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Best
1. The wild card: We know baseball purists hate it. But it made for some great races — in the NL at least — and some great playoff matchups as well. Can you imagine the playoffs without the Oakland A's and St. Louis Cardinals?
2. Albert Pujols: You have to think he's the best NL rookie ever. Going yard against the Big Unit in the first inning is as strong as it gets.
3. The Browns: Forget the 3-1 start. We love the fact that their fans bought up enough tickets that the Bengals are on TV locally today.
4. Barry Bonds: He's no day at the beach. He's not even a day at the riverbank. But 73 home runs is, as Lou Piniella might put it, “a lot of home runs.”
5. Trent Dilfer: Take that, Ravens!
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| Worst
1. Sebastian Janikowski: The Raiders kicker apparently overdosed in a San Francisco nightclub on GHB, the “date-rape” drug. Janikowski's roommate, Jay Hoffman, told police the kicker was not taking drugs but that he was with an unidentified woman earlier in the night who might have slipped something into his drink. Yeah, that's usually how that works. Thing is, this is Janikowski's second run-in with GHB. Is there some reason this guy has not been deported?
2. The Pete Rose family Lincoln Navigator: The Pete Rose Fan Club newsletter (purchased solely for gag purposes) advertises the SUV for sale for $29,900. “Imagine the look on your family and friends' faces when you tell them that both Pete & Pete Rose Jr. sat here!!” Indeed, just imagine. Not exactly what John Lennon had in mind.
3. The ABA: The old ABA, though not ultimately successful, was at least innovative and even had some of its ideas adopted by the NBA. But the “new” ABA is just a doomed idea trying to capitalize on people's love of the multicolored basketball.
4. Bob Boone: Mr. Micromanager jettisoned two hometown Cincinnati coaches, Ron Oester and Bill Doran. That's right, lose 96 games and blame two coaches. We didn't see Oester or Doran pinch running for pinch runners or flip-flopping the second baseman and third baseman between batters. Or was that between pitches?
5. Chris Berman: The ESPN loudmouth is doing playoff games on the radio. He calls a game as if the outcome hangs on every pitch. You'd think the Worldwide Leader in Sports could get some real play-by-play men to do games.
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Best and worst of week in sports
