To whom it may concern:

I am offended at a comment in the latest installment of the Sports Curmudgeon (Issue 23: 08-03-00). I do not see where those of us who use the services of Greyhound Buslines should feel inadequate or slighted simply because the NCAA has its collective head up its collective ass by adding another bowl in India-No-Place.

Sincerely,

The Orioles have begun a major spin-doctoring campaign to let all of us know that the Fire Sale they conducted just before the trading deadline was all part of a master plan to restructure the team and to be a contender next season. There are some hollow rings here such as:

The emphasis will be changed to spending the big money on pitchers and not position players. Problem here is that the Orioles have been low-balling Mike Mussina who wanted to get his negotiations done in spring training. The managing editor of Baseball America calls the pitching prospects the O's got in their trades 'mediocre at best."

The trades were made to enhance the defense. Lord knows the Orioles defense was in need of enhancement but two of the players traded were Mike Bordick and Charles Johnson who were arguably the two best defensive players on the roster.

From now on the O's will not give out "no-trade clauses" because it supposedly hampered their ability to clean house. Who else were they going to trade? The mascot? Oh, I see it's because Albert Belle has a no trade clause that stuck them with him that they want to make this change.

Part of the plan was that they saved an estimated $2.8M just in the last two months of this season. Excuse me but the O's get 45,000 people a night and that is roughly the gross gate receipts plus parking and concessions for 2 games - maybe 2.5 on the outside.

All this spin-doctoring comes from John Angelos - son of the owner - whose title is "Orioles' Executive Vice President" - and whose credentials as a meddler in the affairs of the team include being the two time winner of an expensive rotisserie league. John talks about accountability so let him account for this:

Albert Belle at an average of $13M per year. Didn't this happen while you were "Executive Veep"?

A while ago FIFA - the international ruling body of soccer - was poised to name South Africa as the host country for the World Cup in 2006 but a voting delegate from somewhere in the area of Micronesia abruptly voted his own opinion and not the party line of his home association and the games wound up in Germany. This will be the 10th time that the Cup games will have been in Europe; they have never been in Africa. So FIFA has decided to do a rotation among all six continents and begin that process in 2010 when Africa is expected to be the "designated continent". Maybe there is a message here that FIFA needs to think about. Maybe there are more "pleasant" and "entertaining" venues in Europe than in Africa and that is why the delegates keep voting to go there. In no particular order, you can consider Paris, Rome, London, Prague, Vienna, Madrid on one hand and then Johannesburg, Bamako, Niamey, Dar es Saalam, Khartoum, on the other. If you are likely to be part of the organizing committee and are looking at spending a large part of your time "on site", which list are you going to favor?

Rod Strickland who has the social graces of a wart hog and whose idea of a culturally interesting event is to get stopped by the police while driving a vehicle after imbibing in a few too many brews is holding a fundraising event for his youth foundation. The centerpiece is a black tie gala at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. I'd be willing to wager that someone has to draw him a map to show him how to find the place.

David Cone is back from 10 days in the minor leagues and his consultations with the Yankees' pitching guru. Cone says that his mechanics had come apart and that he has improved them. Cone is 3-15 in his last 32 starts since pitching a perfect game last July. He is winless in 14 starts since April of this year and the Yankees lost the last twelve games he started. If he can go 5 innings and give up only 2 runs, that would be an improvement and the Yankees can declare victory in this affair.

On Wednesday when Curt Schilling shut out the Braves and beat Greg Maddux, there were only three walks handed out and no mid-inning pitching changes so the game was over in 2 hours and 15 minutes. And it was an interesting game because it was close from beginning to end.

In college hoops, the ACC and FOX Sports announced that there will be 14 games televised on Sunday nights starting next season. This is a 10-year contract. In an interview on FOX, the ACC Commish - don't remember his name and it is not important - said that this was an important marketing step for the ACC but that the conference would not make any money off the telecasts. Say what?? You signed a 10 year contract to telecast games where you would not make any money? What the hell were you thinking? Or is this the same kind of "not making any money" that pro franchises talk about when they say they need a new stadium/arena/whatever?

In NBA moves, the Magic traded Matt Harpring to Cleveland for Andrew DeClercq. I've been waiting for DeClercq to do something - anything!! - so that I can observe here that he has not been the same since he lost that election to Nelson Mandella.

In the NFL, the Indy Colts have signed Billy Joe Hobert to be the back-up QB to Peyton Manning and they cut Pete Gonzalez. If for the entire season, Hobert has to take more than 10 snaps with the score differential less than 30 points either way, the Colts are in major trouble. And by the way, Billy Joe has not been the same since he jumped off the Tallahachie Bridge - and landed on his head.

The Dolphins great QB competition to see who would succeed Dan Marino in the job has just ended. Jay Fiedler - not the unacknowledged son of the late conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra - will have to bow out of the competition since he underwent arthroscopic surgery on his hip and the most optimistic estimate for his availability is the opening game of the regular season. So Damon Huard is the man in Miami for this season.

The Bengals continue find ways to dig themselves into a hole. The injury to Darnay Scott was not anyone's fault, but you would think that after an off-season of blundering and a devastating injury, they might find a way to "make nice" with Corey Dillon who is their holdout RB and the only RB on the squad who is anything better than ordinary. Not the Bengals. They issued Corey an ultimatum that if he does not report by 11 August, he will not be eligible to play in the opener and will not be paid for the game. How many classes in motivational theory do you have to take to get to this technique? Dillon already said he will sit out until the 10th game and then sign whatever contract there is so that he can play and get credit for playing a season and then move on from Cincy as a free agent next year. How does this ultimatum help anything?

Finally, on ESPN2 they were talking to some goof who was identified with an onscreen graphic as "ranked 2nd in the world in the Street Luge". When asked what he did when he was not "Street Luging", he said:

"I consider sleeping one of my hobbies."