Let me take this opportunity to add to Craig and the Bruce's endorsement for The Road From Bristol, a tournament to find the most annoying ESPN personality. Needless to say, there is no shortage of deserving entrants.

In other news, I am currently reading The $1 League, which I imagine is the definitive history of the USFL (as it may be the only one; if there are others, please let me know). I was hoping the book would be like Loose Balls, Terry Pluto's fantastic history of the ABA, but it's not. It mostly follows ownership issues, which isn't surprising as the author was the USFL's director of communications. It's not too bad, but I have to think the best stories were in the locker room rather than the boardroom.

Two other books that I've read and would recommend:

The Ballad of the Whiskey Robber by Julian Rubinstein, the story of a minor-league hockey goalie who becomes a folk hero in post-communist Hungary when he takes to robbing banks while drunk.

Ponzi's Scheme by Mitchell Zuckoff. A very well-done account of both the history of the swindle and Ponzi's life. I hadn't realized just how much money he'd made (enough to buy a bank and take a stab at legitimacy), or how he managed to engineer his own downfall.