It took the Rangers 3 years but they finally dealt with problem child Juan Dominguez. Check that. They didn’t deal with him at all. They simply dealt him. They dealt him to Oakland.

On Thursday GM Jon Daniels said about the enigmatic Dominguez, ‘…we’ll send a message when it is time…” Apparently the time was Friday.

Dominguez is one of those players who will drive you absolutely crazy. There’s no question that there is talent there. There’s also no questioning the high level of immaturity and “I don’t give a damn attitude” that Dominguez has displayed.

For 3+ years now the Rangers have privately drooled over the expected arrival of this talented pitcher. His body arrived. His brain never did. Overweight, chronically late for meetings, unfocused in games, AWOL when sent to the Minor Leagues. And yet, Texas still privately longed for Dominguez to grow up and take his rightful place in the Major Leagues.

The Rangers were patient but in this case that patience was misplaced. But Texas is not through with Juan Dominguez. For at least the next couple of years, they will hold their breath every time Dominguez pitches somewhere. They will be afraid that at any moment the light bulb will come on in his refrigerator.

Baseball has finally decided to investigate…They’ve finally figured out that some of their players may have been juiced.

Was Bud Selig brain dead two years ago when the boxes were carted out of BALCO two years ago? Was he not watching as his own players were called in front of a grand jury to testify about their names being mentioned in the records that the federal agents pulled out BALCO, was Bud Selig on vacation? Did he not see the report that more than 5% of his players failed when they had to submit to testing for steroids?

Well, now a book has been written and Bud (and baseball) have NOW decided that it is time to investigate. NOW?!

I don’t want to hear anything about baseball saying, “…Oh, well now we have enough reason to investigate…”

You’ve had the information for years and years.

If your own eyes weren’t good enough to realize that the sheer physical size of your players was increasing in leaps and bounds. If your own analytical ability wasn’t good enough for you to look at the numbers and realize that balls were flying out of the park at a record pace. If you didn’t have the logic to realize something must have been going on when your players were hiring their own trainers and working out on their own. If the admission of steroid use and subsequent death of one of your former MVP’s, Ken Caminitti wasn’t an eye opener. If you didn’t have time to read Jose Canseco’s book or watch any of his interviews. If you wanted to ignore all of the clues, the BALCO investigation should have been more than sufficient for you to launch an investigation. What took so long?

This is embarrassing.

If wondered about the credibility of what the Federal Agents found at BALCO, you just have to look at the track and field stars that were named in the BALCO investigation. Many of them have just given in and ‘fessed up. If you doubted the credibility at first, the admissions of guilt from these track and field stars should have told you something.

Baseball is guilty of something worse than denial in this story. They are guilty of gross negligence. For years and years they chose to look the other way. They cashed in on all the homeruns. They celebrated them. While all along looking the other way. Baseball was blinded by greed.

Thank you to Juan Domingez who, by his tepid performance yesterday gave even more credence to our thoughts about him in yesterday’s show…

The Rangers will probably open the season with a 12 man pitching staff…Hey, they don’t have 12 Major League pitchers….

The Mavs loss in Detroit was incredibly encouraging…The Pistons had every motivation entering last night’s game, they’d lost their last home game after winning 16 in a row at the Palace, they had revenge for a 37 point beating Dallas gave them earlier this season, they were by far the healthier of the two teams yet they had to make 9 of 12 three point shots just to survive. Write it down: Detroit will not make 3/4s of it’s 3 point shots in a game for the rest of the Bush Presidency.

Jerry Jones says he agonized over cutting Larry Allen. That Allen was his best offensive lineman last year. Which is sort of like saying Osama’s now living in the most comfortable cave in Afghanistan. But Jerry says he simply couldn’t keep paying Allen that amount of money. That it will hurt to see Allen in a San Francisco uniform. Yet, he never sat down with him and discussed renegotiating his contract to a much lower figure?

What am I missing here?

He won’t get it, but Stars General Manager Doug Armstrong deserves to be a very strong contender for NHL Executive of the Year.

Even before the draft arrives, the Cowboys appear to be an improved football team. But do not confuse “improved” with “Super Bowl Winner”.

While the Cowboys have added a home run hitter in Terrell Owens and a professional place kicker in Mike Vanderjagt, one gnawing weakness lurks in the shadows—the offensive line.

Analysts of football can debate the necessary quality at various positions to be a Super Bowl winner. You don’t have to be terrific at every position. For example, the Redskins won the Super Bowl with Timmy Smith as their running back. The Ravens won it with Trent Dilfer as their QB. The Cowboys won it with Isaac Holt and Larry Brown starting at CB.

But there is one area in which a Super Bowl winner must be strong at—offensive line. Last year Seattle and Pittsburgh may have had the two best offensive lines in the NFL. Pittsburgh had one of the best OG’s in the league with Fanaca. Seattle had the other in Hutchinson. The Seahawks had the best Left Tackle in the league in Walter Jones. When Indianapolis shockingly failed to advance the fingers were pointed directly at the offensive line.

New England has remained a top level contender by continually drafting and developing an excellent offensive line. The Cowboys early 90 dynasty had mega-stars like Aikman, Irvin and Smith…But check out their offensive line. Stepnoski, Newton, Williams, Allen were all amongst the best in the game at their positions.

The Cowboys slide coincides with the slide of their offensive line.

That’s the worry about the present Cowboy team. Left Tackle Flozell Adams returns from a serious knee injury and had become an erratic performer before the knee injury. Kyle Kozier replaces Larry Allen, but Kozier’s never spent a season as a full time regular at that position in his career. The Cowboys re-signed Geroude to compete for the starting job at Center. Right Guard Rivera missed games to injury for the first time this century and had what everyone agreed was a mediocre season when he was well..

The Cowboys signed Jets right tackle Jason Fabini to fill the desperate hole that existed all last year at right tackle. They got Fabini at a very reasonable price indicating that the veteran had few pursuers.

Behind this six pack of linemen the Cowboys have virtually nothing to count on. Adams, Rivera and Fabini are all in their 30’s and all coming off years where they had injuries. And there will be no more significant free agent money spent on this line.

The only conceivable remaining addition would be a tackle in the first few rounds of the draft. But everyone knows the growing pains rookies go through. Does this collection of talent sound like one of the better offensive line’s in the league to you?

Detractors might even be able to make a case for the fact that all 3 NFC East competitors have better offensive lines.

It’s that time of year again…My favorite time of year…The NFL Draft is a little more than a month away…Yesterday, the University of Texas (and Vince Young) had their “pro day”. It was a day for pro scouts to watch all of the Longhorn prospects (including Vince Young) workout.

Obviously, Vince Young wasn’t the only NFL prospect working out. But, all eyes were on Vince. And, depending on who you believe, he either had a great workout or an unimpressive workout.

I’ve got a question: What the hell is Vince Young going to do to change anyone’s mind at a workout like this?

If team’s aren’t sure about VY yet, I sure hope that they are not depending on these types of workouts to help them with the decision.

The truth of the matter is that these workouts are really for the “lesser’ players that are destined to be chosen after the first 90 minutes of the draft. This workout was really for the other dozen or so Seniors coming out of UT.

Vince Young may have brought out the scouts and the media. But Micheal Huff, Jonathan Scott, Cedric Griffin, Ahmard Hall and the other UT Seniors working out had a great chance to impress the scouts and move up in the draft.

Let’s face it, NFL teams at the top of the draft have already made their decision on Vince. For the scouts and NFL personnel men, yesterday’s workout was all about finding reasons to justify their current position on Young.

If a scout went into yesterday’s workout thinking that VY was not worthy of a top pick, he probably saw a negative workout yesterday. If a scout was high on VY before yesterday’s workout, he’s probably more positive about him today.

T.O. has arrived. And so have all the people making excuses for him now that he’s become a Cowboy.

There is NO question of his ability. He’s one of the premier talents in the entire league. There’s also no question that the Cowboys have taken a big chance here. When the Eagles signed Owens there question was “…what do we have to lose?” They’d not quite gotten over the hump with the very fine team that they had. Owens, the reasoning went, could get them there. But even if he didn’t, “…what did they have to lose?”

Looking back at the wreckage in the Philly locker room now tells us what they had to lose. T.O. will play hard and will produce this season. Afterall, Dallas gave him $10 million this year. That’s so far more than anyone else was offering that it is ridiculous. But the Cowboys are subscribing to the idea that if you give Owens enough money you can keep him positive and undestructive for at least a year. That WILL almost certainly be true.

But I’d have been a lot more on board with this signing had I seen even the slightest inkling in that Press Conference that Owens had really changed. That he’d learned anything from past situations in San Francisco and Philly. But there he sat telling us, “…I’ve always been a good teammate…”

Do you think that the Frisco and Philly locker rooms agree? He expressed no remorse for what had happened. And, in fact, didn’t even want to address the nuclear bomb he dropped on the Eagles. All he did tell us is some vague reference to there being two sides to every story.

If just there’d been one or two heart felt, “…I’m sorry’s…” If just he’d acknowledged the central part he’d played in previous melt downs. But, being T.O. means never having to say your sorry. Especially when someone’s waiting to hand you $10 million.