Pondering life's big questions

I wonder . . .

. . . if Chuck Bednarik tweets?

. . . how many college athletic programs would be sanction-free if the NCAA had sufficient investigative clout?

. . . what percentage of Phillies fans will stay on the bandwagon when the franchise experiences an inevitable dip?

. . . if the Phillies don't re-sign Jimmy Rollins, they'd have any interest in Jose Reyes?

. . . when the next great American golfer will appear?

. . . why I keep thinking Dirk Nowitzki played a villain in some old James Bond movie?

. . . if now that it's lost another NHL team to a tiny Canadian city we can officially declare Atlanta to be the worst sports city in North America?

. . . how slick Merion is going to have to make its greens in order to prevent the 2013 U.S. Open winner from shooting 20 under par?

. . . why, after a near three-decade absence, Marty Bystrom has resurfaced and where he's been?

. . . if Donovan McNabb and Kevin Kolb will wind up teammates again next season?

. . . if now that every sportswriter tweets and blogs, we can ever again accuse an athlete of being self-indulgent or egotistical?

. . . if DeSean Jackson and Allen Iverson are related?

. . . how long it will be before the U.S. networks televising golf begin to panic now that the PGA tour has featured such recent winners as Martin Laird, Gary Woodland, Michael Bradley, Brendan Steele, and Keegan Bradley?

. . . if people who find televised poker interesting also like NCIS?

. . . if sophisticated consumers really buy cars because some Phillie such as Cliff Lee halfheartedly and self-consciously mumbles a few words in the midst of one of those astonishingly bad dealership commercials?

. . . how long it will be before the increasingly irrelevant Big Five vanishes completely?

. . . if people who wore bulky Phillies replica jerseys in the 95-degree Memorial Day heat in Washington aren't stupid as well as childish?

. . . how old LeBron James will look at 40?

. . . if Chase Utley has more Facebook friends than real friends?

The NHL, where nobody gets rich except Barry Melrose's hair-gel supplier, announced last week that its salary cap will at last be going up.

In return, however, players will be expected to take out the trash and keep their rooms neat.

Apparently, one of the signs that pointed kooky minister Harold Camping toward his May 21 end-of-the world prediction was the fact that the Phillies and the Cleveland Indians had baseball's best records.

Washington has the Presidents Race, Milwaukee its Sausage Race. Maybe the trend will catch on in some other baseball cities as well:

New York could have a Cabbies Race in which several taxi drivers - their horns blaring, their middle fingers aloft, their meters running - jostle and cut each other off during a chaotic run around Yankee Stadium's warning track.

The Marlins could have a Fans Race, assuming they could find four.

The Phillies could have a Politicians Race, in which local pols try to outrun federal authorities.

The Dodgers could have a Divorce Lawyers Race, assuming any two could agree to the ground rules.

Pittsburgh could have a Pennant Race, though what are the odds of that ever happening?

It can now be said with authority: Regular-season baseball doesn't sell in spring-training cities.

I give you the moribund fan bases in Tampa, Miami, and Phoenix.

In Phoenix this week, 11,327 fans turned out on Memorial Day - Memorial Day! - to see the first-place Diamondbacks, who had won six in a row and 14 of 16, play a very good Marlins team.

I may have implied in the past that NASCAR drivers were stupid. Now I can say it without qualification.

Kyle Busch recently was cited by police in Troutman, N.C., for exceeding the speed limit in a 45-m.p.h. zone.

He was doing 128 m.p.h.

- Frank Fitzpatrick

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