Poker might be competitive and fun, but it's not a sport

And now they call poker a sport.

You know, every time someone comes up with something so utterly preposterous that you think it can never be topped, someone comes up with something like this and tops it.

There is no way on this green earth of God's that any reasonable human being can actually think like this. It's all marketing and just another way to milk money from a gullible public. But you don't have to call it a sport.

I've watched some of those ESPN poker games without thinking for a millionth of a second that I was viewing a sport, worthy of being reported in the sports sections of our nation's newspapers.

When I think of sports, here's what comes to mind: baseball, football, basketball, soccer, track and field, swimming, opossum killing, golf, auto and horse racing, bowling, tennis ... I think you get the picture here. But poker?

Never have I played a game of cards of any kind that I equated to sports. It's sort of like a table top game. When you start calling card games a sport, why not Risk or checkers or Chutes and Ladders or Mr. Potato Head or my favorite all-time card game, 10-point pitch.

Poker is not any easy game to master. Oh, it's easy enough to know what hands beat other hands, and a moderate touch of luck is sometimes involved. But in the long run, the good players for the most part win. There, the similarity in poker and sports ends.

When I think of poker, I recall games long ago when everyone had a beverage in hand and nearly everyone smoked. You sat, you joked, enjoyed yourself, lost a few bucks and went home. That's a lot more recreation than sport.

Poker an enjoyable pastime? Yes! Poker a sport? No!

If the NCAA ever did anything as absolutely deplorable as its recent ruling concerning schools with Indian mascots, please let me know what it is.

Just when I think political correctness has gone just about as far as it can go, along it comes with another ludicrous ruling worse than the last.

I guess the exhaustive two-year study done by Sports Illustrated that showed 73 percent of the Indian population didn't mind and that many of them felt honored, mattered not.

I just hope there will be enough lawsuits and money withheld by benefactors to let this go quietly. It's people who don't know about sports that feel mascots are demeaning. The Seminoles, Utes, Illini and the rest are being honored and the memory kept alive rather than buried in the mists of time. Funny, I haven't heard anyone moan about the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Ole Miss Rebels, Pennsylvania Quakers, Louisiana Lafayette Rajin' Cajuns, Massachusetts Minutemen and how can you make fun of our military by nicknaming Navy the Midshipmen and Vanderbilt the Commodores?

I can think of no better way to honor a person, place or thing than by choosing a particular nickname that best speaks for it.

This time the NCAA has gone too far by punishing schools for doing something that bothers far fewer than what will come as the result of their ill-advised ruling.

And look out Chiefs, H. Roe Bartle not withstanding, they're coming for you next.

Man, did I mess up. Some time ago I arrogantly made the prediction that the Kansas City Royals had improved so much under Buddy Bell's tutelage as manager that they would surely avoid losing 100 games this season. It didn't take all that long after the All-Star break for the team to go in the tank and revert back to their old ways. The starting pitching dropped into reverse and only Mike MacDougal of the relief corps had a clue as to how to locate the strike zone from the mound.

Every time another baseball player gets caught for using steroids I figure that's just another one I won't vote for for the Hall of Fame if I should live that long. Most likely for me to get a chance to not vote for somebody is Mark McGwire, who comes eligible this winter. There is the one requirement for admission that says voting will be based on "integrity, sportsmanship, character..." Had it not been for that portion there would have been no problem with the election of Joe Jackson, Pete Rose, Ed Cicotte or even Hal Chase for that manner.

When and if Rose and Jackson become eligible, then others who have flaunted the rules should also be. Not until. We shall see what happens with McGwire and the other steroid users because many others feel just as I do.

All the while I keep looking back at what a stricken Lyle Alzado said about steroids. It didn't matter a whit.