Big Shot Bob has been saving it for the playoffs for nearly a decade. It's just never been written in his contract.

MLB DOES have 10 day contracts. They're called personal services contracts. Roger Clemens had one last year.

The last fight I paid for pay-per-view was the Lennox Lewis/Mike Tyson fight. While I've seen the occasional fight since then, boxing has lost its lure. Part of the downfall was the fact that unlike nearly every other major sport, boxing still has four major authorities. So unlike the Colts or the Heat or the Cardinals or whoever won the Stanley Cup last year (I honestly don't know), there are four heavyweight champions. Even MMA has only two major leagues.

I think boxing is clearly dead and we will look on the Mayweather/Dey La Hoya fight as the bellweather of the end.

What difference does it make to the Yankees that Clemens is on the hill for six innings if Mariano ain't there to mow 'em down in the ninth? There's no glory in it for Roger … or Mo … or Angry George. No wins; no saves; no rings.

We all know the Yanks have more problems than Clemens can be expected to overcome. But, his addition does do two things for this lack-luster side: (1) It weakens the Sox … 'cos he's NOT with them; and (2) it strengthens the Yanks … but just about ANY signing would do that right now.

Bottom line: Would you be willing to bet right now that the addition of Clemens will be sufficient to get the NYYs to the post-season? I wouldn't! But, then, I'm a Sox fan so I always bet against the House.

I don't like Roger Clemens, never have. He's an ego with a glove. As a Met fan I will never forgive him for beaning Mike Piazza on purpose. And spare me the "one got away from him" defenses. He was sharp that night and he hit Piazza right in the NY on his helmet. Message sent and received: hit a home run off of me and I will try to kill you.

That said, I don't care if a team is dumb enough to pay him $1 million per start for 20 games. He might be worth it if he holds the Yankees together until somebody in that rotation figures out where home plate is. The problem is he is a 6-inning pitcher so he will not help the Yankees' bullpen which is not as good or as deep as in years past.

The real panic will start if Mariano Rivera is finally on the skids. He has come back before so you can't say for certain yet but he appears to have lost something. Not the same snap on the ball. Less break. Hittable at last.

Just as it was a good thing for the Braves to miss the playoffs last year it would be a good thing for the Yankees to miss the postseason for a couple of years. Clear out the deadwood. Stop deluding themselves they are just one more bat or arm from WS win no. 27.

The smell of the desperation in Yankeeland is overpowering. It smells like ... the 1980s.

1. Ratings. Don’t pay attention to sanctioning organizations. Read the Ring magazine ratings. Granted, these are open to questioning, too, but they are perceived by real fans as being the most legitimate.

2. MMA. I have no issues with MMA, but I just don’t like it. As Bert Sugar recently said in an interview on MaxBoxing, talking about MMA, “It ain’t the sweet science.” But there’s room for both.

3. Boxing is all sports broken down to their bare essentials. It’s you, your mental toughness, and physical toughness. There aren’t subs. This is why boxing is the best sport—because it’s the most demanding—and why sports clubs around the country have adopted boxing training. Boxers, as an ESPN survey confirmed a few years ago, are the best athletes, and boxing is the most demanding sport.

4. Dan Rafael’s “Weekend Notebook” on ESPN.com, published more or less every Friday afternoon, is mandatory reading for boxing fans. It’s also a good way to get back into the sport and see who and what boxing fans are talking about. Another good site that fans around the world follow is MaxBoxing.com, based in Los Angeles.

5. When you follow the sport and see a great fight, know that sports competition doesn’t get any better. It just doesn’t, except for maybe a play at the plate in baseball. ☺

Finally, King, stop writing about boxing. If you hate it that much, just stop writing about it. It’s painfully annoying. I’ve always hated college football, so I wouldn’t waste my time writing about it. And do yourself a favor, because obviously you did like boxing at one point: For the next year or so, follow the welterweight division. Watch all the big fights and contenders. Then tell me how much boxing is in decline.

Not having seen many defenses here, I'm going to muster up a combination it's fitting to be responding to yet another "death of boxing" article on the day after the tragic death of Diego Corrales, one of boxing's truest, and I don't use this term lightly, old-school warriors. Boxing is the greatest sport today.

What does King Kaufman have against boxing? Boxing hurts him. He can't talk about it without raging against it. I don't understand. And you wonder why the sport is perceived to be "in decline" when sportswriters hold it in such contempt? When the biggest moneymaking fight of the year is framed by the media as “The Fight That Could Save Boxing,” you know something’s fishy. I got news for you. The American sports media got rid of boxing a long time ago and it still hasn’t gone away. I’ve been a boxing fan since the ‘70s and, though the sport has its problems to be sure, it’s always had its problems. If the network TV stations put boxing back on with some decent fights, the sport would grow. It really is that simple. People can’t follow boxing without coughing up money, and I don’t blame them for not spending. The networks and the sportswriters are the true killers of boxing.

OK, I’m gonna go point by point:

1. “a severely shrunken talent pool caused by increased opportunities”: Um, hello? Baseball? Basketball? Football? Neither of these are the same as when I watched them 20 years ago. Games and players change. Basketball is all three-pointers, walking, and slam dunks, today. Baseball has so much watered down pitching, and so much steroid controversy and all those people in the “crowded place” talk about is Barry Bonds’s bad attitude. I’m also a huge baseball fan, and I check the stats and games daily. There are dozens of players whom I just don’t know or recognize. If you’re going to say this about boxing start saying it about baseball, too. And basketball.

Yeah it looks like this if you only look at the heavyweights. But here’s a bolo punch: the welterweight division is more jam-packed with great fighters today than it was in the Leonard-Hearns-Duran ‘80s heyday. Granted, all three of those guys could beat Mayweather or Margarito, but hey, that was a great era. You don’t remember the bad ones before them. So what are you talking about, King? Have you been following boxing at all over the past two years? Sure, potential American heavyweights have switched to football and basketball. I’m not saying Oleg Maskaev could have beaten Foreman or Frazier, but a watered-down heavyweight division is nothing new. The heavyweight division sucked in the ‘30s. It sucked after Joe Louis. It wasn’t exactly great during the ‘50s. And the early ‘60s were awful, as were the early ‘80s. You obviously haven’t watched a fighter like Rafael Marquez, recently, either. Otherwise, you wouldn’t say this.

2. “changing tastes”: Hey, whose decision was it to relegate, say, Olympic boxing to midnight viewing and gymnastics to primetime? Advertisers maybe? American women? TV stations? Sports programming? The people who make sports “tastes” are the TV stations and sports media, dude. Otherwise, how else can you explain “X Games”? There is also a great misperception in this country that is not shared elsewhere around the world: Some people like to fight and that’s OK. You might not like to watch it or understand it. And though there may be economic or political reasons behind their choice to fight, it doesn’t mean their choice should be dismissed.

3. “greater entertainment options, including more sports”: See above and TV stations who don’t want to support boxing because their advertisers don’t want to pay for it. Boxing’s fanbase is aging today because those fans grew up watching title fights for free on Saturday afternoons on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. Promoters have no other option than to make pay-per-view matches because the networks don’t want to televise boxing, and boxers have got used to making the pay-per-view coin. Everyone needs to sacrifice a little, but the networks need to sacrifice more than everyone. To borrow a baseball phrase, “Build it and they will come.”

4. “unaddressed safety concerns”: Finally, a point I can actually agree on. This is why I also agree with the next two points:

5. “corruption” and “the lack of a governing organization to guarantee good matches and recognized champions”: These are all really the same point. Boxing, like other sports, needs a commissioner. It always has. But there are difficulties that aren’t necessarily because of corruption. The difficulties in regulating boxing are manifold: For example, boxing is truly a WORLDWIDE sport, unlike football or baseball with their Super Bowls and World Series’. You’re going to need a regulator who can work internationally as well. Which is why it won’t work. A governing organization could also tighten rules about when a fight should stopped, oversee and train judges, and ensure that rankings, belts, and defenses are legit. But fans who follow the sport know who the true top fighters are.

6. I would add this: Boxers need to step up and fight more often and fight more meaningful fights. That’s what builds excitement.