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This is your life, on steroids

	MIKE FIALA / AP Jose Canseco, Anti-Sportsman of Year?
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Forget Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year for a moment. Who was the Anti-Sportsman of 2003?

Jose Canseco got the vote of Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and in a year packed with saucy coach firings, assaulted sausages, frozen Hall of Famers, Basketball Court TV and other assorted foul balls, that's saying something.

Gordon based his vote on Canseco's artificially enhanced body of work, which included:

• Getting sentenced to house arrest for violating probation from an assault conviction;

• Having the audacity to ask fans to pay to spend a day with him while he was cooped up;

• Somehow getting busted for steroids while confined to the premises, earning a return trip to the slammer.

"Then," Gordon wrote, "he capped off a memorable year by pitching steroids and human growth hormones to the youth of America, noting that they could add 30 years to a life span. But Jose, what does that stuff do to your brain?"

Just singing the brews

Talk about being born too soon.

"During World War I," points out San Francisco Chronicle reader Dan Langton, "the Phillies had an outfielder named Bud Weiser. Didn't do him a bit of good."

Not stumped for answers

Cory Wolfe of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix asked the questions and got these snappy answers:

• From Gainer the Gopher, the mascot for the Canadian Football League's Saskatchewan Roughriders, on why he wears a tie but no pants: "That's how Mother Nature made gophers. ... As far as clothing, for people who don't know what it's like, it's nice to have an unfurnished basement."

• From Kelly Bechard, a forward on Canada's gold-medal-winning women's hockey team, on the gender difference in locker-room aromas: "When you walk into a men's dressing room, you want to drop dead. But when you walk into a women's dressing room, you only pass out momentarily."

• From George Reed, the former Washington State star who went on to become the CFL's all-time rushing leader, on why he never seemed to be in a hurry between plays: "They didn't pay me to run back to the huddle."

Gator bait

Ex-Florida coach Steve Spurrier was back in play barely 48 hours when the Gators got stuffed 37-17 by Iowa in yesterday's Outback Bowl.

"Poor Ron Zook," wrote Mike Bianchi in the Orlando Sentinel. "First he has to follow in Steve Spurrier's footsteps, and now he has to hear them, too."

They said it

• Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News, after the Yankees got an $11.8 million luxury-tax bill from the commissioner's office: "If you're keeping score at home, the Yankees are now paying as much on taxes and revenue sharing as the Marlins did on the team that won the World Series."

• Actor Ben Affleck, sounding like one Red Sox fan who might sell his soul to the devil: "I would rather say the lines, 'I worship you, Satan' than 'My favorite baseball team is the New York Yankees.' "

• Skateboard king Tony Hawk, to PBS's Charlie Rose, on why the Olympic Games need his sport more than his sport needs the Olympics: "Because skating's cool, and the Olympics need a cool factor."

• Mike Downey of the Chicago Tribune, on rumblings that Kobe Bryant might be open to playing for the Lakers' crosstown rivals: "I have no idea if Bryant is guilty or innocent, but if he is willing to be a Clipper, his lawyer could argue temporary insanity."

Seconds, anyone?

Considering USC's dazzling performance with such a young roster this season, most West Coast football pundits are nonetheless predicting a wide-open Pac-10 title race.

By about 2006.

— Dwight Perry, The Seattle Times

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company