One of my all-time favorite quotes is from H.L. Mencken who once wrote, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." Mencken, of course, was from Baltimore (which probably goes a long way toward explaining how he came to hold such an opinion), and if he could have read the Sunday Sun sports section from November 23, he probably would have felt a stratospherically high level of validation.

Now, please don't get me wrong on this. I fully recognize the local edition of Pravda (aka The Baltimore Sun) for what it is -- an instrument of propaganda for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party -- but it still surprises me (which probably says something unflattering about my intelligence) when they stoop to printing hurtful, unsubstantiated and pointless ramblings from some of the area's many aspiring rocket scientists. What got me fired up this time was a couple (maybe three) letters slamming Brian Billick and calling him everything from stupid to incompetent to just plain not nice....  more

GOOD NEWS: The Yankees did not win the World Series.
BAD NEWS: The Marlins did. Not that there aren't some great stories on this year's Florida team, but honestly, can anyone other than a world class roto-geek name more than six players on the Marlins' roster. This is a team with no discernible identity and a serious charisma deficiency, but they beat the Yankees, so we like 'em anyway.

GOOD NEWS: This year's Maryland Million day at Laurel was a smash success with record breaking attendance and betting handle. The feature race was about as thrilling a contest as you could ever hope to see as the front-running Presidential Affair held on valiantly in the final strides before being nosed out by the defending champion, Docent. Wonderful day. Great event.
BAD NEWS: Thoroughbred racing in Maryland is dying a slow and very painful death. With slot machines propping up purse money at tracks in Delaware, West Virginia and soon in Pennsylvania, Maryland is clearly competing on an uneven playing field ...  more

Some random thoughts from my disorganized mind ....

Truth: Rush Limbaugh had every right to say what he did about Donovan McNabb ... he was, after all, hired to be controversial .... Truth: the NAACP, along with every Democratic presidential hopeful on the map, had every right to criticize Limbaugh for what he said .... Observation: that Limbaugh made the comments he did, and that such an uproar resulted, is evidence that we are a long way away from being a color-blind society .... You can go on TV and be categorically wrong about your weather forecast ... you can go on TV and be hopelessly off on your football predictions ... you can even go on national television and give out false information in times of national crisis (remember ABC's Frank Reynolds announcing that President Reagan was dead following the 1981 assassination attempt by John Hinkley?) .... Do those things and it's highly unlikely that anyone will scream for, let alone get, your head on a platter. But say something about race that rubs enough people the wrong way, and you're as good as gone....  more

It started with something so genuine, so gut wrenchingly sincere and moving. On July 4, 1939, Lou Gehrig, already suffering the debilitating effects of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, proclaimed himself "... the luckiest man on the face of this earth," as he said goodbye to the Yankee faithful on Lou Gehrig Day in the Bronx. Twenty-three months later the disease that would carry his name had taken his life. But unbeknownst to Gehrig, or anyone else for that matter, his public farewell had given birth to the exercise we now know as 'the tribute.'

Nine years after Gehrig's immortal address, the great Babe Ruth stood before a sellout crowd in the house that he built, and in a voice made hoarse and barely intelligible by the throat cancer that would claim his life, he too said goodbye to the fans and the game that had elevated him to the status of American icon. But that was the best of it and should have been the end of it....  more

Ok, it's only been about two months since former Naval Academy hoop star David Robinson finished off his Hall of Fame NBA career, and dag gone if I don't miss him already. Understand, I don't spend a lot of time missing pro jocks. For the most part, I don't even like pro jocks (something about runaway arrogance and self-absorption), but here I am reading the daily Kobe updates and missing Dave The Rave.

In a world where, as Andre Agassi once put it, "Image is everything," Dave was that rarest of sports commodities: a product that actually out-delivered the hype. As squeaky clean as his image was, Dave was cleaner. For every good deed that you heard about Dave making, he made ten that you didn't hear about. You want a guy who supports local charities with a little bit more than an occassional photo op with some downtrodden or disadvantaged soul? Try this: during his years in San Antonio, Dave took over $10 million out of his own pocket and gave it to people who needed it more than he did....  more

Hey, I just heard that my old buddy Jose Canseco is going back in the slam down in south Florida. Seems Jose developed such an appetite for steroids during his playing days that he kept them on as part of his daily diet in retirement. Some people take calcium tablets. Jose eats anabolics. The only problem with that is that Jose has a rap sheet longer than one of Master P's limos, and when he came up dirty on one of his mandatory drug tests, the folks in the Dade County Corrections Department were not amused. They immediately outfitted him in one of those snappy orange jump suits, which he will continue to wear while living, as they say, at taxpayer expense.

Ok, so who cares? Who really gives a damn about another washed up jock junky? Well, I'm not going to tell you that 'I care', because somebody might get the wrong impression. But the fact is there's a point to be made, and by golly I'm going to make it....  more