There are just a few days remaining until baseball attempts the suicide squeeze. Collect those Montreal Expos souvenirs now, sports fans.

The two sides have made some progress, agreeing on drug testing for the players for the next two years. Of course, this is only a stopgap measure. By next season, the Tigers and Royals will be complaining that the Yankees players are testing positive for more expensive drugs than their players.

One of the problems people have is identifying the problems, as watching Baseball Tonight has suddenly become as tedious as lip- reading C-SPAN. I watched a debate on the luxury tax and revenue sharing the other day. Both sides were well-informed and backed up their position very eloquently. I guess. I mean, within the first three minutes, I was bored out of my mind and scanning to see if "South Park" or "Jackass" was on. The leisurely pace of the negotiations seems to really frustrate baseball fans. If Bud Selig had directed "Field Of Dreams," the guys would have died of old age again by the time they came out of the cornfield.

For the first time ever, Major League baseball streamed an entire game on the internet, showing the Rangers and Yankees this past week. The broadcast reportedly went well, although people with slow internet connections complained the Rangers' pitches didn't appear to be moving at all. Bud Selig said the experiment was a success, then announced plans to contract the internet in 2003.

A jury decided this week that the Florida Marlins were not liable for an eye injury suffered by a fan struck by a flying T-shirt at one of their games. Of course, it probably didn't help that the poor guy was the only guy sitting in left field, and had to lie there for an hour until someone else wandered into his section.

Insert your own joke here: The Texas Rangers announced this week that pitcher John Rocker, who is on the disabled list, would have a nerve test this week. Who's got more nerve than John Rocker? That's like testing Barry Bonds for ego.

The NBA has signed a deal to televise its games in Spanish for the next three years. The agreement calls for Telemundo to receive 15 regular season games, a weekly talk show, and three Laker victory parades.

College football is underway, and this year there's more to play for in Florida than just the National Championship. Florida, Florida State, and Miami are playing for the Florida Cup, a state trophy that sounds like it's taken from Anita Bryant's closet. Like Florida schools needed anything else to hate each other? Giving the team that beats their two biggest rivals a trophy is like presenting the Super Bowl winners with a twenty-dollar Wal- Mart gift certificate. Sometimes the joy is in the winning. And if it's not, it's certainly in the trash talking, gloating, and recruiting advantages.

In other college football news, the Big 12 Conference has announced a tie-in with the Humanitarian Bowl, giving the conference an unprecedented eight Bowl spots for twelve teams. Since pretty much everybody that beats Baylor will get a Bowl game if they're eligible, look for the Big 12 preconference schedules to continue to be easier to get through than Byron Hanspard's last semester at Texas Tech.

The Denver Broncos wound up having to pay for damages resulting from a prank on their rookies. After rookies were covered with flour and maple syrup, they sprayed a fire extinguisher into Shannon Sharpe's dorm room, causing up to three thousand dollars in damages. The team announced they would pay for all damages, as well as any others resulting from someone trying to shut Shannon Sharpe up.

Former Dallas Cowboy Nate Newton was sentenced this week to thirty months in prison on a federal drug trafficking charge after getting caught twice this past year hauling marijuana. Nate pled guilty as part of a plea bargain, which also granted him immunity for fifteen years of holding penalties. Former Falcon/Niner/ Cowboy/Redskin/Member of Hammer's Posse Deion Sanders was a character witness for Newton, saying afterwards that he felt financial pressures led Newton to the illegal activity. You know, it doesn't say much for Newton's agent that he could play in the USFL and fifteen years in the NFL and still not have enough cash to pay his bills without having to make "Smokey and the Bandit Meets Cheech and Chong" pot runs across the lower forty-eight. After sixteen years of pro football, I would hope retirement is more relaxation and less "Midnight Express," wouldn't you?

And finally, Gus Frerotte has won the starting quarterback job with the Cincinnati Bengals. Frerotte (7-8 as a starter, 0-1 vs. stadiums) proved all of his critics wrong when they said he'd never be a starting quarterback in the NFL again. You know, it's not the first time that people have underestimated Jon Kitna.

Labels: Bengals, Broncos, CFB, Cowboys, NBA, NFL