Well, much like Bret Hart earlier this year, the Basement is making its long anticipated return after a much publicized absence from the spotlight. And don’t worry, we don’t have on jean shorts, we have washed our hair in the past 5 years, and we will not be allowing any of our mortal enemies (Rick Reilly, Chris Berman, Bob Vila, etc.) to spit in our faces. So without further ado, I wanted to touch on some of the major topics we should have posted about if we had any respect for ourselves or our blog (and most importanly, get our NFL picks off of the top line).

Tiger Woods: Everything that can be said about this has been said, so I’ll keep it as short as I can. I don’t care that Tiger, purposely or not, manufactured the image of a happy family man even though he had women in every area code, because I never cared whether he had a family or not in the first place. I like watching sports. That’s why I follow them. If I was in it for the human interest stories, I’d stick to the Lifetime Movie Network. Hopefully, none of the guys I root for are sociopaths, but I’m seriously supposed to get worked up about adultery? Powerful dudes have been rolling through women since the dawn of time. I’m not at all suprised, or concerned for that matter, that Tiger followed in the same footsteps as Tommy Jefferson, FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton, Michael Jordan, etc etc etc. I’m much more offended, for instance, by the fact that Derek Jeter has gone out most every day for the past 15 years and played somewhere between a shitty and mediocre shortstop, yet ends up winning gold gloves like they’re Bingo prizes. That’s the scandal I really want to do something about. I wish there were less people writing sanctimonious bullshit about what guys do off the field (or the course), and more people concerned about actually knowing what the hell is happening on it.

Mark McGwire: Great to see such a noble man get rewarded with a job in baseball. It reminds me of when Nelson Mandela got elected president after serving decades in jail. If only he’d been around that clubhouse earlier, Josh Hancock may still be alive today.

The NFL Season: Tough thing to sum up in a few words, but it was actually sort of refreshing to see the two best teams all season make it to the Super Bowl. The past 4 or 5 years have been characterized by seemingly mediocre teams catching fire towards the end of the season and carrying that to a championship, and I actually feared that might happen again with the Cowboys (ok ok, you caught me, I never really believed Wade Phillips would win a championship, but still, my point remains the same).  This first sunday without football is going to suck, but hey, at least we got 2 weeks of curling and 9 months of Nascar coming up!

MLB Offseason: Hopefully, Bo will have a chance to comment on the Mets because they are my favorite baseball story going.  We’ve talked about their idiot GM at length on this blog, but as an Omar Minaya hater, this offseason has exceeded even my wildest expectations. It really has been a delight. If Omar Minaya ran Dominos, he wouldn’t have changed the recipe, he would’ve given needless bonuses to his current pizza chefs and then spent the rest of his money on upgrading the cinnamon sticks. I’m hoping that after a tough April, he trades F-Mart and Jenry Mejia for Gil Meche.

JD Salinger: I have to toot my own horn for a second. I’m a bit of a trail blazer on this one. I’ve been thinking of him as a dead guy since I found out who he was in 7th grade.