The Weak Ender

Sad news, the venerable Hooters Hotel and Casino will be shutdown and remodeled once again, shedding its orange shorts to be a boutique hotel. Does anybody really want to live in a society where a casino based on large breasts (both chicken and women) and short shorts can�t make it?

And yes, it's hard to believe that anything connected with The Best Damn Sports Show would fail, right?

Contrary to what you would think, the Hooters Hotel and Casino (as stated here) wasn�t too bad. Hard to really be risqu� in Las Vegas with orange shorts, considering that cocktail waitress at The Orleans down the road where thongs. For all of its faults, the Hooters Hotel and Casino is a decent joint, but they did make a few mistakes that likely cost them.

For starters, the place is off the strip, yet still had strip-type gaming limits and payouts. The crowd you are going to attract to a Hooters Casino is going to be looking for low-limits gaming. No matter how distracting the Hooters-clad dealers can be. And if you aren�t, at least get rid of the 6:5 payout on blackjack.

There isn�t a real sports book. The one they have is passable, as it is set next to a bar. But a sports book seems more important than Dan Marino�s martini bar. You have to figure that the Hooter�s crowd is more beer than martini, but that�s only a guess.

And the final topper is that the rooms were overpriced to begin with. The owners obviously saw what the Hard Rock was getting for its rooms, but there is a huge difference between the Hard Rock and Hooters. And the biggest being that one of them will have a casino in Las Vegas at the end of the year. (But you can never say never in Las Vegas � The New Frontier survived for years before it was finally imploded.)

THN will be doing all it can to celebrate the final days of the Hooters Hotel and Casino this March. And speaking on that, this is your last chance to do some homework for March Madness this weekend.

AND FINALLY
Many of you are expecting The Hater Nation to smack the New York Yankees for signing Billy Crystal to a one-day contract to play in an exhibition game. Well, too bad. The Yankees signing a 59-year old is what the Yankees do. Crystal is younger than Roger Clemens, right?

If you really want to take umbrage with the Yankees, how about the dirty play they have been engaging in with the Tampa Bay Rays? First, the Yankees were upset when a Rays runner bowled over a Yankees catcher at the plate. But as EB says, if you don't want your catcher run over, don't have him block the plate.

A Yankees base runner went spikes-high the following day to spark off another brawl. Remember the days when the Yankees were fighting for first place, and not with the Rays?

The only disappointing part of Crystal's performance is that the Yankees weren't playing the Rays, and James Shields didn't plant on in his ribs.