Sports this 'n' that

 Screamin' A. Cosell (Stephen A. Smith) may've upset the NBA's plans for the Eastern Conference finals in the eyes of a few people.

It wasn't so long ago that America's Sports Idiot declared that if the Philadelphia 76ers and Brooklyn Nets met in the conference finals, Philadelphia would fall.

As it happens, Captain Clueless jinxed both teams. The Nets were eliminated on Saturday by the Milwaukee Bucks, and the Sixers were upset by the Atlanta Hawks last night, setting up an improbable conference final.

Stick to selling beef jerky, Stephen. It identifies what you are better than anything you've said.

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Most fans in the home district, when it comes to baseball, identify as Yankee fans.

However, when you have one of your own pitching in the bigs, it becomes must-see TV.

To that end, Shenendehowa grad Ian Anderson returns to Citi Field for the 2nd time this season today to face the Mets and their ace, 2-time Cy Young winner, and, as of now, a heavy favorite to win it again, Jacob deGrom, he of the microscopic 0.54 ERA headed into today's game.

You can bet that sports bars all over Saratoga County, including Anderson's hometown of Rexford, will be tuning in to SNY (Spectrum Cable channel 320).

Between Anderson and the Hawks' Kevin Huerter, Shen Nation has plenty to cheer about these days.

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For years, we've seen morons run onto the field in baseball & football, and there've been incidents of alcohol-fueled stupidity during the NBA playoffs.

And, then, there's this anonymous simpleton who ran onto the course during the US Open at Torrey Pines, just outside of San Diego, on Sunday.

What this idiot did was run out onto the course, club in hand, pull a ball out of his pocket while on the fairway, and take a couple of swings before security finally bum-rushed the clown off the course and to the nearest precinct. For what it's worth, I'm hoping they sedated this geek with nothing but Andy Williams records.

For those of you of a certain age, Williams had hosted the PGA tour stop at Torrey Pines for many years, one of a fair number of celebrities who were attached to the PGA and their network partners, like, for example, Bing Crosby at Pebble Beach (now sponsored by AT&T), Glen Campbell in Los Angeles, Danny Thomas hosted the St. Jude event in Memphis, and, of course, Bob Hope teamed with Chrysler for the 5-day Desert Classic. As Don Henley sang, nearly 40 years ago, those days are gone forever.

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Watched a little bit of the Vegas-Montreal NHL playoff game last night. What we can't figure is how Montreal, for many years an Eastern Conference team, was in the Western half of the Stanley Cup bracket, or did the league decide to just pick 16 teams based on records?

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Peacock experimented with carrying the Giants-Phillies series over the weekend, and, well, it was fun. Apparently, someone introduced Giants (and ex-ESPN) play-by-play announcer Jon Miller to NutriSystem, as it looks like he's dropped some weight since leaving ESPN. While both San Francisco and Philadelphia are linked with NBC's regional cable outlets, we're thinking that NBC-Universal-Comcast wants back in on the Game of The Week, and will use Peacock as an outlet. We're all for it.

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After a failed acting career, WWE wrestler Eva Marie decided to return to the promotion, and picked up where she left off.

Eva's gimmick, it seems, is to avoid physical contact at all costs. This was her gig on Smackdown in late 2016, but it got short-circuited because of a wellness violation, and then, she decided to leave. Nearly 5 years later, she's back, and has a new sidekick, Doudrop (aka Piper Niven from NXT UK), doing her fighting for her so she can maximize the heat from the audience. Unfortunately, she's taking credit for Niven pinning Naomi (Trinity Fatu) last week on Raw, as part of the revamped storyline. This will not end well.

Just as unfortunate are the internet trolls who decided it'd be cool to fat-shame Niven for no other reason than, well, because they think they can get away with it.

As you can probably guess, I'm not digging the name change for Niven to Doudrop. Seems Chairman Vince McMahon probably thinks people here in the US might think she's related to the late actor David Niven, and applied for a trademark for Doudrop.

Do us all a favor, Vince. Stop insulting the intelligence of your audience, which, as you're getting older, might actually supercede yours.