•Jason over at Orland Kurtenblog sends along this delightful picture of a lone backpacked figure enjoying the Canada-Norway hockey simulcast from a snowed-out Whistler. It was either that, or sit inside by a roaring fire with a nice mug of hot cocoa, and watch curling.

•It took overtime and a near triple-double from John Wall, but Kentucky escaped with a win at Mississippi State. MSU fans classed it up, bombarding the court with bottles after some questionable calls went UK's way. Too bad they were aimed at the refs and not Wall, because with a few more blocks he could have gone for the quadruple-double.

•Sadie the Scottish Terrier won best in show at Westminster, but not before PETA protesters invaded shelter rings with signs denouncing purebreds. As is my standard response to PETA, for every dog you save, I'll eat two.

•Darrell Green celebrated his 50th birthday by running a 4.43 forty. The Raiders are now looking at him with the eighth overall pick.

•Chien-Ming Wang finds himself out of the major leagues, after signing with the Nationals. It's an incentive-laden 1-year deal, the main incentive being that if he pitches well, he won't have to re-sign with Washington in 2011.

•••••

Easy like Wednesday morning. Which is to say, not easy at all. Let's power through.

-Jim Rice's number retired at Fenway, which really should have been done without waiting for him to be elected to the HOF. But it's not the first time the Red Sox fielded a black guy only after the rest of MLB did.

-Michael Phelps loses a race! But because it's swimming, and it's not the Olympics, no one gives a shit.

-First team up in the Michael Vick sweepstakes? Your Baltimore Ravens. Second team up? No? No one?

-This is a little absurd. Mark Buehrle stayed perfect into the sixth inning, retiring an MLB-record 45 straight batters. He lost the game. Welcome to Chicago.

-Wang to have season-ending surgery. That means a temporary end to sophomoric headlines like "Wang to have season ending surgery."

-At least we still have sophomoric headlines like "Giant's Johnson has torn rotator cuff!"

-The Madden 10 soundtrack listing is in. Final score: Rock 18, hip-hop 7.

So stop sending us every headline, photo caption, news story, text link, and jersey sale that references him while adding "omg, i can't believe they wrote this" in the subject line. Of course they wrote it! It's the man's name! I love fifth-grade humor as much as the next guy, but this one was funny for about one week back in 2005 and now it's just tired. ESPN is not in some dirty minded-conspiracy to fill the web with childish sex puns, nor are their web editors so clueless that they don't get the joke. It's just the man's name, okay?

So can we all agree to just let it go already?

Reinsert? Oh, COME ON!

MLB - Major League Baseball [ESPN]

Our fellow Sporting News columnist, and great thinker, has decided that because pitcher Chien-Ming Wang was injured running the bases, the National League should take on the designated hitter.

“My only message is simple,” Steinbrenner said in Tampa, Fla. “The National League needs to join the 21st century. They need to grow up and join the 21st century.”

Steinbrenner said he was angry and added: “I’ve got my pitchers running the bases, and one of them gets hurt. He’s going to be out. I don’t like that, and it’s about time they address it. That was a rule from the 1800s.”

Oh, Hank: Where do we start here? We look forward to your next calculated, Steinbrenner-esque "rant," in which you rail against the single-ear-protector batting helmets ("What if my guy falls backwards and lands on the wrong side?"), those darned new teams ("The mountain air is awful for my outfielders' sleep apnea") and role-specific relief pitching ("Whatever happened to the ambidextrous robot pitchers? They need to grow up and join the 22nd century.")

Steinbrenner Rants On National League [New York Times]