Warning: Don't watch HBO Dec. 8

Call the cable company. Tell them you need maintenance at 10 p.m. on Dec. 8. Trust me, you need the diversion.

I just watched the end of Manny Pacquiao's beat down of Miguel Cotto on HBO. Saw a commercial for Joe Buck Live, a.k.a. Vomit Fest Live. The ad included snapshots of Buck's guest list, which has included, among others, such honest, modest and likable figures as Curt Schilling, Jerry Jones, Michael Irvin, Joe Namath and Brett Favre.

Seriously, HBO? That's who we want to hear from?

A question: Were A-Rod, Terrell Owens and Isiah Thomas unavailable?

I'm not sure a more unpopular guy could host a show with a group of more unpopular athletes/blowhards (Jones). Probably, but only if Skip Carey had moderated the panel. Yuck.

My fav 5...people to hate

5. Tony Romo: Has anyone ever received more attention without winning a playoff game? Even the criminals, the overexposed and the egomaniacs like Michael Vick, Terrell Owens, Peyton and Eli Manning, Tom Brady, Jerry Jones, Bill Parcells, etc. have won something — most of them oodles of playoff games and Super Bowls, Vick included. So why has this Cowboy quarterback been cast as a star right alongside them? Because he dated a hot babe who was famous? Last time I checked, Giselle was neither ugly nor obscure.

Look, Romo has produced at the level of a top 10 regular season quarterback. Fair, but big whoop. Show his mug after an accomplishment, ESPN, not after a weekend in Cancun.

I also greatly dislike his face.

4. Chris Berman: Hey, I have a nickname there guy: Chris "STFU" Berman.

So please stay away from the U.S. Open and the MLB playoffs. They are legitimate events. And burn that stupid hat.

3. Joe Buck: Besides the fact that his cavernous cleft could sleep a family of four comfortably, Buck is a truly perplexing figure. Let's consider other sports broadcasters who have dominated the sports landscape over the last generation: Marv Albert (NBA/NFL), Bob Costas (MLB/NBA/Sunday Night Football/Olympics), Jim Nantz (NFL/PGA), and Al Michaels (Monday Night Football/MLB/NBA/Hockey). Those four men would consist of the sports broadcasting Mount Rushmore from the last 25 years.

So question: Who among this group does the vast majority of the American public actively despise? Their only faults are the following — Nantz is a little rehearsed, Costas a little smug, Michaels a little GPS (see Rip-tionary) on the rules, and Marv a little... well... promiscuous. But have we ever really hated them? No.

Personally, I find Buck detestable. Many agree. 

2. Isiah Thomas: Because anyone with his history of transgressions deserves nothing but a rip! He has, in rough order: bankrupt the CBA; destroyed the rosters of the Raptors and Pacers; decimated and humiliated the Knicks, all while sapping their fan base of whatever remained of its pride; sexually harassed a co-worker; possibly threw his daughter under the bus; and somehow came out smelling at least a little like a rose.

Seriously though, FIU hiring Isiah as its coach is the sports equivalent of giving Bernie Madoff a job as a stock broker if he was ever discharged from jail. 

And I think that's what why Zeke is so easy to hate. His punishments/banishments/disgrace-aments never last long. Ol' No. 11 woos more people than Ben Franklin in his prime.

1. Roger Clemens: Nothing repulses an honest sports fan more than someone who is: A) self-

obsessed; B) has no understanding of his current place in his sport (see: Iverson, Allen); and C) is a filthy liar. Clemens manages to combine A, B and C, and somehow still maintain enough in his deep reserve of gall to attach his wife's name to steroid use.

How crazy is Clemens? This crazy: I don't think the best way to dagger him is to keep him out of Cooperstown. Instead, here's my idea...

How about the voters select him. Then, on his big day in rural New York, with Debbie and the K-clan watching, they consistently mispronounce his name at the ceremony. Then, once the time comes, the Hall misspells his name on his plaque.

With someone so undeniably vain and deranged, nothing would sting him more.

Pedro: Better than ever?

No, actually, he's not.

In fact, at 38, Pedro Martinez, the greatest pitcher in the last 25 years, could very well be on the verge of the final start of his career — and for a justifiable reason. Yet of all the absurd notions floated by dinosaurs roaming aimlessly around the sports landscape these days, one uttered today made the others look intricate and advanced, kind of how movies like Waterworld make Costner masterpieces like For the Love of the Game appear entertaining by comparison.

Now, I don't want to repeat the rip of my astute colleague, Tony G. Dagger, who bemoaned the cliched idiocy spewing from those two herbivores, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, during Game 2. But listen to how lost one reporter — we'll call him Not Ferdinand Magellan — proved himself to be during the Yankees pre-Game 6 workout.

In a scrum centered around (of all people) Jerry Hairston Jr., someone asked the Yankee utilityman the following:

"Is Pedro maybe more dangerous now than earlier in his career because he relies more on deception?"

I'd laugh, too, had this not actually happened. Well, it did.

I don't know. Perhaps N.F. Magellan prefers Pedro circa '09, but were I a member of the Phillies I'd rather Charlie Manuel shipped the Pedro of 10 years ago to the mound for Game 6.

Call me crazy, but here's three quaint little pieces of evidence as to why:

• 1997: 17-8, 1.90 ERA, 13 CG, 4 SO, 241.1 IP, 158 H, 65 BB, 305 K, 0.932 WHIP, 219 ERA+

• 1999: 23-4, 2.07 ERA, 5 CG, 1 SO, 213.1 IP, 160 H, 37 BB, 313 K, 0.923 WHIP, 237 ERA +

• 2000: 18-6, 1.74 ERA, 7 CG, 4 SO, 217 IP, 128 H, 32 BB, 284 K, 0.737 WHIP, 291 ERA+

Anyway, after the question Hairston paused. I can't even imagine what ran through his head. Maybe the 97-mph fastball. Maybe the mid-70s changeup. Or the mid-60 deuce. Whatever it was, he answered the question, filling up N.F.'s notebook as best he could.

In this case, LOL would've sufficed.

Making guys whiff with his mind

Despite the dinky Yankee Stadium HR he just surrendered to Hideki Matsui, Pedro Martinez is pitching a pretty damn good game in Game Two. Six innings, two solo homers allowed and eight strikeouts. Pedro has his changeup and curveball working wonderfully, yet Buck and McCarver keep insisting he's getting by on guts and intelligence. Apparently Einstein could have been a hell of a pitcher.

Pedro doesn't throw 96 anymore, but his off-speed stuff can still be devastating. You don't strike out eight guys in a potent Yankee lineup on guile. It's ridiculous and I wish people would stop saying it. It's not like Pedro is nibbling at corners and hoping for groundballs. Pedro throws 89 instead of 96, so now he's 'outsmarting' the Yankees? Idiotic.

W.F. Slinger chimes in again, letting Buck and McCarver know what a wonderful job they did last night.


Random Rips From Game 1:

I loved it every time Fox panned its cameras over to show Charlie Manuel during last night's game as if he had anything to do with what was happening on the field. I mean seriously, is there a more overpaid job in the world than managing a good baseball team?

Wow, Charlie, did you really decide to go with Cliff Lee as your starter in Game 1? How did you ever think of that? And good job leaning up against the rail while your ace pitched an absolute gem. I could tell your close paying attention to the situation was really what made Lee rack up all those strikeouts.

And that lineup. Like Joe Girardi, you must really struggle with decisions like whether or not to pencil in hitters like Chase Utley and Ryan Howard. Any semi-coherent fan, even one from Philadelphia, could do your "job" and enjoy front row seats while doing it.

Sorry to pick on you old-timer, but you're in the spotlight and you're the one who is going to receive a massive amount of undeserved credit on top of the already undeserved piles of cash you've already pocketed. Baseball managers -- what a joke...

Speaking of jokes, how about those clowns, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, in the booth? I've spent years bashing McCarver, but it's taken me longer to get to Buck, which probably stems from me having a soft spot in my heart for his "back to the track, to the wall, we are tied" call off Jim Leyritz's legendary home run in game four of the 1996 World Series.

Regardless, the gloves are off now. The guy is cornier than Jim Nantz, more predictable than Joe Morgan (okay, so that might be a bit of a stretch), dumber than Michael Kay and almost as obnoxious as Dick Vitale. Sadly enough, he's twice as good as Fox's No. 2 man, Thom Brennaman. At least we don't have to suffer through Chip Caray I guess.

Somehow Buck (I wonder why) has ascended to such prominence that HBO gave him his own show, Joe Buck Live. Talk about brutal, especially when he does what appears to be a bit of a stand-up routine.

I haven't seen such awkwardness since Mike Lupica attempted the same thing many years ago on his own show that lasted about two days. Even the deeply troubled Stephon Marbury looked more comfortable interviewing of all people, Vijay Singh, on his ill-fated 2007 talk-show/disaster, "Stars on Stars."

The best thing about Buck announcing baseball? It means I won't have to listen to him doing football this week.