1. I'll take Oakland minus 8 vs Miami for $22. I don't see Lamar Smith running wild against the Raiders and I don't like Jay Feidler enough to depend on him.

2. I'll take New Orleans plus 8 at Minnesota for $33. The Saints could win this even with all the spare parts they have had to plug into this team. (They could get a corporate sponsorship from Pep Boys, no?) The Viking defense has been AWOL for the last month.

3. I'll take Baltimore plus 6 at Tennessee for $33. I see this as a low scoring game and six points is a lot to get in a low scoring game. Who says the Ravens can't win this?

4. I'll take Philly plus 4.5 at NY for $22. If Tiki Barber is less than effective and Ron Dayne has to be the running attack, the Eagles win outright by a TD.

It depends on what the meaning of "is" is.

It looks like the Chargers have indeed hired John Butler as GM after he was let go by the Bills. ESPN says that it will be announced later today. And they say that talks between the Lions and Matt Millen are close to being consummated so that Millen would leave the broadcasting booth to be the GM of the Lions. I like Matt Millen as a broadcaster and I think he is the heir apparent to John Madden as the top analyst in the booth. From a selfish point of view, I'd rather he stay where he is so that he can be informative and entertaining instead of going to Detroit where he will freeze his butt off and immediately begin to emit "coachspeak". But I guess that is being selfish. So what? Most sports figures are selfish and so I feel empowered to be as selfish as they are. So there!

In college football, there may have been a reversal of field. Recall about a month ago that I told you that Swarthmore had decided to drop football and that had sent coaches at all the major schools scurrying to contact players to sign them up. There were student protests - which at Swarthmore may in fact be something that students can major in - but they seemed to do no good. But even at Swarthmore, money talks and administrators listen. It seems that Swarthmore alums began to ask for their contributions back and evidently some mentioned that they would be changing some of the terms of their estate planning documents and other things that college administrators never want to hear. And so football may be back at Swarthmore. My guess is that the next gambit will be from the administrators who will go to those alums and say that if they will just up their contributions and commitments by 50%, football will be safe for at least the next 10 years. After that, who knows…

Meanwhile across the country, Boise State is dropping their baseball program because it has "budget constraints". Now the program there is hardly the mother lode of talent to go directly to the major leagues and it may not be until June 10th that you can reliably schedule an outdoor game of baseball in Idaho, but if this is really only a money issue, I have an idea how the school can solve the problem. They just joined something called the Big West conference which has a couple of schools within a thousand miles of Boise but also involves sending their athletes to North Texas and New Mexico State (which is so far south it could easily be called "North Mexico University") and wherever folks decided to hide Arkansas State.

Memo to Administrators: It costs money to travel that far. Find a way to get in a conference that has schools near you. Have you heard of the Mountain West conference???

1. Al Gore need not worry that this relationship will be the model for Love Story II; he and Tipper are still in the running.

2. Now I know why Armando gagged in the World Series; he was waiting for the gendarmes to show up and serve him with papers and he could not concentrate on getting batters out.

Finally, there seem to be six tennis tournaments underway at the moment and there are not nearly enough tennis players of any quality to fill all those draws. But in case you missed it, Vladimir Voltchikov advanced to the quarterfinals of the Qatar Open with a win over fellow Bealrus countryman, Max Mirnyl. And in the Gold Flake Open (held in Chennai, India) Cyril Sauliner of France defeated Byron Black of Zimbabwe in second round action. For the 11 people who care about tennis anymore, here are some questions;

1. Do all players from Belarus have alliterative names? If so, did Byron Black emigrate from Belarus to Zimbabwe? Is that a step up on the food chain?

2. No peeking now, but can you name any town or geographical feature that is within 100 miles of Chennai, India?

3. No peeking now, but where is the Qatar Open held? Is it in
   a. Doha
   b. Rena
   c. Meha
   d. Faha (if you guess the next entry you get extra credit.)