A few quick thoughts before tonight's Celtics game gets going:

- How is it that professional athletes like Bartolo Colon (stiff back because he swung too hard) and Chien Ming Wang (injured foot while running the bases) go to the disabled list while thousands of beer bellied softball players make it through their games without incident?

- And let's not even get into the vintage ballists who play with small (or no) gloves.

- Could the Mets have fired Willie Randolph in a more gutless and disgraceful fashion? They did it at 3:15 AM Eastern time after a win in Ananheim. The Mets obviously needed shaking up, but this just shows that Omar Minaya and Fred Wilpon are really the ones without a clue.

- The best quote I have seen so far about Bowie Kuhn's election to the Hall of Fame (and Marvin Miller's shameful omission), comes, not surprisingly, from Jim Bouton: "It's ridiculous. Marvin kicked Bowie's butt in every confrontation. It's like having a cartoon Hall of Fame which admitted Wile E. Coyote and kept out the Roadrunner."

- Is there a better trio in baseball than the Phillies Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley?