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Because we know you love them, we've saved all of the beginnings of our most recent Doses for your enjoyment. We can't archive the Dose because the other sites' links expire too quickly, but we aim to save as much of our humor as you can stand.

I'd like to say that I waited for today's Dose until the strike was settled, but that's not the real story. Here's the real story.

At about midnight last night I got a call from baseball interim commissioner for life Bud Selig. He said they were sending the official MLB Lehr jet to the Durand International Airport because they needed me to sit in on the negotiations. I hung up the phone, paid the hooker and changed into my best brown suit.

I was on the Lehr at 1:15 a.m. and we landed in New York (thanks to the time zone change) at 4:45 a.m. I was then rushed to a ballroom in the Four Seasons Hotel where I saw how the players and owners came to their historic accord.

You haven't lived until you've seen Tom Glavine try to move his right arm to red six while Jerry Reinsdorf is spread eagle on three greens and a blue. Wow.

OK, so they didn't settle it with nude Twister, but for what they accomplished, they might as well have.

As a great American, Nick Bakay, used to say, "It's all so simple when you break things down scientifically."

Did anybody else watch the mighty NIU Huskies trounce the ACC behemoths from Wake Forest 42-41 last night? That's one of the best college games I've ever seen, and the best thing was in overtime you could see my old apartment building in the background. OK, maybe that wasn't the best part.

Sure, Notre Dame might have a worse record after this week than Northwestern (intrepid reader Bill Catching's alma mater) but my alma mater (NIU) will have a better one this week, and perhaps all season. So, ha!

On Friday's I'm going to try and give you a little look into the crystal ball and tell you what to expect on college football Saturdays. Let's start, shall we?

Washington at Michigan: The Huskies will run around and past the slow, plodding, Lloyd Carr led Wolverines. Actually, they probably won't, but I hate Lloyd Carr. And no, hate is not too strong a word. In fact, it might not be strong enough.

Notre Dame-Maryland at the Meadowlands: My heart says Ty Willingham inspires the Irish to a season opening win. My head just hopes the Terps don't score 100 points.

Colorado State-Colorado: The Buffs are thinking national championship. I'm thinking they should just try and avoid getting tear gassed again.

Clemson at Georgia: The great Tommy Bowden is in danger of getting whacked if his team struggles again this year. Georgia's supposed to be loaded. Chip Caray went to Georgia. We're all pulling for Clemson, aren't we?

LSU at Virginia Tech: A Sunday special, and this could be a doozy. I like Nick Saban. I think Frank Beamer looks like he shaves with a pizza cutter. I don't like Nick Saban that much.

Guns N Roses closed the show, and Axl Rose has nothing left, does he? Just pitiful.

You know labor negotiations are going well when baseball spends time trying to figure out how to handle the first game to be interrupted by the strike.

The Cubs and Cardinals are scheduled to play a game at 2:20 on Friday, that would be the first game to start after the player's strike date. So the Cubs and Major League Baseball have decided that the players will not report at all if there's going to be a strike and fans will not be allowed in Wrigley at 12:20 like normal, unless there's a labor agreement.

You're telling me that Ronnie Woo Woo is going to be the first guy to know if there's a strike or not? Yikes, indeed.

Alan Benes threw almost six innings of shut out ball against the Brewers last night and I was struck by two things. I never realized he looked that much like his brother, and the Brewers are apparently befuddled by the sight of a perfectly straight 82 MPH fastball. Who knew?

The Bears put Nate Jacquet on the injured reserve and I think we all know what that means. Don't we? OK, it means nothing.

Before we Dose, I need to point out a new feature on the front page of Desipio. It's a little ticker we installed that runs "Daily Dose headlines that ought to be." Yes, it's sooooo clever. If you ever feel the urge, you can send in your own. Just keep them relatively short, like a newspaper headline (hence the name of the ticker.) Send them here.

I got some interesting mail yesterday, and I'll be posting an Old Reader Mailbag today. Suffice it to say that a Chicago sports radio host read my critique of The Demise of Score, and while he enjoyed my ripping of Mike North, he was less appreciative of me calling him the most talentless wonk on Chicago radio. I'll admit that I forgot about Jesse Rodgers, but still...

Sports Guy kicks us off with a fine look at the all-time best sports movie, Hoosiers. He made a couple errors and a few omissions and for the first time ever, I felt the need to e-mail him, I'll post that in the Old Reader Mailbag, too. But you need to read this first.

It's rare when sports can move you to tears of joy. A special moment when your dreams come true and you can live vicariously through the exploits of others... I had one of those yesterday and like our friends at REO Speedwagon (Andy singing: I can't fight this feeling anymore!) The moment happened last night at about 6:30 p.m. central daylight time. I heard a radio report that sent me through waves of nirvana:

The Chicago Cubs have traded Jeff Fassero to the St. Louis Cardinals for two players to be named later.

I'm not embarrassed to admit that I jumped for joy. I ran into the kitchen and got the best bottle of champagne that I own (OK, it was a can of Mug Root Beer) and I doused myself with it. Not only had the Cubs traded The Troll, the most hated denizen of the bullpen since Bob Scanlan, but they traded him to the Cardinals--thereby handing the Astros the Central Division title. It was a stroke of genius by Jim Hendry, and I guarantee you, he won't pull off a trade I enjoy more...ever.

The weird thing is that the Cubs and Cardinals had apparently agreed on a trade before Fassero pitched yesterday against Arizona. He threw eight pitches, none for strikes and the Cardinals were still stuck with him.

You know how people will always remember where they were when JFK was assassinated, or where they were when they heard about the World Trade Center attacks? I will always remember where I was when The Troll was sent to torpedo the Cardinals playoff chances.

I watched a surprisingly good movie on FX last night about the life of Robert Kennedy. It was creatively titled RFK and while I thought it was going to be about Joe Theismann, it was apparently not about RFK Stadium in Washington, but rather the life of Bobby Kennedy from the day his brother John was assassinated to the day he was assassinated. The acting was good, the story was pretty concise and I liked it. I'll give it a seven. Out of what, I have no idea.

I then watched the latest episode of the pleasantly surprising Breaking News on Bravo. I've talked about this show before. It's about Otter from Animal House and the prison guard from Shawshank Redemption teaming up to start a 24-hour cable news network. I particularly like that Tim Matheson's lead anchor character is actually good at his job. I was expecting Jim from Murphy Brown and got a real TV guy, instead. The only troubling parts of the show are these:

Myndy Crist (Myndy?) plays Janet LeClair and despite this photo, she's the one real babe on the show. She's now co-anchor on the show and they give her the biggest case of helmet hair this side of Gene Keady when she's on-air. It has to stop.

Lisa Ann Walter plays spunky producter Rachel Glass and I'm starting to think she's cute. This has to stop. She's like Jodee Messina, one minute you think she's attractive, the next minute you think that with a little bad lighting she's Janet Reno.

We've got five days until the baseball season completely implodes. Despite George Will (complete loser) and Scott Boras' (scumbag) protestations to the contrary today on Inside the Lines, a strike is inevitable. How long it lasts is not certain, but any strike is ridiculous.

What's a fan to do? We want the season to go on, we want to see the playoffs and the World Series, but we also want to see a system in which all 30 teams are forced to compete and spend money to win. Should we root for a strike that would wipe out the rest of 2002 and all of 2003, so that in 2004 we've got this?

National League
East
Braves, Phillies, Mets, Pirates, Reds
West
Cubs, Cardinals, Dodgers, Giants, Astros

American League
East
Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles, Tigers, Blue Jays
West
Indians, White Sox, Royals, Mariners, Rangers

Twenty teams, a loss of 250 players jobs, loss of good teams in Minnesota, Oakland and Anaheim.

The thing about this is that we can't even be sure if the Pirates, Reds, Giants, Tigers, Blue Jays, White Sox and Royals would survive. That'd leave 13 teams. Yeah, that'd be great, huh?

Here's what frustrates you about this whole labor mess. The owners are idiots who have caused this mess by not sharing their revenues and not being able to contain themselves when it comes to paying players salaries.

The players are idiots who can't see that the game would be better for everyone if they'd agree to limit the escalation of salaries. But they won't.

I've got to tell you, though. The idea of a 20 team major league certainly appeals to me.

Football season officially got underway on Thursday night and we got to see good games on Friday and Saturday. Friday night the Badgers almost had deja vu all over again as they held on to beat Fresno State by two. Last night the Iowa State Cyclones caused Grandpa Bowden to fill his Depends with a final quarter rally that ended on the one yard line. I know that Iowa State is improved, and I know that Seneca Wallace is a very good quarterback, but FSU beat Iowa State by seven? Yeah, I don't think last year's 8-5 was really that big a fluke.

From the what's really important department: Those new Nebraska uniforms are pretty nice. And their 48-10 rout of Arizona State means that the inevitable cries for head coach Frank Solich's head will be put off for a few weeks. "Hey, Lerleen, I just can't quite get this effigy to look like him."

Am I the only one who thought this. If both Sammy Sosa and Mark Bellhorn were OK enough to stay in the game after their collision on Damian Miller's inside the park "home run" couldn't one of them have gotten up long enough to have thrown the ball in? And, where was Fred McGriff? You would think that a pop-up that barely makes the right field bullpen would be chased by the first baseman...oh, wait. That would take effort, something Fred is loathe to give.

We've been through more than a month of Bruce Kimm and the Cubs are under .500 for him after starting out 6-1. While the offense has been more consistent than under Don Baylor, the bullpen is worse and the defense has gone to hell. The baserunning? I can't even talk about it without projectile vomiting.

Anyway, it looks like sometime today you'll finally get that Cubs Report that you've been wanting so dearly. So you've got that to look forward to. Such that it is.

I've been writing in this space about the HBO series The Wire for about eight weeks now and last night didn't disappoint. They're going to start showing all of the episodes starting next week to get us ready for the final two episodes coming up in the next three weeks. If you have HBO it's mandatory that you watch this show. Trust me.

Tonight on NBC is our new guilty pleasure Meet My Folks only this time a guy brings three girls home for his parents to decide. This should be priceless.

Before we Dose I'm going to bring you a public service. CBS college and pro football sideline announcer Jill Arrington did a tasteful photo shoot in FHM magazine. FHM stands, of course, for For Horny Men. Let's take a look:

Very tasteful, indeed. I still think my favorite Jill Arrington moment has to be the Florida-Georgia game a few years back when she and Steve Spurrier exchanged these words:

Jill: Coach, are you going to make any adjustments at halftime?
Spurrier: Well, we've got to do a better job of stopping their running game, I'll tell you that.
Jill: Thanks coach, good luck.
Spurrier: Thanks, sweetie.

In the photo captions you're going to learn that Jill's real name is Tiffany, but she changed it because nobody would take her seriously as Tiffany. OK. Whatever.

That was the cheer the Cubs got to listen to in the ninth inning yesterday, to which The Farns and Fred McGriff both responded, "Aren't we already?"

Few franchises confuse us like the Cubs do. They have bonafide superstars like Sammy Sosa, Kerry Wood and Mark Prior and they stink on ice. You can't imagine how hard it is to play this bad with that much talent.

Look at their opponent this weekend. Who has better players over all, the Diamondbacks or the Cubs? One through 25 the Cubs are more talented. But, and it's as big a but as Nell Carter...they get nothing out of it. Good teams get contributions out of retreads like Mike Fetters, Rod Barajas, Tony Womack and Greg Swindell. The Cubs can't even get it out of proven players like Moises Alou, Todd Hundley and The Troll.

I love baseball, so I don't want to see a strike, although the idea of the union taking the Cubs out behind the barn and putting a bullet in their season is appealing to me.

In 1994 I wanted baseball to strike. The Cubs stunk, they were embarrassing and the season couldn't end soon enough. Eight years later I don't feel that way. Why?

Because the 1994 strike did bad things to a first-place White Sox team, and I loved that. I just won't have the same joy for me this time.

Is there going to be a strike this time? I know. You come to me on a daily basis and you ask me to soothe your aching mind. So, my son, I'll enlighten you.

You bet your ass there will be. There will be no baseball on August 31. None. And I'm not saying this as a Brewers season ticket holder who'd like a refund on the three games I have tickets for in September.

There will be a strike, but I don't expect it to last long. Maybe a week, maybe two. But there will be baseball on September 11, just because baseball is afraid the sport will never recover if they stick a thumb in the eye of Americans on that day of all days.

The Bears looked like a real football team on Friday, and that had to be heartening to those of us who live and die with them every Sunday all fall and half the winter. The defense humiliated the first team Rams offense (though the Rams were playing without some Marshall Faulk guy) and the offense moved the ball. I think I speak for the world when I ask...
Dez White?

However, the jury is going to be out for a long time on the number one Fox broadcasting trio of Cris Collinsworth, Joe Buck and what's left of Troy Aikman.

Collinsworth: Pardon my French, but he's a world class prick. He's at his best when saying things like, "The problem with [Rams right tackle] John St. Clair is that he can't play." And, he's at his worst when whining about just about everything else.

Buck: One of my favorite announcers because he knows when to be, and is able to be, funny. He's fine, and easily Fox's best play-by-play man.

Aikman: Still a train wreck. Last year Darryl Johnston carried him all over the league during games and made him tolerable. Troy's not terribly bright, and having his head caved in dozens of times in the NFL hasn't improved things. He still has the same problems that annoyed us last year. When Fox shows a graphic, Troy reads it to us. Hey, thanks! Uh, Troy, the idea is to expand on the graphic, you're not Bill Cosby on the Captain Kangaroo show, you're not teaching us how to read.

And, he still uses the Telestrator to circle guys he's talking about. As if him saying, "Number 70 is getting beaten" isn't enough, he has to circle number 70 for us. Wow! That's why Fox spends millions of dollars to upgrade the Telestrator every year, Troy.

Dez White might really be a factor this year. He was an absolute superstar at Georgia Tech and you had to figure he'd finally get it in the NFL. Looks like he gets it.

Collinsworth said the Bears linebackers are nearly as good as the linebackers in Washington. Huh? The Bears linebackers are young, fast and incredibly strong. The Redskins have one great linebacker (LaVar Arrington) and one who's over the hill (Jesse Armstead) and one who's just, plain overrated (Jeremiah Trotter). Trotters' supposed to be great because he gets so many tackles.

Remember the year Dante Jones led the Bears and the NFL in tackles? It didn't make him Dick Butkus.

Henry Burris looked far less panicked Friday night. There's a lot of talent there. But boy, is it raw.

How fun was it when the fat guy made those two big throws to the guy with the bad hair in the final drive! Ahh, preseason football, it's crap-tastic.

Isn't it funny that the two best Bears rookies both are wearing number 29? Somewhere Pinky Gentry is smiling.

Oh, and the Larry Whigham hit that nearly decapitated the Rams running back? Nicely played, Chief.

Because you look to me for all things entertainment, allow me to enlighten you some more. I saw Signs on Friday night and it's not a great movie and it's not really scary, but it's good and there a couple of times when you'll jump out of your seat. Go see it, and then see if you don't freak out when a squirrel runs across your roof at 5 a.m.

By the way, if Joaquin Phoenix hit a homer 507 feet it's because it landed on a bird in mid flight.

On Thursday I got my first up close and personal look at Mark Prior. He tied a club record with seven consecutive strikeouts and struck out 12 with no walks in a win over the Astros. The only way I can describe him is "Kerry Wood with control." And loe and behold, Kerry has control now, too.

And, on the day the world learned that The Farns likes to take naps in the clubhouse during games, we got his bobblehead doll as part of that day's ballpark promotion.

You should see this thing, it looks more like Jason Bere than The Farns. But then, most inanimate objects look like Jason Bere.

I just received my third e-mail in about four days asking why I stopped doing the periodic Cubs reports, so I have no choice, I'll have one done in the next couple of days. If any of you are looking for me tomorrow, I'll be at Kyle Farnsworth Bobble Head Day. I'm not even making this up.

I don't know how many of you get the Independent Film Channel, but if you do, you have to watch the Jon Favreau show "Dinner for Five." It's priceless. The show is Jon (the chubby guy from Swingers) having dinner with four other actors. They film the whole thing and then edit it down to a usually very funny half hour.

Some of the highlights so far were Peter Falk yelling at Vince Vaughn for not being able to shut up (and if you've seen Made you know what I mean), Ray Romano and Kevin James talking about the "rodeo clown" and Joey Lauren Adams telling the story about the time she got drunk at a party after the Golden Globes and started yelling at Miramax head Harvey Weinstein. Priceless.

OK, I'll explain the rodeo clown. Kevin James is, of course, the portly star of The King of Queens, and Ray is the star of my favorite non-cartoon sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. It seems that when they go out to eat together and there are other people at the table, Ray will order extra food. Why? Because Kevin eats so fast that he'll finish long before anybody else. And he's sensitive about his weight, so he lets Ray order extra food for him. They call it the rodeo clown because like the clown distracting the bull so that the cowboy can escape, the extra food distracts the others at the table into thinking Kevin is eating at a more leisurely pace.

In that show you also find out that Miramax wanted David Schwimmer and Drew Barrymore to star in Chasing Amy. Schwimmer? What, the Single Guy wasn't available?

Oh, screw that. We'll kind of talk about sports. Last weekend, through the magic of TiVo I watched the first two weeks of games of the new game, Slamball on TNN. All I can say is that Slamball is (Chris Farley voice) Awwwww-some! I had no idea I'd like it, but, I do.

Here are the best parts. It's violent, the guys are obviously great athletes, the games are fast-paced, short and there is absolutely no need for a coach, whatsoever. In fact, one of the teams has Mark Ellis as their head coach. Who's Mark Ellis?

Remember in The Replacements when the cheerleaders distract the other team by basically having sex with each other with their clothes on? Mark Ellis played the coach of the other team who yells at the ref, "Hey, she's grabbing her ass! She can't do that!" Ellis also had bit parts in The Rookie, and was Steamin' Willie Beamen's QB coach in Any Given Sunday.

Yesterday on Mohr Sports (more on this in a minute) Jay went to an outdoor Slamball court and worked out with some of the guys. In the most hilarious bit of footage from the short, but distinguished history of that show, Jay tried to hop off one tramp to another for a dunk and literally jumped four inches off the ground and landed on his face. They showed it at least five times on the show.

You can tell from watching the games that the really good players are great athletes. The creator of Slamball, Mason Gordon plays on Mark Ellis' team, the Diablos and he sucks ass. He's horrible.

My favorite player is easily Stan Fletcher of the Steal (the nicknames suck, too). Stan holds the Slamball record with 41 points in a game. I'm babbling now, but you have to check this game out. It's not going to replace March Madness in our hearts, but it's a hell of a lot more fun than pro wrestling.

Now, about Mohr Sports. The rumor over on the sportsjournalists.com Web site (where I'm sure they're already sick of me) is that the show is going to be cancelled. I didn't start the rumor, but I started the speculation. The show is now on at 4 p.m. Tuesdays. What, the Flowbee infomercials aren't available? I like this show. Jay's funny, his filmed bits never disappoint (the Gay Rodeo is a personal favorite) and while I never watch the music acts, he gets good ones.

The early highlights of the show included Alec Baldwin's reprisal of his character from Glengarry, Glen Ross in which he gave Jay the ABC's of talk show hosting.

He then told Jay that first place was a new car, second place was a set of steak knives and third place was cancellation.

Alec then broke into two hilarious stories about doing voiceovers for perfume ads and being on a plane with Jay and Jason Sehorn and pimping Sehorn about why his wife really quit Law and Order. "The day you signed the $68 million deal with the Giants, the three a.m. courtesy shuttle to the set in New Jersey was out the window."

Jay's best bit was one he did with a chalkboard trying to explain how many different time slots the show had been in.

If ESPN cancels this show they're morons. Why did they hire Jay if they weren't comfortable with his brand of humor. Because they're owned by Disney, that's why. Disney buys up competitors and then squashes them. You half expect to see Michael Eisner in a San Francisco mansion with his mistress doing jigsaw puzzles on the floor while he buys more animals for his private zoo.

If you've ever seen Citizen Kane you just laughed out loud. If you haven't, you're calling Ken Caminiti to tell him that I have his crack pipe.

You know with another 24 hours under my belt I'm still horrified by what I saw in the Bears preseason game, and no, I'm not even talking about the sweating, screaming Mike Adamle sighting.

I have a quarrel with those who insist the Bears are not offensive. They're very offensive. Losing nine yards in the first half is about as offensive as it gets.

We can't blame this all on first-year left tackle Bernard Robertson, though, can we? I mean, was he supposed to block all of the Broncos on every play? If so, I think we might want to come up with a new blocking scheme.

Is Robertson a rookie or not? He was on the roster last year but never played, but since Marc Columbo is a true rookie because he just got drafted, can both of them be rookies at the same time?

Did anybody else notice that Bears defensive tackle/sexual assault perp Christian Peter had "P-E-T-E-R-S" on his jersey. The extra S is for scumbag.

Sammy Sosa hit two less homers and drove in four less runs yesterday than he did on Saturday night. What is wrong with him?

In his last two games Sosa has four homers and 15 RBI. Apparently, this is good. The Cubs are 2-0 in those games. So, if Sosa will just hit two homers and drive in 7.5 runs per game, the Cubs will get back in the NL Central race.

Scott Rolen has changed numbers. When he first got to the Cardinals they gave him 16 and he is now 27. The only other player to go from 16 to 27 that fast was Juan Cruz.

You just know that somewhere Todd Zeile heard that Rolen was given #27 and he's upset that the Cardinals obviously aren't going to retire it for him.

The White Sox have won four of their last six and won series this week over the Mariners and Angels. When do the playoff tickets go on sale!?!

Over the weekend I caught up on my TiVo watching and I can honestly tell you that the best new show on TV is on the USA Network. Seriously. I'm a big fan of Tony Shalhoub's obsessive compulsive detective, Monk. I see that ABC is going to start showing the episodes, too, and they should, because it's good stuff.

And last night's episode of The Wire on HBO is the best single episode of TV I've seen since Christopher and Paulie tried to kill the Russian guy in the New Jersey forest preserve. The Wire is just a great show.

How many years does John Shoop have on that contract? Wow. The Bears had -9 yards for the first half in last night's humiliating effort against the Broncos. That's not that bad, it's only one away from -10 yards. Sigh.

The Bears finished with 44 total yards. In other words, if you sat on the couch and watched the game you only gained 44 fewer yards than the Bears offense.

Things got so bad that Mike Ditka began comparing the Bears to his old Saints teams.

So, what was your favorite moment of the Henry Burris era? People were geniuinely excited to see the debut of this guy. What we got was some kind of weird combination of Vince Evans, Will Furrer and Steve Stenstrom. If you squinted your eyes you'd have sworn that Jamie Foxx was getting some work in to prepare for Any Given Sunday, Too.

I'm not making this up, on the NFL Channel (703 on DirecTV) yesterday they had an NFL Films special on George Plimpton going to training camp with the Baltimore Colts. George was going to train for a month and then run four plays against the Detroit Lions (the team with whom he trained for the infamous Paper Lion Sports Illustrated article.) I think the Bears would have done better with Plimpton at QB than Burris. Ouch.

What we saw was a Chicago Bears offensive line that just didn't block anybody. You couldn't judge any of the running backs because they had nowhere to run, you couldn't judge the receivers because they hardly had time to finish their routes, and you can't judge the quarterbacks--although, you can see that Henry Burris is a trainwreck.

What you could enjoy, however, was Brian Urlacher. For thirty seconds of game time he reminded us all why he's the best football player in the world. I'm not exaggerating. He lined up on the left side of the defensive line, blitzed and stuffed a Broncos running back. One play later he lined up on the right side, blitzed, sacked Brian Griese, forced a fumble and recovered it.

We should have known to have changed the channel and finished the evening in a good mood.

That Bears defense is ready to go. Even Jerry Azumah looked competent. Who knew?

Oh, and by the way, just how disastrous was Mike Adamle's halftime interview with Jerry Angelo? Adamle was sweating like Dick Nixon in the presidential debate, he asked Jerry some moderately coherent questions including this doozy. "Jerry I've seen some young players that I really like, I suppose."

Meanwhile, Chicago sports radio spent all day Saturday wringing its hands over the comments of Sammy Sosa on Friday. What did Sammy say? He said that since he can exercise an option in his contract next year to become a free agent, that if the Cubs continue to suck and show no tangible signs of getting better that he'd leave.

1. Sammy gets ripped for not being a leader. But didn't his comments serve as a challenge to Cubs management? Get better or I'm leaving and I'll break every home run record for some other team and you can enjoy the Roosevelt Brown era in right field. I'd argue that it's the most leaderly thing he's done so far.

2. I assume you have jobs. If the company you worked for sucked and was a laughingstock wouldn't you look for another job? You bet your sweet hiney you would.

Did Sammy do anything to back up his statements last night? Nahh, not really, all he did was hit three, three-run homers. Three homers, nine RBI and then he went to the clubhouse and took a nap. All in all, a pretty good day for Sammy.

Mike Lupica is hosting the Sports Reporters on ESPN today. An already unwatchable show has just become one that could cause profuse projectile vomiting.

On Friday night I experienced a purely American sensation. No, not a lapdance from a girl in an Uncle Sam hat--I went to a drive-in movie. Actually, it was a double feature. How great is it to sit in your car, get two movies for the price of one, eat Taco Bell and get to annoy the car in front of you by flashing your headlights at it?

If only the movies had been good. Because it's a drive-in, you have no choice, you watch what they show. It's like an airplane. So, we saw the new Vin Diesel flick, XXX, and the third Austin Powers movie Goldmember.

Allow me to go all Roger Ebert on you. XXX was so bad I'm surprised the action stuck to the film. There was some sort of plot and they came up with excuses for Vin Diesel to take his shirt off nine or ten times. There are some pretty impressive action sequences, but the only lasting thing from this movie will be that Warren Sapp will start referring to himself as Anarchy 99. I guarantee that.

Goldmember was, of course, funny. As the movies go along the plots get weirder and weirder, but they're part of the gag. While for my money, the first one will always be the funniest, Goldmember was at least as funny as The Spy Who Shagged Me and any movie with Fred Savage in it deserves bonus points.

The strangest thing was that the days of hanging the speaker off your car window are over. Now, you tune the movie in on your car stereo. It makes for great sound, even if I was worried that four hours of listening to the stereo would kill the car battery (it didn't). But while that's an improvement, having the guy making pizzas in the concession stand break in during the movies to tell you which pizza order is done is a little distracting.

Dr. Evil: Mini Me like chocolate (NUMBER 45!), -tty don't.
Scott Evil: Hey (NUMBER 46!)..up!

Greg Couch on the Champaign experience. How cool would it be to be a U of I student and just walk out of your dorm or apartment on Sundays and walk to a Bears game?

Before we even get into a guy crapping his pants on Hard Knocks last night, we have to start with a lost Tuesday night in San Francisco for the Cubs.

I was at the Brewers-Mets snooze fest and got home about midnight. It was just in time to watch the Cubs positively implode before my very eyes.

When I tuned in the Cubs were ahead 9-8 and The Farns was walking the ballpark. With two on and no out Kenny Lofton absolutely buried a bunt in the grass down the third base line to load the bases.

Rich Aurilia struck out swinging at a pitch for the first out and then freaked out. He claimed that just as he was starting to swing a ball from the Cubs bullpen rolled past the plate. Sure enough, replays showed that Juan Cruz uncorked one that did indeed bounce all the way down the first base line and past home plate. However, you can also see that the ball didn't appear until after Aurilia had swung. So boo freakin' hoo, Rich.

The next hitter was Jeff Kent and you just knew that with Barry Bonds on deck, that Farnsworth was praying for a double play. He got a grounder hit right at Bill Mueller, only the ball took a bad hop and nailed Mueller in the chest. He surmised, correctly, that when he grabbed the ball that his only play was first base. He made a hurried and low throw to Fancy Fred at first.

The throw was low, like I said, but an easy pick for a first baseman. It wasn't even in the dirt. McGriff whiffed on it, the ball rolled up the first base line and not only did the runners from third and second both score, Lofton scored all the way from first.

But then, things got even weirder. The Cubs loaded the bases with nobody out off Robb Nen. Alex Gonzalez was hitting and had a 2-2 count. Nen threw a slider a good three feet outside. I'm not even exaggerating. Gonzalez checked his swing and the umpire rang him up for strike three. Only, the umpire, Chuck Merriweather, didn't call Gonzalez out on the swing, he called the pitch a strike. Gonzalez knew he hadn't been called for swinging so he assumed it was ball three. He dug back into the box. The ump told Alex he had struck out and Gonzalez didn't believe it.

They then had the Crash Davis argument with the ump that contained the infamous magic word. Apparently Alex cracked that magic word out early because Merriweather tossed him almost immediately. This sent Gonzalez into full psycho mode. Bruce Kimm ran out of the dugout to try and keep Gonzalez from strangling Merriweather. What Alex Gonzalez did next is something I can't believe didn't get more press.

He threw Kimm on the ground. There was the Cubs manager rolling in the dirt behind home plate, his hat flying off his head and the rest of the Cubs looking on, stunned.

Someday, that will be the image we remember from the Bruce Kimm era. Him being thrown down to the ground by his own player.

Gonzalez was finally hauled into the dugout by some other players and Kimm tried hsi damndest to get thrown out of the game, but Merriweather wouldn't let him.

The Cubs ended up losing 11-10 when Joe Girardi grounded out weakly with the bases still loaded.

At about that same time, the Bears were thisclose to a trade of Mike Gandy and a draft pick for then-Redskins holdout quarterback Patrick Ramsey. Jerry Angelo loves Ramsey, Mel Kiper, Jr. loves Ramsey, Mel's hair loves Ramsey. But the 'Skins wanted a first round pick and Gandy and the Bears would only do a second rounder and Gandy. There is speculation that the trade may still happen, but is on hold because of an NFL rule that says teams cannot trade last year's draft picks in a thirty day window before the season opener. The season opens on Thursday, September 7, so no trades involving draft picks can be made until then.

The speculation is running rampant because the Redskins signed Ramsey the very next day to a contract. There is some feeling that Ramsey's contract terms look like ones that would fit nicely into the Bears' long range salary cap plans.

But if I'm the Bears I don't give the Redskins a first rounder and Gandy. The last pick in the first round isn't worth a starter and another first rounder. So for once, Jerry Angelo and I are in agreement.

Hard Knocks went to a new level last night, and we'll have our week two review of it coming up later today. I know you're on the edge of your seat.