I believe that "Siberian Huskies" or any "Huskie" for that matter have been in existence only for about 10,000 years, as they are a domesticated breed of wolf. I am not sure how long wolf species as we know them have been around, although I'd guess a lot longer than 800,000.

With that out of the way, it is time to look at mythical betting propositions for the weekend. Naturally, no one here would use any of this commentary as the basis for a wager of anything of value even in a venue where wagering is legal. I think this weekend should be classified as a Twelve Step Weekend. If you find that you have wagered serious money on the games available this weekend, you need to get yourself into a Twelve Step Program - quickly.

Only two NFL games come close to my preferred match-up between a good team and a horrid team. The first is Washington/Detroit and the Lions are not so awful that they fit the model. The other is KC/Tennessee and that game inspires exactly no passion in me. I'll make one mythical wager for the record this week and it will be on a college game that I will point out later, but for those of you who are one step away from a Twelve Step Program, here are lines that look marginally interesting: Saints at Chargers with Chargers favored by 4. The over/under is 36; it started out at 36.5. If you have to have action, I think the Chargers will cover here and I'd bet the over.

Browns at Bengals with Bengals favored by 6. The over/under is 41; it started out at 39.5. Bengals are bad but Browns are worse; Akili Smith is motivated to show the Browns that they should have drafted him first and not Tim Couch. Bengals probably cover here and the total should be over since both defenses stink; of course both offenses stink too…

Panthers at 49ers with Panthers favored by 3. I still believe that the 28 points scored by SF last week is more an indictment of the Atlanta defense than it is a justification of the SF offense. Carolina should cover this number. In college football there is an interesting matchup between Duke and Northwestern. They ought to call this the SAT Bowl. If you added up the SAT scores for the 44 starting players in this game, it would probably be higher than for any other Division 1-A game in the regular season.

Penn State is a 15.5 point favorite over La Tech and lots of the "experts" and people with the "inside info" are taking Tech to cover. If Penn State loses this game, there could be blood in the streets in much of the state of Pennsylvania.

The NCAA game with enough betting interest for me to place a mythical wager is:

Georgia at South Carolina. Georgia is a 9 point favorite and I know that S. Carolina broke their huge losing streak last weekend against the Little Sisters of the Poor and I know that Georgia has always played better at home than on the road. Nonetheless, I think that Georgia is a much better team and that Quincy Carter is the real deal at QB. So I'll put a mythical $55 on the Bulldogs and lay 9 points.

Some quotes just come back to haunt people. When the Devil Rays signed their version of the "Fearsome Foursome" - Jose Canseco, Greg Vaughn, Fred McGriff and Vinnie Castilla - they were criticized for not shoring up a really bad pitching staff. One of the team execs said that the record would be better with the same pitching because the Fearsome Foursome could hit a total of 150 homeruns. Well, once Canseco left with about a third of the season left to play, the "Feckless Foursome" had hit 54 homeruns and had struck out 270 times. And the pitching, you ask? It still stinks.

Rumor has it that Yinka Dare will be invited to the Golden State training camp in October. He has been out of college for about 5 years now and presumably that has been sufficient time for him to learn how to catch the ball when it is thrown to him. Sounds pretty basic, but Yinka never managed to master that skill to the degree that he could be counted on doing it more than six times out of ten.

Simeon Rice has signed his one year contract and has finally reported to the Arizona Cardinals. He has had no practices but they are saying he could start against the Cowboys on Sunday. My guess is that he saw the tapes of the Eagles laying sacks galore on Troy Aikman and decided to get in the fold fast to start to earn some of his "sack incentive clause money". Of course his teammates who have been sweating their "you know whats" off in the Arizona heat for the last 7 weeks say that it is just dandy that he has shown up and is "ready to play". If you had some truth serum and got it added to the Gatorade on the sideline on Sunday, you might just see some fireworks on the Cardinals' bench for the only time this year.

And as I guessed yesterday, Charlie Batch's knee is "not 100%" but he has determined that it is sufficiently healed to start on Sunday against the Redskins - now that the signing bonus check for his contract extension is deposited in his account. This is a QB who has not played or practiced at all in the pre-season. If Ray Rhodes was even moderately serious about making the Skins' defense "aggressive", then this is a guy to blitz about twice every set of downs.

In another twist of events that no one could possibly have made up, Australian customs officials found a stash of performance-enhancing drugs in the luggage of an Olympic official from Uzbekistan. As reporters dug around in the story, one of the IOC spokesthings - who is clearly like the old Chatty Cathy Doll with the pre-recorded statements - said that this all proves that the crackdown on drugs by the IOC is working. Oh, I get it. The athletes and coaches figured that they'd be searched and so they co-opted an Olympic official to try to sneak the stuff in and that shows it's working? I have a headache; but in the Olympic village there is no way that I would take a pill to relieve it.

John Thompson's son - John Thompson III - has been named basketball coach at Princeton where he had been an assistant to Bill Carmoody who has moved on to Northwestern. On the assumption that genetics still works, JT III is the right kind of guy for a place like Princeton. He should recruit well and coach well and will run an above-board program.

Ted Leonsis is the majority owner of the Washington Capitals but he has not been a visible presence like the other new owner in Washington Danny Boy $nyder. But Ted may have staked out the "long-range visibility" position in hockey when he said that he thinks there will be a strike in the NHL when this bargaining agreement runs out in 2004. Ted is officially nominated for the "Cassandra Award" on the basis of that statement. For those of you who have yet to see Ted, he looks like Victor Buono with a goatee but with all of the charisma and humor of okra. Ted says the financials of hockey are screwed up because too many teams are losing money and the TV contract is insufficient.

Memo to Ted: You already got a huge bump in your TV contract when Disney overbid by about 400% to get the games away from FOX. The ratings stink and until you change that you won't get someone else into a bidding war with Disney - and it is fear of "losing a property" that sends Disney into their standard "overspending frenzy".

Here's big news from Cal Poly - San Luis Obispo; it is probably front page news out there unless there has been surfer who blew out a toenail while on a really big wave, dude. The university has just named Mike LaPlante as Associate Athletic Director for Advancement. Advancement of what?

Manhattanville College - or could it be University? - just named Matthew Bucci as their Sports Information Director. He could start out by informing us just where Manahattanville is. Could it be near Magaritaville?

Syracuse just named Todd Wyant as Associate Athletic Director for Student-Athlete Support Services. I guess that means he orders the jockstraps.

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