Yeah, but could Salk sell a used car?

Lakers message boards aren't just filled with people demanding Kobe Bryant's retirement and Phil Jackson's firing. There are rational conversations about the real world as well.

For instance, someone posted a bizarre six-year-old poll that is as embarrassing to read today as it was then. In 2005, in a poll organized by interns at the Discovery Channel and AOL, nearly 3 million Americans who skipped a lot of history classes voted on the Top 10 Greatest Americans of All-Time. The results?

10. Franklin Roosevelt
9. Oprah Winfrey
8. Elvis Presley
7. Bill Clinton
6. George W. Bush
5. Ben Franklin
4. George Washington
3. Martin Luther King
2. Abraham Lincoln
1. Ronald Reagan

Now that's a hell of a list. The vote came a year after Ronald Reagan's death, so perhaps there was some nostalgia for the Gipper. In other words, if this poll had been taken in 1978, there's a decent chance three million people would have said Elvis was the greatest American of all time.

Thomas Jefferson, John Adams? Who? Hemingway, Twain, Eisenhower, Susan B. Anthony? Important people all. But did they ever give cars away to a studio audience?

I thought of another omission: Jonas Salk. And this led me to read up a bit more on the famous scientist. And I started wondering about other made-up awards, such as Time's Person of the Year. A while back I wrote about Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year, an honor that has had some dubious winners over the decades. Perhaps most notable? Jerry Lucas winning it in 1961 over Roger Maris. But SI had nothing on Time.

In 1955, Jonas Salk introduced his polio vaccine to the world. It's one of the greatest scientific accomplishments ever. Polio was a modern-day plague, nearly as feared, according to a PBS documentary, as the atom bomb. Only, with polio, school children couldn't survive it by hiding underneath tiny wooden desks. Salk's vaccine saved millions. The guy had a pretty good year.

Time's Person of the Year in 1955? Harlow Curtice. Old Harlow was the head of GM. In 1955, GM became the first corporation to earn a billion bucks in a year. Here's Time's story on Curtice. The money line:

"Harlow Curtice is the Man of 1955 because, in a job that required it, he has assumed the responsibility of leadership for American business. In his words, 'General Motors must always lead.'"

Curtice certainly had a good year, a memorable 12 months. Showed outstanding leadership. Helped GM dominate.

Didn't come up with the polio vaccine.

And it's not like Time had a bias back then against scientists. Five years later, the magazine named "American scientists" as the Person (sic) of the Year. The magazine picked 15 scientists, but Salk couldn't even make that cut. They came from all fields, including Edward Teller, who invented the hydrogen bomb, which might not have prevented tens of thousands of polio cases, but did scare the Soviets. It makes me wonder what Salk did to Time magazine. Cancel his subscription in 1954? Insult Henry Luce?

Every so often the magazine makes choices seemingly designed to make people talk. In 2006, it picked "You," which represented individual content creators on the Internet. So if you've ever written an email or left a racist comment on a newspaper website, put that honor on your resume. Earth - the Endangered Earth, to be exact - won in 1988, though it's unclear who picked up the award on the planet's behalf. Baby boomers were honored as a group in 1966 and they haven't stopped talking about it since.

The Award goes to the person who "for better or for worse...has done the most to influence the events of the year," which is why people like Stalin and Hitler have won it (Stalin actually won it twice, which surely made Hitler jealous). In recent years the magazine has shied away from controversial figures - in 2001, Rudy Giuliani won it over Osama bin Laden, who, most would agree, influenced events that year a bit more than New York's mayor.

An odd award. Still, not as strange as a poll that had Elvis being named the 8th-greatest American and Ronnie earning the top spot.

One other little-known fact about that 2005 poll. Number 11 on the list of the Greatest Americans of All Time?

Harlow Curtice.

Thoughts on the tourney, from Guy Lewis' towel to Big Lew

Following in the small footsteps of last year's NCAA tournament preview, here are some more notes on the upcoming festivities.

* I've written before about the old ESPN Final Four shows that the network started in the 1980s. Hosted by a young Bob Ley, they all followed the same format: first semifinal, commercial, second semifinal, commercial, final. In between, lots of shots of cheerleaders and coaches, classic '80s instrumentals and what often seemed like fake crowd noise, as if ESPN had some guy in a studio going, "Haaaaaaaa," and then spliced it in to, say, highlights from the 1987 final between Indiana and Syracuse. ESPN always had marathons of these shows around tourney time.

Here's the 1983 program, broken down into three parts. This was one of the classic Final Fours, with one of the more memorable semifinal games - the dunkathon between Louisville and Houston - and the most memorable buzzer-beater in tourney history: Lorenzo Charles's putback dunk.







This YouTube user has many of the Final Four films.

Back to 1983. On the first video, go to just past the 7:05 mark. It's one of the oddest moments in Final Four history, when Houston coach Guy Lewis threw his famous checkered towel at Louisville's Scooter McCray as he dribbled past the Cougars' sideline. Technical. Woody Hayes with a linen.

North Carolina State's run to the title is primarily remembered because of the amazing ending. But their entire final month was filled with improbable victories. This old ESPN story recaps the run. Among the tidbits:
- In seven of their last nine victories, the Wolfpack trailed in the final minute. Against Pepperdine in the tourney, N.C. state rallied from a six-point deficit in the final 25 seconds.

The entire Pepperdine game is online, but here's the relevant portion. It starts with the Wolfpack down two with 20 seconds to go in overtime. No three-point line remember.



* At some point in this tournament, a player expected to go high in the NBA draft will struggle and someone will use this as evidence that the guy isn't made for the big time. Too slow, too short, too ugly, too something. It shows they don't have the ability to shine when it matters most. And it may all be true. But I'm leery of those types of proclamations. Why? Because of Michael Jordan's final game. It came in the 1984 Sweet Sixteen, against Indiana, when the heavily favored Tar Heels fell to the Hoosiers and Indiana's Dan Dakich contained Jordan, holding him to 13 points on six-of-14 shooting. Did Portland perhaps use that game as evidence that maybe they should take Sam Bowie? Surely no; they used other, even stranger criteria to take the big fella from Kentucky - "Sure, he's suffered broken legs a few times, but now he's got them out of the way!" But still, if the Internet was around back then, someone would have said that performance proved Jordan didn't quite have what it took to dominate at the next level. He didn't know how to seize the moment, didn't know how to handle an inferior foe. Some top player will underachieve the next three weeks. We might never hear from them again. But they also might become an NBA All-Star.

* How about that 1984 North Carolina team? Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty, Kenny Smith in the starting lineup. The Tar Heels went 28-3, with a one-point loss against Arkansas, a two-point defeat against Duke and the four-point loss to Indiana. If any team was built to be the only one since Indiana in 1976 to go undefeated, it was that team. And even if they didn't go unbeaten, they had to have been an overwhelming favorite for the title. But Indiana did have Dan Dakich. And Uwe Blab.

* John Wooden's numbers remain incomprehensible. Yet it's still jarring seeing UCLA's year-by-year records during their annual stampede through the NCAAs. When the Bruins won seven straight titles, a run that went from Alcindor to Walton, they racked up an overall record of 200-5.

* Only three teams with 10 or more losses have won the title. And those all came within a six-year span: North Carolina State went 26-10 in 1983, Villanova 25-10 two years later, and Kansas finished 27-11 in 1988. In fact, Arizona in 1997 and Indiana in 1981 are the only teams to ever lose nine games and still win the title. As much as the NCAA tourney is about upsets, in the end, the teams that win are the teams that have been dominating all season.

* Trivia question: When was the last time the Final Four was not held in a dome? East Rutherford, New Jersey, in 1996.

* I like this old SI cover, commemorating UCLA's victory in the 1968 tournament. Houston had defeated the Bruins earlier that year in the Game of the Century, a game where Kareem - Lew Alcindor - played with an injured eye. Lew was healthy for the rematch and UCLA drilled Houston 101-69 in the semis.


* ESPN just broadcast a two-hour show called Bracketology. Of all of ESPN's occasional crimes against sports, journalism and sports entertainment, the popularization of that word ranks somewhere between The Decision and the old shouting matches between Sean Salisbury and John Clayton. There are bracketologists, but rarely have I seen anyone called a bracketiatrist, who has more schooling and can prescribe downers to Digger Phelps.

And now here's the first time CBS played "One Shining Moment." The song might have outlived its usefulness. But who would have ever thought that a song that began with a video highlight of Dwayne Schintzius would become the anthem for an entire sport?

Offensive art

The above commercial is one of the classic ads from the 1980s, perhaps up there with "Where's the Beef?" and Apple's 1984 Big Brother ad. "Do you like to draw, or paint. Or maybe just sketch or doodle?"

If you did, you might have had what it took to be in the Art Instruction Schools. The Art Instruction Schools sent out a free test for students to see if they qualified. By the looks of it painters, sketchers and doodlers had to draw things like a house, a dog and a pirate. As a kid I sort of wish I had called the toll free number to get my free test.

It would have been interesting to see if I would have been the first person to ever score a zero on their exam.

Thousands of students have walked through the halls of Janesville High School and Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton. There's a decent chance I'm the worst art student in the school's history, someone whose projects might still be mocked by the poor teachers who were forced to grade them. My incompetence is one reason I so admire anyone with any semblance of art skill, whether it's the troubled geniuses whose works hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the drawings of my cousin Matt or nephew Brock. My friend John always made funky little projects - they combined things like toilet paper and Coke cans - that I thought were art, though a good friend of ours occasionally disagreed. Louise paints really cool abstract work that hangs in our apartment and always catches the eye of visitors. These people have the imagination and skill to pull these things off. I couldn't think of the projects, and even if someone thought of them for me, I never would have been able to execute them.

How could my hands, which effortlessly picked up ground balls on a baseball diamond or masterfully handled a ping-pong paddle or easily dribbled a basketball behind my back, fail me so miserably when asked to draw nothing more complicated than a human face?

I knew from a young age I had no skills with a paint brush or charcoal pencils. As I made my way through school I regressed instead of progressed. Someone, perhaps the state, should have stepped in early in my school days when I struggled to cut out a snowflake. Things only got worse.

My parents' basement holds all the key evidence; the projects, or, "projects," rot away down there, tucked away in boxes, like long-forgotten murder trial files collecting dust in a county courthouse basement. Only a mother could love these works, but if mine ever said she did, it would have been one of the few lies she's ever told in her life. But if she lied, she lied out of love, because only the cruelest of parents would have ever delivered an honest assessment of the work.

A few years ago during a trip home, I stumbled upon a bowl that had my sister Lisa's name on it. Maybe that meant she made it. It didn't look good. That probably meant I made it. I asked mom and she said I crafted it and gave it to Lisa as a gift, which sounds cute but when you look at the damn thing for more than three seconds begins to seem cruel. On the bowl, I scratched a series of letters that appeared to form the name Lisa Fury. The confusion over the bowl's creation is probably why it resides in the bowels of my parents' basement and not on a mantle in my sister's home. At least, that's probably the publicly stated reason. Shame is probably more likely.

One of the sculptures, which I think came in 7th grade, was, in theory, a turtle. It's nothing more than a green blog with black spots. And maybe a head. When the teacher saw this she must have experienced rage at my inability to execute her lessons, pity over my incompetence, or heatrbreak at her choice of profession.

In ninth grade, I drew a large picture of Nolan Ryan in action. For years I had it hanging in my bedroom, though I don't know why. To punish myself? In the picture, the Express appears to weigh 485 pounds and it's all in his gut. He spills out of his Rangers uniform. He possessed tiny arms in the drawing that didn't fit his body, the type of appendages you might have seen on a Tyrannosaurus Rex, but not on a Hall of Fame pitcher. I do have him throwing right-handed, so I got that part right. It's the little details.

It'd be unfair to say I underachieved in art class. I simply didn't have the physical ability to do it, just as surely some people don't have the physical ability to hit a baseball.

I blame my genes. My parents gave me a lot of great things - art skills were not among them. My occasionally indecipherable handwriting looks just like my dad's; I'm assuming his clay sculptures from school probably looked like mine too.

I struggled with the fine arts. The industrial ones were even worse. At Janesville, we had to take Industrial Arts in seventh and eighth grade, two quarters each year, alternating with home economics. The teacher once told my parents that he feared allowing me near the bandsaw. An unnecessarily cruel statement, albeit accurate. While other students in class constructed bookshelves that belonged in the libraries of presidents, I plodded along, attempting to make a little key holder. My final quarter I built a functioning bird feeder - which, like all of my projects never appeared in public but was instead stashed in a closet - but I think the only reason the teacher ever passed me was because I was good at hoops and he was the former girls basketball coach.

The arts remain a mystery to me. I admire anyone who can paint or draw, sculpt or sing. I admire them because I know how difficult it is to do any of those things well. And if I ever doubt how tough it is, all I have to do is visit my parents, head down into the basement, pull out an old box, and wince.

Speechless?

A few days ago Louise said something I'd never heard from her before.

"Honey, I was speechless."

It happened while she took part in a rather strange business call with a man who wanted to talk with her about agenting. During the conversation, the man's arguments, complaints, proclamations and threats left her, as she said, "speechless."

Louise speechless. It hasn't happened often. In third grade, an exasperated teacher in South Africa chastised little Louise for speaking too much and called her a chatterbox, seconds before sending her out of the classroom and into the hall as punishment. Twenty years later, now in America, a professor called Louise a chatterbox, though he did not eject her from the classroom for her talkative ways and actually appreciated her contributions.

Louise can talk, and thank God, because if both of us were quiet, our marriage would consist of silent nights broken up only by occasional cursing during Lakers' games. At the same time, it's good she's married to me - she's guaranteed a receptive audience. And I'm lucky because Louise's speaking skills are surpassed only by her listening skills. Great speaker, great listener, great mixture.

She combines superb speaking abilities with a missionary zeal when it comes to getting a good deal, creating one of the most powerful consumer rights advocates in the free world, a job she actually dreamed about holding when growing up in South Africa (strange child). She's Ralph Nader with a sexier accent and better hair. Her beloved late grandpa - who taught Louise everything he knew, from working the system to picking locks - used to tell her not to be intimidated by anyone, because hardly anyone out there knows what's going on in the world. She's fearless, confident and quick on her feet. She's a master of improv but also always well-prepared - a potent combination. She can charm or prod doctors, dentists, telephone companies, celebrities, politicians, banking millionaires and music billionaires.

When our cell phone bill was 200 dollars higher than we expected, Louise spoke with an unfortunate nameless, faceless soul who eventually erased all of the extra charges, but not before telling her, "Ma'am, I'm going to take care of all of this, but you have me a little flustered and I just want to settle down for a few minutes."

When I lived in Fargo, Louise often traveled on Greyhound to see me, trekking across the country while calling every four or five hours to remind me of the sacrifice she was making out of love. On one never-ending trip across this great country, the bus driver kept the big rig on the road even after a young man suffered a seizure in the walkway. Louise demanded that the bus driver stop the bus so someone could call for medical attention. When the driver hesitated - there are schedules to keep and slogans to live up to, after all - Louise said she worked as a producer for a TV show that helps those who have been wronged by nefarious individuals or greedy companies.The driver stopped the bus. A passenger called 911. An ambulance arrived.

Her greatest speaking accomplishment happened two years ago, before her return flight from Cape Town. Delta canceled the scheduled flight and representatives from the airline told Louise and the other passengers to return the next day. There was a chance they'd be able to catch the next flight out. And there was a chance they wouldn't. Louise rallied the other passengers, priming them for a fight. The airline didn't have any right to treat them like this! Like, like, like cattle, to be herded in and out of hotels and terminals. With Louise leading the charge, the airline agreed to pay for hotel rooms and meals for everyone who had been bumped. They all agreed to meet at the terminal the next day to demand that everyone left behind would be guaranteed a seat on the next flight out of the country.

But Louise arrived earlier than everyone else. A lone representative from Delta stood at the gate. Again Louise used a lot of charm and a bit of bullying. She laughed with the employee behind the counter and praised the woman for her hard, thankless work. Louise bonded with the woman, but also didn't let her forget the horrors Delta had put her and the other passengers through 24 hours earlier.

The woman upgraded Louise to first class, for no additional cost. The 20-hour torture flight turned into a day of luxury. The other passengers wandered to the gate after Louise and stood dumbfounded as she boarded first. By the time attendants ushered the other passengers toward the back of the plane, Louise had already downed a glass of champagne and was reclined in her spacious seat, covered in a blanket.

In the classic movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles, John Candy's character spends much of the movie making ends meet by selling shower curtain rings. Along the way, he picks up a little extra cash and a ride. But eventually Steve Martin's character realizes the shower curtain ring gig can only go so far. When asking about a rental car, he asks Candy, "How could you rent the thing anyway without a credit card? You couldn't. How could you do it?"

"I gave this gal behind the counter a set of shower curtain rings."

"You can't rent a car with shower curtain rings," Martin replies, and he was right, Candy's character couldn't, and didn't.

But Louise could. Because she can talk her way into anything or out of any situation.

So Louise speechless? It might have been the first time in 33 years Louise found herself in such a state. It will likely be 33 more before it happens again.

Perhaps Phil Spector produced the halftime show

Halftime shows and national anthems have made the news the past month and the only time that usually happens is when someone grabs a crotch or flashes a nipple. First Christina Aguilera performed a tribute to the late Leslie Nielsen while belting out some - but not all - of the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner" before the Super Bowl. A few hours later the Black Eyed Peas performed at halftime, and a few seconds after they left the field people began asking questions like, "Can their career recover from this?"

Really, why does anyone agree to ever sing the national anthem anymore? At this point, no one wants to hear anyone's interpretation of the song and every time someone mangles it, people engage in a fresh round of speculation about whether it's time to stop singing the song before sporting events or finally change the anthem to "America the Beautiful." That's if the singer's lucky. If the populace is in a particularly foul mood, the singer will stand accused of being a commie hellbent on destroying the good ol' United States of America. What's the upside for the artist? A note of appreciation from one of Francis Scott Key's heirs?

When I attend a sporting event these days, I'm always a little grateful when someone simply pushes a button before the game and a pre-recorded version of the song - perhaps made by some high school band in 1982 - blares over the speakers. No kids, no grannies, no choirs and no American Idol finalists. Just a canned version that's over in a few minutes.

And halftime shows? Has anyone actually ever enjoyed watching one of those performances? If it's a band that made its name when LBJ sat in the White House, their fans whine about how the group sold out while others wish they'd simply die out. And younger acts inevitably make people yearn for the old folks, you know, the people who made music back when it was real music. Before they sold out.

Of course, during major sporting events we only get to the national anthem after a pregame show that spans hours, if not days, and includes interviews with everyone from presidents to peasants, anything to fill the time until the big game. Remember the commercials about the guys who have attended every Super Bowl? How about a commercial for the guys who have watched every hour of every Super Bowl pregame show? Throw a parade for them. Identify them. We need to know their names, so they can be immortalized by Visa, enshrined in Canton or institutionalized elsewhere.

But for awkward pregame festivities and halftime entertainment, it would be difficult for anything to again match Super Bowl XXVII, from January 1993, when the Cowboys crushed the Bills. The anthem that year? No major problems. Garth Brooks sang it, while Marlee Matlin signed it.

No, the pregame weirdness that year came courtesy of NBC and the NFL, though at the time nothing seemed out of the ordinary. During the 32-hour pregame show, NBC decided to shed some light on the hot new video game, Madden NFL, by pitting a pair of legends against each other: Mike Ditka and O.J. Simpson.



The Juice wasn't finished. Before the game he walked out for the coin toss. He arrived to cheers and left with them. And after the Cowboys rolled through the Bills in the second quarter, the spectacular halftime show began:

Michael Jackson, surrounded by thousands of screaming children.



At the time the halftime show proved a big hit. Viewership reportedly increased during the halftime show compared to the game. Obviously no one could have predicted that within a year Michael Jackson would stand accused of molesting a child and Simpson would be charged with brutally murdering two people. O.J.'s video game and Jackson's performance only look creepy when looking back, because we now know what was ahead.

Except...no. Even if no one foresaw a crime of the century in O.J.'s future, someone - a producer, a family member, Paul Tagliabue, Bob Costas, Dick Ebersol, John Madden, Al Davis - should have prevented Ditka and Simpson from clashing in the "Computer Bowl." NBC billed it as a matchup of "wit, strategy and luck," but only one of those was present. The ending was actually remarkable, as O.J. pulled off an improbable victory that left an entire nation sitting in front of their televisions in stunned silence, unable to comprehend the injustice they'd just witnessed. It wouldn't be the last time he did that in his life.

Simpson, who most likely had never played a video game until someone bullied him into that basement, rallied from a 13-0 deficit in the final three minutes. The Juice - whose arthritis did not appear to be bothering him during a brief celebration dance - takes the lead in the closing seconds and holds on when Ditka's hapless kicker botches the potential game-winning field goal.

Despite this exhibition, Madden still managed to become one of the most successful video games in history.

The Juice on the pregame and the King of Pop at halftime. Imagine another Super Bowl prominently featuring two people who, within a year and a half, are involved in two of the most sensational criminal cases of the century. Seems impossible. Yet, in a world where someone approved "Computer Bowl '93," anything's possible.

All-Star Weekend: Where defense goes to die

Trivia question that no one other than an IBM-designed supercomputer should know: When's the last time a team in the NBA All-Star Game failed to score 100 points?

Answer (I know, putting the answer one line below the question sort of takes the drama out of it): 1966, when the East beat the West 137-94, behind the MVP efforts of Cincinnati's Adrian Smith. Before that, you have to go back to 1957.

All-Star weekend is no place for defensive purists, the people who revel in shutdown man-to-man defense and befuddling zones. But the actual game remains my favorite of the all-star contests. Baseball has history and the poets on its side, but also gives us second-stringers deciding homefield advantage in the World Series, as by the time the game ends four hours after the first pitch and two hours after Tim McCarver stopped making sense, the main stars are long gone. In the closing minutes of a close game in the NBA All-Star Game it's the best in the West against the best in the East. It's the players everyone wants to see and the ones voted in and in the final minutes the exhibition often turns into something resembling a real game. Give me that over MLB's pageantry.

Well, usually the stars shine. Back to that 1966 defensive showdown. Adrian Smith, MVP? The East's starting lineup that year? Chamberlain, Havlicek, Jerry Lucas, Sam Jones, Oscar Robertson. They brought guys like Willis Reed and Hal Greer off the bench. And an aging center named Russell. Yet Adrian Smith - who scored a game-high 24 points off the bench - took home the MVP. It seems like something that would be the result of a bet between, say, Wilt and Russell. Is it possible for us to turn the most obscure player on the roster into the MVP?

The West somehow only managed to hit 29 percent from the field. Smith likely remains the unlikeliest MVP in the game's long history. For the most part, players whose post-basketball careers include trips to Springfield for induction into the Hall of Fame win the All-Star Game MVP. Even the exceptions - guys like Ralph Sampson and Tom Chambers - weren't anywhere near as shocking as Smith's triumph.

Defense really is just a rumor, though. Forget a team not reaching 100 points. The last time a team failed to score at least 110 points was 1975, when the East won 108-102. Most years the winning team hits 130 or 140 and the losers aren't far behind. And somewhere, as he breaks down film of a 77-72 Knicks victory over the Heat in 1998, Jeff Van Gundy vomits.

All-Star games are about scoring. They're certainly about dunking. But best of all they're about passing. Here are some of the best. No. 1 is, of course, by Magic.



A lot of people don't enjoy the All-Star Game because it is unlike anything we see during the NBA season, but even the purists can appreciate passing like that. And don't worry, soon enough scores of 90-82 and 79-75 will litter our TV screens once again.

In the meantime, enjoy just a little offense.

"He was a great neighbor. So nice and quiet. And bespectacled."

"I don't think of someone with glasses as being a psycho killer," said one potential juror in an upcoming murder trial. "I'd wear them too if I was in their shoes."

Weird story in the Daily News today. It's sort of a trend story, the type that is pretty much impossible to prove but still sounds fascinating. In this case, "Accused felons hoping to beat the rap are increasingly using the 'nerd defense' - wearing glasses at trial to come off as less menacing to the jury."

Is this really something that's increasing? Or have defendants always looked for advantages such as this? Even though my courtroom experience is limited to being called for jury duty and everything I know about trials I learned from Law & Order, I feel like it's pretty common knowledge that lawyers always tell their clients to dress nicely for court. It's at least a common thing on TV. Look presentable. Don't swear at the jury or threaten to kill them. Put on a nice suit. Perhaps wear a piece to cover up the swastika tattoo the defendant so lovingly displayed on the top of his bald head for 10 years. I would think attorneys would have long ago instructed defendants to ditch contacts for specs. But apparently this is a tactic that's increasing in popularity.

Still, what is it about glasses that makes someone appear more innocent? And how did OJ get off even though he never donned a pair for his 1995 trial? According to the story, a 2008 study "found specs led to more acquittals. 'We found that eyeglasses tended to make the defendant look more intelligent and less physically threatening to jurors," said Michael Brown, the SUNY Oneonta psychology professor who conducted the study. 'It's the whole idea of presenting yourself as intelligent and a little emasculated.'"

Yes, maybe it makes them look more intelligent. Which makes me think they're cunning, brilliant, capable of murder and cover-up.

The one time I was called for jury duty, I didn't actually serve on a trial. I did go to a potential case - a heroin deal - but never even went into the jury box for questioning by the attorneys. I do remember that the defendant was glassesless. I don't remember thinking that fact made it more likely he was guilty.

And if I was on a jury for the trial of a notorious defendant, I might actually have an opposite reaction if he or she wore glasses. In many famous cases, glasses add to the creepiness factor of a defendant, especially if they spectacles are slightly tinted.


This past Christmas morning, we opened presents at my parents' house shortly after I woke up. I wandered downstairs and put on my first present, a bathrobe from Louise. That's what I wore the rest of the morning. Blue robe, messy hair, unshaven. And my glasses, which I rarely wear. A few weeks later my mom sent me the photos from that day. I'd say she caught me at a bad angle, but there weren't any good ones that day. My first thought, and one Louise agreed with? I looked like Mark David Chapman. And it was the glasses that completed the horrific look.

Glasses help murderers in the eyes of the jury? Again, weird story.

Maybe it's just my own bias against glasses. After first refusing to admit I needed them, and then only wearing them in certain classes, I eventually realized I'd inherited terrible vision from my parents and needed corrective wear full-time. But I went with contacts 20 years ago and have stayed loyal ever since.

But what happens if I ever find myself in front of a jury, defending myself against trumped-up charges brought by a publicity-hungry DA with eyes on a Senate seat? Well, I've never worn a suit in my life, but I will for the trial. I'm never clean-shaven, but I will be for the trial. And when I consult with my low-rent defense attorney and gaze at the documents on the table and stare at the jury and glare at lying witnesses, everyone in the courtroom will see that I'll be looking at them through four eyes, instead of two.

The best buzzer beaters, the worst collapses

Last night, Rutgers somehow defeated Villanova in Big East action, despite trailing by five points with 11 seconds remaining. Rutgers drained a 3 with seven seconds to play, and after Villanova made just one of two free throws for a three-point lead, Rutgers hit a 3 with .8 seconds left. Standard comeback stuff.

Except on the Rutgers 3, Villanova fouled the shooter, who hit the free throw for a four-point play and one incredible 77-76 victory.

These types of games are stunning because they appear out of nowhere and the losing coach goes from happiness to contemplating retirement while the players wonder if some of their teammates are actively throwing games. A standard buzzer-beater is exciting enough, but it usually comes at the end of a game that's been close throughout, a game where neither team grabs more than a 3-point lead in the final minute. Collapses are even more fun to watch, unless it's your team on the losing end.

Some of the more memorable comebacks.



This is one of the more memorable offensive explosions in NBA history. Tracy McGrady scores 13 points in 33 seconds against the Spurs. Houston trailed 76-68 with 35 seconds left when McGrady drilled a 3. For the Spurs, it went downhill from there. The opponent made the comeback even more improbable. McGrady, who had 20 points in the first 47 minutes, did it against the best defensive team of the past decade, a four-time NBA champion. Bruce Bowen, one of the best individual defenders of the past 15 years, guarded him, but proved helpless against McGrady.

This next game is probably still painful for my uncle and cousin. My uncle was a longtime professor at Winona State in Minnesota and remains a hell of a basketball player, even at 70. Winona State dominated Division II for three years, winning two titles. But the year they didn't win is the most memorable. In 2007, the defending national champs, who were riding a 57-game winning streak, led Barton 74-67 with 45 seconds remaining. From there...



Until I started searching YouTube for crazy endings, I had never seen a clip of the following game. It might be the craziest of all. It's from 1999, USC at Oregon. With 2.8 seconds, USC had the ball but trailed by five points. They hit a three from the corner. Oregon then, inexplicably, attempts a long pass, which is intercepted by a Trojan, who knocks in a halfcourt shot at the buzzer. It seems like the clock operator might be partly to blame, even though the game was in Oregon. How does the guy catch the ball and get a shot off in .8 seconds? Look out for future Celtic great Brian Scalabrine.



In the 2001 Final Four, which was held in the Metrodome, long before the stadium became a metaphor for the Vikings' 2010 season, Duke trailed Maryland 39-17 in the first half, before rallying for a 95-84 victory. Two nights later the Blue Devils won the national championship.

But Maryland was used to blowing big leads against Duke. In January of that year, the Terrapins squandered a 10-point lead in just a minute, on their home court, before losing in overtime. Duke guard Jason Williams led the charge, helped along by some horrific Maryland ballhandling and passing.



These comebacks in the final 30 seconds should be more common in the pros, where teams take the ball out at halfcourt after timeouts. But maybe the college game lends itself to more improbable finishes, as inexperienced players crumble in the final minutes with bad free throw shooting and worse ballhandling.

But the pros aren't immune, as the Spurs proved against McGrady and as bad teams prove several times a season. Earlier this year, Sacramento coughed up a four-point lead in the final 8 seconds. More accurately, the Kings lost a four-point lead in the final four seconds as the Warriors managed to pull off a feat that probably hasn't happened more than five times in basketball history. Trailing by 4, Golden State's Reggie Williams made the first first free throw and missed the second on purpose. When Sacramento fumbled the rebound out of bounds, the Warriors threw in from under their own basket to former Laker Vlad Radmanovic, who hit a tying three at the buzzer. Golden State prevailed in overtime. It's tough enough missing a free throw on purpose in hopes of getting a tip to tie. Missing one and draining a game-tying 3-pointer? Seems completely implausible. But not against a bad team.



As far as I know, no film exists of one of the best comebacks ever, which, as always happens in those games, doubled as one of the great collapses of all time. My college coach Mike Augustine now coaches high school ball in Colorado. A few years ago his team held an 8-point lead with 14 seconds remaining. The opposition hit a three and got fouled. Augie's player complained about the call and the ref slapped him with a T. Three free throws later, Augie's team now only led by two and the opponent had the ball out of bounds. Inevitably - because any team that sees an 8-point lead cut to 2 in a second is seemingly destined to lose - the other team drained a 3-pointer at the buzzer, their ninth point in 14 seconds, giving them the victory and leaving Augie wondering about his chosen profession.

Epic collapses happen to high school teams and NBA champions, to bad teams and good. And it even happens in the movies. Remember South Bend Central going scoreless in the closing minutes of the Indiana state title game against Hickory and losing a six-point lead? As the Spurs, Kings, Terrapins and Augie know, when you don't put a team away, you leave an opening for guys like McGrady and Williams. And for Jimmy Chitwood.

Fletch might finally live

I visit this page a lot. It's the IMDB quotes page for one of my favorite movies, a cinematic classic, a legendary effort by one of the top stars of the '80s.

Fletch. I also own the DVD, so if I get sick of reading the quotes and need to actually hear them, I pop it in and watch Chevy Chase in action

It's all ball bearings nowadays; 6-5 with an afro 6-9; Babar, two b's or one?, etc., etc.

And now, after 26 years, Fletch could be returning to theaters. Warner Bros. has made a deal to start the franchise again. But deals such as this have been in the news many times the last three decades. Scripts are written, stars mentioned, and then the movie dies, in the same way the franchise expired after the unfortunate sequel, Fletch Lives. According to an Entertainment Weekly story, there's even a curse of Fletch.

Like many fans of the original, I'm a bit leery of a remake. No one can replace Chase in the iconic role. He is Fletch, the same way he is Clark W. Griswold. The movies were based on the novels by Gregory McDonald, a former newspaper reporter in Boston who quit his job to write his books about an investigative journalist who inevitably stumbles into a mystery. McDonald, who died in 2008, wrote 11 books in the series, providing Hollywood with plenty of material. The books are worth a read on their own.

But like so many, when I think of Fletch, it's impossible not to picture Chase. Fletch was a childhood hero. The movie helped convince me that I should follow my dreams of being a newspaper reporter and a member of the Lakers. One of them eventually came true, though I wish it had been the other.

Fletch made the life of a newspaper reporter look exotic, thrilling. Forget Woodward and Bernstein in All the President's Men. Yes, they helped take down a president, but did they have a basketball hoop in their apartment? Fletch went undercover, lived on the beach, had tickets to Lakers games and charged steak sandwiches to the Underhills' account.

In fact, Fletch is one of the greatest movie reporters in film history. Some other memorable scribblers:

* Sam Waterston as Sydney Schanberg in The Killing Fields. An extraordinarily powerful movie about a pair of real people. Schanberg worked for The New York Times when Cambodia fell to the Khmer Rouge. Schanberg won a Pulitzer for his work. Haing S Ngor portrayed Dith Pran. Ngor, who, like Pran, survived the Khmer Rouge's horrific regime, won an Oscar for the movie, but was murdered in 1996 during a robbery attempt. Pran died in 2008. Although the movie features the work of a newspaper reporter, it's really about the spirit of Pran, Ngor and the Cambodian people who lived through the horrors of the 1970s.



* Clark Kent. It's part of the disguise, but Kent comes off as a reporter who wouldn't be qualified to be the lead reporter at a weekly shopper, much less at a major metro paper. He's passive, shy and has never really shown any ability to turn a good phrase. Did he work at smaller papers before moving up? And if so, what kind of criminal masterminds did he stop in towns that supported newspapers whose circulation was likely below 50,000 and possibly even below 10,000? Or was he a journalistic superstar who went right from college to the Daily Planet? Hard to picture the mild-mannered Kent being such a superstar. And did he ever win any journalism awards, or did Lois Lane hog them all?

* Sally Field played dogged reporter Megan Carter in Absence of Malice, co-starring Paul Newman, who gets wronged by the local newspaper. Reporters and papers don't come off well in this movie. But the opening scene is like newspaper porn for old-school, ink-stained wretches.



* The Paper focuses on Michael Keaton's character, a daily tabloid editor in New York. But reporters do play a big role, especially Randy Quaid's seen-it-all, drunk, disheveled columnist Michael McDougal. Over Christmas, this was on sale - as a VHS - for a buck at the Janesville convenience store. Well worth it. Would have paid 10 bucks. A few scenes are a bit over the top and Quaid's character is occasionally too much of a caricature. Still, good flick for newspaper folk. The saddest thing about the scene below is that, in real life, Quaid has become a paranoid man who's convinced everyone is out to get him.



* Russell Crowe as Cal McAffrey in State of Play. When the movie came out in 2009, many newspaper people adored it, particularly Crowe's portrayal of a street-smart reporter. People who don't like newspapers - the ones who love to describe papers as dying or break out the "dinosaur" cliche, usually in the comments section of the newspaper's website - laughed at the old newspaper fools clinging to the idea that papers can occasionally make a difference. I really liked it. And I loved Crowe's character.

Still, Fletch's apartment hoop makes him cooler.

Every pro sports transaction ever made - in one place

Think the Lakers can land Carmelo by trading Artest?
It's time to trade Pau Gasol! So sick of watching how weak he is out there!
Could Mitch somehow get Kwame back as a good backup center?
Fisher, Bynum, Gasol, Odom, Artest must go!

Some of the things you'd read on Lakers message boards these days. Like fans of every team in every sport, Lakers fans love conjuring up possible trades when their favorite squad struggles. Rage fuels many of the trade ideas, along with that unique overconfidence that oozes off of guys who have won their fantasy football league three years running. Hey, they figure, if I can outwit six of my old frat buddies, my idiot brother-in-law and Joe from accounting, why can't I come up with a trade idea that will spark the Lakers to a three-peat while also adhering to concerns about the collective bargaining agreement and team chemistry?

While looking up some old trade info, I stumbled upon the type of site that could hold a sports fan prisoner for days.

Prosportstransactions.com

It's a no-frills site, at least as far as design. But the content is incredible. Since the 2004, the site has attempted to index every transaction that's ever taken place in pro sports. Basketball and hockey are the most complete, the site says. Football and baseball aren't quite as complete, simply because there are so many more players - and in the case of baseball, years - involved. It's an ambitious, if not insane, endeavor. But completely fascinating.

Take the basketball entries. You can search every coach and executive by name, to see all the deals every GM's been involved with. You can search the all-time injured list, or every DNP due to personal reasons. You can search by team and by year. Or you can search all of them, all 1,518 pages worth of transactions. Some tidbits:

The first transaction recorded on the site? The Knicks hired Mike Saunders as the assistant to player care, in 1899 (who was the director of player care?). The same day the Knicks hired Saunders, they drafted Gene Berce. Or did they? Gene Berce, at least the one who played for the Knicks, was born in 1926. Drafted 27 years before he was born. And Celtics fans think Red Auerbach did a great job of looking ahead when he drafted Bird a year before he entered the draft. Not sure what's going on with Jumpin' Gene.

Red makes an appearance of his own on the first page. The BAA's Capitols inked Auerbach to a one-year deal for $5,000 in 1946.

On July 27, 1947, the Pittsburgh Ironmen - who went 15-45 in their only year in the BAA - folded. Press Maravich - Pistol's old man - was one of the players "relinquished" by the Ironmen. In his one year of pro ball, Press shot 27 percent from the field. He hit 51 percent of his free throws and had a McHale-like six assists in 51 games. Press turned Pete - who was born a month before the Ironmen went under - into a basketball genius but he thankfully didn't give Pete his shooting touch or passing eye.

It's easy to see the beginning of the Celtics dynasty when paging through the transactions. The team signed Red to a two-year deal in April of 1950. A few months later, they acquired Bob Cousy in a dispersal draft, for $8,500. However, the site doesn't list the first time Red fired up a victory cigar, or the first time an opposing player or coach dreamed of shoving it down his throat or up somewhere else.

To the Timberwolves...

The team hired Bob Stein as president on June 15, 1987, and Bill Musselman as its first coach a year later. In the expansion draft, the Wolves picked up David Rivers, Brad Lohaus, Eric White, Gunther Behnke, Mark Davis, Maurice Martin, Rick Mahorn, Scott Roth, Tyrone Corbin and a handful of others. They drafted Pooh Richardson and, regrettably, Gary Leonard. The transactions don't get any better from there.

Back to the Lakers. In 1976, the Lakers received compensation when the Jazz signed an aging Gail Goodrich. LA received a first-round pick in 1977, a first-round pick in 1979 and a second-round pick in 1980, which they used on Sam Worthen. In 1977, the Lakers picked Kenny Car. In 1979 they drafted Magic Johnson with the pick, which happened to be the first one in the draft. Goodrich averaged 12, 16 and 12 points per game in his three years with the Jazz and was out of the league by the time Magic filled in for Kareem in Game 6 of the 1980 NBA Finals. This is the type of trade current Lakers fan dream of when they suggest dealing Joe Smith for Dwight Howard.

In another move that turned out well a few years later, in 1980 the Lakers acquired Butch Lee and a first-round pick in 1982 from the Cavaliers, in exchange for Don Ford and the first-round pick in '80. The Lakers ended up with the No. 1 pick in 1982 and took James Worthy. The Cavaliers, meanwhile, went 23-59 in 1984, became respectable in 1985 under George Karl, excelled in the late '80s with Mark Price and Brad Daugherty, got crushed by Jordan's Shot in 1989, staggered through much of the 1990s, went to the Finals in 2007, lost LeBron in 2010 and are on their way to breaking their own record for most consecutive defeats by an NBA team. So the trade didn't work out well for Cleveland, although Don Ford did average 3 points per game in 1981.

Cleveland suffered through a lot of strange years under strange owner Ted Stepien. But 1982 had to be one of the oddest. The team went 15-67 - which gave the Lakers the top pick - and went through four coaches. Bill Musselman went 2-21, Chuck Daly went 9-32, Bob Kloppenburg went 0-3 and Don Delaney finished 4-11. Kloppenburg got another chance to coach 10 years later, when he took over the Sonics in 1992. He went 2-2.

For fans of the American - and Stern - legal system, you can also search legal and criminal incidents. The first one noted on the site, though surely not the first time a pro basketball player ran afoul of the law, is from 1970, when Rich Johnson of the Celtics was arraigned in court on a charge of passing counterfeit $10 bills.

In 1971, Al Bianchi, Charlie Scott and Jim Eakins of the ABA's Virginia Squires were all found guilty of assault and battery and fined for their roles in a fight on December 23.

September 1988 was a bad time for a pair of Nets. Dwayne Washington was arrested for cocaine possession on September 26, while a day later, Duane Washington - different player - was arrested for possession after being found with several vials of coke.

And I never remember seeing this on the Come Fly With Me videos, but in 1989 Michael Jordan was cited for driving 90 miles per hour and not having a driver's license.

Yes, the site has everything. You can see the rise of the Celtics and Lakers and the demise of the Timberwolves and Cavaliers. You can look at the genius of Auerbach and the folly of Stepien. You can see Kareem being cited for pot possession. But I'd still like an explanation for Gene Berce.