THEY WERE switched in the dark: If you're paying close attention to the division series games, you're probably wondering how the NBA's replacement referees wound up umpiring the most important baseball games of the season.

  • Unemployment rates are high, discretionary income and spending are low and the NFL is experiencing its highest ratings in two decades. Once again, the bully league proves it has 20-20 business vision.

  • Unwilling to discuss the past, he took a shot at predicting the future: Mark McGwire's division series picks, courtesy of The Sporting News, were Rockies in five games, Cardinals in four, Angels in four and Yankees in three.

  • What do you call five fouls, including a technical, in the first nine minutes of an NBA exhibition game? A strong hint that Warriors guard Stephen Jackson wasn't exactly into playing the Lakers on Friday night at the old Forum.

  • Scarcely witnessed excellence: If enough fans here and across the country realized the A's still play baseball, Oakland closer Andrew Bailey almost certainly would win the AL Rookie of the Year award.

  • We're all about conciliation, but the concept of an NFL team being owned by a celebrity bigot who cloaks himself in conservatism is downright sickening.

  • Or have you forgotten
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    Rush Limbaugh once described the NFL as a being like "a game between the Bloods and Crips?"

  • It didn't get a lot of mention, but you may not see a more impressive individual play in college football this season than USC safety Taylor Mays, at 6-foot-2, 225 pounds, wearing a bulky knee brace, chasing down Cal burner Jahvid Best.

  • My Super Six at the quarter turn of the NFL season: 1) Saints, 2) Giants, 3) Colts, 4) Patriots, 5) Ravens and 6) Jets.

  • No. 2 in points among NFL teams, with 124 (31 per game), Ray Lewis and the Baltimore Ravens. Not a typo.

  • If you missed the first showing of Showtime's "Fight Camp 360: World Boxing Classic," featuring Oakland super middleweight Andre Ward and five others vying for a title, it reruns nightly several times this week.

  • "What we have to do is grow up a little bit more." — Tom Cable, ironically, referring to the Raiders rather than himself.

  • Bad luck, badly in need of better timing: Michael Bush, the best running back on the Raiders roster, gets the start Sunday against the very physical Giants, on the road and without a passing game to pull the defense off the line of scrimmage.

  • Overrated: Not Derek Jeter. Look at the numbers and ask his teammates.

  • Underrated: Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers — but not for long.

  • Bad idea, badly in need of rescue: Michael Vick, allowing himself to be in a reality TV show.

  • If only he could: Just because Warriors coach Don Nelson hasn't phoned the NBA to ask about interleague trading policies doesn't mean he wouldn't deal Monta Ellis for Diana Taurasi, the All-World guard from WNBA's Phoenix Mercury. In a heartbeat.

  • Speaking of the Warriors, let's get it on record now that they are primed to be a high-scoring, high-drama mess unlikely to get past the 30-win mark.

  • Saint Mary's College product Diamon Simpson, a 6-6 forward, was a quick cut in Warriors training camp but has enough game to make a fine living for a number of years overseas.

  • Tiger Woods in team play usually loses some edge. Something tells me that will change soon as he prepares to chase a gold medal in the 2016 Olympics.

  • Finally, wishing joy in a hurry for Cal's Tierra Rogers, diagnosed this month with a heart defect that ended her basketball career — 21 months after her father was murdered outside the gym at halftime of one of her high school games in San Francisco.

    Contact Monte Poole at mpoole@bayareanewsgroup.com.