And another thing...

Classless

NASCAR Post Ahead . . .

Stereotypes are ugly things, so I'm going to refrain from saying here that fans of the late Dale Earnhardt are severely underserved in both the high school diploma and orthodontia areas. Not that they did anything today to disprove that.

Yes, Jeff Gordon won again to pass their hero on the all-time NASCAR win list, and, yes, he did it in less than stirring fashion -- under yellow, after two separate crashes on the first lap of a green-white-checker finish froze the field. And, yes, he had the temerity to do it on the Intimidator's birthday, and at a track (Talladega) Earnhardt once dominated.

But that doesn't excuse the straight-out-of-"Deliverance" bit they pulled at the end today.

When Gordon was announced as the winner, they so showered his car with beer cans he drove straight to Victory Lane instead of celebrating with the traditional burnout, picking his way carefully through the downpour of empties. And security was dispatched to escort Gordon's spotter safely out of the stands.

Classless. Classless, classless, classless.

And hardly the way to honor the memory of The Intimidator, who would have been the first one in Victory Lane to shake Gordon's hand today were he still alive.

-- Ben Smith 

Daft draft, Part Deux

OK, first a shameful confession: For a guy who's so often publicly dissed the NFL Draft as the most overblown non-event in sports, I've spent entirely too much time these past two days watching it.

Yes, it's official. I have been sucked into the Vortex of Odd Bits Of Trivia About Eric Wright That May Or May Not Be Relevant To Anyone But Eric Wright, And Also Mel Kiper Jr..

And so, one more thought about the draft before Rockford and Fort Wayne start up here again, and I get sucked into the Vortex of Pascal Morency Making A Hanging Plant Out Of Preston Mizzi.

What's the deal with the Colts?

I know it's like spitting into a hurricane anymore to question anything Bill Polian does, but how does a team that has obvious needs on the defensive side of the football take a WIDE RECEIVER and an OFFENSIVE LINEMAN with their first two picks?

OK, Anthony Gonzalez sitting there at No. 32 was probably too tempting to pass up, and the Colts did take a couple of corners and defensive tackle Quinn Pitcock from Ohio State later on, but . . . still. I do not get it.

Of course, Polian would no doubt say that figures.

-- Ben Smith

 

A daft draft

Wow. That was quite a draft Brady Quinn caught today.

No, not the NFL Draft, at least technically. I'm talking about the draft he must have felt while he was falling for a couple of hours there.

Once ticketed to go as high as third, he tumbled all the way to No. 22 after Cleveland passed him by for Wisconsin tackle Joe Thomas at No. 3. Then quarterback-deficient Minnesota passed on him for running back Adrian Peterson. Then Miami inexplicably passed on him to take Ted Ginn Jr.

Suddenly Quinn was falling, falling, falling, until Cleveland traded up to catch him on the second go-around.

Couple of things about that.

One: The Browns might have just had the monster first round of all time.

Two: Everyone involved in the NFL Draft should be fitted for straitjackets, and Prozac, because there are some seriously bent individuals in this deal. My favorite after all these years is still Hair Boy, Mel Kiper Jr., whose famously immovable coif nearly caught on fire when the Dolphins snubbed Quinn for Ginn -- thereby jeopardizing Hair Boy's status as a know-it-all.

Silly Dolphins. They made him look bad, ya know?

Now, admittedly, passing on a possible franchise quarterback so you can select a kick returner is about six kinds of dumb, three of them terminal. Miami was so high on Quinn it contemplated trading up to get a shot at him, or so the word went. Then he falls in the Dolphins' laps and they pass on him? What was that?

But that's the draft for you. These guys are so analayzed and over-analyzed and wait-let's-analyze-him-again, that teams actually end up talking themselves out of players they would, upon lesser reflection, snap up in a heartbeat. Witness USC wide receiver Dwayne Jarrett, who fell all the way to the second round because his 40 time wasn't scintillating -- and never mind the fact he was clearly, CLEARLY one of the best three or four collegiate receivers in the country last year.

Now he goes in the second round? What kind of steal is that?

And why did I spend 2 1/2 hours watching all this today?

And where are my meds?

-- Ben Smith

 

Put a sock in it

Wow. So these really are the times that try a true believer's soul.

First Knute Rockne makes up all that junk about the Gipper . . . then we find out that Babe Ruth did not really call his shot . . . now it's Curt Schilling and his allegedly bloody sock.

You remember the bloody sock. It became something of a holy relic in Boston after Schilling, who had a right ankle tendon injury, pitched the Red Sox to two victories in their historic run to the 2004 title. The bloody sock came to symbolize the gallant vanquishing of a fabled curse, reminiscent as it was of Roy Hobbs bloody uniform in the climactic scenes of "The Natural."

Now we find out it might not necessarily be so.

Now we have Baltimore Orioles announcer Gary Thorne blabbing on the air that Red Sox catcher Doug Mirabelli told him it wasn't blood on that sock at all, but paint. Mirabelli angrily denied it -- "He's (expletive) lying," Mirabelli said -- but the damage is done. The debunking has begun.

This really stinks. I mean, if this turns out to be a hoax, what ELSE are we gonna find out?

That Willis Reed was faking that limp when he came out in the Garden that night in 1970?

That Jack Youngblood didn't really play half a playoff game on a broken leg?

That O.J. really didn't do it?

Inquiring minds would rather not know.

-- Ben Smith

       

Tony, Tony, Tony

NASCAR Post Ahead . . .

God love Tony Stewart. He's the only guy in Nextel Cup racing who doesn't speak fluent Logo.

If you missed it, Smoke unloaded on NASCAR today on his Sirius Satellite Radio show, accusing it of purposely throwing strategic debris cautions to alter the finish of races. It's a long-held theory of NASCAR conspiranistas, and now Stewart has taken his place on the grassy knoll with them.

"I guess NASCAR thinks, 'Hey, wrestling worked, and it was for the most part staged, so I guess it's going to work in racing, too' " Stewart said. "I can't understand how long the fans are going to let NASCAR treat them like they're stupid before the fans finally turn on NASCAR.

"I don't know that they've run a fair race all year."

OK, first things first: Nobody fires from the hip like Smoke when he's frustrated, and he's frustrated. At least three times this year, including last week at Phoenix, he had the field covered until bad luck or an untimely caution took him out of it. Sunday he was on his way to victory when a late caution propelled Jeff Gordon to victory; there were four debris cautions in the race.

Second thing: I don't think Stewart is completely paranoid here. I've seen enough phantom debris cautions to raise my eyebrows a few times. I don't think it gets to the level of staged races, but it's darn curious.

If you're going to throw those cautions, there'd better be actual debris on the track. If there isn't, Stewart's right. NASCAR owes the fans an explanation.

-- Ben Smith

                  

Carlisle out

Just got the word that the Rick Carlisle Era is over in Indianapolis, and now I'm trying to think of exactly what to say about it.

Still thinking.

Still thinking.

Still . . . thinking.

I guess that's the problem here: What do you say about an era that was completely defined by what happened off the court? The Carlisle Era in Indy was sort of like the Wyatt Earp Era in Tombstone: Lots of mayhem, guns and lawlessness off the court, and a whole lot of beige on it. Carlisle was 181-147 in four seasons at Indiana, which doesn't sound bad until you consider 61 of the wins came in one season, 2003-04. Consider that, and it's . . . beige.

And so Larry Bird made the requisite announcement this afternoon, which was that the parting was "mutual," which means two things. One, they did Carlisle the courtesy of handing him a parachute before they pushed him out of the plane. Two, Carlisle got shown the door because, let's face it, Larry Bird can't fire himself.

Even if he should.

-- Ben Smith         

Geezer alert

Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed, and this was one of them.

(And, no, not because it's raining cats, dogs and farm animals out there, my wife stole my umbrella, and the Rent-An-Ark joint had nothing left with cruise control. Though that didn't help).

No, I get to work today, and I'm flipping through the Notre Dame spring football media guide, and a name catches my eye among the incoming freshmen: Golden Tate. It catches my eye because it sounds familiar, and when I read the kid's bio I found out why.

Turns out Golden Tate is actually Golden Tate III. His father is Golden Tate Jr. -- who was, way back in 1984, the Indianapolis Colts' fifth-round draft pick.

The Colts summered in Anderson then, where I was the sports editor of the afternoon paper. I remember Golden Tate from training camp. Now I'll be covering his kid at Notre Dame.

Man. How did I get so old?

-- Ben Smith

    

We want a pitcher . . .

The stuff you find out about on a movie-set spring day at the old ballpark . . .

Was out at the Wizards game this afternoon along with 4,000 schoolkids from all over northeast Indiana (including my own two from Arlington Elementary), and a group of them started up an old-age chant int he seats below the pressbox.

"We want a pitcher, not a belly-itcher," the kids chanted.

To which TV guy Dean Pantazi observed that if they played in the Knothole Club of Greater Cincinnati, a youth baseball league, they'd be subject to suspension.

Turns out the Knothole poobahs are cracking down on what they call "negative chatter," taking it to the extreme that coaches and players who indulge in it will be warned once and then suspended. They claim they're doing this because increased incidents of taunting have led to fights and, in one case last summer, a full-scale brawl.

So in other words: No more Hey, Battuh, Hey, Battuh, Hey Battuh, Swing! No more We Want A Pitcher, Not A Belly Itcher. No more fun of any kind.

As Paul Daugherty of the Cincinnati Enquirer wrote last month: "A moment of silence for the death of an American tradition."

I would add something else. But this is a family blog.

--- Ben Smith

A-Rod the A-Lien

And now your brain teaser for the day: How bad would the stench in the Bronx be if Alex Rodriguez had not exchanged himself for a cyborg in the offseason?

A-Rod has 14 home runs and 34 RBIs in 18 games for the Yankees, putting him on pace for 126 dingers and something like 300 RBI. The man's not a human being, he's a Klingon.

And still (and this is the best part) the Yankees stink on ice.

They've lost four in a row, they're 8-10 and their starting rotation can barely get past the National Anthem. Rumor has it their No. 2 starter is the one-armed man Richard Kimble was chasing.

I bring this up not because I'm a Yankees fan, understand. I bring it up because like many of you I can't stand the bums, so watching all this go down is particularly delicious to me.

Please, Roger Clemens. Don't go to New York. It's just waaaay too much fun watching the Devil Rays lord it over 'em.

-- Ben Smith    

Death in the family

I know this is supposed to be a sports blog, seeing as how I write about sports and all. But it's also my blog, so I get to make the rules.

Therefore, a brief moment of silence for the hit American journalism took today.

Pulitzer Prize winning author and journalist David Halberstam, who made his bones as a correspondent in Vietnam and later wrote the best two books about that era I ever read -- "The Best and the Brightest" and "The Children," about the young leaders of the civil rights movment -- was killed this morning in a car crash south of San Francisco. He was 73.

Halberstam was not the definitive chronicler of the turbulent '60s -- Tom Wolfe probably was that -- but he was definitely in the team picture. And his books about the NBA, including the one he wrote about Michael Jordan at the height of his basketball and marketing powers, was as good a snapshot of the melding of professional sports and business as there is.

I for one will miss him.

-- Ben Smith