Chuck Daly envisioned through the prism of Alex Rodriguez.

Mike Lupica almost got through an entire topic without mentioning ARod. But he couldn't quite do it.

Two pages about Chuck Daly and, right at the end, Lupica somehow weaves ARod into the story:

"Now comes this news about a bad kind of cancer, at the end of a week when a baseball player's bad hip was treated like the first sign of the end of the world."

Well, gee. Who would do something like that?:

"Let me just say this about the way last week's '24' ended: If Jack Bauer can get the President out of this one, maybe he's the one who should be doing crisis management for A-Rod.

...

Sometimes you wonder if Charles Barkley thinks he has a drinking problem or just a getting-caught problem.

Which would make him somewhat like A-Rod in that regard."

Let's play word association with Mike Lupica:

What's the first thing you think of when I say "Chuck Daly"? "ARod."

What's the first thing you think of when I say "Television"? "ARod."

What's the first thing you think of when I say "Charles Barkley"? "ARod."


"By the way? It was nice to see that even with a sore hip, Alex Rodriguez had time to turn his daughters into one more photo op this week."

You know, Chuck Daly has pancreatic cancer, and it's really a shame that you keep bringing up ARod's hip.