George Carlin died of a heart attack at the St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, CA, this past Sunday.

F#%*.

His "Seven Words" bit, first delivered to what I can only assume was a giddily stunned audience in Milwaukee in 1972, eventually led to the Supreme Court's ruling on indecency over American airwaves that to this day can get radio and television stations and personalities fined, censured and, in extreme cases, removed from the air entirely.

Carlin later added three "auxiliary" words to the bit, bringing the total up to 10.

In 1982, nearly ten years after his original, groundbreaking routine, Carlin presented his complete and updated magnum opus on all things filthy, immoral, wrong and generally guaranteed to lead to the downfall of civilization as we know it, when he performed at Carnegie Hall in New York.

By then, the list had reached 200 words, and the beauty lay not so much in the "filth" itself but the obvious maniacal glee with which Carlin read each and every offending noun, verb, adjective and adverb. He was like Santa Claus getting way too big a kick out of reading the naughty list. It's an impossible list to read without smirking. Really.

You should check it out…

George would've had some choice words to describe the manner in which the New York Mets let go of their skipper, Willie Randolph, last week. With the National League's highest payroll and following their historic collapse at the end of last season, everyone and anyone with half a brain knew the Mets were one protracted losing streak away from getting Willie sent to swim with the fishes.

What nobody expected was that the Mets would bungle the job so completely.

Having dodged a bullet during a come-to-Jesus meeting with team brass only weeks before, having seemingly side-stepped any lingering landmines from playing the race card shortly before that, and having just been sent out West with, at least according to Randolph, a personal vote of confidence from his General Manager, everybody in New York and throughout baseball was left with an awful taste in their mouths when the announcement of Willie's ouster was released.

In Los Angeles.

At 12:15 in the morning.

3:15 East Coast time.

Following a Mets win over the first-place Angels.

G.M. Omar Minaya worked hard to paint himself as the old-school, honorable hatchet-man in the scenario, sleeping on his decision before flying out West to deliver the news to Randolph personally, "eye to eye," and after that night's game (did I mention it was a win?), even going so righteously far as to give Randolph a chance to shower, change into his street clothes and come back to the hotel.

You know, so as not to catch him off guard or anything.

Eeeeewww.

Slimey.

Speaking of slimey, kudos to Ted Leonsis, George McPhee and the rest of the Caps brass for managing to avoid any flak whatsoever from area fans and media for the way they helped show Olaf "Olie" Kolzig to the curb last month. After spending his entire career with one team, after toiling to carry that team on his back after management decided that a "rebuilding process" was in order (largely due to the incredibly short-sighted, money-burning, talent-sucking signing of perennial whiney-baby, Jaromir "I've Got the Talent Just Not the Heart" Jagr), after saying all the right things in public when the Caps traded for goalie Cristobal Huet three-quarters of the way through the season, Kolzig was notably and justifiably bent when his first playoffs in a thousand years turned into a cheerleading exercise.

When the Caps were eliminated in Game 7 by Philadelphia, Kolzig packed up his things, the nametag from his locker included, and simply went home, everything in his mind pointing to the crystal-clear realization that the Caps had found a new starting goalie and that his days in D.C. were beyond numbered.

They were over.

Some might say Kolzig's up and leaving in a huff was classless, a naked attempt to draw attention away from the young team and all they'd accomplished, and back to the too-long-in-the-tooth former superstar. Bull, I say. Not if you knew anything about Olie.

Kolzig gave everything he had to the Caps, starting in 1989 when they drafted him, and continuing through his starting career that encompassed over a decade in D.C. He won the Vezina Trophy, awarded to the league's best goalie, in 2000. He was recognized, by fan vote in 2004, as the top player in franchise history. Name a team record for goaltending and I'll bet you Olie owns it.

And Ted and George let him blow out of town like any other tumblin' tumbleweed.

Nobody chased after him, nobody begged him to reconsider, nobody admitted that maybe, just maybe, they could have handled the situation a little better and that maybe, just maybe, they were blinded by Cup-frenzy into forgetting just who had done so much of the work, who had done so much of the heavy lifting, who had made so much of the sacrifice and who, exactly, had shed so much of the blood that had gotten them there.

Nobody.

Eeeeewww.

Super slimey.

To quote Mr. Carlin, "P@%&#!*H!@#%&"

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