Tell the truth; do you care about Olympic athletes taking performance enhancing drugs? I don't. In fact, I think that the Olympics should allow any drug to be used as long as it is disclosed. That is what horseracing does and all the bleating and crying about how awful it would be has died out. So let these people use 3,5 tetraphenyl-cyclo-boop-de-doop; just make them say what they are using so that when they start growing a third nostril in the middle of their forehead and a pair of tomato plants in their armpits, we'll know why.

Our National Drug Czar, General Barry McCaffrey weighed in saying that the new testing closed the greatest drug testing gap in all of sports. He went on to proclaim that although there is still work to be done, these Games in Sydney will "begin a new era of drug-free competition." If he believes that, then the General is smoking some high quality stuff.

Memo to General McCaffrey: The drug problem is not Olympic athletes who take them to run fast. If you have not figured that out by now, then there is no hope. And if you are taking a lot of time to work on this issue, why have you not figured out what your real job is after all this time?

The monster NBA trade that was mentioned here yesterday happened last nite. The interesting thing is that Anthony Mason is headed to Miami. On one hand, this could be a good thing since he was a much more focused player under Pat Riley in NY than he has been since Riley left and Mason moved on to Charlotte. On the other hand, Mason managed to get into trouble and managed to get himself arrested more than a couple of times on the "party-scene" in Charlotte. What will happen to him in South Beach? I suspect that Riley will name someone to be the "Bail Officer" for the Heat sometime in the next couple of days. If not, maybe the plan is to move Mason on somewhere else.

The Pacers signed Sam Perkins to another one-year contract. They also re-signed Austin Croshere and have said they want to re-sign Smits and Miller and Jackson and Rose. If they do that, then they are committed to trying to win it all next year and that means that Al Harrington and Jonathon Bender will get no playing time again next year. Some team might want to try to get both of these potential wunderkinds in a package deal for one good older player that the Pacers might need. If either of them is worth being picked high in the first round (Bender went fifth I think and Harrington was around 12th), that could be a way to rebuild a team that has older players and needs rebuilding. Can anyone spell W I Z A R D S ????

The Chicago Bulls pulled a real fast one on everyone. They invited Tim Duncan to visit and they put on a real show for Tracy McGready and they cozied up to Grant Hill in the last month to make us think they were aiming to sign them. It was all a subterfuge so that they would get a clear shot at Ron Mercer who signed with Chicago yesterday. Jerry Krause is clearly a genius!

In college hoops, Clem Haskins has admitted that he did pay tutor, Jan Ganglehoff, to work with his players. He had denied this to investigators in the past and had issued public denials of this charge too. Lots of "Clem-people" rose to his defense and said what a sound person he was and how he might have skirted an arcane rule or two but that he was such a man of integrity that his denials made it a certainty that he had not done such a thing. But there was one silent voice in all that brouhaha that made me pause. John Thompson only commented on what a good coach Haskins was and how he got the most out of his players because he taught them to work hard like Clem worked hard. But Thompson refused very directly to join the "Clem-people". John Thompson can be an annoying paranoid, but he is a bell-weather in these kinds of situations. The only fundamental disagreement I have with Coach Thompson - and with my friend Festus - is that they think Jerry Tarkanian is actually worth the powder it would take to blow him away.

Memo to Jan Ganglehoff: If I had that name, I would immediately petition a court to change it to Susan Ganglehoff.

Along that line, Darrin Erstad is still on track for a season total of 260 hits. He had 170 hits in 106 games.

In NFL news, the Cincinnati Bungles have lost WR Darnay Scott for the season. In a practice drill, a player ran over his leg while Scott was making a block and broke both bones in his left leg. I'm not sure where in the lower leg the break occurred, but that is the type of injury that ended Joe Theissman's career. Of course, Carl Pickens is gonzo and that leaves the Bungles with the top two receivers being Peter Warrick and Craig Yeast. I'm warning you now, if Craig Yeast makes a game winning catch by leaping for a pass in the end-zone, I will name him Craig "Rising" Yeast.

The Ravens finally signed first round pick, Travis Taylor (WR from Florida), to a contract. He has been holding out and has not been in camp or at the last mini-camp. Brian Billick says he has a lot of catching up to do and will not play much even through the first regular season game. Billick also said that this is virtually the same deal that has been on the table for a month and a half. Why is this interesting, you ask? His agent is the same guy who handled the Stephen Davis negotiations with the Redskins. Could this be another agent of the "Howard Slusher School"? Howard's clients never saw a "reporting date" that they could not be late for. Howard also has had no clients for about 20 years...

Finally, Eric Lindros refused to sign the qualifying offer from the Flyers that would have given him $8.5M to play next season if he can play. This makes him a restricted free agent meaning that if another team signs him they have to give up a defined set of draft picks. Given his concussion history which raises questions about whether he can play at all and his obvious interpersonal shortcomings vis a vis his teammates who all but shunned him, what makes him think he will get a better offer anywhere else? If I owned a team, I would be very concerned if my GM chose to sink big bucks and a bunch of draft picks into signing him. I hope Eric has invested well; I believe the gravy train does not run on his track any more.

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