Dirk stepped up but it looked to me like Devin Harris was the key for the Mavericks in the fourth quarter. The Warriors couldn't keep him from getting to the basket and that started to open things up on the perimeter for Dallas. Harris had the assist on both of Dirk's 3's that cut the 9-point lead to 3.

As distasteful as it might be to some people, there will always be demand to watch people hit each other in the head. Same thing for pornography. And drugs.

So in the long run, professional combat sports will continue to be a part of our culture. But the real question is how much market share will boxing lose to mixed martial arts?

In the US, probably a lot. The UFC, which is the MMA market leader but not the entirety of the sport, has shown itself to be the most efficient and savvy business in combat sports. And they have a great business model, which integrates the roles that in boxing are played by a sprawling and corrupted array of sanctioning bodies, promoters and matchmakers.

In the UFC, the fighters have their own agents and some personal sponsors, but they usually sign exclusive deals in which the UFC picks their opponents, markets their fights and negotiates the TV deals. And the UFC just purchased Pride, the biggest MMA org in Japan, which really increased the quality of fighters in their stable.

Also, the UFC's rules are way more protective of the fighters' health. Referees stop the fights more quickly when a fighter is in trouble, and they use less-padded gloves which means that the fighers take fewer punches in the course of a fight and their career as a whole.

That said, boxing has a lot of history on its side and truly global popularity. I think there's room for both boxing and MMA.

RIP Chico Corrales.

in no particular order:

-football (soccer) managers who smoke on the sideline during the game

-charles barkley

-the beanpot (annual college hockey tournament between boston college, boston university, harvard, northeastern)

-UFC

-curt schilling's blog

-king kaufman (aw)

-the yankees below .500

-the NFL (they don't do everything right, but they have a great product)

ok, 8 is all i got

I had the chance to see Ten Canoes at the Roxie in San Francisco a couple months back and really enjoyed it. At the most basic level, it was suprisingly fun and entertaining to watch. In an intellectual sense, the fact that the movie is actually a comedy, with jokes that wouldn't be out of place in a Wil Ferrel flick, says more about human commonality than could have been said with a more traditional "noble savage" approach. Good times.

"Stay independent as long as possible" - isn't that what the YouTube founders said a couple months before Google bought them for $1.6 billion?

The web start-up business model is to find a unique angle, grow quickly without stressing about profitability, then get bought by a larger competitor that you outflanked with the aforementioned unique angle. Especially given the presence of the Google exec, that's gotta be their approach.

My guess is that they're hoping to demonstrate the viability of minor-league pro football in markets couldn't support a real NFL franchise, get acquired, and become the NFL's designated development league.

Even if the UFL/NFL Minor League is just breaking even (or not losing too much money), it still makes sense for the NFL to get out of having to rely on college football as its exclusive player development system.

One of the highlight packages that I saw on SportsCenter showed the crowd's reaction to Ankiel as he stepped in for his first at bat of his first game back - a standing ovation. People were touched.

So many fans in so many cities would stay bitter about a player responsible for a historic postseason meltdown, so it's hard to imagine how he must have felt to be welcomed back so resoundingly. That's the real story - the unlikelihood of an ex-pitcher returning to the major leagues as a hitter is just a small part of it.

Even if he'd had a bad game, this would have been a great story and a great example of why sports are more than just overpaid assholes hitting a ball with a stick.

Ok, we get it. There were some Jewish ballplayers who didn't suck. Who cares?

But I mean that about sports lists in general. Why do sportswriters feel compelled to tell us who they think is the 14th best [sport and/or position] of [time period]? It's pure fluffery, especially when the athletes listed were playing before the lister was born.

Also - my parents dragged me to see the Hank Greenberg documentary in the theater in the Jewish stronghold of Newton, Mass.

It was just a bunch of stereotypical old Jews talking about how awesome Hank Greenberg was. I understand that, in addition to being Jewish, he was a player of some legitimate historical significance. But significant enough to ask anyone to sit through a boring feature-length documentary? No way.

... be a much cooler version of yourself.

That does't mean that you should be someone else. Don't pretend to be interested by people and things that you don't even like. Don't wear clothes that you think look stupid. Don't get wasted if you don't like getting wasted.

That said, find the things that you like and the other people who also like those things. Then, be confident. Be charming. Be witty. Be mysterious. But be mindful of how you're perceived.

Everyone wants to feel like they're unique, an iconoclast. Everyone says, "I don't care what people think about me."

Don't be ridiculous. Nothing is more important than your reputation, and it can be whatever you want it to be. But once you decide, reinforce your reputation over and over. Think of it as marketing yourself.

And last but not least... don't listen to Cary Tennis, whatever you do.