So the Yankees and Braves have added pitching help. Now the pressure is on the other contenders like the Mets and the Mariners and the White Sox and even the D-Backs. So just how big an offer would it take for the Phillies to part with Curt Schilling???

The Olympics seem no longer to be interested in being a sporting event; they are now just happy to be an "event". Thank Heaven it is a quadrennial event! Remember that these games have a motto of "faster, higher, longer". Used to be somewhat true until new made-up sports and competitions were added. Ballroom Dancing was a demonstration sport; well at least there is some contact there; and maybe one of the couples could take the free-style dance program and demonstrate the horizontal rumba. But now we have the potential addition of "Trampoline Gymnastics" which is the natural and logical follow on to "Rhythmic Gymnastics". In rhythmic gymnastics, young women who are nothing more than skin, bone and leg muscle prance around on a mat waving long colored ribbons; in trampoline gymnastics, you have the vertical version of that same nonsense. This sport can aspire to reaching the level of "It Stinks!" and nothing more.

The Stephen Davis saga in Washington takes new turns every day. With Eddie George rumored to sign a monster contract with the Titans that may include a signing bonus in excess of $12M and the Skins already dug into a position where they have labeled Davis' request for a $10M bonus as "out of the question" and "a product of the fact that his agent has only one major client",things could get testy. The story in the Washington Post today is that there are questions about whether or not his ankle sprain from last year is fully healed and can he attain last year's form. I wonder who planted this little gem! This whole deal got nasty early last February when Vinny "Boombatz" Cerrato was less than kind in his comments about Davis and his agent. The ugliness has a way to go yet; maybe the Skins will take a page from the XFL script and have Michael Westbrook ambush Davis again and pound out a terrible tattoo on his head.

On the heels of the youth hockey fight where one person was killed comes the story of a kids' baseball game in Florida where a coach took umbrage at an umpire's call and hit him and broke his jaw. Aggravated assault is the charge here. And since things happen in threes, look for another of these goofy incidents to happen soon.

Rumor has it that the Sixers offered Allen Iverson to the Clippers on draft night for Lamar Odom and the 3rd pick in the draft. When the Paper Clips did not bite they said they would make it Iverson for Odom even up. Still no deal. Here is my take on that story:

1. Elgin Baylor made a good decision. Even the blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.
2. If Iverson still thinks of himself as "The Answer" he better worry about who is asking the questions. Next stop up the food chain from the Clips is Vancouver.
3. Had the Paper Clips made that trade, Allen would have been the "Wrong Answer" there too.

Memo to Allen: You look like a walking graffiti display. Your sullen and egocentric statements are not endearing to the people who will spend discretionary bucks on NBA 'stuff". Vince's mother is an interesting interview (although she will get old quickly) but your mother with a mike in her face is merely whining and annoying.

You want to be "the man" and have the aura of the next MJ? Then take your egotistical and off-putting attitude and stick it where no one will ever see it again. And if that is where the sun never shines, so be it.

The Washington Post is famous for taking its writers and having them retire and then bringing them back peridocially to give their views on things long after their views are barely interesting. The did this with Shirley Povich for at least 10 years until Shirley did all of us a favor and died so we did not have to read any of his new stuff. But the Post kept printing his old columns proving conclusively that he was boring long before he retired. As the say, the tradition continues...

Every Thursday the Post has something called the "Golf Page" and to say it is dreadful is to pay it a compliment that it has never earned. On that page they have a column written by Coleman McCarthy and Coleman wrote for years on the Metro Page and his column there was as insightful as bellybutton lint. (If any bellybutton lint is offended by the prior remark, I apologize profusely.) And so we continue to endure the drivel of this guy who last insight was that Paris is the capital of France. In today's golf advice, he tells us not to think, just concentrate.

Memo to Coleman: Don't write anymore. Just get out!

And I don't want to know that his wife was named Anna Maria because then they would have been the Esfandiarys, AM and FM.

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