The Final Score

Perhaps Brian Billick, fired today by the Ravens, will visit a Long Island college next.

Here he is visiting with the senior class leaders at Johns Hopkins.

Odd how he never even looks at the camera that trails him for a minute and a half...

Imagine this:

Scottie Pippen, coach of the Knicks.

That'd be funny.

Anyway, according to our colleagues at the Chicago Tribune, Pippen desperately wants to coach in the NBA. Alas, he wants the Bulls job.

"What's my disadvantage?" Pippen asked. "No NBA coaching experience? [Scott] Skiles' record with the Bulls wasn't that great. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do what you've done your whole life. I've played basketball, run teams and won."

He couldn't be worse than Isiah, right?

That is, according to www.mosttraveledpeople.com.

And I've only visited 32 of the 50 U.S. states!

Okay, okay, I admit it -- this post really doesn't have anything to do with sports. Nevertheless, I've always meant to compile a list of the stadiums and sports complexes I've been to. Maybe there is a Web site that ranks that. I'll check Google.

As part of my job as Web columnist, I locate a long lost New York sports figure every week. We just started this feature, so here's who we've located so far:

To officially close the book on the 2007 sports year, I ran down a list of my favorite Web columns from the calendar year. Here's the link. I apologize for the shameless self promotion. We'll do some of that on this blog. But not all the time. You'll see.

I'll be back in a few. There's a slice of peanut butter pie in my fridge calling me.

Well, hello again.

To steal a phrase from the late great actor Troy McClure, you might remember me from such Newsday.com blogs as On the Yankees beat, On the Islanders beat and Neil Best's ever-popular Watchdog.

Now I have my own blog, again, in addition to my daily Web column. Here, we're going to talk all sports -- the good, the bad (and the steroid users!) Those of you familiar with my time on the Yankees beat know I like the Internet, and all the good stuff on it, and I plan to utilize that here, as well.

As you can see, we're still in the building stages, so please give us time. But feel free to chime in at anytime. We appreciate criticisms, but we sure do love compliments.

Jim Baumbach, formerly Newsday's Yankees beat reporter, was recently promoted to Web sports columnist. His interactive column appears on Newsday.com by noon Monday through Friday. Prior to Baumbach's new assignment, he covered the Yankees for three seasons. A Long Island native, he makes frequent guest appearances on national radio stations. He has worked for Newsday since 1998 and can be reached at jim.baumbach@newsday.com.

Chicago Norm has been at Newsday since 1987 and has some semi-fancy title but mostly makes sure that Anthony and Jim's stories get into the Sunday paper. Despite spending more than half of his adult life on Long Island, he is yet to become accustomed to what New Yorkers call pizza.

Anthony Rieber has been at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998 and in his current position since July 4, 2004. Before that he worked for eight years at the NY Daily News, where he was best known for the headline "Clueless Joe" when the Yankees hired Joe Torre. He is also responsible for the lesser-known headline "Yanks Top Tribe in 10."

Arthur has been at Newsday since 1997 and has covered just about everything, from high schools to hockey to football and back again. He's a native of New York City and went to college in Boston. If he weren't a sports writer, his ideal gig would be playing guitar for The Hold Steady. Or maybe writing Hallmark cards.