Willis’ Back,
Willis’s Back!

McGwire’s buttocks, McGwire’s buttocks!

Thank you, Jose Canseco, for the lovely image of you, a needle and Mark McGwire’s pasty posterior.

The Willis Reed reference? 1970, Knicks - Lakers, Game Seven. Yes, the same series in which Jerry West’s buzzer shot from just beyond mid-court tied Game Four, stirring Chick Hearn to scream “80 footer, good!”

With New York minus the mighty Phil Jackson for the entire season and their center nursing a sore back, Reed limped onto the court, hit his first couple shots, and inspired his team to victory. The Garden fans lifted their shirts, pointed to their backs, and yelled “Willis’ back, Willis’s back!”

Anyway.

Canseco’s surge up the list of baseball’s all-time biggest bleeps is as fantastic as his latest story. I’m open to suggestions for the all-time biggest bleep lineup, by the way, so please send me your ideas. Say an outfield of Canseco, Pete Rose and Ty Cobb is a given. If you vote Barry Bonds in, we’ll move Jose to DH, or to pitcher.

Canseco is getting more attention than he deserves again, just like he did with the 40-40 thing.

And c’mon, didn’t we all know Canseco was on something back in Oakland? With the compulsive way he moved his head around and the constant sniffing, you were thinking cocaine all along, weren’t you? Honestly…

Question: It’s obvious Shawn Green is as clean as can be. But since he had an enhancer batting behind him in 2001, is his Dodger record 49 home runs tainted?

Mickey Hatcher’s 1988 mocking of the “Bash Brothers” still brings a smile today. After the first of his two World Series homers, Hatcher forearmed a teammate, pretending to hurt himself in the process…

Whatever happens with Canseco, Bonds and the whole drug thing, can we stop crediting Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa with “saving baseball” in 1998, please?

Two men hit some home runs; they didn’t save baseball, OK. They didn’t. Baseball endures pretty much no matter what. It can’t be saved any more than it can be destroyed. Hockey can be destroyed, certainly, but not baseball…

Hearing the news of Arthur Miller’s passing, I couldn’t help thinking of “The Crucible,” and about the witch hunt the baseball steroid scandal has become. And while Canseco names names for his own gain, it’s interesting that the only forthright man in the affair, Jason Giambi, gets the most heat…

Maybe Arte Moreno is doing with his business what Coca Cola did with Classic Coke. Because you just know the world is going to go rally-ape clamoring for the return of the Anaheim Angels…

Let’s see, what else? Oh, $75 mil for Magglio Ordonez, and Bill Singer has a job again.

And in case you missed the Valentine’s Vermont Teddy Bear, there’s a new one for full squads reporting, another to celebrate the occasional Grapefruit League rainout, and one dressed as a player delayed by visa problems…

According to Director of Communications David Hatchett, the Fort Worth Cats will retire Maury Wills’ number June 18. “This marks the third jersey retired in the history of the Cats [Bobby Bragan and Duke Snider are the others]. Wills, the first African-American to play for Fort Worth, was the starting shortstop in 1955. The roster included five players who would go on to manage in the majors: Wills, Dick Williams, Sparky Anderson, Danny Ozark and Norm Sherry …”

Statue for Sandy : The Koufax in bronze campaign continues, so please scroll down to the photo below and vote yes on 32…

Remember, glove conquers all….