This is the Sears of sports stuff. Solidly middle market, serviceable and so wide-ranging it's impossible not to find something in your sport of choice. Although Oshman's isn't the place for upper-end specialty gear, at times you can find the very best of what you're looking for at bargain prices. A few months ago, we found a pair of North Face climbing shorts for an unheard-of 40 percent off. The tennis gear, too, is top of the line. Whether you are looking for clothing, a set of weights, a soccer ball or a very good tennis racket, you have a good chance of ending your hunt here.

Don't get us wrong. We love quite a number of Dallas' outdoor boutiques, the ones selling full lines of Patagonia fashions and some of the coolest shoes known to man. But when it comes time to spring for a serviceable sleeping bag or a backpack, REI's prices and selection are the ones to beat. A few years back we bought some first-rate North Face bags, and nobody could top this warehouse-sized, outdoor category killer. And that didn't include the 10 percent year-end refund, which goes along with the co-op-style way REI does business. Some of the fine, high-end outfitting stores in the area are more likely to meet the demands of back-country winter hikers or rated mountaineers. But for all-around outfitting and camping stuff for the whole family, REI gets the nod.

Sarah Melton fell in love with basketball because she had to--there was no other choice. When you grow up in Indiana, that's what happens. In Indiana, there's basketball and...well, we're not really sure what else they have in Indiana because we've never been there. But we suspect it's miles upon miles of wheat and cornfields broken up by strategically placed basketball courts.

"Oh, come on, Indiana is great," says Melton, who became the Mavericks' PR director last year at the tender age of 27, making her the youngest person to hold that position in the NBA. "But you're either an Indiana fan or a Purdue fan. I grew up an Indiana fan, and my dad was a ref, so we always had basketball on the television. Always. I never missed an Indiana basketball game. Actually, this is a funny story. I went to Indiana [University]. Before I got there, I only missed one game, and it was in the first grade. My mom grounded me for not doing my science fair project, and she wouldn't let me watch the game. I'm a first-grade girl who can't watch basketball, but I'm really, really upset. The bummer about that was the game I missed was the game that Bobby Knight threw that chair across the court."

Luckily for her, she was conditioned at an early age--programmed to enjoy basketball but also to understand that strange things can happen. Chairs get thrown. Players bust your chops. Owners run out onto the court. That's basketball--at least it has been for Melton.

After college, she ended up with the Mavericks. Gregg Elkin, who worked as the sports information director at Indiana University, had moved to Dallas to head the Mavs' PR department. He had a job open for an assistant, and he offered it to Melton. She immediately jumped at it. But, after her first road trip, she wasn't sure if she had jumped in it.

"The first trip I went on was to Detroit," Melton recalls. "They had these old, almost high school-style, rickety locker rooms. They were very small. I thought I had enough experience to do the job, but I didn't really want to go in the locker room. I was like, 'This isn't for me.' But I just went in there and did my job.

"I have to be professional. And because of my age and my gender, I'm a minority in both in the NBA. I have to work that much harder to avoid the perception that I'm anything but a professional. The players test you. They say things. They'll comment on what I'm wearing or my boyfriend, but I don't let that bother me. I never have. I can't be the girl who dates the athletes. The job is too important to me. There are a lot of girls who work for teams who like the job but who want to date the players. So, yeah, I do have to work that much harder."

When Elkin left last year to become the PR director for the Texas Rangers, everyone just assumed that Melton would take over. And she did. She never even had to interview. Instead, Matt Fitzgerald, the senior vice president of marketing and communications, simply pulled her aside one day and told her the job was hers. But considering the NBA's history on gender equality, it wasn't a given that Melton would get the gig. Before Melton, there were only three other women serving in that capacity in the league. Today, there are five out of 30. And, at the time, Melton was the youngest person, male or female, to be an NBA PR director. She had a lot of history and politics working against her--all of which the Mavs, to their credit, ignored.

"There was never a question about using Sarah," owner Mark Cuban says. "Sarah has always done a great job. She relates well to everyone. She follows through and gets the job done. The moment I heard that Gregg was leaving, I promoted Sarah. I didn't care about her age, gender or anything other than her qualifications. It wasn't even a consideration. What's not to love about her?"

A year after becoming the boss, her job hasn't changed much. She still has to work with the players and the media and act as an intermediary between the two. But she's comfortable now, which is good for her and for those who might follow in her path.

"You know, I'm such a dreamer," Melton says. "I had predecessors. The three women that I know in PR were huge mentors for me. Knowing that they were doing what I always wanted to do gave me more motivation to work hard and get this job. It made me realize that it was possible. Now that I have the job, others will call me and ask me how I did things or how I got involved. Honestly, that's the greatest gift that I can have. That I can help these girls who want to do what I'm doing, that's the best thing. A girl from the Pacers who went on her first road trip last year, she called me first to ask me about my first trip. I was so happy to help her out. It kinda made me teary-eyed. "

This may not be the biggest bicycle store in the city, but it is definitely the best place for a serious bicyclist to find equipment and expert advice. The Seattle-based retailer has built a reputation for quality outdoor equipment and carries a good variety of bikes and biking gear suited for the spandex set. They carry clothing for biking in the heat, for wet weather and cold weather, gear more suited to Northern climes, bicycle racks and camping equipment. The staff is knowledgeable and incredibly helpful to novice and expert alike. Besides biking, you can pick up food, gadgets and gear to help you climb mountains someplace outside Texas. And, if your privates hurt when you bike, they have seats that will fix that. We were thankful.

This one was tough. As you'd imagine, there are plenty of worthy candidates on a team that was out of the A.L. West pennant race shortly after returning from spring training. Or was it shortly before heading to spring training? Well, whatever. Palmeiro beat out John Rocker, Carl Everett and Hideki Irabu--all solid additions to the club if you ask us. Despite being just two years shy of his 40th birthday, Palmeiro put up some pretty impressive power numbers this season and managed to maintain his sanity in a clubhouse that went the way of Big Nurse's Cuckoo Ward months (if not years) ago. And if that wasn't good enough, well, the man is in a Viagra commercial. 'Nough said.

If it's anything other than, "It makes me wish television had never been invented," no need to check their pay stub.

Swear to God we didn't want to do this again, especially since we're conflicted now that Mike Rhyner, Gordon Keith and Dave Lane are (very infrequent) contributors to these pages. But what the f-bomb. After all, what other local radio station carries every single sports-related news conference live, in its entirety? Where else can you find a suicidal (fake) Jerry Jones begging, "No funeral," the day after his Cowboys lost to the Houston Texans? Where else can you find Michael Irvin and Troy Aikman each week during football season, willing to dish out a few hard knocks of their own? And where else can you find the Overcusser, who will foul-mouth a millionaire jock to death to see whether he will fight through it or join in the fun? The Ticket gets it (big time--right, Jerry), commingling sports-talk with a little entertainment news (what's the dif?) and other effluvia geared toward men but attracting a sizable audience of women as well; it's guys' night out all the time, and so be it. We're partial to Dunham and Miller and The Hardline--and, frankly, we're vying for our own 7-11 p.m. show, because we wanna get stuck in that revolving door--and are coming around to BAD Radio, which isn't so, well, bad. And we know your dad loves Norm, but he creeps us out just a little bit.

Seriously, you come up with someone better. Lord knows we tried, but every time someone crops up we sorta dig, they skip town--and we know Dale couldn't crawl anywhere, much less skip. Frankly, we wanted to give this to Steve Atkinson, but now that he done moved we're stuck with that Stuart Scott starter kit on 'FAA; look, man, you are not funny. Don't get us started on the guys at Channel 5--it's called humility, Newy, look into it--and Mike D. at Fox might be the "best in the game," only we don't play by those rules. So we're stuck with Dale, the richest man in local sports--A-Rod excepted--and certainly the man with the richest blood stream; dude looks like an éclair these days. But we could do worse than get saddled with a cranky, cagey veteran who's sick to death of being sick to death of disingenuous owners, spoiled-brat players and lousy teams that still overachieve (the Cowboys should have been 2-14 last season, face it) despite having no talent, drive, ambition, discipline, younameit. And how can you not love a guy willing to stick it to Mark Cuban, the only guy with worse hair than Dale? Cuban's got the winning team, for God's sake, and still Dale won't play dead for the guy; Cuban's got balls of gold (24 carat, says his jeweler), Hansen's got balls of steel. In his head.

So the guy dresses like the drummer in a garage band, sticks his foot in his mouth every time a camera or tape recorder is rolling and gets fined the equivalent of the debts of some small countries for his behavior at games. The good news is that he's dug into his deep pockets and financed the comeback of a team that was all but invisible before he came along. The players are good and getting better, and the extra large coaching staff knows its stuff. Even more impressive is the fact they've begun to perform like guys who appreciate the fella for whom they're working. Even if he is a psycho billionaire. Which brings us to...

The poor sumbitch. He's already a sure Hall of Fame inductee, and sometime later this season he's going to usurp Walter Payton's stranglehold on the NFL's all-time leading rusher throne. And yet the guy always has this terrible, foreboding look on his face. But wouldn't you? Wouldn't you perfect that look if you had won three Super Bowls with the likes of Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin only to be later cast in with a lot of nobodies and never-will-bes? Can't you just hear Emmitt when they told him that Quincy Carter would be the starting quarterback again? Wait, what did you say, Jerry? As a final note, we suggest that "Taps" play before and after every Pokes game.