NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell met with former Patriots employee Matt Walsh and said that whatever Walsh told him did not add to what the league already fundamentally understood to be the circumstances of the Patriots' violations of NFL policy regarding video recording opponents.

According to Walsh (according to Goodell) there was no taping of the St. Louis Rams' walk-through prior to the Super Bowl between the two teams which was won, of course, by New England.  Walsh is speaking with Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter presumably this afternoon and it remains to be seen whether Specter's concerns are allayed as a result of his questioning of Walsh.

My guess is that the senator will not be as ready to put the issue to rest as the commissioner but we'll see on that score.  Regardless, unless Specter wants to throw the weight of the federal government behind a further investigation -- a prospect I'm reluctant to handicap -- this marks the end of the inquiry.

All of which means that arguments about whether or not the Patriots' legacy is tainted will be consigned to bar stools, and the 21st century version of the bar stool -- Internet message boards and chat rooms.  People who are predisposed to dislike the Patriots will say New England have forfeited comparisons with the Steelers of the 1970s or the 49ers of the '80s or the Cowboys of the '90s because they "cheated."  Patriots backers will say that everyone in the NFL is an angle-shooter given the chance and the Patriots deserve their Super Bowls.

If this is the end of Spygate, my bet is that in 10 years or so, this chapter in NFL history will be couched in much the same way as the debate over whether the Giants' Bobby Thompson had the pitch signal when he hit the "Shot Heard 'Round the World" off Brooklyn's Ralph Branca.  Somewhere down the line, Spygate will make a historical transition from being divisively scandalous to merely being colorful.

Macho Again, a Florida-bred, has three wins in eight career starts but he disappointed with a seventh-place finish in the Lane's End Stakes. But that was a synthetic surface and Macho Again appears to be one of those horses who doesn't run well on synthetic. Of course at Pimlico, he'll be on dirt.

The gray colt has been training at Churchill Downs and is scheduled to fly into BWI Marshall tomorrow night along with Kentucky Derby winner and Preakness favorite Big Brown. Julien Leparoux is the jockey. We have a video of Macho Again's tainer Dallas Stewart talking about his horse's Preakness preparations followed by a workout at Churchill.

The colt was a bargain buy at the Keeneland auction going for just $40,000 after he broke through some fences just before the sale and got a little nicked up. Kentucky Bear has had three races with one win in his maiden at Gulfstream. His last outing was the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland where he finished third ahead of another scheduled Preakness entrant, Stevil. In the Blue Grass, Kentucky Bear is No. 2 (the video clears up after the first second or two).

The widespread belief is that the NFL wants to put the matter behind it with the conclusion that Goodell had previously arrived at -- that the Patriots and head coach Bill Belichick (left) derived negligible advantage from the practice of taping opponents' signals. And no wonder.  To conclude the opposite puts a virtual asterisk next to those Patriots' Super Bowls, which make up a significant portion of the league's legacy.

In a column today, ESPN's Sal Paolantonio suggests that Goodell's questioning of Walsh should focus on understanding something about Belichick's intentions and before-the-fact knowledge of wrong-doing (the New England coach's defense is that he didn't realize what he was doing was against NFL rules and the whole episode was merely an unfortunate result of misinterpreting the regulations).

It's an interesting point made by Paolantonio, a former news reporter and the author of a book on former Philadelphia mayor Frank Rizzo.  However, I'm not sure that Walsh's recollections -- after all, he left the Patriots in an unhappy parting more than five years ago -- and Wash's own interpretations of events and second-party motivations will represent definitive evidence of further Patriots' guilt.  Raise suspicions, perhaps, but not necessarily present Goodell with a smoking gun. Unless the league wants to continue peeling this onion by bringing in more people for more depositions (which could mean more grants of indemnification from civil liability).  And, of course, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter is still out there certainly available to stir the pot.  He gets his crack at Walsh, as well.

See, this is the difference between real life and sports.  Sports has nice neat endings called final scores with the issue settled in a couple of hours.  Real life is not nearly so accommodating.

Photo: Julie Jacobson/AP

Owens will be making a guest appearance on the MyNetworkTV's situation comedy "Under One Roof" tomorrow night at 8 p.m.  The premise of the show is that ne'er-to-do and star of the show, rapper-comedian-reality show goof Flavor Flav, is living with his well-to-do relatives.  In tomorrow's episode, the Owens character introduces himself as a long-lost brother who Flavor Flav suspects is a con artist looking for cash for an Internet venture. 

Owens, who had a small part in the Oliver Stone football movie "On Any Given Sunday," is hoping  he may have a career after football in show business.  You can be the judge.  This link has a couple of Owens moments from tomorrow's show.

In the first game, the Indians' Fausto Carmona threw a five-hit complete game shutout and in the second, Cliff Lee was doing his impression of Bob Gibson (circa 1968) as he lowered his ERA to 0.67 in nine innings of scoreless work.  Along the way, Lee got some help of historical proportions when second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera  turned an unassisted triple-play in the fifth inning.  It was just the 14th unassisted triple play in Major League history.

The Blue Jays -- struggling to score runs -- had runners on first-and-second and tried a hit-and-run.  Toronto's Lyle Overbay poked a line to Cabrera's right.  The second baseman made the diving snag and both runners were committed, one had reached third base and the other second.  Cabrera touched both the bag and the runner at second and he was in the history books.

Cabrera then committed an oops when he tossed the ball into the stands as he trotted to the dugout.  Cleveland's flawless evening came undone in the top of the 10th when Toronto scored three runs off relief pitcher Rafael Betancourt to salvage the split.

So why the Preakness?

This quote from trainer Eddie Plesa Jr. on the Thoroughbred Times Web site: "The decision to run in the Preakness was made by his owner Mrs. [Beatrice] Oxenberg. She has family up in Baltimore and there's no reason why we shouldn't come. She said she wants to come and taste the crab cakes."

Hey Byrn has three wins in four starts (all at Gulfstream) as a three-year-old and one win in four outings (all at Calder) as a two-year-old.

Here's Hey Byrn (No. 2) in the Holy Bull.

The first colt we'll take a look can be called something of a favorite son candidate, Icabad Crane. Although a New York-bred, Icabad Crane trains at the Fair Hill Training Center -- the northern Maryland facility that was home to Barbaro -- and furthering Icabad Cranes' claim to some local status is that he won the Tesio Stakes at Pimlico last month. And finally, he'll be ridden by Jeremy Rose who was aboard triumphant Afleet Alex for the 2005 Preakness. Icadab Crane has just four lifetime starts -- three as a three-year-old -- with three wins and a third.

In the Tesio Stakes (below), you'll see that Icabad Crane (No. 3) had a bit of a rough start, was back in sixth and then weaved his way through traffic to catch the leader at the wire.

Woods has won more tournaments in a single month than Goydos has won in his 16-year career. But yesterday, when Goydos' hopes of winning his third-ever PGA tour title sank with his ball into the water in front of the trademark 17th at Sawgrass, Woods would have been sympathetic. 

The hole, which is famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) for its keyhole island design has been described by Woods as being too "gimmicky" to be either the 17th hole of a round or the 71st of a tournament.   Well, yesterday, it was even more decisive as a sudden-death playoff hole that determined the duel between Goydos and Sergio Garcia for the Players Championship.

After Goydos' tee shot hit the water, Garcia put his on the green and parred the hole for the win.

Photo: Harry How/Getty Images

In a New Orleans-Salt Lake City series, the only story line will be about how one team comes from a city that has built its reputation on great music and free-flowing booze against a team from a city that, well, hasn’t. Quick, other than New Orleans’ Chris Paul, name me a player from either team.

Both Utah and New Orleans are tied, 2-2, in their respective conference semifinals against the Los Angeles Lakers and the San Antonio Spurs. The Jazz beat beat the Lakers in OT and the Spurs pummeled the Hornets yesterday to even things up.

In contrast, consider a possible L.A.-San Antonio series. In this corner we have the league MVP, Kobe Bryant, now an almost sympathetic figure playing gingerly with a bad back, and the Zen master, Phil Jackson. And in the other corner, we have the NBA defending champions and the current original Big Three – Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker.

There's even more star power in the stands. When such a series would be in L.A., at courtside, we have the menace of Jack Nicholson and the cool of Ice Cube. In San Antonio, it’s the glamour of Mrs. Tony Parker -- Eva Longoria (right).

Guess who the TV people are rooting for.

Photo: Eric Gay/AP

The O's salvaged what could have been a disastrous road trip by beating up on their cousins, the Kansas City Royals, and taking three out of four to finish the 10-game swing at 4-6. They return to Camden Yards at 19-19. If told in spring training that this team would be .500 in mid-May, I would have taken it.

Now, comes the crucible of an 18-game stretch where 12 are at home. More importantly, 15 of those 18 games are with divisional rivals -- the Yankees, Red Sox and suddenly  threatening Tampa Bay Rays. Sandwiched in there is an upcoming weekend series against Washington. Because of Boston's fast start, the O's are four games out of the division lead but  are in a crowded field for second in the wildcard chase (as irrelevant as it may seem at the moment) 2 1/2 games back. If the Orioles can come out of the other side of this still at .500 or even a shade better, it makes June at least worth paying attention to.

It begins tomorrow with a two-game series here -- Jeremy Guthrie and Daniel Cabrera pitch for Baltimore and postseason ace Josh Beckett and Jon Lester for Boston.

You want interesting, at least we've got interesting.

To be frank, the video shows nothing more than Benson walking through a booking facility, apparently compliant. It illustrates little about the events in dispute that involve Lower Colorado River Authority police. It was the river authority police who boarded Benson's boat last weekend and placed him under arrest for allegedly boating while intoxicated and resisting arrest. He was pepper-sprayed when, they said, he was threatening.

Benson has denied being being either intoxicated or uncooperative and has hired a lawyer to fight the charges.

Meanwhile, another witness who saw Benson on land being escorted by police after his arrest suggested they used unnecessarily force on the player.

Toby Patch, who was not a member of Benson's boating party, said:

"As they were taking him up the dock, they stopped. He said, 'I am fine, I can continue walking,' and they put their legs behind his knees and knocked him over his knees and started hog-carrying him," Patch told an Austin TV station.

"They ended up — I don't know why — but laid him on his back, I heard him say, 'Please don't pepper-spray me, please don't pepper-spray me.' It was uncalled for, it was ludicrous, no point for it."

So for whatever it's worth, here's the video of Benson in custody.

The second is of a fan at a Dodgers game making a one-handed snag of a home run ... while holding a child. He got to keep the ball but Child Services took away the baby. Just kidding there.

Thanks to AOL, the Big Lead and Lion in Oil for pointing them out.

For one, there was a tape of San Diego offensive signals. To date, it was believed that the Patriots had only been taping defensive signals because sideline-to-quarterback radio communication would have eliminated the need for offensive hand signals.

In addition, the tapes make apparent that was an increasing sophistication in how the tapes were shot and edited as the practice continued. The Walsh tapes date from 2000 to 2002 and later tapes showed a sequence that had coaches signaling instructions, then there was a scoreboard shot of down-and-distance, and then two shots of the resulting play from different angles.

Walsh is expected to meet with NFL officials on Tuesday and then later with Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter who has often shown an interest in the NFL’s activities.

If you take a look at the video that’s part of this link featuring ESPN investigative reporter Mike Fish, he makes an interesting point about the taping. Although it appears there is no new news here, the fact that the older tapes can now be viewed (remember, the league destroyed the more recent spy tapes) raises again the issue of competitive advantage the Patriots may have gained. Fish points out that if the Pats didn’t gain a competitive edge (the league has said that the taping did not impact on the outcome of games), then why would the Patriots have continued to refine their techniques as they went along? It would appear to be an awfully time-consuming exercise if it had no value. Would Belichick waste his staff's valuable time on work that had no payoff?

If nothing else, the Walsh-supplied tapes further fuel the debate over the legitimacy of the Patriots’ legacy.