BY RYAN ARENA
L’Observateur

Some random thoughts from the world of sports as prep season lurks around the corner…

Not funny, Reggie Bush! Having fun with the media in terms of your knee injury is all well and good, but it also gives die-hard fans indigestion, upset stomach and all the other things we need Pepto Bismol to take care of.

When you especially consider his injury history (and the microfracture surgery he had on that knee), we had reason to believe his cry of wolf.

Then again, the story was embellished — apparently, he didn’t walk with a limp as was written in some reports — so the point is taken with how the media tends to blow things up.

But still — not funny!

What WAS funny was watching the last few holes of Sunday’s Buick Open with my father, hearing somebody, ahem, ‘pass gas’ loudly, and the laughter on screen that came after it. I did a double take, wondering aloud to Dad if I had actually heard it correctly.

Then I find out it was Tiger Woods and the replay is on YouTube.

Glorious.

All in all though, it’s just one thing Tiger’s better at than I am. When you can laugh at your own thunderous flatulence on national television, you’ve earned my respect as a man.

But you know who isn’t earning my respect? Prospective 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree, if the reports that he’d sit out the season and reenter next season’s draft are true. Has he learned anything from Mike Williams, who sat out a season, got out of shape, and busted out with the Lions? Sure, if the 49ers are playing extreme hardball, then maybe you need to make a statement. But not even a week into training camp?

Ugh…this is one place the NBA has its salary structure right. You’re slotted, you get paid reasonably, you earn your whopper contract on a second deal. Is that so much to ask?

Isn’t it obvious that a player selected No. 1 overall shouldn’t be topping guys like Drew Brees in annual salary, having done zero in the NFL? Much like Crabtree hasn’t, but you wouldn’t know it by the way his camp is acting.

So David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez cheated in 2003? Do we care? The story’s lost any steam it’s had over the past week, probably because while we fans certainly would like to see steroids out of baseball, I think we’re done losing sleep over the revelations that more people cheated during what is now accepted as a dirty era. Ramirez was caught using banned substances earlier ‘this’ season, so how is this a shock? When baseball itself doesn’t even outlaw these things for years on end, how are we to expect the majority of players to fall in line?

Nowadays, at least the sport is trying to clean things up. It has a tall mountain to climb, for sure. But I think its safe to say we can stop dwelling on the past — suspending people in 2007, 2008 and 2009 doesn’t all of a sudden erase what happened in years before.