Bob Hille's Starting Five

Sporting News, The, April 16, 2001 by Bob Hille

1 The Road to the Stanley Cup. Young men on blades are willing to do anything--take a puck in the face, throw their bodies into places they don't belong. The NHL calls it "playoff intensity"; MTV calls it Jackass.

2 Hideo Nomo. His no-hitter has the Orioles rethinking their marketing slogan: "The O's ... it's not just a nickname, it's a linescore, too!"

3 The NFL draft. Think it's part of the national psyche? I asked my teenager to clean his room; he told me to go vertical jump in a lake ... three times, and he'd record the best of the three for scouting purposes.

4 Baseball on the Internet. Major League Baseball will charge you $995 to hear a season's worth of webcasts of your team's games--unless you're an Expos fan. In that case, you can still not listen for free.

5 International diplomacy. Apologize about a spy plane? If Yao Ming gets drafted by the Bulls then we should apologize to China.