The most believable answer Tiger Woods gave during his predictable Augusta self-flagellation session with the media yesterday was when he was asked about his expectations for the Masters, the first golf tournament he has played in since he was exposed as a serial womanizer whose alleged consort count (15) exceeds the number of major titles he's won (14).

"Nothing's changed, going to go out there and try to win this thing," a goateed Woods said with a smile.

That you can take to the bank. Whether anything else about Woods, who threw himself at the mercy of the court of public opinion, has really changed upon his return to golf is a much more dubious notion, one that can't be answered in 35 minutes in front of a microphone or by four (most likely) rounds of golf at a major tournament.

Woods's answers about the infidelity scandal, about his relationship with alleged performance-enhancing drug provider Dr. Anthony Galea and about how he will live his life moving forward are subject to skepticism because Woods has fooled us before. It's hard to blindly accept at face value the veracity of Tiger 2.0 when the original Tiger turned out to be so deceitful.

If you want to believe that Tiger can change his stripes after 45 days in a Mississippi treatment center, then you will. If you're prone to believe that a man who admitted that he "lied to a lot of people, deceived a lot of people, kept others in the dark, rationalized, and even lied to myself" is simply continuing his inveterate dishonesty to pave a smoother path back to golf, then you will.

The reality is that we don't know Tiger Woods or any other athlete. We only know the two-dimensional image that they allow us to see, the same two-dimensional image, albeit it retooled to be more contrite and less arrogant, that Woods flashed yesterday at Augusta. The third dimension of Woods, the one we've come to know through racy text messages and TMZ exposes, shocked us all. Never saw it coming.

This time, he might really be telling the truth when he says that his treatment with Dr. Galea consisted only of platelet-rich plasma injection therapy, known as "blood spinning" to help heal his surgically-repaired left knee and a previously undisclosed torn Achilles' tendon in his right foot.

"He never gave me HGH or any PEDs," said Woods. "I've never taken that my entire life. I've never taken any illegal drug, ever, for that matter."

This could either be another Tiger Tale from a man who we already know cheated -- on his wife -- or the honest to goodness truth from the game's greatest golfer, who has too much respect to cheat the game he was groomed to dominate from a young age.  

It's easy to believe Woods when he talks about the pain of missing his son's first birthday. It's a little harder to believe him when he claims that winning golf tournaments is irrelevant compared to the damage he caused to his friends and family. That's the right thing to say, but it's hard to fathom coming from Woods, who grew up with Jack Nicklaus's accomplishments tacked up on his bedroom wall.

Not to mention such a statement looks like a complete contradiction when he's playing at the Masters without his wife, Elin, being present, and Woods revealed that two days before his February choreographed mea culpa he had begun practicing again. Then "started getting the itch" to play again. That may have been the same uncontrollable itch Woods got before he dealt with his alleged sex addiction.
 
Woods bristled at a questioner who dared to ask if playing the fabled tournament while he's trying to reconcile his marriage was a wise move.

"Well, I'm excited to play this week," said Woods.

Perhaps, the most unsavory answer from Woods was when he was asked about the corporate sponsors who abandoned him when the details of his secret life of lechery began to surface.

If Woods was grasping the gravity of his actions like he claimed in the press conference, then the only reference to a sponsor the golfer should have made would be the one he calls to deal with his addiction, which he said his treatment for will be ongoing.

He should have dismissed the sponsor question as irrelevant, like he did the golf tournaments he won while being unfaithful.

Instead, Woods, whose wholesome good guy image turned out to be as manufactured as the products he was hawking, reverted into pitchman mode, making one wonder if that was what he was doing the whole time.

"Hopefully, I can prove to the other companies going forward that I am a worthy investment," said Woods. "That I can help their company, help their company grow and represent them well. I felt like I was representing companies well in the past, but then again I wasn't doing it the right way because of what I was engaged in."

Yup, Tiger Woods Inc., is open for business again folks.

The question is are you buying what he's selling the second time around?

It's hard sometimes to just limit the discussion to one timely topic, especially when your sports attention span is short and your mind is flipping through thoughts, opinions and postulations like an iPod Touch stuck on shuffle. Why only listen to Drake, when you can throw a little Carolina Liar into the mix?

So, with that in mind and a bountiful sports weekend on tap, here are Ten for the Weekend (that sounds like a cool name for a band). Unlike when you listen to your iPod, feedback is a good thing here, so feel free to chime in with comments.

1. NCAA men's tournament expansion -- Hate the idea of the men's NCAA tournament expanding to 96 teams. The purpose of the tournament is to crown a champion, not deliver television content. There is virtually no chance that any team on the wrong side of the 65-team bubble was robbed of an NCAA title. With the tournament's TV contract having an opt-out clause, this is a straight cash grab by the NCAA.  It's also completely hypocritical to dismiss the idea of a football Final Four with a "plus-one" because it would increase missed class time and then say expanding the tournament and adding an extra level of games won't result in a significant increase in missed class time. The NCAA has run infomercials during the tournament with the slogan, "We put our money where our mission is." Let's not be naive, the mission is to make money.  

2. Cavalier attitude -- Anybody else think the Celtics need to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers at TD Garden on Sunday to set themselves up for a playoff run? The Celtics haven't beaten a fellow Eastern Conference contender since Christmas Day in Orlando, and haven't beaten a legitimate title contender at home all season. There are some encouraging signs from the Green, mainly that Kevin Garnett looks more like Kevin Garnett, and Celtics coach Doc Rivers has done a great job of keeping the faith. However, his team needs to stop talking like champions and start playing like champions. They need the confidence boost and street cred from beating the LeBrons.

3. It's called Bruins -- Saturday's game in Toronto is mission critical for the Bruins. They need to win to keep pace in the playoff chase and to make sure the first-round pick they have from the Maple Leafs, currently second-to-last in the NHL with 71 points, provides them the best chance of winning the NHL Draft Lottery and landing Taylor Hall or Tyler Seguin. If the Bruins end up out of the top two in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft (wonder if there is an exit draft) the Phil Kessel trade could come up empty, like the Bruins offense. The Bruins have Toronto's 2011 first-rounder, but the Internet buzz is the 2011 class of NHL prospects could be one of the weakest in recent years.

4. Go BC -- Ruffled some Eagle feathers at The Heights with my last foray into Boston College basketball, but Al Skinner is no longer in place and the search is on for his replacement. The list of candidates that athletic director Gene DeFilippo has put together is intriguing with Steve Donahue of Cornell, Chris Mooney of Richmond and former BC assistants Bill Coen (Northeastern) and Ed Cooley (Fairfield). Another named should be added to the list, Dayton coach Brian Gregory, who led the Flyers to the NIT title last night. DeFilippo told WEEI he wants a coach like Michigan State's Tom Izzo. Gregory was associate head coach at Michigan State under Izzo and is regarded as a good recruiter and game manager.

5. Opening Night -- The Red Sox open their season and the entire major league baseball season against the Yankees at Fenway on Sunday night. Sure, the Sox and Yankees have opened the season before (2005 at Yankee Stadium), but it seems like a waste of the greatest rivalry in North American sports. Opening Day is always special and so are Sox-Yankees games. Why combine the two? Save some of the AL East's internecine struggle for later, when the baseball season has grown tedious with the Torontos and Baltimores.

6. Line 'em up  -- It's quite interesting that Terry Francona came out and said he'll bat J.D. Drew sixth behind David Ortiz in the Red Sox order to start the season. Francona is traditionally not a fan of grouping lefthanders together for matchup reasons, and the decision to bat Drew and his mighty .OPS behind Big Papi speaks to the uncertainty surrounding what the team can expect to get out of Adrian Beltre, he of one extra-base hit in 42 spring at-bats. But spring stats are bogus. Before the 2007 season, during which he set career-highs for runs driven in (120) and batting average (.324) and won the World Series MVP, Mike Lowell batted .170 in 53 spring ABs.

7. Women's equality -- If you haven't been watching the women's NCAA tournament you've missed some great basketball. It doesn't get much better than the buzzer-beating lay-up from Stanford's Jeanette Pohlen to send the Cardinal to the Final Four. The female Final Four, which tips off Sunday, has great story lines. Baylor, which has 6-foot-8-inch dunking machine Brittney Griner, takes on Connecticut, and Oklahoma, which boasts some famous kin on the court in Abi Olajuwon (daughter of Hakeem) and Carlee Roethlisberger (sister of Ben), faces 35-1 Stanford. But the whole tournament has an air of inevitability thanks to UConn, which has won 76 straight games, and won its tournament games by an average of 47 per game. The women's game needs more parity  to match men's March Madness.

8. Tiger Woods tell-all -- Things just keep getting worse for Tiger Woods as he gets caught in the intricate web of lies he spun to fuel his philandering lifestyle. His mistresses should just get together and do a TV tell-all "The Bachelor"-style and have Chris Harrison host. Monday's press conference at Augusta National is Woods's last chance to really set the record straight. He doesn't have to go into the salacious details, but he needs to stop with the cover-up because his former consorts are more than willing to reveal his dirty little secrets. Take the hit, Tiger and move on.

9. Coaching 'em up -- You often hear about a coach having to coach up his young players, but you wonder if Patriots coach Bill Belichick is doing a little bit of that with his staff. Belichick is going to have a greater role in the defense this season, which, now like the offense, doesn't have a coordinator. Locker room unrest, lack of a pass rush, and a banged-up Tom Brady were among the reasons the Patriots went 10-6 last season, but don't underestimate the role that callow coaches had in the team's tough season. Like the players, the coaches around Belichick must progress this year, especially quarterbacks coach Bill O'Brien and secondary coach Josh Boyer.  

10. Kelly green -- It's awfully hard to meet, talk with or watch Red Sox uber-prospect Casey Kelly and not come away impressed. The Sox want to tread carefully with Kelly, who won't turn 21 until Oct. 4, but you have to wonder if Junichi Tazawa's Tommy John surgery opens up the possibility that we could see Kelly in the big leagues this season. Even though the Sox rotation looks stacked now, if Tim Wakefield's back acts up or Daisuke Matsuzaka continues to be plagued by nagging injuries the internal options for the Sox are not overwhelming (Boof Bonser? Michael Bowden? Kason Gabbard?). We might see Kelly, who will begin the season at Double A Portland,  sooner than we or the Red Sox had hoped. 

Mutual or not, Boston College's parting of ways with coach Al Skinner is a classic case of a college that doesn't know or understand its place in the hierarchy of big-time college hoops, an affliction that can also be described as UMass-itis.

The Eagles want someone sexier than Skinner -- on and off the court. Someone who is going to "sell" BC basketball. But what exactly is this new coach proselytizing?

It's not tradition -- Butler and George Mason have been to more Final Fours than BC. It's not fan interest -- Conte Forum will never be confused with Rupp Arena. It's not a superior education to every school in the Atlantic Coast Conference -- Duke is at the head of the class.

BC is not Duke. The Blue Devils are roundball royalty. BC is part of the proletariat. The Eagles program can experience intermittent periods of excellence and national competitiveness when they have the right coach, a few recruiting coups, and the stars align.

That happened in 2005-06, BC's inaugural ACC season, when Skinner led BC to the Sweet 16 and a school-record 28 victories with future NBAers Craig Smith and Jared Dudley. It happened in 1994 under Jim O'Brien, another loyal and successful coach run off by BC, who took the Eagles to the Elite Eight with Howard Eisley and Danya Abrams.

If you're BC and you push out the all-time winningest coach in the history of your program, the man who resurrected your program out of the shambles of the O'Brien admissions imbroglio, a coach who took you to the NCAA tournament seven times last decade and won 60 percent of his games, then you've either identified the next John Wooden or you're completely delusional about the potential of your program.

(A tip of the cap to BC, however, for holding off on the announcement long enough to let Skinner seek the St. John's job with some leverage.)

Look, last season wasn't fun for anyone associated with BC basketball, but a program of this ilk is going to have seasons like that in the ACC. It is inevitable and even acceptable if you understand your place in the cabal known as the NCAA.

A year removed from 22 wins, the Eagles limped to a 15-16 mark. The talent cupboard definitely looked a little bare without 2008-09 All-ACC guard Tyrese Rice, and it's fair to say that Skinner hasn't recruited as well since trusted assistant Bill Coen went across town to take over at Northeastern.

But even basketball bluebloods like North Carolina and iconic coaches like Roy Williams stumble once in a while. A year removed from winning a national title and with Tyler Hansbrough and Ty Lawson now playing in the pros, the Tar Heels tumbled to a 16-16 regular-season mark and a 5-11 ACC record. The Eagles actually finished a game better than UNC, which they beat during the season, in the ACC standings.

UNC got an invitation to the NIT because it's UNC. BC got to watch the NIT on TV because it's BC. (Updated on 3/31: Some comments have stated BC was not eligible for the NIT because they had a sub. 500 record, but an NIT spokeswoman, Christine Fallon, confirmed via email that there is no rule that a team has to be above .500 to be selected to play in the NIT.)

BC's administration and imperious athletic director Gene DeFilippo felt they could do better than Skinner. DeFilippo has put his stamp on BC athletics since taking over as AD in 1997, but one area he hasn't been able to do that is men's basketball. Skinner was hired five months before DeFilippo became the school's athletic director in 1997.

Some of the names reported to be potential successors to Skinner are intriguing. The Eagles have asked for permission to speak with Cornell coach Steve Donahue, who led the Big Red to its third straight Ivy League crown and first ever Sweet 16 appearance this season, and Richmond's Chris Mooney, who played at Princeton and employs the Princeton offense at Richmond, which finished third in the Atlantic 10, a game back of co-champions Temple and Xavier.

But if the message is that what Skinner did in his 13 seasons, which included three regular-season Big East crowns, is not good enough, then BC is a no-win situation.

It's one thing to turn around a program in the Ivy League or the A-10. It's quite another to be expected to lift the one at The Heights to the apex of the ACC, especially when it is at a distinct geographical and talent-base disadvantage.

Unlike Duke, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Maryland, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, BC is not going to be enticing highly rated recruits with tradition and NBA opportunity. The BC administration is never going to allow a coach to recruit one-and-dones like Kentucky's John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins. Good for them.  

Even Virginia, Virginia Tech, Clemson, Miami and Florida State have an advantage over BC because they can attempt to draw on fertile basketball talent in their backyards. Basketball may have been invented in Massachusetts, but from a Division 1 talent standpoint the state is an airball.

This lack of homegrown talent can't be underestimated. There are institutions of higher learning like BC that have honest to goodness student-athletes and either are or have been successful -- Duke, Stanford (with former coach Mike Montgomery), Vanderbilt, Georgetown, Villanova -- but all either have a warmer-weather campus, tradition, or tremendous local talent bases, with 'Nova (Philadelphia-New Jersey) and Georgetown (Baltimore-Washington) benefiting from the latter.

BC has none of those.

That's why the BC job has always been and will always remain a steppingstone to something better for the type of charismatic, capable, slick bench boss the Eagles now desire.

One reason that Skinner is BC's all-time winningest coach is that the other esteemed coaches in BC history didn't stay long enough to compile 247 wins.

The late Chuck Daly, Dr. Tom Davis, Gary Williams, all once coached at BC. None stuck around.

Skinner did because, unlike his ex-employer, he recognized his place.

"I do plan to return to golf one day. I just don't know when that day will be. I don't rule out that it will be this year" -- Tiger Woods on Feb. 19.

So, now we know when and where the Tiger Woods Redemption Tour tees off, and it's Augusta National on April 8.

Is anyone surprised? Playing the Masters was part of Tiger's master plan all along.

There was no way that Woods, who grew up with a list of Jack Nicklaus's record 18 major victories adorning his bedroom wall, was going to miss the Masters. Whether you believe the sincerity of Woods's televised apology last month or buy into his treatment for sex addiction, you knew that nothing was going to stop Woods's pursuit of Nicklaus.

Adulterous guilt be darned, Woods, who has 14 major wins at age 34, is too close to let any opportunity to win a major pass. He'll worry about us passing judgment later.

Perhaps the only real surprise is that the world's greatest golfer and most infamous philanderer isn't going to take to the links before the Masters for a tuneup tournament. Woods hasn't played in a competitive tournament since the Australian Masters on Nov. 15, 12 days before his carefully constructed image started to crack.

The fact Woods, a four-time Masters winner, is willing to allow his return tournament to be the grandest stage golf has to offer is a sign that, despite the public relations battering he has taken since the November night he escorted his Escalade into a fire hydrant and a tree, the singular focus and determination that made him one of the most transcendent athletes we've ever seen remains intact.

It is a level of concentration so famous that one of Woods's erstwhile sponsors, Gatorade, named a drink after it called Tiger Focus Red Drive, with Woods's eyes hauntingly staring back from the label at the imbiber.  

You can bet the focus will be fully on Woods at Augusta National, although the tournament's ascetic media setting should help prevent Tiger from facing a fusillade of probing personal questions, the same questions he wouldn't even entertain in his staged apology.

The Masters provides a fitting stage for Woods to try to separate himself from the salacious and tawdry details of his downfall. Playing well at Augusta can do for Woods what no Ari Fleischer spin campaign possibly can -- make us remember why we liked Woods in the first place.

Augusta is where the legend of Tiger Woods as a professional golfer was born.

It was at the 1997 Masters that Woods went from an intriguing golf prodigy to a pop culture icon, after he made history on the game's most hallowed grounds by becoming the tournament's youngest winner ever. A baby-faced 21-year-old, Woods captivated the entire country with his record-setting performance to become the first "Cablasian," the term Woods later used on "Oprah" to describe his diverse ethic background, to wear the green jacket.

Woods won by a record 12 strokes and set a Masters four-round record by shooting an 18-under par 270.

People were both taken and taken aback by Woods and his incomparable talent. Even those who had never swung a club were suddenly interested in golf -- both playing and watching.

Woods was a symbol of hope and can-do. Remember those Nike commercials where children of different ages and ethnicities would say, "I'm Tiger Woods"?

Woods may believe that a similar transcendent performance at Augusta will make us remember the toothy, awkward, endearing golfer we fell in love with and not the surly, self-indulgent, petulant professional athlete who had rubbed some golf fans and observers the wrong way with his boorish behavior even before the cheating scandal broke.

But that's just an ancillary public relations benefit for Woods. This is more about personal peace and his obsessive chase of Nicklaus than restoring his reputation.

Getting back to golf is the best therapy for Woods. It's his sanctuary. The one place on earth where he can be the same person he was before the scandal, where nothing has to change.

There will be no asterisk in the record book if Woods passes Nicklaus because he wasn't faithful to his wife. Greatness is greatness, even if it comes with character flaws, as it often does.

Woods's image has been dragged through the bunker and like a driving range ball is full of dents and scratches, but he can bounce back.

No, winning one golf tournament isn't going to remove the taint from Tiger. He's not going to get a complete mulligan by winning the Masters, but it gets him closer to Nicklaus and farther removed from the scandal.

The hoi polloi have a taste for schadenfreude, but remain ultimately fraudulent when it comes to abandoning their sullied heroes.

Look at Lakers star Kobe Bryant, who was disgraced after he was accused of rape in a Colorado hotel in 2003. (The case was dismissed in 2004). It took Bryant a few years to reboot his image, but after leading the Lakers to back-to-back NBA Finals appearances in 2008 and 2009 and winning a gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics and the NBA title last year the rape allegation is rarely brought up.

Bryant's basketball brilliance has dimmed the memory of his alleged deviant behavior.

Woods's genius as a golfer -- and pursuit of the sport's majors mark -- can eventually do the same. 

The NFL's annual apathetic All-Star game, the Pro Bowl, will be played Sunday at Sun Life Stadium, site of Super Bowl XLIV. The game has quickly become the football equivalent of a class field trip that no one wants to make, with those due to participate coming up with doctor's notes to get out of it.

This year the NFL only made it worse by clumping the game with the Super Bowl, which is like pairing a filet mignon from The Capital Grille with a plastic cup full of Kool-Aid.

It's time for the NFL to come to their senses and abolish the Pro Bowl, which has been played since 1951. Most players don't want to play in it. Most fans have no interest in it. And there is no need for it.

The league knows this, so in an attempt to broaden/force interest in the game, the NFL moved the Pro Bowl from its Honolulu home back to the mainland in Miami, putting it a week before the Super Bowl in an attempt to give it (more) relevance.

It's backfired. It was hard enough to get players to play in the game when it was a week after the Super Bowl, but at least there was the lure of a free trip to Hawaii. South Florida isn't exactly South Dakota, but NFL players party there all the time. The novelty is gone from the game, and so are they.

According to the Pro Bowl roster on NFL.com, there are 30 players who are not participating in the game because of injury or playing in the Super Bowl. That does not include 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis, who dropped out today, but does include all three AFC quarterbacks who bowed out -- Peyton Manning (something about a Super Bowl), Tom Brady and Philip Rivers. They were replaced by Houston's Matt Schaub, Tennessee's Vince Young, and Keanu Reeves from "The Replacements."

Ok, so Neo is not going. It's actually Jacksonville's David Garrard, but would anyone notice if Reeves did play?

Do you know what all those AFC fill-in QBs have in common? None of them made the playoffs. On the NFC side, the only original Pro Bowl QB participating is Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers, as Drew Brees is preparing the Saints for the Super Bowl and Brett Favre is at Sears deciding which TV to not watch the Pro Bowl on.

The NFL is a quarterback league. They are the brightest stars, yet only one of the six originally selected premium passers is participating in the Pro Bowl.

Of the original 86 players selected to the Pro Bowl, more than a third have taken a pass on playing in the game. That includes 14 players from the Colts and Saints, who square off in Super Bowl XLIV. Ravens safety Ed Reed, who was conspicuously absent from the AFC roster on Thursday, but has not been officially ruled out of the game, is more likely to show up at your Super Bowl party than to play in the Pro Bowl.

The reality is that players want the prestige of being named to the Pro Bowl, but no one wants to actually play in it, except for first-timers like Patriots safety Brandon Meriweather, who made the team as an injury replacement. He joins teammates Vince Wilfork and Logan Mankins,  who were voted in.

The players from the winning team at the Pro Bowl get $45,000. The losing team gets $22,500. While we're all aware of the current economic difficulties in this country, that amount of money is hardly incentive enough for NFL players to risk their bodies in a faux football game after a season of pounding and punishment.

The Pro Bowl is by far the most meaningless of the Big Four professional sports All-Star games. Tons of fans remember when Magic Johnson came back and played with HIV in the 1992 NBA All-Star game, winning MVP honors. They recall the 1989 major league baseball All-Star game in Anaheim, when Bo Jackson and Wade Boggs hit back-to-back homers to lead off the game. Or have fond memories of Ray Bourque winning the MVP award of the 1996 NHL All-Star game on his home ice by potting the game-winning goal with 37 seconds left.

All memorable All-Star game moments.

The most memorable recent Pro Bowl moment was late Redskins safety Sean Taylor plowing poor Bills punter Brian Moorman on a fake punt in the 2006 game. The most memorable Pro Bowl moment for most Patriots followers happened in 1999, when Patriots running back Robert Edwards blew out his knee in a beach football game played before the Pro Bowl.

All-Star games are by nature exhibition contests, despite what Fox and MLB -- "This time it counts!" -- would have you believe. The NFL already has an entire summer of meaningless exhibition games that its players want no part of it and that fans have to pay for. It's euphemistically referred to as the preseason. That's enough exhibition football for the NFL.

Realistically, the league probably won't cancel the Pro Bowl anytime soon, but it should recognize piggy-backing on the Super Bowl is not a good idea. Neither is requiring that players from the Colts and Saints voted to the Pro Bowl be in town for the game, arriving in South Florida a day earlier than their respective teams, a decision that irascible Indianapolis team president Bill Polian called "stupid."

He is right.

Fortunately, the Pro Bowl is scheduled to be played back in Hawaii in 2011 and 2012. No date is set for the game, but as part of the agreement with the Hawaii Tourism Board, the league agreed to consider moving the Pro Bowl back to the Sunday after the Super Bowl.

What the league needs to consider is saying, "Aloha" to the game altogether after 2012. You can still vote for the team. Just don't play the game.

Voting is an unpredictable and precarious process. The will of the people is actually more like the whim of the people. We've learned that here in our very own backyard this week.

Regardless of political affiliation or leanings, you have to give Scott Brown credit for running a great campaign to be elected to the US Senate. He earned every vote he got, which for the purposes of full disclosure did not include my own. You can't say the same about a pair of fast-fading NBA stars, Tracy McGrady and Allen Iverson, who could be carried into the starting lineups for the league's All-Star game, announced tonight on TNT, by the misguided vox populi.

It would be a complete travesty if either of these players made the All-Star team, and the fact that there is even the possibility that they could start the game based on fan voting is a sign that Celtics guard Ray Allen was right -- fans should not have the sole say in determining All-Star starters.

He is not alone.

In the political arena voting is a right, but in the sports arena it's a privilege. And it's being abused.  

In the last voting update the NBA released on Jan. 7, McGrady, a seven-time All-Star, had the guard spot opposite Kobe Bryant in the West, and Iverson, who has made 10 straight All-Star teams dating back to 2000, was inexplicably paired with Dwyane Wade in the East.

McGrady's own team, the Houston Rockets, won't even play him. He has played in six games and has a total of 19 points. The recalcitrant Iverson was dropped by the Memphis Grizzlies in November and hooked on with his original team, the Philadelphia 76ers, who were desperate to boost attendance and thought Iverson was the answer. The 34-year-old Iverson is averaging 14.4 points per game.

NBA fans must be eating Stephon Marbury's Vasoline if they really think that Iverson is having a better season than Rajon Rondo, who leads the league in steals per game and is third in assists per game. Or that T-Mac is a more worthy All-Star starter than the two best point guards in the game, Chris Paul and Steve Nash.

Please.

Closer to home, Celtics forward Kevin Garnett was a starter at forward in the East based on the last vote totals. He shouldn't be. Chris Bosh of the Raptors and Josh Smith of the Hawks are more deserving this season, but they lack the name recognition of KG.

Electing All-Stars for any sport shouldn't devolve into American Idol, a pandering popularity contest. By putting a player like Iverson or McGrady on the team as a starter you're preventing deserving players from making the team at all. Voting shouldn't be based on fond memories or familiar names.

The NBA is not alone when it comes to All-Star fan voting irregularities that would make George W. Bush blush.

Last year, with the NHL All-Star game in Montreal, fans of the Bleu, Blanc et Rouge overran the NHL's electronic voting, electing four Canadiens to the six-player Eastern Conference starting lineup. Goalie Carey Price and defenseman Andrei Markov were legit, but forward Alexi Kovalev and defenseman Mike Komisarek were homer picks for the Habs, taking starting spots away from more deserving players like Alexander Ovechkin, who won his second straight Hart Trophy as league MVP, and Zdeno Chara, who won the Norris Trophy as the league's top defenseman.
 
More than 50 years ago fan voting gave a new meaning to the idea of a Red State. In 1957, Reds fans stuffed the ballot box for baseball's All-Star game and seven of the eight starting position players for the National League were Reds. The only non-Red was Cardinals first baseman Stan Musial.

That meant that two of the game's greatest players -- ever -- Willie Mays and Hank Aaron were not voted in by the fans. Instead, they had to be appointed by Commissioner Ford Frick, who removed Reds outfielders Gus Bell and Wally Post. Frick also removed the All-Star vote from the hands of the fans. Baseball didn't let fan voting determine its All-Star starters again until 1970, when the game was played in...Cincinnati.

There is enough evidence that fan voting alone doesn't work. It's not just the fans that fail to honor the process.

We've all seen coaches select their own players as All-Stars or players not vote for fellow players they don't like, hence Rodney Harrison's two Pro Bowl appearances in his 15-year career. Like our government, there needs to be a system of checks and balances.

Not surprisingly, the NFL has the best model of any of the professional sports leagues with fan voting, player voting and coaches' voting each counting a third.

Why are the starters less important than the reserves?

In the NBA, the reserves are chosen by a vote of the coaches. In the NHL, the league's hockey operations department chooses the reserves in consultation with the general managers. In major league baseball, where each team has to have an All-Star representative, the "Scott Cooper Rule" around here, eight pitchers and one reserve at each of the other positions is chosen by the vote of players, managers and coaches; managers get to fill out the rest of the roster, except fans vote online for the final players on the 33-man rosters of each league.

The argument for the fan vote is that fans should be allowed to vote for the players they want to see. Fine, if you want to see Iverson or McGrady then go on YouTube or watch SportsCenter. The All-Star game should be a collection of the league's best players in a given season -- the Kevin Durants, Brandon Roys, and Zach Randophs.

It shouldn't be like one of golf's majors, where aging stars get in based on past performance.

It's time to rock the vote and take all the power to choose away from the fans. 

The Patriots didn't even play this weekend and they still lost big in the playoffs.

It's bad enough that the Patriots got bounced by Baltimore in the first round, sparking an off-season of soul searching and finger pointing, but now they have to watch their two most-hated rivals, the Indianapolis Colts and the New York Jets, square off this Sunday for the right to go to the Super Bowl.

This turn of events is tougher to swallow than having the milk in your morning cereal replaced with battery acid. Patriots fans H-A-T-E the J-E-T-S and they have nothing but contempt for the Colts as well.

The only thing worse than the Colts, who are now threatening the Patriots' legacy as Team of the Decade, playing in the AFC title game is the despised Jets serving as their opponent. That's the scenario after Rex Ryan and his crew went into San Diego yesterday and pulled off a 17-14 shocker against the San Diego Chargers.

Chargers kicker Nate Kaeding, who missed three field goals, looked like he was stuck in one of those Southwest Airlines "Wanna get away?" commercials after each wayward swing of his leg.

This is a similar type of nightmare scenario in New England because either the Jets or the Colts are going to the Super Bowl. It's unavoidable.

If you're a Patriots fan, who do you root for? Do you just act like the game isn't even being played, which is the tack that many local sports fans took with the 2003 World Series right up until Josh Beckett vanquished the Yankees. Is it possible for a Patriot fan to pull for Peyton Manning and Bill Polian, to root for Rex Ryan and Kerry Rhodes? Can the NFL just cancel this game?

Trying to find a candidate in the AFC championship race is tougher than finding someone to get behind in the special election between Martha Coakley and Scott Brown for the state's open US Senate seat.

Vociferous Rex, who in his infinite arrogance already has handed out a playoff itinerary to his team that includes the Super Bowl victory parade, said it best yesterday.

"A matchup that nobody wanted but too bad, here we come," said Ryan.

It turns out that both the Colts and the Jets have gotten the last laugh over the Patriots this season. The Colts could go to the Super Bowl with a rookie head coach, Jim Caldwell. The Jets could go to the Super Bowl with a rookie quarterback, Mark Sanchez. Bill Belichick and Tom Brady need not apply.

The Colts broke the Patriots' record for consecutive regular-season wins and then didn't even deign to pursue a 16-0 season because Polian, the Colts president, said the Colts didn't feel 16-0 was a historic achievement.

After starting out 14-0, the Colts controversially yanked their starters against the Jets on Dec. 27 while holding a 15-10 lead with 5:36 left in the third quarter. The Colts premeditated capitulation paved the way for a Jets win and an eventual playoff berth. Karma would have deemed that the Colts then would have lost to the same Ravens team that ran over the Patriots. Nope.

Indianapolis, despite not playing for the full 60 minutes since a Dec. 17 win over the Jaguars, scored a resounding 20-3 victory, while holding the Ravens to just 87 yards rushing, on Saturday.

Jets nose tackle Kris Jenkins, who is out for the season with a knee injury, said before the first Jets-Patriots game that New York planned to play that game like the Super Bowl. After beating the Patriots, 16-9, in Week 2, New York celebrated like they had won the Super Bowl and then lost six of their next eight.

Now, they have a chance to play in the actual Super Bowl, the franchise's first since Joe Willie Namath's famously guaranteed a Super Bowl victory over...the Colts.

I'll let you insert your own joke about Ryan and smooching Bill Belichick's rings, but it's clear that no matter what you think about the Broadway Braggart he has proven to be more than an empty sweater vest.

For all the talk about how the NFL has evolved into a passing league -- three of the Final Four quarterbacks are Manning, Brett Favre and Drew Brees -- the Jets are winning  with a rookie QB the old fashioned way, suffocating defense and a bruising running attack.

In two playoff games, Sanchez has posted combined totals of 24 of 38 for 282 yards and two touchdowns with an interception. Manning was 30 of 44 for 246 yards with two TDs and an interception against the Ravens alone.

The Jets have run for 340 yards in the playoffs, rushing 41 times for 171 against the Bengals and 39 for 169 against the Chargers.

Don't think for a second that both of these teams aren't secretly gloating that the Patriots will be watching them from home.

The Jets have never passed up any verbal shot at the Patriots. Yesterday on NFL Network, Darrelle Revis called Randy Moss a slouch. Back before the team's first meeting on Sept. 20, Rhodes said they wanted to "embarrass" the Patriots.

But having to see the Jets play in the AFC title game hurts more than any sardonic salvo the Jets could launch.

The Colts have been publicly classy with the Patriots, but Polian lives to beat the Pay-tree-otts.

This is a true no-win scenario for Patriots fans. You want to protect the Patriots' Team of the Decade status then you need the Jets to go to the Super Bowl. You want to see Ryan get his comeuppance then you need to see confetti rain down upon Lucas Oil Stadium and Indianapolis lifting the Lamar Hunt Trophy.

Welcome to the winter of discontent -- and disdain -- for New England football fans.

If Mark McGwire were really being honest yesterday in his admission that he took steroids and human growth hormone during his career, including 1998, when he broke Roger Maris's single-season home run record, he would have said, "I took those substances, and I'd do it all all over again."

Of course contrition is a prerequisite for any carefully orchestrated, public relations-driven apology, so neither McGwire nor any other athlete admitting the use of steroids, HGH or any other performance-enhancer is ever going to say that. We don't want to hear that ugly truth -- and neither do they. So, sugar-coated repentance and lapses in judgment are the order of the day.

McGwire seems as sincere as any athlete who has come out and copped to using performance-enhancing drugs and the admission of his cheating is obviously painful for him. But don't think for one second that he'd be coming out to talk about his PED past if he were going to continue his life in seclusion instead of returning to baseball this year as the hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals. It wasn't a sudden crisis of conscience that compelled McGwire to come forward.

The only thing PED athletes really, truly regret is getting caught after the fact and having to throw themselves upon the mercy of the court of public opinion, a public that doesn't understand and can't comprehend what it's like to be a professional athlete. The rest is window dressing.

The feeling of true remorse means that if put in the same situation again you wouldn't make the same decision again. Can McGwire really, honestly say that?

If his timeline is to be believed, he briefly took steroids between the 1989 and 1990 seasons and started taking them again in 1993. In '93 and the strike-shortened 1994 season, McGwire played in a total of 74 games and hit a combined 18 home runs. Big Mac hit 345 of his career 583 home runs after 1994.

If he hadn't taken PEDs there wouldn't even be a debate today about whether McGwire, whose one skill as a player was clobbering baseballs, belongs in the Hall of Fame. It would be a moot point. The only way he would get into the Hall would be with a ticket.

The pressure to perform in professional sports is immense. It is a pressure that most of us in our society will never know. You don't reach the pinnacle of pro sports without being supremely talented and almost inveterately competitive. Athletes are always searching for an edge. They are also always living on the edge, pushing their bodies to the limit. The window of opportunity in a professional sports career is so brief that it's tempting for athletes to try to keep it ajar as long as they can, however they can.

Morality takes a backseat to immediacy.

There is also an element of insecurity and peer pressure when it comes to PEDs. According to the book "Game of Shadows," that is what happened to disgraced slugger Barry Bonds, who despite an overwhelming preponderance of evidence, has never admitted to using steroids or HGH. The book alleges that Bonds, jealous of the attention that McGwire and Sammy Sosa received during the Great Home Run Farce, er, Race, of '98, started using steroids following that season, a time in which he had already surpassed 400 career home runs and 400 career stolen bases.

It's not about judging the character of Bonds, McGwire, Alex Rodriguez or former Patriots safety Rodney Harrison. It's about realizing that they made a calculated choice to cheat. They found a way at the time to justify their decision to themselves, and now they're going to try to justify it to us.

You'll never meet a more stand-up, accountable, honest athlete than Harrison, but even he succumbed to the siren song of illegal substances.

The rationale that Harrison, who got a free pass in these parts, gave when he was suspended by the NFL for the first four games of the 2007 season for using HGH was that it was to preserve his health.

"My purpose was never to gain a competitive edge," Harrison said in a statement the August night the NFL announced his suspension. "Rather, my use was solely for accelerating the healing process of injuries I sustained while playing football."

Yesterday, McGwire used a similar health defense as Harrison, and said he "wished I had never touched steroids." He called his decision "foolish" and a "mistake," and said he wished he had never played during the steroid era, which MLB commissioner Bud Selig has now inexplicably declared over.

(So, should we call this the HGH era, Bud, or do you really believe the game is completely clean?)

The man McGwire is tied with for eighth place on baseball's all-time home run register, Alex Rodriguez, said back in February, when he came clean about his PED use that he was "young, stupid and naive" when he began using in 2001.

Rodriguez was young, but we would be the stupid and naive ones if we believed that. A-Rod knew exactly what he was doing, and so did McGwire. There was nothing foolish or unintentional about Big Mac's decision to use steroids or HGH. He did it to make himself a better ballplayer and extend his career.

McGwire told Bob Costas of the MLB Network that his ability to hit home runs was a gift from God. That may be true, but his ability to hit 70 homers in '98, was a gift from modern chemistry. That's a truth that McGwire still isn't ready to confess.

We'll never hear the real truth from any of these enhanced athletes. No athlete will ever come out and say, "I took a performance-enhancing drug. It did exactly what I hoped it would do for me. I knew it was wrong, but I did it any way."

That would be a true steroid admission.