It turns out that the grand jury in New Jersey did not indict Rashard Casey in the assault case against the off-duty police officer. Casey's friend and companion was indicted for assault by that grand jury. The press reports last week about Casey's imminent indictment were abjectly wrong. Penn State president, Graham Spanier, took this opportunity to chastise the press for its reporting and called the reporting "atrocious." As I said before, these kinds of proceedings are supposed to be held private and rather than get twisted into a pretzel over journalistic standards and accuracy, I'd like to know how someone in the press got any information at all. That is the "atrocity" that needs to be uncovered. Oh, and while I remember;

Memo to President Spanier: How atrocious is it to have your faculty Senate spend time on a resolution that decries booing at football games? Where is your leadership on that issue? Is that what the tuition payments of the students goes to support? Stand up and tell those dunderheads to worry about something important - like the global warming effects of butterfly farts.

In the last of the jurisprudence actions today, Dallas Stars goalie Ed Belfour pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge involving resisting arrest during a disturbance at a hotel last Spring. He is on two years probation and paid a fine of $3000. In addition, he must visit two high schools in the Dallas area during his probationary period and use those visits to warn students of the dangers of alcohol abuse. Hmmmm… The charge was resisting arrest; he is supposed to "lecture" on alcohol abuse. I don't think I need to have the legal wisdom of Oliver Wendell Holmes to have a strong suspicion that Ed had popped a few on the evening in question.

In baseball news, Roger Clemens will appeal his $50,000 fine for whatever happened in the World Series "bat incident". The only thing that comes to mind is why would he want to keep this incident on the front burner? If he and Mike Piazza got together and did one of those old time Miller Lite commercials, he would make back much more than the $50K and it would put a much more positive glow on the whole mess.

Tony Gwynn is going to test the free agent waters saying that he fears that his days with the Padres are over. Here is what I think ought to happen. The Phillies have a roster of young players who might actually be decent major league players in a couple of years. Tony Gwynn should be signed by the Phillies to a contract that says that he will play for a year - or maybe two at the most - and then be their batting coach/hitting instructor/sultan of swing/whatever.

Bobby Valentine was re-signed by the Mets for three years. If the Mets are 10 games under .500 in July next year, he will be gone.

Jeffrey Hammonds' name has shown up on the free agent list. Here is another player who will not get the publicity of an Alex Rodriguez or a Manny Ramirez or a Mike Mussina or an Andres Galaraga, but Hammonds may be a real value among the free agent signings.

Also showing up on the list of free agents are a pair of players who will probably be collecting Social Security in the next year or so. Steve Ontiveros and Jesse Orosco are out there sitting by their phones wondering to themselves if they can pull the wool over someone's eyes yet one more time…

The NCAA geniuses are looking at reforms for Division I basketball. They have recommended limiting the distance that a high school player may travel to play in summer leagues or summer tournaments and to limit the number of these events that any given player may participate in. They also recommended that the NCAA hire more "enforcement personnel". What a waste of time. Look at what the NCAA did to Minnesota after one of the worst scandals in the history of the NCAA that did not involve point shaving. The answer is that they did next to nothing and Minnesota can still participate in games and share the bountiful revenues of NCAA basketball. Why make complex rules and hire people to try to understand them so they can enforce them when the final result is - - - squadoosh. I can see it now; how far is it for a kid to travel from Armpit, Iowa to a summer league in Mosquito Heaven, NJ. Do we use the "great circle route distance"? the AAA mileage on their recommended route? the distance on the "scenic route"?

Don't peek. What team in the NFC has three players in the top ten receivers based on number of catches? No, it is not St. Louis. It is the SF 49ers with Terrell Owens leading the NFC even though he was suspended for a game and Jerry Rice and Charlie Garner. And which AFC team also has three players in the top ten receivers? No it is not Denver. It is Jacksonville with Keenan McCardell and Jimmy Smith and Kyle Brady.

In the NFC, the Falcons are dead last in total offense and next to last in total defense. They are 3-6 with a difficult schedule ahead of them and they could easily wind up the season at 4-12. Chicago entered the season with aspirations of sneaking into the playoffs. They are now 12th in the NFC in offense and a symmetrical 12th in the NFC in defense. The Bears are 1-7 and their two easiest games left are probably Green Bay and New England. Chicago should have a really high draft pick to play with next Spring.

In the AFC, Seattle is 13th in team offense and dead last in team defense. Meanwhile San Diego is 14th in team offense and next to last in team defense. These two teams play each other this weekend. The team that makes the last mistake will lose.

Cleveland Browns' coach Chris Palmer has gotten a vote of confidence from the team owner. In a press conference, Palmer was asked if he was sacrificing the possibility of winning games by playing Spergon Wynn on a rotating basis with Doug Pederson. Palmer said something to the effect that he was not sacrificing anything by playing Wynn and that by failing to develop Wynn it might cost future victories. After that response and the vote of confidence from the owner, I would suggest that Mrs. Palmer not buy any green bananas once the season is over.

Peter King says that he thinks that Redskins' coach Norv Turner will be coaching the San Diego Chargers next season. What does King have against Norv Turner? "Never Nervous" Norv has endured the Redskins turmoil during the final days of Jack Kent Cooke and then through the goofiness of John Cooke as he tried to find a way to buy the team that his genius father could not find a way to leave to him as part of the estate. Then he tries to coach a team when the NFL refuses to accept the buyers of the team identified by the estate trustees and finally the NFL does accept Daniel "Darth" Snyder. He made the playoffs last year; he will make the playoffs this year. And for all this he gets to go to San Diego and coach a team that has Ryan Leaf and Jim Harbaugh on it? Which Circle of Hell is this man doomed to?

The NBA season began last night. One game comes to attention right away and represents something that David Stern needs to get on fast now that the Joe Smith Fiasco is over. The Cleveland/ NJ game ended up with a score of 86-82. That is what will drive NBA ratings through the floor. Anyone who has known me for more than two weeks knows that I love defense; I'd rather play defense; I would always build a team through its defense. But these games are not played in the eighties because of defense. They are there because teams play slowly and shoot poorly. Cleveland shot 32 for 78 last night; NJ was even worse shooting 31 for 85. Those are "high school numbers".

Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe - who is called "the quintessential American sportswriter" by Tony Kornheiser - suggested that the way to get coaches to put some real offense back in the game was to offer a $1M bonus to the coach whose team leads the league in scoring. Problem is that by February, it will be clear that 20 teams have no shot at this and so the "bonus" will be ineffective. You need to have an incentive that will make coaches look to score and to make that incentive something that will last out the season and to encourage coaches to work on shooting and foul shooting during the season in a serious way. Here is my idea:

If you win a game and score less than 90 points, it counts as half a win in the standings. The loss counts as a full loss but the win is devalued.

The Clippers lost at Utah. That can't be a shock. The Clippers are a team that can field a full set of players who are younger than 22 and their coach, Alvin Gentry, has seen this inexperience level and has commented on it in a way that would make a political spin doctor stand in awe. Gentry said, "We may not know what the Hell we're doing, but at least it makes us hard to scout." This is a man with a great future outside the game of basketball.

The Clippers last night were led in scoring by Jeff McInnis who was the CBA player of the year last year. Immediately, that is a problem. Worse yet is that McInnis is the point guard. The Clippers last night committed 24 turnovers and had only 3 steals. Utah - just for comparison purposes - committed 12 turnovers and had 11 steals. Michael Olowokandi was the Clippers #1 pick two years ago. In last night's game, he played 17 minutes; he scored zero points; he had four rebounds; he committed 5 personal fouls and was charged with 6 turnovers. Like Spreewell said, the bar is so low here that he has to do better in the next game, no? The Clippers' next game is against Houston on Saturday night. We shall see.

Finally, in case you missed it, the Scotland Soccer League Cup is being contested and in a quarterfinal match, St. Mirren defeated Dunfermline by a score of 2-1. Alex, I'll take "Places I Have No Idea Where They Are And Could Not Care Less" for $400.

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