he fallout from Tuesday night's corked bat incident involving Sammy Sosa has been fast and harsh. When the Cubs player was found to have taken a corked bat into the game, he was ejected from the game; Friday the Major League Baseball Commission handed down an eight-game suspension to the home-run hitter, who in 1998 was neck-in-neck with Mark McGwire to set a new home-run record. But the more unbearable fallout is continuing with no break in sight: Sports columnists and reporters and their never-ending assessment of the situation.

"What a shame," said Denver Post Sports Editor Thad Griswald. "This guy, he's a player. He's a good player, and before this there was no doubt he was a Hall of Famer. Now, even if he goes into the Hall of Fame, there's going to be an asterisk by his name. The next time he hits a homer… nobody may say anything, but everybody's going to wonder."

Statements very much to the same effect and with equally melodramatic tones have echoed throughout the week. Sosa's intention to cheat, or his innocence of the charge, have given the fading sport's many pundits an opportunity to talk with misguided passion about something other than salary caps and free agency.

ESPN 2 late-night commentator Art Biederbeck: "The sad thing is that at this point it doesn't matter if Sammy meant to cheat or not. He will always be remembered for this as much as his race with McGwire for the record—did he or didn't he? It will always accompany the name of Sammy Sosa. He may not even make the Hall of Fame now. And if he does, mark my words, folks, there will be an asterisk there."

Mortals everywhere who had been only vaguely following the sport of baseball as national interest in the sport wanes for more clock-oriented, fast-paced sports like football and basketball, now find themselves driven away from even catching box scores out of fear they'll catch another diatribe about Sosa and his mystery bat.

"It's criminal that everyone leaps to conclusions about Sammy Sosa's entire career on the basis of one bat," complained D.C.-area WRBI sportscaster Cory Alvin. "They checked 76 of his bats, all in perfect condition, but this one is going to haunt him. Out there, someone's always going to wonder if every homerun in his career was from an illegal bat. And that's the real tragedy of all this."

As the story snowballs, with Sosa planning to appeal his 8-game suspension next week, no end is in sight to the over-dramatization of the story. Sports shows on network and basic cable, as well as 24-hour sports channels, are expected to roll out sports authorities one after the other, including broadcasters, former Hall of Famers, and current players to deliver the same basic positions over and over again, rather than conclude Major League Baseball will make a decision and allow it to stand as the official position. The best hope for relief from the continual coverage of the story is the death of a Major League player, like Reggie Jackson or something, especially from a horrible disease or even murder.

"It's a real problem with sports commentators," said baseball fan and author Max J. Hartley. "Nothing new has been said about the sport in at least 20 years, maybe more, and a lot of these guys aren't well versed on other issues, so a lot of passion gets channeled into these seeming non-issues. But what they don't realize when they go on television all hangdog or write a real melancholy column with this Sosa bat story, it's going to stick in people's craw. They may make a good observation down the road, something really original about the state of baseball's popularity or the real free agency problem, but people will always think of this in the back of their minds, this pretentious posturing about an incident that was in all likelihood an accident, or at worst an attempt by a player past his prime to cheat a few runs. It will dog them for their careers. If they ever get a shot at the Sports Broadcasters Hall of Fame, even if they get in, there will be an asterisk by their names."

ush administration officials are calling the war on Iraq and "unqualified success" today after the announcement that US forces have found scores of embarrassing home videos shot by Saddam Hussein's son Uday, amidst the rubble of a once-fabulous liberated palace.

"We've said all along that the Husseins were in possession of these videotapes," stated press secretary Ari Fleischer, who's supposed to be retiring but won't go away. "There have been doubters and detractors who questioned our presence in Iraq, but on this day vindication is ours."

After a confused silence and brief mumbling from among the assembled press corps, a closeted reporter for another news organization asked the question this reporter would have asked eventually.

"So does this mean you're discontinuing the search for weapons of mass destruction?"

"Weapons of ma- Son, you've been watching too many comic book movies. We've set up a nice little playroom for liberals out there in the hall, with a ball pit and everything, so why don't you just take your little fantasies out there and let the grown-ups talk. Our actions in Iraq have always been about finding these videotapes and proving to the world that the Husseins are real class-A jerks. Now, I can understand how there might have been some confusion, as WMD is Iraqi for VCR," said Fleischer, pausing to see if anyone bought that.

The tapes in question offer a meticulously detailed look into the life of a dictator's son, documenting nearly everything Uday did between purchasing the camera and skipping town for an undisclosed location with his arms full of gold bars and porno magazines as the US forces advanced on Baghdad. While it is questionable if acquiring the tapes justified the deaths of thousands, few can argue the supremely embarrassing nature of the tapes themselves, a prime example of what happens when you give an absolute moron absolute power.

Several of the tapes cover Hussein's last few birthday parties, which were all tainted by bloodshed and Uday shooting down piñatas and piñata-hanging servants with an assault rifle. The most tender moments from these celebrations show Uday strapping his servants into giant human-hamster wheels and rolling them off a cliff, in homage to the 1982 Richard Pryor hit The Toy.

Too many tapes document Uday's triumphant recovery from one of Saddam's yearly attempts on his life, which left him paralyzed in one leg and forced to pee sitting down. And don't you know we feel that pain, sister. Most find the endless hours of physical therapy sessions backed by the Gloria Gaylor tune "I Will Survive" painful and debilitating to watch, but Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times argued that they were "inspiring and raw. One of the ten best home videos of the year." Which is more proof than we really needed that a couple years ago somebody replaced Roger Ebert with Rex Reed in a really-fat suit.

Other videotapes from the collection are not so highly-acclaimed, including the hilarious "I'm Too Sexy" tape, which has been making the rounds on the Internet this week. The infamous tape features Uday Hussein miming the 1991 Right Said Fred hit while stripping seductively in front of the camera, revealing more body hair than a water bison and what Larry King has called his "24-pack abs." Girl, you mean but you the truth!

Most of the publicity has been focused on the tapes of Uday's infamous palace sex orgies, which turned out to be more disappointing than the sequel to The Wizard of Oz. If you call Uday swapping spit with a couple of drunken and entirely homely Iraqi girls hot, let me tell you you've been watching too much CNN, sugar.

Most disturbing of all the discoveries were Uday's collection of pre-recorded videocassettes, which included a terrifying selection of really lame American films. Among the horrors revealed were Green Card, Bounce, Only the Lonely and the complete Sandra Bullock catalog. Let's just hope man-child here had access to a local Blockbuster or some kind of Iraqi Netflix or something, because damn!

Hussein had been known to torture Iraqi athletes who performed poorly in the Olympics, which is the only possible explanation for his ownership of three copies of the golden retriever sports flick Air Bud. Beyond the fact that he was working on boning up his resume of mad despot quirks, of course.

Apparently the Husseins didn't have time to pack up or destroy the incriminating tapes before fleeing the country, choosing unwisely to focus instead on plundering Iraq's gold and riches. Boys, all that loot may buy you happiness, but you can never buy back your dignity honey. Believe me I've tried.

Things better change quick around the Coleman house or there's going to be a homicide or two. I'm throwing down the gauntlet by this weekend, someone and all their friends and family have to get out or I'm calling the cops. Not me, of course, I'm not getting out, I pay rent at the place. Every few months at least.

You might be able to guess from that my dad is back from Mexico. He didn't like the natives, he was worried about the crime, and couldn't drink the water. I told him, "Dad, you were in New Mexico. If you couldn't make it there how did you expect to last out in the real one?" But he just turned up his Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock and pretended he couldn't hear me.

Like mom, who's been staying with me even longer, I can tolerate dad. He's family. But he had to bring that dildo Freddie Mercury with him, and both of them are friends now with some bounty hunter named Icepick. The guy was all set to bust both of them and turn them over for the reward when dad and Freddie Mercury made him a member of the gang. Most people you couldn't pay to make a gangmember with my dad and that clod, but Icepick was more than willing to give up $60 for it. Someone even lower on the totem pole than Freddie Mercury is now an accomplice, that's good news.

What really pisses me off is they can't even give me the courtesy of asking or anything. They just show up and say they need a place to hide and move right in. I don't have an ammo room, dad, I can't store all your shit. You dicks are going to have to sleep on the floor.

No mention of when they're going to leave or anything. And don't bring it up to him, he gets all indignant and everything. The way he sees it, he put me up for 12 years, it's time for me to pay back the favor. It better not come to 12 years 'cause I'm not going to last that long. The idea of me even being 37 is severely unsettling.

At least there's always food around. Mom gets lazy when dad's in jail or out of the country or what, but as soon as he steps back into the place the oven goes on and the dishes come rolling out like it's the kitchen at KFC. I haven't eaten this well since rehab, but nothing can make it worth sharing a place with these morons. If I come home and find the rodeo on TV again when I was geared up to watch Gilmore Girls I'm going to show those guys a 101st way to kill a man.

Don't get me wrong: I love my dad, to the full extent the law requires. I don't want him to go to jail or anything, that even works against my intention of getting mom the hell out of my place. But this group package bullshit has got to stop. Freddie Mercury is always talking about knocking down a wall and annexing a neighbor's apartment, and if he does it I'll probably get kicked out. And Icepick has rigged my fridge with a detonation device so I can't even get any booze to make me forget they're here. All this will have to change soon or I'm going to do something I'll moderately regret.

I'm desperate enough at this point to ask my sister to take them in, but once I mentioned the problem once on the phone she changed her number. I might go down to her office at the law firm tomorrow and plead with her to take them off my hands, but I wouldn't be surprised if the whole law firm uprooted and changed addresses. She takes family emergencies pretty seriously, or avoiding them.

What does all this mean? It means I'm stuck with an apartment full of family and A-Team rejects until I find the tactful, forceful, "let's-not-do-anything-crazy-here-like-set-that-napalm-off" way out.

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