I was thinking during Kitsap Sports Hall of Fame inductions for the class of 2009 that it’s a shame more people don’t take serious what the Kitsap County Bremerton Athletic Roundtable goes through to put on an event like this. It takes a lot of time, sweat and tears just so the best local athletes can be honored.

So when inductees fail to show, it diminishes the effort the KCBAR puts into the event. The missing probably had good reasons for not showing, but I’m thinking unless you are on life support being honored by your local community should be a top priority. And if you don’t show, you are in the Hall of Shame.

I’m afraid I will have to make this shameful honor a national award. Maury Wills might understand that. I say might because I’m not sure one of baseball’s best-ever base stealers and short-lived Seattle Mariners manager has figure out yet what it takes or what it means to run a ballclub. For that, he belongs in this hall.

The Bremerton School District belongs in the hall for figuring out how to run dedicated coaches out of the coaching profession. The district athletic program is already down-and-out and the budget cutting ruling classified employees could not coach a sport just knocked the program down a little further. To be fair, replacement coaches hired may turn out to be good. I therefore reserve the honor of taking away the district’s shameful act if future events warrant it since there is nothing more shameful than to keep shameful honors if they are no longer deserving of their shameful honor.

A special place in the far corner of the Hall of Shame – which by the way is located somewhere in the dark recesses of the darkest recesses of Gorst – is being reserved for those college administrators who continue to keep most state community colleges, including the one in Bremerton, from hiring full-time coaches on staff and thus making their athletic programs as meaningful and welcoming in their communities as another traffic-ticketing camera is at another local red-light intersection.

Consider this: If Olympic College, were to suddenly decide to erase all its athletic programs from existence, would you notice? Would you care? I think it would be a little like asking the question: If a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody around, what sound does the tree falling make?

The answer would be: I don’t know. Because, if you don’t know the school has an athletic program how can you miss it, right?

When the most popular memory of OC athletics is the 1949 basketball team that placed fourth in the national tournament, then you know something is amiss. Every so often we dust off that memory just to pinch ourselves to make sure we still exist.

I’m trying to think of a sports thing I can associate with David Letterman so I can put him in to the Hall of Shame for his reported behavior to female staffers on the Late Show. I’m afraid, though, I can’t, unless it is his annual attempt at Christmas time to use a football to knock off the pizza or meatball from the top of the Christmas tree he has on his studio set.

Washington Redskins founder George Preston Marshall resisted with all his might employing blacks not only for his team but also for the NFL and for that he should have a statue in the hall. It would be painted black – of course.

Rush Limbaugh doesn’t have to be part of a bid for the St. Louis Rams ownership to belong in the Hall of Shame. He's already a solid member in standing just because of his views. Limbaugh was eliminated from the group’s bid after the controversy it stirred, but the NFL would have quickly become a standing member if he hadn’t been dropped.

Can you imagine what would happen if Limbaugh owned the Rams? All the Rams possessions would have to start from the right side as you viewed it on your flat screen TV at home. And because the Rams could only go right, they would never gain a first down. It would be an impossible situation.

The rabble-rousers of the world don’t all have to be political extremists who can be a danger to society. They can be fun guys like Bill Veeck, who installed the ivy at Wrigley Field in Chicago and sent up Eddie Gaedel to bat in 1951. Gaedel was but three feet and seven inches tall and had been signed to a one-day contract for $100 to do this, earning a four-pitch walk American League president Bill Harridge tried to get stricken from the books without success. Good thing Harridge failed because he might have ended up in Gorst in the Hall of Shame.

Not Veeck, though. He’s good.

Michael Vick belongs in the Hall of Shame. I don’t care if he is brilliant in his second-chance career. There is no excuse for his behavior toward dogs and he can make millions and millions of dollars but in the end he still is in Gorst.

Plaxico Burress should be in the Hall of Shame, but he’s in prison instead, although I don’t quite understand how one can shoot oneself in the leg and then get 30 months in jail for it. But taking a gun to a nightclub is stupid enough that he gets into Gorst just for that alone.

I have reserved a special spot for all those athletes who have tattoos running up and down their arms and other less revealing places on their bodies. I don’t understand the popularity of tattoos. I think it’s an ugly thing to do. The human body is a thing of beauty. But if you want to do it, there is space in Gorst for you.

Ken Griffey Jr. belongs in the Hall of Shame for being such a good guy in the Seattle Mariners' clubhouse and almost single-handedly turning around the atmosphere from bad to good from last year's disaster.

Why then does he belong in Gorst?

For being such a good guy that he masked being 39 years old going on 50, that he had bad knees and that he couldn't hit his way out of a wet paper bag (he batted .214 this year). The media was quick to jump on the feel-good story about Griffey and lazy about telling the complete truth – that Griffey was a liability in the lineup, especially at the No. 4 slot.

You can like Griffey for all you want (and I do), but the bare fact is that h’'s over-the-hill as an offensive threat and can no longer play the field, where in his first incarnation as a Mariner he was as good a centerfielder as I have ever seen. He is a Cooperstown cinch as a player of the past, but belongs in the Hall of Shame as a player of the present because he's taking good money to be a fun-to-be-around guy in the clubhouse.

Pay me millions and I will paint on a smiley clown face and be the perfect guy in the clubhouse. Just don't let me get near the field.

If the Mariners want Griffey back, make him a clubhouse employee. I'm sure he can do the laundry.

The Washington Husky football team belongs in the Hall of Shame for beating Arizona and then losing to Arizona State on a last-second pass play so wide open it looked like a low-level pee wee play.

Arizona seriously outplayed the Huskies all afternoon. In fact, I was starting to look around for Ty Willingham. But in the last three minutes, the Huskies got lucky, scored twice and won. It is only right the team should feel nervous the rest of the season, waiting for somebody to show up and tell them they didn't deserve to win and it's being taken away from them.

It's not right to chastise high school kids, but Capital’s football team comes close for putting up 73 points on North Kitsap.

I want to put Alex Rodriguez in the hall for just being who he is. But then he goes off on the Minnesota Twins and the L.A. Angels and while he's hot I can't. I need him to go back to being the Miss October he always has been. Somebody should check his water bottle.

Have a great month.

You are loved.