Mike Wise's description of the incident that has led to Gilbert Arenas' Waterloo is amazing.

A brief-as-possible summary:

• Javaris Crittenden loses ±$1,100 to JaVale McGee in a game of "Boo-ray." Arenas somehow gets involved in a resulting dispute.
• Arenas threatens to blow up Crittenden's car (he is smiling). Crittenden (no word on his facial expression) threatens to shoot Arenas in the knee.
• Two days later, Arenas lays out a selection of guns in Crittenden's locker, with a note reading "choose one." He explains to Crittenden that if he'd like to shoot him, this would facilitate the process.
• Crittenden, unimpressed with the selection of weapons, produces his own gun and loads it while singing.
• Arenas laughs and begins repeating "Look at that little shiny gun." Teammates who were watching begin to make excuses and scram.

CONCLUSION: The media is to blame.

OTHER THINGS!

• New Redskins coach! I can't remember the last time I was so excited. Oh wait, I totally can.
• TABLETS WILL SAVE MEDIA. (1.) (2.) Obviously.
• IRONY ALERT: Chris Dodd's retirement may necessitate a bailout of the Democratic Party. I TOLD YOU IT WAS IRONIC.
• CLOSER TO HOME:  Metro Photoshop shenanigans (a propos of not much, I live for the day when I can use "Shanahaninanigans" in a headline). A long-overdue blog about  conditions on the Rock Creek trail (my report: a little heart-stopping at night in the fitness-trail corridor, especially when you have to ride on the ridge because the path is too icy and good luck not thinking about that poor guy who died in the creek recently). And: Does D.C. want to be a "transit city"?

BIKE COMMUTING CORNER: If you have access to a mountain bike, this is a good time to use it. It's very slippy out there.

Thank you for reading this. Have a rocking Thursday, and use those contact buttons!

So...Mike Shanahan!

Chris Dodd!

Guantanamo inmates from Yemen!

The Post's Michael Wilbon gives the Rev. Al Sharpton a big thumbs up this morning for taking to task the gun-toting Gilbert Arenas, one of the sports world's "misbehaving black athletes."

Sharpton can change the news cycle all by himself, and did when he called on black leaders and Commissioner David Stern to come down hard on Arenas. Sharpton has already spoken with Stern and told the New York Daily News, "The NBA needs to stand up and send a strong message by dealing with this situation." Sharpton says his concern is a "culture of violence being perpetuated in professional sports."

It's a jolt to hear Sharpton be this critical of Arenas and a subculture of black athletes that has been involved in so many incidents of lawlessness for years and years. It's nice of Sharpton to finally join this particular debate so long in progress.

Arenas, for his part, thinks it's not so nice. He gives the good reverend a thumbs down. (Yes, Arenas hired that lawyer, but thank God for us, he's still tweeting.)

A look at his feed from the past few hours:

- Al Sharpton comments ill try to be as nice as he was too me on my next tweet

- For a kid who does a lot of work for the black community I didn't get the memo u were still one of our black leaders becuz if u was

- U wouldn't have made a comment like that befor gettin all the fax str8..I hav black leaders tattooed on my leg I call it black rush more

- That's Martin,Obama,Mr X,and Mandela..so next time before u wash ur hands of something pls hear the real story..God bless the black C

- @KevinJohnEllis yes I hav jesus tattooed on my ribs becuz he's on my side

Oh, one more thing: Today's Arenas' birthday! I know this because he happened to mention it on Twitter, and because his Web site features a Happy Birthday Gilbert rap video ("Go GA/Cuz it's your B-day/and tell the DJ/To put this thing on replay").

Again, from his Twitter feed:

- Happy b-day to myself..gonna celebrate by ordering rm service..and sum hot chocolate..I sound borin to myself ..

If only, Gilbert...

Photograph by Freedom to Marry, Creative Commons Attribution License

Thompson told listeners he phoned Baylor in Southern California on his birthday just to say thanks for inspiring him and so many other DC kids in the 1950s when he went off to college to play ball. Baylor's style of play was a revelation to players from anywhere and everywhere. But around here, Baylor's influence transcended the court. Before Baylor, Thompson said, kids on the city's playgrounds never thought of going off to college. He made the world a bigger place for a whole generation.

Thompson, now 68, recalled being at the playground one day when Baylor, already a legend here after carrying the University of Seattle to the NCAA Final Four, showed up with a big friend: Wilt Chamberlain. Thompson, then a skinny and awestruck teenager sitting courtside, was the last guy picked for the game. "Elgin remembered it!" Thompson said, as if he never played in a game that mattered more.

The story led to all sorts of calls from other aging children to talk about Baylor's greatness and other boyhood heroes.

Because the mainstream media pretended black schoolboy athletes didn't matter, Baylor never got talked up enough when he lived here.

(AFTER THE JUMP: How come Baylor doesn't have a statue? Tamir Goodman retires? From what? If Linda McMahon comes back to DC, will Vince follow?)

And, he doesn't get talked up enough around his old hometown to this day. If any athlete from DC deserves a statue, it's Elgin Baylor.

***

From a kid who didn't get enough attention to a kid who got way too much: Here's the lede of the Tamir Goodman retirement story from the Baltimore Sun: "Once heralded as 'The Jewish Jordan,' Tamir Goodman never lived up to the hype."

Goodman never had a chance.  It seemed the state of Maryland's entire Orthodox Jewish community was coming out for his games around the time Gary Williams offered Goodman a scholarship in 1999. Goodman's high school coach did him no favors, going on every sports station and calling every newspaper to tout the skinny teen's greatness during his junior season at Talmudical Academy in Pikesville. Goodman signed autographs to kids wearing yarmulkes and said he was playing not for a school but for a people.

"Tamir feels like he's playing for the Jewish people," his father, Karl Goodman, told me after a game at Talmudical. "But he still takes out the garbage."

For outsiders, the whole scene was as bizarre as it was entertaining.The administration at Talmudical, known for its conservative ways and academic rigors, wasn't amused by the media circus. The school didn't even want Goodman or his coach around for his senior year of high school.

And, like a horse whose trainer had only run him against cheap claimers or a fighter whose padded his record with tomato cans, Goodman's real game got exposed as soon as he went against high schools who cared about basketball. Williams withdrew Maryland's scholarship offer to Goodman before he'd graduated high school, and Goodman basically went into heavy rotation in Where-Are-They-Now? stories (including several in this space).

The godly frenzy that surrounded him as a kid put a zap on his head that's still there. After making his retirement announcement in Brooklyn — he's been playing minor league ball in Israel, and now he'll work with kids — he gave the Sun such quotes as "Looking back, I see how divinely ordained everything was," and "If you look at the beginning of my career, it seemed like God just carried me and I only knew success."

It's not his fault, or His fault, that Goodman was a better story than he was a basketball player.

***

Linda McMahon is trying to get back to DC. She's running as a Republican for Chris Dodd's (D-CT) U.S. Senate seat. McMahon is the husband of WWE boss and absolute mothershutyourmouthin' genius Vince McMahon.

The McMahons became a couple as kids growing up in North Carolina, when she was 13 years old and Vince was a couple years older. They've been together ever since. Vince spent a lot of time here in DC with his dad, Vincent J. McMahon, who ran his wrestling empire out of this city, with weekly matches at Turner’s Arena on W Street NW. And after college Vince and Linda moved up here to help out with the family ring business, and stayed with the company as it moved to Connecticut and became the global force it is today.

She's not the first Connecticutter to try to use wrestling as a springboard to Congress. Bob Backlund, a World Champion for the McMahons' federation, then called WWF, in the 1970s, tried running for a House seat in 2000 as a Republican. Backlund's campaign — his second for public office, if you count the 1996 run for president as part of a WWF story line — ended with him getting piledriven by his Democratic opponent.

Linda McMahon pledges her campaign is legit.

But, there's no way Vince is going to let this pass without adding a wrestling angle to it. No way.

***

Update on the Road to 100 Losses: Nationals get whupped in Philadelphia, 6-1.

The Nats scored their first and only run in two days in the top of the 9th, on a play the official scorer ruled "fielder's indifference."

Indifference in the Nats has spread to the opposition!

Good thing it's football season...

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

• Charles Homans reported on the death of local conservative web venture Culture 11 for Washington Monthly. Homans' initial impression is spot-on, and one that conservative sites, by their prudish nature, can't help but cultivate: "On its surface, the softly launched beta (test) version of Culture11 hewed closely to the original vision, down to its Slateish design. Poking around the site was a bit like wandering into the Christian rock section of a record store: the bands were recognizably bands, with electric guitars and vaguely countercultural clothing, but there was something … different about them, the musicians just a little too healthy looking to be real rock stars." I tossed my two cents on conservative culture writing into murky waters a few months back. David Sessions at Patrol has a great response to Homans' piece, in which Culture 11's Joe Carter makes a CONSERVATIVES GONE WILD appearance in the comments.
• You know how all those political types have been frothing at the mouth about the AIG bonuses/Wall Street sodomizing Main Street/Etc.? WCP alumnus Dave Jamieson calls them on their bullshit in a fantastic TNR piece: "Last week, lawmakers dashed to the podiums of Capitol Hill to condemn AIG and the rest of those bonus-loving scoundrels on Wall Street. But not long before that, some of those same members had been dashing to fundraisers with the very financial bogeymen they were now skewering." Charlie Rangel? Crook. Chris Dodd? Douche hat. Carolyn Maloney? into Wall Street for big bucks. Don't trust a one of 'em.
• Why does William Saletan talk about Lady Parts all the time? Because they matter: "The reason I keep you posted on developments in IVF, surrogates, and embryo screening is that they're transforming the debate. They're changing the conditions on which our moral positions rely. Were you pro-choice because the embryo was in a woman? Now we have embryos in dishes. Did you support embryo screening for fatal diseases? Now we're talking about screening embryos for eye color. Does the value of an embryo depend on what its mother thinks? Now we have embryos with two mothers: a genetic one and a gestational one. Should they at least consult each other?"

That's it for me, folks. Enjoy your weekend.