First, a shameless plug. The seas have parted, the stars have aligned and I’m here with the good news that for the fourth straight year, Desipio will be your Internet home for the NBA Draft, Thursday, June 26. We’ll spend the next few weeks assembling the same cast of crazies we trot out every year, and you, of course, are as always invited to join in the mayhem. I’m just giddy about this.

The draft is not on TNT however, and that saddens me to no end. It’s on ESPN which means at least five of these things will be true.

1) Stu Scott will boo-yah his way onto the stage. Honestly, I can almost guarantee you, he’ll be the one they have do the interviews of the players right after they get drafted. If I owned my house, I’d bet it on this. In fact, I might do that anyway.

2) Chad Ford will be on hand to lend his draft expertise. It almost always will consist of “The top remaining player on my draft board is a 7’9 Russian whose name I can’t pronounce.”

3) Chris Berman will root his way into the coverage. Guh.

4) We’ll miss Dei Lynam so much it will hurt. We can only hope that Pam Ward gets to do something so we can still use the “dogs are howling all over town, so Pam must be on TV right now” lines.

5) Bill Walton will be live via satellite in his teepee.

6) Bill Self and Mike Brey, two very ESPN friendly coaches, stand a good chance of getting the coveted “college coach expert on the panel” slot. If this happens, we can center drinking games around how many times Bill says “awesome” or “great” and how many times Brey says “fabulous.” I love these two guys, but their speech patterns have given me a tick.

7) No more footage of Karl Malone with the Miami Vice tie, no more footage of Detlef Shrempf in the tux and no more footage of Charles Barkley dressed like the world’s largest cherry? It just won’t be the same.

8) No matter how clever Tom Tolbert tries to be, he just won’t be Charles. It just won’t happen.

9) Mel Kiper, Jr., Ron Jaworski and Merrill Hoge will show up, just out of sheer habit.

10) There won’t be enough Michelle Tafoya. There’s never enough Michelle Tafoya.

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The Cubs won yesterday because first base umpire Bill Hahn missed a routine out at first base that allowed Big Choi to reach first and prolong an inning that ended with Damian Miller coming out of his coma and hitting a three-run homer. Hey, we’re the Cubs. Bad luck has been our Tonto for 95 years, we’re due a little luck.

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Did you see Jim Edmonds dive for a ball that he could have run under, and bruise his ribs? Oh, I loved this. I TiVo’d it and ran it back over and over. My TiVo hasn’t gotten that much action since I let the neighbor kids pay to see Halle Berry’s boobs in Swordfish.

Edmonds is hurt. Vina is hurt. Now all we need is for Matt Morris to pull his groin while rolling around the outfield grass with Kannon Kile and trinity of Satan will all be out at the same time. Perhaps this really is the Cubs’ year.

The best part of Edmonds’ injury was that he came up to bat in the bottom of the inning, took one swing and nearly fell down in pain. It brought back those glorious memories of Jack Clark falling down in the batter’s box when his bum ankle gave away in Wrigley one sunny afternoon. The only thing missing was Edmonds impaling himself on his bat. That would have been a nice touch.

Maybe next time.

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So Mike Downey may have shoved a Cubs security guard down a flight of stairs (last item)? Who does he think he is Sam Sheppard?

Somewhere, my journalism law professor is very proud that I actually remembered the Sheppard case well enough to make that horribly vague reference. Hey, I took J-Law nine years ago, cut me some slack!

If it was one of those Andy Frain security guards, Downey could have sneezed on the guy and he’d have found a flight of stairs to fall down. I don’t want to say they’re frail, but I saw one get hit with a foul ball during batting practice and he disintegrated.

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I don’t watch a lot of White Sox games, but I was mesmerized last night. Not by the game, or by Jon Garland’s tremendous performance, but by the hot woman who was hanging out in the stands behind home plate. Did you see her? Hello. She’s a brunette, about 5’4, she had a little jumper on and spent a few innings in plain view of the centerfield camera. She was on the phone so much she must be a Cubs fan. I don’t want to get all Randy Wolf on you here, but she was fun to watch.

I was listening to ESPN Radio over the weekend and Randy Wolf came on the Baseball Show with Karl Ravech’s toupee and Rob Dibble and he was explaining about how he met a hot woman in New York and helped her find the right subway train and how he wished he had gotten her name and number. How can a millionaire baseball player have no game with the ladies? It’s sad, really.

I love Mark Prior (in a manly way of course). He not only goes out and wins the game, but he reminds the media that there’s a new sheriff in town, and this one doesn’t let the Cubs lay down and die. Or something.

Dusty says that Regular Joe won’t always be the closer, and that eventually he’ll go back to El Pulpo. I just hope Dusty is lying so that some stupid team (the Red Sox) trade for Pulpo.

Mike Downey washed the blood off his hands (I know, I know, he probably didn’t actully shove the guy) and writes that the Cubs don’t need to make a move. Maybe Downey was the one who went head first down the stairs?

The reality is that Sammy is like Private Mayo. He’s got nowhere else to go.

Phil Rogers just figured out that the White Sox are screwed. What day is it on your calendar, Phil?

The Sox are 1-0 with Big Frank plays first. Yes, I’m laughing.

Groucho on game six of the Western Conference Finals.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to hallucinate that Michael Jordan can actually improve a team by running the front office. The best thing that could happen to the Bulls would be for MJ to run the Bucks into the ground.

Mike Tyson would like to rape Desiree Washington again.

The Wizard of Roz says that there might be a movie made about Ron Santo. Who gets to play him, Ed Asner or Ed Begley, Jr?

No mo’ Mo.

Larry King is still insane.

Time to redo the ACC logo.

Bob Hope would thank us for the memories on his 100th birthday, but frankly he doesn’t have any.

Survivor hottie Jenna Morasca doesn’t get to make a PETA ad.

Avril Lavigne, Sum 41 and the Barenaked Ladies are all anti-SARS. Well, that’s good to know.

Led Zep wants you to pay new money for old songs.

J Lo says she didn’t marry Puffy because she wasn’t sure he’d be faithful. Well, Ben will. Sure. Wink, wink.

Good news for the Jimmy Kimmel Show, WLS is bumping it back an hour to show Oprah reruns. Oops.

Whitney is so screwed up it’s not funny. No, it’s hilarious.

Bubba wants to president again. Yeah, sure. Go away.

See, video games are good for kids. Not all video game players are fat, smelly, pony-tailed morons. Just the ones who hang out at Gamestop. The rest of us play a few games and then go outside once and a while.

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