In a daring Saturday night launch from Cape Canaveral, the shuttle Discovery danced through storm clouds into perfect launch trajectory, on its mission to dump the entire Bowl Championship Series into deep space. Earlier Saturday morning FBI agents swarmed locations in Kansas, New York City and Washington, D.C. and collected computers, paperwork and in two instances, coaches, and transported them by Air Force C-130s to Cape Canaveral, where they were loaded under cover of darkness onto the Discovery, disguised as food trays. On Wednesday morning the shuttle’s trajectory will synchronize with an orbital pattern that will allow astronauts to jettison a flimsy metal tube containing the BCS out into uncharted space. The tube is designed to crumble quickly and expose the contents to gravitational pressure and sub-freezing temperatures that will even tear apart the BCS. The two coaches – rumored to be an unnamed Florida assistant and UNLV head coach Mike Sanford – will have the option of being dropped off at the moon or signing an anti-Bcs waiver and returning to earth.

Without another team flashing so much as a pack of gum, let alone cash or actual interest, the San Francisco Giants re-upped with pumped-up slugger Barry Bonds as he chases a passel of asterisks attached to Hank Aaron’s home run record. Bonds, who now most closely resembles a Paul Bunyan balloon flying over a Ford dealership in Minnesota, signed for $16 million dollars for one year. The Giants decided they could take no chances on losing Bonds after the Seattle Mariners expressed interest by inadvertently parking their car about eight spaces away from Bonds, and the Chicago Cubs made an aggressive move towards Bonds by announcing they had to trade in government “bonds” to fund their Alfonso Soriano contract. The Giants figure to make money at the turnstyles on Bonds chase for the home run record and, due to tighter league testing, are certain to shave as much as $2 million off this year’s Balco budget.