BITS AND PIECES

Isn't that a beautiful ring? That's what most tell you they play the game for. Liars!

Man, I hate bargaining and unions and owners=s and administrators and haggling. We did that for my career in education and all it did was infuriate and demoralize. Once again the NFL is at it.

Billionaires vs millionaires. It sickens me to see them both ruin a great thing. I know baseball fans that haven't attended or given a hoot about baseball since the strike in 1994. These were not casual fans either. They had just had enough.

I'm far from being there. But I'm not reading any articles on how the negotiations are going. I'm not reading about how STL phenom, Sam Bradford is leading the team in unofficial conditioning and practice and teaching the playbook. I'm listening a little.

So, yes, I have interest. But it's waning. And I've been a fan for a long, long time. I still remember when at age 8 I heard the following teams names: Chicago Cardinals. What? The Cardinals are in St. Louis, I thought. The San Fransisco 49-ers. Like the Gold Rush we studied about in school. The Green Bay Packers. What's a Packer? The only packing I knew was clothes. I had no clue where Green Bay was, though I thought it sounded cool. (I can even tell you where I was--Richie Archer's backyard, our sandlot.) The Baltimore Colts and Unitas. Another cool team and player name.

But I can tell you one thing: when I've had enough, I've had enough. It happened to me in tennis, as a player and as a fan, but that's fodder for another blog entry. But to the NFL-ers, I'd say, just get her done. And darned soon.