I won’t. I can’t.

Truth is, I’m jealous of you Heat fans.

When Allan Houston hit that runner, I ran through a crowded gym, screaming at anyone who would listen. There were no words leaving my mouth. Just noises. When Clarence Weatherspoon missed that shot (I know, touchy subject), I jumped off the couch and almost lost my hand to a ceiling fan. But, that’s always where the joy would end and the misery would begin. The Knicks never had a realistic chance of beating a Michael Jordan-led Bulls team, and by the time he finally decided to hang ‘em up (the second time), they were a shell of their former selves.

It was exactly one decade ago that the Knicks lost to the Spurs, with a broken-down Ewing on the bench and Marcus Camby doing his half-assed impersonation of a big man. It was exactly one decade ago that the Knicks were in the Finals. It was exactly one decade ago that the Knicks were relevant.

Don Chaney, Isiah Thomas, Steve Francis, Stephon Marbury, Eddie Curry… you know the story.

In stark contrast, over that same stretch of time, the Heat have seen Caron Butler, Lamar Odom, Antoine Walker, Gary Payton and a guy named Shaq all come through town and actually make an impact. They’ve drafted Dwayne Wade and Michael Beasley. (Someone, please tell the Knicks front office about drafting from the United States. Oh, Ronaldo Balkman. Right… Ugh.)

They Heat have won a freakin’ championship.

Right now, the Knicks are clearing cap space so they can potentially be a contender in the 2010 free agent class. This is, apparently, what Knicks fans are supposed to look forward to; not the playoffs, but free agency. (I don’t know about you, but I’m stoked! Shoot me.) They aren’t even assured of making the biggest splash. Can you imagine the epic failure 2010 will be if New York winds up with just Chris Bosh? And if LeBron does happen to wind up in MSG, then what? A star in a big city doesn’t automatically guarantee a championship. Ask Kobe.

Meanwhile, the Heat are already in possession of one of those 2010, big-name free agents and their biggest concern this season, is what they would like to get for Shawn Marion. You know, Shawn Marion, the guy who’s been on the All Star team four times. Oh, and the Olympics.

Wrap your mind around that for a second. Knicks fans are laboring through the ’08-’09 season with a roster chock full of Malik Roses, while Heat fans are calling radio stations to complain about the possibility of acquiring Amar’e Stoudemire. Oh, how it must suck to have the chance at a badass, 26-year-old, three-time NBA All-Star, without even losing your best player. (Though, I totally understand not wanting to give up Beasley, but, you see where I’m going with this.)

It’s miserable for us. We’re jealous.

So, the next time you hear an obnoxious, loud-mouthed New Yorker call Sedano to trash the Heat, just remind him that his best player is a 6’9″ white guy with an uninspiring, generic name…

…and that 2010 is just around the corner.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go weep, quietly, in the hallway.

Adam Smoot is a graphic artist/writer with way too much time on his hands. He’s a loyal fan of the Marlins, Falcons, Knicks and Blackhawks, but has no idea where he picked up such random allegiances. You can read his drunken ramblings about about food, sports and life at Apartment718.

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Something something something something. Something something something.

[10:53AM] Oh sweet! Office pool!

[11:17AM] $10? That’s not so bad. If we can snag any of the #1 or #2 seeds, we should be in good shape.

[11:32AM] St. Mary’s? Are you fucking kidding me?

So what are the chances anyone in the office wants to start an NIT bracket? Anyone?

We’re gonna say something ridiculous. Bear with us…

Hoch might be right.

Imagine, if you will, 10 years from now. With the ridiculousness of the steroid controversies, teams that don’t belong in the league (We’re lookin’ at you, Tampa), and general boredom that tends to follow Major League Baseball around, people have stopped caring. Owners, now desperate to find new means of revenue turn to the unthinkable. It’s 2018. Ticket prices have maxed out, all the stadiums are named after hotel chains, and 7-11 owns the rights to 23 teams’ start times. So what’s the next logical step?

After the jump, we show you the future of advertising in baseball.

At first it starts small. Once upon a time, Mother’s Day produced pink bats. Major League Baseball decides to take that a step further and alter its bats again. This time to make a buck. Besides, what harm could an advertisement on a bat do to baseball in the grand scheme of things?

Exhibit A:

Sure, it’s a little much, but players get used to it. They don’t think much of it after a while. Swinging a giant Sharpie? Perfectly normal. But then MLB takes it a step further. Surely, if the players don’t mind the bats changing, they won’t mind a little change in the ball.

Exhibit B:

M&M’s sponsorship brings in hundreds of millions of dollars, but there are some snags in the beginning. The ball is hard on the eyes of the fielders. Batters are having trouble picking up the pitch as it blends with the grass. David Ortiz attempts to eat a foul ball. Eventually, though, the players adjust and it becomes just another part of the game. A game that’s slowly being consumed by corporate America.

Now that stadium names, bats and balls are tainted, owners start selling team names. The Detroit Tony the Tigers. The Chicago Hanes Sox. And worst of all…

Exhibit C:

And it doesn’t stop there. Now that teams are named after products and corporations, the movie industry attempts to cash in. With the latest installment of the Superman movie coming out around the same time as Opening Day, the Red Sox are the first team to umm… well… see for yourself.

Exhibit D:

Baseball is now dead. There is nothing left for teams to do to turn a profit. Or is there…

Exhibit E:

…And NOW baseball is dead.

For some reason, we tried writing tonight, but it wasn’t working. We were trying a joke about Arison’s name. Then an attempt to figure out 5 things we’d buy if we had Micky’s money. None of it was funny enough to click the publish button. So instead, we just searched for a really funny video to post and amuse you all. Please enjoy our hard work lazy attempt at blogging.

After the jump, Coolio shows you how to make a fork steak.

It’s time for another edition of everyone’s favorite game… Wikipedia Monday! Today, we clicked and clicked and clicked for about 10 minutes before anything sports related even popped up. But when we finally got one, well, we got a good one. Ok, maybe not that good. But better than the last one…

Today’s post: Tamara James of the WNBA. What you don’t know about her, after the jump.

At some point in the last 48 hours, you were probably wondering who Tamara James was. Ok, so you weren’t. But if you were, and you were ambitious enough to look up her Wikipedia entry, you’d know that she’s a WNBA baller. You’d know that she plays for the Mystics and was the 8th pick in the 2006 draft. And you’d also know that she is currently dating Devin Hester.

Wait. What?

Yep. She’s engaged to the fastest pixelated man in video game history. According to Wikipedia, Hester proposed to her in 2005 at a Miami Heat basketball game. Not just any basketball game, though. Nope. Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. A game the Heat wound up losing to the Detroit Pistons.

So what has Wikipedia taught us tonight? It’s taught us that Tamara James is a fuckin jinx (reason to hate her, Heat fans), and that a perfect 100 speed rating in Madden will only land you some WNBA ass.

For the record, Tom Brady’s speed rating is a morbidly slow 61, and he’s bumping uglies with a super model. We’d love to know what our speed rating of 7 would get us…

Tamara James [Wikipedia]

Normally, wrestlers become friends of the Dan LeBatard show. But as we learned today, not all of them are popping up on his Myspace buddy list. So we took it upon ourselves to seek out other wrestlers who might have a problem with Le Meatball. You know. To save Mike Ryan the trouble of making that embarrassing phone call where he gets hung up on right after being called something none-to-pleasant. Anatomy of a Meatball reveals it’s findings, after the jump. We think you’ll be surprised by two of the other wrestlers we found that hate Dan.

Or maybe not.

Rikishi
It’s common knowledge amongst show listeners that “Talk to my ass” comes from a bad Steven Segal lyric. That information was not known by former WWF wrestler Rikishi, though, who assumed Dan stole it from his signature move — The Stink Face. We tried to explain the misunderstanding to him, but he didn’t seem to be hearing it. And well, we kinda didn’t want this to happen to us:

Brutus the Barber Beefcake
Having never even heard of the show, it seems weird that Brutus would have such a problem with Dan and Stu. After some poking and prodding on our parts, it turns out he and Hulk Hogan are still pretty close. Beefcake seemed to take particular offense to a certain clip from the show that Hogan has playing on a loop, every 45 minutes, over the speaker system in throughout his house. Now we’re not saying that Brutus the Barber Beefcake ever accepted gay sex for match results, but well…

You be the judge.

It’s no secret that Anatomy of a Meatball loves the Photoshop. So, we decided to honor 2 stellar interviews today with some wholesome Photoshop goodness. Check out the other one, after the jump.

So, Cade… uhhh, Luke? No wait, Josh… Dammit. You try and figure out which one of the 3 in the picture is the Dolphins new quarterback.