Last Friday night was the expensive scrimmage between the Ravens and the Redskins. There was some justice there since there was a torrential downpour that stopped the festivities after each team had one series of plays. Unfortunately, Danny Boy will not take this as a Providential sign and cut out this ridiculous money-grubbing promotion for the future. Maybe he needs to hear the voice of God tell him:

"Don't make Me come down there!"

The QB controversy in Buffalo was quieted a bit when Doug Flutie pulled a groin muscle and will miss the remainder of training camp. Along with the off-season dismissal of Bruce Smith and Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed, this means that Buffalo fans will really need to buy a scorecard to tell who is out there in those blue uniforms.

The Tampa Bay Bucs have waived Darnell McDonald based on his being charged with burglary and battery. The Bucs pointed to their zero-tolerance policy for off-field violence. McDonald was the WR who was on the K-State team that had a brush with glory as the #1 team in the country until midnight struck and they turned into pumpkins. I think McDonald can play in the NFL, but I have to wonder why someone making the kind of money he is making needs to be in the same zip code with any kind of burglary activity.

In the first pre-season game, the Saints lost TE Cameron Cleeland for the year with a torn Achilles tendon and two DBs (Kelly and Israel) both broke a leg meaning they will be out a minimum of 10 weeks each. The Saints stink to begin with, but losing three potential starters makes this situation untenable.

The Steelers spanked the Cowboys, 38-10, in the first pre-season game for each team. The biggest news is that Dimitrius Underwood actually showed up and played the game for Dallas. Las Vegas has Dimitrius as an even money bet to take hostages and barricade himself in a hotel room sometime before Christmas this year.

The Eagles lost their first pre-season encounter with the Cleveland Browns by a score of 33-22. Ty Detmer was 12-14 for 128 yards against the Eagles' defensive "reserves".

Memo to Andy Reid: Take the numbers of the players that allowed this to happen and cut them immediately. They can't make it at the XFL level. They are not worth being cannon fodder.

As part of a salary cap move, the Seahawks cut Sean Dawkins a month ago to obviate his $2M salary this year. Today they resigned him for $10M over five years but with less money this year. Dawkins has placed the blame for all this on Gene Upshaw for negotiating such a bad deal in the last collective bargaining agreement. Veteran players who are not "hall of fame bound" are the ones who are subject to this kind of treatment and Dawkins says that players are upset with the Players Association.

Memo to NFL Players: Twice you have won free agency in a court and twice your union has negotiated it away. When you are on strike or are cut out of a big contract only to have to sign for a minimum contract, check out the guys in Union HQS; they are still using the limos and drinking Dom Perignon. Get the picture???

In the NBA, the Clippers coaching situation has reached the comic level. They have talked to everyone about this job from John Thomspon to Jerry Tarkanian to Bob Huggins. One of them - I don't remember which - said that they would not coach the Clips for all the money in the world. Chris Ford said that all he wanted was to erase from his mind all memories of coaching the Clippers. Well now the Clips have made an offer to Huggins of $2M per year for 4 years guaranteed. We'll see if that equates to "all the money in the world". And no matter if it does, owner Donald Sterling is still in charge there and that is what has made the Clippers the recipient of the SI award for the worst franchise in the history of sports.

Memo to Donald Sterling: You're number 1, baby!!

When Marty Brennerman - longtime radio voice of the Cincinnati Reds - was inducted into the Hall of Fame, he chose to use that bully pulpit to say that Pete Rose should be there too. Brennerman does a radio show with Johnny Bench on baseball and Bench does not think that Rose belongs in the Hall. Because of Brennerman's remarks, Bench has quit the program. This whole mess has gotten out of hand. I happen to agree with Brennerman on this one but it is not of sufficient importance that it should cause colleagues to set upon one another. Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe likes to refer to Rose supporters as "The Pete People". Well, it is time for "The Pete People" to take their crusade to the backrooms and out of the public's face.

And by the way, if Rose were to be inducted into the Hall tomorrow, it would clearly be a financial blow to him. He makes his living now selling his autograph and his presence as an oppressed unfortunate victim of "the system" and "the establishment." Once in the Hall, he would get reduced appearance fees and less for his now nearly ubiquitous signature. And if he were to be inducted, I'll lay 80-1 that he will not pick Jim Grey to present him.

Juan Gonzales - who turned down a contract offer from Detroit worth $140M - now claims that the park in Detroit is too big and that the Tigers need to move the fences in. Maybe that is why he only has 14 home runs this year? Maybe he is trying to see if he can challenge Albert Belle for the title of "Most Annoying Locker Room Inhabitant" this year?

More off the field baseball news: The Orioles' cantankerous owner, Peter Asbestos, is now suing the state of Maryland for "tens of millions of dollars" in rent rebates and physical improvements to Camden Yards. The suit alleges that the Ravens are getting better treatment from the state than are the Orioles including the fact that the Ravens were allowed to sell the naming rights to their stadium to PSINet. Peter Asbestos has retained David Kendall to represent the Orioles. Kendall now has time on his hands since he no longer has to appear on every Sunday morning talk show to declare that his former client - President William Jefferson Clinton - did not lie under oath even though he did not tell the truth.

Memo to Peter Asbestos: Maybe the Ravens get better treatment because their owner, Art Modell, is a really nice guy … uh, no that's not right. Maybe it's because the Ravens don't suck as much as … uh, no that's not it either. Maybe it is just because you are just an annoying presence that is masquerading as a carbon based life form. Yeah, that's it.

It seems that Darryl Strawberry's cancer has reappeared. That is not good news for him and it is not something that should be wished on anyone - except maybe for Peter Asbestos. But some of the sports journalists are now trying to say that it is the cancer that made him quit the rehab facility a month earlier than the therapists thought he should and it made him appear at the "less than wholesome" nightclub where he was photographed. Look, he is a sick man with a life threatening physical disease and a man with mental problems of huge proportions since he had undergone 14 weeks of substance abuse treatment when the normal regimen is about 4 weeks. But one does not excuse the other; one does not cause the other. His behavior is what it is; deal with it and don't try to make a morality play out of it.

There have been a jillion baseball trades but it seems that the Orioles are involved in half of them. The O's have traded Mike Bordick, Harold Baines, Charles Johnson and Mike Timlin to get six minor league pitchers and three players with some major league experience. The Washington Post began their story by saying that "closer, Mike Timlin" was sent to the Cardinals. Excuse me, but Timlin had 11 saves and 7 blown saves and he is just as much of an "opener" as he is a "closer". And supposedly, the O's have to pay about $5M of the remaining $16M in Timlin's long term deal.

They traded Charles Johnson to get Brook Fordyce. Brook is a year older and hits to a lower average and hits for less power and is not as good defensively. But Johnson's agent is Scot "Nuclear Winter" Boras and he and Peter Asbestos can't get along since neither can stand to be the second nastiest person in any given room. One of the minor league pitchers the O's get is already 26 years old; and, as a rule of thumb, if you are still in the minors at the AA level at age 26, you have no chance of making people forget about Jim Palmer. Another 26 year old career minor leaguer that they received is a first baseman who would seem to be superfluous since the O's have been raving about Calvin Pickering as the star of the future for about 3 years now. Unfortunately, Calvin is hovering near the 300 lb mark and may have found a way to eat himself out of the major leagues before even getting there.

The Phillies traded Ron Gant for pitcher, Kent Bottenfield. Gant had hit 20 homeruns for the Phils this year but had only 38 RBIs. That is not easy to do! In their trade for Curt Schilling, the Phillies got a minor league prospect named Vicente Padilla who is listed as 22 years old, but Phil Wood said on his radio show that he has heard that Padilla is at least 26 and may be 28. Maybe Padilla is really a dog and that explains the age discrepancy?

The Milwaukee Brewers traded closer Bob Wickman to the Indians as part of a series of Cleveland swaps. The Brewers had previously planned a promotion where fans attending Saturday's game would get a poster of Wickman as the team's All-Star representative. Well, the show must go on and 30,000 posters were given away as promised; but Wickman himself was a no-show. Honestly, you could not make this kind of stuff up ………

In horse racing news, the geniuses who own the Maryland tracks have done just about everything to keep the owners of Delaware Park from operating in the state. The reason is that Delaware Park has big time money flowing in from its slot machine operations and Maryland tracks are floundering in bad management. Well, Delaware Park bid $5.1M to buy Ocean Downs, the tiny harness racing track in Ocean City MD that is about as inviting a place to go as an open sewer. The owners of Rosecroft took out a loan from the owners of Laurel/Pimlico for $5.1M and exercised their "right of first refusal" to see if they would match the offer. They chose not to make the purchase because they said it was "overpriced and bleeding red ink." So why not buy it for $5.1M and close the track down (don't fix the septic system or make the needed electrical repairs) and sell it to a developer in Ocean City for at least a break-even and keep Delaware Park out of the state? Because they are not smart enough to have thought that through, that's why.

In yet another move to make the world a place where no one can be offended by anything, the University of Hawaii will change its name from the "Rainbow Warriors" to the "Warriors" because the rainbow is a symbol used by gays and lesbians in Hawaii. This explanation was actually offered by the AD at the university. Interestingly, it was in the 60s that the name was changed to "Rainbow Warriors" from just "Rainbows" because the students then complained that "rainbows" was a signal from the gay community. Now the gays and lesbians are accusing the university of homophobia.

Memo to Univ of Hawaii Administrators: What makes you think that someone will not be offended by the word "Warriors"? Might that not connote killings and pillages and the like? Why not re-invent yourselves as the Hawaii Hawaiians? That should not be too offensive to too many folks.

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