The Annual Dance Of Life Begins.....

Pitchers and Catchers have reported....The Season Of Hope begins anew....

In tribute to Spring Training, a friend sent me some Yogi Berra-isms to get us ready for the Death Star's next departure. Enjoy.....

Yogi Berra Quotes

If you don't know where you're going, chances are you will end up somewhere
else.

I really didn't say everything I said.

If you ask me a question I don't know, I'm not going to answer.

It ain't the heat; it's the humility.

It's deja-vu all over again.

You should always go to other people's funerals. Otherwise they won't come
to yours.

The only reason I need these gloves is 'cause of my hands.

You can't think and hit at the same time.

If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be.

If I didn't wake up, I'd still be sleeping.

The other teams could make trouble for us if they win.

I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early.

If you can't imitate him, don't copy him.

Never answer an anonymous letter.

90% of the game is half mental.

It's never happened in the World Series history - and it hasn't happened
since.

I'm as red as a sheet.

It's not too far, it just seems like it is.

If you don't set goals, you can't regret not reaching them.

Slump? I ain't in no slump. I just ain't hitting.

We were overwhelming underdogs.

A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore.

Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.

You mean now? (When asked for the time.)

We have a good time together, even when we're not together.

Little League baseball is a good thing because it keeps the parents off the
streets and the kids out of the house.

The future ain't what it used to be.

If you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Pair up in threes.

Don't get me right, I'm just asking.

I wish I had an answer to that, because I'm tired of answering that
question.

You give 100 percent in the first half of the game, and if that isn't
enough in the second half you give what's left.

90% of short putts don't go in.

We made too many wrong mistakes.

Thanks, you don't look so hot yourself. (After being told he looked cool.)

We're lost, but we're making great time!

If people don't want to come to the ball park, how are you going to stop
them?

How long have you known me, Jack? And you still don't know how to spell my
name. (Upon receiving a check from Jack Buck made out to "Bearer".)

I'd say he's done more than that. (When asked if first baseman Don
Mattingly had exceeded expectations for the current season.)

He can run anytime he wants. I'm giving him the red light. (On the
acquisition of Rickey Henderson.)

I knew exactly where it was, I just couldn't find it.

If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.

You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because
you might not get there.

The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase.

You better cut the pizza in four pieces. I'm not hungry enough to eat
eight.

I don't know, I'm not in shape yet. (When asked what size cap he wanted.)

I want to thank you for making this day necessary. (On Yogi Berra
Appreciation Day in 1947.)

I don't remember leaving, so I guess we didn't go.

I'd find the fellow who lost it, and, if he was poor, I'd return it. (When
asked what he would do if he found a million dollars.)

I usually take a two hour nap, from one to four.

Steve McQueen looks good in this movie. He must have made it before he
died.

It gets late early out there. (Referring to the sun conditions in left
field at the stadium.)

It was hard to have a conversation with anyone - there were too many people
talking.

I always thought that record would stand until it was broken.

Texas has a lot of electrical votes. (During an election campaign - after
George Bush stated that Texas was important to the election.)

You can observe a lot just by watching.

No, you didn't wake me up. I had to get up to answer the phone anyway.

I really liked it. Even the music was good. (When asked if he liked the
opera one evening.)

Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel.

Shut up and talk.

Once, Yogi's wife Carmen asked, "Yogi, you are from St. Louis, we live in
New Jersey, and you played ball in New York. If you go before I do, where
would you like me to have you buried?" To this, Yogi replied, "Surprise
me."

Carmen said "I took Tim to see Doctor Zhivago today." Yogi replied, "What
the hell's wrong with him now?"

The NY Knicks...Is Darth Marc Gonna Have To Choke A Bitch???

That's right...The Sith Lord was so disgusted, he took off his mask to show the world his contempt.

You're probably wondering what could make Darth Marc so angry, that he would reveal himself to the world.

If you're wondering that, well then, you're obviously not a Knicks fan.

This photo was taken last Wednesday at the Meadowlands as the host Nets were giving the Knicks the Marcellus Wallace treatment. The pliars and blowtorch were put in use as Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson displayed some new moves for their new EA Sports game. Me and my man Darth Clay missed the first quarter because Holland Tunnel traffic. But we thought we might be in for a pretty good game since the Knicks had an early lead.

Why we delude ourselves, I'll never know.

Needless to say, our guarded optimism quickly turned into despair as the Knicks reverted to form and got their doors blown off for the next three quarters.

I thought the Knicks would at least be competitive in this game. The Nets, despite the brilliance of Kidd, VC and RJ, are a perimeter team. They have noone to match up with Frye or Curry down low. Even with Star-bury out, I thought the Bockers had enough to make it interesting. Silly me.

But it's not the 10 game losing streaks, the 50 different lineups or any of the stuff going on the court that's so troublesome to me. I can live with rebuilding if there's some hope on the other side.

It's that Isiah and company have turned a bad situation into a hopeless one. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. Trading bad contracts for worse ones. Getting younger and athletic...but not bothering to find out if they know how to play. Or more importantly, can they play with this coach.


Just before he was immortalized with this look of disgust....My buddy, Darth Clay shown here, said something that I thought was rather profound about the Knicks situation.

He said, "We need a White Boy, Marc."

He didn't mean it literally, (although we would both love to see David Lee get more playing time). What he meant was that we need players who know when to pass and when to shoot. Players who are longer on fundamentals than West 4th/Rucker ball flash.

Players who know what the triangle or four corners means. Or if they don't, know some variation.

It's amazing how little the players of the NBA know about actually playing the game of basketball. White men my age are deserting the NBA in droves and some folks it has to do with the Hip-Hop dress and attitude. Bullshit. Hip-Hop hasn't hurt the NFL. It has more to do with the product being awful. The league is getting younger and younger. And as a result, many of the fundamentals that were being taught in college are lost on these kids.

It really makes you realize that we were in the midst of a golden age of basketball in the 80's and 90's.

But I digress. My angst is directed at the Knicks. Not the league as a whole.

Now I'm hearing that we're possibly making a trade for Steve Francis. On paper, Star-bury and Stevie Franchise on the same team would be a fantasy league player's dream. In reality, it's the equivalent of a School Bus full of kids hitting a brick wall.

Larry will deserve a raise if he manages to work that one out if it out.

And Brown's not blameless in this whole affair. I understand wanting players who can play your style. But what about adjusting to the talent you have and playing to their strengths instead of their weakenesses. No roster is perfect and I understand there are a lot of flawed players here. But this team should have more than 15 wins (they beat the Raptors tonight, yay!!). Don't forget, this is the man that sat Amare, Carmelo and Lebron on the bench for much of the Olympics while we struggled to get a bronze medal. I don't want to hear about the fact that we didn't have a pure jumpshooter like Michael Redd there. Any team with those three along with Duncan, AI, Stephon and company should take home nothing less than gold. Brown may be a great coach, but he's not perfect. Otherwise he wouldn't have been run out of town everywhere he's gone.

What a horrible time, to tell myself that I'm cutting back on the booze....

Super Bowl And My Weekend In Sports

The only thing I knew going into last weekend was this...I knew where I wouldn't be watching the Super Bowl.

As obnoxious as the Steeler Mob in Blondies have gotten over the last couple of years, I can't imagine what they would be like during the game.

I mean think about it...what have they had to brag about for the last 25 years? 23 if you want to get technical since that's when Bradshaw retired. Mark Malone? Bam Morris? Natrone Means and Stan Humphries bitchslapping them in the 1995 AFC Championship game? Neil O'Donnell playing catch with Larry Brown? Bubby Brister? Tommy Maddox? Slash?

As competitive as the Steelers have been in the Cowher Era, they still only have one Super Bowl appearance to show for it. And four home losses in AFC title games.

That had to burn in the crawl of every fan of the Black and Gold. In my humble opinion, as great as a World Series, NBA title or any other championship might be....the sweetest moment is when your team finally wins the Super Bowl.

When the Giants won in 1987, I must have watched that game on tape everyday for about a month. The fact that my two best friends (Cowboys and Redskins fans) were there watching the game with me, made the moment even sweeter.

Say what you want about Steeler fans, they're a proud, loyal group. So it had to kill them to watch Dallas, The Niners and more recently the Patriots take their places as the IT team for the moment. I know it drove me nuts.

But you knew that all it would take was for them to get back to the big game, for the hype machine to start to fire up again. Like it or not, the Steelers are one of the league's glamour frachises (Never thought I'd use glamour and Pittsburgh in the same sentence...) and the NFL, the league that markets their history better than any other, was foaming at the mouth at the possibility of getting two weeks of Steeler spin. Two weeks of Terrible Towels, Swann acrobatics and Jerome Bettis. Two weeks of Chuck Noll and Super Chin Cowher. Two weeks of Terry Bradshaw and Big Ben. With the history Pittsburgh's had since 1969, you'd be crazy not to spin this like a top.

And the pundits didn't disappoint, I stopped reading most of the stuff after the first couple of days. The writers ceased being interesting. I don't mind spin, but too much makes me dizzy.

If the best you can come up with is Jerome Bettis, Jerramy Stevens and Joey Porter...then you no longer deserve my attention.

But apparently the spin worked, because this is what happened....


NEW YORK (AP) An estimated 90.7 million people watched the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks for their fifth Super Bowl championship Sunday, the largest Super Bowl audience since 1996.

This must drive Pats fans nuts. They win three out of four titles but they can't begin to create the national buzz that teams like the Steelers, Cowboys or Raiders can. That's the difference between having a nice regional following and having a national fan base for over 30 years. Even if you're playing a blah team like Seattle, people will still watch. Can imagine if they played the Giants? (Ugh..it hurts just to write that) It would have topped 100 million easy.

That's why when the NFL talks about parity, they're talking out of both sides of their mouth. Yeah, it's important that you have a system in place where everyone has a chance to compete. But do you really think they or their television partners wanted to see a Carolina-Denver final? Without John Elway? It might have been a great game, but you would have been walking into a ratings abyss.

As much as the league likes to promote this "League/Team" first atttitude, they understand that stars and glamour put asses in the seats. And that's what you get when you have teams like Dallas, Oakland and Pittsburgh in the game. A built-in fanbase that doesn't have to be manufactured.

As for the game itself....I keep hearing about the horrible officiating. And they're correct, it was awful. But what did you expect? The officiating has been awful all year!!! Seattle needs to pipe down about the calls, because they were beneficiaries of bad calls all year. The Giants game as well as several others.

Should the five Seahawks fans in the country be pissed off about losing a game where they clearly outplayed the competition? Absolutely. But the Steelers made the plays when they had to while the Seahawks dropped pass after perfect Hasselbeck pass. They had plenty of opportunities and squandered most of them. Holmgren can call out the refs as much as he wants, it wasn't the line-judge's fault that Stevens hands couldn't match his mouth.

It's already starting though with the obnoxious Steelers fans. I go to Blondies after game. I congratulate the fans that I know. Fans who deserve to feel the joy of a Super Bowl win. But as I'm doing that, there's a couple of midgets who are sizing me up like they want to do something because I'm wearing a jersey they can't identify (Auburn Bo Jackson jersey in case you were wondering). It never ends. I just found out the other day that Blondies is listed as a Steelers bar on some of the national fan websites. Oh joy. Looks like I'll have to find a new bar for next season.

Big Ben played like a 23 year old playing in the biggest game in his life. But he made enough plays to win. And that's all that matters. Gaudy stats are nice. But what would you rather have? Dan Marino's 60,000 passing yards and 400 TDs? Or Troy Aikman's three rings?

Everyone's been writing that this is going to put more pressure on Eli. Really? You mean other than the fact that he's the son of a college legend and the brother of this generation's Marino? Or the fact that he's the QB for the New York Friggin Giants?

This kid has been handling pressure and came out smelling like a rose. Despite Big Ben's coming out party, I don't think it's going affect Eli one bit. The Steelers have been a championship caliber team for the last several years. Solid defense, skill players on offense, good offensive line and a battle-tested coach. All they needed was a competent QB who wouldn't lose games for them. They finally have that. Will Ben become Elway or Montana? A QB with the gaudy stats and the rings? Or Troy Aikman and Bob Griese? A QB with modest stats, great running game and W's. Only time will tell. But I'll tell you this, whatever Eli does, Pittsburgh's success or failure in the coming years will have nothing to do with it.

Staying on football, I like the writers choices this year for the Hall of Fame. White and Aikman were no-brainers, but I like the choices of Moon, Carson and Madden. Carson and Madden were long overdue choices. Harry Carson along with Mike Singletary was the dominant middle linebacker of his era. What took the writers so long one can only speculate. I've heard rumors about Carson burning the wrong bridges during his career. But that's another blog for another time. I can't understand why it took so long for Madden to get the call. He won over 100 games in 10 years and a Super Bowl. Is it the shadow of Al Davis and the fact that Tom Flores won two titles after Madden retired? Is it that he only coached 10 years and isn't know for any new innovations in the game like Landry, Walsh and Brown? Who knows.

I was actually surprised Moon got in on the first ballot. I was sure they'd make him wait a couple of years. Despite his gaudy NFL stats and the fact that he's the most prolific QB in the history of professional football, I thought his lack of playoff success would be held against him. Mike and MadDog said yesterday that if you wanted to put him in as a pioneer for the modern Black QB, fine, you can't put him in on just performance because he falls short.

Garbage. If you hold that against him, then you have to hold it against Sonny Jurgensen, Dan Fouts, Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, Fran Tarkenton, YA Title and others. I don't know what what world nine pro bowls, five years with 4,000 yards or more passing, 290 TDs and nearly 50,000 yards passing doesn't get you a trip to Canton. I guess Peyton's gonna be SOL huh?

It's silly comments like that that drive former players like Emmitt Smith crazy. He went on a rant this week that writers shouldn't be the only ones who judge who gets in the Hall. He's angry that his teammate Michael Irvin hasn't gotten call and that it took Rayfield Wright over 20 years to get his. He thinks Hall members along with fans should have a voice along with the writers.

It will never happen but Smith does have a point. There are way too many agendas where the sports writers are concerned. Old beefs that comes into play when the votes are tabulated. I don't know if getting the fans would accomplish, because it then becomes a popularity contest. But I think giving members of the Hall a vote could be a good idea. They might not have liked a guy, but if they respected him, they'll probably vote for him. More on that in another blog...

I went to another Nets game on Saturday. I watched Vince Carter break Dwayne Wade down like Will Hunting and calculus. The Nets won pretty easily. I've said this before and I'll say it again. If the Nets played in the city, they'd sell out every night. They need some frontcourt scoring and defense, but this team is very entertaining and figures to be competitive for a couple of years. I'm a Knicks fan who bleeds blue and orange. But I will have tickets in Brooklyn once Ratner and company move east. It's sort of sad that this team can't sell out a Saturday matinee against one of the best teams in the East.

More later...