Say this much for Kevin McHale: He didn’t wait for a cupcake portion of the schedule to take over as head coach of the Wolves. How does this sound:

Tonight: home against Utah
Wednesday: at Denver
Friday: home against San Antonio
Sunday: at L.A. Lakers

(Also two of the next four after that: home against Cleveland; at San Antonio).

In closing, on a completely unrelated note, before we head with MC Creme Fraiche to witness the start of the new McHale era: know that relatively new Nike commercial with LeBron? The one with all the powder and the fantastic song? Well, we just had to find out who performed that musical number. The answer blew our mind: Cornershop. Yes, the same band that once declared, “Quit throwing rubbish onstage or we’re going to leave!” at Lollapalooza in 1996 (or so says the RBBH). Yes, the same band perhaps best known for Brimful of Asha, a nice enough little tune but one that makes you picture a 5-11, 140-pound soccer fan nursing a pint after hopping off the train from whatever match he was watching that day. In fact, Candyman (the LeBron song) is on the same exact CD as Brimful of Asha. Did you already know this? Does that blow your mind? Because it blows ours. Here’s a link to the LeBron commercial. The song in full is below. It’s bad-[redacted]. No two ways about it. This would be a great spot to discuss other songs so good that you can’t believe they are by Band X. Or just revel in the splendor.

LaVelle already mentioned this over at his simmering hot baseball blog, but Sportsline had a fun little nugget today about Scott Erickson wanting to pitch again … for the Twins. Yes, despite the critical acclaim he has received via his ventures into TV frog puppet kidnapping films (seriously on both counts), Erickson has the itch. Scott Miller, tell us more:

Scott Erickson, who essentially has not pitched a full major-league season since 2002 and mostly has been out of baseball since 2005, is making noises about a comeback.

Erickson, 40, has contacted the Minnesota Twins about coming to spring training in 2009 and apparently was met with a tepid response.

“He wants to come back,” Twins GM Bill Smith told CBSSports.com. “I told him to go get a job in winter ball and let’s see what you can do.”

Erickson, who was 142-136 with a 4.59 ERA over 15 big-league seasons, so far is not pitching winter ball.

Following a run between 1991 and 1999 in which he threw 200 or more innings seven times, Erickson developed elbow trouble in 2000 that eventually led to Tommy John ligament replacement surgery.

So there you have it. Probably not going to happen. But since Erickson is linked to one of the greatest moments in RandBall history, we felt the need to pass along that update.

[Note: Both Toonces51 and Eric F. have passed this link along already. Thanks, gentlemen].

In a tip of the cap to Peter King of SI.com, here is a fact that might interest only us (and perhaps P3): the NFC North team with the best point differential this year? Your Green Bay Packers, who have scored 36 more points than they have allowed, which is hard to do when you’re 5-8 (but easier to understand when you notice five of their last six losses were by four points or fewer). The 8-5 Vikings are +31, while the 7-6 Bears are +26. The 0-13 Lions are right on everyone’s heels at -194. (Photo of the Texans’ Kris Brown celebrating his game-winning kick vs. Green Bay via the AP).

*Not even the NFL is immune to tough economic times.

*Charles Barkley makes it rain for charity.

*Our guy Michael Russo reports that Marian Gaborik is practicing today.

*And finally, as promised: Robo-soccer. (Link just in case the embedding doesn’t work, which is likely the case because we can’t seem to embed any kind of video except YouTube).

They have been winning ugly. They could come apart at the seams if the Williams Wall is knocked down. And their QB situation is, at best, iffy. That said, the Vikings have won 8 of their past 11 games and could clinch the NFC North as early as Sunday with a Bears loss and a Minnesota win (the Vikings would be assured of no worse than a tie in the firs two tiebreakers and would have an insurmountable edge in common games, thus ensuring a win in the third tiebreaker and therefore claiming the division). They have a huge star and MVP candidate in Adrian Peterson. They have a defensive difference-maker in Jared Allen who has been worth every penny, every draft pick and then some. The NFL sees them as a big-time team, having just changed the time of the Atlanta game to 3:15 for a national audience. And still there is an overwhelming sense of negativity toward this team.

According to the popular but unscientific ESPN.com coach ratings, Brad Childress’ approval rating continues to languish at 37 percent. Every other team that is a sole leader or co-leader of a division — Denver, Tennessee, Pittsburgh, the Jets, Miami, New England, Arizona, Carolina and the Giants — has a coach with an approval ranking of at least 64 percent (and that low mark belongs to the Patriots’ Bill Belichick, which is absurd. All other coaches are 75 percent or higher, thus making them all double Childress’ number).

Tickets to the Falcons game, which is a mere 12 days away, are still available (as are tickets to the finale against the Giants). We swear we heard a buy one, get one half-price ticket offer for either game on the radio last night, though we can’t find it anywhere online and it could just be the dementia of a long day setting in. If anyone heard the same thing or finds the deal, let us know). [Update: Thanks to reader Matt S. for delivering the link to prove we are not crazy. A first-place team is, indeed, offering the very discount we described].

Comments on game stories, even victories, are overwhelmingly negative.

We get it, to a degree. But then again, we don’t get it. The Mike Tice era was defined by spectacularly bad losses (remember, the Vikings lost to a one-win team and a two-win team in 2001 lost to four teams that finished 4-12 during their 9-7 season in 2003) and offensive shootouts. The Childress era has been defined by vanilla offense and ugly wins — but enough of them to put the team in first place with just three games left. (Note: Those facts crossed out and italicized, while true, were incorrectly attributed to Tice, as Go Vikes correctly points out in the comments. That was Dennis Green’s final year. There were plenty of other crushing losses under Tice to mention, and we are appalled that we messed that up.)

Yeah, we understand there will never be a love affair with Childress the man or Childress the coach. That’s not what he’s built for. But this team seems worthy of more love than it’s getting. Maybe it’s time to get over personal grudges and negativity and start enjoying a legitimate winning season.

Yesterday brought about one change folks have been clamoring for quite passionately lately: Randy Wittman was fired. The person folks have been complaining about for much longer — Kevin McHale — stays in the organization to take over for Wittman but is stripped of his VP duties (at least in theory). Here are some leftover thoughts and questions from the day, as we prepare to watch McHale’s 2008-09 coaching debut tonight against the Jazz, who employ a coach that has been with Utah exactly 20 years. [By the way, one unnamed person, upon hearing the news, summed it up by saying, “So they fired Dracula but kept Frankenstein?”]

1. Wittman got what he deserved. You could see it in the body language of players. You could hear it whenever Wittman talked about a loss. This train went off the tracks fast and early. The preseason and first 19 games of this season were like Lindsay Lohan’s career. Excitement and promise faded to ranting, hand-wringing and car wrecks (figurative in one case, literal in another). Now it’s time for some rehab.

2. What is McHale’s motivation to stay? We had this discussion yesterday with Rocket, who can’t figure out why McHale even wants to keep any sort of job with this team, given he’s being stripped of power and is generally despised by the fan base. We can see it one of two ways. One, he still has a deep pride (he is one of us, after all) and doesn’t want to leave this job being deemed a failure, and therefore is willing to roll up his sleeves to work in the trenches. Or two, owner Glen Taylor is punishing him and basically said no moves will be made unless it is the precise move that is made, and he is going to clean house at the end of the year. The past 13 years, and the relationship between Taylor and McHale, make us think there is at least a strong hint of the former in this move. Reusse was dead-on: in the absence of any other capable bosses, McHale still looks like the boss even though he had his title taken away.

3. That said, what can we expect from McHale the coach? Statistically, McHale is the best coach in Wolves history. That’s right, his 19-12 mark (.613) in 2005 after unceremoniously dumping Flip Saunders in midseason the year after the team went to the Western Conference finals means McHale is the best in team history. Someone call Forbes! But seriously, if there is a strange light in all this it’s that McHale as a coach does seem more consistently competent than McHale the VP. (Of course, Matt Millen was better at nuclear physics than he was at running a team, so all of this is relative.). At the very least, he should command more respect than Wittman and will be a new voice. Kevin Love should benefit from having him around. He’s a Hall of Fame player, so he should be good with X’s and O’s. There could be some good to come out of this.

4. What impact does this have on the casual fan? Some will be energized by the modest shakeup. A few we’ve talked to are even intrigued by the prospect of McHale as coach. A pretty sizable number, though, are waiting for the other shoe to drop (McHale being ousted) before they feel like much has been accomplished.

5. What happens at the end of the year? McHale restores a modicum of respectability to the team, guiding them to something like 25-28 total wins by going something reasonable like 23-40 in his games as coach. At that point, if Taylor wants to invigorate his base, he will clean house. There are a bunch of No. 1 picks to be made, and a whole closet full of basketball fans eager to be excited by some fresh blood making those choices and coaching those players. The names Flip Saunders and Sam Mitchell are tossed around these days because they are available, familiar and, to a large degree, pretty good at what they do. But we worry that they are also a link to the old guard — of an old boys’ network in charge and of a team that, even at its absolute best, peaked with one nice playoff run that ended before the NBA finals. Taylor could do much worse than to hire Flip as coach/GM, or to try to coax Flip into running the team and Mitchell — who is still being paid by Toronto — to coach it. The best move might just be to start over from scratch with a whole new group in charge. We’re not sure if Taylor has reached the point where he would do that. Time — and the rest of this season — will tell.

Fasola-link! The Madrid Metro.