.From Richard Deitsch's SI media column, 9. NBC Sports Network's NHL regular season averaged 392,000 viewers, up 18 percent from last year. It is the most-watched NHL regular season on cable in 19 years since ESPN and ESPN2 averaged 474,000 during the 1993-94 season.

I don't watch the NHL, but I don't bash it either. Good for NBC for helping to rebuild the league's image after the lockout. I mean, they have to, to get to the most out of their investment, but still, that's quite a surprising stat. 

.Lidge then Valverde, now Rodney. The Devil needs a separate Outlook folder for all his closer deals.

Fernando Rodney has allowed 6 earned runs in 10 2/3 innings this season. He gave up 5 ER in 74 2/3 IP last year. #rays

.After 17 years, they will come from underground and storm the East Coast, in search of nothing but sex. What are they? Cicadas. 

Since 1996, this group of 1-inch bugs, in wingless nymph form, has been a few feet underground, sucking on tree roots and biding their time. They will emerge only when the ground temperature reaches precisely 64 degrees. After a few weeks up in the trees, they will die and their offspring will go underground, not to return until 2030.

‘‘It’s just an amazing accomplishment,’’ Berenbaum says. ‘‘How can anyone not be impressed?’’

And they will make a big racket, too. The noise all the male cicadas make when they sing for sex can drown out your own thoughts, and maybe even rival a rock concert. In 2004, Gene Kritsky, an entomologist at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, measured cicadas at 94 decibels, saying it was so loud ‘‘you don’t hear planes flying overhead.’’

.I'm cognizant of how well Jordann Zimmermann, tonight's starter vs. the Tigers, has pitched this year (5-1 1.64 ERA), but to read this is troubling, "His stuff is so much better than Strasburg's," the scout said. "Strasburg's stuff has gone backwards. Zimmermann is throwing 95-96 [mph], with two different breaking balls that he throws for strikes. The hitters will tell you it's tough to pick up. And he's so free and easy."

.Please watch this ball that Mark Reynolds clobbered 460 feet last night. It's Stanton-ian.

.Amid all the Johnny Football hype as the reigning Heisman champ, no one ever thought much of how his game would translate to the NFL. But now we have this, I believe Doug Flutie is a more apt comparison when it comes to Manziel. Flutie was an effective improvisational playmaker as a pro who could also play the game from the pocket. After spending years refining his craft in the Canadian Football League, Flutie landed in the NFL and enjoyed a successful stint as a starting quarterback. Manziel will certainly get his chance, but I don't believe he is a top quarterback prospect at this time.

.Kevin Durant's going to have to score at least 30+ each game, and Kevin Martin will need to show up offensively, as he has in the last two games, for Durant to have opportunities like this to showcase his greatness. Now would also be a wonderous time for Serge Ibaka to arrive and earn that extension he signed. If Durant's the only offense against Memphis, then he'll need this to be an 11 pointer each night.

.An enormous about of words why every NBA is, or should be, looking for the next Shane Battier with how the league is operate these days. 

On the one hand, this is obvious: Defense and shooting are fundamental basketball skills. They have always been important. But they are becoming more important as the league changes, and on the flip side, the absence of those skills has become more damaging; a player like Mbah a Moute, a multi-positional defensive genius who can't shoot, may not deserve $5 million per season — even if Mbah a Moute has a nifty post game and some passing skills he can break out in a pinch. And players such as Green or Thabo Sefolosha may be worth much more than their current contracts.

.Comics and psychology, my two passions fused together as Does Iron Man have PTSD is asked. When Iron Man 3 (a.k.a. Iron Man Three once in the end credits) takes us to today's Tony Stark, we find a man haunted by his experiences in New York, a hero who can barely sleep. He suffers anxiety attacks with shortness of breath whenever reminded of the New York invasion, an incident he refuses to discuss even when asked simple questions about it. Despite all this, he insists that he does not have PTSD, but would he really know?

.By now you got Carmelo got ONE first place MVP vote. Sad.

.If this isn't just a rumor, wowwwwwwww. 

Stop reading NOW, if you don't want to be made aware of an unimaginable rumor about Man of Steel.

Supposedly in Man of Steel, Superman’s home planet of Krypton does not explode. At all. Baby Kal-El is shot into outer space, either because he’s special and thus considered dangerous by other Kryptonians. Rumor has it, Kal-El is the only Kryptonian who wasn't genetically engineered to be a soldier or scientist, and instead was just born naturally, making him an abomination on Krypton. Also, there may have been a Kryptonian civil war. But when Zod comes to Earth, part of his plan is to bring Kal-El back to Krypton.

OMG. 

And in that universe, the Wayne's never went out that night. They stayed home and watched Netflix

Bruce donned the cape and cowl because he was tired of being bullied in the school yard. His parents were alive and well into their 60s.

I made that part up, but not the MOS rumor. 

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.A lot of people throw out MUST READ stories all over the Web and especially social media. There's very much a boy-who-cried-wolf-aspect to most of it. But when SI.com's media writer, Richard Deitsch passes one along, it's usually the best read of my week. 

Once again he comes through by sharing this article from USAT about just how safe we are, or aren't at sporting events. 

Marathon spokesman Marc Davis says the volunteers near the finish line perform a simple security role but also are there to help runners.

That's a key difference, says Sela, the Israeli consultant. Trained security people "don't watch the race, they watch the crowd. That's what they didn't do (at the finish line)."

It's one reason Sela believes a similar attack probably would not have succeeded in Israel. Decades of attacks and constant threats have forced the nation to think differently, using methods that have helped prevent hijackings and spectacular attacks at public events.

"In Israel, you cannot leave a bag unattended for more than 10 seconds before someone will ask questions," Sela says.

"For some odd reason, the United States doesn't want to adopt the European-Israeli way of doing business in security."

He says the U.S. strategy is like trying to find a needle in a haystack by sifting through every piece of hay. By contrast, he says the "European-Israeli way is to blow the hay away and just leave the needle to be checked."

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.AD wants to rush for 2500 yards in 2013. That type of goal and thosw words sent CJ2K's career off the rails a few years ago; not that that's likely to happen to AD next year, who is slowly gaining ground on the Barry's, Emmitt's, and Walter's of the NFL mythos. It did get me to thinking, in a pass heavy league, how many TEAMS ran for 2500 yards in 2012. 

Three. One WAS the Vikings. Though the Niners came close. 

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.There was an out MLB player 30 thirty years ago!?

This week's coming out by NBA player Jason Collins is momentous, but the Jackie Robinson of gay rights was Glenn Burke, who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland A's from 1976 to 1979. He tried to change sports culture three decades ago—but back then, unlike now, sports culture wasn't ready for a change.

Burke made no secret of his sexual orientation to the Dodgers front office, his teammates, or friends in either league. He also talked freely with sportswriters, though all of them ended up shaking their heads and telling him they couldn't writethat in their papers. Burke was so open about his sexuality that the Dodgers tried to talk him into participating in a sham marriage. (He wrote in his autobiography that the team offered him $75,000 to go along with the ruse.) He refused.

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.I fired back at this Lions blogger yesterday on Twitter for this, lauding the potential of new Lions TE's Michael Williams and Joseph Fauria, and how their production could mimic the Patriots. What!?!?!

Then I read this from an SI scout. • Joseph Fauria, TE, UCLA — Detroit Lions: It’s pretty interesting what the Lions did at tight end over the past week. First, they drafted the bulky Michael Williams, who’s a better blocker than either of the top two tight ends on Detroit’s roster (Brandon Pettigrew and Tony Scheffler); then, they picked up Fauria, who may have better hands than either of those guys. Fauria’s essentially a bulked-up receiver — he doesn’t block well — but in Detroit’s wide-open passing attack, he could make for a sleeper.

I owned my comments on Twitter, because no one usually does, but my doubt remains. 

@detroitlions101 a 7th rounder and an UDFA chosen by a team with a very spotty player personnel track record. X your fingers.

— Eric Chase (@Eric_Chase) May 2, 2013

@detroitlions101 Wanted share this based on my earlier tweet. nfl.si.com/2013/05/02/mat… My sentiment remains re: lions history, but open minded

— Eric Chase (@Eric_Chase) May 2, 2013

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.I model myself an enlightened thinker and a progessive, so if the Redskins need to change their name, so be it. But the AP polling people who probably don't know just how offensive the nickname may or may not be shouldn't be the ones supporting reasoning why the name should change. 

This echoes my point of the cause needing a champion, a public face, though less haughty one than a Sharpton-type.

Other professional sports teams have Native American nicknames, including the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs and baseball's Atlanta Braves and Cleveland Indians. But former U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado, who is Native American, said "Redskins" is much worse because of its origins and its use in connection with bounties on Indians.

"There's a derogatory name for every ethnic group in America, and we shouldn't be using those words," Campbell said, adding that many people don't realize how offensive the word is. "We probably haven't gotten our message out as well as it should be gotten out."

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.This is MY MUST READ of the day, and week. If you have an interest in the awareness and treatment of mental illnesses, take the time to go through this. The guy certainly has an psychiatric axe to grind, but I can accept much of what he's offering as truth and fact. 

The DSM lists "disorders." How are disorders different from diseases or illnesses?

The difference between disease and disorder is an attempt on the part of psychiatry to evade the problem they're presented with. Disease is a kind of suffering that's caused by a bio-chemical pathology. Something that can be discovered and targeted with magic bullets. But in many cases our suffering can't be diagnosed that way. Psychiatry was in a crisis in the 1970s over questions like "what is a mental illness?" and "what mental illnesses exist?" One of the first things they did was try to finesse the problem that no mental illness met that definition of a disease. They had yet to identify what the pathogen was, what the disease process consisted of, and how to cure it.

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Draymond Green scored in double figures ONCE in the regular season. Did it TWICE in the last three games. David Lee was holding him back!

— Eric Chase (@Eric_Chase) May 3, 2013