Dallas News Blog

​It may take a while to get a response from DISH Network; a spokesperson tells Unfair Park most of its higher-ups are at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas. Till we get a response, then, this is Fox Sports Southwest's side of the story.

This year, the network upped the number of Dallas Stars games it's broadcasting, from 41 to 61 -- "an all-time high," in the words of Ramon Alvarez, FSS's director of public relations. And with the additional games comes additional costs -- these things don't get on the teevee by magic. Alvarez says that all the other local carriers, among them DirecTV and AT&T U-verse and Time Warner Cable, agreed at the beginning of the season to help Fox Sports Southwest defray some of those costs after negotiations.

"We asked them to absorb some of the costs," Alvarez says, declining to offer specific numbers. "It's reasonable for that kind of programming. And everyone said yes, but DISH didn't."

​Which is why tonight's game against the New York Islanders will not be broadcast locally on DISH Network -- the 11th time this season, Alvarez says, but not the last. Which means, yet again, he'll hear from Stars fans wondering what in the wide, wide world of sports is going on.

"We have received feedback from DISH customers and have explained the situation, and some have indicated they would drop the service and go to another provider that does carry the games," he says. "We don't expect a deal to be done any time soon, because they have refused to negotiate with us." We'll update when we hear from DISH.

Update at 3:18 p.m.: Allyson Mylrea, DISH Network's corporate communications coordinator, sends along the company's response:

DISH Network's contract with FSN Southwest guarantees 40 Dallas Stars games per year, and all customers who subscribe to the channel will have access to those games. Last season, FSN Southwest decided to broadcast an additional 20 Stars games at no extra cost, but this year, they decided to charge an exorbitant amount for these same games. If we paid this outrageous amount, the result would be higher bills for all DISH Network customers, and we refuse to make our customers pay more in these uncertain economic times. At some point, someone has to say no to the ever-escalating price of sports programming. We are disappointed in the high price FSN Southwest is seeking for these games and will continue to negotiate a more reasonable price for carriage.

NBA.com

Jerry Stackhouse, who spent four years in a Mavs uni

​Hat tip, of course, to Mr. Spock for the headline suggestion -- what, you've never heard the ancient Vulcan proverb? Shame. Anyway. Yes, looks like the former Dallas Maverick is headed to China, if this crudely interpreted Web site is any indication. Jerry Stackhouse, who said in October he wasn't ready to retire, is getting a tryout with the Shanxi Zhongyu of the Chinese Basketball Association, and was supposed to land yesterday but had some issues with his visa. And how excited is the Chinese sporting press? "The Shanxi team has the astonishing pen repeatedly in nearly two season's foreign aid introductions, but if they this time really makes Stackhouse, then to CBA is also a vibration without doubt." Damn you, Babelfish. ...

And, in other sporting news, the Los Angeles Times asked former Dallas Cowboys great Lee Roy Jordan who he thinks will win tonight in The Only College Football Game That Matters tonight. To which the Dallas resident and former Alabama All-American replied, not surprisingly, the Crimson Tide: "I think maybe by about 10 points, or something like that." On a related note, seen this?

Patrick Michels

​Chris Heinbaugh, Mayor Tom Leppert's chief of staff, sends word this morning that Leppert and Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter (awesome) have made a bet on Saturday night's Cowboys-Eagles game. But, blessedly, they've dispensed with the wackiness (no jerseys worn to council meetings) and gone straight for the sincere: "The losing team's mayor will provide lunch for the winning mayor's team of Habitat for Humanity volunteers," says the release, awful nice. If the Eagles win, Leppert's buying them lunch from Sonny Bryan's, served with a side of Dr Pepper; if the Cowboys prevail, Nutter's ponying up for Philly cheesesteaks and Tastykakes.

But what say the mayors about their teams' chances? Let's go to the press release:

"After watching the Cowboys play the last few games, I'm very confident we'll be keeping our delicious barbecue right here in Dallas," said Mayor Leppert. "I'm sure our Dallas Habitat will be pleased to get Michael's tasty contribution. I can taste those Philly cheesesteaks now!"

"Having lulled the Cowboys into a false sense of security, the Eagles will come out and dominate the Cowboys in a game that actually matters," said Mayor Nutter. "We will make sure there is an extra seat on the plane back to Philly for barbecue and Dr Pepper."

Photos by Sam Merten

​An eclectic mix of folks packed the Bill and Margot Winspear Opera House last night as a jaw-dropping group of former Dallas Cowboys players reminisced during the taping of Glory Days, a television pilot scheduled to debut January 30 on KTVT-Channel 11 prior to finding a national outlet. Audience members could be seen in everything from formal wear to vintage No. 12 jerseys -- even fatigues, as more than 100 Fort Hood soldiers were on hand for the unique event.

Roger Staubach, Bob Lilly, Randy White, Tony Dorsett, Drew Pearson and Mike Ditka took the stage after Cliff Harris placed the Lombardi Trophy in between six leather high-back chairs, and Pat Summerall provided spectacular introductions for each gridiron legend. Lee Roy Jordan, Gil Brandt, Jay Novacek, Leon Lett and Alicia Landry were just some of the other big names on hand as Lesley Visser and Spencer Tillman asked questions from various areas in the audience.

For the most part, the evening consisted of rehashing stories that most die-hard Cowboys fans know by heart, but there was no denying the electricity of so many greats in such an impressive venue talking about a game they all clearly loved. And while it's doubtful anyone left dissatisfied, the three hours felt like being trapped watching The English Patient at times, and the Visser-Tillman combo proved to be nearly fatal as their questions showed a glaring lack of preparation and knowledge of the team's storied history.

Sergio Kindle with Jan and Willis Winters

​On Monday, we directed your attention to The Times's tale of Sergio Kindle, the Woodrow Wilson High School grad one day away from playing in The Only College Football Game That Matters. A fellow Woodrow grad and good Friend of Unfair Park also directs our attention to an ESPN piece that aired earlier this week about the Longhorn linebacker and his "inspiration": Will Winters, son of Park and Recreation Department assistant director Willis Winters and wife Jan, who died in March 2005 after a blood clot following a foot operation. Chris Connelly's lengthy piece follows after the jump; I'd recommend taking with you a box of tissues.

​Tony Fay started working for the Dallas Mavericks in 1987 as the media relations intern; by the time he left in '99, he was director of communications -- which was no easy feat back then, given that was six months before Mark Cuban bought the then-struggling franchise just off a lockout season. These days, though, Fay has a considerably better gig: communications director for Super Bowl XLV, to be played at Cowboys Stadium February 6, 2011. "This is the greatest gig of all time," he says this morning, in part because next Tuesday he'll help assemble quite the collection of football greats at Woodrow Wilson High School to debut a "Nominating List of the 250 greatest gridiron moments" in North Texas history.

"For somebody that grew up here like I did, well, just look at this list of guys," he says. Among those scheduled to attend on behalf of the North Texas Super Bowl Host Committee: Roger Staubach, Daryl Johnston, Craig James, Troy Aikman, Joe Greene, Billy Sims, Tony Dorsett, Tim Brown, Michael Irvin and Abner Haynes.

At the Woodrow event, the Super Bowl committee will present the list of 250 moments, which voters will be asked to whittle down to a top 100. "We will tell people how they can go about voting on what will be the 100 greatest moments for the first 100 years of football in North Texas." According to the host committee, those 100 years begin on October 19, 1912, when Oklahoma defeated Texas 21-6 -- the first time Texas-OU was played at the Cotton Bowl.

"There had been football here prior to that, but that was the first big football game that moved here," Fay says. "So it seemed like a good place to start, and it gave us a 100-year anniversary. TCU and SMU had played some games, there'd been some high school games, but nothing as big as Texas-OU."

For Tim Brown, of course, the event will be a homecoming, which is precisely why the host committee chose Woodrow: It's the only public high school to produce two Heisman winners, Brown and Davey O'Brien. (Mater Dei High School in California, a private school, also counts two Heisman winners: John Huarte and Matt Leinart.)

Sergio Kindle

​TCU-Boise State -- so far, quite the sloppy, defensive time-kill till Thursday night's Big Game. Speaking of which, here's a warm-up from tomorrow's New York Times: a profile of University of Texas linebacker Sergio Kindle, who grew up in South Oak Cliff and shoulda gone to SOC but instead went to Woodrow Wilson. Why the transfer? It's a long story that begins with Kindle and brother Calvin Walker's mother abandoning the boys for drugs, leaving their father, highway inspector Johnny Walker, to raise the them. Thayer Evans picks up the story from there:

Kindle grew up in a 900-square-foot house in a crime-infested part of Dallas known as South Oak Cliff. Calvin Walker recalled routinely seeing drug raids and hearing gunshots.

"It's a rough neighborhood if you let it be," Kindle said. "There are things going on around you that shouldn't be happening or you wouldn't want to be happening around you." ...

When Kindle was in middle school, his house was robbed at least six times by football players at South Oak Cliff High School, Calvin Walker said. Because of those incidents, Kindle's father refused to send him to the school.

Update at 9:50 p.m.: Speaking of the Fiesta Bowl, Boise State's Jeron Johnson has a most interesting major, according to FOX. Jump for the screen grab.

From last year, when George and Jerry went into the food business together

​Your Dallas Cowboys' guaranteed trip to the NFL post-season prompts Bill Rhoden to visit with Jerry Jones in this sports pages of this morning's New York Times. Much of the content feels reheated; most of the opinions, rehashed. (To wit: "Jerry Jones -- owner, president and general manager -- is the closest thing in pro football to George Steinbrenner.") There's even a sentence that rhymes America's Team with "the substance and illusion of the American Dream."

The point of Rhoden's piece is this: The Cowboys haven't won a playoff game since '96, yet the team and its fans carry themselves like "a perennial champion" with a bravado "bordering on the delusional." And that can be traced back to one man:

The illusory part of the 21st-century Cowboys, symbolized by Romo -- more hype than substance -- has been disconcerting to Cowboys fans and a put-off to those who are not. Jones knows that the only thing that will quiet critics and convert cynics is winning.

"The pursuit of a Super Bowl will make you stretch out to get into the N.F.L.," Jones said. "Winning one will make you spend a billion two on a stadium."

R. Gerald Turner

​An op-ed, co-written by SMU President R. Gerald Turner, has been circulating through the nation's newspapers in recent days; here's yesterday's pit stop in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in which Turner and William Kirwan, chancellor of the University of Maryland system, argue that college athletics' business model is "on a path toward meltdown." Why come? Athletics cost too much and return too little, simple as that, and it's only getting worse:

A recent NCAA report noted that even football-generated revenue does not cover the operating cost of the football team at 44 percent of the institutions playing major-college football. Such figures would be worse if the millions in debt for stadium improvements and other facility enhancements were included. These are hardly profit centers at most institutions.

Now, consider all this in an environment where athletics costs are escalating at all but a few institutions while academic budgets are being cut and student fees and tuition are being raised. NCAA data show that the rate of increase in athletics spending in Division I programs is three to four times greater than the rate of increase for academic budgets. That is neither acceptable nor sustainable.

Turner, who co-chairs the 20-year-old Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, has been saying the same thing for years. But his recent remarks come on the heels of an October report from the Knight Commission that documents the disparities in programs and predicts doom and gloom in the near future: "There is a concern among athletic administrators that costs will continue to rise, but there are no more pots of gold to find."

Robert Bobo/SMU

​The SMU contingent stationed in Waikiki this holiday week appears to be having a fine time, judging by director of media relations Robert Bobo's ecstatic Aloha SMU blog. Tonight's the big game: the Hawaii Bowl, kick-off 7 p.m. Maybe not big to most, but huge to some -- say, SMU alum, like my father, for whom the Mustangs' return from the dead is nothing less than a Hanukkah miracle.

It's also a big deal for Joe Drape, author of Our Boys and writer for The New York Times -- and an SMU grad with a niece currently attending the school as a freshman, matter of fact. This morning, Drape looks back at his days as an undergrad on The Hilltop in the early 1980s (when "Southern Methodist University had the best football team money could buy"), which were quickly followed by the NCAA standing the school in front of a firing squad. Drape talks to school and NCAA officials about that 1987 decision; most, including SMU president R. Gerald Turner, agree that, yeah, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all:

On Thursday I will have an eye on the television when S.M.U. makes its first postseason appearance in 25 years in the Hawaii Bowl against Nevada. I'll pull for the Mustangs, whose players were not even born when my alma mater made the death penalty part of the college sports vernacular. But I won't get misty-eyed. We deserved our ignominy.

So, what does the return to prominence mean to the program?

"It proves there is life after death," Athletic Director Steve Orsini said.

​After the jump you'll find a video invite just posted to Vimeo in which you're invited to the Fashion Industry Gallery on Ross Avenue February 13 for a shindig being billed as "Dallas Dynasty 2010: Flash to the Future," which will be "hosted" by the Miami Heat guard. It's but one of two wingdings planned for the F.I.G. (so far) during NBA All-Star Weekend -- Boyz n the Hood director John Singleton's being feted one night later during the Black Hollywood Red Carpet Affair. But, seriously, the MVP of the 2006 NBA Finals (or His People, at least) has a lot of basketballs using that name for the event.

​No kidding. The AT&T Performing Arts Center's Jill Magnuson just sent word that on January 5 at 7:30 p.m., Roger Staubach, Mike Ditka, Bob Lilly, Randy White, Drew Pearson, and Tony Dorsett will take the stage at the Bill and Margot Winspear Opera House for the taping of a television pilot called Glory Days. The set-up is simple: Lesley Visser and Spencer Tillman will ask the Cowboys greats questions; they'll answer. Done. And, according to Brenda Bushell, president of Florida-based Legacy Entertainment, which is producing the pilot, the show will actually air in Dallas before it finds a national outlet: Glory Days is set to debut January 30 on KTVT-Channel 11, with follow-up airings February 6 (the Saturday before the Super Bowl) and after the news that follows the game that Sunday.

Makes sense it airs on Channel 11: Bushell tells Unfair Park this morning that Steve Mauldin, till recently the present and GM of the CBS affiliate, "had been our guiding light on this project." Which is why it begins in Dallas with ex-Cowboys, as well, but the concept behind Glory Days, says Bushell, is "in the hopes that we can go from city to city with NFL teams and almost create mini-reunions and get to provide some kind of an entertaining evening for them and make good television. They'll be telling their own stories in their own words. We all have different memories of times gone by, and a lot of times we don't get the stories about what really happened. I think it'll be very entertaining."

Tickets are available from $75 to $45, though Bushell and AT&TPAC'ers say they're fairly limited; says Bushell, she expects "40 to 50 fairly big name" former Cowboys just in the audience, and "we have quite a few Hollywood types who want to come." 

Patrick Michels

Dirk helps unwrap a package of soaps and beauty products for Estephanie Aguilar.

​Estephanie Aguilar will be spending at least part of this holiday season recovering from spinal surgery at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. Of course she's looking forward to getting home soon, but she and her family found themselves in the right place Monday afternoon for a visit from a seven-foot Santa in a blue and white hat, carrying an armful of presents.

After setting the gifts on her bed, Dirk Nowitzki helped the girl unwrap the Twilight DVD, board game and other presents the Mavericks delivered, even recording a quick holiday greeting onto a Flip camera for Aguilar.

In all, Nowitzki dropped by to see around 15 kids on his visit. Jason Kidd had planned on joining the forward on his trip to the hospital, but bowed out because he's been sick. For his part, Dirk hadn't realized media had been invited out to the visit, and probably didn't intend for it to be a photo op. (Sorry. But it was just across the street.)

​We just got the invite: Tomorrow at 4 p.m., there will be a press conference "to announce the return of the Dallas Depserados," which, as you may (or may not) recall, canceled its 2009 season exactly one year ago along with the rest of Arena Football League. Probably the most intriguing item contained in the release is news of new ownership: Peter C. "Woody" Kern, former owner of the Tampa Bay Storm, has replaced Jerry Jones; Revolution Enterprises out of Columbus, Ohio, will handle the day-to-day business operations.

Stephen Evans, Vice President of Operations and Communications for the Dallas Desperados, tells Unfair Park today that "Woody is the sole, 100 percent owner of the team." He also says that the coach, who will be announced tomorrow, is a former Desperados assistant. And the league's now called Arena Football 1. Other than that, he says, "Same football, same rules, same players, same coaches."

Interesting, though: When I said, "No more Jerry, hunh?," Evans said, "At least not for now." When I asked if there was a chance Jones could end up buying back in, he said, "Anything's possible. It's not contemplated." OK, so maybe it's not that interesting.

​For more than a year, Smokey Joe Barton's been trying to kill the Bowl Championship Series -- most recently, of course, with H.R. 390: College Football Playoff Act of 2009, which would ...

... prohibit, as an unfair and deceptive act or practice, the promotion, marketing, and advertising of any post-season NCAA Division I football game as a national championship game unless such game is the culmination of a fair and equitable playoff system.

Last week, the bill was forwarded to the full House Energy and Commerce Committee, and, hey, if nothing else, Politico reports today, Barton's latest bit of "nutty" legislation is good news for lobbyists working for those pro and con, as "college football is bringing big bucks to K Street."

​Last night, Texas Rangers exec VP of communications John Blake sent the word since heard 'round the sports world: Tom Hicks has 30 days to get a deal done with Pittsburgh sports attorney Chuck Greenberg and Nolan Ryan before asking MLB (and his myriad creditors) if it's OK, pretty please, to sell the franchise to the group, which would also include Tom Hicks and his kin. Oh, and Hicks would also like to apologize to all Texas fans: "I am most appreciative of the fans' patience and support for the last year. I know it's been difficult, but this new generation of ownership is 100 percent resolved to excellence and a superior fan experience for the long term."

The announcement out of Arlington is making plenty of news overseas too, as Liverpool FC fans hope Hicks will use the cash to fund a team Hicks and George Gillett put in heavy debt since taking ownership two years ago. And there's also this late-breaking: The Ras al-Khaimah family of the United Arab Emirates want Hicks and Gillett to fly to the Middle East to talk about investing in Liverpool. "Massive cash boost," it says here. I want one of those.

​Randy Galloway, Evan Grant and I received an e-mail at 4:20 this morning from Spirit of Shankly organizer Paul Gardner, in which he writes that a fans' protest before Liverpool FC's Sunday-afternoon match against Arsenal kept the owners out of Anfield: "Tom Hicks was turned away a few hundred yards away from the ground and was not allowed to enter the ground." Gardner's among those featured in the protest recap that follows, scored to John Lennon's "Power to the People."

I've asked Hicks's publicist, Lisa LeMaster, via e-mail whether he was actually planning on attending the match; I'll update accordingly when she responds. Either way, Hicks and George Gillett weren't in the stands. (Update at 9:47 a.m.: LeMaster responds, "??? All I know is that Tom was here all weekend and in a lot of meetings Saturday and Sunday as well as spending time with his family.") And now comes word that the cash-strapped owner of Liverpool FC, Your Texas Rangers and Your Dallas Stars may be looking to the United Arab Emerates for an assist. Meanwhile, The Daily Mail wonders today what Liverpool's legendary manager Bill Shankly, for whom the supporters' union is named, would think of the mess Hicks has gotten the team into. (Semi-unrelated note: I'm probably the only film critic in America who put The Damned United on a ten-best list.)

And speaking of Hicks and his debt, T.R. Sullivan, now writing for MLB.com, says that Houston freight-train Jim Crane's the newly emerged front-runner in the Rangers sweepstakes after he submitted a new bid that tops his rivals' offers. Baseball Time in Arlington offers the pros and cons on that breaking news, but concludes that anyone's better than Hicks: "That's a pattern of financial irresponsibility across multiple professional sports franchises that should prompt his eternal banishment from the local sports scene." I smell a protest!

Caity Colvard

Leonardo, second from left, looking more party dude than leader.

​

One minute he's making fun of you; the next, it's a bona fide bromance. But one question: Was that Eminem talking to Tony Romo before yesterday's loss to the Chargers or Princess Leia? What up the headphones, Marshall?

A Friend of Unfair Park just found and forwarded along this video of Don Meredith singing SMU's school song, "Varsity." It was made back in October, when the university finally retired Dandy Don's No. 17; it was posted a couple of weeks ago. Regardless, I think this is what they call "timeless." Like his other classic.

Meet the Rangers' new ace: Rich Harden

​Despite the financial restraints stemming from the team's unresolved ownership situation, Texas Rangers general manager Jon Daniels skillfully inked the most dominant free-agent starter at this week's Winter Meetings in Indianapolis without adding payroll. By dealing starting pitcher Kevin Millwood to the Baltimore Orioles for relievers Chris Ray and Benjamin Snyder, Daniels freed up enough dough to sign former Oakland A's and Chicago Cubs right-hander Rich Harden to a one-year contract with a mutual option for 2011.

Harden's deal was finalized after the results of his physical, which took place Thursday in Arlington. Daniels is also reportedly close to a trade with the Boston Red Sox for Mike Lowell, in which the Rangers would send catching prospect Max Ramirez and pay approximately $3 million of Lowell's $12 million contract for 2010, the final year of the three-year, $37.5 million deal he signed in November 2007.

Daniels could have avoided dealing Millwood as he had a clause in his contract stipulating that he pitch in 180 innings this season to trigger his $12 million salary in '10, or else he'd become a free agent. After Millwood surrendered five earned runs at home against the Seattle Mariners on September 12 for the fourth time in his last five starts, he sat at 175 2/3 innings pitched, and chatter began about possibly shutting him down for the season and avoiding his costly contract obligation for '10.

Before you jump, try to figure out the significance of this stat line (answer at the end): .312 average, 14 home runs, 70 RBI, 67 stolen bases and 106 runs.

​Tron Legacy won't be in theaters till December 17, 2010. But courtesy N. Lamar Street-based Green Grass Studios and its Mavs promo piece, we don't have to wait to see what that sequel to the '82 classic might look like if it took place in front of the American Airlines Center and starred Your Favorite Dallas Maverick.

Update at 4:16 p.m.: Seems our friends at Green Grass have made the video private. Sigh. But we'll always have this screen grab.

​On Tuesday, HKS's Bryan Trubey, an Outstanding Alumnus of Texas A&M's College of Architecture, paid a visit to his alma mater to discuss, for the most part, how he and his team designed Cowboys Stadium. And, awful nice of 'em, TAMU has posted the entirety of his presentation; architecture nerds will find it after the jump.

There's not necessarily a lot of "news" in there, but at the 28:53 mark Trubey turns his attention from Arlington to Liverpool, where, he says, "We're finally gonna get our financing" to build the new stadium, which Tom Hicks debuted two years ago before putting it on hold due to, ya know, his not having any money to pay for the nearly $600-million Stanley Park facility. But last I saw, oh, two weeks ago, nothing's definite for Hicks's football team's new home, which, at one point, was scheduled to open in 2011. They're just, oh, "optimistic." Hell, somebody's gotta be.

Danny Fulgencio

Craig Gentry was called up to the bigs in September, and now he's spreading major-league cheer at Children's.

​Our Danny Fulgencio trailed some of Your Texas Rangers -- among them, Chris Davis, David Murphy, Ian Kinsler, Derek Holland and new hitting coach Clint Hurdle -- as they made the rounds at Children's Medical Center, a holiday tradition amongst athletes spreading cheer to young patients in need. He brought back this slide show and a reminder that the most of the team (sans the just-traded Kevin Millwood, dang it) will be trading autographs for Toys for Tots tomorrow out at the Ballpark in Arlington beginning at 5:15 p.m. Me, I'm getting Eric Nadel's for sure.

Bob Arum

​Boxing promoter Bob Arum should be in Arlington some time 'round about, oh, now, as he and boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s manager, Richard Schaefer, and HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg visit with Jerry Jones to see what he's willing to part with in order to bring the Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight to Cowboys Stadium on March 13. So says ESPNDallas's Calvin Watkins, who notes that "a source close to the talks said the Cowboys might have to offer close to $15 million as a site fee and possibly split the live gate to get the bout."

To which Sporting News responds this morning: "That site fee, if given, would be the largest in boxing history. With up to 100,000 seats available for an event in Dallas it is very possible that the event will break all previous records for live gate." If, that is, Arum can be convinced not to hold the fight in Vegas. Side note: Is Jerry Jones really considered "flamboyant"?

Update at 9:39 a.m. Thursday: So, that trip didn't happen after all. And what happens in Vegas -- which is to say, big-money boxing -- appears to be staying in Vegas after all.

​So says list-lovin' Forbes in its round-up of The Best (And Worst) Teams of the Decade, assembled using franchises' win-loss record during the '00s, playoff appearances, titles won and the value of the franchise (which, in the Mavs' case, has more than doubled since Mark Cuban bought the team in 2000 from Ross Perot Jr. for around $280 million). Notes Forbes when placing the Mavs third, behind only the San Antonio Spurs and the Detroit Red Wings, "Their title quest has come up short, but the Mavericks are one of only two NBA teams, along with the Spurs, to register a winning record in every season this decade."

​The gentleman, referred to as "The Cornman" by Texas and Nebraska fans alike crowding Section 308 of Jerry Jones's EnormoDome, sat directly in front of me during last night's Big 12 Championship. He was friendly and funny -- not a big taunter, he let the costume do the heavy lifting. Not sure we heard him speak once. This photo was taken shortly before the clock went to 00:00 ... the first time. Upon further review, all that was left was husk -- even us Longhorn alumni were "pleased but not proud," as Dr. D put it as we hooked 'em for one final "Texas Fight" before looking for a quiet place to drink.

This just-posted video of the Dallas Mavericks performing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" is fairly self-explanatory. Step aside, 1986 Dallas Cowboys. But where's the downloadable MP3?

Dennis Gilbert

​Dennis Gilbert's emergence as the "surprise favorite" to shag Your Texas Rangers, as Sports Illustrated puts it this morning, is no surprise to the Friends of Unfair Park who took a break from Thanksgiving break and stopped by Friday. Former New York Times baseball writer Murray Chass wrote the very same thing last week, when he noted that the former agent (for, among others, Barry Bonds and Jose Canseco) and special assistant to Chicago White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, for whom Gilbert reviews contracts, has the blessings of Reinsdorf; "Jerry is totally behind Gilbert," said one source to Chass. And Reinsdorf can most likely get MLB commish Bud Selig to approve that deal above all others.

Here's some of what SI.com has this morning concerning the close to $500-million deal that will, at last, wrest the Rangers out of Tom Hicks's cash-strapped hands:

When approached Tuesday night, Selig only characterized the competition for the Rangers as being between two or three competitors, Gilbert included. There is said to be "work to be done,'' by people familiar with the talks, but Gilbert's group appears to have the clear lead now. Baseball's goal was to get the Rangers sold by Thanksgiving, and while it didn't meet that objective, it may not be all that far behind it.

My folks have gone to most every single SMU home game this year, and they're all ready to pony up for 2010 season tickets following this evening's 26-21 win over Tulane. Big Hersch, who enjoyed the extra legroom during this less-than-sold-out Saturday, is a Mustang Class o' 66; his good pal and car-pool buddy this season's been Don Woodward, who was an All-American swimmer on the Hilltop in the late 1950s. The two of 'em are awful proud of the team's return from death-penalty wasteland in advance of its first bowl game since '84; so too is the head coach, as evidenced by his post-game comments.