By DAVE KRIEGER, Scripps Howard News Service

More than one cynic has suggested the biggest problem Congress has in dealing with the recession is that our elected lawmakers wouldn't know there is a recession if somebody didn't tell them.

You might think it prudent to wait for Cactus League results before issuing a Colorado Rockies prediction for 2009. Not me. Baseball's exhibition season may have more charm than the others, but it has no more predictive value.
First, a review:

The long No. 5 jersey hanging in the small spring training locker is now the green and gold of the Oakland A's instead of black and purple of the Colorado Rockies.
"Sweet uniforms," Matt Holliday said Monday, asked for his sartorial verdict. "There's probably not one uniform in the league I'd complain about."

Your first reaction is this is the last thing baseball needs on the eve of spring training, its annual marketing festival devoted to rebirth and fresh starts.
Alex Rodriguez, the highest-paid player in the game, the presumptive career home run champion one day, the man who would remove the steroid stain of Barry Bonds, now spreads the stain instead.

First of all, he's got a great haircut. You may not think that's important, but I do. The man clearly has taste.

The Denver Nuggets are a puzzle, a bite-your-lip, shake-your-head, look-at-the-ceiling puzzle.
They are now 24-12, which is very good, and 17-1 against teams with losing records, which is crazy good. By the record, they are as good as they've been this far into a season since they joined the NBA in 1976.

When Pat Bowlen fired Dan Reeves as Broncos head coach following the 1992 season, it set the stage for the return of Mike Shanahan to the organization, although it took two years to happen.
When Bowlen fired Shanahan on Tuesday, it set the stage for the return of John Elway to the organization, and it could happen a lot sooner than Shanahan's did.
A couple of caveats:

It is not just that the Denver Broncos now face the likelihood of blowing a division title that looked like a lock just two weeks ago. It is that they proved so definitively they don't deserve it.

So the BCS has its two-team playoff bracket, and that's that.
College football's official winner will be Oklahoma or Florida, both good teams, to be sure, but not clearly better than Texas or Southern Cal or even Penn State or Utah or Boise State without proving it on the field, which, of course, they won't have to.

It is well established that math's transitive property does not apply to sports, but consider it for a moment anyway:
A week ago, the Jets beat the Titans, the team with the best record in football. A week later, the Broncos beat the Jets, suggesting the Broncos can be as good as anybody in the NFL.