The Sports Noter, Version 4, Volume 1, Issue 34

Spurious thoughts and idle musings from the world of sports ...

How come home team fans always boo and yell "Balk!" when the opposing pitcher fakes a pickoff throw? Any time, any base, any move. If the bad guy fakes a throw, fans holler for the balk. Every time without fail. Has this ever worked? Has any paid professional umpire, in the recorded history of organized baseball, ever said to himself ... "You know what, these 35,000 fans, even the ones way up there in the cheap seats, can see this game much better than me and my fellow bluemen. They're right, that was a balk. Runners advance."

A group called Main Line Animal Rescue put an ad in the Washington Post this week offering to donate five bags of dog food to a local DC animal shelter for each time the Redskins sack Michael Vick during the Skins home game against the Iggles in October. Man, I love meaningless symbolic gestures like this. I mean, the dogs don't have a clue where dog food comes from, Vick certainly doesn't care and yet the animal lovers still have something to feel good about. Oh yeah, coming out, puppy needs a new bowl of food.

Here's a new rule Bill Maher-style ... New Rule: Stay away from any celebrity chick who changes her last name to a hard liquor. Yep, that means you, Shawne Merriman. I admit I don't know who Tila Tequila is but that name says all you need to know. I mean, if you just gotta hang with booze babes, try spending quality time with Betty Budweiser or Zoe Zinfandel instead. Those ladies typically don't get you arrested for battery and false imprisonment a week before the NFL season kicks off. Better yet, Shawne, have some Wendy Water or Paula Pepsi.

And speaking of Shawne, we need another new rule. There are too many athletes with too many different ways of spelling that name. Besides Merriman, there's gymnast Shawn Johnson, snowboarder Shaun White, hockey player Shean Donovan, Saints coach Sean Payton and an assortment of lesser known Shons, Seanns and Shaans. And then of course there's Angels 3B Chone Figgins. I'll admit when he first came up I thought it was "Chone" as in "phone" but n'uh-uh, Chone is a Sean. Or a Shaun. Or whatever.

Teenage sensation Melanie Oudin's upset run at the US Open ended in a quarterfinals loss to some Danish babe (bjabe?) but perhaps that's a good thing for the New York City hospitality industry. Seems Miss Oudin hadn't expected to make it as far as the Open's second week so her reservations at the Manhattan Marriott Marquis were for one week only. When they asked her to leave, she had to move to another hotel leaving embarrassed Marriott staffers with chicken embryos on their corporate faces. The lesson as always ... Don't count your check-ins before the match. Sorry, couldn't resist.

See ya next time.