Ken Jackson
Sports

WriterI wrote this on Wednesday, alternating between my keyboard and my pen, as I filled out my NCAA bracket in stop-and-start fits.

Now, on March Madness Day 3, its chances of being the guilded paper of a bracket pool that I may or may not participate in are likely as bright as the Pittsburgh Pirates’ World Series hopes.

What do I know? What do the “Bracketologists” know? Who knows what a bunch of kids too young to drink the alcohol it takes to get all the way through this tourney are going to do in a one-game, win-or-feel-shame-from-the-Booster-Club spot when suddenly everyone is watching?

And, who knows who these teams are, anyway?

Remember that really good team of young guys at Kentucky last year? Yeah, they’re in the NBA now — all of them.

The teams and schools are just names on a sheet these days, unless you watched college basketball non-stop this season — when you should have been watching football.

The teams are faceless because the players aren’t on campus long enough to wear a groove into their meal plan card.

A few years ago the NBA put in a rule that American players must be 19 years old and one year past their high school graduation to be eligible for the draft. This was after a handful of kids made the jump from high school to the pros, and apparently the NBA product became unwatchable — because that move really didn’t work out for Kobe, Garnett or LeBron, did it?

Hey kid, you wanna be a pro jock? Well, fine — we’ll make you go to college!

Parents know exactly what you get when you make your kid do something — they flee from it. Because he couldn’t stay out of his own way, NBA boss David Stern helped coin the term “One And Done.”

Kentucky saw five underclassmen — four of them freshmen — sell their textbooks and go in the draft last summer.   John Wall, the Wildcats’ All-Everything for his one year, allegedly didn’t attend a single class after establishing his academic eligibility in the fall.

March Madness is good, but imagine how great it could be if we had players and teams we spent months looking forward to seeing.

For that, we’d have to get rid of the One And Dones. Only way to do that is to rip a page from the baseball book, where high-school kids make up half of the draft-day pool.

If they don’t sign out of high school and play in college, players usually aren’t eligible for the draft until after their junior season. So, the mass exodus happens after their junior years, but imagine the identity basketball players would have by their third turn in the tournament?

If a kid thinks he can hack the NBA right out of high school, let him make a big-boy decision and go after the money. If he goes to college, make him stay at least two years.

Imagine seeing Kentucky playing West Virginia in the second round today and having some idea of what you’re about to see. And having a better notion of who to put on that next line of the bracket besides, “Oh, what the heck ...”

Whatever. Even if we’re all wrong, even if that Kentucky-West Virginia game is really Clemson-Princeton (it’s not), it’ll hold our attention. For two weeks it’ll start on a Thursday and end on Sunday night ... sounds a little like football season, huh?

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Stunning weather and the Philadelphia Phillies in town meant Monday’s Astros game was standing room only at Osceola County Stadium. A concession worker I know was hustling down the concourse midway through the game.

“We’re running low on soda and beer,” she gasped.

Above average beer sales at a Philly game? Are you shocked, too?

And while the Phils are a winner these days, deez guyz have been coming out to the games like clockwork for years. It showed on the backs of their shirts, representing enough former Phillies to field a whole team.

There were the usual Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton shirts and even a throwback Pete Rose, and the more recent Pat Burrell, Jayson Werth, J.A. Happ and Brett Myers (the last two apropo because they’re current Astros).

But, it took an eagle Philly eye to pick out Bake McBride and Milt Thompson.

And, in a far minority after the Astros faithful, shown love on hats and shirts were the Yankees, Cubs, Reds, Indians, Mets, Brewers, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Nationals and Rays.

But, oddly enough, no Kentucky Wildcats gear.