You can put a cat in an oven, but that don't make it a biscuit

"Some blog posts write themselves," said correspondent Michael Dowding when sending this story:

When a team falls completely short of expectations, fans and pundits have been known to say its players "didn't show up."

It's an expression, of course, often meant to describe indifference or lack of effort. It doesn't actually mean the team didn't show up.

Until now.

The San Francisco Rumble of the American Basketball Association literally didn't show up for a recent game. A playoff game. A conference championship game.

Rather than shell out about $21,000 in travel expenses, the Rumble chose not to travel to Port Arthur, Texas, thereby handing the ABA Western Conference title to the Southeast Texas Mavericks.

"It's a sad day all around," ABA chief executive officer Joe Newman told the Beaumont Enterprise. "In a world of difficult problems, it does not match health care, Israel, terrorism or education. The world won't end with this situation, but it is sad."

The prestigious ABA finals series, pitting the Mavericks and the Kentucky Bisons, begins Tuesday night in Owensboro, Ky.

Enjoy.

For an extra chuckle, be sure to check out the Rumble's roster.

The story does raise the question: What if you threw a championship game and no one showed up? Well, this weekend it would be disastrous. Why? Because you would miss the first-ever St. John Hoops Mega Intrastate Pickup Championship!

Check it out: There's this group in St. Cloud. Bunch of 30- to 40-year-old guys. They play pickup every Saturday morning. At a church. On a short court. 4-on-4. Andy Pearson, their COO and a former SJH playah, recently contacted me and said—and I quote—"It's on."

And so it is. This Saturday we will host our doppelgängers from St. Cloud in the pickup game to end all pickup games. (And by that I mean several of us will probably get hurt.) We tip off at 8:00 a.m. with 2-3 warm-up games. Then it gets real: Two 30-minute halves, running time with stop-time in the last two minutes of each half. Call your own. Our men in whites, theirs in darks. At stake: Well, nothing really. But that's always been the point of hoops at St. John, hasn't it?

I'd like to host our opponents in style. Could I ask everyone to throw in $5 for donuts and Gatorade? Also, I need an accurate headcount for this weekend. Please let me know ASAP if you will or will not be playing Saturday.

Remember: When it's all over they might say you can't play. But they can't say you didn't play.