Heeere's Mikey: The Debut

      Here it is, one man's non-Facebook, non-AOL, non-Myspace, non-Yahoo Messenger, non-iPhone, not-Twit entry into the world with this here, bl, nope, not saying it. Not using the B word.
      It's an onliiine colummmn. Not blog. Not logging anything. It's not a diary, or journal.
      Online column. Not everything on the friggin Net is a blog. A story is a story, a column is a column, etc. just like in the paper. Simply put "online" in front of it.
      Assorted design tweaks shall follow.
      For now, we'll go with Monday-Wednesday-Friday, and hopefully there'll be, frankly, a reason to come by for info, some babbling, humor, information, etc.
      But it will pretty much read like a column, a familiar one, and one that's not updated 27 times a day.
      Comments won't go along the same lines as the gutless garbage that anonymous trashmeisters post all day at the end of newspaper stories online - a horrible, horrible concoction and embarrassment to the newspaper business and human race - and on many message boards.
      This will be a better place to visit.
      Now, there's some catching up to do:


TOURNAMENT TALK
       John Calipari, the car salesman and congressman and ambulance-chaser all wrapped up into one, had it right last Monday on ESPN.
      All the NCAA Tournament coaches whine on Sunday, but you have to get to work on Monday.
      Two seeds are whining about not being one seeds, who are whining about their bracket and first-round location. The 15s and 16s are whining about no respect, and everybody in the middle is whining about their seed, location and bracket.
      Shut up and play.
      To win the tournament, you're going to have to knock off good teams, period, regardless of seeds. There will be upsets if higher seeds don't play like higher seeds. There are always upsets.
      We know the process. We know every year, there are questions. Ask once and move on and quit publicly pouting.
      And play. Winning is the ultimate justifier. So is losing.

TOURNAMENT TALK, II
       Maybe it's that cockeyed optimist in me, but I keep thinking every year is the one where a 16 beats a 1.
      Didn't happen. Thought Kentucky was vulnerable because of age, but then again, I wasn't buying that if the Cats got deep and lost.
      And, of course, UK better get it now, because at least half the team is likely gone.
      The first weekend is done, as is a No. 1, a No. 2, three No. 3s, 4s and 5s.
      Cornell was a sexy upstart pick, and proved its worth. Northern Iowa, which looks more like the Lithuanian national team, was another one, and more than made pickers look wise.
      The first weekend was glorious, and a good one for those not in BCS conferences, which makes a few hundred schools not in BCS conferences happy.
      And, memo to Mercer officials, St. Mary's and Xavier don't have football.

COMING UP
       Mercer's baseball team is off to its best start in about a decade.
      The Bears host Georgia Tech on Tuesday, weather permitting, and weather hasn't permitted them to play two times in a row.
      It's a big week for Mercer, which travels to Tech a day later and then is at co-leader Jacksonville for a weekend conference series.
      Mercer is hoping to be the fourth non-Florida school since 1990 to win the A-Sun tournament championship, and win it for the first time since 1983.
      College baseball is drastically underrated. Of the things I've been fortunate enough to cover, I'd take the College World Series over almost anything. It's probably No. 2 behind any NCAA Tournament weekend anywhere.
      And with Mercer and Georgia College & State, Middle Georgia has two quality college baseball teams.
      If they could de-ping the sound of hits, it'd certainly help.

LOUGHDMOUTHINGS
       The recent video of former Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach going off on his players was supposed to be all scandalous or something, what with him using naughty words.
      It was more funny than anything, and certainly a couple hundred - OK, thousand - football coaches watched and were reminded of when they themselves gave such a sermon.
      He was dumb to play the "God squad" game and publicly disrespect those with clear religous beliefs.
      "You guys that throw the book around all the time, you're defying the book."
      Keep up that kind of talk and he'll be doing his coaching in 50 years on a very hot field below us.
      Naturally, it was much ado about nothing. Could he have gone less overboard? Sure. Was he aware of a camera? Undoubtedly. Is he goofier than we thought? Yup. ...
      One reason we don't need to expand the tournament: announcers. Do we really need two more weeks of Tim Brando, Gus Johnson, etc.?
      No, no no no we don't. ...
      The bopping Palm commercial is the early winner in the annoying and overdone tournament commercials.
      Being hammered with the soundtrack of the Masters - which we've been getting hammered with since freakin' football season - is in a class of its own. ...
      Memo to Jimmy Clausen: Brady Quinn won more games in college and has yet to be a desired quarterback in the NFL. Tighten up, Bucky, or you and your agents will be watching trade deadlines in a couple years, too. ...
      Random Unrelated Thought: A couple hours of NPR's Click and Clack on the radio could literally raise somebody out of a coma, at least long enough to change the station. ...
      Watching the Leach video brought back memories of Oklahoma State's silly pregame display.
      The word "gay" was used most often by just about everybody who saw it.
      The good part was it brought to light absolutely hysterically funny dubbed videos of Hitler having a tirade about a variety of topics, including how bad that music was, the Cowboys losing to the Giants in the playoffs, and now - as a quick Google tells us - the iPad and Scott Brown winning Ted Kennedy's senate seat.
      Gold, baby, gold. ...
     An "ouch" from the Seattle Times:
      "Tiger Woods apologized to fellow parents at his 2-year-old daughter's preschool for:
      "a) Attracting paparazzi and other media attention there; b) Knocking over the fire hydrant and scraping the tree when he drove out of the school parking lot."