Some Plain English [J. Mark English]

• I enjoyed very much hearing Mike Francesa of WFAN say today about the New York Mets, "what ever IT is, the Mets have IT." Amen brother... And thats coming for a Yankee fan.

• Its Wednesday, May 30, 2007, and I am saying it here and now. You can stick a fork into the carcass of the New York Yankees. They are done. Its over. If I were them I'd fire Brian Cashman and Joe Torre. Bring in Gene Michael to replace Cashman have him trade whoever he can with any eye towards the future. Let Larry Bowa replace Torre on a temporary basis. Let him kick some fire into the old timers. Otherwise, this team has its best days behind them.

• Very sad to hear about the Patriot's Marquise Hill dying a few yesterday by drowning. He died in New Orleans on Lake Pontchartrain, while he was jet skiing. The puzzling thing is he wasn't wearing a life vest. Correction - they are called PFD's - Personal Floatation Devices. Anyway, why the hell weren't you? How stupid can some people be? I mean sometimes people give fate an added reason to take them out. Remember the great running back, Joe Delaney, who also died in a drowning incident in New Orleans? He was trying to rescue someone in the water...and he didn't know how to swim! I mean use your head will ya?

• NCAA will allow the three players who were suspended by Duke for being accused of rape, to have an extra year of eligibility. I'm sure thats what those guys want to do now. Lets go play lacrosse and be the focus of attention while we just try to live normal lives. Way to go NCAA. Next time why not do the right thing from the start, and not sit on the fence till its too late.

• Get a load of this from the New York Times: Bill Hambrecht is a rich old Wall Street guy who has made his money tilting at windmills and disrupting the establishment....is starting up a professional football league. So far, he and his partner, Tim Armstrong, a senior executive at Google, have pledged $2 million each. They’ve hired a C.E.O. and a C.O.O., both of whom cut their teeth at the National Basketball Association. They’ve got a name: the United Football League. And they’ve lined up a wealthy, well-known businessman as their first owner: Mark Cuban, the billionaire who owns the N.B.A.’s Dallas Mavericks. Like Hambrecht, Cuban loves nothing more than confronting the status quo.
• Why does this sound strangely familiar? Oh, because its been done before? Remember the USFL? The same idea. In the mid 1980's a bunch of rich guys came together to form their own football league. They offered millions to players to play for their league, and it worked at first. But when they're TV ratings were being hurt, and they tried to compete directly with the NFL during the fall season, they sued the NFL for anti-trust violations. They won in court, but the suit cost them so much money that the league only received one dollar in damages, and went bankrupt.
• Hmmm, but my memory recalls that there were other leagues that failed as well. Oh yea, that whole XFL experiment. More people watched table tennis then the XFL. That didn't work either.
• So what have we learned? This new UFL will fail. Don't bother trying.

• I don't care about Michael Vick. If he's guilty fine, but lets not cover this guy to death.
  

• I don't care about Barry Bonds. If he breaks the record, then get over it. Other people will break it sooner then later. So he'll only retain the lead for a short period of time. And he's not the only guy who has used steroids. Lets pick out everyone who has and ostracize them just as much.

• I don't care about A-Rod. The New York Post should be ashamed for splashing their covers with those pictures of him and that girl. Who really knows what the deal is there? What if she really is just a friend? They could wind up hurting his marriage? Let the players live their lives, and lets just talk about the game they play on the field.

Plain English enough? I'm outta here...