Thunder, no ... Blue Thunder, yes!

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Just a little before the Spurs took care of the Thunder to go up 2-0 in the Western Conference finals, the Blue Thunder -- the 45-and-over softball team on which I play -- took care of business to post our second win of the year.

We actually had played pretty darn well our previous couple of games, including a heartbreaking, come-from-ahead loss to an unbeaten squad just last week.

Our team's dynamic changed earlier this month when two of our players were suspended for the rest of the season for fighting ... with each other. Yep, we were kinda like the Charley Finley A's and the Bronx Zoo Yankees -- except we weren't too slick at the winning part of the equation.

Anyhoo, Joey and Tom, the two gentlemen who replaced the not-so-dearly departed, are very nice guys. Very good players, too. They have formed one heck of a keystone combo, with Tom and his laser arm at short and Joey looking like a natural at second. Both also are fine hitters.

Tuesday night, pretty much everybody in the lineup hit the cover off the ball and played sound defense. We ended up winning by the mercy rule after 5 innings. I even had my season high with 3 hits -- although the lone time I didn't come through happened with the bases loaded, when I reached for a short pitch and barely got my bat on the ball. I guess Joey, who was on third base, didn't get the sign for the suicide squeeze.

We already were missing a few players; a couple more guys tweaked leg injuries during the game. You know things are getting bad when I become the young, speedy pinch-runner!

Every team makes the double-elimination playoffs, and I truly believe our new, improved club will be dangerous.

And by dangerous, I mean to our opponents and not to each other. What a zany concept!
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Not calling 'em like they see 'em

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The Rapture didn't work for me. I got all the way to Heaven and was done in by my allergies to harps and wings. So I'm back, baby ...

Those who dislike NBA basketball often talk about the refs' refusal to call traveling, but here are the five calls/non-calls that really drive me nuts:

5. Offensive guys jumping into defenders but still getting to go to the free-throw line. What ever happened to the principle of verticality?

4. Three-second violation. It's called so infrequently, the NBA might as well just change it to a 12-second violation.

3. Palming. These guys take 2, 3, 5 steps between dribbles. And then the refs call a foul on the defender. Where's the justice?

2. Lane violations on free throws. It's gotten to the point where I half expect the refs to call a violation on the one guy who doesn't enter the lane before the shot is released.

1. Moving screens. This is my personal pet peeve because every time a player is allowed to set one, it creates an enormous, unfair advantage for the offense. And this isn't just a problem in pro hoops. The year Illinois went to the NCAA title game, I counted 17 uncalled moving screens on James Augustine in one game. Given his "production" at that facet of play, I'm surprised he didn't make it in the NBA!

Despite all of this, I still enjoy the NBA playoffs. And I still respect NBA refs, who probably have the most difficult officiating job in all of sports but seem to get the most important calls right about 95 percent of the time.
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Jimmer's not even a nose hair on basketball's Mount Rushmore

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Of all the silly things uttered by coach-turned-yakkers during the NCAA tournament's opening weekend, the silliest had to be St. Joseph's Phil Martelli saying Jimmer Fredette might be having the greatest season ever by a college basketball player.

Talk about a man-crush.

Greatest season ever? Helllloooo! Pick any of Oscar Robertson's seasons. Or Pete Maravich's.

How about Lew Alcindor? David Thompson? Bill Russell?

You want more recent? Is anything The Jimmer doing better than what Kevin Durant did as a Texas freshman in 2006-7? Or what Adam Morrison did at Gonzaga a year earlier?

OK, maybe Martelli meant that, given the relative lack of talent at BYU, Fredette might be the most important player to his team.

If that's what Martelli meant ... he's still delusional.

I mean, Larry Bird carried -- and I mean CARRIED -- Indiana State within an eyelash of the 1979 national title. Bill Bradley was a one-man show for Princeton's 1965 Final Four team. Jerry West and Magic Johnson had some pretty fair seasons for some OK teams, too.

Oh, and all Wilt Chamberlain did in his two years at Kansas was average about 30 points and 20 rebounds ... but I guess he was no Jimmer.

And those are just off the top of my chrome dome. If I felt like doing research, I'd probably come up with a dozen or two more.

Isn't it enough to say that The Jimmer probably is this year's top player, not to mention a guy who is darn fun to watch?

Isn't The Jimmer hyped enough without Phil Martelli suggesting he belongs on some kind of college hoops Mount Rushmore?

I'd like to give Martelli a pass and call him a smart guy who simply got swept up in Jimmer Fever.

Or I could take a page from Martelli's book and say that might have been the stupidest comment in television history.
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