"Why couldn't Demetrius Underwood have run onto the George Washington Parkway at 3AM when Rod Strickland was out driving drunk?

The sports world could've gotten rid of two birds, with one gold Cadillac SUV."

There are two conflicting versions of a simple event out there in media land. Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Sonny Jurgensen's son, Gunnar, had left his job as director of retail sales at FedEx Field to pursue other opportunities. Peter King of SI says on the CNNSI website that Gunnar was led away from his job by the gendarmes and that Sonny is upset about the turn of events. Stand by for more on this one; I suspect it is not over yet.

Ray Rhodes will be allowed to talk to other teams about a job as defensive coordinator, but the Redskins will want a draft choice from the team that signs him. Evidently, Rhodes told new head coach Marty Schottenheimer that he did not want to stay with the Redskins and so the team has "granted him permission to talk to other clubs." I don't know about you, but if I coached a team and one of the assistants that I inherited told me he did not want to be with the team anymore, I'd find a way to get his butt out of there as soon as possible. Suppose he does not get a job because another team will not give up the draft pick? What do you do then, keep him on? Or fire him just before the season when he can't get another job even though now it won't cost someone a draft pick?

Memo to Marty: Ray Rhodes does not want to coach here. You want to hire your brother as defensive coordinator anyway. If your brother is unavailable, you will hire Gunther Cunningham for the job. Why not just terminate Rhodes' contract and move on?

The Cowboys are one of the teams that will have salary cap problems in this offseason and one of the ways that teams can address that problem is to have a bunch of good draft picks make the team - as long as they are not in the top 5 picks and cost the team a bundle in terms of signing bonuses. But the Cowboys have traded away their first round pick and several other ones so that they are "pick deficient". I wonder if that means they might trade players for picks. If so, there are a few players on the Cowboys who have some tread left on the tires and might be available for "clearance sale prices". If I were a GM, I might be looking at the Cowboys' roster and be ready to make an offer soon after the Super Bowl is played. Remember, the Cowboys have a date in March when they either have to cut Troy Aikman or pay him a bonus of something like $7M.

For reasons that are unclear, Paul Tagliabue woke up yesterday and did not see his shadow and so he did not go back to bed immediately. That led him to make some remarks that got themselves quoted in the Washington Post. Naturally, he thinks Danny Boy Snyder is doing a wonderful job and that hiring Marty Schottenheimer was a brilliant move. It probably was, but Tagliabue would say the same thing if the Skins had hired Richie Kotite. Later in the remarks, you begin to see that the Commish may actually be sleeping through the games. Saying that he did not see any major problem with the trash-talking and taunting among the players, Tagliabue did say that several years ago the league was concerned that there was "too much jawing between coaches and officials". So the league addressed that and now according to Tagliabue, "It's virtually disappeared. We don't have that issue."

Is he serious? When someone like Jon Gruden screams at an official with the veins in his temples protruding and pulsing faster than the beat of a Ricky Martin song, am I supposed to believe that Gruden is asking the Field Judge how the wife and kids are? When a coach slams his headset on the ground and stomps away from an exchange of words with an official, am I supposed to believe that is because the Umpire can't make it to coach's house for brunch on Tuesday? Gimme a break!

Speaking of things that will happen "soon after the Super Bowl", that is when the XFL will make its debut. We already know that Jesse Ventura will be one of the commentators and that one of the innovative ideas will be to have the broadcast team out of "the booth" and sitting in the stands among the fans. (Note the article of faith here that there will actually be fans for them to sit amongst.) It now appears that Bob Golic will also do color for the league and negotiations are coming along nicely to sign up Brian Bosworth to do the same. I think that "the Boz" is yesterday's news. His pro football career was virtually non-existent and the part that actually did exist was pretty miserable. His acting career since he left football has been so bad that he can't even get auditions for parts in movies starring Chevy Chase.

Jim O'Brien took over as interim coach of the Celtics last night after Little Ricky Pitino decided to stay in Florida for a while and work on his golf game. The Celtics hung with the Blazers for a while and actually led by 3 at the end of the third quarter. But then the Celtics did what they have been doing all this season - and for parts of the last couple of seasons - and fell apart like stack of apples in the fourth quarter to lose by 8. O'Brien has put on the chalkboard in the Celtics dressing room the records of only the four teams between the Celtics and the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with the idea that he wants the team to focus on the playoffs as a goal. That may be a good idea and it may serve another purpose too. If the entire set of records were on the chalkboard, one of the players might notice that after 35 games have been played this season (that is 43% of the schedule for those of you keeping score at home) the Celtics record is identical to that of the Los Angeles Clippers. Bummer!

The good basketball news in Boston is that the Celtics could have as many as 3 first round picks in the draft this year - two of the picks are conditional so they may not be available this year. So if they either get lucky with the bounce of a ping-pong ball or draft wisely, they could improve quickly. But they had the #3 and #6 picks in the draft the year that Little Ricky arrived in Boston and used them to take Ron Mercer and Chauncy Billups. Both are still in the league, but neither is even remotely what you might call an "impact player" except for those occasions when they fall on the floor.

In baseball, there was a big trade among three teams sending Johnny Damon to the A's and Roberto Hernandez to the Royals and Ben Greive to the Devil Rays. Damon could help the A's a lot if he hits like he did last year and steals bases in front of the big bats in the middle of the A's lineup. The other players are good players but are going to teams that have little chance of doing very much and little chance of keeping these players after their contracts expire.

I was listening to ESPN Radio last night and the overnight guy said that the KC Royals can really use Hernandez as a closer because according to him, the Royals had 29 saves last year and 26 blown saves. I thought that was unbelievable until he said that last year was an improvement over the season before when the Royals were the only team in history to have more blown saves for a season than saves. Since saves are so easy to come by, that has to mean that the KC bullpen would have to improve by 200% just to reach the level of "inept".

Harold Baines has signed a minor league contract with the White Sox. Baines is 42 and needs 145 more hits to get 3000 for his career. As of now, every player in baseball who has gotten 3000 hits is in the Hall of Fame. Now imagine that Baines has a great spring and makes it to the Sox as the DH for the year and has one last gasp of a season and gets 146 hits. Then he retires. Five years from now, he will be on the Hall of Fame ballot. Would you vote for him? I would not. Baines is supposedly a consummate pro and a great person to have in the locker room, but even with all that and 3001 hits, I just do not see him as a Hall of Fame player.

The Montreal Expos have been hemorrhaging red ink for years now. Yesterday, they lost a corporate sponsorship with Labatt's Beer because the Canadian brewer says it can't be sure the team will even be in Montreal for the 2002 season. This will cost the floundering Expos $2M per year and that is about 10% of their payroll costs.

Memo to Labatt's Execs: There is a possibility there will not be a 2002 season anywhere due to the anticipated strike/lockout. That would save the Expos money in that they will not incur losses. So if there is a 2003 season after no games in 2002, they might still be in Montreal and they might be financially more sound. Keep your options open.

1. What can they possibly be measuring to award hundredths of points to players when one can amass over a million points? Are they counting the number of blades of grass raised in the divots per round?

2. In a photo op where Pierre Fulke meets up with the Dixie Chicks, could you identify him in the photo?