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For all of you armchair athletes, ESPA has come up with the remote to solve all your viewing problems. Dubbed the ESPN Ultimate Remote, this little gadget is packed with features. And no, I’m not getting a cut on any of the sales, but I thought you would want to know about it. For a mere $300, you can get all of this: wireless connection to the Internet that allows you to text message, send and check e-mail plus watch television via the 2-inch screen. It will even turn itself on when it senses nearby movement and automatically adjusts the brightness of its screen based on surrounding light. How could you possibly get along without it?

Go onto the Internet and check out the Yahoo NFL Sports news items. It’s pretty obvious that we’re in the off-season. Instead of stories about athleticism and maybe a quarterback controversy of such, all we see is reports of players getting arrested on a gun charge, and another one having a shouting match with his coach, and a bunch of guys going under the knife for a bunch of surgeries to various body parts, mostly shoulders, elbows and knees. In a few weeks we’ll have training camp and pre-season games and we can turn our attention to the football field instead of the operating room and jail cell. I for one can’t wait. Enough of this silliness.

I’ve been playing fantasy sports on Yahoo since the start of the new millennium, dating back to 2000. If you’ve never tried it, you should give it some serio9us consideration. There are both public leagues and private leagues. I don’t recommend the public leagues because there are many participants who flake out after the start and it takes the fun out of it for everyone else. The best thing to do is to go to Yahoo Sports, click on Fantasy Sports and choose the one you are interested in. Then go to the message board where you will find dozens of private leagues that are looking for a few more participants. Find the one that appeals to you and join up. Pretty soon you’ll find yourself with a group of guys who stay active. I’ve been playing with the same people for seven years or more and we come from every corner of the United States. Give it a try—you’ll be glad you did.

The Boston Celtics are on a roll and the lowly Los Angeles Lakers aren’t in any position to stop them. With Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce leading the charge, the Boston squad is going to bring home the NBA championship to Bean Town. It’s been a long time and they are certainly due. And I for one am a bit tired of the Los Angeles Lakers, Kobe Bryant and the whole bunch of guys. They’re yesterday’s bad news. I predict that it will all be wrapped up on Sunday. And it’s about time. The season is one of the longest in sports. It’s already mid-June and they’ve been going for so many months that I lost count. We won’t have very long to wait for the next pre-season. So now it’s onward to baseball and then my personal favorite, the National Football League. Go Seahawks!

San Francisco 49ers coach Mike Nolan has a new mantra and it reminds me of a soap opera.  “One day at a time,” he professes, and I for one think that’s a smart approach to the new season. Coming off the 49ers’ less than stellar 5-11 performance last year, his new philosophy is exactly what the players need to hear.With a little more than a month remaining before training camp commences, Nolan is making it clear to everyone in the organization that no one has a lock on a starting position. Things will all be sorted out on the field, he says, and when the final decisions are made, they will be based on performance and nothing more. Nolan believes that competition is healthy for the players. “Our guys know what’s at stake. It creates a sense of urgency to do things now. Things don’t take care of themselves.”Nowhere is the competition more intense than at quarterback, where three distinctly different individuals will be fighting it out for the coveted starter’s job. Will it be Alex Smith, Shaun Hill or J.T. O’Sullivan? We’ll find out in due time, but meanwhile all the jockeying for Nolan’s favor will make for some training camp and pre-season controversy.Just to make things a little more interesting, let’s toss into the equation a new offensive coordinator, San Francisco’s fourth in four years. Quarterback guru Mike Martz brings a proven track record of success to the 49ers. While at the St. Louis Rams, Martz guided two-time NFL Most Valuable Player Kurt Warner to a victory in Super Bowl XXXIV, and followed that by mentoring a couple more pretty good NFL quarterbacks—Trent Green and Mark Bulger.The question in 49er camp comes down to which of the three QB prospects will shoulder the load. I give J.T. O’Sullivan an outside chance at best. Martz is familiar with O’Sullivan’s abilities, having coached him in Detroit last year where O’Sullivan filled a backup QB role for the Lions. Martz must have liked what he saw of O’Sullivan in Detroit because that’s the primary reason O’Sullivan is a 49er now.So it comes down to last year’s season-opening starter Alex Smith and his main challenger Shaun Hill, who started the last two games. Both had a modicum of success in 2007. Smith showed some real maturity as a starter until suffering a separated shoulder in late September against the Seahawks. Hill didn’t see action until he replaced an injured Trent Dilfer in early December. Hill led the 49ers to victory in that game against the Vikings and then the final two against Cincinnati and Tampa Bay. Nolan wants to see how everything plays out over the next few weeks before naming his starter. With three solid QBs vying for the spot, the head coach’s task won’t be easy.

Sunday will be a real challenge for the American sports buff. Start out with a full slate of MLB games—15 games in all. Then toss in game three of the NBA Western Division finals, with Kobe Bryant’s Lakers leading 2-0. With this game being in San Antonio it’s time for the Spurs to get back on track. They lose this one and it’s all she wrote. They would have to win the next four straight and that isn’t going to happen. Also on tap is auto racing, starting with the Indianapolis 500 and then NASCAR’s Coca Cola 600. Add it up, that’s 1,100 miles of racing this Sunday. Perhaps golf is your forte. No problem, the final round of the Colonial in Fort Worth is on tap with fan-favorite Phil Mickelson leading the pack. I haven’t really been a big Mickelson fan, but I’m starting to come around a little bit, plus I picked him to win in my fantasy golf league, so I guess I’ll be rooting for him tomorrow. Oh, and did I mention tennis? It’s one of the big four starting tomorrow at Roland Garos—the French Open, this year’s second Grand Slam. Favorites Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova will be taking on a formidable group of challenges led by Roger Federer and Ana Ivanovic. The only major professional sport that won’t take place tomorrow is NHL. First game of the Stanley Cup final between the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penquins takes place tonight in Detroit. Sunday is an off day and then they will all be back out on the ice on Monday. So good luck in choosing what to watch. Personally I’ll be toggling back and forth between the Indy 500 and the French Open, with quick checks of basketball and golf during commercials. Baseball can take a back seat at this juncture in the season.

Living a Fantasy

Have you ever signed on to a fantasy sports league? They exist for all major sports and they come in a zillion different formats. I’ve been playing for about 10 years and I’m one of a group of about 12 to 15 guys who participate. The guy who runs our primary fantasy site is a fireman from upstate New York. Others in the league hale from every geographic area in the U.S. Plus throw in Canada. For several years, we had a guy from one of those mid-Canada provinces who went by the name Gopher. His posts were hilarious. Some of the fantasy spots I’ve done are NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, College Basketball, Bowl games, Golf, NASCAR and March Madness. Practically everything except snowboarding and rodeo. I play on Yahoo and that’s a good site. There are plenty of other options, such as ESPN.com, so check them out and give it a try. You’ll have fun, make some great Internet friends, and have the opportunity to talk smack every day. I’ll post more details in the days to come, giving you some of my InsightSports wisdom.

Welcome to InsightSports, where your opinion counts.  Whether it be the NFL, NBA, MLB, NASCAR, horse racing or whatever, here’s the place for spirited debate. No subject is too controversial, let’s hear what you have to say. Here are a few topics worthy of comment:

• Barry Bonds — superstar or super loser. Ditto for Roger Clemens, Michael Vick.
• Kentucky Derby — sport of kings or animal abuse? Did Eight Belles really take steroids? Wouldn’t be a surprise to me.
• NASCAR or open wheel racing? Personally I find NASCAR incredibly boring, but the Indianapolis 500 is another story. I love Memorial Day racing at Indy. And NASCAR is on practically every week (yawn).
• Show me the money. Professional athletes keep getting larger and larger contracts the size of which it is hard to comprehend. But if they didn’t get the money, it would just go to the already wealthy owners who deserve it even less. How about giving it back to the fans with lower prices for tickets and concessions. Ten bucks for a beer and hot dog is ridiculous. What’s wrong with this picture.  These are just a few of my thoughts on a wide variety of sports. I’ll be posting more as wel move ahead and I look forward to hearing from all of you too.