THEY WERE switched in the dark: If you're paying close attention to the division series games, you're probably wondering how the NBA's replacement referees wound up umpiring the most important baseball games of the season. Unemployment rates are high, discretionary income and spending are low and the NFL is experiencing its highest ratings in two decades. Once again, the bully league proves it has 20-20 business vision. Unwilling to discuss the past, he took a shot at predicting the future: Mark McGwire's division series picks, courtesy of The Sporting News, were Rockies in five games, Cardinals in four, Angels in four and Yankees in three.
What do you call five fouls, including a technical, in the first nine minutes of an NBA exhibition game? A strong hint that Warriors guard Stephen Jackson wasn't exactly into playing the Lakers on Friday night at the old Forum.
Scarcely witnessed excellence: If enough fans here and across the country realized the A's still play baseball, Oakland closer Andrew Bailey almost certainly would win the AL Rookie of the Year award.
We're all about conciliation, but the concept of an NFL team being owned by a celebrity bigot who cloaks himself in conservatism is downright sickening.
Or have you forgotten Rush Limbaugh once described the NFL as a being like "a game between the Bloods and Crips?"
It didn't get a lot of mention, but you may not see a more impressive individual play in college football this season than USC safety Taylor Mays, at 6-foot-2, 225 pounds, wearing a bulky knee brace, chasing down Cal burner Jahvid Best.
My Super Six at the quarter turn of the NFL season: 1) Saints, 2) Giants, 3) Colts, 4) Patriots, 5) Ravens and 6) Jets.
No. 2 in points among NFL teams, with 124 (31 per game), Ray Lewis and the Baltimore Ravens. Not a typo.
If you missed the first showing of Showtime's "Fight Camp 360: World Boxing Classic," featuring Oakland super middleweight Andre Ward and five others vying for a title, it reruns nightly several times this week.
"What we have to do is grow up a little bit more." Tom Cable, ironically, referring to the Raiders rather than himself.
Bad luck, badly in need of better timing: Michael Bush, the best running back on the Raiders roster, gets the start Sunday against the very physical Giants, on the road and without a passing game to pull the defense off the line of scrimmage.
Overrated: Not Derek Jeter. Look at the numbers and ask his teammates.
Underrated: Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers but not for long.
Bad idea, badly in need of rescue: Michael Vick, allowing himself to be in a reality TV show.
If only he could: Just because Warriors coach Don Nelson hasn't phoned the NBA to ask about interleague trading policies doesn't mean he wouldn't deal Monta Ellis for Diana Taurasi, the All-World guard from WNBA's Phoenix Mercury. In a heartbeat.
Speaking of the Warriors , let's get it on record now that they are primed to be a high-scoring, high-drama mess unlikely to get past the 30-win mark.
Saint Mary's College product Diamon Simpson, a 6-6 forward, was a quick cut in Warriors training camp but has enough game to make a fine living for a number of years overseas.
Tiger Woods in team play usually loses some edge. Something tells me that will change soon as he prepares to chase a gold medal in the 2016 Olympics.
Finally, wishing joy in a hurry for Cal's Tierra Rogers, diagnosed this month with a heart defect that ended her Basketball career 21 months after her father was murdered outside the gym at halftime of one of her high school games in San Francisco.
Contact Monte Poole at mpoole@bayareanewsgroup.com
