Sportsmeat

Congrats to E.J., who had Tiger, Furyk, and 13th-place Steve Stricker for a total of 145 points. He edged Big Thunder and Snoop (141 points each), and Joseph and Maxipriest (140). Budds followed up the Masters Miracle with a dismal 71 (Tiger = 70, Vijay = 1), and late entry Y.A. Shoes finished with 70. Stay tuned for more prognostication involving guys wearing funny pants (or collar-free red shirts) at the British Open next month.

Something else to watch: The NCAA is cracking down on live blogging at championship events. The Louisville Courier-Journal and The Oregonian have been the first victims, but it's a trend that seems to have legs. The NCAA feels that live bloggers infringe on the broadcast rights that TV and radio stations pay big bucks for, so they're cracking down, threatening to deny credentials to newspapers that blog. The interesting thing is that it's only happened late in the season, in the super-regionals. Bloggers have been reporting from baseball games all year, and schools haven't seemed to mind -- the more coverage the better. But when they get to June, when ESPN actually pretends to care about college baseball, then the live blogs must stop. So what's the back story? Is this the result of pressure from ESPN? Do they really feel threatened by a few newspaper blogs with modest readership? No, it appears that CSTV has blogging rights (or "Slogging" rights) to the College World Series, with a sports blog and game tracker. Not sure if they pay for that privilege or if it's folded in with their TV contract for other NCAA events, but it's interesting. Could the NCAA try to stop me from blogging if I sat at home and reported on an ESPN game? If I cared at all about college baseball, I might give it a try to test the waters.

But I don't. No one does. Which makes this even more strange. My prediction: This is a prelude to a bigger fight when football season comes around this fall.