Some valentines

 Today is Valentine's Day, so get out there, men, and do your manly duty. Buy the flowers. Buy the candy. Suck it up, venture into Victoria's Secret and browse through the negligees like you're not at all skeered that people will point and laugh at you.

That's what a man does, on Valentine's Day.

What the Blob does is break its rule (first advanced by the great Dan Jenkins in one of his novels) that a journalist should never write anything that rhymes.

Well. Today I'm gonna write stuff that rhymes. I'm gonna write some poems (or "poimes", in my case) because poimes are a traditional Valentine's Day thing, too.

Let's start with a poime from fans of the Dallas Mavericks to their ownership, whom the fans have been abusing since ownership decided it would be a good idea to trade away the face of their franchise (Luka Doncic) in his prime. This was not a good idea, as it turns out. It was, in fact, an unfathomably bad idea, and the fans have been loudly reminding them of that at every Mavs home game.

Today, I figure they can remind them in verse:

Roses are red

But you clowns traded Luka

And so we just say

You guys make us all puke-a

* Moving right along, pitchers and catchers reported this week, which means baseball is starting again, which means the first stirrings of spring are in the air and the gladdened hearts of baseball fans everywhere. Well, OK, so not everywhere, maybe ...

Baseball is back!

Hope springs fresh from the box

Oh, wait, not so fast there

You Chicago White Sox

* The New York Jets have officially told Aaron Rodgers to hit the bricks, and the bidding will now begin for a washed 41-year-old quarterback who, in his one full season in New York, ranked 25th in the league in QBR. That was one spot above Daniel Jones, four spots below Geno Smith and five below Bryce Young, if you're keeping score at home.

At any rate ... let the romancing begin:

Hey, Raiders, what's shakin'?

Saints and Browns, how you farin'?

Whoever's most desperate

That's the market for Aaron

* The Great American Race That Includes Cars Made In Japan takes the green Sunday in Daytona, and you know what that means: Half-a-dozen crashes in the last 10 laps, a red flag, a couple of green-white-checkers or some combination of the three.

It's what always seems to happen in the Daytona 500, which means predicting the winner is virtually impossible. Usually it's the guy who just happens to be in front when the last crash happens; last year that was William Byron, who took the white flag a millisecond before the Big One and therefore won this annual spin of the roulette wheel.

So who wins this year? 

Here's a poime about it:

Won't be a Cale

Won't be a Dale

Could be Cole, Chase or Dan-o

Or some rando from Plano

And last but not least ...

* On this date in 1929, Al Capone's hired guns greased seven members of rival Bugsy Moran's gang in a garage in Chicago. It was called the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, and  everyone knew Capone was behind it. But he was in Florida at the time, and therefore had plausible denial, sort of. 

Even wrote a poime to that effect, some say:

Don't know nothin' 'bout nothin'

But I heard cops turned green-y

So much bloodshed! I'm sickened!

Waiter ... one more martini