I’m not going to write it. I don’t care if this is the “Welcomefest” edition of the Daily. By now you either feel welcome, you don’t, you have been scared back to your mommy and daddy, or you are too drunk to read this tiny newsprint anyway.

So instead of gushing over how great it is to be back for my second year of columntificating (not a word I know, but if Don King can do it, so can I) I’m going to fire off a regular column. Maybe I’ll go generic next week.

But not this week! No! I’ve got an idea!

This week’s column will be a little more than some smarmy welcome or some detailed play by play of my pathetic little summer.

I’m going to catch everybody up on all the major events in the wide world of sports since school let out way back last spring.

Now I’m not cocky enough to believe that the only place you get sports news is from the Daily or more specifically, me.

Heck, if you care enough to read the sports page you probably know all this already, but hang around and I’ll try to entertain.

And because people like lists I’m going to list these things in a countdown fashion. The numbers have no importance. The topics are numbered in the oreder which they came to mind. Here we go.

7)The Bulls successfully defended their title, making a total of five championships in seven years. Not much of a shock there. The real shock is that Jerry “Satan” Reinsdorf decided that he didn’t want to break up the best team, player, and coach of the decade…this year. But to balance out this act of kindness, he decided to wreck the White Sox instead.

6)Kevin Garnett passed up a guaranteed contract worth $103 million dollars over six years. Looks like he’s going to play the free agent game now, and expect to see the Chicago native resurface with ‘da Bulls for the ’98-99 season. This should come as a relief to Coach Floyd who probably thought there wouldn’t be any good players left by the time he arrives in Chicago next season.

5)The St. Louis Cardinals rented Mark McGwire from the A’s for the stretch run. He’ll leave after this season and wants to play on the west coast again. Probably in Anaheim. But how funny would it be if he resigned with Oakland?

4)The WNBA began play and is still playing. Really!

3)Mike Tyson decided to….oh it’s too easy.

2)Michael Johnson lost the fastest man in the world race to Donavon Bailey. And after hearing the sound bites from this and from what I’ve seen on pro-wrestling (always an accurate barometer of our international relations) it seems the U.S.’s largest state is a might ticked off. Yikes. Canada. Our Salvation Army could kick their butts.

1)Finally, it has been a bad year for sports journalists. Frank Gifford got caught “allegedly” with his pants down. And Marv Albert, well Marv is in a bit more of a pickle. Hopefully Captain DNA won’t fail us this time.

That’s enough for now…