THANKS

I’m grateful to John and Greg of Pelham Used Cars for their consideration, understanding, and knowledge of car repair. 

ALL-STAR GAME

I talked with several baseball fans that stayed up to watch the entire game (I could only stay awake until 1A.M.) and they felt that this was the best and most exciting All-Star game they’ve ever seen. It had everything- pitching, hitting, stolen bases, plays at home, long balls, and short balls- everything.

REYES

Hey Jon- if you called Mets infielder Jose Reyes a wit, you’d be half right- thank you S.C. Well, maybe he’s not all bad based on his having a “confrontation” with Keith Hernandez, whom I consider a pompous nabob.

BUSCONES AND FRONT OFFICES

I’ve already written about the “bird-dog” street agents in the Dominican Republic known as Buscones but now the FBI is looking into reports of front office personnel skimming bonus money. This is just another case of “big money creating big temptations.” The White Sox have already fired a senior personnel director along with several scouts AND it may go higher than that. Oakland recently gave a 16-year old pitcher $4.25 million. No one is suggesting that the A’s did anything wrong, in fact the Reds and Rangers offered more. One answer to this absurd money shower would be some kind of world draft then it would, as Dodger scout Ralph Avila said, “Would kill La Gallina De Oro (the golden hen).”

RARE EVENT

Larry Stewart asked which was the rarer event in MLB- a perfect game, hitting four home runs in a game, or an unassisted triple-play.

There have been 15 perfect games in ML history, 15 games in which a batter has hit four home runs, and 14 unassisted triple-plays.

KNICKS DRAFT

Do NBA Rookie contracts end in time for Knicks salary-cap limitations to end and also be in time for LeBron’s walk-year? If Brook Lopez were picked by the Knicks, they would have gotten someone who’s big enough and nasty enough to help RIGHT NOW and with three years under his belt might have been quite the book-end for LeBron. Instead Lopez was taken by the Nets who will be moving into their new Brooklyn Arena in the James walk-year.

Wilbon said: “Why the Knicks would take Italian shooter Danilo Gallinari over Joe Alexander is something I simply don’t understand and for now seems insane.” Maybe it’s because Gallinari was scouted and profiled by the Knicks’ European bird-dog- Isiah Thomas!

Bernie Lincicome said that there are some teams in the league that one imagines to be a cruise ship passenger “waving his tickets on the dock as the boat sails.” Do you know how many rookies played in this year’s NBA finals? NONE! So let’s see if Walsh has something up his sleeve beside his arm with no draft pick in the second round.

Did the Knicks even know that the NBA held its Draft?

ARENAS

Wilbon, who really likes Gilbert Arenas, gave it out pretty good. He said, “Isn’t it just fabulous, Gilbert Arenas putting aside his own basic needs to sacrifice for the greater good of Washington and the Wizards by accepting $111 million instead of $127 million? How unbelievably heroic can one man be?” OOOF!

JETER-GALLINARI

I saw that picture in the paper that showed Derek Jeter shaking hands with Danilo Gallinari and there didn’t seem to be as much of a size difference as I thought that there should have been. I wonder if Gallinari was standing in a hole or Jeter was on a stool.

MEDIA TENSIONS AND THE CHINESE REALITY SHOW

Does anybody really believe that the Chinese government is going to relax their suffocating policies just because the whole world will be watching? Just think about Tiananmen Square and those tanks before you answer.

THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT

OneNewsNow.com is a Mississippi based website committed to delivering “news from a Christian perspective” and has a STRICT policy to replace certain words that THEY BELIEVE are offensive. So when Tyson Gay ran the world’s fastest 100 meters (9.68) they reported that “Tyson Homosexual” ran it.

INSIDE THE NFL

Phil Simms was commenting on the possibility of a Bret Favre return and said that it’d be better for Favre if he stayed retired and that it takes about three years to get the game out of your system after you retire. Cris Collinsworth, who is joining James Brown and Simms on the Showtime production, said, “I never retired. I got cut.”

LZR

Scott Ostler tried swimming a lap wearing a Speedo LZR bathing suit after it took about a half-hour and the help of two other people to put it on. He only hoped that nothing terrible would happen like a tear in the paper-thin suit during the start or having some air trapped in the suit that would expand and make him look like the “Pillsbury Doughboy.” He was given the standard racing advice, “Swim your race” but his race was someone else’s race. Scott said, “My guess is that it’s Margaret Thatcher’s.”

BOB MOLINARO’S MARINARA

“What can you say about the Bulgarian weight lifting team after it dropped out of the Olympics because 11 of its 13 members tested positive for banned substances? When the Iron Curtain fell, it must have these dopes in the head.”

ZOO PARADE  

One of my wacky friends sent me a note about visiting the Bronx Zoo and witnessing an unusual police action. It seemed that a handler was being led away between two gentlemen wearing FBI windbreakers. My friend recognized one of the agents and asked him what was happening.  

That’s where the keeper was taken into custody for violating a type of Mann Act where the violator transported females across staid lions for immoral porpoises, (SORRY)  

Again, maybe it’s just me—but….