It has been hard for me lately to keep an open mind about the Lone Star State, what with the current administration in Washington, and Halliburton and Enron, and the evil Belo corporation cutting and gutting our once-fine newspaper, the Providence Journal. And as if that wasn’t enough, yesterday I tuned in to the congressional hearings on steroid use in baseball and within a minute I was hearing a discussion of the palpable mass on Roger Clemens’ buttocks — an image I can not get out of my head!!!

But then I remembered that spring training had started, and the wonderful (Texan) Josh Beckett would soon be back on my TV, and maybe Texas isn’t such a bad place after all.

(The views expressed here are strictly my own and in no way reflect those of The Providence Daily Dose… although I bet they kinda really do… certainly the part about Roger Clemens’ buttocks.)

No other event in the American sporting scene quite captures the essence of sports like the NBA All-Star game. Where else could you find flashy rich white dudes from New Jersey bobbing their heads to Mary J. Blige? Where else could you find the amazing confluence of corporate corporate glad-handing and palm-greasing and other innuendo laden noun-participle pairings? The NBA All-Star game is all style and no substance, worse than the Pro Bowl because at least the NFL’s shitshow doesn’t pretend to matter… more »

Lost to Temple last night. Lost to Mass, and barely beat Fordham. And only 6-4 in the Atlantic 10. They’re still 20-5 over-all, but uh-ohs…

PC is miserable. But Brown’s second in the Ivies, and within striking distance. Are they the dark-horse RI candidate to make the tourney?

Also, what’s with Cornell leading at 6-0, with Penn and Princeton in the middle of the pack? The last time neither Penn nor Princeton won the conference was 1988. And the last time before that was 1961.

It’s true. Shaq Attaq, who’s been sidelined with injuries on and off and on since helping deliver a championship to the 2006 Heat, is going to Phoenix. Ouch, right?

Pat Riley, the Heat’s coach and president, said trading O’Neal was “a very, very hard decision,” but said Miami was committed to rebuilding.

“Everything we do now, moving forward, is to build around Dwyane,” he told reporters in Auburn Hills, Mich., at the Miami-Detroit game. “That’s where it is.”

The Suns’ decision to acquire O’Neal, however, has been greeted mostly with skepticism and quizzical looks.

If you love the Suns’ game, watching Steven Nash and Amare Stoudemire run the floor, just imagine Shaq in the mix. Minus Shawn Marion, who goes to the Heat in this deal. more »

Kinda takes the sting out of the loss when you’ve got this gal icing your aching joints.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHWidOmv4hQ]

(Just a little something for the late-night crowd.)

Projo goes loopy again. Thankfully, everybody says that in fact, no, praying won’t make the Patriots win. But that don’t mean the question doesn’t warrant a front page story:

As the New England Patriots face the New York Giants in tomorrow’s Super Bowl, countless fans will, no doubt, seek divine help for their teams. But will praying for touchdowns gain any yardage with the Almighty?

Not likely, according to a variety of Rhode Island spiritual leaders interviewed this week. Here are their thoughts on matters of pigskin and divine intervention:

Tom Brady may really love goats, but Jack Groh might be the most important participant in this weekend’s festivities. Groh is the NFL’s environmental czar and it is his job to minimize the Super Bowl’s carbon foot print. His goal is to make the event carbon neutral. But as numerous people point out, buying offsets and planting a few trees does not a footprint neutralize.

Still, the greening of the sports world now has some inertia behind it. The Kodak Pro Cycling Team, surfing, the World Cup, even the NHL have all publicly stated their intentions to “greenwash” their events. My Philadelphia Eagles, in fact, were the first American pro sports team to begin greening their business. The idea has even started to trickle down to the apparel and equipment world.

Still, this smacks of a public-relations greenwash to me. Let’s see the NFL use its 100 million-strong, international audience to deliver a message of sustainability and consumer responsibility instead of, well, this.

Looks like they’re inching back towards a top-25 spot:

The Rams improved to 18-3 (4-2 A-10), equaling their best start since the 1987-88 season when they went 18-3 through their first 21 games.

ESPN is hosting an online chat with URI’s guard Parfait Bitee today at 1pm.

Could Providence support a Major League Baseball team?

  We should all take a field trip to South Kingstown for a game one of these days.

Jimmy Baron finished with 17 points and Parfait Bitee added 14 points and seven assists to lead Rhode Island past George Washington 81-70 on Wednesday night.

The Wild Colonial
South Water Street

Doors open early today — 2:30 PM — for the Patriots/Chargers game, followed immediately by the Giants/Packers contest. Watch the games on a color television set!

The greater Providence area was one of the early soccer hotbeds in the US. There’s an ongoing conversation over on Urban Planet about the possibility of bringing a pro team back to Rhode Island. Apparently there’s a group of investors who are pretty serious about the idea.

The Rams fall to A-10 rival Dayton, 92-83.

Just moved up in the rankings and beat Farleigh Dickinson. And this one’s from the AP:

No. 23 Rhode Island (14-1) is off to the program’s best start since 1946-47 heading into conference play at 20th-ranked Dayton on Wednesday. The Rams cracked the national rankings for the first time since November 1998, and could climb in the polls following a 94-63 demolition of Fairleigh Dickinson on Wednesday that extended their winning streak to nine games and kept them undefeated at home this season.

Rhode Island and Dayton (12-1) have raised the profile of the Atlantic 10 conference, which last season sent just two schools to the NCAA tournament. The early success could bode well for the Rams to get their first NCAA bid in nine years.

Besting Georgia Southern tonight, 85-80.

I did it! Patriots/Giants Game on Channel 10!

The NFL Network has seen the writing on the wall. An agreement has been reached, and the final game of the regular season will be carried over-the-air on NBC Channel 10. Once they saw that the Dose was on their case they totally caved. (There will be no living with me now.)