“Culling the thoughts that occur when you’re standing around waiting for something to happen”

How do you suppose former University of Arizona Wildcat Richard Jefferson and his teammates feel about the recent photo of Mexican drug cartel kingpin Sergio Villarreal Barragan being arrested on Sept. 10 proudly wearing a San Antonio Spurs T-shirt?

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The NHL preseason is underway and if you’re anything like me you…well, you also probably hadn’t noticed.

It seems like just yesterday the Chicago Blackhawks were hoisting the Stanley Cup, 10 days before the Los Angeles Lakers did an Irish jig on the Boston Celtics’ NBA Finals dreams.

Well, the boys of winter are back — despite the fact that Los Angeles hit  a record high 113 degrees today.

Off-seasons appear to be shrinking in the big-dollar game of sports. How much of a hiatus do we actually get to ease out of our post-title hangovers?

On average? About 100 days.

SEASON FINALE     .     TRAINING CAMP BEGAN     .     DAYS

NHL     June 9     Sept. 17     100

NBA     June 17     Sept. 27     102

MLB     Nov. 4     Feb. 15     103

NFL     Feb. 7     July 23     166*

*Mini camp after 75 days

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David Aardsma recently picked up his 30 save of the season for the Seattle Mariners.

I’ll never forget my first encounter with the closer when he pitched for the Chicago White Sox in 2007.

Aardsma was in the Sox’ spring training office in Tucson and using a copy machine.

All I could think was “what the heck does a baseball player need to make copies of?”

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There are ticking time bombs scattered in the cities harboring many professional sport franchises.

They sit like a singing elephant on a street corner. No one really wants to acknowledge it. And when they do, they often do so in self-deprecating tones.

These bombs — the pent-up frustration of a metropolis’ insufferable championship drought — have been known to flip over a car or two upon detonation.

And yet, they cannot be defused by simply snipping the red wire. Or is it the blue?

The fallout of the 2004 bomb the Red Sox set off in Boston rained fallout of widespread relief, divine thankfulness and a newfound tidal wave of chowdah-accented arrogance.

Bombs such as these lie just beneath the psyche of a city and fester until a guy — a bayou-born-and-bred boy, really — like New Orleans Saints’ cornerback Tracy Porter sneaks up from behind one of these weapons of mass deprivation and uses all 186-pounds of his 5-foot-11-inch frame to smack it with a ball-peen hammer.

And a city explodes.

(more…)

There are ticking time bombs scattered in the cities harboring many professional sport franchises.

They sit like a singing elephant on a street corner. No one really wants to acknowledge it. And when they do, they often do so in self-deprecating tones.

These bombs — the pent-up frustration of a metropolis’ insufferable championship drought — have been known to flip over a car or two upon detonation.

And yet, they cannot be defused by simply snipping the red wire. Or is it the blue?

The fallout of the 2004 bomb the Red Sox set off in Boston rained fallout of widespread relief, divine thankfulness and a newfound tidal wave of chowdah-accented arrogance.

Bombs such as these lie just beneath the psyche of a city and fester until a guy — a bayou-born-and-bred boy, really — like New Orleans Saints’ cornerback Tracy Porter sneaks up from behind one of these weapons of mass deprivation and uses all 186-pounds of his 5-foot-11-inch frame to smack it with a ball-peen hammer.

And a city explodes.

(more…)