The Toronto Raptors made a personnel switch yesterday. They put Kornell David on the injured list and activated Garth Joseph. Is there some secret requirement for the Raptors to have someone on the active list whose last name is normally a first name?

Charles Oakley said that the reason he punched out Jeff McInnis - leading to Oakley's fine and suspension - was that McInnis threatened his life. McInnis responded yesterday by asking rhetorically, "Why would I threaten a 6-foot-9, 260 pound guy?" McInnis may not have stayed at UNC long enough to graduate, but it seems he did learn something there.

Don Nelson has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Since it was diagnosed early, there is no immediate need for him to stop doing whatever he is doing and focus his energies and attention to getting better. But clearly, he has to share the focus of his live now.

It appears that the Timberpoodles owner, Glen Taylor, will be suspended by the NBA for being part of the "Joe Smith Secret Deal" and Kevin McHale will "choose" to take a leave of absence from the team. Taylor did take a shot at the NBA, however. He said that the team was being singled out for this draconian punishment because they are not a major market; they are just a small town on the prairie.

Memo to Glen: True. But remember, all of your kids are above average.

In the NFL, the firing of Norv Turner has begun to spark interest in speculating about what coaches are in jeopardy. Obviously, coaches with abjectly awful teams are easy targets and so Mike Riley and Dick LeBeau and Dave McGinnis, and Chris Palmer and Dan Reeves are the targets of much speculation. As I look at that list, I would say that Palmer is safe because no one expected a playoff run from the Browns this year and franchise QB, Tim Couch has been out for more than half the year. Reeves has a year left on his deal and may come back for it, but unless that team improves a lot, he will be out next year. So Reeves may read the tea leaves and realize that the Falcons are not going to do a "last to first" hop again and decide to retire rather than go out with a size 10 EEE suppository next season. If Riley, LeBeau and/or McGinnis are fired, they can actually look upon it as a liberation. All three are working for owners that seem bound and determined to assure that the team will always aspire to mediocrity.

I wonder if Dick Jauron is safe in his job. The Bears were a lot better last year than they are now. I'd give him another year; I don't know if the Bears' management will be patient.

I wonder about Dave Campo in Dallas. Nothing that happened there is his doing since he has a team that was constructed by Jerry Jones who is clearly one of the more incompetent GMs in the NFL. But Jerry Jones can't be fired and so coaches take the rap.

I wonder about Gunther Cunningham in KC. That team has had a few big games but most of the time they have been just bad enough to lose. Gunther threatened to resign after Game 1; maybe he will wish he had?

I wonder about Wade Phillips in Buffalo. I think he has created his own mess there with the Rob Johnson/Doug Flutie mess. It was Wade who started it all last year in the playoffs; it was Wade who kept playing Johnson even though Flutie was the one who put the Bills on a win streak. Frankly, this is a guy I would lose if I were the owner.

And of course, there is Terry Robiske who has been the head coach here in Washington for less than 48 hours. Terry has made some announcements about changes that he has made. He will cut down the playbook to simplify things to avoid some mental errors. (The Redskins are one of the oldest teams in the league.) He will demand that injured guard Keith Sims practice during the week so that he will be physically ready to play on Sunday. (Unless, of course, he aggravates the injury during the week.) At the same time, he will "compress" the practice time and eliminate some walk-throughs in order to give the team more time in meetings where they will be off their feet.

The Washington Post reporters actually report this stuff with a straight face and give it an aura of importance and sound reasoning. On the Titanic, these acts are equivalent to polishing the silverware; at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, these amount to passing out sunscreen to the cavalry; during The Flood, this is equivalent to Noah handing out umbrellas.

But the Washington Post has not made any big deal out of a small announcement by Pepper Rodgers who is the VP for Football Operations and Coach Seeker and Ear Lobe Nibbler to Danny Boy. Rodgers says he will sit in on the coaches' meetings and evaluate game films and go to every practice, but he says he will not intrude. He is doing this so that he can say to whomever is the new coach, this player needs to be cut or you need to work on this with that guy. What is wrong with this picture?

Jesse Ventura responded to reports that he would be making $10K per game to announce the XFL games by telling a St. Paul paper, "You think I would work that cheap?"

Cincinnati papers reported that Mike Brown responded to a report in the paper that five of his friends advised him to give up his day-to-day control of the team and hire a "football guy" as the GM by saying, "I don't have five friends."

Memo to Mike: There might be a reason for that condition, no?

Word in Chicago is that Cade McNown is ready to play and may start against New England this week. But their offensive coordinator has just been hired away by BYU so who knows what the net change will be. And in this game, who cares?

Scott Mitchell piloted the Bungles to a win over Arizona last weekend and now they say that he will be given an equal shot at being the starting QB next year. Akili Smith - who was an overall #3 pick in the 1999 draft - will now have to compete with an overweight loser to get the starting job. If you want to really push both of these guys, you really need to bring in a third guy to make this interesting. Is Bob Avellini doing anything these days?

Andre Wadsworth was an overall #3 pick in the draft three years ago. He got a 6 year deal for a total of $42M that had a big signing bonus but was heavily back-loaded. He has been injured all three years and has had insufficient impact even to create a pregnant chad. Word is that he may be cut in an effort to save about $28M even though it would mean that his cap hit to the Cards next year would be over $5M.

For those of you who responded to your free offer for a Year In Review article, it will be sent tomorrow separately from the Sports Curmudgeon. It seems appropriate to do it on December 7th.

Finally, in case you missed the scores in the agate type, in men's college basketball, New Paltz beat Oneonta last night. I did not even know there was "Paltz". In addition, Life beat North Georgia by 10 points. When they lose, do the headlines say they died?

But don't get me wrong, I love sports...