I’ve spent all year hating the Chicago Bears for denying the New Orleans Saints their first shot at a Super Bowl appearance. The 39-14 drubbing they laid on the Saints at Soldier Field during the conference championships back in January still stings. But now I’m starting to think the Bears did New Orleans a favor by sparing them an even more horrific beating at the hands of the Indianapolis Colts.  (more…)

A poll conducted by ESPN and ABC News finds that 52 percent of baseball fans hope Barry Bonds doesn’t break the home-run record of 755 set by Hank Aaron in 1974. No surprise there — if there’s a more polarizing figure in any sport these days, I’d be hard-pressed to name him or her. The poll also finds that black fans are more than twice as likely as whites to root for Bonds — 74 percent to 28 percent. And 37 percent of black fans believe Bonds used steroids (compared to a whopping 76 percent of whites).

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I’m always leery when Saturday Night Live rolls out the welcome mat for real-life folks to host the show — meaning people who aren’t actors, comedians, musicians or employed in some other entertainment-related field, and thus make a certain amount of sense to guest-host a sketch-comedy show.

True, A number of athletes and politicians have survived the experience pretty much intact (The Rock nailed his first appearance before he became a movie star, and Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Al Gore all did well). But I still have nightmares about 2002’s disastrous show with skier and Olympic gold medalist Jonny Moseley. So I wasn’t anxious to see Peyton Manning, who cemented his status as a national darling with his Super Bowl win in February, embarrass himself on March 24. Sure, he’s been engaging and funny in his numerous commercials, but live television is a whole ‘nother ball game. Turns out I needn’t have worried — for the second time in two months, homeboy came through in the clutch. 

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Back in grade school, the coach used to make us run track. We were split up into two teams. Now, as fate would have it, there was one team of fairly fast runners of which I was lucky to be a member. I certainly wasn’t the fastest, but I made sure I wasn’t the weak link that sank our sleek running juggernaut. The other team was also filled with young speedsters, each one just as fast as our own members. However, they had something we did not. They had Crayton.

On the surface, Crayton was not a bad kid. He was likable enough, seemed interested in winning, and, wedgies aside, was glad to be a part of the group. The problem was: Crayton just could not run. (more…)