Yes, there's a double standard that goes on with sports fans in Dallas. If Michael Irvin gets caught with a roach, we will decry him as a moral degenerate. But if Stars goalie Eddie Belfour gets arrested because he was drunk as a monkey, well, that's just a man who lives a rock-and-roll lifestyle, brutha! Why? We'll let you draw your own conclusions. A black man caught with drug paraphernalia? Run him outta town! A white dude gets too loaded on a legal drug? Party on! At least, that's the way talk-show hosts and fans reacted to each episode. Our take: Michael Irvin was not only one of our favorite all-time Cowboys on the field, but he's also a guy we'd like to get to know off the field. Two reasons. One, crazed egomaniacs don't bother us (come to one of our editorial meetings sometime), and two, because, dude, we're dry right now, and we need a man with connections. After putting together a 400-plus page Best Of Dallas issue, one that honors a rich 20-year tradition, smokin' a bowl sounds so suh-weet right now...

We keep waiting for Hansen's act to wear thin on us. It obviously has on his humorless co-workers, who--save for the refreshingly human Gloria Campos--stare at Dale in confusion after he finishes a joke-laden sportscast. (Apparently a focus group hasn't yet told them whether they're supposed to laugh.) But we still love to watch Hansen, who is the most entertaining personality on local television. (An aside: Much as we like Babe Laufenberg, we miss Hansen in the radio booth during Cowboys games...but we digress.) This was never so apparent as when, after every moron in town was calling for Troy Aikman's concussed head, Hansen spent his newscast sarcastically mocking that notion, showing highlights of Aikman-like drop-back passer Kurt Warner. It was two-plus minutes of ranting--far more entertaining and, hell, more enlightening--than another recounting of the day's scores. Hansen is aware that people now get their scores on ESPN and the Internet; what he can offer is smart, snide commentary, often more valuable than an hour's worth of X-and-O jock talk.

Unlike the Byron Nelson, they don't get Tiger Woods at the annual PGA tour event in Fort Worth. Insiders suspect it's because Tiger's sponsor, American Express, doesn't want to help plug Colonial's sponsor, MasterCard. Winding between some of the biggest pecans and oaks in the state, the Colonial course is a shrine to the game and one of the sweetest sports venues in the nation.

You say to yourself as you're spraying a bucket of balls at Hank Haney Golf Center on a Wednesday afternoon: Sure, all those schmucks on Central are speeding off to come-to-Jesus meetings with the boss, or high-stakes sales calls, or divorce court. Not you. You've plunked down a few bucks, and you're shanking away at the city's most central golf attraction. For $15 you get the large bucket--155 balls--and a little piece of real turf. There's chipping and putting too. But when you're playing hooky from the man, there's really no need to sweat the small stuff. Yank out the big stick and take your cuts.

About 10 years ago, we were sitting at a baseball game when our father, a man not given to hyperbole, was asked to name the best ballplayer he'd ever seen. He didn't hesitate: Mickey Mantle, he said. Then this well-educated, jaded, late-middle-aged man got a dreamy look in his eyes and began to talk about The Mick in the most mythical way, searching for words that could explain his diamond glory. "In cleats," our father finally said, "he was better than you can dream a man could be." We suspect that, 30 or 40 years from now, we will react much the same way when our children or grandchildren ask us to describe Emmitt Smith. We'll do what most people do when describing Smith. We'll start by detailing what he wasn't--he wasn't the fastest running back we'd ever seen (that would be Bo Jackson), the most powerful (Earl Campbell), the most dazzling (Barry Sanders), the most durable (Walter Payton), the best blocking running back...well, actually, he was the best blocking back we've ever seen. But he was more than that, more than just an average-speed back who never seemed to get caught from behind, more than a cog in the Cowboys' Super Bowl machines. He was...he was simply...this is where words will fail. Because it will be impossible to fully relate Emmitt Smith's greatness, no matter our advances in vocabulary. Unless you saw him that Monday night when he bounced through the Atlanta defense like a silver-and-blue pinball, unless you saw him methodically destroy the New York Giants' will with one good arm in 1994, unless you saw him burst through the Washington Redskins defense until only the speedy Darrell Green could chase him down, then watched, amazed, as he turned and tossed Green, a sure Hall of Famer, aside with a straight right arm to the chest...well, you'll never be able to dream a man could be that complete a football player. The reason we all watch sporting events is to catch a first glimpse at athletic endeavors that are not heroic (as they're often described) but are without a doubt transcendent. Emmitt Smith has provided such moments to Dallas Cowboy fans for more than a decade, and continues to do so even now, in the twilight of his career. Perhaps the simplest words are the best to describe him: When asked, we'll just say he was the greatest running back ever. Our offspring will just have to trust us.

You can have your Humperdink's, your neighborhood sports bars, your chains with 30 screens--we'll take a smoky bar with a couple of small televisions. We watched every Stanley Cup Finals game there, and it was wonderful. You could walk in a few minutes before game time and get a booth, a beer, and a blue-cheese burger. By game's end, the place was full, but, unlike sports bars, it wasn't full of obnoxious drunks screaming after every play. It was full of quiet, contemplative drunks who preferred a simple, silent fist pump when things went well. In all, a sports lovers' dream.

Yeah, it's a big impersonal chain. Yeah, the jingles on TV are annoying (please get them out of our head...please). But there are some times in life when we want a megastore selection. We love Home Depot, OK? And we dig AS&O, because when we decide 21 times during the year that this is the weekend we're going to start losing weight, we want a large selection of sports equipment to choose from. Perhaps we'll take up soccer, or tennis, or dodge ball. Doesn't matter. We can go there, spend all day piling crap in our cart that we'll never use, and feel good about it.

Look, we're Troy Aikman homers. Big-time homers. We're such homers our son is named Bart, our nickname is Long Gone, and we've been known to sign copies of the Iliad on request (rim shot). We think it's silly to think that Randall Cunningham is a better quarterback for this team. But we were still a little embarrassed for dallascowboys.com writer and Ticket "Ranch Report" filer Mickey Spagnola when he recently got into a pissing match with morning-show co-host Craig Miller. Probably because Spagnola is Italian (as are we; we know, a temper is a terrible thing), he turned an "Is Aikman slipping?" debate into a personal attack on Miller and folks who have opinions but who don't go to every game, as Spagnola does. Miller, who argues like the single person he is--married men know it's not how many debating points you win, but that everyone feels good about themselves when the argument is over--delivered shots too, basically calling Spagnola a Cowboys shill. That's when it got ugly. And entertaining, in a train-wreck sort of way. Next up on the Spagnola-Miller agenda: Whose is bigger?

Yeah, yeah, we know, we're bandwagoners. So sue us. (We're kidding, Mr. District Attorney of Denton County, we're kidding!) But although we're still fans of last year's winner, Lone Star Park, we can't hide our excitement over SMU's new house. Used to be, the only excitement to be found Saturdays on Mockingbird Lane was at the discount aisle at New Fine Arts, a bit west of campus. Now, the glory of college football spreads along Bishop Avenue from Mockingbird up through campus: adult beverages, fall weather, hot dogs and hamburgers, tailgating, tail...all the things that make game day on most college campuses special. Then, once inside the stadium, the atmosphere gets even better: Every seat has a good sightline, it's not too crowded, but it is rowdy and fun. It completely refutes the asinine notion that SMU games were best when they were played off-campus by paid professionals.

It's not that we're anti-Quincy Carter here at the Dallas Observer. In fact, we thought he should have started at quarterback over Vinny Testaverde. Hell, we think he should probably still be in a Cowboys uniform. They cut him for drug use? Drug use? Really? If we cut Observer staffers for drug use, there wouldn't be a paper. But that's neither here nor there. What made the circumstances around Carter's release so damn interesting was the fact that Carter got cut for using drugs even though he constantly talked about God this and God that. He was big into God, you see. Which made us wonder if God had something to do with his dismissal from the Pokes. Was the Almighty exacting revenge against a drug user who hides behind his good name? We think yes.

Readers' Pick

Mavericks in playoffs