By JIM CARLISLE, Scripps Howard News Service

Joe Garagiola used to say "Baseball is a funny game." Even wrote a book with that title. Well, there are different kinds of funny. There's funny ha-ha, there's funny peculiar and there's funny downright bizarre.

We've had them all in the last week.

No matter what happens this season in the NFL, it'll turn out good for Al Michaels. This season he'll be calling the Super Bowl.Michaels loves doing what he does on NBC's "Sunday Night Football" with John Madden. But most postseasons are a little maddening for him, no pun intended.

Hank Williams Jr. asks us every week if we're ready for some football. The answer, ESPN has found, is yes. And only football, if you don't mind.

Hovering over the running of the Preakness in Baltimore on Saturday -- despite whatever excitement there may be over the potential Big Brown has to be a Triple Crown winner -- will be the lingering image of filly Eight Belles breaking both front ankles after the Kentucky Derby two weeks ago and having to be euthanized on the track.

New things don't come to Augusta National Golf Club very often, so when they do, it's news.

Just how prevalent is "East Coast bias"? We should get a pretty good idea Sunday when the NCAA Tournament field is revealed Sunday night on the CBS selection show. The primary indicator will be how many spots the Men's Basketball Committee gives the Pacific-10 Conference.

Some of the best stories don't get told until they have to be. Or until they make money.I'm not really that cynical, but it is interesting to note that many of sports television's best documentaries happen during what has become known as Black History Month.

While nearly every other professional sport -- Major League Baseball, the NFL, and the NBA -- is trying to tighten the reins on its athletes' behavior, NASCAR is loosening them.As the 2008 season prepares for its Sunday start with the Daytona 500, two of its most popular drivers have already mixed it up a little bit.