This Week In Sports---Barry, Daunte and the Little Cheerleader That Could

= Mini-Barry...with hair, testicles and fairly little back acne

Barry Creams the Ball: It feels like my birthday is coming up in only 12 days. Small-time publisher Gotham Books has moved up the release of the the Barry Bonds tell all, Game of Shadows, from March 27th to March 23rd. SI has an excerpt of the book, and it is fan-tastic. The two SF Chronicle writers who covered the Balco scandal have written a compelling look at the life and lies of one Barry Lamar Bonds. Though I'm loathe to necessarily trust a book whose leading source is an ex-mistress, count me on the list of people that are pre-registering with Amazon to get this book when it hits the shelves. Here are my thoughts on the book:

1. Could someone please get me Greg Anderson's home phone number? Barry put on 15 pounds of solid muscle during one off-season, going from a svelte 210 to a solid 225. I've tried protein shakes before and all I've gotten is a bad chalky aftertaste. I think I'm ready for the cream and the clear, especially since Anderson reportedly supplies these at cost.

2. Note to celebrities: Don't leave voicemail messages. It brought down Pat O'Brien. It's helping bring down Barry. Ex-mistress Kimberly Bell apparently has tape upon tape of Barry threatening to kill her.

3. Second note to celebrities: Don't have a mistress. And if you must have a mistress, don't buy the mistress a house. Even if your agents in LA pay for the mistress' house, there is in fact a paper trail. And when you tire of her and find a new mistress to take on road trips, you still have to make payments on mistress #1's house in Scottsdale.

Daunte's Invierno: Now that Spring has sprung, and NFL's free agency has finally started, the question arises: Who wants to trade for Daunte Culpepper? The answer: seemingly no one. The guy's got shoddy knees that make him a liability. But the most likely scenario has him going to the Oakland Raiders, relieving the recently cut Kerry Collins. But isn't this a case of jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire? You're going from the Vikings sex cruise to the Oakland boos cruise? And do you really want a reunion with Randy Moss? Even Romy and Michelle would skip that one.

NFLers Go Back To School: Several NFLers went back to school recently, at least for a few days, to the executive MBA program at Stanford University. The problem is that the guys who go to these programs are similar to Donnie Edwards (UCLA) and Coy Wire (Stanford): educated and ambitious. They had a similar program at Harvard Business School a while back, and the attendees included ex-Stanford Cardinal Tank Williams. They need this program for the 78% of players who end up divorced, bankrupt or unemployed less than two years after football. Perhaps someone should tell the Ravens' Chris McAlister about this course.

Cheerleader Suffers (But Still Can't Spell) Concussion: 18 year old Kristi Yamaoka has stirred national debate recently by embarrassingly falling during one of Southern Illinois University's cheer routines, then managing to do some sort of spirit-like arm motions as the medics wheeled her off on a stretcher. Now there's debate as to whether cheerleaders should be thrown into the air at all during basketball games. Here's my take: throw out a few more free t-shirts, give out a free pizza or two, and skip the aerials. We come for the brawls and for the streakers...save your aerials for late night ESPN2 competitions.

Stay tuned tomorrow for a very special second weekend edition of Wood On Sports...