1. LeBron James can’t get a ball into his hands soon enough. Never has a guy gone from plus to minus quicker.

2. Tiger Woods’ desease could also strike LeBron. Fooling with that part between the ears is all it takes to move your game off-center.

3. SI’s Peter King is a treasure. He’s been off for most of the summer, due to vacation and World Cup coverage. He’s back now that NFL camps are open, overcoming the unexpected loss of his brother Bob, and again willing to provide beer and coffee reviews from his travels. Hold the Boston-bias, Pete and have a great year.

4. Something tells me Lance Armstrong is finally going to be exposed for the unpleasant person he is behind the hero worship. His is multi-million dollar business based on seven wins and overcoming cancer. Something tells me those yellow bands should really be green.

5. Pete Carroll remains in first place in the phony league with the most support behind him. Everything Seattle is coming up roses from those who are following Pete. The best draft…playoff prospects…the best book “at bookstores now”…nicest guy…not his mess back in LA…even WR Mike Williams is going to the Pro Bowl.

6. Brett Favre will play for the Vikings this year.

7. Why do the Cowboys come out each July as the Super Bowl favorite? The Cowboys are the poster boys of hype. Everything is great in Big D. Except maybe the defense, RBs, WRs and Romo.

8. After all the “insider” speculation on why Bill Cowher hasn’t taken a head coaching job in each of the past two seasons, shocking word that his wife Kaye, passed away from skin cancer. Instead of taking time to watch his daughters play basketball, do you think her illness might have been a factor?

9. You gotta know that something’s wrong with the NFL pay scale, when Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Drew Brees are in their final contract years and will make less than Sam Bradford.

10. SI’s Gary Smith does it again with a great story about Floyd Little’s quest for the NFL Hall of Fame. Little goes into Canton with first balloters, Emmitt Smith and Jerry Rice and alongside Dick LeBeau in August. Smith’s story chronicles Little’s snub and the perserverance of a fan, Tom Mackie, who continued to lobby for the Bronco great’s induction.

11. Pete Sampras has been hired to help lift Roger Federer’s game. Here’s hoping Pete can hit and spin lefthanded.

12. Ilya Kovulchuk’s NHL contract with the Devils is a twist on reporter’s spin from every angle but what counts. Is it Gary Bettman taking a stand? Lou Lamariello cheating? A legal challenge to the player’s association? The undoing of about 10 longterm contracts that already exist? No, it means Kovulchuk will play for the Devils and the stupid loopholes will be closed.

Kay utilized his ESPN PR arsenal and had Winfield on his radio show as an ESPN-promoting guest, where the former six-team hall of famer came off as artriculate and lucid, prompting Kay to go into a complimentary spiel of how good Winfield is on radio as opposed to television where he then used Mushnick’s explanation word for word.

Mushnick’s mention in print launched Kay into a rant against Mushnick on his ESPN radio show and a challenge to match up Mushnick’s column with Kay’s broadcast. Mushnick consented and “wasted column space” (his words) on explaining the details for the first time publicly. Kay and his ESPN PR hackers, I mean, backers decided it wasn’t going to provide the tape, as promised, and dropped the matter. Win by TKO for Mushnick.

And so, we are afforded another glimpse into the ESPN media machine where anyone they put on camera is “an expert” and what they say is gospel. Which is why it’s humorous that NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers slammed Tony Kornheiser as being unprepared and Ron Jaworski as not knowing what he was talking about. Funny how a media writer can get pushed back upon by the ESPN PR machine, but a star Green Bay Packers quarterback can get away with his credibility while talking the truth. I guess there’s not much to be gained from taking on a professional whose integrity is a given.

Now, Kornheiser has since given up his Monday Night Football gig, although the availability of John Gruden probably had something to do with it. Not to mention that Kornheiser took a buyout from The Washington Post, and had taken a sabbatical from his local Washington D.C. radio show to only do ESPN’s “Pardon The Interruption,” and “MNF.” He seemed to go through a mid-life crisis, some minor health problems, creeping into old age, whining about things, telling us how early he went to bed and pretty much admitting that his heart wasn’t in it.

Kornheiser has become the arbiter of bland. Recently he told us how great the band “Sugarland” is, he’s kept us up on his thoughts about “American Idol,” and missed the Steven Strasburg debut because he had tickets to Carol King and James Taylor. Ho hum Tony. You are old.

What we get out of Kornheiser these days are inquisitive references to youthful trends and “urban speak,” stories about having dinner with with John “Junior” Feinstein, golf with Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams and trips to his beach house in Rehobeth Beach, Delaware. Very retiring. He no longer goes on the road, covers the games or talks with his cronies that include Mike Lupica, Mitch Album and Bob Ryan (unless he’s a subhost on PTI).

While Kornheiser’s “American Idol” is losing lots of steam with the public, so is PTI, as partner Michael Wilbon transitions from an elite African-American sportswriter with an impeccable resume, to a hanger-on to Charles Barkley, an invitee to Michael Jordan’s gambling and golf party on Paradise Island, a bi-coastal (Scottsdale, AZ) yuppie and a biased Chicago sports fan. Where once you could count on him for an objective and intelligent point of view, he has now reduced himself to wonder. Wondering how he can have an intelligent opinion if a Chicago team happens to factor in, which they do in every sport. Wilbon thinks he can beat this by admitting outright of his Windy City bias, but it became clear how much of a phony he is, when he talked about how big a Black Hawks fan he was as they approached the 2010 Stanley Cup, after having never mentioned them before.

Which brings us to ESPN’s ‘bosses of bias’ as LA’s Jim Rome blows with the wind with every Lakers win (“you guys are good, and Kobe is god”) or loss (“come on Phillip, change something up, the Lakers are dogs”) and Bill Simmons, the sports guy mayor of Boston. Aside from the referees, these two guys are the biggest annoyances of the 2010 NBA Finals and should have David Stern command a gag order and fine. Neither guy enlights. All we will get is how personal losing will be to them. At least they both have plenty of familiarity with that condition.

We all knew that Ernie was on his way. You can’t say a bad word about this guy, whose voice crackled over the airwaves for 42 years calling the Tigers. It’s sad that none of his replacements can compare. There’s no worshiped broadcaster in Detroit today. That’s okay, because Ernie rates as one of the greatest in the game, and gave Detroit the distinction of having maybe the best broadcaster that there was. Van Patrick was very good and George Kell was no slouch. Dave Diles and Bill Fleming made national broadcasts from Detroit affiliates. Dick Enberg grew up in nearby Romeo, which later produced Bob Ritchie, aka Kid Rock, and Gus Johnson and John Saunders started in Michigan, although you’d hardly know it.

The Red Wings have been making their faithful twitch all season. First losing the Stanley Cup to Pittsburgh in a fight to the end, then losing Marian Hossa to the highest bidder. The Wings were beset by injuries for most of the season but began a comeback a couple of weeks ago that gave hope until losing three straight 4-3 games to the number one seeded San Jose Sharks, who seemingly are now playing to their potential. The Wings are handcuffed by NHL rules, the salary cap specifically, and GM Ken Holland is now challenged to make desperate moves, slash payroll, and hope everyone else hasn’t caught up to his European talent pipeline.

The Tigers don’t seem to be much of a road team and they can’t seem to handle the Twins, which spells doom for their playoff chances. They managed to get younger and in the months ahead, they’ll realize tens of millions in payroll savings. They play with a third of their batting order (Laird, Everett and pick one- Sizemore, Rayburn) as a gimme, hoping six guys who can hit can compete with Mauer, Morneau, Cuddyer, Kubel, Thome, Span and so on.

But the Tigers chances ace the best laid plans of Joe Dumars who is trying to put the Pistons back on the map, even though Bill Davidson is gone and the whole organization seems to be on the same footing as the auto industry. The Pistons lack front court talent, so Brendan Haywood is the answer? Rip Hamilton is now overpaid and untradeable. Having a veteran defender like Tayshaun Prince is now a luxury. The infusion of youth – Rodney Stuckey, Austin Daye, Jonas Jerebko, Ben Gordon, Jason Maxiell and Charlie Villanueva isn’t enough to compete with playoff teams. Dumars’ only hope is to upset the lottery odds and get a shot at John Wall as his point guard. Or fleece the new ownership of the Hornets for Chris Paul or find a diamond of a big man in the draft at the spot they will likely draft at (somewhere around #7). Otherwise, 2010-11 will be another cloudy funk, and as Detroiters know today, that’s what we’re up against, and we will prevail as always.

The Lions watched the Saints Super Bowl win with eager eyes. They saw a team, that was once planted in a hole, rebuild itself to a world title. The Saints drafted well, found a quarterback, developed some stars, and made some strategic signings, while building a very potent offense with it’s head coach and a defense with a master schemer. And so the the Lions hold several advantageous draft choices, and the prospect of an uncapped season which has enabled William Clay Ford to tease about signing or trading for talent to add to a youthful core and a master schemer defensive head coach.

The Red Wings are up against it, but not because they lack money. They are on the edge of the salary cap, which has required them to trade players to make room for returning vets from the IR like Johan Franzen. Because the league has intentionally discriminated against older players, The Wings can no longer stand as the NHL’s elite franchise. The system has wore them down. They now have to join the ranks of less profitable teams and compete against those who were woeful for so long that they mined the benefits of the draft, which is now paying off. Everybody has the same salary cap, and Gary Bettman has created a socialist bent to the NHL, where “the most good, for the most people” prevails. So, the Red Wings have to go back to the drawing board to figure out how again to be best. Earnings, profitability and system won’t be the factors, they’ll need to become young and cheap. You have to wonder if there’s any fun for owner Mike Ilitch in that.

And now that William Davidson has left the building, how long before the Piston estate follows his model of selling his Tampa Bay NHL franchise or his WNBA franchise? The starless Pistons are playing to half houses, Chauncey Billups is erasing Joe Dumars’ goodwill from when he discovered Billups who led them to a title, and Joe D can’t seem to get it right ever since getting Ben Wallace for the deserting Grant Hill, Rip Hamilton for Jerry Stackhouse, skinny Tayshaun Prince with a draft choice and eventually, Rasheed Wallace for next to nothing. Seems everything has gone down hill for Joe since Darko. Now Ben Gordon and Charlie Villaneueva are failing, there’s no cap space and the Pistons are looking at a makeover that will put them back in the cellar, from where they historically have come, for years. The fire sale will come first, but this isn’t because of the economy. It’s because Joe Dumars has been as bad lately as he once was good.

The Eagles demise against the hated Cowboys, is only god’s way of punishing fans for “Fly Eagles Fly.” The annual Donavan McNabb debate rages on, despite an iron-locked contract. McNabb is not the mobile containment nightmare he once was, and youthful receivers Jeremy Maclin and DeSean Jackson can be easily knocked off their routes. Shawn Andrews was missed on the offensive line and the unreliable Westbrook, and LeSean McCoy do not a running game make. Defensively, the Eagles miss Brian Dawkins and are willing to replace the entire foursome in the backfield, including pro bowler Asante Samuel, who is said to play too soft. In fact, this team is a good draft and a running game away from the mountaintop. The 2009 Eagles lost Jim Johnson, gained Michael Vick and stayed an upper tier team with no improvement. What they gained in receivers, they lost in Dawkins.

Chris Pronger, Kimmo Timonen and Braydon Coburn were supposed to make the Flyers blue line deep and allow Richards, Danny Briere and Jeff Carter to score. Goalkeeping has been an issue with Ray Emery. Michael Leighton was found at the bottom of the barrel and contributed to an 8-0-1 spell. A 3-13-1 November and December has doomed the 23-win Bullies to the Atlantic cellar although they are currently only three points out of third place and a possible playoff spot. Grind it out Flyers fans, six teams have 30 or more wins with Chicago leading the NHL with 34. It looks like a year of Cinderella playoff possibilities.

14 wins and the Sixers contemplate a rebuild. This was supposed to be a team with Sam Dalembert at center, Brand at power forward, Andre Iguodala at small forward, and guards from a pack including Louis Williams, Willie Green, Jrue Holiday, Royal Ivey, Jason Kapono and finally, Allen Iverson. Eddie Jordan can’t figure it out. Either seemingly can Ed Stefanski. Iverson is still worth a ticket, if not for his play, then for the memories, which is all Sixer fans will have to go on for a few years. Until then, the college game is pretty strong in Philly, especially with Jay Wright and Villanova.

And finally, shut up about the Phillies. First in the NL and second in the world ain’t so bad. They are right in the mix for 2010.

And you wonder why professional sports stars with “zeros and commas” in their paychecks carry guns?

In a world of desperation, where good can go bad with a flick of a car door handle, where the hardworking are outnumbered by those looking to get one over, the comfort of a designer firearm can refute Thomas Wolfe and allow you to go home again. They return home falsely fearless and ready for the life-and-death encounters, armed with their pieces and their favorite line; “Say hello to my little friend.”

And even if you’ve smartened up and avoided the old neighborhood, the target that you’ve become invites the home invaders to your safe suburban compound. See Sean Taylor, Eddy Curry and Antoine Walker.

So before you lump the glamorous who have too much to spend, and are doted on at every turn, into a new form of racial bias, walk in their oversized shoes for a while. See Plaxico Burress blow a hole in his leg in a crowded club. See Stephen Jackson go cattle rustler outside a strip club. See Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton go OK Corral in the Wizards lockerroom. This is America, and you are never going to stop it. At best, you might restrict it, but the fire of desperation will continue to burn and so will the need to extinguish it.

2. Video Replay.
Football does it slowly. Basketball does it for scoring. Hockey does it in Toronto. Baseball refuses to use it for anything besides home runs. There is a definate need to integrate replay into baseball. Traditionalists argue that human mistakes have always been part of the game. They know its a stupid argument, so they point to it slowing down a slow game. Replay in all sports could be done quicker with a judge in the booth simply making the replay aided call, then relaying it to the head official, instead of supplying reviews to the on-the-field decision makers.

3. Keeping up with Big Ten football.
It’s actually the Big 11 and they’ve continued to lose prestige to the SEC. Is it overall speed? Recruiting superiority? Coaching? Weather?No, its backward leadership which should promote its competitive depth which is only a consistent Indiana, Illinois, Purdue and Minnesota away from a top-to-bottom powerhouse. They can also consider admitting a 12th team to the conference and put in a conference championship. Or, they could also do this with 11 teams, and not have a need to raid the Big East for Rutgers, West Virginia or Syracuse.

4. Big Markets/Small Markets.
Having not trusted baseball owners since the Ueberroth “collusion years,” their closed books enable a fictional tale of financial gloom. According to Red Sox owner John Henry, “over a billion dollars have been paid to seven chronically uncompetitive teams, five of whom had baseball’s highest operating profits.” Somehow this points baseball to consider a salary cap that the player’s union, Scott Boras and the wildly profitable Yankees will certainly oppose. Still, the current system lends itself to schedule fillers and uncompetitive louts who effect pennant races, player disbursement and profits. With a cap all 32 teams would have the same financial advantage. If history is any indication, a cap would only create those that would be willing to exceed the cap and pay a tax and those who will operate well under their spending threshold. The same guys who cry “unfair” to big markets, are those whom will manipulate the system to their advantage. Like all of baseball’s problems it will never be settled by a commissioner who is an employee of the owners.

5. The NHL.
The league is only a couple of steps ahead of the WNBA in terms of viability. Somehow ESPN should be forced to assume the Versus TV contract. Hockey should also do a better job promoting its players despite the scourge of foreign names that don’t roll off the tongue. Shootouts should give way to an additional ten minutes of 4-on-4. Technology and Las Vegas should be embraced. Arenas should be wired for high-definition broadcasts and puck-following enhancements should (again) be implemented. Instead of avoiding the gambling mecca, the NHL should make it a media center and a crossroads between north and south and east and west. Both the NHL and Vegas could use the boost.

6. Soccer in the USA.
Here’s your primer that you will need to know for next summer’s World Cup starting June 11th in South Africa…Landon Donavan is our best player. Tim Howard is our goalie. Bob Bradley is our coach. Michael Bradley, Bob’s son, is a fiery midfielder. The U.S. drew a group to open the Cup that includes England, Slovenia and Algeria. David Beckham, Donavan’s on-again-off-again friend and teammate on the LA Galaxy, plays for England. Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia from 1945 until its independence in 1991. Slovenia borders Italy on the west, the Adriatic Sea on the southwest, Croatia on the south and east, Hungary on the northeast and Austria on the north. Ljubljana is its capital. Other key players: F Clint Dempsey and D Jonathan Spector, who along with Howard, play professionally in England, and captain D Steve Cherundolo. 58 players make up the player pool. 11 players are on the field. The roster is 18 players. Notable names in the players pool: M Freddy Adu and D Marvell Wynne, son of the former major league baseball player of the same name.

7. The 2010 Winter Olympics.
The Winter Olympics are scheduled for Vancouver from February 12 to the 28th. Since its Canada, hockey will grab a spotlight with former Red Wings Hall of Famer Steve Yzerman, assembling a Canadian team led by Sidney Crosby and goalie Martin Brodeur. The Red Wings’ Mike Babcock will coach. Wayne Gretzky will supervise. The USA team will be coached by Ron Wilson. Jamie Langenbrunner and Zach Parise of the NJ Devils will provide one line’s punch. The Buffalo Sabres Ryan Miller will likely be the goalkeeper while Ryan Malone, Brian Rafalski, Scott Gomez, Chris Drury and Patrick Kane provide power and stability for the U.S. Ice Skating will also capture its usual wide audience. The U.S. Championships will be held in late January and will dictate the fates of women favorites that include Sasha Cohen, Alissa Czisny, Rachael Flatt, Caroline Zhang and Ashley Wagner. For the men, look for Ben Agosto, Johnny Weir, Charlie White, Jeremy Abbott, Brandon Mroz, Evan Lysaek, Ryan Bradley and Adam Rippon to make a claim for three mens spots, two pair spots and three dance spots. Lindsey Vonn is the female skier to watch. Bode Miller is back to bother us with his personality, not his downhill capability. Apolo Anton Ohno is back with the speedskating team that is getting a lot of publicity due to TV’s Stephen Colbert. Shaun White returns as a skateboarding wizard.

8. Tiger Woods.
He’s worth a billion already and he remains golf’s number one player, even though he didn’t win a major in 2009. He did win the most money and he’ll need it to bonus “Team Tiger” to get him out of this public perception debacle that may never go away. His marriage is another story. Payback is a bitch for a guy who completely controlled the media on his terms until now. Should this be a surprise? Not if you took note that he hangs with serial womanizers, gamblers and VIP room regulars like Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan. If he wants to repair his family and regain Elin’s trust, he’ll have to give thought to dumping his caddy, bodyguards, agents and any of the other on-the-road support team that enabled him.

9. Women’s Professional Sports.
Perhaps the biggest scam in sports is the financial viability of the WNBA, a league that pads attendance and sponges from the NBA’s support to stay alive. Media interest is another scam, as no self-respecting reporter will cover the league or even offer a comment. Turning the other way and ignoring it is the WNBA standard. And so a professional women’s soccer league was launched this year to similar signs of eventual bankruptcy. And the LPGA lost sponsor after sponsor, drove out its commissioner and tried to replace the “Lesbian complex” with the “Korean complex.” At the risk of being labeled a misogynist, someone had to say it out loud.

10. Referees and Umpires.
No one wants to label Tim Donaghy with anything good, but he has brought out of the closet what bettors have suspected for years….refs and umps make mistakes and sometimes they do it on purpose. Of course, Misters Stern and Selig and Goodall and, to a lesser degree, Bettman will spin it otherwise, but there isn’t a game that doesn’t have glaring mistakes made by the game’s arbiters that effect the outcome of the game. NFL linesmen who spot the ball are the biggest offenders, interpreting body parts touching the ground and the position of the ball that lead to measurements and white-hatted refs pointing up to the booth with their fingers inches apart. It’s a game of inches, but it’s time improve on the guesswork. Strike zones for individual umpires are another subjective area. Fans can only hope that the ump “calls it both ways,” but they rarely do. Make-up calls are utilized in all four sports, which is an admission to their errs and grudges against individual players are worst in the NHL, but abundant in every league. What to do? Start by not ignoring the facts and come up with ways to correct the flaws. Replay, improved reporting and supervision would be a start.

That’s bad news for the sports fan, but there’s always TV and cable packages that are cheaper than the $59 nosebleeds or the $500,000 luxury boxes in Arlington. Let’s not even go into personal seat licenses. The franchises call it ‘the price of doing business,’ and they continue to roll along doing what they please.

Professional sports teams claim to best understand fans and base their financial plan on their customer’s thirst to witness the games in person. As long as fans beat a path to their turnstiles, things are fine and they continue on as the best and the brightest at determining how to run their teams. But a new trend is emerging where more and more teams are using the financial slowdown as an excuse to not provide a competitive or entertaining product, while still holding firm on their prices.

It’s the equivalent of football’s punt, where teams increase their chance to compete at another time. It’s the fan that suffers most, but owners will now gladly thumb their nose at their loyal followers, forsake entire seasons, and live to gouge them (or a whole new group of frontrunners) another day.

In New York, professional basketball in 2009-10 is best seen by watching the teams who visit the Nets and the Knicks. The Nets set the record for futility, fired their coach, traded their best player, play in an outdated remote facility, force the patrons that do come to park in a cement single-file structure, abuse their fans with cheap marketing come-ons and lousy concessions and dream about moving to Brooklyn. The Knicks, like the Nets are storing up money to make a play next year, while trying to convince those interested in the now (2009-10) that they have the coach, a plan to upgrade the Garden, and some youthful parts in place for a future juggernaut. In other words, both the Nets and Knicks are punting away the 2009-10 season, but they’d like you to stay tuned.

In Detroit, Curtis Granderson and Edwin Jackson are on the market to the highest bidder. Instead of taking steps forward to add a starter to Verlander, Jackson, Porcello and Bonderman, to replace free agent closer Fernado Rodney, and add a young productive corner outfielder, the Tigers are looking to punt. Just like the Red Wings who watched key players walk away for more money which has resulted in a drop near the bottom of the Central division. And the Pistons who shot their load on this year’s free agents (Ben Gordon and Charlie Villaneuva) with a plan to punt until they ferment. As far as the Lions, they’ve been punting since 1957 and will continue for a few more years, or until they make the playoffs or have another complete management and player turnover, whichever comes first.

Add over two dozen teams to the fraternity of the punters…the Pirates, Nationals, Royals, Blue Jays, Padres and Mariners in baseball, the Timberwolves, Grizzlies, Warriors, Pacers, Thunder, Raptors and Sixers in the NBA, the Browns, Raiders, Bills, Bucs, Jags, Rams, and Chiefs in the NFL and too many to name in the NHL. Cheating their fans, while keeping an eye on that bottom line.

I think it was Mike Lupica who once proposed a fan’s union. There’s never been much of a chance for that, because there will always be an entertaining and competitive product to lure them in and break the ranks. Now with all this punting it might be a different story. If the fans wise up and hold their money, they might leverage themselves a fair catch.

There is nothing else like it in the logical world. If it worked this way in medicine, our cemeteries would be full. If it worked this way in science, we’d probably be flying off the earth. In sports, we leave the final determination in the hands of some subjective, “well-trained” humans, called refs and umps. Prop them up with arrogant, “I’m-the-emperor” commissioners and “how do you like my clothes?” It doesn’t matter what you see. It’s what I tell you to see.

AL umpire Randy Marsh says the ball did not hit Brandon Inge’s shirt. Pitches that show up outside TBS’ little strike zone box are strikes. AL ump Phil Cuzzi can’t see a ball ten feet away hit fair. Chase Utley hits a grounder into his leg foul and no one sees it. On the same play, Todd Helton stretches for an awkward out anyway, but the ump calls Utley safe. It’s like a special little group that gets to see things that aren’t there. If these same guys were assigned to watch the stars at night, they’d be in the UFO padded room.

And these guys get twisted up on the easy plays, not the avoided tags, the phantom putouts or the convuluted personalized strike zones that plate umpires stamp on every game. And heaven forbid that you resist their logic. They are armed with early exits, fines, dopey commissioners, unions and the ability to hide from the press.

“They are only human,” cry the defenders. “It’s all part of the game,” offer the conflict avoiders. “It evens itself out,” say the rationalists who have never seen a bettor or me in my chair in my livingroom after a replay shows a blown call. With great debate, football, basketball and hockey have adopted replay to sort out some of this missed logic. Baseball, in its infinite wisdom similar to its stance on PEDs, is okay with reviewing whether a home run was legit, but won’t go past that.

For a game with built-in poetry, where Abner Doubleday picked just the perfect distance for the bases, where the cadence of the game builds and where fatigue makes the end of games different from the beginnings, baseball, without it’s timeclock, plays out in three-out sequences. Each pitch represents one step and the game has a geometry, maybe not at right angles, perhaps its “left angles” to account for running the bases counterclockwise, but there aren’t that many curves, unless you’re talking pitching, bounces off walls or playing in Minnesota’s dome. The boys in blue also represent a curve. Especially when they see things that aren’t there.

Jim Rome returns from a week’s vacation and I have to admit I missed him. Subhost Jeff Chahida just doesn’t get it. Rome kicks off ESPN’s afternoon of sports talk weekdays (except Monday) and is the first to spout about the top items of the day (only to be repeated over the next hour on ‘Around The Horn’ and ‘Pardon The Interruption’). He’s also got a daily radio show and seems to have ascended the mantle to defend the left coast as far as sports goes. Of course, Rome isn’t the easiest to take. His manners have always been snarky and he’s more comfortable talking smack, mostly after-the-fact. If you held a convention on taunting, Rome would be the ideal keynote speaker. As he likes to say, he finds joy in “lighting up suckers, knocking out chumps, smoking fools and talking noise about it.” When he returns, it will be noteworthy to see if he addresses USC’s loss to Washington after bringing it hard to some Ohio State emailer when the Trojans visited OSU, saying of the projected outcome, “it will be bad,” when in fact, it was a hard fought, closely contended game that Ohio State could have won. The Washington loss completely wiped Rome of his bragging rights. And then there are Rome’s features where he puts a camera with a pro who takes us on a tour inside his team’s facility. Although he describes so many of them as “the best ever” Rome was so partial to Delonte West’s tour of the Cavaliers, that he uses a clip about donuts as an accent to any mindless hip-hop fancy that the sports host can fit “you better have my donuts” into. Now that West was popped for riding his motorcycle strapped like Omar in “The Wire,” you wonder if Rome’s penchant for tats and street cred will wane…..Terrelle Pryor can run, but he can’t throw and all the fuss about whether he went to Michigan, or Penn State or Ohio State is mute. Michigan would be foolish to move either of its freshman tandem of Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson even up for Pryor and Penn State’s Daryll Clark, even with the loss to Iowa, is what OSU hopes Pryor turns into someday…..Michigan isn’t going to stay unbeaten, and they will struggle against Ohio State and Penn State, but they could stay in the top 25. What’s most important is that for the first time since Bo Schembechler came to Ann Arbor, the Wolverines possess multi-dimensional fire-power that will keep them in games to the end. In the past, if the grind-it-out game plan didn’t work, Michigan was done. If they can improve on defense over the course of the season they should return to a bowl game…..Oregon’s Chip Kelly has spent the first three weeks of his head coaching tenure giving prospective recruits reason to wonder. First he banned Duck running back LeGarrette Blount after his “melt down” at Boise State and then Kelly wrote a check to reimburse $439 to an Oregon fan who had attended. All along, Kelly was trying to make a statement about the program he wants as Mike Bellotti’s successor at Oregon, not one about being a publicity seeking flake. His strongest message for attracting talent to Eugene was Saturday with a 42-3 thrashing of #6 California…..Rutgers started its season in the worse way by folding at home to Cincinnati, but got on the winning track with wins over cupcakes Hampton and FIU. With its convincing win at Maryland, the Knights took the first of several steps it needs for redemption. Coach Greg Schiano’s team will have major hurdles at home versus Pitt, USF and West Virginia. A run through its remaining Big East schedule could still mean conference contention and a bowl game, but the natives are becoming more restless in New Brunswick, especially with the new manner for calling offensive plays via signals from the bench as the play clock ticks down. Broadcasters couldn’t figure out why fans were booing as Rutgers scrambled to get plays off against FIU. The guys on the mike chastised RU fans for seemingly booing players (with Rutgers ahead), when the fans were actually directing their ire at the Rutgers coaches…..Five Most Overrated. What have you really done lately or ever: Donald Trump, Greg Schiano, Tony Romo, Rudy Guiliani and Notre Dame Football?…..Props to Justin Boren and Ryan Mallett. Boren the Michigan transfer to Ohio State has played well starting at left guard for the Bucks. He’s an in-your-face blocker who doesn’t move outside very well, but he was solid against USC and has graded out well after a year off. Ex-Wolverine Mallett threw five touchdowns of his season total of seven for Arkansas in a 51-42 loss to #23 Georgia before falling to earth last week against #3 Alabama 35-7…..Now that the Lions have a win, its clear that they aren’t a candidate to be Atlanta or Miami from last year. Actually, Miami and Atlanta aren’t candidates to duplicate last year. The Lions have major issues in their defensive backfield, having given up a preponderence of easy passing scores to Drew Brees, Brett Favre and even Jason Campbell. Rookie safety Louis Delmas seems to always be in the picture when the other team scores…..We are within hours of the “high noon” of sports season as NBA training camps prepare to open this week to join the start of the NHL regular season, NFL and NCAA football and the baseball playoffs as all functioning at the same time…..