Bud Selig

• The All-Star Game “This Time It Counts” stipulation continues to both suck and blow, thus creating a vacuum.  It’s absurd to award home-field advantage in the World Series to the winning league. Let’s be serious: not a single All-Star game in any major sport is worth the price of admission. They are exhibitions, nothing more and nothing less. Truthfully, they are just money-grabbing opportunities for the leagues to covet and cater to major corporations, which is fine, but Major League Baseball should not be so pompous to suggest that it is any more than that. The home-field advantage stipulation is an insult to our intelligence.

Prince Fielder

• I do like the Home Run Derby. I grew up watching the classic Home Run Derby shows on ESPN, and they were fun. I also like long-drive contests, shootouts, the three-point and dunk contests as well. What does that say about me? Does it mean I don’t appreciate the ”purity” of the respective sports? Please! They are novelty contests and should be put in that proper context.  Chicks dig the long ball, and so does everyone else. It’s fun to watch towering, tape-measure home runs (sans Chris Berman’s blubbering). It appeals to our primal, simplistic interests.  Let’s not get carried away.

• Yes, the 2009 Home Run Derby was ridiculously long. We only need to make one simple change: instead of eight participants, we cut the field down to four. Why on God’s green Earth is Brandon Inge in the Home Run Derby? As John McEnroe would say, “You cannot be serious!”

• From the Twitter of SI’s Jon Heyman: “1 thing better in steroid era than today: HR derby”. Well said, Jon.

Mark Martin

• Not bad for semi-retirement: the career resurgence of 50-year-old NASCAR driver Mark Martin, who has won four Sprint Cup races this season. While he will never be mentioned with the all-time greats, he has had a remarkable career, has always been an excellent driver, and deserves all the good things happening to him this season. It’s the feel-good story of the year in NASCAR.

• Speaking of left turns: Kyle Busch is a pain in the arse. As I have said on this blog before, we should all love him for it. He is exactly the guy NASCAR fans love to hate, but fans are hating him for the wrong reasons. It’s not Kyle’s fault that he can’t physically look the part of a bad boy but instead looks like an accountant. There are really only two exciting drivers in NASCAR: Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart. Perhaps that is the bigger problem.

Brock Lesnar

• Speaking of rotten behavior: Brock Lesnar’s act following his successful defense of his UFC heavyweight title against Frank Muir was pretty lame, mostly because it was predictable. Anyone that has ever watched just one pro wrestling pay-per-view has seen that act before. It was silly. But…it’s good for business. ”Heels” are needed to bring “heat”. It kept Lesnar and UFC in the headlines for one more news cycle, which is always good for the bottom line. UFC prez Dana White may portray disappointment and angst regarding Lesnar’s antics, but he knows where his bread is buttered, and Lesnar, with his pop culture recognition and now infamous behavior, can take UFC to new heights – and even more PPV buys.

Steve McNair

• It’s been over a week since the murder-suicide of Steve McNair and Sahel Kazemi. I mourn for the deceased and their families. I pray for them. I cannot imagine what McNair’s children are going through, especially considering the circumstances surrounding their father’s death. But I will say this regarding McNair and his legacy: let’s not confuse judgment and accountability.  We should all be very careful to judge, but we are all accountable for accurately portraying his legacy. We can’t separate the good and the bad; we must embrace it all and be honest. We owe it to Steve’s family – and Kazemi’s, too.

A guy who admittedly has had – or may still have (go ask him) – problems with alcohol, drugs, food and women? A guy who is the sidekick on Howard Stern’s radio show? A guy whose career is known for this type of behavior and comedy?

Said Angie Tempura: Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitch, pleeeeeeeeeeeeze!

Sammy Sosa … is among the players who tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2003 … until now had never been publicly linked to a positive test … The 2003 positive test could also create legal troubles for Sosa because he testified under oath before Congress at a public hearing in 2005 that he had “never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs.”

Of course, this isn’t really news. Despite Sammy’s repeated (read: REPEATED) denials, we all knew he took something. As we have known, it was the PEDs – and not beisbol – that had been berry, berry good to ‘im.

Seriously, why not release the other 100 names of the players who tested positive? Why continue this periodical farce? It’s A-Rod, now it’s Sosa, and, in a couple of months, it will be someone else from the list. So what! Let’s get on with it!  Because of the steroid era, everyone is guilty until proven innocent. Ask Raul Ibanez.

All players, even the clean ones, can no longer point to burden of proof. It’s gone. The whole class gets punished because half the kids egged the principal’s house and lied about it. We – bloggers, fans, media, etc. – have every reason to be suspicious of every remarkable feat we see. Ask Raul Ibanez. It’s not like we’ve been lied to before or had our memories tainted.

The steroid era was not a victimless, isolated crime. Now that we are suspicious of everything, we can never be fully joyful of anything. Isn’t that why we watched sports in the first place? Let’s move on. It happened. The steroid era, the inflated stats, the ridiculous lying. It ALL happened. I cared then. I don’t care now. Do you?

As for the Hall of Fame: put them all in. All we can do is measure their numbers against their peers in that era. Why? Because we don’t know every single player who did or did not take PEDs. Put them in, the heroes of the steroid era, and let their respective and collective inductions stand in eternity as a pox upon both houses. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to never forget, because baseball has always been berry, berry good to us.

There is a new coffee at Starbucks called the “Hossa”. It has everything but…

the Cup.

Pwned.

Ken Lay

Jim Ballsillie

I’m just sayin’…

2009 NBAE (Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)

You can say what you want about Phil Jackson. In fact, I know what you are thinking. You can’t put him above Red Auerbach. Just can’t do it. “He always had talent around him.” “He is not a good X’s and O’s coach.” “It’s Tex Winter’s triangle offense, it’s not Phil’s.” I have heard them all before.

Granted, Phil is hard to embrace: he is Zen-like, unconventional. Phil doesn’t care if you embrace him. He doesn’t want you in his world. YOU need him on that wall; YOU want him on that wall. But Phil doesn’t need YOU, and YOU don’t like that.

Regardless, after his 10th NBA championship, Phil is at the head of the class, the Zenmaster of NBA coaching history. Yes, Phil had MJ and Scottie and Shaq and Kobe. Lest not forget, Red had Russell, Cousy, Bill Sharman, Sam Jones and K.C. Jones – often all on the same teams. Oh, let’s throw Havelick and Heinsohn in there for good measure. Red also kept all of those Hall of Famers prior to free agency and the salary cap, and they played pre-ABA expansion and the 3-point era. Oh yeah, Phil has 12 trips to the Finals to boot and successfully coached Dennis Rodman. Whoa.

So, with that 10th trophy, the inevitable has arrived and the undeniable can no longer be denied. When you have that much success and can wear that much gold on your hands, no wonder you need an ergonomic chair.

Stan Hansen and his trademark Lariat clothesline couldn’t have dropped Bret that well.

But let’s not forget that this is not the first time Bret’s head has made the news…

I watched Kyle Busch smash the guitar. I loved it. It was a surprising yet entertaining response from NASCAR’s resident villain.

Kyle Busch is (insert deragatory term here) and is everything NASCAR needs. Who else can turn a sparsely attended Nationwide race into a national controversy?

He is everything NASCAR claims it needs, but nothing that it wants. NASCAR claims it wants more personalities, for its racers to “be themselves”, yearning for the days of yesteryear with Dale Sr. and DW.  Honestly, it wants more Jeff Gordons and Jimmie Johnsons, and more dry commentary and non-threatening corporate imagery. From a business standpoint, I understand. NASCAR needs maximum dollars today, never mind squashing the momentum for the future.

Fans – don’t think you are off the hook, always clamoring for more “rubbin’ is racin’” and for more “bad boys”.

Who fits that description? Kyle Busch. He has a full throttle, Ricky Bobbyesque “If yer not first, yer last!” mentality – with honesty to the brink of brutality – and a competitiveness that nudges hubris.

So how do the media and fans respond? He gets CRUSHED. Why? Because he is not the villain WE want him to be. He is not Dale Sr. or DW. He lacks the envious intimidation of Sr. and the devilish Southern charm of D-Dub. Instead he looks like a pencil-necked Poindexter more likely to crunch numbers than 42 other cars.  He doesn’t fit the stereotype.

Is Kyle Busch sometimes smug, boorish and childish? Absolutely. We shouldn’t want him any other way.