For too many years (37), the sports of the carnival worker have been ignored by the Olympic Committee. We think that’s a shame, because skee ball would make a fantastic addition to the Winter Olympics.
Skee Ball has been around since 1909. It was invented by J.D. Estes of Philadelphia as way to get his kids to clean up their rooms. They would throw their toys in the holes and earn points. If they earned enough points, Estes would buy them new toys, as the tossing them into the skee ball …

Now that the Olympics are in full swing, it’s time to reflect on all the “sports” that do and don’t get included. Curiously, perfectly normal sports like football and baseball are out. Yet, the Winter Olympics will give us something called “luge.” Luge looks a lot like high speed sledding to me. I’m not sure why they had to give it a name that seems to be a derivative of phlegm. But, I wasn’t consulted.
The Olympics also have a sport called “curling.” Curling was invented by 2 Canadian third shift …

Troy Aikman, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Dr. J, and Sugar Ray Leonard have something in common. What is it? Yesterday, I would have said they were all Hall Of Fame athletes. Today, they have been reduced to associating with known spammers, the online version of used car salesmen. How did it come to this? How did Jim Brown, Jerry West, and Richard Petty go from the top of their games to complicit pitchmen for the underbelly of online marketing? Well, check out this blog post by Patrick O’Keefe. It’s a sad …

…the All Star Game.

Bill Clinton was President.
Bob Knight was the coach at Indiana University.
Seinfeld was still making new episodes.
The Pacers were a playoff team.
I lived in Bloomington, IN.
The Arizona Diamondbacks didn’t exist.
Neither did the Tampa Bay Rays.
Cal Ripken’s streak was still going.
Jose Canseco et al were shooting roids like crazy.

Remember the Knicks? They were the proud perennial playoff team of the 90’s. They were the arch rival of my beloved Pacers. Now, not so much. These days they’re the NBA equivalent of a drama queen reality show (think Project Runway with equally ridiculous clothing but less crying.)
And there has been no bigger drama queen lately than Stephon Marbury. Marbury’s behavior has him banned from the team! That’s right, the Knicks are actually paying him to stay away from practices and teammates.
And that of course, is where I come …

I’m surprised that the 2 campaigns have done so well in online fundraising, yet still don’t quite get the concept of permission marketing. (See Seth Godin for more info on this concept.)
Baseball fans have to endure interruption marketing between innings. But, they expect to see beer commercials and promos for the latest shows on Fox. They tolerate it in exchange for a free couch seat for the Fall Classic.
What they don’t expect, and thus haven’t given permission, is to endure campaign commercials. Even worse, Obama is going to delay game …

Overlooked by many this weekend was the passing of legendary basketball coach and civil rights pioneer Don Haskins. Haskins is never mentioned in the same breath as Martin Luther King or the like. But no single figure in the past 60+ years was more responsible for getting black athletes into college than Haskins. Though largely forgotten by many contemporary athletes (until Glory Road came out), he was still singled out for a thank you in airports and restaurants by those older athletes who knew what he had done.
Dan Wetzel (yahoo …

Brian Groce is my guest Blogger today. He has some breaking news related to the Kelvin Sampson recruiting scandal at Indiana University. Let me know your thoughts on the subject! Without further ado…
Kelvin Sampson lied to Jeff Stanger about enjoying Trolley Dodgers and looking forward to the release Kansaska.
In a statement released today, Sampson said that he does not “give a (expletive) about Trolley Dodgers, Kansaska, Jeff Stanger, baseball or even all of the (expletive) ‘freaks’ in Bloomington, Indiana.”
Sampson went on to say, “And you people wonder …

Eight teams came to Omaha. 1 is on the way home. Georgia Tech was eliminated by Cal State Fullerton yesterday in probably the most exciting game we??ve seen thus far. Down to their last out and last strike, the Titans staged a 3 run rally to defeat the Yellow Jackets. But, enough about the games. You can read that in the paper. Let??s talk about the characters. There are plenty of them??

The STANKEES are tied for last place!!!!
The only thing that would make it better is if they were tied with the Red Sox for last place! Go Birds!!
The Brewers have won 7 in a row. Do you think having a new owner has anything to do with the new attitude in Milwaukee?
CNN/SI has an interesting article on the Oklahoma baseball coach who resigned amid a racism scandal this week.
Carry on, Citizens!