A – Are You Ready For Some Football? For the first time in over 20 years there was no racist redneck asking us if we were ready for some football on Monday night. Thanks to a rant comparing President Barack Obama to Hitler, ESPN yanked Hank Williams Jr. from the opening of “Monday Night Football”. His half-assed apology probably didn’t help expedite the process of getting him back on the air. His “apology” basically reiterated his first statement and he went on to thank his supporters. He closed it by saying, “This was not written by some publicist.” Well that was pretty obvious.

B – Bryant, Matt. A 22-year-old Chinese food delivery man named Kristian Vail helped himself to a tip on a recent delivery to the home of Atlanta Falcons kicker Matt Bryant. Before dropping the General Tso’s Chicken off, Vail went into Bryant’s open garage and stole a bag of golf clubs valued at more than $3,000. The golf clubs were tracked down on the Internet using serial numbers. Turns out Vail was not interested in golfing, but rather scoring some Ecstasy. By the time the cops tracked down the clubs, Vail had already sold them to a man named Michael Gibson for 80 Ecstasy pills.

C – Connecticut Whale. Controversial NHL goon Sean Avery has been cut by the New York Rangers. He cleared waivers to the surprise of no one and was assigned to some team called the Connecticut Whale in the AHL. Yes, they are the Whale, not the Whales or Whalers, but simply just the “Whale”.

D – Ditka DUI’s. Mike Ditka’s two sons, Mark and Michael, have a combined seven DUI arrests between them. Oldest son Michael P. Ditka is currently in a court battle over his fourth DUI case. His younger brother Mark E. Ditka was recently arrested for DUI for the third time. Mark’s last DUI was downgraded to reckless driving, probably because his dad used to coach the Bears.

E – ESPN. For the third consecutive year ESPN the Magazine has convinced a group of professional athletes to pose butt naked. The must-see edition features Hope Solo watering her lawn in the buff. That should be enough to sell about 1 billion issues, but they went a step further and had US Olympic gymnast Alicia Sacramone nude on a balance beam and other female athletes like Sylvia Fowles and Vera Zvonareva naked. They even convinced a group of male athletes to strut their junk, including Steven Jackson and Blake Griffin.

F – Francona, Terry. Former Boston Red Sox skipper Terry Francona has found his way into the American League Championship Series, and he didn’t even need a ticket. Francona and the Red Sox couldn’t beat the Baltimore Orioles to reach the playoffs, but thanks to Fox, Francona will get to the ALCS as a color commentator for the first two games of the series on Fox alongside Joe Buck. Old curmudgeon Tim McCarver is forced out of the booth with a medical issue, probably bleeding from the ears after having to listen to Buck all these years.  

G – Garrett Gilbert. What’s eating Garrett Gilbert? The former Texas starter who nearly led the Longhorns to a National Championship in 2009 has left the school. After being benched after two games in favor of Case McCoy (Colt’s brother), Gilbert became a backup and this week he left the school and was spotted at an SMU practice. He may have just hoped to avoid the Oklahoma defense. Texas is a 10-point underdog this Saturday in the Red River Rivarly.

H – Homerun Derby. Chase Field in Arizona hosted Homerun Derby in July. The two NLDS games in Arizona looked like a replay of it. On Tuesday night there were three home runs hit, including two by some guy named Paul Goldschmidt, and on Wednesday there were five hit, including a Grand Slam by Ryan Roberts.

I – Ivan Nova. The Yankees spent a league-high $202 million this season, but with their season on the line in Game 5 against Detroit, New York will send Ivan Nova out to the mound. Nova makes $432,900 a year, or less than Alex Rodriguez ($32 million annually), CC Sabathia ($24.3 million) or Mark Teixeira ($23.2 million) spend on dinner. The Yankees are favored (-156) over the Detroit Tigers (+147). The Tigers will give the start to Doug Fister, someone who sounds more likely to be in a porno movie than Game 5 of the ALDS.  

J – Jordan Schafer. Houston Astros centerfielder Jordan Schafer found a way to make the news in October while playing for the Astros: smoke dope in front of a cop. Schafer did just that this week and he was promptly arrested. It was discovered that Schafer stashed his marijuana in a plastic container and in three peanut butter cups. That sounds tastier than pot brownies.

K – Kansas. It’s odd that a BCS conference school is getting 31.5 points, but it is also odd to be as bad as Kansas is. The Jayhawks are catching 31.5 points this Saturday at Oklahoma State. The Cowboys could be had on the moneyline at -13500 on 5Dimes. The point spread is the largest margin of the weekend and the ‘over/under’ of 73 is tied with East Carolina/Houston for the highest total of the weekend.

L –  Lions. If for some reason you wanted to count last season and this preseason, then you can say the 4-0 Detroit Lions have won 12 games in a row. This is the same franchise that lost 16 games in a row in 2008. Not only are they 12-0 SU dating back to last season, but they are 11-0-1 ATS. MGM Mirage opened the Lions at 75-to-1 to win the Super Bowl. Other books had Detroit in the vicinity of 50-to-1. Now everyone has them no higher than 10-to-1, including MGM, who has brought the Lions all the way down to 6-to-1. Those odds are in the ballpark with the Packers and Saints (4/1) and Patriots (9/2) and better than the Ravens and Chargers (7/1). I think everybody needs to calm down a little, they’re still the Lions.

M – Metrodome. By signing Donovan McNabb, the Minnesota Vikings have unintentionally made Vikings football accessible to people of any social class. This week when the Vikings (0-4) host the Arizona Cardinals (1-3), there are plenty of tickets available online for $10 or less. For most of the week, there were seven tickets selling for $4 and more than 30 tickets selling for $10 or less. Basically you’re beer will cost more than your seat. Your beer is also less likely to disappoint you.

N – National League. Three of the four League Division Series are going to a deciding Game 5, including both National League series in what should a gambler’s paradise during a Friday night doubleheader. The Brewers (-145) and Yovani Gallardo host Ian Kennedy and the Diamondbacks in the first game of the doubleheader. In the nightcap the Phillies (-180) host the Cardinals in an epic pitching showdown between Roy Halladay and Chris Carpenter. The total is set at 6.5.

O – Oher, Michael. Moments after Apple co-founder Steve Jobs passed away, Baltimore Ravens lineman Michael Oher tweeted, “Can somebody help me out? Who was Steve Jobs!” I know from watching “The Blind Side” that Oher was poor and could not afford an i-anything. I imagine if Mr. Walmart or the Kool-Aid man passed away, Oher would be more upset.

P – Point. “P” could be for point or parity. There are five NFL games this season with a point spread of one. The winless Colts (-1) host the Chiefs, the winless Vikings (-1) host the Cardinals, the Eagles (-1) visit the Bills, the Jaguars (-1) host the Bengals and the 49ers (-1) host the Buccaneers.

Q – Quarterback’s sister. The 21-year old sister of Notre Dame starting quarterback Tommy Rees, Meghan Rees, was arrested after getting liquored up and starting a fight in the stands at Purdue during a recent Notre Dame game. Her brother was busy tossing three touchdown passes in a 38-10 Irish win while Meghan was busy tossing haymakers. Meghan Rees, who is quite a fox judging from her mugshot picture, is a student at Miami (Ohio), but if she transferred I’m sure Notre Dame could find a spot for her at linebacker.

R – Ratings. A breakdown of the ratings of the four major sports shows some interesting trends. The median age of the 2011 NBA Playoffs on TNT was 39 years. The median age of ESPN’s Monday Night Football was 43 years. The median age of the MLB postseason on TBS so far this year is 51 years. Oddly enough, the median age of the NHL postseason on Versus in 2011 was 0. I guess they could not find anyone who actually watched it.

S – Squirrel. For the second game in a row a squirrel ran out on the field at Busch Stadium. The Squirrel first made an appearance in Game 3 of the NLDS between the Phillies and Cardinals. After Game 3 he started a Twitter account @BuschSquirrel. After another appearance in Game 4, BuschSquirrel had more than 6,000 followers and 55 tweets. Some of his best tweets included, “Ben Francisco is gonna find some holes in his clothes tomorrow,” “Considering another run across the field” and “Somebody come get me out of this padding.”

T – Tigers/Yankees. Game 4 of the American League Divisional Series was the most watched LDS game since 2007. More than 7 million people tuned in to watch the Yankees and Tigers play, and they were treated to a 10-1 blowout win by the Bronx Bombers. 

U – Unknown pitcher. New York sports talk radio host Mike Francesa hung up on a caller who he thought was prank calling his radio show because he had no idea who Detroit Tigers reliever Al Albuquerque was. Of course, nobody outside of Detroit or New Mexico knew who
Albuquerque was until Tuesday, when he allowed two earned runs without getting an out against the Yankees in Game 4 of the ALDS. A caller named David asked Francesa about him. He started by saying, “I want to talk about this guy Al Albuquerque, I mean what’s his deal, how bad is this guy.”  Francesa responded, “Who is Al Albuquerque?” The caller simply responded, “Al Albuquerque.” Then Francesa took over, “You’re supposed to say, if you are trying to be funny, it is Albuquerque, it is not Al Albuquerque.” The caller tries one last time to explain before Francesa hangs up on him. It is the best piece of sports talk you’ll ever here.

V – Vick, Michael. Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick has declared the “Dream Team” is no more. “The dream team thing is over,” Vick said on Wednesday. His team actually told the world that the season was over on Sunday when they lost to the freaking 49ers.

W – White House. As long as Jay Cutler is quarterback, the current Bears will not be making any invited trips to the White House. But the 1985 Super Bowl winning Chicago Bears will get to meet Barack Obama this week. The team never got a chance to visit the White House when Ronald Reagan was in office because the Challenger shuttle explosion forced the ceremony to be canceled. Now Obama is ready to welcome his hometown team to the White House, although big names like Dave Duerson and Walter Payton have passed away. Another former player, Dan Hampton, is alive and well, but he will not make the trip because he says he doesn’t like Obama.

X – XVILL. The late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs used the platform of Super Bowl XVIII to launch his company’s Apple Macintosh personal computer. When Jobs saw the finished commercial he immediately purchased ad time during the Super Bowl to debut it. During the iconic 60-second commercial, a female heroine chucked a sledgehammer at “Big Brother” in a watershed moment for technology, sports and advertising. The commercial played off the George Orwell novel “1984.” The commercial aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII, one of only two occasions the commercial ever aired.

Y – Yacht. Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder spent $100 million on an oversized Albert Haynesworth two years ago, and this offseason he spent $86 million on an oversized yacht. Snyder purchased a yacht that lists as one of the 100 largest in the world. It is 224 feet long with five stories, six bedrooms, a library, theater, gym and zero Super Bowl rings.

Z – Zach Parise. The New Jersey Devils 27-year-old left-winger is likely in his last season with the team as he will be an unrestricted free agent after this season, but the Devils went ahead and named him team captain this season. Lame duck captains always work out great.