By Steve Czaban Special to OnMilwaukee.com Published Nov 15, 2006 at 5:28 AM
It seems like the sports world has been pretty strange lately.

In fact, there are some things going on that are so bizarre that if you just came out of a coma and were told the news you’d say: "Go ahead, Doc. Put me back under!"

Let me just say, I never thought I would live long enough...

... to see Wake Forest not only beat Florida State at Doak Campbell stadium, but to shut the Seminoles out!

That's just a start.

I never thought I would live long enough... to hear the lowest-rated starting quarterback in the NFL, Andrew Walter (54.6), criticize his coach’s offensive scheme in the media.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see Randy Moss be honored with a college football award in his name! What’s next? The Andy Katzenmoyer All-Academic team?

I never thought I would live long enough... to see a guy come off a 46-homer season in a notorious hitter’s graveyard, steal 41 bases for a last-place team, and then NOT get snapped up immediately during free agency. Alfonso Soriano, I have no explanation for you, buddy. Sit tight.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see a guy like Jeff Gordon get burned badly by a bad marriage to his first wife, only to jump back into the fire -- with a model! -- and do it all over again!

I never thought I would live long enough... to see NBA players complain about the following: a new synthetic basketball, the dress code coming into the arena, the right to act like babies over foul calls and how necessary it is for them to carry handguns.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see Bobby Knight fall back into the same player-slapping habits that got him fired the first time around.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see Tiger Woods skip the PGA tour’s richest short-field event, claiming he needed "rest," only to pop up on the other side of the globe to slap it around an event in China!

I never thought I would live long enough... to see a Major League team pay $42 million in ransom money, just for the right to possibly spend more money on a Japanese pitcher.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see a woman, Leila Ali, become the top attraction in boxing.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see an NFL team fashion back-to-back 9-0 starts, with hardly any media hype surrounding it.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see Joe Paterno blow out his knee coaching, and have to be helped off the sidelines by doctors six days later.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see an average, mid-season NFL game easily out-rate the World Series.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see one of the most dim-witted NFL quarterbacks, Heath Shuler, win a seat in Congress, and to do it by knocking out a strong Republican incumbent.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see a college football replay take a full 23 minutes to sort out.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see "punter on punter" crime.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see the following succession of countries have players drafted in the NBA (in order): Belarus, Senegal, Israel, Nigeria, Bosnia, Greece, Croatia.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see an NBA Champion get smoked by 42 at home, on the very night they raised their banner and collected their rings.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see an NFL referee, Ed Hochuli, who could start on 31 of 32 teams’ offensive lines.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see a gum-chewing publicist have to deny her client’s apparent suicide attempt to the press, while his coach claimed to be unaware of any of it.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see a full-scale brawl in a college football game and have the color commentator in the TV booth start talking smack like he wanted to join right in.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see a pitcher blatantly cheat in the World Series, only to have the other manager make sure he’s warned, but not kicked out of the game.

I never thought I would live long enough... to see rules as idiotic as the new clock rules in college football.

And....

I never thought I would live long enough... to see a college football team like Oregon, intentionally design uniforms with more than 1,000 possible helmet, shirt and pants combinations.
Steve Czaban Special to OnMilwaukee.com

Steve is a native Washingtonian and has worked in sports talk radio for the last 11 years. He worked at WTEM in 1993 anchoring Team Tickers before he took a full time job with national radio network One-on-One Sports.

A graduate of UC Santa Barbara, Steve has worked for WFNZ in Charlotte where his afternoon show was named "Best Radio Show." Steve continues to serve as a sports personality for WLZR in Milwaukee and does fill-in hosting for Fox Sports Radio.