Sports fodder for a Friday morning . . .
Major league baseball, the media and baseball fans handled Barry Bonds breaking Hank Aaron's all-time home run record perfectly.
San Francisco Giants fans went crazy, fans of every other team gave Bonds polite golf applause and commissioner Bud Selig didn't take his hands out of his pockets. ESPN gave more air time to promoting the latest episode of "The Bronx Is Burning" than it gave to Bonds' historic home run. Sorry, Giants fans. Enjoy your fake hero's fake record while it lasts. Give Alex Rodriguez seven or eight years to restore honor to sports' greatest record. And give Ryan Howard seven or eight years after that.
• The only real issue remaining with Bonds is what uniform will he wear next season? Which publicity-hungry, too-rich-for-his-own good American League owner is going to give Balco Barry $12 million or so to be a designated hitter for 300 at-bats? Here's betting that the Bronx will be burning once again with Barry next year.
• Don't worry about which quarterback - Colin Kaepernick or Nick Graziano - is going to lead the Wolf Pack this season. Whether the Wolf Pack is going to be Pack Kaep or Pack Nick this season really doesn't matter. It doesnít matter because Chris Ault will pick the right guy. He always does. If Ault has proven one thing over the past three decades or so, it's that he can mold a quarterback out of old cell phones, week-old bread and worn-out Brittney Spears CDs.
• Wolf Pack fans, it's time to clear out your calendar from Sept. 29 through Oct. 14. Tell your boss right now that you need those two weeks - and three weekends - off. You wouldnít be productive at work during that time anyway. That's because the entire Wolf Pack football season will come down to those three life-or-death weekends - Sept. 29 against UNLV and Oct. 6 against Fresno State, both at Mackay Stadium, and Oct. 14 at (insert evil, hair-raising music here) Boise State. Home crowds of under 20,000 just won't cut it, Pack fans. Your team needs you. The Pack loses all three of those games and, well, the Pack baseball team will be able to conduct its fall practices at Mackay without fear of hitting anyone with a bat. The Pack wins all three and, well, Pack players might be proposing to cheerleaders on national TV in January.
• Speaking of hitting someone with a bat, let's hope we never have to see Jose Offerman in uniform ever again. In case you missed it, the former big leaguer and current Atlantic League independent player, hit the pitcher and catcher with his bat after getting hit by a pitch this week. Go ahead, charge the mound if you like. Challenge the pitcher with your fists. Offerman's batman act, though, just might be the most cowardly act in baseball since Mark McGwire told everyone he didn't want to talk about the past.
• The NBA has been on life support ever since Michael Jordan stopped winning championships in 1998. The league, though, might just flat-line its way into oblivion this year after the Tim Donaghy betting scandal. You already had a league where the players don't even break a sweat on the court, the All-Star weekend turns into an America's Most Wanted episode and its best team is greeted with a collective yawn by the entire country. But when your officials are caught betting on games, well, it's only a matter of time before the league's championship series is shown on tape delay after the 11 p.m. news once again.
• David Beckham's arrival in Los Angeles has nothing to do with soccer. So don't tell me how Beckham in L.A. is going to make soccer the No. 1 sport in this country. Beckham in L.A. is about television commercials, product endorsements, reality television shows and Hollywood. It's about selling Beckham jerseys to teen-aged girls. Beckham will be ballroom dancing on Dancing With the Stars next year and everyone will watch. What we won't watch is Beckham playing soccer.
• It's time to abolish major league baseball's draft of high school and college players. MLB put in a deadline to sign draft picks this year and it was a disaster. Most of the first-round picks waited until the deadline before signing and by doing so wiped out their first professional season. MLB owners and general managers, in keeping with their history of ineptitude when it comes to money, ended up giving all of those No. 1 picks more money than ever. Get rid of the draft. Make everyone a free agent, just like the good old days when baseball was the nation's No. 1 sport.
• What does it say about us when the release of a football video game is treated like Christmas, New Year's Eve and the last day of school all rolled into one? Well, it says you better get your copy of Madden 08 before it sells out, buddy.