Warning: Non-Baseball Item

We're going to have some of these this offseason, so deal with it.

After baseball, I'm a college football fan, and I usually read Pat Forde's weekly "Forde Yard Dash" column at ESPN.com. I like it because, while not necessarily in-depth reporting, it does tend to cut a pretty wide swath, covering a lot of teams and stories to which I may not otherwise have paid attention.

One thing about it just bugs me, though, and that's his "Putting out an APB for . . ." item, in which he names a college player from the last 10-20 years and asks readers to email him with any info they have on what he's doing these days. Often the player himself will contact Forde and a week or two later we will read about how he runs a Ford dealership in Montgomery or coaches a high school team in San Berdoo or something.

I experience unspecified dread every time he puts out an ABP for a new player, though, because I am convinced that it will finally be the week where the guy named will be found to have died in an unpublicized boating accident in 1996 or is doing time for child rape or something similarly awful. Maybe Forde pre-screens these to avoid such nastiness, but then why the need for the APB?

Maybe this says more about me than the item. I just thought I'd throw it out there.