I am certain that The Encyclopedia will make all of these numbers correct, but I figure that Joe Torre played 15 years in the major leagues and hit about .300 and won at least one MVP award. He had to have played in half a dozen All-Star Games and if someone told me that he was in ten of them I would not be shocked. Then he went on to a long managerial career with more wins than losses and three World Series titles. Joe Torre's absence is made all the worse by Sparky Anderson's presence since Anderson had a great managerial career and a horrendous playing career. He played one season with the Phillies and stunk even by their standards in the late 50s/early 60s. I recall that he hit about .210 and his slugging percentage was probably about .280.

Based on some kind of negotiated settlement, the Nevada Boxing Commission will suspend promoter Bob Arum for 6 months. This means that in addition to not being able to promote and stage fights in Nevada and places which have reciprocity with Nevada, Arum cannot attend weigh-ins or be in locker rooms or boxing rings during fights for 6 months. Keeping him out of the locker rooms is just too much. After all, where will he get his jockstrap odor fix?

Art Schlichter was indicted - yes, again! - for all kinds of fraud and money laundering activities centered around a scam he was running wherein he sold tickets to sporting events that he did not have. But the best one was that he allegedly sold tickets to a sporting event that did not exist. Sorry but I have to vote innocent here if I am on the jury. If some dork is willing to pay for tickets to the Yak Bowl on New Years' Day in Katmandu, then that is the dork's problem and not Art's. If convicted on all charges, Schlichter could be sentenced to 160 years in jail which might keep him away from the bookies on the outside for a while.

The Green Bay Packers are in danger of dropping to the bottom of the league. Dorsey Levens had surgery to "remove scar tissue" from the surgical repair of his knee. Not a good sign. Brett Favre has tendonitis in his right elbow and is not practicing because it hurts when he throws the ball. Watching the Packers' defense in the exhibition season, their hope this year is to outscore opponents and not to eke out wins of the 12-10 variety. If the offense goes south, this team is in the tank.

For the third straight year, the Arizona Diamondbacks had to borrow money to meet operating expenses. This year they needed a $20M loan that was co-signed by MLB. The bad news here is that attendance is down from last year even though the D-backs are in the middle of a run for the playoffs and the payroll is not exactly modest. But Jerry Colangelo can take heart from the fact that the guy who founded Amazon.com was Time's Man of the Year and that company still has not figured out how to make money. All they do is sell books and music; lots of stores do that and they show a profit. What is the big deal here? So maybe Jerry C. is Time's next Man of the Year?

Remember when people were thinking that the Toronto Blue Jays might win the AL East. Ignoring the fact that the team has historically been known as the Blow Jays and ignoring the burden they carry having Jim Fregosi as the guiding light for the team, they were merely on a hot streak and have now come back to earth. The Jays are 1 game over .500 and David Wells is 12 games over .500. What does this say to you about the rest of that pitching staff? One team is exactly 11 games under .500 at the moment; the Twins are 55-66. Now remind me again about just how wonderful the Twins' pitching is.

Don't look now, but Todd Helton is hitting .396 for the Colorado Rockheads. Since they started their road trip, Helton is 17 for 24 which is a .708 average for those of you who did not major in math.

Darren Erstad hit a cold spell. He now has 184 hits in 119 games and is behind the pace needed to set the record for hits in a season. Poor Darren may only get 250 hits at this pace.

A longtime reader of this drivel is retired and is living in Pismo Beach. He is a Dodger fan and he still likes to listen to Vin Scully; he has not yet realized that Vin's act is tedious on its best days anymore. Clearly, he is bummed out by the Dodgers' recent swoon and he is not a great football fan and cares nothing at all for exhibition football. So his suggestion was to cover more surfing in these pieces. The short answer is "NO!" The more extensive and more fulsome answer is "NO WAY!!"

We are now only one month from the start of the Olympics in Sydney Australia and I know that I am looking forward to this about as much as I am looking forward to an ice water enema. Ratings should stink since all the stuff will be on tape. But there is always room for this to be worse. And for me it gets worse when they add sports to the Olympics that I just do not care about like rhythmic gymnastics and whitewater-kayak-chainsaw-steelcage-death-matches. And now there are those who want to add golf to the Olympics. Will the pain never end? We already have the Dunhill Cup, the Ryder Cup (why don't they deliver the trophy here in a big yellow truck?), and the President's Cup (Monica Lewinsky would be a perfect person to present this trophy).

So why do we need Olympic golf? It is not like there are all these thousands of golfers around the world who are not able to compete with the usual suspects. How many golf courses do you think there are in Rwanda and the Sudan? I don't think that the Yeti Open in Katmandu draws a field of players that might actually threaten to stay within ten strokes of the field in a PGA event. Olympic golf would be just one more tournament with the same highly uninteresting players doing exactly what they do for 44 weeks of the year - every year. And Lord knows, we do not need any more opportunities for TV analysts to try to answer the standard question put to them by the "play-by-play guy" :

Q: (hushed tones) What do you think he is going to do on this shot, Beaglebreath?

A: (hushed tones and very seriously) Snotdrop, I think he is going to try to hit the damned ball in the hole.