gary smith wrote probably the best account of the summer of 1998, when he went to watch all three of the home run record chasers play in one weekend. if i'm not mistaken, he saw all three go yard. as a bonus, he saw dark horse candidate greg vaughn (remember him?) do the same.

in this week's sports illustrated, gary smith has written an account of last weekend's congressional steroids hearings that probably best exemplifies my feelings after seeing what small part i watched: numbness, mostly numbness. how does a baseball fan react to mcgwire's...shirking? his shrinking?

for smith, he spoke to people who might have an opinion worth hearing. the fans who gave back baseball number 60 and 61. hank aaron's son. (hank wouldn't talk about it.) the father of a budding 13-year-old power-hitting phenom. that 13-year-old power-hitting phenom. todd mcfarlane, the comic book guy who purchased all of mac's crucial home run balls. wally eckstein, father of david eckstein, baseball's resident twerp.

and the reactions, taken as a whole, were of absolute confusion. the phenom's dad...well, i'd still celebrate number 756, because it's still a damn hard thing to do. eckstein's dad: if he came into our house on steroids, we'd know, and we'd never want to see him again. a law professor who teaches a class called, roughly, baseball and the meaning of life: we should forever call all of barry's home runs asterisks. a guy who was the middle man on these sales: well, it doesn't diminish the positive benefits of that summer (i.e. familial bonding and the 'recovery from monicagate' and the like).

but i think the general feeling is sadness, and gary smith did a fairly good job.

wilco's "she's a jar" has that beautiful and subtle lyrical shift. in the opening stanza, the lyric goes "with feelings hid / she begs me not to miss her." the song's closing lyric: "with feelings hid / she begs me not to hit her."

gary smith does the same thing in this week's story.

in the opening paragraph, he echoes his open from 1998: I was there, that June at Wrigley, when the fever caught Sammy. See, that's me and the three kids in the bleachers that weekend he rocked five out of the cathedral and the great home run chase was on.

in the close: I was there, that June at Wrigley, when the great fraud began. See, that's me and the three other dupes in the bleachers that weekend when . . .

now, in general, i and most baseball fans (i believe) feel betrayed as this stuff comes out. however, i don't believe that i was stupid, or ignoring something, or anything like that. to me, it was (and is) absolutely unfathomable that, were steroids to be pervasive, baseball would do nothing about it. but apparently, that's what happened. sigh.

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i'm not trying to hex anything, although i've sort of tried since uwm and utah won on saturday, but i'm now officially confident in my bigflax.com pool possibilities. i officially love salim stoudamire, who looks like the guy (and may be the guy) that doesn't care if the potential game-winner falls in or out, and so he's never *really* the guy who you want to take the big shot. but today, he hits it, and my espn magazine-fueled salim love proves to help me out. (damn, i'm perfect in the 'chicago' region. is that worth flax bonus points?)

so, the way i see it, if utah wins tomorrow but not sunday (or even if they lose tomorrow), and if north carolina wins tomorrow, i'm probably victorious in the pool. (well, probably not. an illinois-over-carolina guy has louisville in the final four. me, i'm out of points except for illinois' hopeful two wins, carolina's win tomorrow, and utah's win tomorrow. after that, point potential=gone.) however, i'm sure flax will have the full update in the next three minutes. (still not there.)

billy idol is performing a new song live on leno, complete with steve stevens on guitar. this is embarrassing. "climb up my lemon tree," he says.