The great race that isn't. (Caught On The Fly).

Gentlemen, start your whining. A sure topic of controversy at the Daytona 500--aside from the cruddiness of the track, hamstringing of the horsepower and anticlimacticness of the race--will be all the new templates.

There's no telling how they'll draft/ handle. But just about every driver will pilot something new, putting everybody at an equal disadvantage, which logically is not a disadvantage, which, it seems to Fly, gives the advantage to skilled drivers. Translation: no Bodines.

Meantime, Fly's got an idea of what to do to fix the sport's best race of the year: Nothing. Bristol is perfect.

Off the hook

Florida gave up one broken-down catcher (Charles Johnson) and picked up another in Ivan Rodriguez, who is so happy to be in Miami that he made the Fish promise not to offer him arbitration when the season's over.

I-Rod's in Florida to avoid playing in Japan/Baltimore and to try to boost his value for when he becomes a free agent next fall. But is it a wise career move for any player to try to improve his value while playing for such a lowly team? Fly sees two schools of thought: One--Florida has a baseball team? And two--it'll be hard for I-Rod to raise his ceiling when he's in the basement all season.

What, no Hungry, Hungry Hippos?