Imagine, just for a minute, Haiti in this year's World Cup. There is no sport that is loved in Haiti the way soccer is. Baseball has never grabbed hold there, the way it has in the Dominican Republic and Cuba.

The country is, of course, in ruins still. So many have died that the number is numbing to even look at. Celebrities in the U.S. are doing concerts and going on TV, pleading for donations. And for whatever reason, I can't help but imagine what it would be like for Haiti to be in the World Cup. It will not be, as you know. It did not qualify, not even close. I didn't know this until today, but the country of Haiti has only qualified for the World Cup once. That was 1974. It didn't get out of the first round. It lost three blow-out matches, 3-1, 7-0, and 4-1.

I will preface this blog entry with an important piece of information: I have only one pair of brown dress shoes, and they are several years old and the right one has a massive tear along the inside seam. It's big. Really big. I know I should buy knew ones but I'm too cheap and these are still getting the job done. Sort of.

Anyway, the brown shoes with the hole led to the quote of the day, so they can't be all bad.

Here it is. Picture me sitting in Fresno State coach Pat Hill's office, my right leg crossed over my left knee, so my shoe is gaping open.

Hill: "You need some new shoes."

Me: "I know."

Hill: "What size do you wear?"

Me: "Eight."

Hill: [pauses] ... "Well, maybe my wife's got something you can wear."

I have just started a book entitled "Born To Play," by a man named Robert Martinez. It is a book written by a father, about his son. I have met the son and the father and have written about them. Brandon Martinez is the son, and he graduated from Fowler High School in 2009 and he was a seventh-round draft pick of the Los Angeles Dodgers. I wrote about Brandon a couple years ago, because he is a talented pitcher, and also because he suffers from Tourette's syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder.

I am intrigued by the book, because I know a lot of what lies ahead in the 214 pages. Here is a quote from the opening page of the introduction:

"... unfortunately, I have to discuss a battle with a school district and its staff for its gross negligence pertaining to civil rights and its special education accommodations. I will have to expose a group of people in this small community with its hands in various aspects of my son's life including sports. This is the part of the story that makes me sick to my stomach. Telling this story will cause me to lose friends, and I accept this."

Today was going to be a tough one. No getting around that. There are certain subjects that cannot be written about easily, and as anyone could guess, abortion is about as touchy as it gets.

Here is the column I'm talking about.

My voicemail is full and the emails are still coming in, and I just heard there has been at least one letter-to-the-editor already sent to the Bee. Conservatives are upset, which I expected. They probably translate my opinion that the issue of abortion has no place around sports to be a signal that I am pro-choice.

By the end of the season, the Bulldog Stadium grass was not so much grass as a mirage, smoke and mirrors, a visual effect a magician would have approved. OK, it wasn't done quite that well, but the intent was there. There seemed to be as much painted dirt as there was grass, and it was obviously not good. But honestly, at least in my head, I hadn't made too big of deal about it until I saw the field at the University of New Mexico.

I mean, it's winter, right? My yard looks pretty brown and gross and there aren't nearly as many 300-pound men diving around on it. Maybe I was being too hard on the Fresno State athletics department. They don't have a ton of staff or money these days. Maybe everybody's grass looks like that in December.

That photo was not taken to make fun of Pat Hill. I like his mustache. OK, it's not the style I would choose for myself or a loved one, but it fits him well. It is symbolic, and if there's anything a writer loves, it's symbolism. And free food. Always free food.

The photo actually had nothing to do with Pat Hill, and the fact that I was wearing a red jersey is a coincidence. It was NFL Sunday at a friend's house and I was wearing my standard Brodie Croyle jersey*, even though the Chiefs have been out of true playoff contention since September ... of 2004. I'm a Kansas native and I love underdogs, so you can see how the Chiefs would be hard to resist as a fan.

I'm not sure a basketball score has ever surprised me as much as this one: 87-77. That was Saturday night's game between Fresno State and Nevada, and part of me still thinks it's some sort of prank, and as soon as I accept that it was indeed the final score, somebody will jump out from behind a bush and yell, "HA-HA! GOTCHA!"

Really, Nevada's 77 isn't all that surprising. The Wolf Pack isn't that good. The Bulldogs zone defense has been good at times. It seems like a reasonable score for the visiting team. It's the 87 that's incredible. If you'd have told me Fresno State was capable of scoring 87 points without Paul George, I'd have coughed up my pancreas laughing, and then bet you a ga-trillion-zillion dollars that you were dumber than carpet. This is the team that got trounced by Utah State at home by 26, and that was a game that George played in!

So I got a call the other day here at the Fresno Bee, from a nice guy named Andre in Hanford who wanted my help. Let me begin by saying It is pretty rare that my help is needed. There are not many areas where I am useful. If you needed to borrow a seldom-played guitar, I'm your man. If you'd like an ill-informed, yet dynamic opinion about any contestant on "The Bachelor," for sure.

For the most part, though, I am not altogether useful on a daily basis. If you were stranded on a deserted island, I should not be your first choice. I'd be fun to have around, but we'd both be dead in a week. If I pulled over to help an elderly woman with a flat tire on the side of the highway during a rainstorm, she'd probably look at me and say, "Eh, I'll wait for the next guy."

I'm getting a little excited about the Fresno State men's basketball team. I can't help it. I'm so excited I'm actually going tonight to watch the San Jose State game. Not as a journalist, but a paying customer. You know you're excited about a team when you'll go watch them when the San Jose State Spartans are the opponent.

I'm trying to keep it under control, because I'm one of those people who sometimes envisions positives that aren't necessarily there, or at least not there yet. As you know, if you read my columns, I'm usually glass half full when it comes to the local sports teams, and so I've been trying to be a realist with this team as much as possible. I mean, it wasn't that long ago it was getting beaten by Montana and Seattle. Yes, those are universities.

I will save you my speech about how Boise State could have played in that national title game last night and beaten either Texas or Alabama. I'll save you the speech about how old money rules everything, and tradition (not results) controls rankings, which control who gets in BCS games, and how the funding is so lopsided it's a miracle any mid-major can compete.

I'm not saying the Broncos would win nine out of 10 times, but maybe half. Maybe more than half against Texas. It just irks me that the assumption is that Boise State couldn't play at that level, when everything that's happened the last three years says otherwise. (Beating Oklahoma, TCU, Oregon.) Boise State's defense absolutely swallowed up TCU, a good offense. It kept Oregon from doing anything. The only team that ran the ball against the Broncos was Fresno State with the best running back in the nation, Ryan Mathews, who in one of those career games, manage to break three long runs.