First, we lost a true giant of sports writing a couple of days ago when Ralph Wiley passed away at 52. Check out the tribute to him at ESPN.com's Page 2(it's linked on this page at "the mothership". In addition to the way he wrote and how he inspired a generation of black journalists including Wilbon, Jason Whitlock, Stephen A. Smith and others, Wiley's writings taught me a lot about basketball, boxing and the craft of writing itself. If you read some of his work, like this, where he understands a week and a half before the finals started, what would happen between the Lakers and Detroit. May his family, friends and peers be comforted in this time.

Did anyone catch the glowing things GWB said about Bill Clinton yesterday at the unveiling of Clinton's portrait? I wonder, seriously, if this might damage him with some of the fringe members of the Clinton-loathing right, enough, perhaps to cost him a few hundred or thousand votes in states like Arkansas, Missouri or Florida.

Obviously tonight's game is big. We'll see what happens, the first quarter should tell us how the game will go. If there is a big Laker run, we may still have a series, if it is close, like last game, look for the third quarter to decide it, and if the Pistons get up early...

I need to point out a couple more things, one, Colin Cowherd, the guy ESPN Radio got to replace Kornheiser when he decided to stop doing radio, is a hack. He admits to openly rooting for the Lakers, making him about the only national radio figure to be doing so, judging by the shows I hear at night, and has continually ripped on the Pistons since before the series began. He has said the Pistons would roll over, that they played a "greco-roman" style of basketball, that they're winning would put an end to basketball as a beautiful game. Lately, with the Pistons in command, he has set about calling them the "worst NBA champion of the last 25 years". Obviously, he is a putz, not as clahssic as Mr. Tony and basically just one step above Jim Rome.

George Bush went to Rome last week, and met with the Pope. While there, he seems to have approached some of the top officials at the Vatican, if not the Pope himself, about the American bishops " complained that the U.S. bishops were not being vocal enough in supporting [Bush] on social issues like gay marriage, and abortion," a Vatican official privy to the discussion said. (CNN) Ok, I unerstand the Karl Rove thinks he can woo Catholic voters by pressing the differences between John Kerry and the church on issues like, and probably almost exclusively, abortion. We have had Catholics of both parties run for office and support abortion. Jennifer Granholm did, though her home parish, our Lady of Good Counsel in Plymouth, was picketed by the usual anti-abortion folks, and shescewered by the Monaghan people for taking communion. But that was a state campaign, and relatively few people cared about it. Now, with bishops publicly saying they would deny Kerry communion, as well as groups like the rainbow sash people in Chicago, being denied communion because of their disagreement with the church on issues, we face the real possibility as a church of becoming intertwined with politics. I have always believed that my Catholicism made me a liberal, that Christ's concerns about social justice and the needs of the poor pointed naturally to concern for them and their issues. Others, including many of my high school classmates and their families, see it differently. But that is a point to be debated. For the hierarchy of the Catholic church, who have about the same moral authority as the guy in the trenchcoat in the back row of a movie theatre right now, to make judgements about whether the average American Catholic, who does disagree with church teaching on abortion, contraception and the ordination of women, let alone politicians is absurd. The righties are really opening up a can of worms because they don't understand the Catholic electorate. We do NOT act as a unified group, we tend to vote the way everyone else does. But by targeting Kerry, by making political statements and turning the most sacred act of faith, the transubstantiation of the Eucharist and the act of communion, into a political issue will only drive more Catholics, fed up with the Church leadership, to John Kerry, as it should.


As the Bush crowd worked shamelessly last week to wrap their man in the holy shroud of Ronald Reagan, the dead president's son, Ron Reagan, delivered an eloquent eulogy that discreetly signaled his conviction that Bush is no Reagan. "Dad was ... a deeply, unabashedly religious man. But he never made the fatal mistake of so many politicians wearing his faith on his sleeve to gain political advantage," said Reagan at the burial service for his father on Friday, and there was no mistaking the meaning of his words.