday to Worcester to do Lehigh-Holy Cross on Sunday. I enjoy doing The Patriot League games on TV. I like my partner, Bob Socci and we’ve worked together for 13 years on Navy games and eight years on The Patriot League games. I enjoy the coaches and the players and the people I’ve come to know through the years at the eight schools.

I don’t usually mind the drive to Holy Cross. I know it in my sleep, I even know exactly where I want to stop to eat and to get gas. I can usually make it in seven hours or a little less if I’m lucky.

Saturday was a nightmare. We were supposed to get a couple of inches of snow in the Washington area. Not exactly. Closer to 10. There was supposed to be no snow north of Baltimore. Not exactly. It stopped snowing when I got to the George Washington Bridge. There wasn’t a plow in sight on I-95. The road was treacherous. There were people spinning out and pulled over everywhere. It took me two hours and 20 minutes—normally 45 minutes—to get to Baltimore. It took four hours—normally two hours—to get to The New Jersey Turnpike. It took more than two hours to get up the Turnpike—normally 1:45 at most. In all, it was just under 10 hours. I think I’m getting too old for this. Maybe I’ll tell The Patriot League it should hire Pete Gillen to do the games next season.

I enjoyed the game. I always like being inside The Hart Center, which is a classic old GYM—not an arena with some stupid corporate name on it. The atmosphere is relaxed. There’s not a single yellow-jacketed security person to be found. I felt for Sean Kearney, who is in his first year at Holy Cross after 22 years as an assistant and is struggling with a team trying to learn a completely different style of play at both ends of the court. There’s not a nicer person in hoops than Sean. I think—and hope—things will get better for him.

The trip home was easy—seven hours on the dot. The only problem was not being able to escape The Pro Bowl. At least that’s over. Now we have seven days of Super Bowl hype to look forward to. Oh joy.

Last night was one to put the remote to heavy use. There was all sorts of college basketball going on, not to mention the Islanders absolutely smoking the once-vaunted Detroit Red Wings. I can’t wait to talk to Matt Rennie (aka Mr. Detroit who is my editor at The Post) this morning. Rennie is apt to duck my call after that performance.

The college hoops I saw had a myriad of story lines. Purdue lost for a second straight game—at home no less—blowing a late 13-point lead to Ohio State. What does this prove? Nothing we don’t already know: once you get in to conference play no one is going to win every night. Texas is going to lose at some point and so is Kentucky although it is impossible not to be impressed with the Wildcats. I made my first trip ever to Florida’s O’Connell Center last year and it is a VERY tough place to play. Kentucky made it look easy, taking the lead midway in the first half and looking to be in control from that point on.

The other game that caught my eye was North Carolina State winning at Florida State. It’s the road wins you notice this time of year. Wake Forest escaping Maryland in overtime only means the Deacons held serve and Maryland missed a chance for a bonus victory. Baylor losing at Colorado is the same thing. Teams lose on the road. When you win on the road, especially against a ranked team or even a good unranked team, that’s something to hang your hat on.

There may not have been a team or a coach more in need of a win than N.C. State and Sidney Lowe. Two Sundays ago, the Wolfpack had Florida beaten until a 70-foot shot at the buzzer went in and the Gators won by one. Because I always connect Billy Donovan in my mind to Rick Pitino (since he played for him at Providence and coached under him at Kentucky) I remembered a game years ago in Hawaii when a Kentucky player grabbed a rebound in the final seconds, went the length of the court and scored to beat Arizona at the buzzer.

“We call that play explosion,” Pitino said after the game. Back then Rick always had to take a bow. Now I think he would just say, “the kid made a hell of a play.” Donovan simply said his kid hit an amazing shot and left it at that.

After that brutal loss, State beat Holy Cross (yawn) but then blew a nine point lead last Saturday AT HOME to Virginia, which is still learning how to play Tony Bennett slow-ball. So to go TO Florida State and win was a very big deal.

Lowe will always be a hero at N.C. State for his role in the 1983 national championship. He was a superb point guard on that team. One of my favorite (among many) Jim Valvano stories is about Lowe dribbling the clock down late in a game (there was no shot clock). He came over near the bench and said, “Coach, I need a blow.”

Valvano nodded and said, “You’ll get one Sidney—just as soon as your eligibility is used up.”

This is Lowe’s fourth year at State and he hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament yet. He had an unlikely run to the ACC Tournament final his first season but that’s been about it for excitement. State fans more or less ran Herb Sendek out of town even though he had gotten State into the tournament five years in a row and reached the sweet sixteen. Sendek didn’t beat Duke or North Carolina enough and his dry personality wasn’t enough to overcome that defect. Lowe has plenty of personality and that State pedigree but he hasn’t beaten State or Carolina very much and hasn’t won nearly as much as Sendek did. It seems unlikely he’d get run off after four years but we live in an era where Ivy League coaches are getting jettisoned (two of them now—Glenn Miller at Penn, Terry Dunn at Dartmouth) in midseason. So nothing is a certain in coaching.

Ask the Tennessee fans who spent the last year learning to love Lane Kiffin.

Kentucky’s continuing success is going to continue to raise the issue of John Calipari’s move to UK from Memphis; the players he ran off and his history at Memphis and Massachusetts. Everyone knows the Kentucky people could care less about Calipari’s past, they care only about his present and future. They may already be erecting a statue to him by now.

In a very real sense they are no different than other fans—only there are more of them and they do tend to go a little bit nuts in both directions. I still remember being in a car during Tubby Smith’s first season at the school (which ended in a national title) and hearing a fan call into his show. “Coach,” he said, “I just want you to know I haven’t given up on this team yet.”

Kentucky was 25-4 at that moment.

One coach I know who knows Calipari well and has recruited against him for years said this about him: “He’s the most dangerous guy in the game right now. Why? Because he’s a good coach and a good guy and people like him. But he’s going to do whatever it takes to win—whatever it takes. You think it’s a coincidence he’s had two Final Fours vacated? Sure and Mark McGwire took steroids because of injuries.”

That sums up the way a lot of coaches feel about Calipari. Some of that is jealousy but some of that IS his past. I fall into the category of people who like John. I first met him in 1984 when he was a 25-year-old assistant coach at Kansas and was working at The Five Star camp. We were close in age and hit it off right away. John liked to talk. My job is to listen.

Ten years later, when John had taken U-Mass from nowhere to a No. 1 ranking, Peter Teeley—who had been Bush 1’s speechwriter when he was vice president—came to me and asked if I could help him put together a charity basketball tournament in Washington. Gary Williams said yes right away on behalf of Maryland; John Thompson said no right away on behalf of Georgetown. We needed a glamour team to come in and play Maryland the first year. I called John. “Let me see if I can move some things on my schedule,” he said. He did and the U-Mass-Maryland game gave the event credibility that has helped carry it through 15 successful years.

(Note to Georgetown fans who keep asking me why we have “kept Georgetown out,” of the event. Nothing could be further from the truth. We’ve negotiated with Craig Esherick, with John Thompson III and with Bernie Muir and Adam Brick when they were AD’s and gotten nowhere. I still believe Big John Thompson is pulling that string).

So it is hard for me to not like Calipari for a number of reasons. But there’s no doubt the more his team, built in large part around two kids he brought with him when he left Memphis who are likely to be one-and-outs, will continue to be a source of controversy as it continues to win.

Tonight, I’ll be I Charlottesville for my first in-person look at both Georgia Tech and Virginia, with new coach Tony Bennett. UVA had a good win on Saturday when it won at N.C. State but tonight will be a much bigger test against a Tech team with one of the better young frontcourts in the country.

Remarkably, this will be my first game at The John Paul Jones Arena. I’ve seen it because Craig Littlepage gave me a tour a couple years ago when I went down to speak to some UVA students, but haven’t been there for a game. I know it is a marked upgrade for Virginia over creaky old University Hall, but I for one will miss the old place. Not only did it have excellent press seating it had the best media parking—like 10 yards from the back door to the building—in the country. If you think that’s not a big deal to someone like me you’re wrong. Parking, especially in winter, is always key for me. My guess is I’ll spend a lot of time moaning tonight about the good old days. But getting to have dinner at The Aberdeen Barn with a bunch of my old friends in the UVA media will make it worth the trip. Oh, and the game should be good too.

--------------------

I have to admit I was surprised yesterday that some posters and e-mailers seemed to think I let Mark McGwire off the hook. I admitted up front that I liked him. Then I went on to say he clearly hadn’t told the entire truth when he claimed he only used steroids to deal with injuries and to stay on the field. I also said he did not belong in the Hall of Fame and that I wouldn’t vote for him if I had a vote. I don’t think that’s letting him off the hook. I would have said the exact same thing about Barry Bonds—who I can’t stand.

Oh well, can’t please everyone.

News Item 1: David Stern finally gets mad—justifiably—and suspends Gilbert Arenas indefinitely.

News Item 2: Andre Dawson is voted into The Hall of Fame—good job by the voters. Robert Alomar is not—he should have been but will be next year. Bert Blyleven is not for the 13th straight year. I just don’t get it.

News Item 3: Mike Shanahan is introduced as the new Redskins coach. He deftly ducks questions about who will be in charge and does everything but kiss Dan Snyder on the lips during his press conference. Of course for $35 million most of us would kiss almost anyone on the lips.

News Item 4: Kansas comes from eight points down AT HOME to beat CORNELL. I was a little stunned at game’s end based on the way the fans were acting in Allen Field House that they didn’t storm the court.

News Item 5: The PGA Tour begins the 2010 season today on Maui. Hallelujah. It might be possible to talk about golf for at least a sentence or two without using the words Tiger Woods.

News Item 6: The Islanders come from behind in Colorado, then blow a lead but beat the Avalanche 3-2. They are now at .500. Okay, this may only be a news item to me but what the heck. I went to bed happy.


Now, to review.

Item one--I have no doubt that David Stern would have preferred to wait for the legal process to move further along (he is, after all, a lawyer) before taking action on Gilbert Arenas. But after Arenas’s idiotic behavior on Tuesday in Philadelphia, he had no choice but to act.

The photo of Arenas pretending to ‘shoot,’ his teammates with his fingers—while they all stood around laughing—may have been the most damning moment in this entire debacle. Arenas then made it worse (if possible) with his postgame comment that, if he felt as if he’d done anything wrong, then he’d apologize.

There are some guys in sports who need John McEnroe following them around repeatedly saying, “You cannot be serious!.” (Quick aside: Years ago I was in a hotel room with McEnroe after a match. Mary Carillo was also there as was a friend of McEnroe’s whose name I honestly can’t remember. Room service had been ordered and hadn’t shown up after 45 minutes. McEnroe finally told his friend to call and find out what the hell was going on. The friend picked up the phone and said to McEnroe, “do you want me to just ask what’s going on or, you know, give them the ‘You can NOT be serious,’ bit?’ McEnroe opted for the latter. The food showed up about five minutes later).

Once Stern saw the photo and the quote he had to get Arenas off the court right away. If he hadn’t, he would have looked foolish. Flip Saunders looked pretty bad not taking action right away in Philadelphia but Stern seems to be covering for the Wizards and their inaction by saying he had ordered them not to take action until he did.

My guess is Arenas doesn’t get it and isn’t going to get it. He still thinks his mistake in bringing guns into The Verizon Center was akin to forgetting to slow down in one of those camera speed traps—pay the 40 bucks and move on. It’s pretty clear his teammates haven’t gotten it yet either even though they tried to act as if they did in Cleveland Wednesday night. Still, you could hear them clinging to the, “when the truth comes out it won’t be so bad,” line.

Wrong. This is already really bad and, in all likelihood, the more truth that comes out the worse it is going to be for Arenas.

It’s truly a sad story because this was a guy who lit up a bleak sports skyline when he first came to Washington. And, as if so often the case, the reaction to the mistake has been at least as costly as the mistake itself. If Arenas had instantly thrown himself on the mercy of the court of public opinion and said, ‘My God, what was I thinking, I’m so sorry,” and NOT twittered jokes and NOT shrugged it off as no big deal and NOT still been playing it off as a joke the day after his lawyer released his clearly insincere apology, people would be saying by now, ‘hey, leave him alone, he made a mistake and he acknowledged it.’

Now, even the perpetual jock-defenders are shaking their heads and saying, ‘what was he thinking?’

We all know the answer to that question.


Item Two: I’m happy Andre Dawson made it to the Hall of Fame. In the years that I voted, I always put him on my ballot. (The Washington Post no longer allows writers to vote for Halls of Fame which I think is silly but, hey, they’re writing the checks and I’m cashing them so I don’t vote). He was a great two-way player for a long time, a superb base runner who had a long, productive career. I think his batting average (.279) held him back but all his other numbers were so good—including eight gold gloves—I thought he was deserving.

Alomar is a lock Hall of Famer. The only reason he came up just short this time (73.7 percent of the votes when 75 percent is needed) is because some voters are still punishing him for the 1996 John Hirschbeck spitting incident (Hirschbeck BTW has forgiven him and endorsed his candidacy) and because there are some guys who will not vote for a guy his first time on the ballot.

The second reason is a joke: You either are a Hall of Famer or are not a Hall of Famer. I had this argument with Bill Conlin, for whom I have great respect, when he didn’t vote for Nolan Ryan the first (and only) time he was on the ballot. I’ve always believed that if a voter leaves certain players off the ballot for any reason—like a Cal Ripken or a Tony Gwynn to give two recent examples—he should lose his vote for the next year. Seriously, who died and made any of us God?

The Hirschbeck incident is different. The ballot DOES say that a player’s actions as a person can be taken into account. Alomar—surprise—was initially unrepentant when the incident occurred in 1996. In fact, one of the sadder scenes I’ve ever seen was the first game of the playoffs that year when Oriole fans, normally among the best in baseball, booed the UMPIRES when they came on the field because Alomar was going to be suspended to begin the next season.

That was Alomar’s one truly bad moment and you don’t wipe out an entire career for that. (Steroids is another story entirely).

Blyleven is the mystery to me. He came up a little shy of 300 wins—287—but had some other great numbers, notably the fact that he pitched SIXTY shutouts. Just as one means of comparison, that’s more shutouts than Tom Glavine had complete games (57). Sure, different era, but not THAT different—Glavine was in the big leagues for several years before Blyleven retired.

I’m not picking on Tom—obviously—and he is and should be a lock Hall of Famer since he won 305 games. But sixty shutouts? Are you kidding? Blyleven pitched on a lot of bad teams but on good ones too. There are parts of his record you can nit-pick but overall? He should have been in years ago.

For the record, this isn’t personal at all. The couple of times I dealt with Blyleven as a player he wasn’t especially pleasant. I remember in 1992 when I was doing my first baseball book trying to set a time to talk to him when he was pitching for the Angels. I was in Anaheim for three days and asked if he could give me some time on any of those days since he had just pitched the day before. “I’ve done my media for the week,” he said. (He had done Roy Firestone’s show the day before).

So, I went instead to talk to Jim Abbott, who you may remember became a solid big league pitcher even though he was born without a right hand. “I’ll make you a deal,” Abbott said. “I’ll talk to you for as long as you want about whatever you want if you tell me everything you know about Steffi Graf.” (I’d just written ‘Hard Courts.’)

Jim Abbott is a Hall of Fame guy. Blyleven is a Hall of Fame pitcher.


Item three: Shanahan arrives. Building of monument begins. There’s not much to say about this except that everyone knows if Dan Snyder doesn’t get out of the way it won’t matter how good a coach Shanahan is. When Shanahan was asked who was in charge he answered the question as if the issue was whether he or Bruce Allen had final say. Good answer even though that wasn’t the question.

He also kept saying over and over that he had never met anyone who was more enthusiastic about the Washington Redskins than Dan Snyder. Wow, that’s out on a limb. It’s a little bit like saying you’ve never met anyone more enthusiastic about my books than me. Then he said Joe Gibbs had told him no one had been more supportive of him than Snyder. Last I looked Jack Kent Cooke gave Gibbs everything he could possibly want to help him win three Super Bowls AND chose him in a power struggle with Bobby Beathard—which was probably a mistake. Then again, Snyder did FINANCIALLY support Gibbs better than anyone ever did.

Oh, one more thing: Word today is that Jerry Gray may become the defensive coordinator. What a surprise, the guy Snyder used to get around The Rooney Rule, who stood there and stonewalled for three weeks not only keeps his job but gets promoted. So unlike Snyder.


Item 4—I wrote here last week that Cornell is really good. The Big Red came very close to becoming national darlings last night but couldn’t quite hold on against the No. 1 ranked team in the country. ESPN correctly switched to the late stages of the game from a desultory Duke-Iowa State game and I swear I thought I was watching Kansas-Texas the last five minutes based on the crowd reaction to the rally.

No doubt they were relieved at dodging what they thought would be an embarrassing loss. But really it wouldn’t have been that embarrassing: Cornell’s good. Of course now they will be everyone’s first round upset darling in March. That’s IF they can beat Harvard to win The Ivy League. And if you think the committee is giving the Ivy League an at-large bid you should apply for a job at The Fritz Pollard Alliance and oversee the Rooney Rule.


Item 5—I did my Golf Channel Essay this week on the start of the new season and the fact that it would be nice to be able to watch golf and talk about golf without Tiger coming up in every other sentence. I was trying to make the point that while Tiger is no doubt the face of the game to MANY, there are lots of us who liked golf before Tiger and will continue to like it without Tiger—however long that may be during his ‘leave of absence.’ I brought up the fact that when ‘A Good Walk Spoiled,’ reached number one on The New York Times bestseller list in 1995, the name Tiger Woods appeared once—for two sentences.

One of the better regular posters on the blog, Vince, accused me yesterday of being self-serving by bringing up the book. Maybe, but I honestly thought it tangibly made my point. He said if I’d written the book five or six years later with Tiger as a major character the book would have been on The Times list for three years instead of seven months. Again, maybe. But I’ve written golf books since then that featured Tiger and, while they’ve sold well, they didn’t outsell ‘A Good Walk Spoiled.’ And, for the record Vince, I was making fun of the 50 percent who only watch golf when Tiger’s playing when I said, “50 percent of us who watch golf do so with or without Tiger.”


Item 6—There was a Rick DiPietro spotting on the Islanders bench last night. He’s been out so long his 15 year contract may be up soon. Dwayne Roloson has been great all year but if DiPietro could actually come back healthy…No, not going there, too far out on a limb.

Let’s start today with the big news of the weekend: The Islanders, after blowing a three goal lead on Saturday night, won a shootout against the Atlanta Thrashers to pick up two critical points.

Okay, just kidding. But I love having the NHL center ice package even though watching the Islanders some nights is about as much fun as listening to Mark Jones say that one of Navy’s football players will be reporting to “Quan-TEE-co,” this spring. Several people pointed out to me on Friday that I forgot to mention that one. I’m also told that Jones and his partner Bob Davie showed up in the TV booth not long before kickoff and didn’t have time to go through the usual ritual of having the SID’s (at least the Navy SID) make sure they knew how to pronounce all the players names.

Thus Davie managed to mispronounce the name of (his words) “the greatest captain in Navy football history,” Ross Posposil. Or, as Davie called him, “Poposil.”

Oh, one more thing: a friend who is a Missouri fan tells me they botched a number of Missouri players’ names too so let’s give them points for consistency. Then, during The Alamo Bowl, Davie kept going on about the “passion,” of the Texas Tech fans because they’re all so angry about Mike Leach being fired. What I heard directed at Adam James didn’t exactly sound like passion.

Okay, let’s move on to a review of the first three days of the New Year.

And, for a moment, let’s stay with hockey.

When the NHL started the “Winter Classic,” in 2008 I thought it was terrific. The whole spectacle worked. I also thought that by the third year or the fourth year the uniqueness would wear off and it would become an over-hyped regular season hockey game.

At least for me, it hasn’t happened yet.

Friday afternoon I kept wanting to hit the remote and switch back to Penn State-LSU or Florida State-West Virginia because both those games certainly had intriguing story lines and, in the case of Penn State-LSU a dramatic ending. But the setting—hockey in Fenway Park!—was just irresistible. The NHL and NBC have gotten lucky with the weather each year: cold enough to make it really feel like a game on a rink somewhere in Canada but not so much snow that you couldn’t play.

That said, the whole concept just works. Even though I can’t help but curse the day Mike Milbury decided to draft Rick DiPietro with the No. 1 pick, seeing him skate over to Bob Costas and talk about playing outdoors as a kid was cool. There was also the added bonus of a very good game between the Flyers and Bruins. Word is next year’s game will be between The Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins, probably in Pittsburgh because the risk of warm weather in DC is too great (not this year that’s for sure). If it is at all possible, I’m going.

Switching to the football games, the highlight of Penn State-LSU was hearing Joe Paterno screaming at Erin Andrews, “come on, let’s go, let’s go,” when Brad Nessler was a tad slow throwing it down to her for the mandatory (dull) halftime interview. That’s one thing about Joe, he is almost ALWAYS in curmudgeon mode.

A friend of mine tells a story about being at a dinner with Joe one night a couple of years ago. The appetizer was some kind of bruschetta and when the teen-age waitress—thinking Joe was finished—started to clear his plate he screamed at her, “What do you think you’re doing! I’m not finished here yet!” Poor kid apparently almost fainted.

Flashing forward to the end of the game: I am really tired of officials not using common sense and then falling back on the letter of the law (or the rules) as an excuse. Down 19-17, LSU had moved the ball to midfield with about 20 seconds remaining—maybe it was 25, I don’t remember exactly—and one of the Penn State players was doing exactly what he should do in that situation: lying on top of the ball for as long as he could to keep the clock running. One of the LSU linemen tried to move him off the ball and got nailed with a 15-yard penalty that, for all intents and purposes, ended the game.

Basically, the officials made LSU pay for their not taking control at that moment. As soon as they saw the Penn State kid clearly not getting off the ball, they should have stopped the clock, gotten him up and then re-started the clock right away. No penalty either way, let the kids decide who wins. It would still have been a long shot for LSU to get into position for a field goal, get their field goal unit on the field (with no time outs left) and get a kick off in the mud to win. But there was a CHANCE and the officials, basically being lazy, took it away from them.

That said, I was glad to see both old coaches—Paterno and Bobby Bowden—win.

Bowden, as you might expect, was all class all day. It’s a shame the same can’t be said for the people running Florida State who kicked him out the door and couldn’t bring themselves to give him one more season as if he hasn’t done enough for the school to merit that. The spear toss was magical and Bowden’s wife Ann coming into his press conference to say, “it’s time to go honey,” was almost a perfect metaphor: Bobby Bowden always had time for everybody.

Back to field goal kickers for a moment. I really felt for the Northwestern kid who missed the three field goals in The Outback Bowl (is it over yet?) but much worse for Ben Hartman, the kicker from East Carolina. He had two chances from 39 yards to win The Liberty Bowl for his team in the final 67 seconds of regulation and then missed a 35-yarder in overtime opening the door for Arkansas to win the game, 20-17.

Hartman was a very good kicker at ECU but there’s no doubt it is going to be hard for him to forget the last game of his college career. I really feel for kickers at moments like that. I still vividly remember Ryan Bucchianeri, who as a Navy freshman in 1993 missed an 18-yarder at the buzzer that would have won the Army-Navy game. Even though Bucchianeri talked to the media afterwards and took full responsibility for the miss—it was a very wet field and a tough angle—but his response was simply, “I have to make that kick,” the miss haunted him during his entire time as a Midshipman.

I noticed in the Sunday paper that Hartman had not spoken to the media afterwards. I was curious who made the call: did the kid simply not want to do it? Did Skip Holtz, his coach make the decision? I dropped a note to Tom McLellan, the associate AD in charge of PR at East Carolina and asked him the question.

Tom not only got right back to me, he took the hit for the decision. He said he had made a judgment on the spot that Hartman was in no condition—emotionally—to speak to the media at that moment. I don’t disagree with Tom at all. His first job is to protect the players UNLESS they’ve done something really wrong like cheating on a test or getting arrested. This wasn’t close to that: he missed three kicks. No crime was committed.

Having said that, as I said to Tom later, I actually think Hartman might have benefited if he’d talked. Even if he broke down and cried, people would have respected him for giving it a shot. I’m also frequently amazed by athletes’ ability to handle themselves with grace under that kind of pressure. More often it is college athletes who do well in those moments because they haven’t been nearly as spoiled or over-protected as the pros (See James, Lebron).

Bottom line in it all is this: I had no vested interest in who won the game but my heart goes out to Ben Hartman.

One basketball note for the day: Did anyone see the 70-foot shot that Chandler Parsons hit at the buzzer to give Florida a 62-61 overtime win over North Carolina State? I happened to be watching, in part because State Coach Sidney Lowe was doing exactly what I would have done in that situation: fouling with a three point lead in the final 10 seconds and not letting Florida get off a tying three point shot. (Two hours later Xavier would allow Wake Forest to take a three in the last 12 seconds of overtime and would get burned by the decision).

Unfortunately, because Parsons threw in a miracle shot—which was RIGHT on line all the way and was, naturally, his only field goal of the game—coaches will now cite that as a reason not to foul. They’ll be wrong. Lowe got it right. He—and his players—just got amazingly unlucky.

There is so much more to talk about: the Redskins firing (at 4 o’clock in the morning) of Jim Zorn and their hiring (no doubt) of Mike Shanahan; the team formerly known as the Bullets and gun play; Kansas’ remarkable performance on Saturday at Temple and—did I mention the Islanders won in a shootout out?

More on that—okay, not the Islanders—tomorrow.

Last night was what my son Danny describes as, “a big night for my dad.”

I cooked dinner after picking him up from school, started a fire in the fireplace in my office (the main reason I bought this house) and sat down in front of the TV.

On nights like this—which are too rare as far as I’m concerned—it doesn’t bother me that much if there isn’t anything to watch on TV. I basically gave up on watching network shows years ago: I will watch the occasional ‘Seinfeld,’ rerun although I’ve even become selective about that. Festivus for the rest of us I’ll watch every time and the one where Steinbrenner goes to George’s house to tell his parents that George is dead and Mr. Costanza’s response is, “what were you thinking trading Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps!” I’ll watch every time. Some of the later episodes not so much.

Anyway, the way it works, I’ll surf around. If the Islanders are playing—especially these days now that I have the hockey package again (hallelujah!)--I’ll probably watch them. Is there someone on Long Island who can tell me what is going on at The Nassau Coliseum that they are currently on a two week, seven game road trip? During baseball season I can usually find a baseball game to watch and now that college hoops is underway there is almost always a college game I’m interested in for one reason or another.

If all else fails, I press two buttons and go to my ‘West Wing,’ DVD. I’m watching season two again right now.

Last night was what most would consider a slim pickings night. But two things drew me in—one briefly, almost like gazing at the scene of a car accident—the other for almost the entire game.

The car accident was a football game between Central Michigan and Ball State. It wasn’t that matchup that caused me to pause on the game. At 1-9, Ball State is a shadow of the team it was the last two years with Nate Davis at quarterback. Central Michigan is the MAC’s best team at 8-2, including a win over Michigan State. The game figured to be—and was—a mismatch.

What caused me to pause was ESPN showing a couple of The Ball State seniors being greeted pre-game because it was, “senior night.” The play-by-play guy—they really DO sound all alike don’t they—was talking about Ball State only having 11 seniors and how that really boded well for next year and Trent Dilfer, who I guess was trying out as a color man, went on about the team’s potential for 2010 so much I was wondering if Ball State might be ranked in the top ten preseason.

What got me though was this: the rain was pouring down as the seniors and their families walked onto the field. The far side of the stadium was just about empty—I mean EMPTY—because who is coming out on a miserable Wednesday night to see a bad team play football?

This was the memory those seniors and their families would take with them of their last home college football game. Look, it might have rained on Saturday—it’s November in Indiana. I lived there for a year, I get it. But a day game on a Saturday, you’re going to get a better crowd. Maybe the sun will come out for a while. There were no students in sight, they had better things to do no doubt on a school night with exams approaching. I just thought it was sad.

I know the genie is out of the bottle on these weeknight college football games but can’t there be SOME limits. Can’t the presidents intervene and say—no weeknight games after Halloween? The answer of course is no but I wish the president of Ball State would look at that tape and at least wonder if that was the way a bunch of kids who gave the school four—or five—years of hard work playing football wanted to go out. There’s nothing that can be done now about the 1-10 record. It would have been nice though if those seniors—who were a part of two bowl teams and a 10-0 start last year—could have gone out with a little more dignity than on a Wednesday night, in a pouring rain with literally almost no one but friends and family watching.

I watched one Central Michigan drive because their quarterback is supposed to be a pro prospect. Dilfer at one point said he was every bit as good a football player as Tim Tebow or Colt McCoy. I’m so glad no one on TV goes in for hyperbole.

Having heard enough of that I switched over to the Loyola-UMBC basketball game. As people know, this is one of my quirks—I love games like this. I know both coaches well—Randy Monroe at UMBC first gained national attention for throwing his team out of the locker room for a week, then built the team into an NCAA Tournament team a couple years ago. I wrote a column about him after the locker room incident and he said, “I know Knight has done it, I know Krzyzewski has done it. I figured they were pretty good role models.”

I’ve know Loyola’s Jimmy Patsos since he survived—the correct word to use—12 years as an assistant to Gary Williams at Maryland.

Patsos has worked tirelessly to get Loyola to the top of the MAAC since taking over a team that had been 1-27. He won 18 games two years ago but has never been able to get over the Siena-Niagara hump at the top of the league. Last year he got national attention for the wrong reasons—leaving his bench to sit in the stands during a game because he was upset with the officiating; holding Stephen Curry scoreless in a game by double or triple teaming him all night but losing the game by 30.

Is he nuts? He worked for Gary for 12 years, of course he’s nuts. He’s also a very good man who tries very hard to make playing college basketball more than just about basketball for his players. He makes them go to museums on the road. During one pre-game talk last year he quoted Harvey Milk, Shakespeare and Clarence Thomas (okay, no one is perfect).

He also has a pretty good team this year. He’s got a smart little point guard who can really pass and some experience up front, plus Shane Walker, a Maryland transfer who clearly has some potential. The game was back-and-forth the entire second half with both coaches screaming (and I do mean screaming) at their players on almost every possession. Loyola pulled it out late, running really good offense when it had to and getting the ball inside after settling for quick shots while blowing a 10 point lead.

My old pal Hoops Weiss (two mentions in a row for him this week) who knows every coach ever born frequently walks out after games saying, “I’m vurry, vurry (he’s from Philly) pleased for (fill-in-the-winning-coach’s-name) but vurry, vurry disappointed for (fill-in-the-losing coach’s-name. They’re both good friends of mine.”

I felt like Hoops last night. Vurry, vurry pleased for Jimmy, vurry, vurry disappointed for Randy. Once I finish the kids book I’m working on (it is set at Army-Navy and will be done by, I hope, Thanksgiving) I’ll get out and see their teams play in person.

I was going to write about Al McGuire this morning in response to a post yesterday after the Dick Vitale blog but he merits an entire blog—and more. Just too many Al stories to tell. He was a good friend—who wrote the introduction to ‘A Season on the Brink.’

I will leave you with one quick story because there really are a million. Al had instincts about people like no one I’ve ever met. During the year I was in Bloomington he came out to do a couple of games for NBC. Whenever he did, Knight would put together dinner the night before the game. On the night before the last game Al was working, he looked at Bob and I at one point and said, “this is kind of a sad night for me.”

Why, we asked.

“Because this is the last time I’m going to see the two of you together.”

Again we asked, why?

Al laughed. “Because once this book comes out, you’ll never speak to one another again.”

Like I said, he really knew people. More to come—a lot more—about Al on another day. Let me add one more thing: I really miss him.

Although there probably won’t be all that many people watching with The World Series going on (today’s soap opera questions: how does Pedro Martinez pitch while facing the Yankees in postseason for the first time since 2004; does A.J. Burnett implode if Joe Girardi makes him pitch to Jorge Posada?) there’s a college football game on TV tonight: North Carolina at Virginia Tech.

I bring this up not because it is a big game for anyone other than, well, North Carolina and Virginia Tech, but because of a story in this morning’s Washington Post about the fact that some faculty at Virginia Tech are very upset about a few evening classes being cancelled because the campus is basically overrun by football traffic.

Look, I can’t stand these midweek football games. College football is supposed to be played on Saturdays, really in the afternoon most of the time, although it is understandable why some places in the south prefer night games, especially early in the season.

But in the continuing sell-out by the alleged college presidents of college athletics to corporate America and TV, we now have college football games almost every night of the week. The ACC almost always has a Thursday night game and some of the smaller D-1 conferences line their teams up on Tuesday and Wednesday all the time. Once, Friday night was untouchable because the colleges gave way to high school football one night a week. Not anymore.

In fact, last Friday night ESPN had Rutgers-Army. There may be no place in the country where not playing on Saturday afternoon is a bigger crime than West Point. Anyone who has ever been to a game in Michie Stadium will know what I’m talking about. In 1999 in listing the 20 greatest sports venues of the 20th century, Sports Illustrated ranked Michie Stadium third—THIRD—behind only Yankee Stadium and Augusta National Golf Club.

Michie Stadium—and the entire military academy—are about as scenic as anyplace you can go on a fall afternoon. Even though Army’s been lousy the last 12 years (finally improving now with the right coach in place) there is nothing quite like a game at West Point. People arrive in the morning to tailgate, to go down to the plain to watch the cadet parade, then file into the pretty little stadium overlooking the reservoir, the mountains and the Hudson River.

On a Friday night though, it’s completely different. Traffic coming up from New York, where many fans come from, is an absolute nightmare. It is going to be cold for kickoff in late October and you can’t SEE any of the surrounding beauty. Playing on Friday always costs Army about 10,000 fans (at least) at the start of the game and, when the game’s not close and it’s raining, the stands are virtually empty during the second half.

The good news is that Army has signed a new TV contract with CBS College Sports that will mean all home games will kick off at noon on Saturday. The bad news is, Army is the exception—weeknight football across the country isn’t going away. Schools won’t turn down the money or the exposure they’re being offered in return for giving up Saturday football.

For most schools, a weeknight football game is a once a year on campus experience so there really is no reason not to try to enjoy it. Here though is a quote from today’s Post story from Jan Helge Bohn, a member of The Virginia Tech faculty: “I’m highly annoyed by the misplaced emphasis on athletics at the university. It infuriates me. The fact I have to move my car and go home and terminate work is outrageous in an academic community.”

If this was a once a week activity or even once a month the (self) esteemed professor might have a point. But we’re talking once a YEAR. Are athletics over-emphasized in many different ways at many, if not most, Division 1 schools? You bet. If this is so annoying and outrageous, get a job at a D-3 school. But please save the outrage for something important. Someone teaching at Virginia Tech should be especially conscious of the fact that being inconvenienced one day a year is hardly an issue of monumental importance. One wonders, when the entire school came together in the wake of the shootings to mourn and bond at the first football game that fall, if the professor was upset about THAT.

Speaking of annoying people, it has become pretty much impossible to not write or talk about the train wreck called The Washington Redskins. The club reached new lows on Monday night, not by dropping to 2-5 in a one-sided loss to the Philadelphia Eagles but with the neo-fascist tactics brought to bear (on Dan Snyder’s orders obviously) on fans who had the nerve to bring signs to the stadium.

Security people were ordered to not only confiscate all signs—clearly as an excuse to confiscate the negative ones—but also tossed people for wearing SHIRTS that said things like, “Sell the team,” or one that had a photo of Snyder and henchman Vinny Cerrato with a caption that said, “dumb and dumber.”

It got so bad that Dan Steinberg, who writes the very smart DC Sports Bog in The Post, was accosted by a security guard because he was looking through the garbage to see some of the signs that had been confiscated. The team put out a statement saying the new policy was put in because signs could block people's view (as opposed to those whose views are already blocked sitting in obstructed-view seats) and because those on sticks could be dangerous. Yeah, right, really dangerous. Oh one other thing: the TEAM handed out signs to people at several gates with the name of one of its corporate sponsors on it. Apparently THOSE did not block views and were not dangerous. Jeesh. Do these people EVER get caught in a truth?

Along with that came a radio appearance by the Redskins CFO—whose name I can’t remember and isn’t worth the time for me to look it up—in which he attacked The Post, accusing it of, “yellow journalism,” for the stories which revealed the team selling tickets to brokers last year (and bypassing those on the season ticket waiting list) and suing people who could no longer afford to pay for their incredibly over-priced club seats.

Yellow journalism? The stories were written by a Pulitzer Prize business reporter who did a LOT of digging to come up with facts. At one point CFO-guy said, “we don’t sue our fans.” Then later he said they had “only,” sued 125 fans in five years, which is considerably different than not suing your fans. He kept saying “125 fans out of 24,000 club seat and suite holders.” Let’s not even get into the question of whether 24,000 is a legitimate number given the waves of empty seats every week in the club section. That’s not the relevant number. The relevant number is how many people defaulted on their contracts among the 24,000. My guess is the number is about 125.

He also claimed the Redskins had dropped their lawsuit against, “Miss Hill or Miss Hall,” not even remembering her name. Miss Hill is the 72-year-old grandmother who became the centerpiece of The Post’s series. “Once we had the information we dropped the suit,” CFO guy said.

Where, exactly, did you get the information by the way? Oh wait, it was from that yellow journalism in The Post.

Honestly, I feel bad for these people who are forced—because they work for him—to defend Dan Snyder. It’s a little bit like it had to be working in The White House in 1974.

One last note: My Islanders beat the Rangers last night! Hallelujah. That’s two wins and the season isn’t yet a month old. Does anyone out there know where Bob Bourne is these days? Maybe the nicest athlete I’ve ever met in my life. I’d really like to do a hockey book someday, I already have a title: 'Season on the Rink.'

I have passed the first major travel test in my recovery. In fact, I think I’ve proven I can handle almost anything after yesterday’s Odyssey.

My son Danny is at a camp in Vermont and this is parents weekend. On Wednesday my doctor cleared me to make the trip. He just told me to pull off and walk around if I felt tired. To be honest, if he hadn’t cleared me I probably would have gone anyway. But it never became an issue. A number of people tried to convince me to get someone to drive me or at least help me drive.

NO. Being alone in the car is the least stressful way for me to get someplace. If I want to talk, I pick up the phone. Most of the time I’m very happy with a ballgame, music or—depending on the city—sportstalk radio. I know I should get satellite radio. It’s just one of those things I haven’t gotten around to yet.

The trip was supposed to take nine hours according to Mapquest. It took 11. There was lots of rain and lots of traffic. Delaware, as always, was a mess. Has anyone ever driven through Delaware without hitting construction traffic? The state needs to construct one of those one-way tolls because traffic always backs up both ways going into the Delaware tolls.

Before I got to Delaware though I got pulled over by a cop. Seriously. I wasn’t speeding and I wasn’t talking on the phone. My seatbelt was fastened. I was seriously baffled. “Are you aware,” the cop said, “that your expiration tags are on your FRONT license plate not your BACK license plate?”

I was absolutely not aware of that. Apparently, when I bought the car almost two years ago, the dealer put the tags on the front. I never noticed and, until yesterday, neither did anyone else. The cop, who was very pleasant about it, wrote me a warning.

“Just grab a screwdriver when you get where you’re going and change them,” he said. Sure. I’m Mr. Handy without an incision running down the middle of my chest. With an incision that’ll be no sweat.

There was more traffic in New Jersey. Here though I picked up WFAN coming out of New York. I am not a fan of Mike Francesa personally. He’s three of the most arrogant people I’ve ever met. But he does good radio and did good radio with his ex-partner Chris Russo, who I guess I’d know more about right now if I had satellite radio.

Francesa spent an hour of the show Thursday embroiled in some dispute between the New York Racing Association and Nassau County OTB over the fact that the latter had illegally streamed NYRA races earlier in the year. Now, the NYRA won’t allow them to televise races from Saratoga next week until they acknowledge that they did what they did.

Francesa was into the story because he thinks of himself as a horse racing expert (maybe he is for all I know) and likes to watch races from his home in Nassau County when he isn’t hob-knobbing at Saratoga—which is to horse racing people as St. Andrews is to golfers. The only interest I had in the story was that the head of the NYRA is Charles Heyward—who was once my publisher at Little-Brown.

After that, Francesa had on Charles Wang, the owner of the Islanders. I am among the several dozen people on earth who still cares about the Islanders. When I was a senior in high school and had just bought my first car, I frequently drove to the then brand new Nassau Coliseum to watch the Islanders, who went 12-60-6 that first season. I was a big fan of Billy Harris and Billy Smith.

The Islanders got good in their third year and won those four straight Stanley Cups starting in 1980. What was cool was I got to cover them quite a bit. In those days, The Washington Post had one hockey writer—Robert Fachet—who covered the Capitals. I always volunteered to help out with the playoffs after The Final Four. I covered the Islanders a lot and loved the fact that they were such good guys AND winners. I’m not sure I’ve met a nicer man in sports than Bob Bourne. Even Billy Smith, with his reputation (not undeserved) as a dirty player was a delight to be around.

Now, of course, the Islanders are brutal and Wang doesn’t just want a new arena he wants half of Long Island rebuilt around the Coliseum. The whole deal will cost at least $3.7 billion to complete. If the town of Hempstead and Nassau County don’t say yes, Wang is threatening to move to Kansas City. The interview didn’t assuage my fears.

WFAN actually was able to pick up the last out of Mark Buehrle’s perfect game, which was cool. By then I was on the New York State Thruway and—finally—out of traffic.

Francesa, who can get guests I’ll say that for him, then had on John Walsh from ESPN. I’ve known Walsh for years, always respected him. But I laughed out loud when he kept refusing to say ESPN made a mistake ducking the Ben Roethlisberger story for two days—why can’t these guys just say, ‘you know what, we missed on that one?’ He actually brought up Duke lacrosse as a reason to pretend the story didn’t exist which was downright silly. No one ever said Duke lacrosse shouldn’t have been covered they just accused some people (myself included) of rushing to judgment. It was comical listening to Walsh insist ESPN had done nothing wrong. Gosh, I wish I could be perfect like those guys in Bristol.

Thank God for WFAN’s signal because I was able to keep listening to Steve Somers, who can be fall down funny all the way through the two lane roads in Vermont.

“The Mets magic number,” Somers declared, “is two thousand and ten.”

He had that right. No Yankee game to listen to because of rain, they didn’t start until I was pulling into the hotel. As I checked in the woman at the front desk looked at me and said, “You look like you could use a room that’s a short walk from here.”

She had that right. But it’s all downhill from here. I hope.