PRAISE JESUS AND BEANO COOK

Just yesterday, the Bard of Steeltown, Beano Cook said the “biggest risks to the United States are middle-Eastern terrorists and the United States Congress.”

Amen, Beano. Amen.

Tuesday, MLB fat cats Bud Selig and Donald Fehr were on Capitol Hill to talk about the Mitchell Report and performance enhancing drugs in baseball. Now if you are gonna ask questions in a Congressional hearing, shouldn’t you do a little homework first?

Mike and Mike of ESPN Radio think so, and after listening to their show yesterday morning, we are ready to pile on their bus.

If baseball is the national pastime and as near and dear to our hearts as apple pie and small towns, shouldn’t everybody in U.S. Congress know a little something about it?

Something?

Maybe turn on SportsCenter a day or two before the big hearing so at the very least you can pronounce Bud Selig’s name correctly?

Evidently not.

Rep. Diane Watson (D-CA) called Selig “Mr. Selleck,” as in Tom Selleck of Magnum P.I. She later referred to “the MLB.” We agree with M&M, had they stopped the hearing and asked Rep. Watson what “the MLB” is, she probably would not have known.

But it was Rep. Christoper Shays (R-CT) who stole the show. Obviously, Shays is not a sports fan, and, if he is, he most certainly is not a baseball fan. ESPN’s Jason Stark, who clearly lost a bet or parked in the boss’s parking space and was subsequently forced to do the ESPN live blog from the hearings, called Shays “the biggest baseball basher” in Congress. That’s interesting since he very clearly demonstrated that he knows jack about the game.

Shays asked Selig if he knew if “Mr. Palmerry” was doing drugs before he got his “300th hit.” Selig said, “I’m sorry, before what?”

OK, first off, good for Selig for not making the Scooby Doo noise or just plain saying “Huh?” If you hear the exchange, he doesn’t say “huh?,” but his tone sure says “huh?”

Shays, who is clearly a sharp guy then says, “Mr. Palmerry?Are you familiar with the case?”

He's the Commissioner of Baseball for crying out loud, of course, he's familiar with Mr. Palmerry. Jeez.

Kudos to Selig for not being a smart ass…

Shays later said something about when Mr. Palmerry had “concluded” his 3,000th hit…?

Ummm…Rep. Shays, that would be “Palmeiro” as in Rafeal (he testified in front of you a few years ago, lied like crazy and there was a big stink over it. You do have the internet and cable TV in Connecticut, yes?), and that would be 3,000 hits not 300. Simply put, we don’t know if you “conclude” a hit or not. We’ll have to ask our main man Wally (LH-RP, Yankees, Phillies).

Just to make it better, Shays also said this was the biggest scandal in baseball since “the 1919 Chicago Blackhawks.”

The guy in the back row flinching like he’s having a mild stroke is NHL Commish Gary Bettman. Hey, Gary, just remember the P.T. Barnum rule – any publicity is good publicity.

Nice, Rep. Shays, NICE!

(Thanks to Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg of ESPN for tipping us off to this great story. If we had to read the transcript, which we had momentarily contemplated, we might have committed Harry Caray! [pun intended])