After a weekend of major events in the sporting world, things calmed down significantly yesterday. In fact, there are four “major” stories on the front page of the Washington Post sports section today. They are:

The Wizards are preparing for a push toward the playoffs. I guess that matters to someone.

An analysis of the off-season moves made by AL East teams. That could have run anytime in the next month.

An article on curbing fighting in local high school hockey. We know the NHL does not matter but high school hockey on the front page of sports?

An article on the emergence of Dale Earnhardt in NASCAR. Wow!!

The world of auto racing and its various sponsorships is sufficiently bizarre as to be interesting – even though I don't think I'll ever get into the idea of watching cars go around an oval on TV for three hours. In the NASCAR version of pickup truck racing, there is a female driver named Tina Gordon and her truck is sponsored in part by a lingerie company. On that company's website, Ms. Gordon is pictured wearing her racing gear but with the front open sufficiently to reveal one of the company's products. I guess if Joe Namath can pitch pantyhose… Here is what I do NOT want to see. Enzyte – the natural male enhancement supplement – is sponsoring a car this year. I do not want to see its driver pictured with his driver's uniform open sufficiently…

Don't tell me no one would think of that because there is a company in Salt Lake City called Beneficial Health Systems that makes a product that competes with Enzyte. They are considering hiring Dennis Rodman as their spokesperson and a company spokesperson explained this idea by saying, “Dennis is a very unique individual. He reaches a target demographic that we are extremely interested in.” Let me say this about that:

The phrase “very unique” is meaningless. Either something is “unique” or it is not.

Hiring someone to pitch this particular product who happens to be named “Rodman” is the real reason they wanted him, no?

Their target demographic centers on people who like to look at men who dress in wedding gowns?

I said the NHL no longer matters. Norman Chad called the NHL the No Hope League. If they go into “lockout mode” to negate much or all of the next season we might refer to that as the “a-puck-alypse”. But puckheads can take heart because Bobby Hull may be coming to the rescue. He is the commissioner of a new entity called the World Hockey Association (wasn't there one of them before?) and he hopes to get some of the NHL stars to jump to his league if there are no NHL games. There seems to be one minor problem here. All WHA teams have a $10M salary cap for the entire squad. Isn't a salary cap the reason these guys can't come to an agreement with the NHL? Why would a $10M salary cap in the WHA be acceptable but not a – say - $30M cap in the NHL?

I don't make this stuff up; I only report it. The NBA is planning to market a new product. Dog owners will be able to buy team replica jerseys for their dogs. There is the potential for a great truth to be told with this product. Imagine for a moment a Sixers jersey for Glenn “Big Dog” Robinson strutting around on a Pekinese.

Here is a good line from Scott Ostler's column in the San Francisco Chronicle on 15 February:

“Not to disparage Jason Richardson and his accomplishments in the Slam Dunk Contest, but surveys show that the dunk-off, in terms of popularity among All-Star Weekend events, now ranks below the Eleventh Man Gatorade Chugging Contest.”

Well, my hunch bet for the Kentucky Derby (Second of June because the race is on the first of May) will not work this year. Second of June finished second in the Fountain of Youth Stakes in Florida last weekend and broke a bone in his front leg. He will be out of training until at least the late summer. What he needs is to drink from the fountain of healing and then the fountain of speed…

I told you that George Forman plans on coming out of retirement for one more fight at age 55 if he can get his weight down to 225 lbs. [Aside: He could do that tomorrow if he amputated his right leg, but I don't think that would help him in the ring…] He has a willing opponent. Scott LeDoux is also 55 and is a boxing analyst/commentator for ESPN. LeDoux says that he and Foreman should stage a rematch of their bout in 1976 (Forman won when the fight was stopped because of a massive cut on LeDoux's eye) because according to LeDoux, “He should fight somebody his own age. If he fights a kid, he'll get killed.” I think that LeDoux would actually like to be part of this payday because the soundest advice that could be given to Foreman is not to fight someone his own age but not to fight - - period and exclamation point!

Finally, a quote from Bill Reynolds of the Providence Journal:

“Help me here: What exactly did Lennox Lewis retire from? Inactivity?”

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

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