Top of the mornin'

While Sweet Lou Piniella prepares to say goodbye to the Devil Rays (and maybe hello to the Mets), a page from his past: and those World Series-sweeping 1990 Cincinnati Reds. This bit of history never made the commemorative VHS -- a heady mix to throw at you so early, but hey, that's what we do: those Reds (one of 'em buck naked), hookers and porn stars and strippers, a hot tub -- and Charlie Sheen.  If it were a TV show, it'd be called 22 and a Half Men.
Deadspin, Gawker's sports-roving cousin, guesses the "fat, ugly" rub-a-dub-dub was Chris Sabo, who, frankly, I haven't heard or thought of for at least 15 years (and in this context, who would want to?). And Rob Dibble recalls the high jinks: "I actually blew the save that night."
Ah, September. What would it be without these kind of memories?

In case you missed it: The good news is the Red Sox are back to their usual (pre-2004) course of vanishing into the long New England winter, now out of first place after "arguably their worst loss of the season". The bad news is the Yankees have taken over.

On the PVR: The last two innings from St. Pete's last night. Someone misplaced Curt Schilling's bloody sock, Stephen King was nowhere in sight -- and Mike Timlin is 39! Take away the stretch marks, and it was vintage '91 Timlin,  the same unsinking sinker, with a smattering of cellphones at the Trop and those pesky D-Rays taking the place of a packed but silenced SkyDome watching the Twins celebrate.

Starting on defence, Sun Tzu

The NHL is at it again – repackaging the game for American eyes and dollars.

As someone who remembers the first coming of Peter Puck – and King of Hockey, at least when HNIC decided to put it on between periods – I roll my eyes, as any Canadian hockeyist does. Selling hockey to (most) Yanks is like trying to explain Sanskrit to a garter snake.

So the violence becomes the entry point, even if it turns off many more people than it attracts. Tonight the NHL rolls out part one of its new ad campaign in the U.S., and as explained here, it doesn’t break any new ground. According to Richard Sandomir in the New York Times, the five 30-second spots made for the league “are filled with dramatic music, tight close-ups, flashbacks, low angles of ice action, special effects and quotations from the book ‘The Art of War’ by the Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu.”  I can handle most of this – it’s pretty standard stuff, even the hockey ‘warrior’ angle that is carried through, sort of the antithesis of ol’ Peter P. But can we just give The Art of War a rest? The poor Sun Tzu’s been been dead for 2400 years. His book has been turned into a standard self-help tome for get-rich-quicker artists. Now he’s being used to sell hockey?

They give me fever

A little more excitement than usual this morning, because I've got Presidents Cup fever!

I've got WNBA championship fever, too! Dick Pound fever! NHL exhibition scoreboard-watchin' fever!

But I have to admit it, I don't have the kind of fever these guys from Serbia-Montenegro have, at the Eurobasket championships: a close loss, a punch-up and this from head coach Zeljko Obradovic, from the AP report of their 74-71 loss to Tony Parker's France:

"The players had bad personal relations, their egos led to this shameful end. My mistake was not throwing three or four of them off the team. They hate each other so much that they don't even look at each other. I've never seen such people before."

So you don't want to stay, do you Zjelk?

"That would lead me straight to a madhouse. I'm already ready for an asylum. That's how I feel. I wish my successor lots and lots of luck."

Good quotage from a Euro legend. Sets the bar pretty high for Sam Mitchell, who's already got his work cut out for him thanks to the summertime musings of GM Boy Rob Babcock.

A few little things for you to chew over as well this morning, including, of course, the flap between the cyclists and Pound, who at least talks like the Elliot Ness of sports doping. It's a big story somewhere, and it's getting nastier, but I have a question --  does anyone here care? In a recent interview, Jon Stewart seemed to typify the attitude of most people I've dealt with, at least on the subject of 'roids in baseball. I can't find a link to it (any suggestions would be much appreciated), but Stewart, a New York Mets fan, said as long as the Mets won, he didn't care what they took.

Meanwhile, New Orleans Hornet Jamaal Magloire is hosting a fundraising dinner here in his T.O. hometown for Hurricane Katrina relief.

On eBay, you can bid on Robbie Gordon's used helmet (Thanks Fark).

And on the subject of doping, Barry Bonds figures U.S. Congress should give steroids a rest.

And one more: get well, Fergie.

We're No. 57,266!

            According to Blogpulse, 57,265 web logs were created in the past 24 hours.

            Make that 57,266 – a little more than the world’s population increase every six hours, but less than the number of words Joe Theismann uses on the average football broadcast.

            In other words, we’re a grain of sand on the beach, a pixel on the HDTV of life.

Even the tiniest of particles vibrate, though, so here we are – and what better time to crack the bottle of champagne over the bow of a new sports blog than September? Pennant races, football (and futbol) injuries, hockey’s back, the season for marathons and horse races.

            In other words, there are more hopes on the line this time of year than any other. And on the subject of that, is there a better team going than the Cleveland Indians, the easiest team to like in pro sports right now?

            Last night, the Indians won in Chicago with the same recipe they’ve used for the past few months: the best bullpen in the league, smart baseball sense, nice defence, timely hitting and the game’s next great player.

As good as they look, though, the White Sox, which held a 15-game lead on Aug. 1, counter with the emotionless, haunted visage of fabled September collapsing artists – it's so quiet, writes Mike Downey, "you could hear a pennant drop" -- which is the other side, always, of these kind of autumn stories. Bucky (Bleeping) Dent is nobody without the ’78 Red Sox, and Yaz slumping his shoulders after popping up to third for the final out. The ’04 Red Sox are nothing without the Yankees’ swoon for the ages, with A-Rod’s slap the pratfall that best illustrated their fall (and those ’04 Red $ox, with baseball’s second biggest payroll behind the default-setting Yanks, are just another baseball team without the overrated baggage of all those title-starved years following them around). If the White Sox are indeed done when this is all over, they too will carry that iconic moment of failure -- unless, like the '64 Phillies, the mere mention of their name is enough.

But that was last year. It's the Red Sox' turn to get back to their usual gagging, and over at the always entertaining Soxaholix, they're asking the question:

"When exactly did the Sox toss out all the Bill James books and replace them with Deepak Chopra?"

A troubling thought: There’s an entire generation just coming of age here in Toronto that can’t remember just how delicious this pennant race stuff is. It's either/or, all month long, which sure beats trying to remember what year we're into J.P.'s rebuilding plan.

A question for the day, because for another fall, all we have are memories: What was the biggest sporting collapse you can remember by a Toronto team? And the most memorable comeback? Let me know, and more, in the comments.

Couple of other good reads this morning:

Fan apathy, a boring product, soaring ticket prices, spiralling salaries -- welcome to the Premier League.

Best. Video game. Ever.