Tax-Day Tellings

-It's sad. And it's happy. The end of the Blues season comes Tuesday night in Chicago. The home season ended last night with a somewhat pathetic excuse of a professional sports event at the Savvis Center. Pathetic because of it's lack of enthusiasm of any kind. There were few fans. (11-thousand plus paid...but fewer than 7-thousand actually in the building...likely the smallest crowd since Harry Ornest owned the team in the early 80's) There were few players who actually seemed to care. And everybody was talking about getting it over with so the new owners could get their people in place and begin the process of regaining respectability. Sad that such a proud franchise has come to this. Happy that we can go nowhere but up.

-It had to be one of Wayne Gretzky's sons that I saw in the press lounge prior to the Blues/Coyotes game. The young fellow was about 13 or 14 years old. Was tall and thin. And had a face that looked EXACTLY like Janet Jones. I know the "Great One" has three sons and two daughters with the former actress and dancer from St. Louis.

-Could there possibly have ever been a better hitter in any situation than Albert Pujols? The guy continues to be absolutely amazing. Thank goodness he has been so super-human here at the beginning of the Cardinals' season, because it's hiding a number of flaws and question marks. Why opposing managers are allowing their pitchers to throw anything to him that is anywhere close to the plate is beyond me.

-As I write this, the news is fresh that two Duke lacrosse players have been indicted in the alleged rape of the stripper who entertained at their team drinking party. This story appears to have all the flash points of the O.J. Simpson case. Race, class, sex, serious alleged crime. Screamers and yellers on each side appear to be divided by race and income strata. People believe they know what happened based on the skin color of their hero, or heroine. Sad, that in the year 2006 race is more important to many than the truth. Conclusions are too easily drawn. If the case goes to trial, we will be in for another media-outside-the-courthouse circus.

-Advance thoughts on this week's American Idol. The American Songbook music (meaning 20th Century standards) with Rod Stewart as the guest star. This should be interesting...and again challenging... for a couple of the remaining would-be Idols. Chris Daughtry...who I like to win the whole shabang...will have a difficult time finding something anywhere close to his high-energy, rock and roll, comfort zone. But he always manages to come up with something that's pretty amazing. I see all three remaining women (Katharine, Kellie, Paris) able to purrrrrr their way through this week. Ace (who actually could probably do a pretty good Rod Stewart immitation) should be OK. Taylor will bring personality to something and be all right. I'm thinking Elliott will be in the most trouble this week. He's been on the brink of elimination a couple of times already. He's an excellent singer...but, through no fault of his own, lacks the star quality of every other remaining contestant. I'd be surprised if we see him next week.

-On the 100th anniversary of the Great Quake of San Francisco, two reports to be released at an earthquake conference indicate that a quake of similar magnitude now would do much more damage, kill more people, and run up destruction costs into the billions. Geologists expect another big quake on the San Andreas fault near SF sometime in the next 30 years. They say if the quake should hit during the day...to expect at least 3,400 deaths. And we thought hurricane Katrina was a big deal.