Blog hints fans can thank ODU for outbreak of Lin-Sanity

Local ties: World-famous basketball player Jeremy Lin might owe his very existence to Old Dominion University. That's where his parents, both emigrants of Taiwan, reportedly met as students. The story appears, among other places, in a blog written by U.S. immigration attorneys (www.mj-law.com/blog). ODU hasn't verified the reports.

Idle thought Lin is now living at Trump Tower. Did Donald ask to see his birth certificate?

Mismatched Before seeing how Carmelo Anthony and Lin get along together on the court, let's not forget that the Amar'e Stoudemire-Melo pairing was always a bad idea.

Quick hit Shouldn't NBA scouts think about drafting a letter of apology to Lin?

Strange move In the midst of a winning streak built on team play and a point guard who knows how to share the ball, why would the Knicks sign J.R. Smith, a gunner with a reputation for selfishness and creating trouble on and off the court? You'd think management would have learned.

Fashion turnover Maybe choking away a 20-point lead with 11:30 to play will convince North Carolina State to dump those black uniforms the Wolfpack wore at Duke. A true fan of the team should be seeing red over State's decision to ditch the traditional colors.

Way we were Like John McEnroe and Michael Jordan, I celebrated a birthday this week. How old am I? Old enough to remember when the collected wisdom of the world resided with barbers and taxi drivers, not bloggers.

Arming himself One thing you'd never expect to hear about a starting NFL quarterback who took his team to the playoffs is that he's in California learning proper passing mechanics. But that's what Tim Tebow is doing.

Dogging it Would anyone but Randy Moss and his agent try to deny that former-receiver-turned-ESPN-analyst Cris Carter put the ball squarely on the numbers when he said that Moss has a lot of quit in him?

Close call Though the Orioles resisted picking up 39-year-old Manny Ramirez, it makes you wonder what the club was thinking by considering signing such a loser.

Quotable Naturally, everybody focused the hardest on Larry Bird's comments that he would take Kobe Bryant over LeBron James "if you want to win and win and win," and overlooked Bird's prediction that LeBron "will go down as one of the top three, four or five players to ever play."

Suck-ups At Pebble Beach on Sunday, was it the job of the CBS announcers to openly root for Tiger Woods? Sounded like that's what they were doing. Apparently, it's still not possible for grown men - even old men - to be anything but obsequious around Woods.

In passing This is Bracket-Buster Saturday on ESPN. Try to contain your excitement.

Drought season A few too many extremely low-scoring games are popping up in the biggest basketball conferences. Let's stop pretending - as the TV magpies do - that they are the result of defensive intensity and genius strategy and acknowledge that they have at least a little to do with over-coaching and too few college players with good ball skills.

For what it's worth The Montreal Canadiens have a defenseman by the name of Jeff Gorges - pronounced "gorgeous."

Playing politics Nobody wants to side with Colts owner Jim Irsay in the kerfuffle over what becomes of Peyton Manning, but Manning hasn't exactly been forthcoming, either. Now we learn that he might have had four neck operations, not three, and might need more. Yet Manning's camp recently announced that his doctors say he's cleared to play. Don't trust either side to provide straight answers.

Bob Molinaro, 757-446-2372, bob.molinaro@pilotonline.com

Twitter@BobMolinaro