Shane Mosley beat Oscar De La Hoya in a pay-per-view boxing event over the weekend. The decision in the fight was unanimous but controversial. How's that for a surprise? A boxing decision is controversial and there are rumors that it might have been tainted and those hints emanate from the people around the loser of the fight; who would have ever thunk it? After the fight, Oscar reportedly threatened a lawsuit to overturn the decision. I can't believe that will actually happen; but just in case, here is a simple question for any attorney's reading this:

What is the proper and decorous way for a judge to tell a plaintiff to take his lawsuit and stick it where the sun doesn't shine?

Last week, a high school coach in South Carolina won his 500th game. He has been coaching at the same high school for 52 years meaning he has averaged over 9.5 wins per season. And in that time span, he has had only two losing seasons. You won't hear his name on ESPN very often and he certainly has not been mentioned in relation to the coaching carousel that happens after every football season in the NCAA, but John McKissick at Summerville High School must know something about coaching football.

On Sunday, CBS did its NFL pre-game show indoors in a studio – presumably because of the weather in the NY area. Whatever the reason, I would suggest that they do this every week. Holding it outdoors with a bunch of idiotic fans behind them waving to the camera and calling people on their cell phones to make sure they watch them on TV is distracting.

Speaking of the NFL on Sunday, I have to say that the Philadelphia Eagles look like they are sleepwalking through the 2003 season and given the schedule in front of them they could be looking at a 4-12 record if they don't wake up quickly. They have a bye week in front of them at the moment and that may be a real respite for the team since it will not give them their third loss of the year! Yes, they have a lot of serious injuries. But they also have no energy – particularly on offense. I do not know what the problem is and I promise you that the sharks on the sports radio station in Philly don't either; but that will not keep the sharks from joining in on a feeding frenzy. At the moment, the Eagles don't look like they can beat anybody – even themselves.

In Miami people are happy that the Dolphins won and are patting themselves on the back for realizing that using Ricky Williams more will improve the offense. Naturally, I take a less optimistic view of the game stats; I see that the Miami defense – which is the foundation of that team – gave up 366 yards passing to Vinnie Testaverde and allowed him to complete 29 of 45 passes and sacked him only once. Whether or not the Dolphins' fans want to hear it, Vinnie T. is only slightly more elusive these days than The 'Fridge.

The Jets lost to the Dolphins and the Jets' season looks to be over because they have no way to get Chad Pennington back in time to do anything heroic. But that was to be expected.

Don't send me notes telling me that all of these teams are better than the Cardinals or the Bears and that I am needlessly picking on them. Of course they are better than the Cardinals and the Bears. I'm not sure either the Cards of the Bears could get an invite to the BCS championship game this year.

Tampa lost in overtime to Carolina in their home opener and the Panthers blocked two field goals and an extra point during the game. I can't find any NFL stats for “most blocked place kicks in a game”, but I would have to guess that three in a game would have to be in the top five games in the history of the league.

Over the weekend, there were a bunch of cities in the NFL that did not sell out their games and hence had the games blacked out in their “local viewing area”. The rule says the game has to be a sell-out 72 hours before kick-off or there is no local TV of the game. That rule probably dates to a time when the NFL worried about selling out their stadiums for games if there was local TV competition; that is before the time when teams would charge people money for the privilege of staying on the season-ticket waiting list. Obviously Arizona did not sell out. In fact, there were more than 50,000 tickets available for the game; the reported attendance was 23,127. But Arizona stinks and their owner is a public relations nightmare so you might expect that, right?

Well the Indy Colts did not sell out either and the while the Colts have not been to the Super Bowl any time in recent memory, they are a playoff team with some bona fide stars on the squad. The team was about 3,000 tickets short of a sell-out and the blackout rule did not put the game on local TV in Indy. Now if the Colts' ownership really wanted to stay in Indy (I still think they want to be in LA.) why didn't the team buy the tickets and give them to a charity and put the game on local TV? For all practical purposes, they would get a free three and a half hour advertisement for the team and a tax deduction for the charitable contribution of the tickets.

The Jags had about 25,000 tickets unsold on Thursday afternoon and so the locals could not see the team get clobbered by the Bills. This is awfully early in the life of this franchise for it to have this much difficulty selling tickets; this needs to be watched closely.

But the other team that did not sell out was the Oakland Raiders. If I remember correctly they are a team that did actually play in the Super Bowl last year, and this was their home opener. I'm sure that the Al Davis lawsuit against the city of Oakland did not encourage a wave of new game attendees, but this is a team that really has had attendance problems since returning to Oakland. It has blacked out 44 of their last 65 home games due to empty seats. Now, will someone please tell ESPN about this so that we don't have to endure another rendition of the story about the rabid and avid Raiders' fans? They can't even sell out half their home games!

According to reports, Giants' DT Keith Hamilton might be late for the team bus heading to tonight's game against the Cowboys. Hamilton has a court date today to respond to charges filed against him related to a driving incident. He is charged with consuming alcohol in a motor vehicle, possession of marijuana and possession of cocaine. Assuming he is indeed released on bond after the court appearance, he could be delayed in getting with the team by the NFL substance abuse counselors. If he has to talk to the booze, pot and coke folks separately, he might miss an entire week.

The PGA Golf tour presented the John Deere Classic last weekend. I'll bet the sponsor assured that the rough was neatly mowed for that event.

Finally, every once in a while I feel the need to yield the floor for my final bit of silliness to the venerable Lawrence “Yogi” Berra. Said Yogi at an event where people had gathered to honor him:

“I want to thank you for making this day necessary.”

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

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