[sportscurmudgeon]

No, I did not hear about this fiasco in Italy. Newspapers there in English do not have much US sports coverage - mostly British cricket/soccer/horseracing - and CNN World News' sports coverage is sparse indeed. I picked up on this when I got home on Sunday night.

As an observation, the NFL is not very big in Italy/Sicily. I saw a lot more people wearing NBA and MLB gear than NFL stuff. I found only one store that offered NFL merchandise for sale and the only Redskins' thing in the store wasn't for sale; it was a #44 jersey with Riggins on it hanging on the wall as a display.

THE BIGGEST US "sport" in terms of merchandising in Italy is the World Wrestling Entertainment company. Those shirts/hats/whatevers outmunber all the other US sports merchandise put together by about three-to-one. I have not really followed pro 'rasslin since Bruno Sammartinw was the champ in the 60s and 70s (yes I know about Hulk Hogan but I never followed any of the matches/story lines when he was champion), but now there seems to be some guy named John Cena and he is clearly the most popular rassler among Italians. The other two big stars seemed to be The Undertaker and Sone Cold Steve Austin. I actually remembet The Undertaker, but I would not know Steve Austin or John Cena from Abbot and Costello.

I don't need to vent here, but might I ask - ever so humbly - for just a smidgen of affirmation here. Sean Taylor is a physical specimen who has the physical attributes to become a great football player some day - - - AND he is a world class MEATHEAD. I think I've been saying that for a while here and I think that events are beginning to tilt to my side of that assessment...