When did all of the baseball games televised on Memorial Day disappear? Didn't ESPN used to show a whole slew of games on Memorial Day? For a sports fix, I resorted to watching the NCAA national championship in lacrosse, which I sometimes watch, but how about a little more of the national pastime?

I was so jonesing to see a little hardball, I tried to convince my exhausted girlfriend that today's New Hampshire Fisher Cats game at 1:00 pm would be a fan-tas-tic idea. She looked at me with a vacant expression and went back to sleep. I know I wasn't the only guy that thought this was a fan-tas-tic idea because it was SRO in Manchester today. I even had box seats in my grasp, but I'm not complaining. Really, I'm not. She baked me cookies - who can complain when your girlfriend bakes you cookies?

Saturday, I spoke to my friend, Walt, the talented trombonist for Al Janik's St. Stanislaus Plastic Cheese Polka Party band and he commented that he liked the blog. I thanked Walt profusely for the kind words and then he commented, "You watch a lot sports. Do you watch them in real time?"

I do watch a lot of sports, because I am 42-year-old arrested development mutant, who is a compulsive gambler. (I'm not a compulsive gambler, but I have been known to win big at the bingo hall.)  Today my girlfriend walked through the living room and remarked, "Lacrosse?"

Hey, it's the national championship - what am I supposed to do? (I could have spent the day watching the Memorial Day war movies marathon on AMC. Right now, my girlfriend's son is watching George C. Scott in "Patton", which was written by Francis Ford Coppola.) Cornell choked in the final minutes of regulation play giving the national championship to Syracuse.

The good folks that run the sport of lacrosse need to change the rule when the ball leaves the playing field. Whichever team is nearest to the ball - when it leaves the playing field - is awarded possession. This rule is beyond moronic. If the ball or prisoner of war's head is thrown away, possession should be awarded to the opposing team similar to basketball. I'd love to see basketball convert to lacrosse's rule and have guys do Pete Rose headfirst slides into the courtside seats.

CNN informed me this morning that older men have a better chance of producing intellectually-challenged offspring. Do these offspring control the NCAA body that governs lacrosse? I was already aware of this piece of Darwinian truth, but I'd like to congratulate CNN for the perfect morning pick-me-up.

Getting back to Walt's question: Do I watch these games in real time? For the most part, I do watch them in real time because I have no life. I have other interests; such as beer, politics, porn, Danish literature, Transformers origami and studying the Kama Sutra, but these pursuits pale in comparison to my hunger for the next sports fix.

LeBron James was no Michael Jordan in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

I read in the New York Times Book Review that Henry Hudson reached the island of Manhattan on September 12, 1609. This tidbit is contained in Robert Sullivan's review of Eric W. Sanderson's "Mannahatta" and made me consider how New York was in essence born on the 12th and faced its most perilous moment on the 11th.

Watching the Red Sox visit the Minnesota Twins today, each team was wearing identical red hats but the team insignias were obviously different on the front of the caps. When did the Twins and Red Sox start sharing the same team colors?

My girlfriend's special needs son informed me that the game was being played in a dome because it was raining outside. I tried to explain that the Twins always play their home games in a dome; regardless of rain, snow or glacial advances, but he wasn't buying what I was selling.

Patton is beating on the yellow belly right now.