The Final Score

My favorite part about this Associated Press story about Alex Rodriguez and Madonna making public appearances in Mexico City during the same weekend is this phrase:

Rodriguez, known by fans as " A-Rod,"

Glad we cleared that up.

BTW, I have no doubt Madonna is going to create a circus by showing up at a Yankees spring training game. Don't ever forget, publicity is good for business. Her business.

That's how I spent some of my afternoon today.

FOTFS Brooks Simpson promised to post a recap of our lunch - yes, we discussed Al Arbour - as well as a write-up from last night's Islanders game on the blog. He also took photos (of the game, not our lunch), and he'll pass those along, too.

Unfortunately, I forgot to ask him about his Wikipedia page.

If you're looking to place a face to a name, picture a thinner version of Chris Carlin. (And, for the record, neither of us fidgeted with our illegal concealed weapons and accidentally shot ourselves in the leg. So that's a good thing.)

TMZ.com reports that Giants receiver Plaxico, who shot himself in the leg Saturday morning, is being represented by Benjamin Brafman, the lawyer who got Sean "Puffy" Combs (now known as P. Diddy) off after a 1999 shooting in a Manahattan club.

TMZ quotes Brafman as saying, "Yes I am representing him [Plaxico]. I have been in contact with the NYPD and we are making the necessary arrangements to have Mr. Burress responsibly address the legal issues that have recently been raised."

Exciting basketball returns to Madison Square Garden.

Thanks to the logic class that I was forced to take in college last century, I fully realize that Stephon Marbury's absence from the Garden Saturday night was not the reason that the Knicks scored 138 points against the Golden State Warriors,

It was "Remember the ABA" night. All that was missing was the red, white and blue basketball.

Heck, the Warriors' 125 points would have been enough to win most NBA games since the end of the Rick Barry-Dr. J era.

Former Newsday blogger Jamal Crawford summed up what everyone was thinking about Saturday's game:

''They had 82 points at half, so that's a lot,'' Crawford said. ''Some teams don't get that in a game."

And here are some goodies from the TFS' own Arthur Staple, who was there to witness history:

- Even with a seven-man rotation, the Knicks set a record for most points in a half at the Garden and Chris Duhon erased Richie Guerin's name from the record books with 22 assists in a 138-125 laugher over Don Nelson's defenseless Warriors.

- The Knicks broke the record for most first-half points with 82, set when Kansas City scored 81 on Dec. 8, 1979.

Don't you love seeing Kansas City in an NBA-related story? Which is your favorite incarnation of that team? Here are the choices:

Rochester Royals, Cincinnati Royals, Kansas City-Omaha Kings, Kansas City Kings, Sacramento Kings. I've gotta go with Rochester.

Unless it goes off and shoots you in the leg.

Memo to Brooks Simpson: Jim Baumbach is innocent.

I realize that can be taken in several ways but in this case it applies to Jim missing Saturday night's Islanders game because the mean old Sunday editor made him labor all day - on his day off - on that bizarre about Plaxico Burress, the Fastest Gun in the East.

Jim was pretty gung-ho about it before noon. But as the story dragged on and he began realize that he was going to miss his chance to worship (with Brooks) the Al Arbour 1500 banner at Nassau Colisum, he got so cranky that we had to put him down for a nap. Oh, wait, that was me who got cranky. Jim was a real trouper.

So, blame me for making Jim miss his play date with you and Sparky the Dragon.

Agree? Disagee?

Remember how I said on my last post how I just so happened to come across the Plaxico Burress gunshot story around 11:30 a.m. as I was about to turn off my laptop. Well, I still haven't turned off my laptop.

Why do I mention that? Because it affected a member of TFS Nation. Brooks Simpson, one of our longtime commenters and perhaps the first to reach FOTFS status (not to mention the only TFSer who has his own Wikipedia page) is on LI this weekend. He emailed a while back to say he'd be at the Isles game; I told him I'd go, too.

I had a story idea for a Web column that I was going to work on, and then planned to visit with Brooks in the stands with whatever down time I had. Alas, Plaxico ruined those plans. Brooks was a good sport about it... even if he couldn't wait to get the picture of me with Arbour's 1,500 win banner in the background to show 505.

Just logged in to check email and do some odds and ends when I came upon this story and this story. Oh, my goodness gracious.

After reading that his injuries are not life-threatening, I did what any sane person would do. See if I can find out whether Burress has a license for a gun. Alas, my searches went nowhere because only a few states make gun permit information public.

Which makes no sense. Our driver licenses, driver records, car registrations, plane registrations, boat registrations, etc., are all public information. But apparently if you have a permit for a gun in states such as New York, Texas, Michigan, etc. it's not public information. Someone explain that inconsistency to me, please.

Check out this Boston Globe story on athletes and guns.

Six-love will forever have a new meaning for Boris Becker, whose former fiance used a cold, electronic Dear Boris to dump him.

From Mike Penner of the Los Angeles Times:

What's worse than being dumped by your fiancee via text message?

For the record, such a breakup is considered poor form, even in the chillier climes of this digital age. Those texts, Becker said, "trampled on my soul."

I don't understand this at all, but it's kind of creepy. And very off-kilter.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Football tough guy Brian Urlacher dresses his son in pink Cinderella diapers and paints the 3-year-old's toenails blue, the child's mother charged in Will County court Tuesday.

The mother, Tyna Robertson, threatened to block Urlacher from seeing the boy if the beefy linebacker keeps it up. Urlacher's attorney, Anita Ventrelli, filed a motion trying to stop Robertson from keeping 3-year-old Kennedy away from Urlacher.

It should be noted that Robertson has made accusations and demands in the past that that has led the ex-stripper to insist (and I quote another Sun-Times piece) she's not a gold digger -- only a struggling, misunderstood woman faced with raising her infant son on her own.

Robertson, in court for a hearing on the motion, said she would allow the visitation, as long as Urlacher puts away the Bears-blue nail polish and puts their son in gender appropriate pull-up diapers.

After the hearing, Robertson claimed her son has become confused by the toenail panting and wearing pull-ups designed for little girls. "He pulls down his pants and says, 'Mommy, look how pretty they are,' " she said. Robertson also said Kennedy told her, "Big boys paint their nails," and said he refused to take a bath for two days to keep the blue polish on his nails from washing off.