Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder has once again jumped into free agency as if it’s an episode of Supermarket Sweeps. Snyder has never seemed to grasp that putting together a winning team is a marathon, not a sprint. This would explain why his shopping carriage full of goodies tends to end the season sputtering down the aisle on a busted wheel, before ultimately smashing into a stack of cans. Snyder waited a full 6 hours after the free agency bell rang before plopping down 100 million to obtain Albert Haynesworth, whom most NFL insiders felt would receive offers in the 40-50 million range. Haynesworth evidently saw the deal come over the fax and promptly asked his agent if they could wait to reply while Albert sobered up, since he was obviously seeing double. Snyder then jumped on DeAngelo Hall, mugging his services for a cool 40 million. Hall was cut by the Raiders during the 2008 season, a feat considered about as difficult in the sporting world as batting .400 in MLB or failing to impress Dan Snyder. Hall was burned so badly in the past NFL season that one NFL receiver claimed he mistook the immobile cornerback for a ref. He said, “It wasn’t until the fourth quarter that I realized the man I was arguing with about a particular call was actually my opponent. Up to that point I thought he was a pretty bad ref. He sucks reeeeaaaaaly bad as a corner.”

Snyder surprisingly did not take a run at the nations’ top rated canine lover, Michael Vick. Dan must have missed the pet food aisle when he was shopping for the groceries. Thus far no team has expressed interest in Vick as a quarterback, but several teams have asked him to be their mascot.

According to inmates at the penitentiary where Vick is taking obedience classes, the one-time Atlanta Falcon has worked hard to rehab his image. One inmate said, “Mike has worked his butt to assimilate himself into the world of animals. He actually lifts his left leg when he urinates, begs for table scraps, and spends most of his time in his cell block licking his testicles.” Vick was not able to comment due to a Whammo Frisbee perched in his mouth.

Alex A-Needle met with MLB officials Sunday to discuss his past steroid use. Two days later A-Needle discovered a cyst on his rear end which could derail his World Baseball Classic plans and a romp in the sack with Madonna. A-Needle stated to reporters on Monday that he got the cyst from his cousin in the Dominican, and that he wasn’t aware of the cyst, or what a cyst even is, or whether such a pustule is illegal to have. A-Needle went on to say that he had the cyst when he was interviewed by Katie Couric, but did not tell her because he wasn’t being honest with himself at the time, along with the fact that he was wearing pants and was only 16 years old. Doctors in the Dominican said cysts have not occurred in the Republic for over 70 years. Barry Bonds, awaiting his trial on perjury, was asked if he had any cysts, and replied, “Yes but I thought they were flax seeds protruding from my buttocks.” Mark Maguire was also pressed for a response and in typical fashion said, “I am not here to talk about my ass.”

Two statements I keep hearing since the A-Needle fiasco that really tick me off are that first off, people need to stop stating that A-Needle admitted to steroid use. He got caught. If your wife or girlfriend walks into the bedroom and finds you squirting whip cream on some other woman, you don’t turn to her and say, “okay, I admit it……. I’m hungry.”

Secondly I hear people bitching that A-Needle is taking all the heat, and that lots of other athletes in football have been caught doing drugs. That is a pathetic comparison. Baseball players cheat and break hallowed records; in fact they crush those records and make them seem insignificant. Football players cheat and die from brain tumors. We’re still searching for the list of baseball players who cheated, the football players are on a list too, it’s called the obituaries. One can look across a baseball diamond and try to guess who is on drugs. Detecting a football player on roids is simple; he is often wearing two helmets, one to cover the second head growing out of his neck.

Certain Comcast subscribers had their Super Bowl telecast interrupted by a 30 second clip of a pornography movie. As a famous judge once said when pressed for his definition of porn, “I know it when I see it,”, the recipients of the accidental transmission were fully aware this was no football game, despite the fact the man on the screen appeared to be hunched over center, barking out signals and awaiting the snap from the naked, floppy breasted center. Several back judges were in the foreground lugging around metal chains.

The FCC picked up on the mistake and immediately placed a call to Comcast’s Head of Operations. He was in a men’s room stall unavailable for comment other than to utter, “Ohhh yeah, ohhhh.”

Some viewers were still able to see the game, but had the audio of the porn film dubbed over the announcers voices. Apparently John Madden and Al Michaels were discussing the game in the booth during those 30 seconds, so millions of people went to bed that evening believing that Madden and Michaels were gay lovers who planned to wrestle in a pit filled with ostrich urine and then employ extra long sexual instruments to see if they could set a world record for deepest penetration.

Comcast operators were besieged by angry customers, demanding to know how this happened, and why it occurred to only certain customers and not to themselves. The employee who had actual control of the video board that evening said he realized the glitch right away, but waited 30 seconds to lift the film so he could “finish up with some unattended business.” Comcast has made an official apology to those who were offended by the film and said those who did not get a chance to watch it will have the next episode of the Brady Bunch interrupted by a snuff film where two hookers are quartered and hung from a tree by their epiglottises.

Arod spent a great deal of time on camera recently detailing his steroid use.  A capsulized version is needed so here in essence is what happened.  He abused a drug in 2001-2003 becuase he was young and under pressure.  He was younger in Seattle but didn’t take the drug, but at age 25 in Texas, which is actually 28 everywhere else in the world, the pressure became so great he decided to take  to cheat using  a drug that he was not able to obtain in the Domican, by having his cousin get it for him in…you guessed it, the Dominican.  A-Needle did not know the name of the drugs he was taking, and that they were even illegal, despite the skull and crossbones on the label and the fact that his cousin carried them over the border by shletering them in his asshole.  A-Needle later went to New York where the pressure was suddenly off, what with being around such clean players as the Yankees had at the time.   Quitting drugs was still  not easy so he asked his cousin to stay nearby in a hotel room along with a trainer who was banned from all MLB clubhouses.   Together they were able to find the inner strength to quit this horrible addiction.      Then A-Needle went on Katie Couric’s show and lied, not to Katie but to himself, since he wasn’t being honest with himself at the time, so the logical thing to do is obviously lie to everyone else.    One question that the media failed to ask was “”….Huh??? “”   Another good question would have been, “Are you $$#@ing serious?”

One of the more noticeable things in the Gammons A-needle summit meeting was the quivering of  Alex Rodriguez’ lips.  It seemed to this viewer that A- Needle, when under pressure,  has no control over the flaps of flesh that cover the orifice that spouts all his mis-remembrances.   At times during the Gammons interview he would suck his lips in, during other pressurized moments he would let them sag down so his gums showed.   A PI once told me that the irises expanding are a sure sign that a person is lying.  One need not look that hard when talking to A-Needle, the proof is all in the gum flaps.  If the Feds hooked a lie detector machine up to his mouth the device would go haywire.  Sitting across from Peter Gammons, a man whose face resembles a first baseman’s glove, and who last had control of his lips back in the early seventies, it was as if I was watching two men trying to decide if they were going to make out with each other.

Baseball writers were quick to state that they will not vote for A-Needle for the Hall of Fame.  Many cited his steroid/HGH use.  Others just said it came down  to HHG,  ie.;  they Hate His Guts.  A-Needle’s best chance of getting in will be to approach the plexiglass both in the Hall of Fame lobby and purchase a ticket.   I’ve done it under the influence of alcohol, so I’m sure a steroid abused lip quaking liar shouldn’t face any opposition.

Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks said he was ashamed that A-Needle did drugs under his employ.  Fair enough but Hicks should peer at his roster from those years in question, and ask himself how on earth did they fail to win a World Series.   Pudge Rodriguez, A-Needle, Rafael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez and Jose Canseco were all on the team.   Whether or not a salary cap is ever implemented in MLB  is certainly in doubt, but for sure MLB should have saddled this pack of cheaters with a steroid cap.  The locker room must have resembled a Balco testing facility minus the rhesus monkeys.   Having that many players on drugs makes for a completely un-level playing field.   The Rangers  may as well have signed sprinter Ben Johnson to be a pinch runner, Lyle Alzado to DH and Marion Jones to be a ball girl.

One can only wonder what the pre-game pep talk on the Rangers was like.

“Guys, I just want o say one thing.  Come out from your hiding spots and gather around for one minute.  Pudge, I see you in the trash can, come out here.   Juan,  put the medical journal down and listen up.  Jose, is that a needle protruding through your pants or are you just happy to see me.  By the way, how’s the book coming?  Raffy, stop pointing in my face and pay attention.    Now, we’re standing here for  a reason.   We’ve busted our asses so hard this season, it actually hurts to sit.  Think about all the work we’ve put in.   The nights in the weight room, the long flights to the Dominican.  Excuse me, phone call for me?   Ahh,  tell Alex’s cousin to use loading dock D.   Now where was I?   We have to win this game.  Look down at the floor.  Are we going to let all these empty needles go to waste?   What do you say?  We going to flush all this down the toilet?  I mean literally of course we’re going to flush it down, but figuratively, are we?  We should do that right now in fact, I hear Tom coming.  Raffy, you just stepped on glass, I told you not to wear sandals in here.  Could someone get behind me and see if I’m bleeding, I feel wet in the back. “”

Andre Smith, the large defensive tackle out of Alabama, did himself no favors recently by walking out of the combine.  He was clocked at 3 mph on his way out the door, which was actually half a mile an hour faster than he ran his 40 time.    Andre’s reason for leaving was that he just felt like he wasn’t physically ready.  What did this guy expect they were going to do at the Combine?  Non physical stuff?  Pillow fights and marshmallow toasting, followed by a steam bath and an hour of story telling?  It it a small coincidence that his coach is Nick Saban, a man who quit the NFL?  NFL draft experts, the ones who annually draw up a mock draft that resembles the actual draft if you take every name off the board and place it somewhere else,  say that Andre will still go in the top 10.  My prediction:  he eats himself out the league in two years.

Hi,  this is the first post of what will soon become the top sports blog in the hamlet of Framingham MA   Be ready

Paul Nardizzi’s comedy can be seen on youtube.com and paulnardizzi.com