Cue the music!!

Bad boys. Bad Boys. Whatcha gonna do when they come for you? Bad boys. Bad boys.

We do have some bad boys to deal with this morning and let me start out with Bonzi Wells – one more time – out in Portland. Bonzi flipped off a fan a few weeks ago and rather than apologize he just said he didn't remember doing it because sometimes he just blacks out. Now he cursed out the coach, Mo Cheeks, and has been suspended for that (hopefully to help him recall the incident) and he has been stripped of his team captaincy. For someone who cares sufficiently little about social niceties as Bonzi appears to, I doubt that the loss of captaincy matters a whit. If the Blazers are serious about trying to clean up their image, this is a small step in the right direction.

Next on the bad boys list today is Keyshawn Johnson. The Bucs – probably more specifically Jon Gruden – have had enough of his petulant child routine and have deactivated him for the rest of the season. He isn't going to participate in any team events; he has just become a “non-person”. [Now if only the media will put him into that same status - - fat chance.] Obviously, there are many sides to this story; but no matter what Meshawn's spin-doctors put out there, this is not Johnson's first problem with his teammates. He had problems with teammates in high school, with the Jets and now with the Bucs. There is video footage of him getting in Gruden's face on the sideline. Maybe he isn't the sole cause of the Bucs' decline this season, but he is not anywhere near the status of “martyr” or “aggrieved innocent”.

This is a gutsy move by Gruden. His reigning champions have underachieved by a mile this year. The offense has been stagnant; the defense – once part of a discussion as to whether or not it was the greatest of all time – has had the ball run down its throat like a stomach pump. Four times this season the Bucs defense has had the lead in the final four minutes of a game and has lost it. At 4-6, the Bucs may need to win out to make the playoffs even though they might get in with a 5-1 spurt down the stretch. And looking down the barrel of that gun, Gruden says by his action that the team has at least the same shot at making that run without Keyshawn as they do with him.

Memo to Keyshawn: It's going to be a while until anyone even thinks about getting you the damned ball.

Outside the world of sports, police have shown up at Michael Jackson's home/enclave/alien nation/whatever. Once again there are allegations of improprieties with a young lad there. Jackson calls the place Neverland; I assure you that I will never set foot on the land there. But there is an old joke about Neverland that bears repeating today:

Q: What time is bedtime at Neverland?
A: When the big hand touches the little hand.

Hall of Fame bad boy, Dennis Rodman is in the news once again. In a statement released by his agent, Rodman says that he has entered an alcohol-abuse treatment program. I wonder what convinced him that he had a problem in that area?

Last on today's bad boy list is NY Mets' scout Bill Singer who just got fired for making some racially insensitive remarks to LA Dodgers' assistant GM Kim Ng. Without repeating the whole incident, he mocked her Chinese heritage; the Mets fired him after a heap of scorn was dumped – rightfully – on Singer. Recall my recent rant on Double Standards for offensive remarks for a moment. Tell me how this situation is significantly worse than what Shaq did when he mocked Yao Ming's speech. It isn't. Did anyone call for Shaq to be fired over this? No, they did not; and no, he should not have been fired. If Bill Singer is actually good at his job – given the Mets' roster, I'm not about to say that they have any talent evaluators who could find their ass with either hand – then his firing was an overreaction. But Bill Singer is bad enough to get on today's list. Cue the exit music:

Bad boys. Bad boys. Whatcha gonna do when they come for you? Bad boys. Bad boys.

Major League Soccer just signed Freddy Adu to a contract to play for DC United. Freddy Adu is nominally 14 years old but every picture of him and every tape of him playing soccer make him look as if he is 25. Who cares how old he is? I don't hear any screeches about his new professional life as I did about LeBron James and the other high schoolers who jumped to the NBA. If you are going to complain about an 18 year old skipping college and going out to make money, why not do the same for a 14 year old?

Actually, this puts a positive light on MLS for the moment and masks the fact that the league itself is – how to put this politely? – a mess. They had to contract two teams last year and one guy owns 5 of the remaining 10 teams. Of the 10 teams, 8 make the playoffs. That has to make for exciting play. If the NFL adopted this, it would have 26 teams in the playoffs meaning that you'd probably have to go 4-12 or worse to have a shot to be home for the Holidays. And now, MLS says it will expand back to 12 teams in 2005. There aren't any more soccer fans; the TV ratings are not soaring upward; new revenue streams have not emerged, so this can mean only one thing:

They found two more cities where there are people with more money than brains ready to invest in a soccer team.

Speaking obliquely about 14 year old sports phenoms, Michelle Wie has accepted a sponsor's exemption to play in a golf tourney against men on 15 January in Honolulu. I wonder if she will have an excused absence from school for those days?

Here is a good line from Jay Leno:

“Major League Baseball officials announced they will conduct mandatory testing for steroids next season after more than 5% of the players tested positive. Do you know what they call the 5% that tested positive? All Stars."

Finally, here is a playoff situation that ought to exist in NCAA sports:

The Mighty Oaks of Oakland City University (Oakland, IN) should play The Oaks of Menlo College (Menlo Park CA).

The winner of that game would then advance to play The Loggers of Puget Sound University (Tacoma, WA).

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

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