Ricky Rubio, drafted fifth in this year’s NBA draft, has opted not to go to Minneapolis and instead stay in Spain to do his balling. I can’t imagine why.

Exhibit M…

Exhibit S…

One could almost hear a pin drop in the posh home. It seemed as if time stood still. The round head of the powerful man rose steadily like a floating M&M in zero gravity. His eyes widened in hope and his hands, fists clenched, above his head in premature triumph. There before him on the television was man’s great struggle of life and death played out in a sporting contest. His empire had threatened so many times to cave in on itself. His criticism and reputation trampled by the roadside like a sciurus carolinensis (squirrel). With a bitterweet smile he clicked off his TiVo and casually tossed the remote into his great leather chair. Standing before the window he saw the sun rising and felt his heart rise with it. All that he sought, respect, admiration, and validation, seemed to be just beneath it as it rose like a great phoenix. Today was Gary’s day.

He would finally achieve what every executive in America dreamed of. Drink in success through accidental happenstance, and not through educated business saavy. Now all eyes would focus their engrossment in his “frigid” direction. Now the fame and attention would be focused when the paper came later that morning. The headlines would tell of the brutal death of such a noble warrior. First tears, then shameful attention would be paid. Much like the driving force behind the interest in NASCAR, attention must be paid…just in case. Now the families would come. Children, wrapped from head to toe in catalog purchased scarves and wool caps, would bob happily on their fathers shoulders as he marched toward the arena crammed shoulder to shoulder with a good friend and his family. Hot dogs and beer salesman, sweat on their steaming faces, would be worked up into a frenzy at the sudden success that they now equally enjoyed. Mothers would kiss their daughters sweetly while waving banners and signs, having just completed their part in The Wave. Champagne would flow in the upper boxes as well and here Gary’s train of thought was broken.

His butler entered the room politely bringing him the morning paper, with the sports section already ferretted out, then shrinking out of the room with a noticeable haste. And as his eyes ran over the words and pictures of reassurance, he was suddenly crestfallen. Under impossible odds his "hero" had actually survived.

The attention would be brief and fleeting and then people would just go back to their American Idols, Dancing with the Stars and the NBA. Completely deflated Gary shrunk back into his great leather chair noting the pain in his rear as he crushed his TiVo remote. He tried to reminisce of better days like the time when he got his picture taken with his favorite rapper of all time. Looking to the window once again he couldn’t help but notice that while the sun was rising a rain cloud floated lazily in from the South. It looked as if it were going to be a rainy day after all. Gary couldn’t help but note the poetic irony that melted ice was rain in it’s purest form. Rubbing a hand across his globe like head he muttered, like a child of nine would, “I don’t like hockey anyway.”

Church.

Steroid Buddy! Steroid Buddy! Where ever I go you’re gonna go….Steroid Buddy and Meeee!!

            Roger Clemens was interviewed by Mike Wallace last night in what will go down in history as the best bad acting job I’ve ever witnessed. Has Mr. Clemens not read anything about lying and how to not do it poorly? Of certain tell tale signs that indicate your guilt? Watching his interview was absolutely astounding.

            The most interesting part of the interview was a somewhat tame Mike Wallace notorious for his very frank and direct way of asking pointed questions, no one wanted to answer, instead of beating around the bush. As Wallace observed the new twitch that Clemens acquired as soon as the camera’s were rolling, the incessant blinking of his eyes and the sweat on his brow, I can only imagine he felt sorry for the aging pitcher. Wallace must’ve thought I could make this guy self-destruct on national television. It’s like watching Magneto flip your car into a tree to injure you instead of folding your car in on itself like an invisible junkyard crusher. Yes, the heat waves of mind melting emanating from Wallace’s wrinkly, subhuman head were minimal at best, even still Clemens looked as if any second he would fall to the floor sucking his thumb and crying out for his binky.

            Appropriately, enough Clemens’ performance was almost that of a 8^th grade debate team nobody. Not the captain mind you but that kid that signed up because Kelly Kapowski was a fox and she was on the debate team and that was surely the way he’d get her to notice him. I digress. His terrible repetitive logic of “why would I do [steroids] it’s just a quick fix…it is it’s own penalty because it ends guys careers quickly” was reminiscent of a kid trying to explain to his mother “I didn’t throw the rock at the window to break it, I was throwing it at the wall and I accidentally missed, even though I also coincidentally locked myself out of the house.” (Sorry, mom, I lied about that.)

            Some ask me if I think he took Steroids during his years in baseball and I politely respond with a palm strike to the top of their foreheads where the frontal lobe is located to jar the center of logic and reasoning for them. I call it the Palm Strike of Reeducation Of course he was taking Steroids. He may not have known at first but then when he found out he didn’t stop, or he’s been trying to play dumb for the last 20 some odd years.  That the “magic needle” that allowed him to return to baseball, like Methuselah in a bugs bunny cartoon, was just B12 and Lydacane. You’ve got to be kidding me.

            For Clemens this whole interview thing, I hope, has taught him a very valuable lesson. Even if you fool yourself into believing your own lies it ain’t gonna fly with the rest of us, especially when we see him sweat on national TV.

“Ya hungry big fella’?” 

Sorry Ike. But seriously Norv Turner reminds me of this drunken employee I once worked with. No matter how drunk he came to work, management always gave him a pass. Norv Turner is like that with his coaching. Not that he comes to work drunk and giggles at his reflection in LT’s visor for 10 minutes, but he is a terrible NFL coach. When Alex Spano hired him his NFL record was 64 wins and 82 losses. WHAT??!!! This gets the official “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Who thought this was a good idea? I’m sure I could get talked to death about Turner’s good points but this is kind of ridiculous. Fire a guy who takes your team to the playoffs consistently to hire a guy with a losing record. Well, a 10-5 record isn’t bad. It’s pretty damn good but is it Norv? Not at all. None of the games thatSan Diego lost in my opinion were excusable. So and So’s defense wasn’t so terrifying that the offense couldn’t get going. It was Norv. Towards the end of the season with a few wins under his belt I think Norv decided that it would be “too risky” risking possibly not getting into the post season with his playbook and simply threw the thing out. (Either that or before each game LT tells Merriman to eat this “notebook sandwich” because it will give him a boost of energy.) Afterwards poor Turner pretends to coach the game when actually it’s the Chargers sidelines “just fooling around” and that’s when they get their wins. They realized that Norv was actually just the Wizard of Oz. The Chargers sidelines (minus Norv) went on a 5 win streak late in the year because they were tired of losing. So now if he really wanted to Norv really could be like my former co-worker who came to work drunk. He doesn’t have to coach his team anymore he’s just gotta be there. So, Norv, have an AMF on me you paper cut out.

Thomas Coughlin coach of my beloved New York Football Giants says he’s gonna play the starters. Could it possibly be a strategy? He may actually be doing this just to trick Bill Belichick into playing his starters. That way he doesn’t play any of his starters at the last minute. BAM!! Coughie throws in the JV squad and because they’re so excited to play they pull out all the stops. Belichick is stunned at the starving mob that has now taken the field. They’re taunting Tom Brady and a wily wide receiver has purposely kicked Rodney Harrison in the head after an incomplete pass. Lorenzen tells the guys in the huddle that he wants to do that play from Necessary Roughness. Suddenly, on the 1^st series of the 3^rd Quarter the Giants throw an out pattern to Hedgecock who catches and is forced out of bounds by Bruschci right into Bill (Road kill) Belichick. Coughlin smiles knowingly on the sidelines and shakes hands with Eli who is wearing his lounge-like red, white, and blue sweatpants and matching jacket.

But then again that’s not reality. The reality is you have a historic game and a playoff spot. Do you attempt to make history now? Or Hope you win every game in the playoffs to make it to the equally historic Super Bowl?  I say make history now and risk it. For the Giants as far as the playoffs go sometimes they’re hunger comes into question. Either way you cut it after this game they’re gonna get that hunger back win or lose. Play all your starters because the playoffs start on Saturday for us. You’re playing the (statistically) best team in football. If the O-line opens up a “Strahan Gap” and Jacobs busts out for an excellent day then they know they can do it to the best team. If Eli is lying on the ground after missing another incomplete pass admiring Junior Seau’s testicle musk it’ll intoxicate him with a fire unmatched by any cheerleader that’s been down there in a more intimate setting. Either way it’ll be a good thing I think. And in case everything goes to shit and there’s a Boobie Miles type scenario I won’t gripe and tell people that Coughlin’s a dummy from hypocratic soap box. Oh and also a homeless man once told me “Go big or Go home.” Isn’t that what football is all about?