That might be how long before the team is any good.

A guy named Hinkie, or Winkie, or Dinkie, I’m not sure,  has been hired as the team’s President and GM. Good luck with all of that.

It’s not clear if he has to consult with former Prexy/GM Rod Thorne or former coach Doug Collins, or any other former employee, all now valued consultants. Of which the 76ers have many more than good players. Wonder if anyone will suggest taking a shot at re-signing the dancing fool Andrew Bynum now that’s he’s had operations on both knees.

Why not? If you get one game out of him you’re WAAAAY ahead of last season. One game? How about one minute.

What should also be remembered is that the Sixers have bought a farm team, the Delaware 87ers in the NBA’s Developmental League. At the press conference announcing this magic moment, held on their new home court at the University of Delaware in Newark, Del., one of the owners pointed out that this team belongs to all of Delaware.

The cheering and celebrating could be felt sweeping from Rehobeth Beach, through Dover, all the way to Wilmington.

I’ll be generous. Expect average attendance next season to reach the high 200s.

Here’s a team with two or three real players on the NBA roster, and now they’ll have a whole farm team of not-too-good players. Smart move

Oh, and the name…Delaware was the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, in 1787, thus, 87ers. Which makes as much sense as “76ers.” Will “Seveners” be printed across the front of the team’s jerseys?

Why not call them the 13ers for the year the franchise was founded, and then change the name every year, 14ers, 15ers, etc. That would guarantee media attention once, and only once, each year.

MLS, yeah, it means Major League Soccer, announced last week that it would not be adding “goal line technology” equipment since it costs too much.

This has been an ongoing debate in international soccer for at least 6,000 years. trying to tell whether or not a ball crosses a goal line. It has stumped referees for that long, and soccer’s governing body, FIFA, fought it for as long as it could, claiming, among other things, that it’s human to err.

Actually, FIFA was waiting for the different techno companies to come up with bribes to use their equipment. And next year, techno will be welcomed. So it looks like somebody’s getting a new home in Switzerland.

But not in MLS.

Listen, we know the word “major” doesn’t really apply to you. But if you want to be really accepted as an international league, put out a few bucks.

In a recent survey of all world soccer leagues conducted by “World Soccer” magazine, MLS finished in seventh place, behind, in order, Germany, England, Spain, Italy, Brazil and Mexico, ahead of Holland and France. MLS led the world in the “stadiums” category, but got 0 points for “finances,” “managers,” and “success.” So I’m not sure how MLS reached as high as 7, especially with that “0″ in “success.”

But, as long as the “not enough money” excuse is there, the “m” will remain lower-case.

Just seen in Center City Philadelphia today, the corner of 12th & Walnut Sts…

A guy on a bicycle, wearing a business suit, dragging behind a small cart, which was about 12-18 inches above street level … with two really little kids sitting in it.

The cart was well below eye-level for drivers, actually below wheel-level. The kids looked like 2 or 3 years old. The jackass in the business suit, daddy I presume, was in his 30s, but obviously not very intelligent.

So not only were the kids in a dangerous position in heavy mid-day traffic, they were getting some good car exhaust in their faces, too. But dad was driving a bike, so I guess that makes it environmentally OK.

Hope the idiot’s kids are.

Just a mention about the massive waste of time at Radio City Music Hall which ran concurrent with the Penn Relays last weekend.

I caught a few minutes each night when I got back from Penn, and I was knocked over when the NFL (I believe that stands for National Fungal League, right?) let former players announce some picks by their former teams.  However, what the NFLers did was use players not involved in lawsuits against it due to the concussion issues, players who could still speak without slurring their words.

Don’t believe this was not a slap at those players and their families who are suffering.  It was intentional.  What was not intentional was the fact that a lot of those players on stage could not read from the papers in their hands.  Not brain-dead, just brainless.

You didn’t think I’d let the Rutgers stuff go, did you?

Check out my post of Jan. 6 (“Whatever you Say Coach”) to get an idea of what I think of the coaching profession.

And then there’s Rutgers.  Mike Rice.  Cursing, punching, kicking, humiliating his players.  But that’s all OK because the Rutgers athletic director referred to him as “intense.”  Didn’t fire him back in the fall when he first learned of it.  You know, why?  Too much trouble to hire a new guy that close to the season..  Don’t believe any other reason.

The good news is that Mikey will still be paid over $1 million due on his contract, with a big bonus for completing this season.  Yeah, that seems fair.  A year away and Mikey will be back as an assistant coach somewhere, appropriately contrite, but still “intense.”  Or maybe he’ll join the ranks of former coaches who serve as TV commentators, all losers who are doing that because they failed miserably as coaches.  All referred to as “Coach,” getting that respect they earned and deserve.

Hey Rutgers.  Looking forward to all those Big Ten games with natural rivals like Iowa.  Go out and get an “intense” coach.

And the school’s president kept his job because … ???

Saw a production of Henry V by the Lantern Theater Company at St. Stephen’s Theater in Center City last week.  It brings my Shakespeare-seeing up to 29 plays, and my Henrys (IV, both parts, V and VIII) up to three.  If I see the three parts of Henry VI it will complete the Henrys and make a big cut into the nine Shakes I’m still missing.

There are 42 characters listed for Henry V, and a group of eight actors from the Lantern covered them all.  They managed to sneak off-stage briefly to throw another cloak on and come back as someone else.  And I thought they all hit their marks.  For the size of the production, it couldn’t get much better.  Except that the actor who played Henry smiled through the whole thing.  Why?  Was he having that good of a time?  Maybe he was, since he was the only actor who had one part to learn; his partners all had to be three or four people, with different accents.

Henry V was a play that Winston Churchill fell back on to rally the British during World War II, taking some of the lines and expanding on them, especially his speech in praise of the RAF.  Shakespeare’s king refers to “we few” who defeated the French.  Churchill, of course, rallied Britain with, “Never was so much owed by so many to so few.”  Henry also calls his army his “band of brothers.”  Great book, great HBO series, again on World War II.  And Laurence Olivier’s 1944 film production of Henry V was made just for the purpose of refueling Britain’s fires after five years of war.

And one more line from the play: “the game’s afoot.”  Arthur Conan Doyle sends  his regards, Mr. Shakespeare.

Good show, Lantern.

And some soccer …

Easter Monday, like Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, is a big day on the English soccer calendar.  All the lower divisions have at it. and this year also featured an FA Cup quarterfinal replay in London between Chelsea and Manchester United; Chelsea won, 1-0.

But the only game I was interested in was Leyton Orient’s 2-0 win over Bury at the Matchroom Stadium in northeast London.

It put the O’s within four points of a League 1 promotion-playoff berth with six games to play.  And their next two games, at Colchester on Saturday and at home with Milton Keynes the following week, are against teams below them in the standings.

I’ll let you know in another post why I fell in love with Leyton Orient.  But if they get to the playoffs, I’ll yell louder than I did with La Salle.

I’m sorry.

Call me a Commie Pinko (you wouldn’t be the first to do so), but I don’t rejoice over the start of the baseball season.  It’s just this year, as opposed to last year or next year.

It doesn’t mean a rebirth of anything, nor a reminder that spring is here.  It’s just another season on the sports calendar.  Just like every other sport has its season (except for MLS soccer, which runs into everyone else’s season), turn, turn, turn.

What is coming on April 25-26-27 is the Penn Relays, which really is the world’s greatest single sports event, in my most un-humble opinion.  It’s the USA vs. Jamaica and both vs. the World, college kids running for “Championships of America,” high school kids just running, and running, and running in circles, continually … And Bill Cosby pretending to shoot himself in the foot every year.  One year he might not miss.

So get ready to read more about the Penn Relays in coming weeks, and about Leyton Orient.

But not much about baseball.