Rejoice, America! The lowest common denominator has been thwarted. Taste and common sense have claimed a rare victory in the battle for decency. The barbarians approached the gate and decided to take their red-and-black ball and go home.

The XFL, dead.

NBC quickly announced plans for three more "Dateline" episodes per week. Vince McMahon will return to the time-proven method of money-making: Selling America on the idea of fake wrestlers -- shaved and steroid-ridden -- and their homophobic, homoerotic creepiness.

It's too bad, too, because things were starting to look up for the new league. A newspaper in central Ohio was set to report today that Chuck Fusina was making plans to move in with Marc Wilson to plot their comebacks.

If only the league could have gutted it out just a little longer.

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Someone in promotion said, "Pair the duds and call it synergy": Can we infer any linkage between TBS advertising its upcoming airing of "Judge Dredd" during the Mavs-Spurs series?

Has any other athlete -- especially one whose head grazes the net -- engendered so much public pity as this guy?: Without fail, expect a commentator to say, "Shawn Bradley's playing well, he really is," when the Mavs are down by 20.

It might not look as good when it airs Saturday night on "COPS," but I'm thinking it might be a good idea to let the man finish the tournament, cash his check and then run the man: Leading a doubles' match 4-1, Roscoe Tanner was arrested and charged with failing to pay child support during a senior tennis tournament in Atlanta.

Another amazing fact about the Twins: Though a predominantly left-handed hitting team (Doug Mientkiewicz, Matt Lawton, and Corey Koskie), they are 8-1 against left-handed starters.

As Jim Wohlford and Yogi Berra know, obits written in May can look mighty foolish in October: Don't be so sure the A's aren't going to make it work before it's over.

This proves one fact of NBA life -- you now have to have your own recruiting web site and a futon in the basement of grandma's house to identify all the names on the early entry list: Seton Hall's Samuel Dalembert will forego his final two years in college to go pro.

One reason some of us will miss Charles Barkley if he decides to make his ill-advised comeback: Asked by straight man Ernie Johnson to name a key to the Raptors' series win over the Knicks, Barkley said, "I think it was the Lord. The Lord was with the Raptors. You know the Knicks like to talk so much about religion, but I think the Lord was a Raptor fan."

Some folks might call it irony, but we prefer the time-honored "hypocrisy": Jesse Ventura, XFL announcer/instigator and former pro wrestler, apologized for the behavior of Twins' fans during the Knoblauch mess.

Potential NFL defensive tackles need to know this, because sometimes it's the difference between staying home on the reverse and getting suckered: A sample question from the Wonderlic test -- "Does B.C. mean "before Christ"?

The parents' definition is somewhat different, containing muttered curses about infernal heat and dust, not to mention the always popular, "For God's sake, are they playing another inning?": A New York Times story on the first T-ball game at the White House included a paragraph that read, "T-ball is an introductory version of baseball in which batters don't swing at pitches but instead hit a ball that sits atop a vertical tube."

If they had a centerfielder we really, really wanted, you could bet Dubya would be telling the Marines to get themselves limbered up: Apparently the Chinese are going to keep the plane and Yao Ming?

Video we're glad to be spared: Tie Domi's day with the Stanley Cup.

And, by the way, the 4,000 hits Pete Rose got while under the influence of arrogance are hereby thrown out: Around here the vagaries of baseball's rules can take a hike -- 20 K's in nine innings is all we need to know.

A release so quick it should be called a "redirection" instead of a shot: Dell Curry.

We've never seen anything like this guy: Allen Iverson.

Maybe it's so simple it's complicated: How hard is it for the Kings to figure out that Webber inside and Divac outside -- which means, of course, Shaq moves away from the defensive boards -- is the best chance to salvage their pride?

Uninterested in the NBA playoffs? Here's one sentence to use during that uncomfortable social setting with your wife's boss: "That Shaq -- he's just too big."

Correction to last week's column: Bobby Jackson is actually three times -- not twice -- as good as Jason Williams.

And finally, most of it was funny, but the whole Dennis Franz thing went a little too far: Shaq says he was joking when he went on the radio and said he slept with several famous folks, including Venus Williams and Cindy Crawford.

Tim Keown is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail tim.keown@espnmag.com.