An epic era for sports fans

By JOE SANTORO

Sports fodder for a Friday morning . . .

If there was an All-Star Hot Dog Eating Team, I'd have no problem with fans picking the starting lineup. Same with the All-Star Beer Drinking Team, the All-Star Saying Something Stupid in Public Team, the All-Star Paint Your School Colors On Your Belly, Face and Smallest Child Team and the All-Star Let's See How Much Food We Can Eat Out Of The Back of My Pickup Truck Team. Nobody would be more qualified than our nation's sports fans to pick those starting lineups. Selecting the starters for the major league baseball All-Star team, though, is a different matter. Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis, Kosuke Fukudome, Alfonso Soriano are All-Star starters? Really? There will be seven Cubs and seven Red Sox players " even some injured ones who have missed a huge chunk of the first half " in the All-Star Game. Yes, folks, we live in a world run by Internet clicks and television ratings.

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If you are having problems trying to stomach an All-Star Game with seven Cubs and seven Red Sox players, wait until October. There will be 24 Cubs and 24 Red Sox in the World Series, not to mention their entire coaching staffs and front office personnel. OK, I admit it. An entire World Series played in historic Fenway Park and Wrigley Field would be a Ken Burns documentary come to life. Red Sox fans and Cubs fans pummeling each other in the bleachers. It would be beautiful.

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The biggest Wolf Pack sporting event in Northern Nevada this coming school year? That's easy. North Carolina comes to Lawlor Events Center for a nationally televised men's basketball game (you were expecting soccer?) on New Year's Eve. Unfortunately, you might be better off bringing a good book for the rest of the non-league games on the men's hoops home schedule. Oregon State might be interesting, but how does Pacific, Sonoma State, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Southern Illinois and Idaho State sound?

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But enough about men's hoops. It's football season, right? Grambling comes to town in a mere seven weeks. That's just 49 days to find a defense and a starting quarterback.

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Are we living in the greatest era ever for sports? Well, didn't we just recently witness the greatest Super Bowl upset ever (Giants over the unbeaten Pats), the greatest U.S. Open men's golf tournament (Tiger over Rocco), the greatest upset in college football history (Appalachian state over Michigan), the greatest Wimbledon tennis men's final (Rafael Nadal over Roger Federer) and the greatest NCAA men's basketball game (Kansas over Memphis State)? And, don't forget, we just had a Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals, Danica Patrick won an auto race, underdog Fresno State won the College World Series, George Foreman is getting his own reality TV show, the Summer Olympics are coming and we're going to see the Cubs end their 100-year World Series jinx this October. This just might be the best era ever for amazing sporting events.

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The Barry Bonds rumors just won't go away. There seems to be a new team every week that has to shoot down Bonds rumors coming to their team. The latest is the Arizona Diamondbacks. Actually, the D'Backs would be a perfect fit for Barroid. Bonds, after all, went to Arizona State and the D'Backs are going to win a horrible division by default. I'd pay to watch Randy Johnson throw batting practice to Bonds. The over-under on the amount of pitches it would take for Johnson to hit Bonds in the ribs is three " and that is only if a bird swoops down and gets in the way of the first two.

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You have to admire the Cubs and Brewers, not to mention to Indians and A's, for pulling the trigger so fast on the C.C. Sabathia and Rich Harden deals. Sabathia was so excited he actually removed the periods from his first name and now wants to be known simply as CC. When will the Giants come to their senses and start to peddle all of their veterans? Rich Aurilia, Bengie Molina, Omar Vizquel, Ray Durham, Randy Winn, Barry Zito, Jose Castillo come to mind. Then again, it probably helps if some other teams actually want your veterans.

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Sports Cliche We Hate: "That athlete has such a great work ethic." I'm sorry, but playing sports is not work. They don't call it working sports, do they? Is taking a hundred swings in a batting cage considered hard work? Is taking 100 grounders in practice hard work? Is shooting 100 jumpshots work? We did all those things as kids for nothing because we loved it. That's not work, it's fun. And games. Please, let's stop glorifying every little thing " even practices which normally last no more than two hours " that athletes do. To say that an athlete has a tremendous work ethic is an insult to everybody in this country who shows up to work each and every day.

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Ryan Church nearly had a chance to make history this year. The former Wolf Pack outfielder was putting up some incredible numbers as a member of the New york Mets' outfield. Church, who has been suffering from what the Mets have labeled "post-concussion syndrome" had 10 homers, 36 RBI and a .307 average before he got hurt. Church had a chance to become the first ex-Wolf Pack baseball player to make a major league all-star roster. The only Met to make the team (pending the Internet vote that includes Mets third baseman David Wright) was relief pitcher Billy Wagner, who has struggled the last month.Church would have definitely been a better choice than either Cubs outfielder, Fukudome or Soriano, who were voted in as starters by the fans.

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In case you were wondering, Lyle Overbay is the best ex-Pack baseball player to ever play in the big leagues and Chad Qualls is the best ex-Pack pitcher. Overbay has played in the most games (782), has the most at-bats (2,682), has played in the most seasons (eighth, tied with Corky Miller), has the most hits (754), the most home runs (77) and driven in the most runs (357) of any Pack player to ever play in the big leagues. Qualls has pitched in the most games (306), earned the most wins (24) and struck out the most batters (261) over the most innings pitched (325). Qualls is the only Pack player to appear in a World Series (2005 with Houston), Chris singleton has the most steals (81) and Joe Inglett has the highest major league career batting average (.299) of any Pack player. Now go win some bar bets with this info.