The Morning Walk-thru - Ma'am, You Cannot be Serious

Air Transparent...Page 2's Jemele Hill is claiming that "Kobe Bryant is better than Michael Jordan." This is precisely the sort of sports writing that drives me crazy. Consciously contrarian and specifically written to make a splash if not a convincing point.

I won't even go into the 1,000 plus reasons this is wrong and just say this: win a title without Shaq, Kobe.

The primary difference here, and one Hill uses as support but fails to elaborate on in her column, is that Jordan went through his growing pains in the early part of his career. Kobe is scoring at will, dominating play and generally seeming like a jerk (all Jordanisms circa 1988), but he's doing it in the peak of his career. Jordan was winning titles then with Bill Cartwright and B.J. Armstrong.

Someday I may have to admit that Jordan wasn't the be all, end all, but I'll be damned if that time is now in deference to Kobe Bryant.

Good God...I stopped off at the local public house on the way home from work last night and, being a Monday, the only thing on was the women's N.C.A.A. Tournament. Forced to watch it, I drew one conclusion: these girls are RIPPED!

It was almost disgusting, in that self-conscious male sort of way, how defined these girls' arms were. I have no doubt they could out bench me and that should bother me but it doesn't.

Aramis owns the Cactus League...Interesting little recap here of the Cubs spring training stats. I know March ball means nothing, and that's why I pay little to no attention to it, but it's nice to hear that DLee, Barrett and Ramirez are all raking right now. Last year, Aramis was a bomb until the All-Star break so let's hope he can keep it up.

Outside of the big bats, Ryan Theriot has performed nicely and, while PriorWood have continued to be PriorWood (which is really an apt description of the feeling many Cubs fans had for the dynamic duo four years ago in comparison to now), the rest of the pitching staff has put up admirable numbers.

I haven't seen any of the new additions (Lily, Marquis) or reclamation projects (Miller, Hill) pitch, but I can tell you one thing: I threw a slurve with Ted Lily that broke 22 inches on MLB 2K7 and that should account for something, right?

I'm thinking 'bout crankin' this ragged old truck up and haulin' myself into town...There's a poll going on right now over on The Wizard of Odds ranking the best equipment trucks in college football and this feels like the best idea I've heard in the past three weeks. Of course, I urge you to vote for the Nebraska truck, but should you be doubtful allow me to provide appropriate reasoning for dismissing the rest of the contenders...

--Cal: Boring and any school with the academic reputation of Cal is automatically exempt from any college football pissing matches.

--Iowa: Too colloquial. Mel Allen owns that phrase and it seems to insinuate some surprise. What's surprising about the Hawkeyes? They failed to live up to the hype again? Shocking.

--LSU: As Jason from Eleven Warriors brilliantly commented, this truck looks like a Duran Duran cover, which is never a good comparison when it comes to footbaw.

--Michigan: Pretty ho-hum until you get to the tractor which looks like the winged helmet. Nice touch, but until you admit that squeaking by Ryan Leaf and Wazzu in 1997 is no comparison to dominating Peyton Manning, the preeminent NFL QB and stellar SNL host, I'm not conceding anything.

--NC State: We have mascots because realistic representation of animals isn't very interesting. Write it down. (And where is Harrison Beck? Shouldn't he be prominently featured?)

--THE Ohio State University: The buckeye stickers are a nice touch, but it's still Ohio State and a bit plain to boot.

--Oklahoma: A freakin' Nike truck??!! C'mon. I feel bad for the guy who has to go into the Bosselman and talk about his Nike Air Max Brake while some dude with a Peterbilt hat on takes the biscuits and gravy right off his plate.

--Penn State: I don't care what Deadspin says, my high school had a better mascot costume than that and we didn't have nothin' except a walk to school that was up hill both ways.

--Texas Ag. & Mech.: I like A&M. They have more traditions on their own than the rest of the Big XII combined, but this rig invokes none of them.

--Texas Tech: My pick to place. Most of the truck is utterly forgettable, but the red and black cow skull is inherently Texan and undeniably bad ass.

Thanks...the Hi-Plains Hall of Fame is still awaiting a final tally, but yesterday may have been the best yet for this site in terms of visits. We still have a long way to go, so keep telling your friends (and foes) and thank you for your patronage.

Writing a post a day is harder than I thought, but if people keep coming, I'll keep writing.