The Final Score

I'm going on vacation now.

And not one of those Neil Best/Ken Davidoff vacations during which they actually work.

I'll be back Jan. 6. It'll be the longest Baumbach and I haven't spoken, IM'd, e-mailed, texted or Facebooked since he went to Italy over the summer. I'm going to a country near Italy today. Any guesses?

Take care and play nice everyone. See you in '09.

Regular readers of TFS are aware of my intense dislike for sportswriters blogging about their travel difficulties. I think a few months ago I wrote it's one of the worst features of the blog explosion.

I am reminded of this today for two reasons:

1) I had an assignment for Newsday on Friday -- you know, what the rest of you call "work" -- and it took me quite a long while to get home because it was snowing. You know, like everyone else in the New York area who worked on Friday. When I got home, I e-mailed Baumbach something to the effect of, 'Well, I guess I better blog about my travel difficulties!"

Of course, I was kidding, and he knew I was. I did not blog about it.

There was also a time this summer when I was working and I got stuck at an airport because of thunderstorms and all of the waiting passengers were herded into the airport basement because of a tornado warning and after waiting all night my flight was canceled and I had to spend the night in this city and then got home the next morning. And my wife was sad because she missed me and my cats missed me, too.

Fascinating, right?

Didn't blog about it.

2) As I've also said here before, maybe I'm wrong and maybe sportswriter travel-difficulty blog posts are actually really, really interesting. Because in the last week we have had three different Newsday sports bloggers tell readers about the travel difficulties of our two NFL beat writers.

-- First, there was Rock trying to get home from Dallas
-- Then, there was Glauber blogging about Boland trying to get to Seattle
-- Then, there was Best blogging about Glauber blogging about Rock and Boland's travel difficulties.

I am providing you with these links because I am aware I could be wrong about my position, and my tent is always open to other points of view. So enjoy, if you are so inclined.

Oh, and that assignment I went to on Friday? I usually grab a Diet Pepsi from the team-provided refrigerator when I go there. On Friday, for some reason, all they had was Sprite.

I was not happy.

You can read more about this next week in my seven-part blog series, "Free Food and Drink I Have Not Enjoyed Much in My Time as a Sportswriter."

I am an awesome teammate, always have been.

However, if any of my three TFS colleagues accidentally shoots himself in the leg while we are out at a Manhattan night spot, I pledge to:

1) Call 911 so an ambulance can take them to the hospital

I do not pledge to:

1) Make calls to find a friendly hospital where we can find some "discreet" service
2) Drive JB, CN or AS to the hospital myself
3) Stash their piece in my glove compartment and then hold it for them in my home
4) Act like I'm a hero / victim as the attempted cover-up unfolds around me

But that's just me.

OK, this recession thing has gone too far!

Say goodbye to the Houston Comets.

The Newsday blog page-view totals are out, and there was one nugget in the numbers:

TFS beat Glauber by .001 percent.

Thank you to the 80 people who clicked on TFS and didn't click on Glauber last month. We do, however, invite all 80 of you to sample him. He kinda grows on you.

I was in a bookstore the other day when i saw the book "The Best American Sports Writing 2008"

For the fifth consecutive year, I went to the index to see if I was in it.

I was not. Neither was Baumbach, Stapes or Chicago Norm (who is technically not a sports writer but who used to write the collectibles column in Newsday before it was, ahem, retired).

So there is no reason for you to purchase "The Best American Sports Writing 2008"

I have a serious answer:

Because most people look at football players and think, "They are incredible athletes and I could never do what they do." So what's a little steroid use?

Most people look at baseball players and think, "If I were only a little faster or could hit a curve ball, I could do what they do."

So the reason people get so morally outraged by baseball players who use steroids and ignore football players who use steroids is most people think baseball players are only a little better athletes than they are. And the steroids become a much bigger deal.

Or maybe people are just idiots. I'm not sure.

A bunch of idiots announced a racist policy and were called on it and then backtracked away from it.

For a longer take, here's Mark Kriegel of foxsports.com.

So I watched the Sarah Palin speech at the RNC after the Yankees game last night.

It was cute to see all of the "hockey moms" in hockey jerseys in the crowd.

I'm not getting into the politics of it -- Newsday has many fine political blogs if you want to talk about that aspect of it -- but I do have two observations about the speech:

1) If you know me, you know I love sarcasm. But wow. Palin sure loves the sarcasm. At times the speech reminded me of a Comedy Central roast of Barack Obama. I half-expected live cut-ins to Obama in a tux fake-laughing at Palin's digs. And where was Joey Bishop?

2) I LOVE the wacky Palin family. If they don't win, there has to be a reality show built around them. Here's Bristol and Willow and Trig and Truck and Trap and Boomer! Or whatever they are all called.

Click here.

According to the Miami Herald, the 18-year-old boyfriend of Bristol Palin is a HUGE hockey fan.

Yo Levi, you are welcome to post hockey comments on TFS whenever you like!

Levi also, on his MySpace page, writes:

'I'm a ---- redneck who likes to snowboard and ride dirt bikes. But I live to play hockey. I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing, shoot some --- and just --- chillin' I guess. Ya --- with me I'll kick ----."

I think the "Juno" comparisons are over. The boy in "Juno" was not at all like Levi.

And everyone knows all the cool kids are on Facebook now, not MySpace.