Ray Romano, comedian and star of Everybody Loves Raymond and the recently canceled Men of a Certain Age, made the cut at this weekend’s AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.  Ray tees off in the fourth and final round today with his professional partner, Australian golfer Steven Bowditch.

Go get ‘em, Ray!

Fans of Men of a Certain Age will remember that Ray’s character Joe, party shop owner, gambling addict and avid golfer, had just qualified for the senior tour when the series was unceremoniously dumped by TNT.

We never got to see Joe fulfill his dream on the links, but today Ray is living out his own.

Karma is a wonderful thing.

No one is innocent here.

I’m sorry, Philadelphia Boston.  I didn’t mean to.

When I moved to New York City three five years ago, I had hoped being a sports team ‘good luck charm’ would help the Mets, but alas — the Yankees Giants won…again.

Even though my powers are extremely strong — and are becoming more legendary by the day– I’ve never had much control over them.

They first surfaced in Kansas City in 1992.  Mere weeks after I moved there, Joe Montana signed with the Chiefs.  Kansas City didn’t win a Super Bowl under Joe, but they were definitely post-season contenders.

I moved to Boston in 2000 and lived there for six years.  I think we all know the impact I had there.  Two World Series wins for the famously denied Boston Red Sox.  The Patriots win the Super Bowl not once, not twice, but three times.

But the minute I moved to New York City — we’re talking, I’d been in town just a couple of months — the New York Giants win the Super Bowl, defeating the New England Patriots.

Ouch.

My power is infinite and brutal and — with the Yankees’ World Series win just last night now that the Giants have handed the Patriots their second defeat — impossible to target.

I’m starting to wonder who’s behind my powers, and more importantly — what city is gonna pay me for them?

Chicago, I’m in the book.

The UK Wildcats and KU Jayhawks are playing in the Garden!

The Champions Classic tips off at Madison Square Garden tonight, bringing the best of college basketball — the only basketball that counts IMHO — to the Big Apple.

(Don’t ask if I was able to get a ticket. I wasn’t; I’m bitter.)

The tourney begins with Duke (hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhcckk-ptooo) taking on Michigan State.  Who cares?  It’s the opener.  Whatever.  Take your seats, folks; nothing to see here.

The big game is between my alma mater (and pre-season #2-ranked) University of Kentucky Wildcats and #12-ranked KU.

Suffice it to say the two teams have a history.  Both have beat each other soundly on their home courts.  (You don’t forget that kinda thing.)  I lived in Kansas City when UK won NCAA Championships in 1996 and 1998 and was the runner-up in 1997.

I don’t think my friends have forgotten that, either.

In fact, I have a little wager with my friend Dan on tonight’s game.  Not for money, mind you; we don’t bet cash on our teams.  But believe you me — after the game has been decided, you’ll all be able to tell what we did wager.

May the best team win!

Tickets go on sale today for Big Blue Madness, the annual season-opening basketball practice of the University of Kentucky Wildcats. This year’s event is scheduled for Friday, October 14th at Rupp Arena in Lexington and marks the official beginning of college basketball in the Bluegrass.

Happy days are here again!

A literal tent city has popped up outside the ticket office this week — a record 570 tents in all.  Fans like me who are far, far away from the Big Blue Nation can get tickets on the phone via Ticketmaster.

But you have to get up super-duper early to have any kind of shot, so…

WAKE UP, WAKE UP, WAKE UP!

I’m not sick — I’m just recovering from last night’s US Open Men’s Singles Final.

And I didn’t even play.

I don’t think enough has been written (or studied, for that matter) on the physical and mental exertions of the spectator.

Especially in major championships like the US Open –  or the Super Bowl or World Series — people watching these events live in the stadium expend a lot of energy cheering on behalf of the athletes.

I don’t know how many times the chair umpire had to tell us to quiet down.

Communist.

I can only imagine how exhausted Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal must be this morning.  They ran while they were screaming.

And rumor has it, within the next 24 hours, they will both be catching flights to Europe so they can play tennis on Friday in Davis Cup matches representing their respective countries.

Man, I don’t know if I’ll be rested up by then.

Unfortunately, my 2011 experience has been a washout.  All three sessions were either canceled or delayed so badly by rain, I didn’t bother to make the trip to Flushing.

I was tempted to blog my frustration, but realized you had heard that all before during a similar rainy stretch in 2009.  So I kept my mouth shut.

(You’re welcome.)

But I can’t not mention the fact that I was lucky enough to get a ticket to today’s Men’s Final between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal!

SCORE

I know that moving the final to Monday probably means a lot of people couldn’t attend the match, hence the large number of seats at resale.  These are seats that weren’t available before the tournament began.

I’m pretty stoked.  I’ve never been to a final before.  And I am a HUGE fan of the Joker.

So, if you watch the match today, look for me in Arthur Ashe.  I’ll be the tiny dot way up in the promenade section, having the time of her life.

Rory Dog and I are in town this week and started revisiting our old haunts today.

Nothing is more fun than watching that 13-year old puppy race into the Public Garden and Boston Commons.  He takes the same paths, checks out the same squirrel trees — even pees on the same spots.

It’s like we never left.

And when we return to the apartment, what film is playing on FX but Fever Pitch, starring Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon.

While not a perfect movie, it is a great Boston sports movie — primarily due to the timing of the Farrelly Brothers’ shoot.  This story of a Boston Red Sox fanatic and his attempts to balance a romantic relationship with his baseball obsession wrapped during the Sox’s unbelievable World Series win.

Talk about a happy ending.

It just kinda fits with this beautiful, Boston day.  It’s a nice place to visit.  And we’re glad to be here.

For those of you who don’t understand how I can sit and watch golf, take a gander at these:

Now…imagine all that beauty in HDTV.

Yeah, I can watch that.

I look forward to it every year, and watch every moment of tennis that my schedule allows.

But this year?

My actual body clock reset itself to make sure of it.

I normally wake up around 7am every morning — without an alarm — to walk the dog.  But this year during Wimbledon, I have been popping out of bed between 5:30-6:00am

I know that the first hour of Wimbledon coverage on ESPN is bogus chit-chat, and the matches don’t start until 8:00am.  But my body doesn’t.  And I especially know that the weekend coverage doesn’t begin until 9:00am.

Go back to sleep.

(I’m not listening.)

It’s a wrestling film.

Now, what I know about wrestling — well, I don’t know anything about wrestling.  We didn’t have the sport at my tiny high school, and I never attended a match during college.

(I’m not even sure my college had a wrestling team.)

I went to see Win Win based solely on the cast.  Paul Giamatti.  Bobby Carnavale.  Amy Ryan.

And like many of the men who no doubt were coerced into seeing Black Swan even though they had no interest in ballet, I just hoped there wasn’t too much wrestling in Win Win.

Well, there was.  Lots of it.  And while at first I was distracted by the whack uniforms and unusual moves, the wrestling matches were kinda fascinating…and reinforced the movie’s message about what winning and losing are all about.

The performances are really special, too.  I didn’t feel like I was watching a movie as much as being a bit of a voyeur in a family’s life and personal problems.

And they do have a few problems, this family.  But seeing how they resolve them?

That’s the win-win.