What's right and wrong about sports today

By Rick Morris

This past week saw some unbelievable instances of good and bad in the sports world. Leaving aside the major headline stories like the Clemens needle saga on Capitol Hill, there were still some wild sagas raging all over the place.

Take for example Kevin Hart, the dumb kid in a tiny Nevada town who fabricated an entire narrative about being the object of a major recruiting war. This past Wednesday, in front of a crowded gym at his high school and a host of media outlets, he ostentatiously placed a California hat on his head to signify that he was going to be a Golden Bear. One small problem: it was news to Cal! NOBODY was trying to sign this kid, who embellished an entire process culminating in the National Signing Day circus at his high school knowing all along that the bill was going to come due for his shenanigans.

I’m not sure who leaves me more in amazement, this dunce or everyone in the media who believed his story without doing even the tiniest bit of research on him. Having said that, we’ve all done stupid things, albeit probably not on this scale, so hopefully this doesn’t dog this chap for the rest of his days. But it is emblematic of the tendency for impressionable kids to give in to their desire to become a big star at all costs, even for only a short while.

Also on the bad side of the ledger, we saw the perfect storm of miserable conduct as anticipated when Indiana visited Illinois in a Big Ten hoops grudge match. Eric Gordon, the insanely prized recruit who did an 11^th hour takeback on his Ilini commitment last year, was paying his first visit (and what will mercifully likely be his only one, what with the NBA beckoning strongly after this year) to Assembly Hall. For his last minute “yoink,” he was rewarded with dirty play throughout from Illinois and profane chants from the crowd toward his family and himself. The belated apology from the university did little to hide just how much moral squalor the coaching staff, players and drunken bozos in the crowd reveled in this past Thursday.

Finally, there was something to salute over the last week. While the passing of an uplifting figure is never a good thing, it does offer a chance to reflect and revel in what they brought us. Karl Erhardt, the “Sign Man” of Shea Stadium who held up block-lettered messages in support of his home team, passed away this week and has been getting memorialized in appreciation of what he meant to people. Fans like Sign Man and the late “Neutron Man” of Ohio State football fame (but not gravy-training self-promoters like “Big Dawg”) represent the increasingly small corner of sport that is untainted by greed and hate and selfishness. It shouldn’t have to take Mr. Erhardt’s passing to remind us to celebrate the example of pure fandom they set.

Super Tuesday Liveblogging Part III

By Rick Morris

RealClearPolitics is still on top of the big picture.

Arizona went for McCain and by a bigger margin than was anticipated, so there goes the Mittens spin.

I spent about an hour on the phone tonight with our Senior Editor Jason Jones just chewing over what we're seeing so far. I have to say that, for what has been billed as the biggest primary/caucus day in American history in terms of delegates up for grabs on both sides, this day does not seem like it's going to change the race drastically on either side. That could be famous last words on my part, but if it is, it is, I'm not afraid to stick my neck out there. A very persuasive column surfaced today (referenced here) that suggests that the Democrats are on a trajectory to have their fight either last all the way to the convention or at a bare minimum, come down to a bloody, superdelegate-by-superdelegate struggle that casts aside all results decided at the polls. On the Republican side, as of now, McCain seems poised to come out of the day not losing any ground in terms of having a strong upper hand, but he's not going to put it away tonight.

CNN just called Georgia for Huck in an excruciating three-way between McCain and Willard. Dare I suggest that my brother and sister-in-law may have provided the margin of victory?

Missouri and Cali are too close to call still, but the polls on the West Coast have not been closed for very long.

Again, I could be wrong, but I think the anticipated impact of this day will prove to be at least slightly overrated on both sides -- and in a season of monstrous political surprises, having The Most Super Tuesday in the history of the nominating process amount to a fart in a thunderstorm relative to the momentous level of expected drama would have to be one of the biggest shocks.