The NBA is hereby banned

Well, OK. So it's banned from this post on this Blob.

This is because it's the day before the Fourth of July, and sports-blab radio is still talking about the NBA to the virtual exclusion of all else. This is because sports-blab radio is BS. It's also because the NBA is a property of the No. 1 sports-blab outlet, ESPN, whose sports blabbers are apparently  contractually obligated to talk about the NBA 95 percent of the time.

No truth to the rumor that you can win valuable cash prizes if you're lucky enough to tune in at the precise nanosecond to hear this:

 "Hey, look it's baseball!"

"Wimbledon ... Roger Federer ... Serena ..."

"Tiger!"

"That soccer tournament!"

And then: "But back to that one basketball player, and that other basketball player."

If you tune in to hear the last, darn, you juuust missed out.

Better you should visit the Blob, which today is a defiantly NBA-Free Zone. We will discuss more important questions, like the proper way to garnish a Fourth of July hotdog (mustard, definitely; onions, OK; chili, sure; melted cheese. acceptable; and I don't care what you say, if you want to add some ketchup, the Blob will not cast you into outer darkness). We will launch our latest contest, When Will Triple Crown Winner Justify Start Making Babies. We will talk about how the one thing the Blob didn't get to cover in 38 years as a sportswriter, but always wanted to, was Wimbledon.

World Cup?

Sure, since outside the ESPN bubble, it's the biggest sporting event going right now. Yesterday indicated Brazil might not be a total fraud.  And how about Belgium? No one in World Cup soccer ever erases a 2-nil deficit in 20 minutes, but the Belgians did it against Japan. Which of course provoked the exact same reaction in both Brussels and Tokyo.

In Brussels: "What the hell!"

In Tokyo: "What the hell?"

What else?

Oh, yeah, baseball is still a bunch of guys swinging and missing and a bunch of guys hitting home runs. Other than that, it's become even more a lot of standing around than usual, which is not going to capture the imagination of the Instagram generation.

Other than that, today is given over to the hotdog debate, and whether or not your neighbor who insists on artillery-barrage-at-midnight fireworks should get 25 to life, and why they still can't call the traditional Fourth of July NASCAR race the Firecracker 400 instead of the numbingly corporate Coke Zero Sugar 400, which is what they're actually calling it now if you can believe that.

That is all. Now back to the NBA.

Sorry. That was cruel.