June 20, 2007

Warning: Happy column ahead, Fool ditches his dark side

Betting Fool, SFGate

Late on Monday I got the message: "Dude, do you like anything? Do you find any joy in the world? Buy a puppy. Have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, smell a flower -- something. You need to find a reason to live or you're gonna blow a gasket."

Fred P. was right. I had been especially bitter on Monday, somehow finding time to blog three times, all the while reliving a horrific Father's Day match play loss in extra holes (putting green) to the kid.

I gashed the Giants. Has there ever been a more inviting target?

I unloaded on KNBR. No real reason, but it did garner some fascinating comments.

Then I took Stephen Jackson and the legal system to task, asking if the W's star got off too easy.

But thanks to the e-mail, I had a reason to lighten up. Instead of a warm puppy or a messy sammich, I'll bring phosphorescence to my otherwise dark world in a familiar way.

Uh-oh, a happy column.

That's right, folks, I have found the positive and the inspirational and the shiny from coast to coast, from Fenway Park to the basement of my house, where I carefully stack, label and categorize the ... uh, nevermind.

You have to cut me a little slack. It's been a rough few months for my favorite sports entities -- Chargers, Cal, Ohio State, New Jersey Devils and the shuddersome embarrassment that is the Giants.

But right here, right now, there is no place you'd rather be. Trust me:

* If you happen upon the College World Series while clicking around this week, you have to watch. Don't you? The Irvine-Fullerton game on Monday added a blast of energy to my afternoon.

From the incredible diving catches to the hustle and all-out play of everyone on the field to the glorious sweat-stained hats, which seem to gain in stature with each new ring of frothy crust, it's everything good about baseball.

The ringing ping of aluminum still jars the senses, but you can't have everything.

* Terrific news out of the Formula One circuit, where Lewis Hamilton beat back two-time world champion Fernando Alonso on Sunday to take the U.S. Grand Prix, the second consecutive victory for the first black driver in more than 60 years of Formula One races.

Black-to-black titles! Outstanding.

* Stadium Dance, Part 1,752: A burst of sunny news from Hunters Point, where Gavin Newsom led a group of NFL-type officials through one of the nastiest, most polluted hunks of land in this country.

Of course, a new stadium on the site would spark a feel-good story -- millions of dollars in the pockets of greedy team owners, smarmy NFL front-office types and power-broker contractors, each of then feeling good about their part in history.

Fans want one thing: Build the damn thing and stop talking about it.

* As a Big Ten football fan, I watched with great interest when Miami-Ohio coach Terry Hoeppner took over a horrible Indiana program. He didn't win a lot of games since 2004 (nine), but the Hoosiers were better, and more exciting. Most of all, he brought the fans back to one of the quietest stadiums in college football.

Hoeppner died on Monday of brain cancer. I remember hearing the news when he was diagnosed and I also remember being quite surprised to see that he made pretty much every practice and every game, all while absorbing news that would knock most of us into the gutter. All the while he smiled, offering inspiration to his players and to people in California watching his team play early Saturday mornings Pacific time.

If I can face life's problems and challenges with half the pride and dignity and class as Coacch Hoeppner, well ... I honestly don't think I can.

* I stumbled upon a refreshing burst of insanity from L.A. Galaxy front office soccer dude Alexi Lalas Tuesday morning. I've always wondered if maybe his wild red thatch of hair was a result of excessive electrical current. Now I have proof.

As David Beckham prepares to join MLS, Lalas said: "The U.S. will never have dealt with an athlete who has had this kind of international impact. Tiger Woods has that international appeal but, with due respect to Woods and Michael Jordan, David Beckham is at an entirely different level."

Zap! There will be an initial spark of interest thanks to Becks, then MLS will file back into its rightful place in U.S. sports, behind Arena Football.

Sabercats front office personnel are already working on the promotion of star QB Mark Grieb who, it has been determined by AFL bosses, will shortly change the course of world history with his 178th scoring pass of the season.

* In the most pleasing news of all, I confirmed that several NFL dunderheads, faced with mounting public pressure to stop acting like idiots off the field, refuse to learn a damn thing.

Pacman Jones somehow found himself at a club at 4 a.m. amongst his buddies who still think gunplay is acceptable.

Now Pacman has two felony beefs.

I would say Jones has pretty much "clubbed" his way out of a job.

Bengals' RB Quincy Wilson can perhaps claim the mantle of dumbest player in NFL history.

With the eyes of the NFL on all Bengals, he became the 10th Bengal arrested in 14 months earlier this week. When asked by police to disperse after shots were fired near his group at 3 a.m. outside a club, Wilson refused and was taken into custody. Idiot.

The paintball groin injury to Redskins' draft pick LaRon Landry is too funny to leave out of this week's off-field NFL roundup.

* Last weekend, with great relief and pure joy I realized nothing much has changed in the USGA, an out of touch, self-important group of ancient white country club snobs.

I enjoyed the fact that a round-bellied smoker who stabs at putts and doesn't speak much English (gasp!) won the U.S. Open instead of carefully guarded Tiger, who looked less like a golfer and more like a starting free safety in the NFL. Tiger would no doubt stay away from clubs at 4 a.m., for the record.

Still, that wasn't golf. That was trying to stay on a seizure-prone Shetland pony while the twitching equine races across a hockey rink littered with wax paper.

The USGA folks, however, weren't as annoying as the pompous members of Oakmont Country Club, who were flat-out disgusted on Thursday when the course wasn't set up to destroy the will to live of every player in the field.

So you trust-fund highbrows can break 90 on a brutally tough golf course. Big deal. So can about 20,000 other golfers in this country. It can't be that fun to get beaten to death by a treeless, waterless course every other day.

Heck, I could break 90 at Oakmont (if I didn't have to putt).

Enough sunshine. Let's stroll into the frightening, caliginous world of new sports-themed reality shows.

The readers were sensational this week with their responses to the Question of the Week: What would be a good sports-themed reality TV show?

Question of the Week responses:

* Fool's Choice: Barry Bonds spends 24 hours with the idiot at Fenway Park who held up the 10-foot high asterisk sign. Bonds explains his side of things and Mr. Ass-terisk tells us what he knows about Barry and baseball.

Fool's Second Choice: Hockey Fight Cam!

* A good sports-based reality show would be called "ESPN's SportsCenter." The concept is this: ESPN fires all of their East Coast "Homers" and replaces them with potential anchors who are from ... OTHER PARTS OF THE COUNTRY. Each of the contestants roots for a baseball team NOT based in New York or Boston. And if that's not genius enough, every contestant must have actually SPENT TIME IN THE PACIFIC TIME ZONE. The winner is determined by who is the most objective in his/her reporting of sports news. As a grand prize, the winner is awarded one punch to the gut of Skip Bayless. -- Brian G.

* NFL Training Camp. Pick eight guys coming into a new team (first-round draft choice, free agents, a veteran, etc.), guys who are competing against each other for different spots on the roster, and watch it play out on the practice field, in the locker room and during preseason. Be there when they get cut, and when they realize they've made the team. -- Joel B.

* "The Whores of Bud Selig." After his weekly haircut, he goes for another one, this time without scissors, but a lot of hair gel. They'll know all of his necessary stress releases with tales such as "Bad Boy Barry," "Mark Cuban Will Mercifully Humiliate Me." and, of course, swapping wives with Scott Boras. -- Sea (Australia)

* Follow NBA players for a season to see which player is the real "Player" and has fathered the most bastard children. The name of the TV show is "I'm your Daddy!" -- Mitch C.

* Pacman Jones wears one of those hat cams 24-hours a day for 6 weeks. Send him to Vegas, Amsterdam, New Orleans and New York with $2,500 in spending money each day. Think of the DVD sales. -- Roger D.

* You get to follow Brian Sabean around all day with a rubber baseball bat, smacking him over the head after every dumb move. Accardo for Hillenbrand? BOINK! Nathan and Liriano (and Bonser) for Pierzynski? BOINK! BOINK! Big contracts to Durham and Zito? BOINK! BOINK! BOINK! Giving a big contract to Benitez, then eating it. FOUR BOINKS! Finally, putting a product on the field that's about as exciting as the Golden Girls ... 5 BOINKS! -- Philip P.