Time for me to once again empty my mental ‘recycle bin’ on an unsuspecting Flyer public:

— It’s never too early to come up with nicknames for the Future Flyers. How about:

Trent “Gonna Teach ‘Em” Meacham
Jimmie “Ain’t Too Skinnie” Binnie
Brian Roberts “Rules of Order”
Norm “Somebody Call a” Plummer

— The Cleveland Indians were shut out only 5 times this season and the Red Sox did it twice — with both of them coming in a 3 game series at the Jake this past weekend, by identical 2-0 scores.

— I halfway thought about driving over to Cleveland to see the Sox on Sunday afternoon because Pedro was pitching. When I found out the game was being televised on ESPN2, I instantly saved myself a 6 hour round trip.

— Talk about falling off the face of the earth, how about former Flyer prospect Chris Lofton? Lofton is a talented two sport star from Maysville, KY who kept wishing that UK would call and may have waited too long. BG wisely said yes to kids like Brian Roberts and Trent Meacham who really wanted to be Flyers, rather than waiting for Chris to jump on the clue wagon. Same deal with Louisville — they offered, Lofton hesitated and the Cards moved on to other players. Chris is now looking at WKU and some MVC schools. That’s gotta bruise the old ego, but if you snooze, you lose.

— Got a really nice note back from former Flyer Steve Hess with some more details on the Alumni gathering put together by BG and Dave Dudon (a Flyer Faithful) at the Miami Valley Country Club. Steve writes “Coach Gregory is the first coach since my old coach (Donoher) to reach out to former Flyers”. Smart move, BG. Others who were there: “Kenny May, Donoher, Chip Jones, Allan Elijah, Rex Gardecki, Pat Murnen, JD Grigsby, Bill Uhl, Darnell Hoskins, Jim Paxson, Sr., Junior Norris, and many, many others……40+ in all”. Steve goes on to make this very salient point: “What’s interesting is you almost never see the May brothers or Donoher at any outings similar to these and they were there”. Finally Hess had this to say about Don May: “I used to make a special trip to the film room every so often during my stay there to watch the UD-Kansas NIT final. You would see 2-3 sets of hands go up for a rebound and then you would see Donnie’s hands go above them to snare the rebound”. That’s the way I remember Donnie, too, Steve — it was like he had leather magnets in his hands!

— Goran Suton or Andrew Brackman — which big man do you want to fill out the Flyer class of 2008?

— The Sporting News and FOX Sports News have combined forces into one sports website. Wow, big deal. It’s kinda like forming an All Star team from the 1962 Mets and the 2003 Tigers. Who cares?

— I did like one recent headline on the TSN/FSN site, tho. A column about the Tennesee/Florida football game was entitled “Prayers Answered for Vols in the Swamp”.

— It’s a good thing TSN/FSN didn’t use the term “From the Swamp” in that headline or I would have sued Rupert Murdoch’s butt for copyright infringement faster than you can say Al Franken!

— Cincinnati-based Mike Decourcy still covers college hoops for the TSN/FSN duopoly, but recruiting guru Mike Sullivan has disappeared from their roster of experts. Too bad, too, because Mike usually had some good info and best of all, it was free.

— The consensus on the UDPride.com MB seems to be that Flyer mascot “Rudy” is in very serious need of an upgrade. Who is VP of Mascots at UD?

— I’m sorry, but every time I read something about former Flyer prospect Randall Hanke (who signed with Providence), I think of Mr. Hanky, the talking turd character from “South Park”.

— I know it borders on collusion, but personally, I’m glad that Atlantic-10 Commissioner Linda Bruno and Big East Commish Mike Tranghese (her former boss) have a “gentleman’s agreement” that the BE won’t raid the A-10. That means that teams in Conference USA will have all the headaches and not UD or X.

— When is Jimmie Binnie gonna write the final entry in his recruiting journal for the Hoopmasters website? We all know how the story ends — the good guys win — but I still want to read it!

— Lindy’s College Basketball Yearbook, as per usual, is the first of its kind on the newsstand for 2004. The good news is that they have UD, X and SJU dancing; the bad news is that they say X will make the 2nd round, St Joe’s the Sweet 16 and the Flyers will be one and done — again. I don’t theenk so, Cisco.

— Lindy’s may be the first, but they are far from the best — that honor is reserved for the Blue Ribbon Yearbook.

— I’ll be doing my 2nd annual FTS review of all the basketball rags once they hit my local Borders.