NOT A USC NATIONAL CHAMP ARTICLE

In fact I could care less about who's number one in college football. Talk to me when you implement a playoff system where we'd know for sure. Running up the score (70-3 Texas vs Colorado) C'mon. Isn't sport still part of sportsmanship?

Remember the cubs jerseys of the late 90's that looked like they spelled Cuba? Oh, my. Will that franchise ever learn? Their free agent signings have been an overreach. By a long shot. They are so desperate, now that the red sox and White Sox have won. I loved Scott's suggestion that they change their name to Blue Sox if they want to win. Trust me, cubbie fans hate the idea.

At the time I'm writing this blog, A. J. Burnett has not made up his mind. He's one cat I'd overpay for. With Duncan advising this lifelong Cardinal fan, he could be another Cy winner for the Birds. If he signs with a big money club, he'll be run of the mill, I predict.

Also, there's no way I would let any more Marlins go before I traded prospects for Pierre or even Todd Jones. Win now, baby. And if you have to unload salary, your gimpy third sacker may be a place to start. I love Rolen, but man you gotta recover quicker.

My purpose for today's blog was to pose a question. If the Cardinals traded their top 15 players to the cubs for their top 40 players ( I figure that would equate) whom would you root for? And if you say the Cardinals with Pujols, Carpenter, Izzy, Edmonds, et.al., wearing cubbie blue, then aren't you just rooting for apparel or laundry?

JUNIOR RAMS WIN STATE BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP !!!

"We won the State (Championhip) when we was in junior high, Coach," bragged one of the Disroe kids to Red Eldridge one day at good old MTV High.

"You did? " deadpanned Coach Red.

"Where'd you play the game?"

"Rend Lake College."

"You mean all those Chicago teams travelled all the way to Rend Lake to play the game?"

"Naugh. There weren't any teams from that far away. We beat Marion," young Disroe replied.

What a disservice. And while Red may have been picking on the Disroe guy a little bit, there are people older and more sophisticated that believe the Junior Rams won all those State Titles.

You had to read the small print State Championship Class L xxxRegion to understand that in no way was that a state championship. But from Coach Thompson to Coach Rogers and all those in between, I never heard one of them downplay or dispute that it was a State Championship the Junior Rams won.

I can understand young boys and girls (heck, Courtney's 8th grade team won 3rd place in 1994 behind Rasheeda Love. Ok, Courtney scored 2) getting it wrong. Innocently, thinking it was the State. But adults, and I'm talking about adult fans, not just the former junior high coaches that believed the state tournament was the State Tournament. They should know better.

Sidebar: I'm reminded of former state champion, Anthony Thomas who later played for the Rams. As an eighth grader he was a 5'11" center. As a senior he was a 5'11" guard who was quick but not a good ball handler at all. But some townspeople remembered him as a star and wondered why he wasn't as successful under Coach Law.

Don't get me started.

YOU'RE FROM HARVARD--YOU SHOULD KNOW

If you read the Post-Dispatch this morning, I hope you caught the little story that Ryan Fitzpatrick told on two teammates at camp this summer.
It seems they were having an antimated discussion when Fitzpatrick approached them One of them said, "Hey Fitz, come here, you'll know. You're from Harvard."
Anticipating a question about econ, his major, or history, he was surprised to hear,"Which would hurt worse? Getting kicked in the face by a donkey or getting hit in the face by an elephant's trunk?"
Perhaps, political by nature, one can only guess what caused the question to be asked and what the rookie qb's answer was.
I decideed the donkey kick because it would pack more force behind it. But I don't know. And I went to Little Harvard, you know, SIU.
So why the picture of The Birds? How could Hitch take something so unscarey and use it to cause our skin to crawl? I mean, that was a scarey flick. I know the King Kong, Anaconda, Blobs out there could scare. But birds?
Anyway, if you could hook up with Hitch and get him to write a movie script for you based on something scarey, what would it be?

ILLINI BREAK HOME WIN STREAK OF TARHEELS

What a great win for the Illini at the deandome. With all the powderblue in the background. And sluman and vitale on hand. Actually I should and would have mentioned dickie v. first but he got all excited about the mets and their two free agent signings. To give him his due, he is at least lukewarm to the illini. In fact, the Flying Illini of '89 has a special place in his heart.

How good it was to beat that smug roy williams. Especially touching was how he helped his first half star and only leftover from last season to his feet after he had rolled on his back about ten yards. Of course, no traveling was called against him. It was in chapel hill after all.

Yet another sidebar: when williams was the jayhawks coach, he was jogging one morning when Scott's cousin, Lori knocked him to the ground. She was joggin, too, and turned a corner and flattened him. That's why she's my favorite neice. Even when she and her friends do that rock, sock, jayhawk annoying cheer.

But back to Illinois. I really like the team. Sure, Dee didn't shoot or even run the team especially well last night, but as sluman kept calling him, "the one-man fast break" did stir stuff up. And James A. is just James. Inconsistent, but a battler, albeit head sometimes in a lower body location. Randall looked really good, Arnold and Pruitt will help bang. Good three-point shooting from the shooters. Jamar looks like the real deal, but we know another Jamar that looked good on the hoof and sporadically had good games. So time will tell on him. Chester was there and then he wasn't. Overall, the rooks looked very good.

I love having three lefty big men. I like Weber, too. Not when he first coached Kent. Not when Illinois first hired him. Not when he talks in that scratchy voice (I know he can't help it.) But I think he's a terrific coach.

"By the end of the year Illinois will be in the upper ethelon of the Big Ten," according to dickie. In fact he said it at least 3 times. I think he's right, but I hope he is underestimating them, too.

SAGURO (pronounced saw--war--o) Accent on war

When I think of cactuses, okay, I guess it's cacti, but that sounds so effeminate to me, I always picture the saguro. Mainly because it's the coolest cactus.

It's the one with arms. It's the one in the Peanuts comic strip in Needles, Az where Snoopy's nephew lives. Or is it his brother, Spike? But I didn't know how rare they were.

They are only located in Arizona, Mexico, and a very small area of California. They weigh up to two tons. People have been killed by them toppling on them. Since we've lived out West, there's been at least one car fatality when a driver ran into one. Their guts, the cacti not the driver, are very woody. In fact, I have a wreath in my house made from the inside of a mature saguro and it looks like a wood carving.

They live to be hundreds of years old in some cases. They start growing an arm in their 75th year, so the one in my blog picture is quite ancient. They don't like a lot of water. Good thing.

The first one I planted died because of a water leak in our irrigation line. I currently have 4 in my yard but one is a baby. The tallest in a 6 footer, maybe a little taller. They bloom in early May with a beautiful flower. Most are white but some are red.


It's a huge fine for stealing them from the desert. I was supposed to get papers with mine, but I didn't.

This concludes my report on saguros. I hope you enjoyed it. I know I did.

THE BEST GAME I NEVER SAW

Besides my family and friends in Mt. Vernon and St. Louis, I also miss the Cardinals and Rams. I especially miss the Rams games because there are so few televised. And I missed a doozy yesterday.

I also miss the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Weatherbird plus the Register-News. Randy Olson's website is a life saver for me since Big Hall left the RN. There is now no computer site with mary kay oy mary kate or whoever's running the rag now, so I really don't know her name since I can't get no newspaper action.

But I digress. What a game it must have been! I knew Martz liked Fitzpatrick, but he also like some guy named Levi from ASU that hardcore Sun Devil fans knew was a bust. And he was, along with a litany of other suspects. But Fitzgerald from nearby Glendale, AZ via Harvard may just be the real deal.

Three td passes, 310 yards, 10 points in 22-seconds or so. Only one intercept thrown with 5 sacks. Heckuva line you got there Vitty with Big O hurt and Terrell trashing his helmet against the radio used by the qb to get the plays. Man, Fitz is good! Rexy on one end of the line, Barron in Pace's slot, a street agent signed 10-days ago, Larry Turner taking over for Terrell. Are you serious? Holt said he'd never even huddled with the Fitz in practice.

This is the stuff of fiction. A skinny Bertie comes through (see earlier blog on fantasies.) And the kid from Harvard pulls it off. Sidebar: Mr. Samford, a Juco teacher of mine at Rend Lake called in Harward, so my notes were filled with a Harward graduate. After about 6 weeks of lectures, I figured out it was Harvard, not Harward. Anyway(s), thanks to Ryan Fitzpatrick, the Rams are still interesting.

Quarterback controversy. Not between Martin and Fitzpatrick. I mean Bulger and Fitzpatrick Bring it on!

C.S. LEWIS CLASSIC OPENING FRIDAY

I'm not sure how familiar you are with The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, but if you like good movies to take the entire family to, this is the one. It premiers this Friday and while some of the previews may look a little scarey for the little guys, well, just think of how some of the Star Wars scenes look frightening.

His desire was to use human imagination to reveal truth about our condition and bring us to hope. Mr. Lewis passed away in 1963 and never dreamed his Narnia would be on the silver screen. Scholars have surmised that he would be pleased.

It's a great movie and a great opportunity to introduce Christanity to those who need to find answers for life's problems through the love of Jesus.

It's a great movie for the Holidays. Treat yourself. And then talk about the movie with others.

MTVHIGH GRAD WROTE FOR B&B

In a continuing blog saga about MTV High and alums and fantasies, did you know that Trez Bayer wrote for Beavis and Butthead?

Trez was a former JAVA staffer who was really creative and just the kind of person that you knew would land somewhere and do well at something.

Her parents, David and Karen Bayer, left MTV just after their last daughter, Ramelle, graduated, I believe. This was in 1985 or so. Ramelle went to Ronald Reagan's first inaugration with Caroline, Scott (age 6) and me when we chaperoned 15 high school students for 5-days in D. C. But anyway(s), I lost track of Trez.

As I was watching B&B one evening when it first came out, I say Trez's name on the credits along with Mike Judge. of course. And how many Trez Bayer's can there be? Sure enough, just another famous MTV grad.

The last I heard, and this info is quite stale, maybe 12 years ago, she had left writing for the show but was still in NY working on something else creatively.

So there you have it.