New Reviews

Our efforts to build a grassroots campaign rumbles, well maybe stumbles, onward. Two very perceptive and highly intelligent bloggers have weighed in on Fanatic. You can get Jason Reiger's Cubs slanted insights at Goat Riders of the Apocalypse and a Villanova viewpoint at LetsGoNova.

In other news, I may be out of job soon, as it seems the sports world is on the verge of imploding. I'm not even talking about Barry Bonds, but rather about my old classmate Tim Donaghy and this Russian tennis player who might have faked an injury to lose a match in which he was highly favored and on which huge sums of money had been bet on his opponent. Both reek of outside forces attempting to influence games and if that happens, professional sports goes away and Sports Illustrated goes with it. So, you know, save me a corner of your basement to crash in.

As for Barry, I've been rooting against him for years, and when I can muster the energy to care anymore I wish he would just go away. At the same time, what's really been lost? Baseball's already been through a dead ball era, a juiced ball era, which distorted numbers, a spit ball era, sign stealing scandals, etc. The sport in many ways is already a joke and Bonds was far from the only guy using (allegedly). Even Hank Aaron, an honorable man with a social conscience and a buttload of courage, played the majority of his career in Atlanta, which is more than 1,000 feet above sea level. Does the advantage of playing half his games every year in thinner air somehow make his record less worthy. I know, that's apples and oranges. All I'm saying is the whole thing's been a cesspool for years, and we've all been bathing in it quite happily, so it's somewhat disingenuous to look around now and wonder how come we smell like shit.