A comedian, and magician and a tiger walk into a bar.  “Whassup?” the bartender says to the magician, who answers, “I cheated on my wife.”  The bartender says, “That’s OK, you owned up to it,” and pours the magician a shot.  “How about me,” says the comedian, “I also cheated on my wife, and I also confessed to it.”  The bartender pours him a shot.  The tiger is silent, so the bartender asks, “Why so glum?”  The tiger says, “Just like these guys, I cut around on my wife, and I apologized.”  The bartender pulls a pistol from beneath the counter and shoots the tiger between the eyes.  “Why’d you do that?” the magician and the comedian ask in unison.  “Didn’t you hear the guy?” the bartender says,  “he cheated on his wife.” (More)

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You know you’re getting old when coarse grey hairs begin to crop up in your eyebrows, curly black ones in your nose, and wispy little white ones in your ears. When one collar of your new L.L. Bean shirt flattens down and the other one stays curled because they know that’s the way geezers wear them. When your checkout clerk asks if you need help getting to your car with a bag containing one roll of toilet paper and a toothbrush. When youngish women begin to smile and even flirt with you in public because they know you are totally, totally harmless. Guess Tom Watson pushed them back on their flip-flopped heels last weekend. (More)

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After watching the Mark Sanford press conference, I tried taking a shower, but it didn’t help. So I decided to try and pull myself out of my gender funk by going to the Gnats/Red Sox game and cheering at least half the time for the Shame of Our Nation’s Capitol. It didn’t help much, they still lost 6-4. But I did discover the best way to enjoy a game at Nationals Park is to get there well before 7:05 and watch a real professional team at work. And I think I finally found a hose nozzle that will last an entire gardening season.
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How is it the Washington Gnats have the worst record in major league baseball and the second-lowest fan attendance and yet will probably make a big profit again this year? When I tried to explain it last month, my friend David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times reporter, wrote me a well-deserved snippy note saying that if I’d read his book Free Lunch (Portfolio/The Penguin Group 2007) I’d understand how. So I read the book. And now I do. And it’s preposterous. (More)

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You may think it’s the players who are taking us for a ride on steroids, but the real cheaters are the owners who are taking our taxes and our ticket and beer and hot dog money and refusing to give fans even a peek at good baseball and basketball in return.  Biggest culprits?  The Lerner family, top investors in our 2-10 Washington Nationals, and Irene and Abe Pollin, long-time owners of the pathetic Washington Wizards. (More)

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As a taxpayer, I’ve been angrier; as a sports fan, never. I’m not talking about the rent strike being staged by the owners of the Washington Gnats, or the lukewarm response by Mayor Adrian Fenty to what amounts to blackmail by the Lerner family, or even the Gnats 36-60 won-loss record, which at the All Star break is the worst in professional baseball. No, I’m talking about the kiss-kiss column Monday morning by the Washington Post’s redoubtable lead sportswriter, Thomas Boswell, in which he absolves everyone but the umpires for the stinky smell of a deal gone bad and admonishes outraged fans to “remember that the life of a franchise is measured in decades, not weeks.” (More)

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With taxpayer money, we built them a new $611 million dollar hitter’s ballpark with short porches (335 feet) down the right field and left field lines. They sold off our speedy, powerful left fielder Alphonso Soriano to get some cash together. Then they traded away our good-speed, fair-hit center fielder Ryan Church, our fleet leadoff man Nook Logan (OK, not so good a hitter) and our terrific defensive catcher Brian Schnieder and brought in a bunch of big lunky guys who could hit a ton. Trouble is we’re a month and a half into the season and the short-fences strategy isn’t working. Most of the lunks aren’t producing. They’re hitting like Gnats instead of Nats. (More)

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My friend Pete is a retired labor lawyer who lives in Manhattan. Since his wife, Madelyn, is much younger and still working, Pete has only his Golden Retriever-Lab mix to talk with. Today they are visiting the dog park where West Seventy-second Street meets the Hudson River. Pete is reading the New York Times sports section. Max is under the bench, pretending to be asleep.“

“Max, I think they should pardon Michael Vick, don’t you? It says here in the paper that a lot of people think he’s guilty only of hanging out with the wrong crowd. His father says he’s a natural dog lover, says Michael is a good-hearted person who couldn’t bring himself to shake off a bunch of freeloading friends and they got him into dogfighting.”

Max scratches a load of dirt into Pete’s Birkenstocks. (More)

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