Dear Mr. Sportsknowitall: In the old days we used to tell our radio listeners to "turn down the TV sound and listen to the play-by-play." Those days are gone. But when watching the American League playoffs I turned down the sound because of the awful thundersticks, which made announcers sound like they were talking in a waterfall, and listened to the radio. But the radio came in 20 seconds ahead, which is good if I were making bets. What causes this problem? D.G. (Don Gill, who has a show on NET radio).

Well, Don, no loss for words, I see. As you know, radio signals and TV signals travel the speed of light (186,000 miles per second). The TV signal has to bounce from the announcers to the production truck, to a satellite, back to earth, back to another satellite and so on before it gets to your TV. The radio signal goes back to the station and to your radio. As KFOR newscaster Charlie Brogan said, "Radio is like throwing from first to home. TV is like throwing from the warning track to home." If you were to move your TV to the roof of your house, or better yet, to the top of the sower's head on the Capitol, you might shave 1/billionth of a second off the time it takes for the TV signal to get to you. We never hear of this problem from people in Nepal, for instance.

Dear Mr. Sportsknowitall: I think the BCS is a lot of (hooey) and is really incredibly stupid ... like the Big Ten with 11 teams. All the other football divisions in the world, including futbol, have playoffs. Why are we stuck with such a piece of (hooey). R.D.

Go to Playoffproblem.com, a site set up by the BCS folks. There you'll learn, "If you think the BCS is controversial, wait until you realize how much more contentious a playoff would be," according to Bill Hancock, former Big Eight good guy, Big 12 nice guy, NCAA bright guy and BCS guy now.

Does that convince you that the BCS is worthwhile? No? Oh. We'll have controversy. The BCS apparently is trying to make us believe it limits controversy. Thank goodness they're here so we can concentrate on other things.

Got a controversy? Reach Mr. Sportsknowitall at 473-7313 or khambleton@journalstar.com.