Commentary

The Buzz

By Times Staff Writer
Published January 15, 2006

THUMBS UP

The Big East. According to some self-proclaimed college basketball gurus, the 16-team conference could earn as many as 10 NCAA bids. (Insert USF joke here.)

Forget Marcus Vick (we could pick him any week), we're going with the knucklehead who voted for Walt Weiss on his Hall of Fame ballot. In his 14-year career, the former shortstop, who played for several teams, had fewer than 100 hits a season, had 25 career home runs, a .258 batting average and .326 slugging percentage. Baseball-reference.com notes that Weiss' hitting stats are most similar to the murderer's row of Ivan DeJesus, Wally Gerber and Chico Carrasquel. Well, if that's not a strong endorsement for the Hall, we don't know what is.

"The New York Daily News reports on how the NCAA soothes its conscience during college football bowl season. Players from both Texas and USC each received gift packages from the Rose Bowl that included a Sony PSP, Madden NFL 06, the Longest Yard DVD and "other goodies."

"Bowls are now allowed to offer up to $500 worth of gifts to each player - up from $350 last year - which means if both teams bring 125 players, organizers could potentially dole out $125,000 for the gifts.

"$125K? That covers about 12 seconds of a TV commercial that aired during the Holiday Bowl.

"I wonder if the school presidents, athletic directors and conference commissioners would be willing to take those paltry gifts one year - and let the players keep the millions that they rightfully earned."

- Brooks Melchior, sportsbybrooks.com.

Anybody else get the feeling this Vick guy is just a troubled young man crying out for help?

Compiled by Times staff writer Keith Niebuhr.

[Last modified January 15, 2006, 01:48:18]