No one wants Cedric Benson. Well…except for the authorities.

Benson, the one-time #4 overall draft pick who has been nailed for operating a vehicle while intoxicated twice in recent weeks, was placed on waivers by the Chicago Bears yesterday. This gave 31 other teams the chance to claim him. None of them did.

Benson will now sit around waiting for some team to develop really bad running back issues. Maybe if someone gets hurt in camp Benson will get a call. Hopefully he’ll avoid getting loaded and driving around in the meantime.

Kobe Bryant has a way with metaphors. Here he likens the Lakers’ horrific Game 4 choke-job against the Celtics to a shameful loss of bladder control.

Actually, that was more like leaving a steaming load in the bed.

The U.S. Open golf tournament begins tomorrow at Torrey Pines in California. As usual, Tiger Woods is the big headline-grabber.

Tiger is coming off knee surgery and everyone’s wondering how he’ll play. He missed the cut at last year’s Open after a lay-off to mourn the death of his father. He admits he hasn’t played much since having his surgery. He will be grouped with Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott in the first two rounds. Everyone will be watching him and Phil for signs of animosity. Mostly they will ignore each other cause that’s what golfers do. They each exist in their own little universe.

Woods and Mickelson are probably the favorites given their past histories at Torrey Pines. No one is talking about Trevor Immelman, the Masters Champion, who would be halfway to a Grand Slam if he won the Open. Immelman has history at Torrey Pines too - he won the Amateur Pub Links there at 18.

Of course Immelman is not going to win, and neither are Tiger or Phil. Just going by recent history, the winner will be someone completely out of leftfield. Like Angel Cabrera who won last year, or Geoff Ogilvy who won two years ago or Michael Campbell three years ago. You have to go back to Retief Goosen in 2004 to find a top-ranked guy who claimed the title.

This year’s winner could be someone completely crazy like Artemio Murakami or Soren Hansen. Or maybe it will be a guy who’s on the verge of breaking out…like Boo Weekley, who everyone likes because his name is Boo.

It’s pointless picking winners of golf tournaments because there are too many guys in the field and too much wacky stuff can happen. The only sure things about U.S. Opens are that scores will not be great, guys will bitch about the set-up and Phil Mickelson will do something crazy like try to drive a green when he doesn’t need to an end up in some impossible spot, costing himself the tournament.

(picture: thenastyboys)

Former ref Tim Donaghy wants to be the new Jose Canseco…the disgraced dirtbag who partially redeems himself by outing other disgraced dirtbags and basically trashing an entire sport.

Tim has really swung for the fences with his latest allegation…he claims the refs conspired to hand the Lakers the Western Conference championship in 2002 by giving them calls in game 6 against the Kings.

Everyone already had suspicions about that game, which featured numerous glaringly weird calls. So that makes Donaghy’s allegations credible at least on the surface. Of course, for him to be telling the truth, the whole NBA would have to be basically a sham.

Commissioner David Stern is naturally not taking the situation lying down. “The reality is that … [Donaghy is] a singing, cooperating witness who is trying to get as light a sentence as he can,” Stern said. “We said it in July, and we’ll say it again on the first anniversary: There’s one criminal here.”

By “criminal” he means Donaghy, not R. Kelly. Poor R. Kelly has enough problems without becoming attached to a game-fixing scandal.

Seriously though…this is a bad moment for the NBA. People already suspect all sorts of stuff about it, and now comes this allegation from someone who would presumably be in a position to know something. It’s a blow to the league even if the accusations are unfounded.

And if the accusations are founded? Then the NBA is screwed. David Stern will have to go away entirely. The whole league power structure will have to be torn down and put back up. Heads will have to roll. Not literally…I don’t think guillotines should be set up or anything. But, you know, figuratively.

Of course it’s unlikely that Donaghy is telling the truth. Probably, he’s just a bitter guy trying to get back at the people he hates. Like Jose Canseco. He was just angry at MLB and looking for revenge. None of his allegations turned out to have any merit.

The NBA clearly has nothing to worry about.

The Cubs continue winning. This has to be destabilizing the space-time continuum somehow. Please tell me we’re not all going to get sucked into a black hole or something because of this. I was really looking forward to seeing Hancock…

Tom Glavine is on the DL now after straining his arm. That means the Braves are without both Glavine and John Smoltz. That’s terrible news for their shuffleboard team.

The red sox gave Manny Ramirez a big plaque to commemorate his 500th career home run. That will soon end up on eBay like Manny’s giant grill.

Afterward, the Sox went out and lost to the Orioles.

The Sox continue to lead the A.L. East despite not having David Ortiz, Curt Schilling or Dice K. They’ve been rescued by guys like J.D. Drew, Bartolo Colon and Justin Masterson. This is an indication of their depth. It also indicates that they have lots of good players.

The Lakers and Celtics continue their 7 Game championship basketball series in L.A. in front of all the big stars. Jack Nicholson was of course there…as was Hilary Duff. It doesn’t get any bigger than Hilary Duff. Unless it’s Michelle Trachtenberg.

Kobe Bryant would’ve been very upset with his team had they lost. He would’ve yelled at them and made them feel bad and Curt Schilling would’ve blogged about it. How great is it that Schilling can’t pitch anymore and is able to dedicate himself full-time to blogging? Maybe he’ll post some pictures of himself making out with Michelle Trachtenberg also. That would be cool.

The Eagles have given Donovan McNabb the rest of the week off to rest his shoulder which is reportedly suffering from tendinitis. Eagles coach Andy Reid will reportedly address the media this afternoon…so at least the Philly reporters know they’ll be getting a nice nap today.

I only have one question: Why is it spelled “tendinitis” when “tendon” is spelled “tendon.” That makes no sense.

Ken Griffey Jr. became the 6th man in MLB history to crack the 600 home run club. Everyone’s using this feat as an occasion to comment on the player Griffey could’ve been if he hadn’t gotten hurt so much. There’s been so much lamenting over the guy’s squandered talent, you would swear he was Mark Prior.

Chris Simms has hardly played any football for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers the last two seasons. And if he has his way, he will never play football for them again, or sit on their bench or have anything else to do with the organization.

Simms’ hard feelings are not directed at the Buccaneers themselves however, or the city of Tampa…he just hates their coach Jon Gruden who basically tossed him aside after he was injured in a game and had to have his spleen removed.

“How can I look (Gruden) in the eye when I know he wanted me cut last year,” Simms said in an interview. “He did not want me to be part of the team and I have a lot of resentment about that. 9 or 10 months after a serious injury, I put my life on the line, it was the most serious injury they’ve ever been associated with, I worked as hard as I could to get back and he wasn’t even going to give me a full year.

“I have a serious issue with that, I really do.”

Simms revealed that, though Gruden wanted to cut him, the Glazer family, who own the Bucs, wanted him kept around. He probably wishes now that the Glazers had simply let him go.

The story becomes a bit weird though when you realize that, despite Gruden’s obvious desire to get rid of Simms, the coach turned down several draft-day trade offers that came in for Simms this year.