• Feast your eyes on some screengrabs from NHL 13. [Operation Sports]

Preview: New Jersey Devils at New York Rangers, 8 p.m. ET

Except to see a different Rangers team Wednesday, and not just because they'll be plugging two Brandons into the lineup, with Brandon Dubinsky making his series debut and Brandon Prust returning from his one-game suspension. The Rangers have played fabulously at Madison Square Garden this postseason, and it's hardly possible for them to be as poor as they were in the 4-1 Game 4 loss that evened this series at two games apiece. The Rangers desperately need to get their forwards going, as Chris Krieder is the only one with two goals. Might we see a more open game than we've grown accustomed to?

Evening Reading

• Cool post on Sidney Crosby's comic book death. [The Hockey Writers]

• An open letter to Shane Doan from a Kings fan. Incredibly, it's nice. [Nebulous Verbosity]

• Kirk McLean's entire career is up for auction, if that's what you're into. [PITB]

• If the Devils and Rangers go to a Game 7, it will be shown on NBC Sports, not NBC. Why? The Senior PGA tour's got dibs. [Newsday]

• The Oilers don't need a stud defenceman just yet. [Oilers Nation]

Puck Buddy Comment of the Day: Luke, on the screenshot of the woman behind the Coyotes' bench Wednesday night:

If you stare hard enough thru the picture like one of those Magic Eye books you CAN see Dave Tippett.....

Uncanny.

Bold Prediction: Brandon Dubinsky scores in his first game back.

As now-deposed coach Stan Van Gundy's relationship with Dwight Howard fell apart, reports abounded that the Orlando Magic center had grown tired of SVG's demanding style. That wasn't terribly surprising — hardline coaches can get on players' nerves over time, particularly when there's not a clear progression towards a championship. When the Magic stalled, SVG's time ran out.

If the Magic want to keep Howard in Orlando — which seems unlikely based on at least one report — then they might need to bring in a different kind of coach. With that in mind, it's a little surprising that two of the rumored possibilities are even more intense than Van Gundy.

The first name, which surfaced Tuesday, is Utah Jazz legend Jerry Sloan. He's been nominally retired since abruptly resigning from the Jazz last season, but apparently he wants to get back to the sidelines. From Chris Tomasson for Fox Sports Florida:

Sloan told FOX Sports Florida on Tuesday he has interest in the Orlando Magic job, which became open Monday when Stan Van Gundy was fired. "Yes, I think so,'' Sloan said from his farm in McLeansboro, Ill., about his interest. "It would be very intriguing. But they would have to be interested in me.'' [...]

"I'd let other people judge that,'' Sloan said when asked if he could coach Howard, who had been flirting with leaving small-market Orlando but decided just before the March 15 trade deadline that he would not opt out of his contract and delay possible free agency until the summer of 2013.

On Wednesday, Milwaukee Bucks coach Scott Skiles was floated as a potential frontrunner. From Gery Woelfel for the Milwaukee Journal-Times (via EOB):

Those who know Skiles well insist he would crawl to Orlando to be the Magic's coach. Skiles not only has a house in the Orlando area but he played five years with the Magic while becoming one of their most beloved players ever.

More importantly, Skiles is one of Richard DeVos Sr.'s all-time favorites. DeVos is the owner of the Magic. It's hardly a secret DeVos wants an NBA title in the worst way and has to realize it would be foolish at this stage — especially if all-world center Dwight Howard remains in the Magic Kingdom — to bring in an untested young coach instead of a proven, quality coach like Skiles.

Hiring Skiles would also be a p.r. bonanza for the Magic as their fans most certainly would embrace a Skiles' "homecoming.''

Sloan is one of the greatest coaches of the last 25 years, and Skiles has proven his ability to get teams to play hard and improve their defense considerably. The problem for the Magic, though, is that both coaches are legendarily intense and not particularly well-suited to deal with temperamental superstars. Sloan resigned in part because of his lack of interest in dealing with Deron Williams' superstar demands (which were minor compared to LeBrons and Carmelos of the league), and Skiles is well known for expecting his players to carry out his game plan and follows his rules.

For all we know, Howard might respect these men's reputations and be a good soldier. But if the Magic are looking to keep him in town with a splashy hire, these names double down on the same traits that got Howard tired of Van Gundy in the first place.

However, it is possible that the Magic are simply looking towards the future. Sloan is best known for his work with stars Karl Malone and John Stockton, but he also oversaw the Jazz rebuilding process in the mid-'00s and led them to a period of success in a stacked Western Conference. Skiles tends to get on his players' nerves after a couple seasons, but he has shown that he can get a group of young players to perform well above their on-paper expectations.

The Magic have plenty of time to pick a coach and might not end up with either of these candidates. However, the rumors suggest that Orlando could finally be looking towards a Howard-less future even as they attempt to placate their star in the short term. For once, the franchise could be keeping its options open without seeming horribly disorganized.

To be fair, Prep Rally has no idea who the unfortunate cheerleader who happened to either A) kick herself in the head, or B) slip in untimely circumstances, actually was. What we do know is that the video that depicts her least glorious moment — and was brought to Prep Rally's attention by NBC blog Off the Bench -- was uploaded to YouTube by a teenager named Natalie Mudd, who happens to be a student at Balls Hill (Va.) Parkway South Senior High.

Add to that the fact that the students in question have all the marks of being high schools working out at a high school field, and it's pretty safe to say that the video can serve as a historical document about the risks inherent in school spirit at the prep ranks.

Naturally, the most important concern is that the unfortunate cheerleader in question avoided any kind of a serious injury. Based on her reaction — and the fact that only her butt and elbow hit the ground with any force — it seems safe to say that she at least achieved that.

In the process, she also showed that she has a heck of a sense of humor about her own cheer capacity. Good for her. Anyone who can take a foot to the face or slip into a brief behind injury is bound for greatness if they can laugh at themselves.

Want more on the best stories in high school sports? Visit RivalsHigh or connect with Prep Rally on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

"While the Men Watch" is a live, sports talk show for women. Hosted by Lena Sutherland and Jules Mancuso, the program follows the discussion of two women watching sports "from a woman's point of view including everything from interpreting the rules of the game to coaches in need of a makeover." Apparently, it's been called ESPN meets "Sex & The City."

And it's coming to CBC for the Stanley Cup Final, an announcement that has triggered some serious backlash in the hockey community, especially after an introductory post on the program at the CBC's website. From the CBC:

As two women married to sports fanatics, there was really no escaping hockey on TV - especially during playoffs.  As our men were glued to the game, we were on the phone talking to each other about what we saw on the ice in a way that was completely different than what our guys or the real announcers were saying.  Why were the players getting a seat and a drink in the penalty box if it's supposed to be a punishment?  And how exactly did that coach pick out a brown suit and tie combo four sizes too big?

After rigging up an audio stream from our living rooms, we started broadcasting our "girl talk" version of commentary on all the finer points of hockey, football, baseball, basketball and yes - even golf.

What the what? This is an absurdly poor idea. It's 2012. The hockey world is full of women who not only watch and understand hockey (Whoa! Just like men!), but do standout work reporting on hockey, from Katies Baker and Strang to Helene Elliott to Cassie Campbell and Andi Petrillo, who work for the same CBC that will be bringing us "While the Men Watch Hockey Night."

Needless to say, the reaction to this has been harsh.

Steve Lepore spells it out nicely:

And Winging it in Motown takes it a step further, because -- get this -- he actually knows a woman that likes hockey. (Crazy!)

And Sportsnet Magazine's Shannon Proudfoot -- an actual, honest-to-goodness, female hockey fan (she should be in a museum!) -- weighed in as well:

Sarah Sprague turns the sexism on its head and points out the also absurd notion that all the men are watching hockey:

And here's Ellen Etchingham with a valuable counterpoint. Before you get all bent out of shape about what these two women are doing, recall that assuming they represent all women is just as dumb as assuming any male sports analyst with whom you disagree represents all men.

Although I'd argue it isn't so much about what the women of "While the Men Watch Hockey Night" say as what their hiring says about the CBC's opinions of female hockey fans.

One assumes this controversy won't go away overnight. We'll have more on this Thursday. In the meantime, is this sexist, or incredibly sexist?

Welcome to the latest Happy Hour mailbag! You know how these work: You write us with your best rant/ joke/one-liner at happyhournascar@yahoogroups.com or on Twitter at @jaybusbee, we respond to your messages, everyone goes away with a smile on their face.

We've got the greatest day of the motorsports year coming up this Sunday. Combine that with the unofficial kickoff to summer, and you've got one hell of a good reason why it's a very good thing there's no work on Monday. You listening, NFL? This is how you do a celebration. Make Super Bowl Monday a holiday and then we'll talk. Till then, we have Racing Sunday and then a blessed day to recover.

To your letters, starting with the issue of Jimmie Johnson sandbagging:

If Dale Earnhardt Jr. had won the All Star race, everyone would be saying it was the greatest race format ever! Be thankful Jimmie Johnson did sandbag, or he probably would have won all 4 segments. [Those complaining about Johnson's win are] the same bunch of whiners that couldn't appreciate JJ winning 5 in a row. I personally thought it was impressive to see a team come out with a strategy & execute it to perfection. No matter how you tweak the length of segments or pit stops, no one was outrunning the 48 Saturday night! Get over it!

— Jeff
Collinsville, Ill.

Do you think 20 years from now they'll still be talking about "fireworks" and "no holds barred" and "tempers flaring" and great All-Star race memories and show replays of Kyle Petty and Davey Allison followed by Earnhardt and Elliot? NASCAR is living in the past, especially when it comes to the All-Star race. The meatball nostalgic fan thinks that even in this current format that Dale Earnhardt or Rusty Wallace or Bill Elliott would've tried to win all 4 segments anyway and then run away in the 10-lap shootout.

— Eric
Chicago

First off, let's lay this out there: yes, Jimmie Johnson sandbagged the last three segments of the All-Star Race. There's no other way to put it. Good strategy? Absolutely. Crap racing? Also, absolutely. But Eric makes an excellent point: Johnson did exactly what the wise drivers of earlier days would have done before him: used the rules to his own advantage. Do I have a problem with that? Aesthetically yes, competitively no. You do what you do to win, and it doesn't matter if you don't look pretty doing it.

Longtime readers of this column know I don't have a whole lot of patience for some of the Sacred Whines of the NASCAR faithful ("It was better back then," "Jimmie is a cheater," etc.) Those of you displeased with the All-Star race, which would be everyone who's not a 48 fan, unfortunately need to accept that Johnson gamed the system to his own advantage, and did so in a perfectly legitimate fashion, like it or not.

BUT! Let's not end this conversation there. No, you folks stuffed my inbox with dozens of suggestions for how to fix this silly race, so let's run down a few:

____________________

• NASCAR needs to move the All-Star race. How about a stand-alone race every year at someplace like...Rockingham? (Randy Black/extavernmouse, Portland, Ore.)

• 1) Invert the field after each segment. 2) Run the race in two 30-lap segments and a final 30-lap shoot-out. 3) Use something like the old points system in each of the first two segments to set the field for the last 30-lap shoot-out and award 10 points extra for winning a segment. (Dave D., Stoughton, Wisc.)

• Four 25-lap segments, winner of each segment wins bonus money, mandatory four-tire pit stops after each segment, start with 25 cars, bottom 5 cars of each segment go home. Final segment would be a 10-car, 25 lap shootout with fresh rubber. (Gus, Naperville, Ill.)

• Make it mandatory to change 4 tires during the (last) stop and really pressure the pit crews. (Mark Zahn, Atlanta)

• Five 20-lap segments. Winners of each of the first four get $25,000. During those runs no pit stops until the mandatory caution. Only green flag laps count. During those four mandatory cautions, all cars must make a four tire pit stop. Give a $25,000 prize to the crew who has the fastest stop for that segment. Line them up as they come off pit road. For the last 20 laps, line them up as they come out of the pits. Then have it be a final 20-lap, winner take all segment. (Sean, San Diego)

• Run one 30-lap heat. Stop for tires. Invert the finish order. Run another 30-lap heat. Total the points pits and starting grid determined by total points. Now the fun part: a 60-lap race. MAKE IT COUNT. The final win is an Automatic Bid into the Chase. (Bruce Lavoie, Concord, N.H.)

• First segment is $10,000 a lap for 20 laps as a warmup. Second segment is $20,000 a lap for 40 laps. After that, they get the break to work on their cars and are returned to the running order at the end of the second segment. Final segment is a 20 laps, each lap worth $50,000. Throw in a $500,000 bonus for the winner of the race and a $500,000 bonus for whoever leads the most laps overall and I think we have something a little more interesting. Every lap should be a race. (Patrick, Gastonia, N.C.)

All interesting suggestions, but let's think bigger. First off, what exactly is the point of an All-Star race? In other sports, the All-Star games are opportunities to see the sport's biggest stars sharing a court/field/rink in a way they never do during the regular season. Here, we see that every single week. So why run it in any way close to a normal race? I like the idea of elimination, although sponsors would absolutely howl. (Solution: give every eliminated driver a nice minute-long on-camera interview to plug his/her sponsor.) I also like the idea of putting something real at stake, like a spot in the Chase. Yes, I know that would make purists howl, but drivers who make it into the All-Star race have already proven they're at least Chase-worthy. Barring all that, I'm definitely on board with the traveling-circus idea, and the possibility of reviving dormant tracks is an enticing one indeed.

Now, no more suggestions, please. We're full up here.

____________________

Maybe it's time for the NASCAR fanbase to be a tad more appreciative of what these guys do for us on a weekly basis. I don't know many people who put their lives on the line to entertain people yet get so much flack for being safe. We should thank our lucky stars that we get to watch them do what we love them doing, and that is race. It's time to stop complaining and love what we're given. These guys owe us nothing and we owe them everything regardless of how much money we spend on merchandise and tickets. Without men and women who like to drive fast and put on a show we wouldn't have NASCAR or any racing. That's how we should look at it, not that they owe us because we make them money. We owe them because they put their lives on the line every week to give us a good show regardless of whether or not we think it's boring.

It's been bothering me, this "me, me, me" mentality that some fans have.

— Patricia Lauren Augusta
Simi Valley, Calif.

What? WHAT? I want WRECKS! I want CARNAGE! I want it like the GOOD OL' DAYS, and I want it NOW!

Thanks, Patricia. Good points. I'd argue that these guys actually do owe us a fair amount; without fans, they'd be doing burnouts in the parking lot after clocking out of work, not after winning races and seven-figure checks. But yes, our sense of entitlement does get a little overwhelming at times. That's what Smoke was hinting at during his Talladega rant, but he couldn't quite say it as explicitly as you did ... not yet, anyway.

Finally, we have a letter writer taking issue with me (imagine that):

____________________

(My words from the letter column last week) "I will say that I can understand why people are sick of the Danica coverage … to some extent, it's the NASCAR equivalent of ESPN slobbering all over everything Boston."

Really? ESPN slobbering all over Boston? Wouldn't you? City of Champs. ESPN slobbers all over the NBA and only the NBA. Busby, I bet you're a Yankees fan.

— PWard

SAWX RULE! BRUINS RULE! TAWM BRADY WILL BE OWAH PRESIDENT ONE DAY! WE LOVE YOU KEVIN GAHHHHNETTT!

A few notes for you, my Back Bay broseph:

1. It's "Busbee."
2. Calling me a Yankees fan? Why not slap my mother in the face while you're at it?
3. Junior Nation: when your guy starts winning again, don't be like Boston fans after their decades-long sports drought. You'll vaporize our goodwill within minutes.

And on that note, we're out. Thanks to all our writers this week. You want in? Fire up the computer and hit us with whatever's on your mind, NASCAR-wise, at happyhournascar@yahoogroups.com. You can find Yahoo! Sports' NASCAR coverage on Facebook right here, and you can follow me on Twitter at @jaybusbee and on Facebook here.  Make sure to tell us where you're from. We'll make you famous!

It was the 27-year-old's first match against a player ranked in the top 50 since he beat reigning French Open champion Gaston Gaudio at the 2005 U.S. Open. In between, Baker underwent five surgeries that sidelined him for four years. Left hip, right hip, sports hernia, left hip (again), Tommy John surgery. The injuries knocked him out before he ever had a chance to get in.

He went back to school, healed from his ailments and returned to professional tennis in 2011. Baker had played in a French Open boys final against Stanislas Wawrinka. He defeated Novak Djokovic and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in junior events. He played in three U.S. Opens. Now he was in a futures event in Florida, earning 18 rankings points off five wins against players ranked in mid-1000s.

Last month, Baker won eight matches in Savannah to earn an American qualifying spot in the French Open. He traveled to Nice last week and won three qualifying matches to earn a spot in the main draw. The victory over Monfils was his second of the tournament. It is Baker's first tournament off North American soil in six years.

Baker is No. 216 in the ATP rankings and rising. He should move past his career high of No. 176 after this week.

"I'm confident," Baker recently told the Wall Street Journal. "But being out for so long, I know how quickly it can be taken away from you. I'm going to do everything in my power that this time, it's for a long time."

By Sam Fels and Matt McClure of Second City Hockey

Ladies and gentlemen, we've come here today to bury the Pho….wait a sec, are we sure they're dead? Sure they're not just lying about for effect? This is Mike Smith's and Michal Rozsival's team after all. Do we want to bring the doctors and trainers out, just to make a big show of it for effect? You're sure? Guess the game misconducts for losing classlessly indicate no pulse.

What's funny about the fact that we've been brought here to eulogize the Phoenix Coyotes is that we were asked. Bloggers for a team that up until recently regarded the Yotes as nothing more than something to fill out the schedule four times a year, and will feel that way again next year. We have it on good authority that bloggers from all four division opponents on Phoenix were asked to do this, and they all responded with "Sure Wysh, we'd love to. Wait, for who? Sorry, doesn't ring a bell."

But it all came to an end, as the Homer Simpson boxing approach to hockey finally ran out of luck when the Coyotes came up against the Drederick Tatum of the Western Conference in the Kings. The extra fluid padding the brain -- known as Mike Smith -- that let the rest of the Yotes pretty much get pummeled for large portions of the playoffs without a knockout finally succumbed.

It was fascinating hockey for all. Or no one. Take your pick.

Oh Mike Smith, the only name character of this passion play. In his final game, he took three shots off the head and never blinked, teaching us all that frozen rubber discs traveling up to 100 MPH don't hurt, but anyone breathing on him is the cause of a severe hematoma. Physics don't apply in the desert, apparently.

But Smith is the perfect spokesman for the hypocrisy and anti-hockey sentiment that makes the Coyotes go. After Game 5, calling for Dustin Brown to be suspended "forever" on a clean hit because Raffi Torres got 25 games for turning into an ICBM aimed at Marian Hossa's skull.

Interesting. What then does a man deserve who went Man-In-A-Black-Hood to Dustin Brown's leg, Mike?

This, of course, followed Dave Tippett's lament that diving had taken hold in the playoffs and was having an adverse effect on the game, similar to our national senators complaining that DC has become too partisan. If the Yotes had extended the Kings to six or seven games, we waited with bated breath for Tippett to complain about how interference and holding were bringing the game down as well.

But you have to hand it to Tippett and his tactics for this Conference Final. It takes a brave man to watch the St. Louis Blues get wiped on the Kings' windshield and say to himself, "I bet they think they're dumb. We'll show them dumb!"

And so Martin Hanzal and Shane Doan were unleashed. And so were….y'know, those are the only two skaters in Phoenix we can name. We know that these eulogies are supposed to be riddled with individual players being made fun of. But in the Yotes' case, that would be like trying to lampoon your favorite drone of the Borg. One isn't more green or veiny than the last one. And Tippett would say that since we've never been assimilated by an evil space collective, we have no right to talk about it.

Even the most ardent of hockey fans would struggle to name more than these two forwards of the Coyotes Top Six.

Oh right, there was the hilarity of counting on Radim Vrbata for top-line playoff scoring.

Here's a haiku, for no reason, on Vrbata in the spring:

Regular season
Perimeter scorer, yes
Playoffs? Wets himself.

Maybe the lasting memory will be somehow letting Jeff Carter score a playoff hat trick. It's as if Bullwinkle finally got that rabbit out of his hat, if Bullwinkle were a frosted-tipped, blond-chasing douchebag. Actually, that works, just because it's so funny to picture Mike Richards as Rocky.

Here's what you need to know about Yotes fever in Arizona. Still one of the biggest stories during their playoff run is that some dude is kind of thinking about maybe buying the Coyotes. Y'know, if the tides are right, and if the Goldwater Institute and Glendale Council can be anything other than the giant "No" sign the Blue Meanies carried around. But that might save us from Gary Bettman's expert attempts to find a buyer.

Here's all you need to know about how toxic an investment the Coyotes are: a man who already owns arguably the biggest stepchild franchise in sports in the Chicago White Sox wouldn't touch the Coyotes with a 10-foot clown pole. When a man who green lit spending wads of cash and/or assets on luminaries such as Jaime Navarro or Carl Everett (twice) can't be coerced into throwing money at you, that should give you a pretty clear idea on your financial prospectus.

So it's all over now. We no longer will be treated to the uneasy sight of a state with the harshest immigration policies having a "white-out."

But then it was never much of a white-out, considering the ease with which masses of opposing fans got tickets to make the "white-out" look more like the complexion of Justin Bieber's STDs. But at least they went out … well, screaming like infants who have just soiled themselves. Doan and Hanzal using the handshake line as a pulpit to complain about perceived atrocities was just the last hypocritical thing the Coyotes could do.

Doubtful any Blackhawk, Predator, or King used the same line to air their grievances about dozens of Doan's acts. This isn't Festivus after all.

Sure it was fun for all while it lasted, but in November the Coyotes will once again just be that team that shows up to your building two or three times and then goes off to wherever they came from. They'll be there, and they'll be gone, and you won't remember it after. Maybe one day someone will try and remind you about Mike Smith's dives or Shane Doan's elbows or Hanzal's hits from behind or a host of other things.

And all you'll say is, "There was a team in Phoenix?"

Josh Hamilton, that's coming out of your game check! Be sure to replace your divot. Way to make a good impression. At least tell Alex Liddi that you're sorry for robbing him.

It's a good thing Hambone ran into that particular part of the fence at Safeco Field, because it appears to be part of a gate, and would offer more give than one panel over in front of the bleachers. Hit the wrong part of the fence at that speed, and his teammates on the Texas Rangers might be putting up a chalk outline of his body for real.

It was the second terrific catch by Hamilton against the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday night. He also robbed Casper Wells of extra bases with this grab — but did no harm to the Safeco fence that time. He could have, though, and it would have been OK because then he would have surpassed his insurance deductible.

Love baseball? Even like it a little?
Follow @AnswerDave, @bigleaguestew, @KevinKaduk on Twitter,
along with the BLS Facebook page!

You don't need to be as smart as Keith Law to notice the spelling mistake in the banner above.

But it should be noted that it was the ESPN baseball expert who first alerted us to the "Failll" banner that currently hangs over the Big 12 "Baseballl" Championship at RedHawks Field in Oklahoma City. Far be it from us to point and laugh at a typo — y'all know the Stew has been guilty of a few (thousand) over the past few seasons— but, well, it's hard not to point and laugh at this one.

Yes, it's easy to hit an extra key somewhere along the way. It's worth an extra chuckle, though, when that typo is somehow transformed into a giant banner and then hung above a gathering of the nation's finest student-athletes without anyone noticing. Edjamacashun FTW!

Then again, we're talking college athletics here. When the Big 12 has 10 teams and the Big Ten has 12, perhaps getting it somewhere close is good enough.

By the way, we're taking the Lllonghorns over Baylllor in Sunday's title game.

Want more baseball fun all season long?
Follow @bigleaguestew, @KevinKaduk and the BLS Facebook page!

Ohio State announced Wednesday that the school plans to give all student-athletes an iPad as part of an academic support initiative.

The school will initially distribute 500 iPad's as part of the school's Digital First program with hopes to get every student athlete a n iPad within two years. Just a guess, but I bet football players are among the first to receive a coveted iPad.

Ohio State's athletic department will fund the program, but will examine additional funding for the future.

Shockingly, Ohio State isn't the first university to provide its athletes with an iPad. The University of Colorado provides iPads for its football players and several other schools have handed out laptops as part of their academic support programs.

I'm guessing the iPad's will be heavily monitored so that they don't end up being traded in for tattoos.

- - -
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The second round hasn't been especially kind to Jrue Holiday. After averaging a sterling 18.2 points per game in the Philadelphia 76ers' first-round win over the Chicago Bulls, he's had a rougher go of it in Round 2, averaging just 12.4 points a night on 43.4 percent shooting against the Boston Celtics. He's far from the only Sixer to struggle — his teammates are shooting a combined 41.7 percent from the floor in the series, which Boston leads 3-2 and can close out in Philly in a pivotal Game 6 on Wednesday night — but what's made Holiday's play particularly noteworthy of late is its passivity.

After hitting three of the first four shots he took during Monday's Game 5 and helping Philadelphia jump out to a 27-23 lead after the first quarter, Holiday seemed to recede from view, attempting just two shots in the rest of the game and finishing with a quiet 10 points in Boston's 101-85 win. That Holiday, the team's leading postseason scorer at 15.5 points per game, pulled back when he seemed to have it going gave Doug Collins cause for concern; as the Sixers' head coach told John N. Mitchell of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the team needs more offensive aggression from its lead guard and leading scorer.

"He's our leading scorer," Collins said after a team film session Tuesday at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. "[...] I've got to have him in the mode of looking to shoot the ball."

In a perfect world for the Sixers, Holiday plays Wednesday night the way he did in Game 2 of the Chicago series, when he finished with 26 points and six assists in a 109-92 rout.

"I have to be more aggressive looking for my shot," Holiday said.

Perhaps too often, Holiday exhibits a reluctance to take over games. He has a pure point guard's mind-set in that he would rather set up his teammates — something Boston guard Rajon Rondo, his counterpart, could very well be the best in the league at doing.

It's true that Holiday can look tentative at times, and that hesitance can spell problems for a Philadelphia team not blessed with very many players who excel at creating good looks, whether for themselves or others. But it's worth noting that it's not exactly as if the Sixers become a high-flying, explosive winning machine when Holiday starts looking for his own offense.

He's scored 20 or more points 12 times during this regular season and postseason, with Philly going 7-5 in those games (2-0 in the playoffs). Setting aside 20 as a somewhat arbitrary figure, Holiday has either led the 76ers in scoring or tied with a teammate for the team-high in points in 21 games this season, with Philly going 11-10 in those games (2-1 in the playoffs). Sure, they've won more than they've lost when the third-year guard out of UCLA has gone score-first, but not as frequently as when he's notched six or more assists in a game (16-10 in 26 games, 3-2 in the playoffs).

That said, the issue from Collins' perspective seems to be less about scoring than it is about the very act of getting the shots up. More from Mitchell:

"I thought there were a couple of times where he penetrated looking to pass that I would rather he had shot the ball," Collins said. "I mean, at least it gives us a chance to offensive-rebound the ball. To get the ball up there on the rim, it at least gives us a chance. He knows I need him to think 'score' because we bleed sometimes out there to get a hoop. I need him to get to that basket."

And that's the biggest key. If Holiday can beat his man (mostly Rondo) and penetrate the lane against a Celtics team without fearsome shot-blockers regularly patrolling the paint (unless Greg Stiemsma gets really heavy minutes, which he hasn't for most of this postseason), then the point guard stands a good chance of something positive happening. He could:

• Get to the bucket for a high-percentage look himself;

• Force a Boston big to rotate to plug the gap, opening up his own post men for the kinds of dives and dump-offs that enabled Brandon Bass to feast for the Celtics in Game 5;

• Force Boston's wings to sag toward him to try to alter his approach, creating more opportunities to cut or more open looks for Philly's cold-shooting wings; or

• Get fouled and head to the free-throw line, where he hit better than 78 percent of his attempts this season.

Generally speaking, a successful Holiday attack off the bounce can result in more good things than a Holiday jumper or ball swing. The Sixers reaped the benefits of that approach during their six-game opening-round win over the Bulls, which saw Holiday attempt 24 shots at the rim, converting 14, according to Hoopdata's shot-location statistics, and take 25 free throws, hitting 21 of them to pace Philadelphia to a first-round upset.

Things have been a bit different against the C's, though. While Holiday's at-the-rim pace is about the same against Boston — he's taken 20 attempts through five games, though he's hit just nine — Holiday has spent more time outside over the past three games, taking just eight shots at the tin in Games 3, 4 and 5 combined after 12 such attempts in the series' first two contests.

His predilection toward jumpers has meant fewer trips to the line — just five since the start of Game 3, including an oh-fer in Game 5, and only seven total for the series — and a frequent struggle to get anything going for his teammates in half-court situations. If he's not getting to the rim or getting to the line, unless they get a ton of fast-break points (as they did in Game 4), the Sixers will have a tough time winning.

In a sense, then, while no one would confuse the two players' statures or finishing abilities, what Collins wants out of Holiday is what so many fans and observers have long demanded out of LeBron James — attack, attack, attack, and let the chips fall where they may. Force the defense to make decisions and then counter them, or, if they're a step slow, well, make them pay for that at the rim.

It's a tough, often thankless task — getting whacked around under the basket doesn't feel so great if the layups don't fall or your teammates miss those baseline jumpers — but unless one of his teammates is able to get off the schneid on his own, it might be a job Holiday has to do to keep his Sixers alive and force a Game 7.

The design is simple. Djokovic is decked in all-white with red and blue piping on his right shoulder. His polo shirt zips in the middle and Uniqlo logos adorn his chest and shoulder. It's fairly safe for the inaugural design in a deal that's supposed to propel the Fast Apparel company to new heights in Europe and the United States.

On the bright side, it ain't Sergio Tacchini.

The financial terms of the deal weren't announced, but it's safe to say it was a healthy contract. In this picture, Djokovic is shown shaking hands with Fast Apparel CEO Tadashi Yanai. He's the richest man in Japan.

If somebody in the crowd isn't yelling "take it off," then I don't know anything anymore.

1. Who is the best heavyweight in the UFC?* Of course this question will be answered. With the UFC heavyweight belt on the line, the main event is designed to answer that question. However, it has to have an asterisk on it because of the Alistair Overeem shenanigans before the bout. He was suspended from fighting for nine months because of abnormally high levels of testosterone, and his own actions kept him from fighting on this card. Through no fault of their own, Frank Mir and Junior dos Santos' bout will have an unsatisfying "what if" hanging over it.

2. How did Cain Velasquez recover from his first loss? From the second Velasquez stepped into the cage, he was a freight train. He started his career with nine straight wins, topped off by a TKO of Brock Lesnar for the title. Dos Santos stopped that train with a 64-second knockout, and this is the first time fan will see Velasquez since then. Will he be able to fight back to get a win over Antonio Silva, or will Velasquez suffer his second loss?

3. Can Dan Hardy stop his epic losing skid? "The Outlaw" has four losses in a row in the UFC, which is an unheard of number. Fighters have been cut for much less. After losing to Chris Lytle in August, Hardy took time away from the sport. He doesn't have an easy fight in Duane "Bang" Ludwig. We'll find out Saturday night if he can finally right the ship.

4. Is Jason Miller more than a TV star? "Mayhem," and his awesome dog Gator, starred on both "The Ultimate Fighter" and "Bully Beatdown." He is engaging, funny, and knows how to be the star of a show. However, that didn't help him in his first fight back in the UFC in six years, as Michael Bisping manhandled him. Miller's bout with C.B. Dollaway will give him a chance to prove he belongs in the UFC.

5. Can an all-heavyweight card be exciting? The UFC is taking a gamble with this card. Though the idea of an all-heavyweight card is good in theory, in practice, it's dicey. Heavyweights can provide great knockouts, but they can also provide wheeze-fests like Travis Browne's bout with Rob Boughton or Frank Mir's with Mirko Filipovic. The pressure is on these 10 men to deliver.

6. Who will Daniel Cormier fight next? The newly crowned Strikeforce heavyweight champ will supposedly have another fight in Strikeforce, but his best tests will be in the UFC. UFC 146 is chock full of heavyweights who could test Cormier's wrestling and striking. Who will his next opponent be? See the main card for the answer.

At 22-21, the fourth-place New York Yankees aren't quite in Kansas City Royals territory just yet. Still, I look at this picture of a diving Mike Moustakas and can't help but wonder if the half dozen Yankee fans  are more terrified of the potential symbolism for their struggling team than they are concerned for the well being of the hustling Royals third baseman.

So have at it, amateur Internet copy editors of the world. How should this caption read?

Follow the jump for winners from our last C-a-C featuring the boys in blue: Partying like it's 1988

1st — AndrewScott48. "Hey. You guys wanna hear a story about how I won those rings on your fingers?"

2nd — Mickey. "So I was pumping my fist while running the bases and I thought, Tommy isn't all that special I can eat pasta and manage a ballclub. All downhill from there."

3rd — Jeremiah. "Selig let a parking lot attendant run this place? No wonder they still show us up on the big screen every night."

HM — Boops. "OK, Orel I'm going to start you in Game 1 tonight. Kirk, because you are hobbling I am going to only use you as a pinch hitter. Orel, why aren't you in uniform yet? Kirk, that isn't our uniform, where is Arizona?"

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His return was never a guarantee, given the team's President's Trophy-to-first-round-exit performance and the fact that Vingeault has been on and off the hot seat since 2008. But Gillis gave him an endorsement:

"He has done an excellent job and I don't know why you wouldn't want somebody back who has done an excellent job and has the results to show for it," said the GM.

On Wednesday, the Canucks made a most excellent decision: Signing Vigneault, 51 to a contract extension. From the Canucks:

"Alain has established himself as one of the premiere coaches in the National Hockey League," said Gillis. "He has demonstrated a commitment to winning that has led to back-to-back Presidents' Trophies and we are confident his dedication and hard work will continue to yield positive results. Alain has built a foundation of winning with this franchise and I feel he can continue to build on that foundation to achieve our ultimate goal."

"I am pleased to be signing this extension to continue as the Head Coach of such an outstanding organization," said Vigneault. "I look forward to taking the next step with this franchise in bringing the Stanley Cup to Vancouver. I feel fortunate to be able to work with such a dedicated group of management, coaches and players in this great city I love."

Vigneault had one more season left on his current deal. Had the Canucks severed ties with him, heavy speculation had him potentially returning to the Montreal Canadiens to fill that vacancy.

Are the Canucks preserving the status quo? Gillis is back, Vigneault is back — will Luongo return?

Bottom line: There's no real argument at this point with Vigneault's results in Vancouver. Almost any other coach would have been a downgrade or a question mark. And it's not as if the players have tuned him out yet.

Tom Benjamin backed Vigneault coming back, which is good enough for us. From Harrison over at Pass It To Bulis:

The irony is that the people claiming the Presidents' Trophy is meaningless are the ones whose reason is blinded by their intense desire to see the team win. Little do they know that Presidents' Trophy is awarded to teams that win with a standout measure of frequency. Someone should tell them.

Here's the thing: the Canucks' regression this past season was cause for concern, as was their slow start in the Conference quarterfinals, but it was hardly cause for firing the best coach the team has ever had, a coach that led his team to the best record in the league, is regarded around the league as one of the best, and has already proven his ability to get this team to the Stanley Cup Final.

If the team regresses further next season, then maybe you consider making a change. But for right now, Vigneault remains the right choice to run the Canucks, which is why he will continue to do so.

From Gordon McIntyre of The Province:

The only argument for getting rid of him that makes any sense at all, given his track record, is that Vigneault — despite racking up more wins over the past two seasons than any other coach in the NHL, despite a Jack Adams award and two further nominations, despite back-to-back President's Trophies and taking the Canucks to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final last season — has nothing left to offer.

That his well has run dry, that the players have turned him off. But, unless they're lying, the leadership core have been unanimous in their support for Vigneault's return. He's simply the best coach the Canucks have ever had.

Even better than Orland Kurtenbach? Yes, ever better than Orland Kurtenbach.

It's a mixture of moments that run through the mind of Duke offensive lineman Dave Harding when he reflects on his offensive line's trip to Ethiopia earlier this month.

Harding, a junior for the Blue Devils and son of missionaries, had been visiting and doing charitable work in Ethiopia every summer since he was 12 and had almost become desensitized to the poverty and struggle. It wasn't until he took nine of his offensive line teammates and a strength coach with him that he remembered what a life-changing experience such a trip could be.

"It's easy to become complacent," Harding told Yahoo! Sports. "After going to Ethiopia so many times you come to find that what you see over there is normal. Traveling with all my teammates and it being their first time, it really opened me up and reminded me what things are different and gave me a chance to look at Ethiopia as if it was my first time again."

Members of the Duke offensive line - Harding, Takoby Cofield, Cody Robinson, Conor Irwin, Laken Tomlinson, Brian Moore, Travis Gibson, Joey Finison, Teddy Force and Perry Simmons - spent 10 days (plus two traveling) in Ethiopia building two wells, working with an orphanage and running a sports camp with about 200 kids. Harding had approached the coaching staff with the idea every year he had been on campus, but this past January, things started to fall into place. With the help of a group called Water is Life, the nine players and strength and conditioning coach Marcus Johnson were able to make the dream a reality.

"It was something that shaped me and made me who I am and I wanted the rest of my teammates to get that experience as well," said Harding, whose father is an agricultural engineer who is also on the Water is Life Board of Directors. "It was a great chance for a lot of guys to learn about one another and to struggle through different situations together, especially without the distractions of home."

The trip was about more than serving the people of Ethiopia, though that was a huge draw, it was also about bringing the offensive line closer together. Cofield said prior to the trip, there were a lot of cliques on the offensive line and cohesion was an issue.

"Our new offensive line coach - coach (John) Latina - came in and told us we needed to bond more and we needed to be more of a unit," Cofield said. "So, from his perspective we definitely needed it and I guess that's why all of us jumped at it and wanted to go and experience it.

"Offensive line is five guys working together all of the time. So being comfortable with each other is something that is pretty essential. It felt like it helped us a lot."

The group did get to learn a lot about each other just from the close quarters they shared, which included bunk beds for the 300-plus-pound linemen and candlelight walks through the African bush to the showers.

"Everyone was a little scared to walk through the African bush at night so we installed the buddy system," Harding said. "It made for even more team bonding there. Nothing like holding on to each other as you walk though the bush. Stuff like that is just like funny memories and good stuff."

There was also a great sense of accomplishment. The group finished one well and began drilling another. The addition of the wells meant villagers wouldn't have to walk more than two miles to get fresh water.

Cofield said the experience would have a profound effect on his life. He recalled a man helping the group build one of the wells and remarked about how hard the man worked and how excited he was about the project. What Cofield didn't learn until later was that the man had a club foot, a birth defect where the afflicted appears to walk on their ankles.

"He was picking up 100-pound bags of concrete and walking across a bridge with them, jumping up and down and just always enthusiastic," Cofield said. "It just kind of shocked me and made me realize that no matter what you think your situation is and if you think your situation is bad someone might have it worse. He showed me the definition of hard work through adversity and I'll never forget that."

Since the group has returned, Harding said he's been inundated with requests about another trip. He said putting this one together was tougher and more time-consuming than he imagined, but that he wouldn't be opposed to doing another trip with as many as 14 players next year.

"You think you've struggled until you see what these people have to do and the lives that they live," Harding said. "They're working to survive on a day-to-day basis. It makes you grateful for what we have."

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The biggest threat to NFL stadium attendance is how awesome it is to watch games at home. In an effort to keep seats full at stadiums, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wants to make the stadium experience more like the home experience by having Wi-Fi at every venue.

Goodell talked about that on Tuesday at the league meetings. Via Nate Davis at The Huddle, here's Goodell on enhancing the stadium experience:

"We believe that it is important to get technology into our stadiums. We have made the point repeatedly that the experience at home is outstanding, and we have to compete with that in some fashion by making sure that we create the same kind of environment in our stadiums." [...]

"We want [fans] to have access to the same information. Have access to our Red Zone, have access to highlights, be able to engage in social media, including fantasy football. When you come to our stadium we want to make it a great experience."

He's right; every stadium should have Wi-Fi available to fans. But not because it's going to replicate what it's like to watch a game at home ‒ that's impossible ‒ but because it's 2012 and so few of us are Luddites.

I think the commissioner is going the wrong way on this one. You're not going to compete with my living room by trying to be like my living room. You can't give me a couch, a remote, a laptop, a box of Cheez-Its, reasonably priced alcohol and the ability to curse freely from time to time. So don't try.

What the stadium experience offers is that it's not like home. You share your stadium experience with 70,000 like-minded people. You chant together, you cheer together, you feel a part of a community. You hug and high-five strangers. That's what the stadium gives you.

Believe me, If I want it bad enough, I'll find a way to get a fantasy update. If the stadium experience is right, however, I'll be perfectly content to worry about my fantasy team when I get home.

You want more, better-trained, friendlier ushers. You want more security and stadium staff nearby. You want unpleasant and disruptive fans kept away from kids and families. You want well-monitored, safe, fun tailgating areas and activities before and after the game.

Of course, there's one issue that trumps everything, but it won't be changed, so I don't know if it's even worth mentioning ‒ money. If tickets weren't so expensive, if parking wasn't $50, if a Diet Coke wasn't $6, and there weren't so many TV timeouts allowing the league to rake in additional money, then the stadium experience would be far more attractive. But none of those things will be changing.

But there is still plenty of room to give fans a better gameday experience, especially considering how much it costs.

At least there's Tony Campana. He's a holdover from the previous administration, but Campana has batted .306 with a .359 on-base percentage (that could be better) and 12 stolen bases. Campana optimistically boasted in spring training that he could steal 100 bases if given the chance. Perhaps he could. But his speed has made him fun to watch. Like here, after an errant pickoff attempt against the Houston Astros on Tuesday night:

"Uh oh," goes Cubs broadcaster Len Kasper. But never fear, Len! Campana's acrobatic (and remarkably lucky) slide somehow eludes the tag of infielder Matt Downs at third base. The ninja move from the government was part-Pete Rose, part-Superman, part-Sam Fuld.

He doesn't touch him with the glove. Amazing.

A year ago after Fuld got off to a hot start at the plate and made some astounding diving catches in the outfield, the Tampa Bay Rays hastily put together a superhero cape giveaway day in Fuld's name. The rest of Fuld's season wasn't as super, but that shouldn't stop the Cubs from stealing the idea and getting Campana a cape of his own. Or tights. Big red boots?

It's either that or give out free haircuts in the Moe Howard-bowl style to honor the legacy of Pete Rose. (A cape is better.) Oh, by the way, the Cubs stranded Campana at third and lost 2-1, their eighth straight defeat.

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Then, some schools even go a step further, like the University of Georgia. When the Bulldogs needed to fill a vacancy for an on-campus recruiting coordinator, the Bulldogs passed over a variety of analysts in the recruiting space to hire a man who was most recently serving as the director of Under Armour football camps in the state, who happened to have one key prior role on his resume: He formerly coached the nation's top recruit, Loganville (Ga.) Grayson High defensive end Robert Nkemdiche, early in the top prospect's career.

To be fair, Daryl Jones, the man who landed the recruiter position, is a fully qualified candidate. Before taking the reins of Under Armour's Georgia prep operations, Jones coached at different schools for 17 years. That time certainly gave Jones ample opportunities to forge bonds with other schools across Georgia and the Southeast, from where UGA draws nearly all of its recruits.

Still, there is bound to be skepticism about Jones' appointment because of his relationship with Nkemdiche, an in-state recruit who might be the best prospect out of the state of Georgia in years. The 6-foot-5, 260-pound beast of a defensive lineman is considered a plug-and-play solution on the defensive line for any team with a hole, making him arguably the nation's most sought after 5-star recruit in the Class of 2013.

Whether hiring Jones -- whom Nkemdiche raved about in an interview with ESPN -- can help bring the big man into the fold in Athens remains to be seen. In the meantime many will continue to wonder whether UGA's decision to bring on board a man who was no longer a coach or a recruiting analyst was done independently of the chance to impress one of the best young football players to hit the Georgia scene in a long, long time.

Want more on the best stories in high school sports? Visit RivalsHigh or connect with Prep Rally on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

• John Tortorella, when asked how he was going to get his forwards going on Tuesday: "Pray." He then read an excerpt from his memoir on a trip he took around the world after splitting from the Tampa Bay Lightning.

• By the way, in case it wasn't clear that John Tortorella's sense of humour is lacking, on Wednesday morning he made it clear that he was joking about prayer and retracted the joke. [NHL]

• No hearing for Dustin Brown for his controversial collision with Michal Rozsival. [LA Kings Insider]

• Brandon Dubinsky returns to the Rangers' lineup for Game 5. [Newsday]

• Showing some much-needed attention to the Devils' relatively anonymous blueline. [NJ]

• An argument for shaking up the New York Rangers' lines by removing Carl Hagelin from the top unit: "Hagelin is currently playing top line minutes with the Rangers two most skilled forwards, and ha exactly zero goals to show for it. That's no goals and just three assists in 18 games so far this postseason. No matter which way you look at this, it's unacceptable to have a top line player with zero goals in 18 games. At some point, changes need to be made." [Blue Seat Blogs]

• Jaroslav Spacek claims he might have retired at the end of the year if he had finished it in Montreal, and rips the Canadiens hockey operations team, from the bizarre rules for the players to the total lack of communication. "'So much bad stuff,' Spacek said. 'In my 20-year hockey career, I'd never seen anything like it. If you don't like the way I play, kick me in the ass. But no one said anything. It was terrible.'" [Montreal Gazette]

• Another major step towards the Phoenix Coyotes staying in Arizona was taken after the team was eliminated last night, as the Glendale City Council voted to approve a preliminary budget that includes $17 million to the prospective buyer of the team for operating costs for the city's Jobing.com Arena." [Winnipeg Free Press]

• The Wild have signed 2010 first-round pick Mikael Grandlund to his entry-level contract. He announced the deal himself in a video on the Wild's website. [Wild]

• Michael Arace on the American invasion in the NHL. [Blue Jackets Xtra]

• Alex Semin cuts his forehead on his gold medal, which is a very enigmatic thing to do. [RMNB]

• This hit, by Vladislav Namestnikov on Klarc Wilson of the Edmonton Oil Kings, won't see any supplemental discipline despite assertions by the Oil Kings' coach that it was predatory. Whatever it was, it was big. Prior to getting hit, Wilson's first name was spelled forwards. [The Globe & Mail]

• It's about bloody time the Dallas Stars got a specialty license plate, especially since the Fort Worth Cats have one. Why don't you head on over to the Texas DMV website and vote for the proposed Dallas Stars' specialty license plate. [Texas DMV]

• Congratulations to Puck the Media, who makes the step up to the SB Nation community. [Puck the Media]

• Where will highly-touted prospect Justin Schultz end up? [Angus Certified]

• Andrew Bucholtz on Pierre McGuire keeping what he hears between the benches to himself. [Awful Announcing]

• The upper house of Russian Parliament passed new amendments to aviation regulations in an effort to improve fight safety in the country, a decision heavily influence by the Lokomotiv plane crash. [RIA]

• Will the new Edmonton Oilers' coach will be in a better spot to succeed? Nope, he'll still be in Edmonton. [Slam]

• Does Magnus Paajarvi's terrible season cast his future with the Edmonton Oilers in doubt? [Edmonton Journal]

• Kerry Fraser weighs in on the nastiness between the Rangers and Devils, and Mike Rupp's shove on Martin Brodeur. [TSN]

• This up-and-coming Kings vlogger's got a little work to do. He's wearing a Dodgers hat and he accidentally calls the Kings the Rangers. So maybe instead of vlogging, he should go into local news?

Two of the players who came off worst in last February's Sports Illustrated exposé about disciplinary issues in the UCLA basketball program are seeking to repair their reputations in entirely different ways.

Reeves Nelson is suing the magazine. Drew Gordon is embracing the chance to let NBA teams see he has matured.

According to TMZ, Nelson hired entertainment lawyer Keith A. Fink and will file a $10 million lawsuit against Sports Illustrated and writer George Dohrmann. The suit claims the magazine "recklessly and negligently failed to investigate" claims in the story that Nelson started fights, intentionally injured teammates and urinated on a pile of teammate Tyler Honeycutt's clothes on his bed.

Nelson, a 6-foot-9 forward from Modesto, was expected to be UCLA's best player last season after averaging 13.9 points and 9.1 rebounds as a sophomore and making the all-Pac-10 team. Instead he was suspended multiple times for conduct detrimental to the team before being dismissed after only six games, contributing to the Bruins missing the NCAA tournament for the second time in three years.

The lawsuit is Nelson's latest attempt to combat the damage the SI story did to his already battered image. He previously gave his side of the story in an emotional TV interview. And in a Feb. 29 letter to SI also forwarded to members of the media, Nelson's lawyer refuted many of the claims levied against him.

Gordon's response to the SI article, by contrast, has been far more understated. The New Mexico big man told the San Jose Mercury News he looks forward to the opportunity to meet with NBA teams personally and prove he's no longer the hot-headed, uncoachable personality he was portrayed to be during his year plus at UCLA.

"We were freshmen, and we weren't getting much playing time," Gordon told the Mercury News. "So we did take advantage of the college life and make some ill-advised decisions. But when I read that article, there was so much negativity there. It was hurtful."

Unlike Nelson whose hopes of being drafted in June were all but torpedoed by the way his UCLA career ended, Gordon has the advantage of three trouble-free years at New Mexico to demonstrate his character. Questions about his character, erratic jump shot and lack of a back-to-the-basket game will still pop up in the next month, but he will very likely at least get selected in the second round or invited to a training camp.

Recall our rules, which can and do change on a whim:

• Verbal/Twitter exchange; slightly aggressive driving leading to issues: 1 point
• Bumping cars in an aggressive, making-a-point fashion: 2 points
• Spin, non-critical: 3 points
• Spin, critical: 4 points
• Out of car, punches thrown: 5 points

Fireball Cup stats, All-Star Race:
• Ryan Newman calling Kurt Busch "chemically imbalanced" (Darlington): 1 point
• Kurt Busch reminding Ryan Newman who pushed him to that Daytona 500 win: 1 point
• Kevin Harvick thumping Paul Menard and unfortunately putting himself into the wall: 2 points
• Menard griping that he gets no respect from Harvick: 1 point

Which gives us current standings of:

1. Kurt Busch, 7 points
T2. Jeff Gordon, 4 points
T2. Ryan Newman, 4 points
T2. Danica Patrick, 4 points
T5. Dale Earnhardt Jr., 3 points
T5. Kevin Harvick, 3 points
7. Jimmie Johnson, 2 points
T8. Matt Kenseth, 1 point
T8. Joey Logano, 1 point
T8. Paul Menard, 1 point
T8. David Ragan, 1 point
T8. Tony Stewart: 1 point

The All-Star Race wasn't quite the fiesta of brawling we'd hoped for, but there's always the marathon Coca-Cola 600. Cross your fingers!

Your turn. Did we miss any? Let us know in the comments below.

It's a Wednesday edition of Marek vs. Wyshynski beginning at 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT, and we're talking about the following and more:

Special Guest Stars: Tyson Nash gives us a post-mort on the Phoenix Coyotes and takes on the Dustin Brown hit. Mike Brophy of Sportsnet looks at the Stanley Cup Playoffs and other matters.

• In which Marek and Wysh preview Game 5 between the Devils and Rangers.

• The Shane Doan, Keith Yandle and Coyotes go off on officiating.

• The evils of the handshake line.

• Puck Headlines and Talking Points

Question of the Day: Overheard in the Kings/Coyotes handshake ally last night was...

Email your answers to puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or tweet them with the hashtag #MvsW to either @jeffmarek or @wyshynski.

Click here for the Sportsnet live stream or click the play button above! Click here to download podcasts from the show each day Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or Feedburner.

The currently unemployed Plaxico Burress does, too, and he's looking for a job. A job with the Miami Dolphins, in fact, according to one report Wednesday. But the Dolphins, even with their apparent need at the position, aren't interested. From Armando Salguero at the Miami Herald:

Add Plaxico Burress to the list of receivers who would love to audition for the Dolphins. But Miami has shown no interest in the likes of Burress, Roy Williams and Braylon Edwards. Ireland said he "could be done" at receiver, but isn't certain. If the rookies don't develop this summer, Ireland might add a veteran.

I mean no disrespect to Bess, Brian Hartline or Legudu Naanee, nor am I suggesting that the Dolphins are making a mistake by passing on Plaxico Burress, but don't they need something else at wideout? If you're looking for one of your young fellows to develop into a franchise quarterback, they're going to need help. Probably more help than you have on the roster right now.

[Also: Green Bay Packer Donald Driver wins 'Dancing With the Stars']

Again, it doesn't have to be Burress ‒ I wouldn't mess with him, either. If the Dolphins really are "done" at receiver, however, I don't know that they're giving Ryan Tannehill or Matt Moore a fair shake. Brandon Marshall caught 81 balls for 1,214 yards last season, and he's gone. Who's replacing that?

As for Plaxico, the news isn't great for him, either. One of the WR-neediest teams in the league doesn't even want to see him work out. He's probably a better fit as a red zone specialist on a veteran team, but still, it probably would've been nice to not be completely brushed aside like that. The job search continues.

More sports news from the Yahoo! Sports Minute:

Other popular content on the Yahoo! network:
• NFL looks to add excitement by potentially pushing back trade deadline
• Jeremy Lin chosen to help Team USA as it prepares for the Olympics
• Shine: Florida law firm fires 14 people for wearing orange

According to Chris Level of Rivals' RedRaiderSports.com, Del Conte, who was trying to pump up his new conference, told the group of about 200 that while the Big 12 was once in trouble, it "now has schools like Florida State, Clemson and Miami trying to get in."

Unfortunately, that was supposed to be a secret.

While rumors have been floating around about interest between the Big 12 and those ACC teams, no one had actually confirmed it - until now.

Prior to Del Conte's slip of the tongue, Florida State had done nothing but deny there was any interest in the Seminoles leaving the ACC. Clemson and Miami also had remained mute on the subject.

But there were too many rumors floating around to think that the whole thing might not have some legs.

Del Conte was a little more judicious while appearing on the Double T radio show this morning. While he acknowledged that expansion is on the horizon, he also noted that the Big 12 was in a position of power and could take its time choosing the right candidates.

"From my standpoint of right now, I want to stay let's take our breath. We are in a position of strength. Let's not rush into anything. We know expansion has to happen. It may not be for a while. We are in the catbird seat right now. We don't need to rush it. You are excited all of these teams want into the Big 12 and two years ago it was going to disintegrate."

It's doubtful that Del Conte's words will actually bring about any backlash, but he'll surely know in the future to spin his words more carefully.

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From now until the end of the 70-day Olympic torch relay, Fourth-Place Medal will compile periodic photo galleries highlighting the best pictures of the flame's journey through Great Britain.

The question we were asking all along when it came to the "spirit of the salary cap" penalties handed down to the Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins, Oakland Raiders and New Orleans Saints was, of course, "How on earth can teams be in violation of salary cap rules when there is no salary cap in place?"

Turns out, the NFL Players Association was asking the same question, and now, they will do so in court. On Wednesday morning, the NFLPA released this statement in part:

The Class Counsel under the Reggie White settlement agreement and the NFL Players Association today filed a complaint, on behalf of the NFL players, charging the NFL, its clubs and their owners of collusion during the 2010 NFL season. The complaint details a conspiracy to violate the anti-collusion and anti-circumvention provisions in the White Settlement Agreement (SSA) by "imposing a secret $123 million per-Club salary cap for that uncapped 2010 season."

The written claim is filed with the United States District Court of Minnesota, which oversees the SSA and alleges that the league and owners acted illegally and "solely by self-interest, unconstrained by their clear and unambiguous SSA obligations."

The claim was filed just one day after Special Master Stephen Burbank dismissed the appeal filed by the Redskins and Cowboys. Clearly, the NFLPA had this one on a tripwire.

The Cowboys and Redskins were the hardest-hit by the league; the Redskins were docked $36 million in salary cap room over two seasons, and the Cowboys $10 million, for the offloading of onerous player contracts during the uncapped year of 2011. At that time, there was no official rule regarding just how much salary and other player income a team could dump during that time, but as it turned out, the NFL had verbally warned all teams that any nebulous violation of the rules that could be perceived during a capped year would be dealt with severely.

Of course, the uncapped year occurred during the lockout, after the old collective bargaining agreement ran out, and the salary cap with it. Until a new agreement could be struck, the NFL could not possibly send out written instructions for teams to avoid either offsetting or "overpaying" its players without providing the NFLPA with a boilerplate collusion case.  According the NFLPA, the penalties handed down, and the language used by the league and the Management Council, is enough to warrant the complaint.

"When the rules are broken in a way that hurts the game, we have an obligation to act. We cannot stand by when we now know that the owners conspired to collude," said NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith.

"Our union recently learned that there was a secret salary cap agreement in an uncapped year. The complaint today is our effort to fulfill our duty to every NFL player. They deserve to know, above all, the facts and the truth about this conspiracy," added NFLPA President Domonique Foxworth.

''The claims have absolutely no merit and we fully expect them to be dismissed,'' the NFL said in a statement. ''On multiple occasions, the players and their representatives specifically dismissed all claims, known or unknown, whether pending or not, regarding alleged violations of the 2006 CBA and the related settlement agreement. We continue to look forward to focusing on the future of the game rather than grievances of a prior era that have already been resolved.''

The complaint centers around one very damning quote from New York Giants owner John Mara, who also serves as the Chair of the NFL Management Council Executive Committee. When the penalties were handed down in March, Mara was asked about the reasoning.

"What they did was in violation of the spirit of the salary cap," Mara said. "They attempted to take advantage of a one-year loophole … full well knowing there would be consequences."

"Such a scheme breaches express anti-collusion and anti-circumvention provisions of the SSA and the owners' duty of good faith in implementing the SSA," the NFLPA concluded in its statement.

The complaint alleges that the NFL and owners furthered colluded by "approving the very player contracts that enabled the Redskins, Cowboys, Raiders, and Saints to exceed the secret, collusive salary cap" and, prior to and on March 11, 2012, failed to disclose to the players or the NFLPA "that the true reason for the then-proposed reallocation was to penalize the Redskins, Cowboys, Raiders, and Saints for not fully abiding by the Collusive Agreement."

And that may very well be why the NFLPA signed off on the penalties that affected those teams -- so that this claim could go forward with, in their minds, the collusion then proven.

As we wrote at the time, Mara "establishes a serious conflict of interest case against the Management Council -- it could very easily be argued that existing owners should either step down from the Council, or that the council should not have the ability to rule against its competitors. That's antitrust at the very least. Second, the 'spirit of the salary cap' statement is just plain silly -- if you want something that really goes against the spirit of the salary cap, try the expiration of a collective bargaining agreement in which it was agreed by both sides that such an expiration would make an uncapped year possible. The salary cap had no spirit at that point in time, because it was dead in all possible ways."

We'll have much more on this as events warrant.

I mean, I get that you are super amped for Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, Jeff Pendergraph, but look how uncomfortable you are making your fellow Indiana Pacers. Leandro Barbosa is frowning, and he basically always smiles. And Tyler Hansbrough? It looks like you have made him catatonic. It would be going out on a limb to say that this is the SOLE reason Indiana appeared so flat offensively on Tuesday night, but that is a limb I will go out on. On which I will go out? Out on which I am prepared to go.

ANYWAY: It's all your fault, Jeff Pendergraph. Hope you've apologized to poor Tyler.

Best caption wins some proper, contextual primal screaming, thanks to the coaching staff of the Denver Nuggets. Good luck.

In our last adventure: Metta World Peace loves the spotlight, while Nazr Mohammed prefers to stick to the shadows.

Winner, Roger Mason Jr. = Hero: World Peace: "Do you know where I can get 12 cheesecakes shaped like Arkansas, a helmet full of cottage cheese and a Thurman Munson rookie card? I'll be needing these items right after the game is over."

Mohammed: "..."

World Peace: "Oh, don't worry. They're not for me."

Runner-up, The VZA: "... and then I said, 'The Aristocrats!'"

Second runner-up, KDubbbs: "You don't have to worry. You're just a DEEP bench guy. Harden's not really actually a bench guy, but I don't elbow DEEP bench guys."

Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze wants to make sure the Rebels get back to winning, but in order to do that, he needs players. So, instead of picking a handful of players to recruit, Freeze and his staff have blanketed the country with offers — 241 offers (and counting) to be exact.

That's right, Ole Miss has 241 verbal offers out to fill 25-30 spots for the 2013 class.

"You have to recruit nationally," Freeze told the Clarion-Ledger. "I think you can do that at Ole Miss, but in order to do that you got to get into the game with them."

Of course, the majority of those offered are some of the elite recruits in the country and many of them have committed to other places, but Ole Miss has no chance of snagging the elite if it doesn't offer. And so far Freeze's blanket approach has paid some dividends. The Rebels have 10 commitments for the 2013 class and three of those players are four-star recruits, according to Rivals.

[Big East finally gets good news: Boise State is on the way]

The majority of the recruits are regional — two from Mississippi, two from Tennessee, two from Louisiana and one from Georgia — but there also are commitments from Indiana, Texas and California.

"I think we're in the top five for 10 or so kids that are national guys," Freeze told the paper. "Now what does top five mean? Probably nothing in of itself, other than we got a shot at getting a trip. If we get a trip, you got a chance. We have to do well here locally, but certainly if you can get a guy that can impact your program you really don't care where he comes from."

While 241 might seem like a high number, Mike Farrell, national recruiting analyst from Rivals.com, said it's not uncommon because verbal offers aren't worth much.

"Of course it looks insane and out of control to have 241 offers (our database count at last check) for a class of between 25 and 30 players, but these offers mean as much as the paper they are printed on (none)," Farrell said in an email. "Coaches can now hand out offers like candy on Halloween with few repercussions if a prospect tries to commit and they turn him down."

Farrell said schools are throwing out more verbal offers these days because of the NCAA's decision to push back the date written offers can be doled out. In the summer of 2010, the NCAA changed the written offer date from Sept. 1 of a recruit's junior season to Aug. 1 of their senior year. This means universities can show a recruit it's interested, but not be locked in to giving a scholarship if something better comes along.

"Until the NCAA corrects the mistake they made by pushing back the written offer date, this will continue to happen," Farrell said. "Schools like Mississippi State, Tennessee, Ole Miss and others have gone overboard yes, but I think this is less an issue of a certain head coach going off the rails than it is a change in policy by the NCAA that was designed to slow down the recruiting process and has done the exact opposite."

[Also: Joe Paterno's widow receives $13.4 million pension payment]

But Freeze doesn't look at it that way. He said the verbal offers are a way to gauge interest and to figure out which guys are worth pursuing and which ones should be left alone.

Recruiting is a hit-and-miss affair, especially for a program that went 2-10 last season and is in the midst of a 15-game SEC losing streak. Those things alone can subject the Rebels to negative recruiting from other schools, so sending out as many feelers as possible might not be such a bad thing.

"If you're not in the game, you got no chance at hitting a home run," Freeze told the paper. "You have to get up to the plate."

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Ric Charlesworth was asked by The Age if the "imbalanced schedule" would affect his team's chances of winning Olympic gold. "Who knows?" he said.

Australia is the only team in the 12-nation tournament to have three games at the earliest start time. Teams play every other day at times ranging from 8:30 a.m. to 9:15 p.m.. The only night game for Team Australia is when it faces host Great Britain at 7 p.m. on Day 9.

[ Related: Officials' error costs Olympian record ]

Charlesworth suspects his team's schedule has something to do with television and the large time difference between Great Britain and Australia. The fact that another Pacific nation, New Zealand, has three games at 10:45 a.m. or earlier seems to confirm that.*

"It's crazy," Charlesworth said. ''And it's not like we're the 12th-ranked team in the tournament. How do you develop a routine around that program?"

That's some motivational talk right out of Knute Rockne's playbook. Here's how you develop a routine around it: Don't whine about it and make it work. Television rules all at the Olympics. Michael Phelps swam his eight finals races in Beijing in the morning instead of the night because NBC wanted to air it live. Be thankful Australians care about men's field hockey enough to want to see it on TV. Set practices at 6 a.m. for the next few months and make sure you bring working alarm clocks to London.

* There's a nine-hour difference between London and Sydney, meaning those three games will be broadcast at 5:30 p.m. on the east coast of Australia. That's not exactly primetime, but it's better than having the games in the middle of the Aussie night.

Because the two drunk, locker room cancers helped set up a lazy fat-ass for the game-winning goal.

At least that's how it would have been framed about eight months ago, when the narratives about Mike Richards, Jeff Carter and Dustin Penner had defined them as players. The first two were banished from the Philadelphia Flyers, ostensibly for cap relief in the pursuit of a No. 1 goaltender (or, failing that, Ilya Bryzgalov) but mostly for a culture change in the dressing room.

Penner, meanwhile, was (a) a waste of salary compared to production and (b) out of shape and (c) lazy to the point where his general manager suggested he might be better off playing for the El Cid Lounge in a men's softball league.

In overtime of Game 5 in the Western Conference Final on Tuesday night, Richards won the faceoff near the defensive zone. Slava Voynov moved it up the boards, and Penner kept the puck alive in the attacking zone on the forecheck, sending a nifty backhand pass to a streaking Carter. He fired the puck off of Phoenix Coyotes goalie Mike Smith with Richards causing chaos on front of the net, helping to clear the slot for Penner to fire home the rebound over Smith's glove. With that, the Kings were headed to the Cup Final.

This trio was maligned and decried for the better part of 2011-12. Yet it was this Dry Island of Misfit Toys that has the Kings four wins away from the first Stanley Cup.

Carter and Richards were traded last June on the same day, dramatically remaking a Flyers team that was a year removed from the Stanley Cup Final.

Carter was exiled to the Columbus Blue Jackets for Jakub Voracek, a third and the first that became Sean Couturier. His initial disdain for the trade was influenced by the Flyers going against their word that his 11-year contract would ensure he'd remain in Philadelphia. But his sullen attitude reportedly carried over into the season with the Jackets, exacerbated by the team's lack of success.

On Feb. 23, he was traded for defenseman Jack Johnson and a first-round choice, reuniting him with Mike Richards on the Kings.

The move was cynically met. Here were two players who were removed from the Flyers' dressing room, now reunited on the Kings. The "Dry Island" allegations that flew after their trades — that the duo refused to make a sobriety pledge, encouraged by team management — followed them. Wrote Flyers beat writer Wayne Fish: "How will that work, with the possibility of afterhours activity in Los Angeles more tempting than Philadelphia?"

Richards, meanwhile, was catching heat for a lack of offensive production (44 points in 74 games, his lowest since 2006-07) and still had questions about his leadership being asked after Chris Pronger usurped him in Philadelphia. What difference was he making on a Kings team that couldn't score and was clawing for a playoff seed?

Maybe the concerns about Carter, Richards and their behavior will manifest in later years, considering both are signed through 2020 (Carter's deal is until 2022). But GM Dean Lombardi saw Carter as an essential fix for his team's offense in a 16-game sprint to the playoffs — one in which Carter had six goals.

In the playoffs, Carter now has 9 points in 14 games, acting as an offensive catalyst. Richards is winning faceoffs and has scored 11 points in 14 games, exhibiting the gamesmanship and direction that make him a pain in the backside to play against.

Carter and Richards are leaders on this Kings team, something Geoffrey Detweiler thinks the media narrative got wrong during their time in Philly:

None of that is to suggest the Flyers should have kept going with Carter and Richards - though I think they should have. No, that is just there to show that the Flyers were in good hands with Jeff Carter and Mike Richards. The team had success with them at the helm, and if Chris Pronger were healthy against Boston, things may have been different. Instead, the Flyers will hope they are able to fill the leadership void created by the Richards and Carter trades. Because there is absolutely a void, and that's not even discussing their on-ice impact.

Now, Carter and Richards are playing for the Stanley Cup, while the Flyers are enjoying their time on vacation. Perhaps on an island somewhere.

Penner had, perhaps, the cruelest journey to that winning moment in Game 5.

He was a player defined by his salary: $4.25 million, a contract handed to him as a restricted free agent by the Edmonton Oilers and one that ends when this season does. The Kings surrendered Colten Teubert, a first-round pick and future considerations for him at the 2011 trade deadline.

He responded with two goals in 19 games.

In the offseason, a photo circulated on the web showing Penner in shoulder pads and rocking a gut. Lombardi made his softball crack about Penner's desire and conditioning. But pundits like Pierre McGuire of NBC still said he was a key to the Kings:

"I mean, they paid a huge bounty to get him from the Edmonton Oilers. And he won Stanley Cup in '07 in Anaheim, where he was a huge factor for that team. The one guy who's got to alleviate a lot of the pressure on Dustin Brown is Dustin Penner. And if he doesn't do it then he's got to look at himself in the mirror because he's been taking a lot of money for a long time and not producing."

Penner responded to that pressure with 7 goals in 65 games during the regular season.

He was maligned as a bust, ridiculed as a waste of money.

Then the pancakes happened.

Penner became the NHL player who was "injured" eating a stack of "delicious pancakes" his wife made. That was the point at which the balloon of criticism popped; when Penner's plight had become so surreal that the laughter had an undercurrent of sympathy. That he seized the day (carpe flapjack!) and turned the pancake affair into a moment of self depreciation and eventual charity transformed Penner into some kind of folk hero.

Then Darryl Sutter happened.

When Sutter was hired to replace Terry Murray on Dec. 11, Penner's ice time ranged between 14-17 minutes with little to show for it. Sutter reduced Penner's ice time and, in some cases, took it away from him altogether as a healthy scratch. "Work your ass off, then you get a chance to play again," Sutter said to ESPN LA. "If you don't, you don't."

Then the divorce went public.

Penner's marriage to wife Jessica Welch became TMZ fodder in late February. Whether that was cathartic or embarrassing for Penner, it was no longer a private matter. Again, fans earned some further understanding about what may have contributed to Penner's struggles.

Maybe it was Sutter's motivation, Penner's mental clarity or simply just his typical rising to the occasion in the playoffs — as he did with the Anaheim Ducks in 2007 — Penner has three goals and seven assists in 14 games for the Kings, despite just 12:23 in TOI.

As Jeffrey Chapman put it on Oil On Whyte: "Some Fat, Lazy Guy With No Heart And Isn't Clutch Just Put The Kings In The Cup Finals."

These three players were among the most criticized in hockey over the last several months. Last night, they helped send the Kings to the Cup Final for the first time since 1993. The Stanley Cup Playoffs are nothing if not an instrument for redemption. Penner, Carter and Richards are symbolic of that.

It's time for the latest Devil Ball Power Rankings, our look at who's up and who's down in the world of golf. Your panelists are an esteemed group of the world's greatest golf journalists ... or so our mothers tell us. Devil Ball Golf's Jay Busbee and Jonathan Wall, CBS Sports/Eye on Golf's Shane Bacon, and Golf Channel/Golf Talk Central's Ryan Ballengee bring you these, our rankings. Enjoy, and read on to see how you can be a part of the festivities.

1. Luke Donald. Does Luke seem like a No. 1 golfer to you? He needs to get a little more feisty. Brag a little more, you know? Own it. Last week: T1.

2. Rory McIlroy. Rory and Caroline Wozniacki play tennis together. That's so cute. Good thing he's not dating a pop star; last thing we need is to hear Rory screeching out some karaoke. Last week: 3.

3. Matt Kuchar. Poor Kuch. The guy's receding hairline startles us every time he takes off his cap. Better that, though, than a rug. Unless it's one of those Rory wigs. Last week: T1.

4. Jason Dufner. Dude looks like every schlub that joins your foursome and brings beer as an icebreaker. He ought to go hustle some cats before he gets recognized worldwide. Last week: NR.

5. Bubba Watson. Bubba ought to wear his green jacket in the next Golf Boys video. That'd go over well. Last week: 4.

6. Rickie Fowler. Rickie might just be the real deal, but let's not push it too far just yet. Last week: 5.

7. Hunter Mahan. Hunter looks like the kind of guy who'd bum ten bucks off you every day and forget to give it back, and then return it all in the form of a brand-new surfboard. Last week: 6.

8. Lee Westwood. Think Lee is getting nervous about the majors yet? Last week: 7.

9. Phil Mickelson. Decent Texas run by Phil, though it fell short. What would you do if you were already a Hall of Famer in your chosen profession? Last week: 8.

10. Justin Rose. Good thing he's not an American, or he'd be hearing "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" everywhere he went. Last week: 9.

Also receiving votes: Carl Pettersson, Tiger Woods, Kyle Stanley, Johnson Wagner.

Want in on the Power Rankings voting? Email us and make the case for why we should make you our guest voter for the week. Points given for good stories and good arguments.

Nonetheless, the timing of his departure from his previous job probably could have been better.

Frazier, the starting point guard for s.Oliver Baskets of the German Bundesliga, flew back to the United States on Wednesday on the eve of the second game of his team's semifinal matchup against Ratiopharm Ulm in the league playoffs. S.Oliver Baskets lost the first game of the series on Sunday 77-65 despite 14 points and five rebounds from Frazier.

"We are disappointed that Chester Frazier has decided to leave the s.Oliver Baskets at this crucial stage of the season," managing director Jochen Bähr said in a statement later translated into English. "At the time of his commitment, it was not clear that we would get this far in the playoffs. We had agreed with Chester that he will remain at least until the end of the semifinal series against Ulm. Why he has decided to go back now already to the U.S., he has not informed us."

Frazier averaged 7.7 points and 2.1 assists in 24.4 minutes per game this season for s.Oliver Baskets and played the same rugged defense he was known for throughout his college career at Illinois. It's unclear why he'd leave the team now rather than wait until the end of the playoffs, but DraftExpress.com's Jonathan Givony reported Tuesday that new Kansas State coach Bruce Weber encouraged him to stay.

Frazier initially put his coaching aspirations on hold for the chance to play professionally in Germany, leaving a video coordinator position under Weber at Illinois in November to sign with s.Oliver Baskets. It was tough for him to leave Illinois and to say goodbye to his fiance for a few months, but he told RidiculousUpside.com in March that he missed playing too much not to give it a shot.

"I missed playing basketball," Frazier said. "I missed the fight. The closest I could get to 5-on-5 was playing against 40-year old guys and playing noon ball. And I could feel it too -- I got out of shape and gained about 20 pounds."

At the time of that interview, Frazier said he always intended to get back into coaching once his playing days were over. Clearly that came at least a few days sooner than most would have imagined.

(Thanks, DraftExpress)

Please join us beginning at NOON ET/9 a.m. PT today for our weekly chat that includes a revolving door of panelists like Lyle (Spector) Richardson of Spector's Hockey and Katie Baker of Grantland; as well as your friendly neighborhood knuckleheads from Yahoo! Sports, Puck Daddy and Buzzing The Net.

You bring the funny; we bring the abrupt changes in tone and Hamburger Women. That's how it works:

On Tuesday, after a little more than five months as the second-most powerful man in the organization behind new owner Jim Crane, Luhnow changed jobs again — to ticket-taking usher at Minute Maid Park for a game against the Chicago Cubs.

Sure, the Astros are outperforming most preseason expectations, but didn't Crane expect to have Luhnow running the show for at least a year or two? Actually, the job change isn't permanent, as Alyson Footer reports in her blog, it's part of a program the team is running called "Share the Experience." It's like "Undercover Boss" without the disguises and sneaking around. Luhnow even wore a name tag that said, "Jeff." (Along with a button that says, in English, "I speak Spanish." And he does. He was raised in Mexico City.)

You might be wondering: Was his entire experience like the 30-second video snippet? Did every fan passing through the south Home Plate Entrance on their way to their seat fail to recognize Luhnow during his two-hour shift?

Almost nobody did.

Fans barely batted an eye as Luhnow scanned tickets and greeted fans with a friendly "enjoy the game." He fielded not a single question about who he's selecting in the upcoming draft. No one asked him who's starting the second game of the doubleheader in Denver on Monday. In fact, Luhnow was recognized exactly once, by a regular at Minute Maid Park who puts up the "K" signs in the outfield at just about every game.

Luhnow and other Astros executives doing this sounds like a sound exercise for the company. Even if it's a bit of a publicity gimmick (you're welcome!), it makes Luhnow come off very well. How can you not like this guy when he says empathetic things about ushers such as:

"It's exhausting. And I only did it for two hours. They're here all night."

While in college at Penn and Northwestern business school, Luhnow also nurtured other passions by playing fantasy baseball — another sign that he's a regular guy. In 2003 at age 37, Luhnow transitioned into a data analysis job with the St. Louis Cardinals. By 2005, he was overseeing their drafts. Two World Series rings and several minor-league championships later, the Astros named him GM. And then demoted him to usher. Just for a game, though.

Big BLS H/N: Zachary Levine of Ultimate Astros

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Follow @AnswerDave, @bigleaguestew, @KevinKaduk on Twitter,
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We haven't seen a good trick shot video in at least a year, so I want to thank Nick DiChiara for rekindling the fire. DiChiara, who recently graduated from Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Boston, will play football at Colgate next year and at the very least the Raiders will know they're getting a player who can snap a ball into a moving trashcan.

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H/T to @SIHolly

"Like" Dr. Saturday on Facebook for football conversations and stuff you won't see on the blog. And follow Dr. Saturday at its new home on Twitter: @YahooDrSaturday

As reported by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Osseo eventually eked out a 6-5 victory against Coon Rapids in 19 innings, the final three of which were played two days after the original game ran out of sunlight after 16 tense innings.

By the time it was over, the regular-season matchup had spread across more than five hours of game time and set four state records: Most at-bats by a team (Osseo came to the plate a whopping 68 times), most at-bats by a player (six hitters batted nine times), most sacrifice bunts (Coon Rapids completed five) and most strikeouts by a player (an Osseo batter tied the state mark with five Ks).

When the teams met to conclude the original game two days after it was postponed by darkness, both squads had to honor their original lineups, including all of the pitching and position switches that had come before darkness fell. That made things rather interesting.

Fitting for the drama that preceded it, when the game finally did reach its final frame, Coon Rapids loaded the bases with just one out in the bottom of the 19^th only to end the game by hitting into a double play.

Whether or not either Minnesota squad competes in a marathon match like their wild May extra-inning affair again, they can all look back fondly on what has to be one of the cleanest extra-inning games ever played at any level: In 19 innings the two teams combined to make just one error.

Want more on the best stories in high school sports? Visit RivalsHigh or connect with Prep Rally on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Following the victory, Driver was asked whether his victory compared to winning the Super Bowl. "I think it does," he said. "It's truly something special. I reached the greatest milestone in my career, and that was winning the Super Bowl. I just made my partner reach her greatest milestone, and now she's 'Dancing With the Stars' champion."

Judging by his reaction to winning -- pushing away his partner, running around like a college basketball player after a buzzer-beater and flopping on the dance floor like a fish -- I'd say he wasn't being hyperbolic.

Driver has been married to his wife for 12 years and they have three adorable children. You know how you stay happily married for that long? By being smart and not hugging the hot, blonde Australian dancer that you've been writhing around with for 10 weeks.

Here's Driver's final performance on the show, followed by some insta-reactions to the sequined spectacle.

• "Do you remember Cheryl and Drew's freestyle from season 2?" Driver asks. Yes; Yes I do.

• Jorts!

• If Roger Goodell sees how Driver bloodied Peta Murgatroyd, he'll levy a fine of $50,000.

• Cowboy Troy!

• "I mean, you know where you got that shirt and it damn sure wasn't the men's department."

• Why is the female judge so out of breath?

• "Too hot to trot!" the old man in the middle said. "In football, catches win matches. And chances with dances." I sort of want to watch this show next season.

• I like Donald Driver blowing a man kiss to the last judge. He should incorporate that when referees rule favorably on replays of his catches.

Tucked away in Reno a killer slithers quietly in the grass. This Snake, packed with venom so toxic it could paralyze the opposition with one strike, continues to wind a course of destruction through Double and now Triple-A, leaving victims in its wake bewildered, vexed and completely humbled.

The creature's name: Trevor Bauer.

Every year as spring gives way to summer, insatiable owners with various deficiencies often rest their hopes of a turnaround on unproven, uber-talented prospects with a flair for the spectacular. So far, hitters Bryce Harper, Mike Trout and, most recently, Matt Adams (we hope), materialized from the minors to provide struggling managers with the statistical jolt they so desperately needed.

However, most ballyhooed pitching prospects have failed to do the same.

Jarrod Parker was quite useful over his first three turns yielding just four earned over 20 innings. Sadly since then, spotty command and poor run support have turned him into a stream-only starter. Meanwhile, Colorado southpaw Drew Pomeranz, a top-50 farmhand according to Baseball America, posted a wretched 5.87 BB/9 during his lousy five-game tour with the Rockies.

Bauer, however, is a completely different animal.

After the former UCLA standout humiliated Southern League hitters for the first quarter of the MiLB slate (48.1 IP, 1.68 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 11.17 K/9), Arizona GM Kevin Towers threw down the gauntlet. Last week he promoted the organization's No. 1 prospect to Triple-A Reno, quite possibly the tiniest, most unfriendly pitching venue in all of professional baseball. It's an environment so sinister, ERAs typically resemble Jabba the Hutt's waistline. Tower's reasoning: If Bauer is successful there, he'll be successful anywhere. From MLB.com:

"I wouldn't say he completely overmatched Double-A," D-backs GM Kevin Towers said. "But I think if you look at his numbers, we wanted to put him in an environment where he probably was facing a little better competition, a little more of a veteran hitter, smaller ballpark where it's going to be a little more difficult for him."

No surprise, Bauer's response: "Thank you sir! May I have another."

In his debut with the Aces last Friday, the flamethrower sent Fantasyland into a tizzy. Over eight spectacular innings versus Oklahoma City he surrendered just one earned on four hits (1 BB) with 11 strikeouts (Watch his final punchout here).

Challenge accepted.

Though not as polished as Stephen Strasburg, Bauer could make a minor-to-majors impact similar to what the Nats' phenom did two years ago. The self-described mad scientist, who thinks groundballs are overrated, certainly has the stuff. His darting mid-90s fastball and sensational curve both score 70 on the 20-80 scouting scale. His changeup, splitter and slurve, nicknamed "The Bird," also register as plus pitches.

His command at times does slip, evident in his 4.84 BB/9 this year at Double-A, but his unique cerebral approach proves he is a true one-of-a-kind. The righty's 13-step pregame routine, featuring tension bands, isometrics, extreme long-toss and bizarre tribal-like dancing, is very unconventional. To Bauer, the extensive ritual helps prevent injury while maintaining peak mentality, a viewpoint Josh Beckett would probably never adhere to.

Despite locals' cries for an immediate call-up, Bauer is expected to receive additional Triple-A seasoning over the foreseeable future. Daniel Hudson is expected to return May 26, bumping Pat Corbin from the rotation. And because Wade Miley has pitched so well, it will likely take an injury or disastrous downturn by the lefty or Joe Saunders for Towers to make a move. Still, the eight-percent owned rising star needs to be stashed in 12-team and deeper leagues. His strikeout potential alone could vault K-deprived owners up the ranks.

Patience needs to be a virtue, but at some point this summer Bauer will bite.

Fearless Forecast (w/Arizona): 78.1 IP, 6 W, 3.49 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 87 K

FLAMES OF THE WEEK

Brian Dozier, Min, SS (3-percent owned) — The underappreciated Twinkie is Allen Craig before the Cardinal became a lineup staple, a largely ignored hitter who simply rakes. Though he displays modest pop, Dozier has an excellent feel for the strike-zone consistently applying bat-to-ball. At every stop in his journey to The Show, he never posted a strikeout percentage above 16.1. He also notched a career .305 BA down on the farm. Because he's seeing steady action in the sixth spot, he may also contribute better-than-expected RBI production. Also equipped with double-digit wheels (29 SBs in '11), the Brett Favre-U product is a mixed-league employable middle infielder in the mold of Zack Cozart. If you're an impatient Alexei Ramirez owner tired of the 0-fers, Dozier is an ideal stopgap.

Fearless Forecast (rest of season): 406 at-bats, .276 BA, 6 HR, 52 RBI, 43 R, 8 SB

Elliot Johnson, TB, 2B/SS (19-percent) — The Ray of statistical sunshine is another middle man who is being largely ignored by owners even in moderately deep mixers. With Evan Longoria shelved, which forced Sean Rodriguez to third, the 28-year-old has taken advantage of the extended playing time at the six. So far this month he's totaled a .323 BA with two homers, six RBI, eight runs and six steals. His high strikeout volume (25.0 K%) will likely surpress his BA long-term, but his attractive minor league returns (.319-11-56-72-30 in '10), particularly in steals, arrow to sustainable value in 12-team and deeper mixers. Recall last year in a limited role with the Rays (160 at-bats), he flashed 15-20 potential (4 HR, 6 SB) despite hitting a ghastly .194. Consider him a useful MI until Longoria returns sometime in late-June/early-July.

Fearless Forecast (rest of season): 324 at-bats, .258 BA, 7 HR, 40 RBI, 34 R, 14 SB

LAMES O' THE WEAK

Dee Gordon, LAD, SS — Admittedly, my bold preseason prediction the speedster would threaten or eclipse Jose Reyes' single season benchmark in SBs this century will fall a few dozen short. Unless he starts rapping hits soon, the Mendoza-hugging shortstop could be shipped back to Albuquerque in short order. His increasing whiffs ('11 K%: 11.6, '12: 18.8) and overall lack of success against fastballs, particularly over the outer half, are trying Don Mattingly's patience and curbing what Dee does best, swiping bags. Currently mired in a 4-for-36 slide, Donny Baseball plans to give Gordon occasional rest to clear the kid's head. Eventually, he should come around, making him a strong buy-low candidate. This week in one-for-one industry deals he was swapped for Ted Lilly, Eric Hosmer and Jed Lowrie. Buy on the bear.

Fearless Forecast (rest of season): 448 at-bats, .274 BA, 1 HR, 28 RBI, 67 R, 41 SB

Dan Haren, LAA, SP — Historically, the righty storms out of the gate then slowly fades during summer's dog days. However, this year, the Angels' workhorse has flipped the script. With only one victory on the season and an ERA hovering in the mid-4s, he's failed miserably to live up to expectation. Overall, he's the 714th-best player in the Y! universe. Checking under the hood, Haren's increase in walks combined with an unsavory 1.13 HR/9 are the primary reasons for the ERA inflation. The rest of his peripherals are in line with the norm. Once he finds the strike zone with more regularity and leans hard again on his cutter, his totals should greatly improve, as his 3.69 xFIP indicates. Like Gordon, he's a discounted commodity worth pitching a lowball offer for. He was dealt straight up for Alex Rodriguez, Jim Johnson and Michael Cuddyer in recent industry one-for-one swaps.

Fearless Forecast (rest of season): 155.1 IP, 11 W, 3.49 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 130 K

QUICK HITTERS (Random musings from my demented head)

• Just when you thought Kevin Millwood retired a decade ago, he reappears. Showing vintage, heyday form, the 37-year-old tossed consecutive masterful performances on-the-road in two extremely difficult venues, Yankees Stadium and Coors Field. Against the Rockies he twirled his first complete game shutout since 2003, the same year a 15-year-old Dustin Ackley earned his driver's permit and 50 Cent was blowin' up the Billboard charts. Leaning more on his cutter, Millwood has induced more groundball outs and dramatically increased his K/9. Though run support will be a problem and he'll likely be dangled to a contender at the deadline, he's worth monitoring even in shallow leagues. His next two turns, both against Texas, are intimidating, but he limited the Rangers to a mere one run over six innings (7 Ks) on April 11. Emerge from those starts unscathed and the wily veteran, owned in just three-percent of Y! leagues, may earn a renewed fantasy following.

• Chipper Jones' hair may be graying by the second, but he's swinging the bat with the smoothness of a 25-year-old. The 40-year-old is on pace for only his second 90-RBI campaign and highest HR/FB percentage since 2005. Occasional aches and pains are always a possibility with Larry Wayne, but the 60-percent-owned hot corner deserves more love in shallow mixers. Despite missing a few games with residual pain in his knee and most recently a calf strain, he's the 11th-best 3B in the Yahoo! universe, ranking ahead of more coveted commodities Alex Rodriguez, Brett Lawrie and Michael Young. On a per game basis, where he currently ranks fourth among eligible three-baggers, he might be one of the virtual game's deadliest hitters. Have to admit, it will be a somber day when he digs into the box for the last time. Thankfully, I'll always have his pleated Dockers shorts and leather braid belt to remind me of the good times.

• For whatever strange reason, I have an affinity for big-boned players. Not sure what the internal trigger is, but it could possibly stem from my rather hefty collection of Bob Hamelin Upper Deck rookie cards from 1990. His pinchable cheeks, plus power and accountant glasses were, I guess, too irresistible. Being a chubby chaser, I'm jumping aboard the Matt Adams bandwagon. Now that Fat Elvis, Lance Berkman, has officially left the building for the next 6-8 weeks, the Cartman-wide first-baseman is must-grab material even in fairly shallow mixers. Scouts describe him as Freddie Freeman with more pop. Glancing at his stellar minor league record, that's not far from the truth. First base is an overloaded position, but Adams has a shot at a .280-18-65-55 line over the rest of the season, provided he sticks in the lineup.

• If an unsightly number of red "DL" tags currently decorate your roster, seek out the services of Arizona's Josh Bell. The former top prospect in the Orioles system may finally bloom in a new environment. An overzealous approach held him back during his time in Baltimore, but after totaling a 0.59 BB/K and .381 BA prior to his promotion to Reno, he is showing signs of maturity. Officially supplanting Ryan Roberts at third base, he should see plenty of action over the coming weeks. The swooning D-Backs are desperate for offense. Don't be surprised if his two-run blast off Aaron Harang Tuesday night springboards him. Bell definitely possesses enough raw power to churn out 15-plus homers over the remainder of the season.

• It's great to see wholesome, good-natured pound-your-teammate-in-the-face-during-a-voluntary-workout-while-he's-looking-the-other-way fun has returned to the NFL. Similar instances have existed in fantasy circles for years. When Funston poached Nelson Cruz in a magazine mock a couple of years ago, he felt the Noise's fist of fury. You might be asking: "Evans, you're so scrawny, you couldn't flatten a tortilla." But, my friend, never judge a book by its cover. Anyone who poaches Doug Martin right before my pick in football drafts this year better be prepared to feel my wrath.

• Movies about board games is a bizarre concept. But since Liam Neeson is in "Battleship," I'll eventually break down and see it when it hits the Red Box. After watching him in "Schindler's List," "Batman Begins," "Taken" and "The Grey," I'm convinced he could make a film about Mark Prior's career ("Operation: The Mark Prior Story") enjoyable. Next to Daniel Day Lewis, he's undoubtedly the Noise's favorite thespian.

• Maxim's rank of Kate Upton at No. 39 on its annual Hot 100 list is akin to the Y! fantasy brass placing Josh Hamilton behind Ben Zobrist on the baseball Big Board, a travesty. Justin Verlander would agree. There's no way bubble gummy Taylor Swift (No. 26) possesses more bedroom sizzle. No way.

Want to bean Brad in the head? Follow him on Twitter @YahooNoise and be sure to check him along with Andy Behrens, Brandon Funston and Scott Pianowski on The Fantasy Freak Show (Now on iTunes) every Friday at 5 PM PT/8 PM ET on Yahoo! Sports Radio

Because, like Ginobili before him, Harden has been made into a cake:

But unlike Manu, whose confectionery form was really just limited to his likeness being designed on top of a sheet cake, Harden's head is this whole cake, as we can see in the photo shared by GiANT Impact CEO Jeremie Kubicek and spread around these Internet streets Tuesday night by CNBC's Darren Rovell.

Hit the jump for another look at the Thunder-themed treat, served up by the gifted and creative folks in the bakery at the Homeland Stores market on North May Avenue in Oklahoma City.

Only time and titles will tell if Harden represents an evolutionary leap over Ginobili on the court, but purely in terms of the cake game, this sure seems like a major step forward. It's got everything: The mohawk, the headband, the Thunder logo and, of course, that ever-expanding beard.

We know Harden's mom is not a very big fan of his chosen method of facial hair expression, but a Z.Z. Top chin broom made entirely out of sugar is something just about any mother could love. Also: Excellent job giving Harden a bit of a swollen left ear, Homeland Stores' Answer to "Cake Boss" Buddy Valastro. Subtle references are always the sharpest, especially now that their inspiration has been vanquished.

Now, I don't care if it's all frosting; I would like one slice of beard, please.

On Tuesday night, it was the latter.

Tulowitzki's signature defensive play has always been the incredibly graceful backhand and jump-throw combo from deep in the hole at short. But over the years he's also proven to be just as graceful as his idol Derek Jeter at flagging down balls ticketed for center field. After chasing them down, he often punctuates the play with a standard pirouette and an accurate throw.

On this Tulotastic play, however, Tulowitzki had to combine elements from both, using the pirouette and jump-throw together, to retire Miami's Bryan Petersen and create one of the smoothest defensive gems we've seen in 2012.

That was the good.

Unfortunately, in typical Rockies fashion during their ugly stretch of baseball, the buzz wore off quickly. On Tulowitzki's next routine chance two innings later, the two-time gold glover sailed the ball over first baseman Todd Helton's head for his eighth error of the season (after committing only six in 2011). It was an error that ultimately led to the deciding run in the Marlins 7-6 victory.

And to make matters worse for Tulowitzki, he came to bat in the ninth inning with the tying run 90 feet away and only one out. He promptly popped out to his counterpart Jose Reyes.

Needless to say, Tulowitzki is going to need more of the spectacular — and less of the game-changing errors and unproductive outs — if he plans on living up to the advertised "Mr. Everything" tag, or helping the Rockies recreate the magic of 2007 and 2009.

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If football isn't the ultimate masculine/gladiator sport, it's certainly right up there. As a result of that factor, not to mention the perceived group-think of the locker room, meeting room and huddle, and supposed "caveman" mentality some believe it takes to play the game, there are some who would tell you that no openly gay player would be able to survive (literally or figuratively) in the NFL. But in a recent series of interviews with current and former NFL players, OutSports.com found that the perception is not reality. If the small group interviewed represent the majority, attitudes have definitely come around about any NFL player who would choose to come out.

Former star defensive end Jevon Kearse, who once lived with an openly gay male cousin, told OutSports that as long as such a teammate did what was expected of him between the lines, the personal stuff wouldn't really matter -- and that was the overriding message from the players interviewed.

"In the game of football, it's like a war out there," Kearse said. "Once you get out on the field, all that stuff is to the side. You're on my side. I played in the NFL for 11 years, I'm sure there were at least one or two guys along the line that were gay."

Kearse's former teammate with the Tennessee Titans, running back Eddie George, said the same, and added that he didn't believe an openly gay teammate would have been ostracized on any of his teams.

"I just don't care about that," George said. "If that's what you do, that's what you do. I don't hate you because of it or dislike you because of it. That's not my personal preference, but I respect your decision. I'm not going to like you less or not be your friend because of that."

That tolerance goes back further than you think. Vince Lombardi, seen as the ultimate authority figure, and championed as a pillar of supposed "clean-cut" values for generations of football fans, had an openly gay brother, and often told his players that anyone who had a problem with the concept of homosexuality could not play for him. It was the same as any other kind of bias to the coach -- and in an era where he had to wait far longer than he should have for a head-coaching job because of his Italian heritage, Lombardi despised prejudice of any kind.

No NFL player has ever made his homosexuality public while playing in the league, but the sheer odds tell us that just about every professional football player in at least the last two generations has had at least one gay teammate through his career. The sheer odds also tell us that there will be a wide variety of views on the subject on any roster. Former New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan added his support to New York's same-sex-marriage legislation right about the time that former teammate David Tyree was telling an anti-homosexual publication that same-sex marriage would lead America to "anarchy."

"How can marriage be marriage for thousands of years and now all the sudden because a minority, an influential minority, has a push or agenda ... and totally reshapes something that was not founded in our country," Tyree said.

Strahan clearly disagreed. "I have plenty of gay friends, and I don't judge them. I want them to have all the same rights I have, and all the opportunities I have to be in a relationship, a great relationship, with the person that they're in love with."

So, maybe the picture isn't as rosy as OutSports paints it. Former running back Ahman Green, who has a gay sister and brother, isn't so sure about the acceptance of a player who admitted his homosexuality while still playing in the league.

"In our sport, to be honest, I think it would be hard for any guy to come out while he's playing," he said. "And that's not a happy thing to say. The gay community is just like everybody else, but they're treated differently. It's a double standard. If a guy was gay, he wouldn't come out while he was playing. He knows the possibility of the scrutiny he might face from the locker room, which would be unfair. I am very open-minded. It is what it is. People are born that way. You can't control it. Just like you're white, I'm black. But a lot of people don't think my way. I wish they did, because then there wouldn't be guys who wanted to stay hidden."

Perhaps the most encouraging part of the interview was the take of those players just coming into the league -- OutSports spoke with rookies Trent Richardson, Robert Griffin III, Doug Martin, Coby Fleener, Nick Foles, LaMichael James and T.J. Graham. To a man, the players who will comprise the future of the league didn't have a problem with the concept -- and many wondered why it was a big deal at all.

Richardson, the Alabama star who played his college ball in a state that struck down a same-sex marriage bill with 81 percent of the vote in 2006, said that he has gay friends and brought it back to the great equalizer -- how are you on the field?

"I never pay attention to it," Richardson said. "They do what they do. I don't have a problem with them. As long as they're playing good football and contributing to the team, I don't have nothing to do with that. It is what it is. I don't have any problem with any sexuality or whatever they've got going on."

Fleener, who played in and around a far more tolerant area of the country (Stanford), echoed Richardson's statements.

"As long as they competed on the field and gave it their all in practice, that's all I care about," Fleener said. "It's not something that's at the forefront of football. But especially at Stanford and in the Bay Area, it's something you deal with on a regular basis, more so than anywhere else in the United States. So I'm very comfortable with it, whereas in other areas it might not be the norm."

Griffin had a more personal experience -- he played with a high school teammate in Texas who came out and ultimately left the team as a result.

"When he came out, he stopped playing," Griffin said. "He might have stopped playing because of the negative feedback he might have gotten from being that on the football team. So, I think that's probably why he ended up quitting."

Perceptions are changing in the game over time -- perhaps it's that people expect football players to be homophobic by default? "I think because it's such a gladiatorial sport, when people think football they think testosterone and hitting and masculinity," Palmer said. "Whatever the reason, if there was someone who was homosexual in the locker room, that would be a very hard environment to come into because of the nature of the sport. But in my experiences, I really don't think we would have had that problem."

At some point in time, we'll all find out. Back to the sheer odds -- eventually, someone will come along and have the courage to take that stand. Then and only then will we know how the NFL really feels about true tolerance. For now, at least, the words spoken point us in an encouraging direction ... for the most part.

Follow Jonathan Wall on Twitter at @jonathanrwall

Fort Worth, Texas — It's Tuesday afternoon and TaylorMade's Tour Van is humming. The Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial won't start for another couple of days, but for TaylorMade's two full-time club technicians, Wade Liles (the "face" of the van) and Henry Luna, the week is already in full swing.

PGA Tour winner Sean O'Hair stands off to the side, waiting for the loft and lie on his irons to be dialed in. About 15 minutes later Rory Sabbatini stops in for a minute (literally) to grind his wedges before heading back to the range. And within a couple minutes of his departure, Liles is discussing some tweaks to Brian Gay's 3-wood, before adjusting and re-gripping a RBZ driver for Y.E. Yang.

This isn't a busy time of the day for the TaylorMade Tour Van. Far from it. If anything, it's just another typical Tuesday on the road for Liles and Luna, who seem to fly around the van's three work stations, re-shafting at one, before moving on to the next to grind a wedge.

"We set this truck up on Sunday at the next tour stop to get everything ready for the start of the work week," Liles said. "Then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday it's pretty much like NASCAR. We're tuning up everything for the week, adjusting it for the course, weather conditions ... anything that we believe will give our guys an edge out there."

For most golf fans who frequent PGA Tour events starting on Thursday, the tour van is a mythical figure. Most know it exists, but by the time you arrive, TaylorMade's Tour Van, like the rest of the club manufacturers, is long gone — headed down the road to the next stop.

"A lot of people don't even know these trailers exist out here," Liles said. "In NASCAR, the pit crews are highly visible in the industry, but in this industry it's not. We're almost kept a secret. We're in the ropes or under the trees where no one can see us."

While fans might not see the work being done behind the scenes each week, Liles and his crew are a critical part of the team. They work hand in hand on a weekly basis with all of TaylorMade's staffers, not only helping them tweak their clubs, if need be, but also acting as a sounding board if they're in between drivers or wedges.

But they don't just handle the clubs. If you take a peek inside some of the drawers in the van, you'll notice hats and other apparel items for each of the staffers in the field that week. It's their job to also make sure Dustin Johnson and Sergio Garcia have the correct hats in their particular color.

"We do it all," Liles said. "The van is big, but based on the number of guys we deal with on a weekly basis, we could easily use two trucks. But the one we have at the moment certainly does a great job. It's just a good thing this one is 10 feet longer."

Before Liles and TaylorMade approached the PGA Tour about lengthening the truck, rules stated all tour vans could be no larger than 15 feet wide by 32 feet wide. For some golf manufacturers, the maximum wasn't an issue. But it was for TaylorMade.

After talking to the Tour, TaylorMade was given the green light to extend, which in turn allowed others to extend as well. It's a good thing, too, because Liles and Luna need all the space they can get.

The current van setup is tricked out with flat screen TVs, a private break room/eating area, plus an additional sitting area next to the work stations. There are also drawers upon drawers with every shaft your could possible imagine; particular grips for staffers in the field; and every TaylorMade driver, iron and wedge head that's currently on the market.

From a casual golfer's perspective, the equipment might seem excessive when you're working with roughly 30-40 staffers per week. But as Liles said, he needs every bit of that equipment to make sure his guys have exactly what they need.

"A lot of these people think the players show up at TaylorMade in January, they get a new set and that's what they play all year. That couldn't be further from the case. I'll sometimes build a guy 100 drivers over the course of a year, or a guy 25 sets of irons because he's a tinkerer."

At the moment, the entire van costs about $700,000 dollars, which seems about right given the attention to detail that went into creating the entire setup.

Although the guys enjoy spending time in the van during the early part of the week, Liles admitted that his favorite part of the job is being able to drive the truck to each tournament site.

For him, going from stop to stop is old hat at this point. Liles is currently in his 13th year driving the van -- he spent 4 1/2 years driving it on a full-time basis, living out of hotel rooms and jet-setting to Florida or New York on off weeks -- but now splits time driving with Luna.

"With two full-time guys, it gives one of us the chance to head home for a couple of days and decompress while the other takes the van to the next tournament. So I get six days off per month, which is more than enough for me. Anything more than that and I'd go stir crazy."

Logging about 40,000 miles per year, Liles noted that another perk of driving the van is getting the chance to play some of the top courses in the country along the way, including Winged Foot and most of the current venues on the PGA Tour.

He even admitted that he's received two invited to play Augusta National in the past, but had to pass on both because, "I'd have to take a day off from work, and you don't take days off from work out here."

With the exception of November and December, the Tour Van crew is on the road almost 10 months out of the year. No doubt about it, TaylorMade's tour technicians take their job very seriously.  There's no calling in sick out here (as evident by Liles' cough, which he's apparently been fighting for the past two weeks).

But even with the days where he feels like garbage and would rather take a break, Liles, like the rest of the guys on staff, always finds a way to pick himself up. Because at the end of the day, he's doing something he loves. And that makes it all worthwhile.

"This is a dream job. To be able to work the best players in golf each day is something I truly enjoy. I also work with a great group of guys, and that's one of the biggest reasons why everything runs as well as it does. I consider this to be the best run tour van in golf."

The Los Angeles Kings did some unpredictable things, statistically speaking, en route to making the Stanley Cup Final: Like going 8-0 on the road, nearly having as many shorthanded goals (5) as power-play goals (6) and beating the top three seeds in the conference.

Dustin Penner's Western Conference Final-winning goal was no exception. Pancakes scored at 17:42 of the first and only overtime, and according to the history of Stanley Cup Playoff overtime, that's an exception to the expected.

Chris Winchester, a Detroit Red Wings for 35 years and a PD reader, put together a spreadsheet that looked at when goals were scored in playoff overtimes going back to expansion in 1968. From Winchester:

I always had the feeling that most overtimes ended in the first 5 minutes or so of overtime.  After compiling the data for every playoff overtime game it turns out that over 40 percent of overtime games ended in the first five minutes of the extra period. I did not calculate the fact that the game may have ended in the 2nd or 3rd overtime, just the time the goal was scored during the extra period.

In other words, the following chart doesn't account for in which overtime the goal was scored, but rather when in that overtime it was scored.

Via Winchester, the numbers; click here for the much larger, clearer image.

Again, take a gander at the full chart here. A few thoughts on this chart …

• This was the first overtime game of the conference final round, and the first overtime game of the 2012 playoffs since the Washington Capitals and New York Rangers went long on May 7.

• The Penner goal was only the second of the postseason to occur in the final five minutes of an overtime period; the other was Alexei Ponikarovsky's goal at 17:21 of the first OT in the New Jersey Devils' Game 3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers.

• As you can see, Winchester has determined that the NHL has a new benchmark for games ending in the first five minutes of an overtime period with 14.

• There have only been three seasons since 1968 in which more overtime games ended in the second 10 minutes of an extra session than in the first 10.

• Finally, while the number of overtime games has been high for the last two postseasons, they're not necessarily a product of the "charity point/shootout" regular season OT model adopted after the lockout. Rather, they're symptomatic of the NHL's turn toward defensive systems — from 1995 to 2012, the playoffs have averaged 18.29 overtime games per postseason. Wonder if the turn from divisional play to a conference seeding format played into it as well.

(Ed. Note: Thanks to Brad Forster for this reminder: The division semifinals was a best-of-five affair until the 1986—87 season, when it became a best-of-seven series.)

Thanks to Chris for the research. We now feel a little more comfortable getting up and grabbing a beer in the last five minutes of an oh crap Penner just scored …

If any member of the Miami Heat was going to lose a shoe and have to run around in his sock for a minute or so during a playoff game, it was going to be Mike Miller. He's already dealt with problem after problem since joining the Heat before last season — thumb and shoulder injuries, hernia surgery, ankle sprains, probably countless other dings that never leave the trainer's room, plus actual real-life issues — so what's one more inconvenience?

Miller stepped out of his left shoe while rebounding a missed 15-footer by David West in the third quarter of Game 5. Rather than stay behind the play to put it back on and let his teammates run four-on-five for a few seconds — which wouldn't have been too damaging, considering Miami already had a 17-point lead — the former Rookie of the Year pressed on, tossing the shoe to the sideline and running to his spot on the wing.

After a Shane Battier miss, Miller had to hustle back on defense and actually wound up cutting off Leandro Barbosa's drive. He then stayed with Barbosa as Indiana set up its offense, sagged to chuck West as he dove to the basket, and recovered to contest Barbosa's deep end-of-the-shot-clock 3-pointer, which missed, leading to a James rebound and — mercifully for TNT color commentator Steve Kerr, who seemed really upset at Miller playing in his stocking feet — a timeout by Miami coach Erik Spoelstra to give his swingman the chance to get re-shod.

Two possessions, some sound defensive work and representatively bad offense by a Pacers team that couldn't seem to do anything right on that end. Miller's just lucky he's on the same team as Dwyane Wade. That guy knows how to take advantage of situations like this.

Is the clip above not working for you? Feel free to see the shoelessness elsewhere, thanks to 1jzo.

In his second game back from a suspension for a tantrum that resulted in an umpire getting hit with Lawrie's batting helmet after an angry bounce, Lawrie lined a pitch foul that struck first base umpire Andy Fletcher in the left arm during the fourth inning.

Fletcher briefly left the game for treatment but was back by the fifth. The Tampa Bay Rays won the game 8-5.

While the incident a week ago created much conjecture about how much responsibility Lawrie should take for his helmet hitting ump Bill Miller in the hip after Miller made two bad calls to incur Lawrie's rage, this one is just an odd coincidence. Lawrie had no beef with Fletcher. And even if he did, it's hard to imagine even a major leaguer having that kind of aim. (Joe West probably would have accused Lawrie of doing it on purpose. Good thing he was umping another base.)

''It seemed like the further he moved, the more the ball chased him,'' Lawrie said. ''Just a bit of bad luck that it hit him.''

Just a bit. What's funny, or probably not funny if you're Lawrie, is that he had another dispute with a different umpire in the eighth.

[MLB Full Count: Watch live look-ins and highlights for free all season long]

Rob Drake ruled Lawrie was out as part of a double play, saying Lawrie's momentum on a slide carried him past second base, and that Lawrie did not tag second on his way back to first on a fly to center by Yan Gomes. Uncertain of what was going on, Lawrie ran up to Drake to inquire. Lawrie got animated, but he kept his helmet on this time. He also was escorted away quickly by coach Torey Lovullo.

''All I wanted to know was what was going on,'' Lawrie said. ''I didn't know what happened. For me, I didn't go to third base. I slid in, popped up and went back (to first). If I'm getting called out for something, I'm just wondering why I'm getting called out. I just didn't get an answer tonight.''

Regardless: Is that a No. 13, or a target on Lawrie's back?

The video evidence does not seem to support Drake's call, but he might have been fooled by the shuffling of Lawrie's feet around the bag. It looked indecisive and made him appear to have not re-touched the bag. But if he doesn't take a step past the bag, which he didn't, he doesn't have to re-touch. It was the wrong call, but an explainable mistake. That's not how every observer sees it, though. The Brady and Lang duo on 590-AM The Fan out of Toronto said the ump was right and Lawrie was wrong, and that the Jays need to do something to check Lawrie's emotions. "This is not a one-time incident. It's a trend."

Lawrie retorted on Twitter (not really the best place to do it, but ... ):

For all u people who think I was goin at that umpire tonight ?That is totally false.. I just wanted to know Wat the call was so chill out...

And at the radio station specifically, Lawrie said:

@FAN590 I didn't erupt @ all actually ... So ya ..

— Brett Lawrie (@blawrie13) May 23, 2012

So, yeah! But Lawrie, telling other people to chill out? How ironic, Alanis. He hasn't given himself any margin for error after the Miller helmet toss. He got the benefit of a doubt and a light suspension. But the umps are going to be watching. However, as long as he keeps his helmet attached, the Jays shouldn't discourage Lawrie too much from being emotional. We might want robot umpires, but not robot players.

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It was said they wouldn't show up big in the Stanley Cup Playoffs — yet they clearly did. No one believed they'd round into form — yet they clearly did. It was said they didn't have the assets — yet they clearly did.

Alas, they bounced last night, despite becoming a trending topic in Canada. They will be missed. Congrats again to the Phoenix Coyotes and Coach Dave Tippett, who apparently can be seen somewhere in this image.

As the Canadian songstress Sarah McLachlan once sang: "I will remember you ... weep not for the mammaries."

In my perfect word, every MLB club would have a knuckleballer on staff, be it as a rotation man or someone to save the bullpen. Heck, most knuckleballers can fulfill both of those roles if you ask.

The reality: we only have one current butterfly artist to enjoy, New York's R.A. Dickey. Let's appreciate this man while he's still around. Better yet, let's see if we can find some roster space for perhaps the National League's most underrated starting pitcher.

Dickey and James McDonald locked up in a dandy pitcher's duel in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, with both men allowing just one run over seven innings. McDonald's power stuff collected eight strikeouts, while Dickey bobbed and weaved to a career-high 11 punchouts. Dickey also got out of dodge with a victory, as the Mets pushed across two deciding runs against Juan Cruz in the top of the eighth.

Dickey has been one of the most reliable arms in our numbers racket this year. He's provided useful stats in all but one of his starts, checking in with six innings or more and three earned runs or less in eight turns. His only messy start came in the rain at Atlanta back in April, an excused absence all the way (cold weather generally hurts the knuckler, and he was up against the NL's second-best offense).

Dickey's solid ERA and WHIP from 2010 (2.84/1.19) and 2011 (3.28/1.23) put him on this spring's radar as a possible late-round selection, but there were two logical reasons why some gamers shied away. Dickey had a mediocre 19-22 record for the Mets over the last two years (part of that is bad luck, part of that is toiling for a sub.-500 team), and his strikeout rate never pushed past the 6.0 mark. It's hard to justify a Circle of Trust spot, or even a preferred streamer spot, to someone who's struggling to get win support and likely to compromise our K/IP ratio.

Alas, those two concerns haven't been issues through the opening quarter of 2012. Dickey's already collected six wins for a 23-20 Mets club — keep in mind he had just eight all of last year — and his strikeout rate has spiked as well (51 whiffs over his 57.1 innings). While no one will ever point to the knuckleball as a consistent pitch, Dickey's current form makes him someone we can employ with confidence. His stats to this point rank him as the No. 27 pitcher in the Yahoo! game.

While upcoming matchups can be a little misleading for someone who throws such an unconventional pitch, the projected slate to follow doesn't look bad. Dickey gets San Diego this weekend (yes, please), and in June he'll visit the Nationals (low-scoring club) and Rays (most pitchers are comfortable under the catwalk). A home date against St. Louis is more imposing, but the Cardinals have some injury issues at present, so perhaps Dickey can keep the Houdini act working against them, too.

Shouldn't this guy be owned in more than 43 percent of Yahoo! leagues? I sure think so. Maybe it's not going to be a six-month story, but Dickey is welcome to pitch on any of my fake teams right now.

• Everyone knows that 2012 has been The Year of the Blown Save, but the ninth-inning mischief largely took the night off Tuesday. We saw a whopping 12 handshakes on the full slate, and every pitcher who converted a save did so without allowing a run. Collectively the group struck out 15 batters, walked just two, scattered a mere four hits. Smooth landings all over the land.

Rather than giving every closer their own extensive write-up and podium moment, let's assemble the crew for a collective cheer. Take a bow, men: Jim Johnson (winner of the Thigpen Timing Award), Kenley Jansen (bailed out with a double play), Tyler Clippard, Chris Perez (greeted by Cleveland cheers), Heath Bell, Santiago Casilla, Aroldis Chapman (lights out, as usual), Fernando Rodney (bullpen story of the year), Brett Myers, Rafael Soriano (working around a double), Joe Nathan, and last, but not least, the Rasputin of Closers, Frank Francisco (a creamy-smooth 1-2-3 in Pittsburgh).

We'll give the Clippard conversion a few extra words, given how we devoted Tuesday's CT to the Washington save chase. Clippard went to Nationals pitching coach Steve McCatty before the game and basically said "what about me?" with respect to the closing vacancy. In the past Davey Johnson has preferred to keep Clippard locked into the eighth inning, but the reliable righty found himself inserted into a ninth-inning spot at Philly. Just get three outs before they tally three runs, big guy.

Clippard came through with a tidy 1-2-3 inning, though one batter (Pete Orr) greeted him with a 330-foot liner that just barely hooked foul. Ten of Clippard's 14 pitches were strikes, and the Phillies didn't hit a fair ball out of the infield (one strikeout, two ground outs). Consider Clippard the chairman of the Washington bullpen until further notice.

• Arizona's J.J. Putz was the lone closer to lose his way Tuesday, issuing a couple of walks before allowing a game-flipping two-run double to Ivan DeJesus Jr. (one of the anonymous hitmen Don Mattingly is employing these days). Putz has a messy 7.20 ERA and 1.53 WHIP for the year, but he's also 9-for-12 on saves (not great, but not horrendous) and has 17 whiffs against just three walks. I'd be surprised if he were lifted from the role without further missteps along the way. If you feel the need to hedge immediately, David Hernandez (2.22/1.10, 29 Ks against eight walks) is your man.

• Post-game hugs and smiles are routine for any club right after a win, but the Cardinals looked extra happy after Adam Wainwright's four-hit masterpiece over the Padres (1 BB, 9 K; 76 of 111 pitches were strikes). Wainwright commanded all of his pitches and basically looked like the star we all remember from 2009 and 2010; sure, the outing came against a cushy opponent, but the video jumps off the screen. Here's the tape, see for yourself.

So much for any buy-low window, it's been slammed shut now. Enjoy the comeback portion of the program. Wainwight's next five projected opponents look reasonable: the Phillies this weekend (against Doc Halladay), followed by the Mets, Astros, White Sox and Royals. Let's hope the Cardinals don't need to shuffle the rotation, due to weather or unexpected happenings; that's a slate Wainwright should succeed against. Welcome back, ace.

• I'm almost glad I didn't have an eye on the Royals and Yankees for most of the night: the last thing I need is to talk myself into Luke Hochevar and Phil Hughes (both were effective). New York's lineup hasn't been doing much lately, but use that slump to your advantage. I'd go out and buy Mark Teixeira (.229) today, if any sort of discount applied; many rotoheads are frustrated with him, but he has a history of these slow starts and the womb of the offense will eventually be good to him. The Kansas City offense has fleas of its own, but at least Jeff Francoeur has finally woken up (7-for-13 with two homers and a triple since Sunday). You have to root for anyone as cool as Frenchy, the type of guy who routinely picks up the dinner check in the bleachers.

• While the Angels are a definite disappointment at 19-25, it's a monumental fluke that the club has just five saves through the opening quarter (lowest count in the majors). Every team in baseball is capable of landing 25-30 saves in a given season, in theory, so there should be some payback handshakes to come when things normalize a bit. And it's entirely possible that the Angels will eventually play up to their pre-season notices and make a push for the playoffs, which could push the handshake line into overdrive.

Arcade-endorsed Ernesto Frieri mopped up Tuesday's win at Oakland, in relief of the brilliant C.J. Wilson (8 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 7 K). Frieri struck out two of the three batters he faced, giving him a silly 34 punchouts in 19.1 innings this year. If he can stick around the strike zone (he does have nine walks), he's capable of having a breakout year, a difference-making year for our purposes. That 22-percent ownership tag should be a lot higher.

• I'd like to go a full shift without Red Sox angst, but the Olde Towne Team doesn't make it easy. The Tuesday loss at Baltimore featured the return of Kevin Youkilis, and while Youkilis clocked a homer in his first at-bat, his presence in the lineup caused a notable shift in the team's defensive plan. Bobby Valentine (or the front office) decided to move Adrian Gonzalez to right field, opening first base for Youkilis and leaving third base to rookie Will Middlebrooks. Perhaps Gonzalez can get away with the outfield assignment in some road parks (he handled it in Philly last weekend without major incident), but using him in Fenway Park's expansive and tricky right field would be a major mistake. And what's the logic behind taking a Gold Glove winner off his natural position, anyway?

You get the idea Boston would like to trade Youkilis eventually, and heck, he'll probably be hurt again before you know it. But the longer the club tries to use Gonzalez as the fish out of water, the more it's risking a potential catastrophe. Here's hoping this is a short-lived experiment. Even if Middlebrooks has to go back to Triple-A for a short time, it's not the worst thing in the world for the kid.

Brian Matusz recorded the win for Baltimore (6.1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 9 K), his fifth strong start in six turns. And you can excuse him for the one day he didn't have it; the Rangers wrecking crew can do it to anybody. I know many of you have been burned on Matusz in the past and I can't recommend him in good conscience for Monday's turn at Toronto; too much jagged history in the rear-view mirror, and the Jays have some formidable right-handed bats. But if you see a compelling reason to hop on board the Matusz bandwagon immediately, state your case in the comments. He'll be one of the more interesting ranks when I assemble the starting-pitcher Shuffle Up on Thursday afternoon.

Plus, it has pretty stars and I'm a sucker for pretty stars. Buy it for $29.95.

Note: Junior dos Santos' walkout shirt for this weekend was not online, but you can buy this wall hanging depicting the champ, so ... win.

The course: One of the most historic courses on the PGA Tour, Colonial hosts the longest running non-major tournament held at one site. The fact that Ben Hogan was a member here tells you everything you need to know about the layout: It's built for solid ball-strikers. At only 7,204 yards, there aren't many holes on the course that require driver off the tee. With only two par-5s, Colonial puts premium on scoring by hitting as many fairways and greens as possible. There's a reason why some of the shorter hitters on tour (Zach Johnson, David Toms, Steve Stricker) have thrived here in the past. Like Harbour Town Golf Links (site of the Heritage), being dialed in with your short irons is critical at Colonial. With tress lining a majority of the holes, getting aggressive is the wrong play. The course has undergone some changes in the last year to toughen up the layout, including adding some well-positioned fairway bunkers to deter golfers from pulling driver and cutting off the dogleg. While they may come in handy during the tournament week, they frustrated Phil Mickelson to the point that the two-time winner pulled out of the tournament and hinted that he might not return in the future. If there's one hole to watch at Colonial, it's par-4 fifth hole. At 481 yards, it requires the most precise drive of the day. Anything left finds a ditch and trees running along the hole; the right side has the Trinity River to contend with. Even a deep poke could leave a long approach to a tricky green. The course ranked as the 22nd-most difficult on tour last year with a stroke average of +0.082 over par.

The schedule: The tournament runs Thursday-Sunday. It'll be broadcast on the Golf Channel from 3 to 6 p.m. ET on Thursday and Friday; and on CBS from 3 to 6 p.m. ET on Saturday and Sunday.

The field: Matt Kuchar (No. 5) and Hunter Mahan (6) are the only members of the Official World Golf Ranking top-10 in the field this week. But that doesn't mean the tournament is lacking big names. Rickier Fowler, David Toms (defending champion), Zach Johnson, Jason Dufner, Ryo Ishikawa, Louis Oosthuizen and Geoff Ogilvy are also teeing it up at Colonial.

The video: Check out some of the memorable moments from the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial's history.

Your turn. Who are your picks for this week? Swing away!

The Juice is back for its fifth season of fun! Stop by each weekday for an ample serving of news from the action, plus great photos, stats and video highlights.

Three years in the making: Bryce Harper hit his third triple of the season already, and he drove in two runs against Roy Halladay to lead the Washington Nationals to a 5-2 victory at Philadelphia on Tuesday night. The 19-year-old said in Mark Zuckerman's Nats Insider — in a post titled "Broad Street Beatdown" — that he's actually been scouting Halladay for three years and he couldn't wait to exploit a perceived weakness. Harper's two-run triple put the Nats ahead in the third inning and keyed their sixth straight victory at Citizens Bank Park.

"I've been watching him for about three years," Harper said. "He throws a first-pitch curveball to so many people, and they just let it get over the plate. So I was just really trying to get something up in that situation and get something going. We had two guys on, and you had to get them in."

Halladay, who came in with a dominating record against Washington, reflected on what's going wrong in Philly, which has lost four straight and is 21-23 overall.

Dodger time: The injury riddled Los Angeles Dodgers improved to 30-13 by picking up an unlikely 8-7 victory at Arizona. Ivan DeJesus muscled-up for a two-out, two-run, go-ahead double in the ninth against closer J.J. Putz, and shortstop Dee Gordon hung in there on defense to help turn an acrobatic game-ending double play with runners at the corners in the bottom of the ninth. Arizona squandered a five-run lead in the seventh, and is 11 1/2 games out of first place. The Dodgers are 7-2 without Matt Kemp in the lineup.

Waino bueno once again: Adam Wainwright tossed his first shutout since August 2010, a 4-0 victory against San Diego, which gave the St. Louis Cardinals' top starter a big sense of relief. Wainwright said he told teammate Jake Westbrook this might be the best feeling he's ever had pitching — which is saying something given Wainwright's accomplishments. Waino missed the 2011 season because of Tommy John elbow ligament replacement surgery:

''All of the emotion came from just knowing it's been over a year since I've done that,'' Wainwright said. ''Mentally, I was so much better.''

* * *

You really like me!: Closer Chris Perez apparently made up with Cleveland Indians fans, who cheered him like crazy before and after he picked up the save in a 5-3 victory against the Tigers. Perez has made a couple of rants recently about the lack of fan support at the Indians ballpark, and has wondered why the overall mood in Cleveland isn't better, given that his team's in first place. He's even willing to give away tickets to games to boost attendance. Fans have responded (mostly) kindly and Perez seemed appreciate it on Twitter:

Wow, I'm truly humbled, honored, and grateful for the reception Cleveland! Huge team win for us tonight. Let's keep it going tomorrow

* * *

Quote of the Day: ''I had chills going through my body. It's such a great feeling to see the fans on their feet like that. You know, it really means a lot to have the support of the fans behind us. It's a pretty special feeling.'' — Orioles left-hander Brian Matusz, who allowed two hits and had nine strikeouts in a 4-1 victory against the Red Sox. The O's have won six of eight and at 28-16 sit atop the AL East after finishing last in 2011. Matusz, a top pitcher before injuries came, had a 10.69 ERA and made two trips to the disabled list in '11.

* * *

Play of the Day: Get off your butt and do something!

Oh, he did. Josh Donaldson of the Oakland Athletics does what every Little League third baseman is told not to do — he cut off the shortstop in the hole — but he recovered nicely to throw out Maicer Izturis at first base. The A's made a few terrific defensive plays on the night, but they were dominated on the scoreboard by the Angels 5-0. C.J. Wilson and Ernesto Frieri combined on a one-hitter and Albert Pujols hit his fourth homer, his third deep in seven games.

* * *

Three Facts for the Water Cooler:

• Knuckleball maven R.A. Dickey struck out a career-high 11 in a 3-2 Mets victory against Pittsburgh. Pirates manager Clint Hurdle noted that he also threw only two balls in the dirt over seven innings.

• Reds closer Aroldis Chapman hit 100 mph (not in his car) three times in 18 pitches, striking out two for the save that preserved a 4-3 victory against the Braves. Brandon Phillips added two homers for Cincy.

• Marlins right-hander Ricky Nolasco set the Miami Marlins franchise record for career victories, improving to 69-52 to surpass Dontrelle Willis, and the Fish beat the Rockies 7-6. The Marlins are 16-5 in May, though only 22,242 fans showed in their new ballpark, the smallest attendance so far.

* * *

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As reported by the Dallas Morning News, Texas powerhouse softball program Plano (Texas) East High reached the Class 5A Region I semifinals thanks to a narrow, 3-2, eight-inning victory against area rival Flower Mound (Texas) High. Yet Plano East, which has since moved on to the regional finals, almost never even reached extra innings because it appeared that Flower Mound won the matchup with a walk-off hit, going so far as to celebrate the monumental victory until Plano East catcher K.K. Stevens walked up and tagged out Flower Mound's Kelly Powell, who thought she had just scored the winning run.

Here's what happened: With two outs in the seventh inning, Powell came sliding in to home. Stevens tried to apply a tag on Powell during a play at the plate, but she missed. The umpire gave a safe signal.

That safe signal sent the Flower Mound team into delirium as it celebrated what it assumed was a berth in the regional semifinals. That's when Plano East coach Karen Kalhoefer walked over to Stevens and told her to tag Powell. She did so, and the umpire signaled out, ending the frame and sending the elimination game into extra innings, where Plano East scored and advanced.

So, what was the umpire signaling if he threw up the safe sign? As it turns out, he was actually doing his job. According to Article 9 of the National High School Federations Baseball Rulebook, if a runner misses the plate, an umpire is instructed to hesitate slightly. If no one applies a tag, he then is supposed to signal safe. However, if the defending team then appeals the safe call and either tags the runner or touches home plate, the umpire is then to call the runner out.

The rule can seem confusing, and left Flower Mound fuming. Still, by the letter of the law, the umpire got the call right, assuming that Powell had actually missed the plate.

That in itself could be a matter of contention, but in this case there happens to be video of the play in question … though that still doesn't make it clear whether or not the runner touched home plate. It appears as though Powell did hit the bag, though that isn't conclusive or definitive, either. That may not help Flower Mound or Powell feel better about their untimely elimination, but it does at least confirm that even when an umpire appears to rule a runner safe, he or she might still end up being out.

Want more on the best stories in high school sports? Visit RivalsHigh or connect with Prep Rally on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

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It's been a tumultuous few months for Argentine Primera Division side Racing Club. First, Teo Gutierrez threatened his teammates with a paintball gun after they reacted negatively to him getting sent off in a losing effort, then fans threw crutches on the pitch during a Copa Argentina match to protest the team's poor form and now, they're combining those two incidents by threatening members of the team at gunpoint.

Racing Club players Giovanni Moreno and Federico Santander were leaving training together when another car cut them off and blocked their way. Two men then got out of the car and the situation took a sickening turn.

From Reuters:

"They told Gio they would shoot him in the legs and would ruin his career," Paraguayan Santander told a radio interview late on Tuesday.

"I thought they were going to shoot him. He was terrified as I was. I'm frightened, I don't know what to do.

"They said that if we did not win the game, we would suffer the consequences."

Moreno's agent Agustin Jimenez told the Fox Sports cable channel: "They put a gun against his knee."

The incident happened after it was reported that Colombian Moreno could leave the club and join rivals River Plate.

Well, that's why the fans thought Racing players could use some crutches. But shooting players on a team that is currently in 16th place every time they fail to win seems counterproductive. With only four wins through 15 matches in the clausura, Racing's entire starting XI would already be out of commission had the barra brava started this at the beginning of the season. And let's just say it's a good thing Blackburn fans didn't resort to this either. The chicken would've been all that's left of that club.

When kicking off, you don't usually see footballers take a David Luiz style run up to the ball and fire it at the opposing team, but the kid at the start of this video decided to give it a try. And after kicking the ball and charging ahead like an invading army of one, a player on the opposing team decided to blast the ball right back where it came from, resulting in the aggressive kick-off kid getting smacked in the face and launching backwards through the air.

As the flying kid's father notes in his YouTube description (he uploaded the video apparently), "My son learned a lesson the hard way. ... Best thing of all is that he got up and kept playing and his team ended up scoring. What a tough kid."

Except to see Rino Gattuso give this a try wherever he ends up playing next season.

This has been the Dirty Tackle of the Day: a chronicling of unfortunate events.

And, if there was any confusion, Bird spelled the word out. Here's Wells' brief, but impactful discussion with the pissed-off Hall of Famer:

What follows here is where we start wondering what, exactly, the NBA legend wanted his Pacers to do.

Should he have expected the team and coach Frank Vogel to improve upon the squad's unimpressive offensive showing in the second half of Sunday's Game 4? To come out and show some patience as the Heat swung correctly, fronted the post, and put the onus on the Pacers players to both make shots and create plays?

Did he expect his team to not be out-rebounded by 14 to a Heat crew that has issues on the glass? Or to attempt to take hits in transition as a way of getting to the free-throw line? Or maybe run the Heat off of the 3-point line as they sent up some long bombs once the game was long decided in the fourth quarter?

Or did he want the team to respond, as Miami "responded," to the Heat's vicious flagrant fouls? Because that would have been stupid, if we're honest; and Bird's take would have come off as more of a response of a frustrated fan and team employee and boss and someone who cares quite a bit in the wake of an embarrassing loss that he had to sit through in public amongst Miami fans.

And not the response of someone who had really thought things through.

[Related: Mike Miller hustles in only one shoe during Heat's blowout of Pacers]

Because, if you'll allow us this guess and false premise, if Bird was hoping one of his players would send another flagrant shot at a member of the Heat, then he's to be dismissed.

Why? Because Pittman's foul happened with 19 seconds left in the game, and no real chance for the Pacers to needlessly retaliate while they were getting their tails kicked. And prior to that, after Haslem gave what should have been ruled a Flagrant 2 (and ejection) on Pacer forward Tyler Hansbrough in retaliation for Hansbrough's hit on Dwyane Wade, the Pacers didn't exactly have a lot of live bodies to start wielding elbows that could get them suspended for Game 6, or at the very least ejected in Game 5.

Did he want Paul George, with Danny Granger in the locker room with a sprained ankle, to take a shot?

Or Roy Hibbert, with David West nursing a sprained knee, to risk suspension as things escalated?

Or Hansbrough or Lou Amundson, who will be relied upon as much as ever in Game 6, to risk punishments handed out by a sometimes-emotional NBA front office?

Were one of the team's several undersized guards? George Hill, Darren Collison and Leandro Barbosa were supposed to lay wood?

This is why we wonder if Bird was only referring to the team's style of play. Which even, to us, seems slightly off.

Because the Pacers didn't exactly play soft in Game 5, but they did play (sorry) stupidly at times. The team showed little resolve in the face of Miami's defense, didn't come up with counters in their offensive sets on the fly, and didn't think on its collective feet as Miami covered ground in the half court. Miami didn't kick Indiana's butt in Game 5 because the Heat were the big, bad bully. They won because the Pacers didn't adapt. They didn't evolve. And they didn't score, which led to Miami endlessly dashing to the other end of the court for fast break buckets.

The Pacers, to these non-Hall of Fame eyes, screwed a lot of things up in Game 5. But playing "soft" didn't appear to have much to do with any part of that eventual 32-point deficit.

It's Larry Bird's team, though. And Larry Bird's state, and Larry Bird's game. At this point, he's just about earned the right to call his team whatever he wants.

And then spell it out.

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Mike Smith was frustrated after his Phoenix Coyotes were eliminated in Game 5 of the Western Conference final. He saw his MVP performance fall short of the Stanley Cup Final. His gaffe led to a Los Angeles Kings goal. And at one point, he had to play without a glove.

Whether or not that earns him leeway is up to you. Just keep that in mind as you read Smith torching the officiating and calling for Dustin Brown to receive a massive suspension for his OT hit on Michal Rozsival.

First, on Brown (s/t Jared Cohen), Smith said:

"When Brown gets away with something like that after the whistle — knee on knee, that's a dangerous play. If Raffi Torres gets 25 games for his hit during the play, this guy should be done forever."

Forever seems like a long time for a hit that was thigh-on-thigh. But Smith also had very harsh words for the referees — both in Game 5 and throughout the season.

The Brown hit:

Smith also said in the postgame:

"It's disappointing for a season to end like that. It stings. We gave it all we had. We battled hard all season long. It's disappointing we not only got beat by them but got beat by the officials, too.

"It's not just that play, it's all game long. They called us for three offsides in the first period and none of them were offside. [A Kings player] flipped it over the glass — how do all four refs not see that? It's not just this game, it's all season long. They did everything they could not to let us get to this position.

"I'm not taking anything away from the Kings, they deserved to be here, they played hard and they were a tough opponent. But we battled as hard as we do to get to this point, and seemed like everyone was against us. We battled through adversity through a lot of things that went on. But the officiating … if you're going to be reffing in the playoffs, it's tough [with] some of the calls that weren't made tonight."

Coyotes Captain Shane Doan was also fired up after the game:

"I don't know how you miss it. I really don't know. But I'm sure they'll have a great explanation for it. I know they try to do their best, and they're going to make mistakes. It's just tough when you're on the short end of it so many times. You watch the last three games, and you tell me where I got my penalties."

Again: It's a player that just saw his season end, and one whose competitive fire burned brightly throughout the postseason. Let's see where he stands on all of this in the next 48 hours.

Related NHL news from Yahoo! Sports:

Penner's 2-point night gave him 10 points this postseason, a career best for him. His assist set up Mike Richards' goal in the second period, but it was his own goal that gave the Kings a 4-3 overtime victory to put them into the Stanley Cup Final:

No. 2 Star: Jonathan Quick, Los Angeles Kings

Quick stood tall making 38 saves as the Kings won their eighth straight road game in the playoffs becoming the first team to reach the Final doing so, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. He came up big early in the first period with this save on Radim Vrbata:

No. 3 Star: Drew Doughty, Los Angeles Kings

Doughty's two points were involved in tying goals early in the game. His assist in the first period helped set up Anze Kopitar's shorthanded tally, while his goal midway through the second period tied the game 2-2.

Honorable mention: Mike Smith helped keep the Coyotes alive making 47 saves ... Taylor Pyatt led the Coyotes with a goal and assist ... Boyd Gordon won 18 of his 21 faceoffs ... LA has scored an NHL-best five shorthanded goals in the playoffs ... According to the AP, Keith Yandle's nine points in the postseason matches Dave Babych's 1985 team record for a defenseman ... The Kings have won their last 10 road playoff games dating back to last season ... Colin Fraser was head over heels to take a trip into the Coyotes' bench:

Conn Smythe Watch: 1. Jonathan Quick, Los Angeles Kings; 2. Dustin Brown, Los Angeles Kings; 3. Henrik Lundqvist, New York Rangers; 4. Ilya Kovalchuk, New Jersey Devils; 5. Brad Richards, New York Rangers; 6. Anze Kopitar, Los Angeles Kings; 7. Zach Parise, New Jersey Devils; 8. Martin Brodeur, New Jersey Devils; 9. Dan Girardi, New York Rangers; 10. Travis Zajac, New Jersey Devils.

Dishonorable mention: Will the NHL come calling after Dustin Brown's hit on Michal Roszival? ... LA's power play finished 2-for-27 in the series.

Was it a penalty? Should it be a suspension? NBC Sports Network's Mike Milbury and Jeremy Roenick saw this one in slightly different ways.

To summarize: Milbury felt the hit by Brown, a player with a reputation for playing "on the edge," was well after the whistle and should have been avoided. Roenick felt it was humanly impossible to avoid the hit at that velocity, and that it was a clean hit.

Said Brown after the game: "He's trying to get away of the way, and I'm trying to finish my check. I didn't stick my knee out."