Apparently, celebrities get overexposed in the media in threes as well.  Like George Costanza in velvet, I have ensconced myself in wall-to-wall coverage of Manny Ramirez, Brett Favre, and "Clark Rockefeller" over the past couple of weeks.
]]> http://www.sportscolumn.com/story/2008/8/1/0557/16051 Perhaps it was when I had to ask the guys from the Mine Rescue Simulation team how the hell you simulate a mine in a hotel casino.  It could have been when the cab driver asked me if I wanted to tag along with his next customer out to the Bunny Ranch.  But in hindsight, I think the moment I realized that Massholes don't belong in Reno was when I was walking down North Virginia Street and realized I was out of place because I was actually wearing a shirt.
]]> http://www.sportscolumn.com/story/2008/7/6/0450/90617 Vin has been heckling me for the lack of quantity of my writing lately.

And by "lack of quantity," I mean I haven't posted a column since February 2007 when I wrote some diatribe about how NASCAR, and by extension the South in general, sucks.

Even though I've been a loyal and regular contributor to Poor Man's PTI, my absence from the printed word has been somewhat unexplained.   So I think I owe it to the readers and especially to my colleagues Vin, Trevor, R.J., Billy, Kris, et al, to explain my writing void.
]]> http://www.sportscolumn.com/story/2007/2/20/114426/887 On Sunday afternoon, I rediscovered my Southern roots.

OK, I lied.  I was born in Rhode Island and grew up in Massachusetts.  I fit in south of the Mason-Dixon line about as easily as Charlton Heston at a vegan convention.  But for one day, I was Southern.
]]> http://www.sportscolumn.com/story/2006/10/14/9447/6180 http://www.sportscolumn.com/story/2006/7/11/23584/6114 I devised a system of ranking players in each league based on their relative standing within their league in ten offensive categories: batting average, home runs, runs batted in, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, bases on balls, doubles, stolen bases, runs, and hits.  I then looked to the inspiration of the college football and basketball polls for the scoring system; a first-place ranking in any one of the categories gets a player 10 points, a second-place ranking is worth 9, all the way down to 1 point for a tenth place ranking in their league.
]]> http://www.sportscolumn.com/story/2006/6/27/174336/086 Like my colleague Trevor Freeman, Michael Lewis' Moneyball is one of my favorite books.  For any baseball fan, the inside story of Billy Beane's quest to change traditional thinking and manage a baseball team based entirely on analyzing statistics and turning the conventional wisdom upside down is a fascinating read.  Looking at the 2006 season up to this point, I have chosen a 25-man American League All-Star team that accomplishes the major goals of any team driven by a Moneyball philosophy.

In no particular order, these goals are:

1. Find players who get on base (high on-base percentage, or OBP) and hit for some power (the combination of the two produces a high on-base plus slugging, or OPS, the golden statistic of Moneyball).
2. Pay no attention to fielding statistics.
3. Spend as little money as possible.
]]> http://www.sportscolumn.com/story/2005/12/22/93747/998 My warmest regards for the holidays to all SportsColumn readers.  After a long hiatus, BostonMac has emerged from his cocoon of semi-retirement to comment on the Yankees' signing of Johnny Damon.
]]> http://www.sportscolumn.com/story/2005/9/12/171148/222 The other day I was having a discussion with my aunt about why I love to watch sports.  One of the main reasons that came up was that the outcome of a sporting event (the NBA playoffs notwithstanding) is always unknown, that so many variables contribute to the actual happenings on the field, rendering the spectator clueless as to who the winner will be, who the heroes and goats will be, even how long the game will take.  (NBC learned this lesson the hard way with the fateful Jets-Raiders game in 1968, forever remembered as the "Heidi" game.)  The sheer unpredictability of sports and the complete ignorance of anyone involved as to the future outcome makes for great viewing.]]> http://www.sportscolumn.com/story/2005/8/8/111630/7513 It's the first week of August, and there is so much to talk about here in the Hub.  We have the first place Red Sox, fresh off a recent eight-game winning streak and, we hope, soon to start to creep away from the Yankees and claim the AL East for the first time since the Otis Nixon-Jose Canseco era of 1995.  We have the Patriots, coming off three of the last four Super Bowl titles, set to defend their crown with a laundry list of fresh challenges, not the least of which are the absences of Tedy Bruschi, Ted Johnson, Romeo Crennel, Ty Law, Charlie Weis, and Bill Belichick's wife.  We have the revelation that Rafael Palmeiro's body has been somehow trying to process the effects of both Viagra and designer steroids, leading one to believe that Raffy's organs will eventually cry "SYSTEM OVERLOAD" and blow up like the Fembots in the original "Austin Powers."  We have a governor that is convinced that he is going to be your 44th President of the United States and I have heard rumors that the NHL is returning to the ice in the fall.]]> string http://www.sportscolumn.com/search/