Ponder This...

Posted: Thursday, May 15th at 3:28 p.m. EST*

Because this Tim Tebow circumcising-in-Indonesia story refuses to go away like it’s a bad circumcision scar, I would like to come to the young man’s defense. Remember – Tebow is not the first Heisman winner to circumcise someone. That honor goes to Herschel Walker. You see, one of Walker’s personalities was a moyel and another one was a young, Jewish boy. As you can imagine, the procedure knocked him right out of his altered mental state and into a very real, bloody and excruciating reality.

Roger Goodell says there is nothing to see here with these captions. “Yay! We delayed our vacation two days!”: http://assets.espn.go.com/photo/2008/0514/nhl_g_stars_celebrate1_412.jpg. “That seam in coverage is narrower than the one between my eyebrows.”: http://images.sportsline.com/u/photos/football/nfl/img10826268.jpg. “Wheeeeeee! Finally we’re doing something on our honeymoon that I like!”: http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/multimedia/photo_gallery/0805/caught.in.the.act0509/images/12.jpg.

Speaking of Roger Goodell, I just discovered this week that his wife is Fox News anchor Jane Skinner: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,1259,00.html. This factoid doesn’t seem to be common knowledge, as far as I know. (As I said, I didn’t find this out until this week while researching Goodell and I, like, know everything.) Anyway, Mrs. Skinner-Goodell apparently has a segment called “Skinnerville” in which she engages in “spontaneous discourse” with Shepard Smith. Not so spontaneous that Smith has ever asked her “Why did your husband destroy evidence? And do you think he is the worst commissioner in sports history?” But pretty spontaneous, I’m sure. Anyway, here is a great clip I found from Mrs. Skinner-Goodell’s Fox News archives: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmmAVZIaP6s. No doubt Roger makes her call him her “top cock” when he plunders “Skinnerville.”

Here is my ESPNessence for May 8^th to 14^th, Year of Our Lord 2008. Several front-o’-Page2 items, some group work, and this column on Latrell Sprewell: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=gallo/080514. And I should have a column on Anna Kournikova up on Friday. (Latrell Sprewell? Anna Kournikova? It’s 1999 again! If you own any stock, sell all of it now. Trust me on this. Sell! Sell! Sell!) And Wednesday, of course, was my ESPNews appearance – this week chock-full of terrible acting! Woot! Woot! Oh, and next week’s will be on Tuesday do to a scheduling conflict. So you should probably put in your shift change request to management today.

Speaking of ESPNessence, Adam – the behind-the-scenes SportsPickle webmaster who doesn’t get any/enough credit, because without him this site wouldn’t exist – e-mailed last week to show me that I was one of the most searched-for terms on ESPN.com in April: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=3371716. I don’t know where I placed in past months, I never knew such a ranking existed, but clearly I am the bee’s knees. I mean, I placed only seven spots behind “college baseball!” Do you have any idea how big college baseball is?! It’s so big that … wait, give me a few minutes here to do some research on college baseball, as I – nor anyone I know – knows anything about it … and I’m back. Okay, my findings are: college baseball is not very big, and is pretty much ignored by everyone. And I’m only seven places behind that. Woooo! Superstar!

As those of you know who have e-mailed me in the past with an idea, I – by rule – do not use any of them. Even the really good ones. I just feel that if I started relying on outside ideas like some writers do, I would become lazy and lose my fastball. (Hey – a 64 mph fastball is still a fastball if that is the fastest I can throw!) Anyway, I am BRIEFLY suspending that policy to ask for your help on a column I am working on for ESPN.com. The column is about the most poorly conceived sports books ever written. I came across an old book written by a sports figure that is so hilarious in it’s irony that I want to find more like it and write about them. The only problem is, since such books are so bad, they never sold well and aren’t on the shelves in places like Barnes & Noble and Borders. I am slowly finding more examples researching online, but I need a lot more. So … if you know of any such books – stuff like, I don’t know: “Latrell Sprewell’s Guide To Managing Your Money,” only real … please e-mail me and let me know. I will compensate you for your efforts. (No, I won’t. But maybe you are the kind of person who doesn’t have the time to read things inside of parentheses.)

Speaking of y’all, when I meet y’all – say at book signings (I have a book!!! A great purchase for summer beach reading!!! Also, exclamation points!!!: http://www.amazon.com/View-Upper-Deck-SportsPickle-Collection/dp/031236363X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207427304&sr=8-1) and the like – y’all (okay, I’ll stop) are y’always asking me if I ever have trouble coming up with ideas. And I say: “No.” Or if I’m feeling talky: “Nope.” Here is an example of why: Ricky Williams was supposed to be on that doomed boat trip with Cedric Benson. And had he been on-board, Williams says: “I think if I had come down, things might have worked out a little bit differently. I find I have a calming influence on people I'm around … I always think that if I'm there, things would be different. I can't say how.” Awesome. Just awesome. Stuff like this comes up all the time and keeps me going. It’s like my creativity gets a contact high.

Baltimore’s new coach sure has changed the culture there. Yep. It’s apparently more thuggish than before. At mini-camp last week the team got in a huge brawl. And I don’t mean a couple of players competing hard against each other threw a punch or two and blew off steam. The entire team – all 85 players there – got in a brawl. Well, that’s not true. It wasn’t all 85, as the AP story states: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jfgBtxzNpPpo0sm4omN4xEVDBa2gD90J1HDG0. It was “nearly all 85 players.” Ray Lewis was only briefly involved, then he sped off in this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0Dh1g4ket-o.

*This week’s late Ponder This posting excuse? I fell asleep while watching a documentary yesterday afternoon on the sloth.