Random Access

Remember when you used to read about a sports trade and start fantasizing about how the new player just shipped to your town would fit into your team's line-up?
Now, when you hear about a trade, you start speculating about whether the pampered multi-millionaire ego in question will deign to grace the new franchise with his actual presence.
Reading about the trade of Antonio Davis back to the Raptors Saturday morning put my blood on the simmer, if not the full boil.
The stories speculate, not about how the addition of a bona fide front-line big man will make the team better, but about whether Davis will report at all.
You can see why it's such a tough call.
On the down side, if he doesn't report, he'll lose about $7 million in salary for the remainder of the season and some teams might look less favourably on him when he hits the free agent market at the end of the year.
But, if he does report, not only will he be on a bad basketball team but he'll have to spend a lot of time in Canada.
You'll recall that Davis and his charming wife Kendra — recently charged with assault after she allegedly went through a stop sign, then threw a cup of coffee at a woman who complained about it — are not really big fans of our education system.
It seems we had the audacity to teach students about Canadian history rather than American and spoke in tongues about metres and kilometres. Imagine running your own country as if it wasn't the United States of America even though you're on the same continent?
Oh well, if we just give Kendra her own TV show on the Raptors' channel again, maybe everything will be all right.
How about a reality show? I know, every week, Kendra could do something provocative like, say, provoke an opposing fan at an NBA game and then her chivalrous husband could rescue her, maybe by climbing into the stands and threatening to bust a few heads.
Catch phrase for the ads: Kendra teases and Antonio squeezes.
You could call it Trading Head Spaces or maybe The Dismaying Grace.
Remember the good old days when athletes were indentured forever to the franchise they played for? When Gordie Howe had to go cap in hand after another MVP season and ask Jack Adams for a raise?
Or, when all-pro Green Bay Packer centre Jim Ringo was supposedly traded to the Philadelphia Eagles because he had the effrontery to bring an agent with him to ask for a raise from Vince Lombardi? (Although Lombardi never denied the story, Ringo said later it wasn't true.)
No, I don't think anybody wants to go back to those good old days, either.
How about a modicum of common sense, however, so that sulking athletes don't go in the tank for a couple of seasons to force a trade (Vince Carter) or behave so contemptuously towards their team's management and fellow players so they can get their SEVEN-year contract rewritten after the first year (Terrell Owens).
It's enough to turn you off sports... until they blow the opening whistle.