It’s that time again — honestly, one of our favorite times of the week. We get to shut our yap and let you have the stage for a little while. Jon, RandBall’s sixth Commenter Of the Week, is a bona fide blogger in his own right. He has spent the past three years penning “The National Anthem Before A Cubs Game,” which probably gets a lot of indirect traffic from a different audience because the first three letters of its web address are “tna.” But seriously, it’s a Minnesota-themed sports blog, and he does a splendid job with it. He checks in in just one second — right after we remind all the former COWs that you now get to vote for the COW every week. So please do vote. Don’t go to some other site and just throw your vote away. Here are Jon’s words:

Raise your hands if you know the final score of Wednesday’s NHL All-Star Game. Not a lot of hands up, are there? Nobody — okay, a minuscule number of somebodies — watched the All-Star Game. Despite the fact that it was televised in HD. Despite the fact that all the offensive talent in the world was on display. Despite the fact that Vs. pulled out every stop they could think of, in an attempt to draw in new fans. And those new jerseys? They’re ugly. They look like baseball batting practice jerseys. And here’s the worst part: the die-hard fans liked the old ones.

Here’s an idea, NHL: instead of always trying to draw new fans, how about you focus on not alienating the ones you already have? You might remember us, NHL. We’re the ones who still call the NFC North the “Norris Division.” We’re the ones who grow a beard while our team is in the playoffs. We’re the ones who make jokes about “calling Toronto” when we can’t make a decision. We’re the ones that stuck with you through the lockout and through the boredom of the clutch-and-grab neutral zone trap. How about catering to us for once, NHL? We’d rather have hockey in Winnipeg than in Las Vegas. We’d rather you not make the uniforms that we defiantly wear on Casual Friday into something that looks ridiculous. We’d rather not go three years in between visits from Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin, just because you can’t get it together and agree on something better. And we want the Norris Division back. That’s non-negotiable.

Focus on those of us who love hockey. We’re the best salespeople you have, and if you make us happy, it will pay off in the long run.

He went long and strong on the coaches post; he put Eddie Griffin in his place; and we still can’t shake the urge to change our name to Fisticuffs Jackson, if only to beat him to the punch. Ladies and gentlemen: Jon is your COW. Three good letters deserve three more. He has been notified, and he is now working feverishly on his 300-word guest post for tomorrow. Also: A change in the COW policy is being announced. Instead of the fiefdom RandBall has enjoyed in picking a winner, we are now opening the voting up to any previous Commenter Of the Week. So: SuperRookie, Rocket, Stu, Sassbottom, Coyote and Jon, as of next week you have COW voting privileges, as do all subsequent COWs. You cannot vote for yourself. E-mail your vote by 3 p.m. each Thursday. That is all.

Let’s try this again, the scintillating old-fashioned way, where we get to retype everything Coyote sent us for his guest post. Hey, we’re all about the COW:

Wow, Commenter Of the Week! Where do I go from here? Do I go with why Nick Punto will not be in the starting lineup by June? Do I talk about the new Gophers coach? No, I think I’ll save those for my next COW appearance. (Yes, I just called multiple COW honors). I think what people are looking for on a Friday morning is entertainment. So I am going to satisfy everyone’s YouTube needs early today the only way I know how … COW clips!

First, if anyone has a fever, I think I have a remedy.

Second, I find this clip very symbolic. I think this clip has everything this site needs: A COW and soccer together in a video. Just think of the cow as us readers and the soccer player as RandBall. You can take it wherever you want from there.

One rant to use my soapbox: Baseball contracts are out of control. With contracts continuing to rise every year, there will be a breaking point. Owners will not be able to continue with the trend. Even people like George Steinbrenner will halt when it is no longer profitable. At some point, someone is going to stop paying the dollars and the dominoes will fall. Whether it’s television that stops paying or fans who stop paying, there will be a breaking point and it will be an ugly one.

From time to time, we get spam e-mails that we are compelled to read because they consist of a series of loosely connected words. Like this one: “Leg justified held portion, amp overhead lighting grid. … Shoe tags ubiquitous speak evil.” And so on. That was sort of what we worried about when we started this Commenter Of the Week thing. A lot of garbling, with intentions buried deep. That, however, has hardly been the case. You have all stepped up, and now it is Coyote’s turn. We enjoyed the talk of “cured meat,” and “Small Particulate Matter: The Post-Landry Years,” as well as many other takes this week. And now Coyote has 300 words, to be sent by 9 a.m. SHARP (You listening, Sassbottom?) tomorrow morning to RandBall’s personal Swiss bank e-mail account, mrand@startribune.com. Dig it.

We gave him the forum, and we imagined it might come to this. But ladies and gentlemen, these are his 300 words. He earned them, and he thought them through. Sassbottom checks in right here (sorry about the font … something about cutting, pasting, etc.):

It’s time I come clean with RandBall Nation. Despite being a frequent
contributor to RandBall and this week’s COW, I have some shortcomings to which I must finally admit. I, Sassbottom, am a filthy, sexist pig.
I haven’t always been this way, mind you. It’s developed over time,
starting a few years back, when a young girl from Hawaii first developed
a following as the Next Big Thing in golf. “Michelle Wie can hit the
ball a mile,” the story went. “Isn’t that amazing?” I, like most people, was impressed at first. Because when a lanky 15-year-old girl can do something like that, it’s impressive. It’s something you don’t see too often. Like a squirrel on waterskis. Or Evel Knievel. You watch them do their thing and say, “Wow. That’s pretty cool.” And then, when the neat-o demonstration is over, what are you left with, exactly? Nothing. And that’s why I’m a sexist pig. Because I’m no longer impressed with a little girl’s delusions of finding success on the PGA Tour. Michelle Wie is the Bearded Lady of professional golf. I’ve seen the sideshow and I’ve moved on.

To wit, check out ESPN’s golf page. Go ahead. Do it now. I’ll wait. There she is. The lead story, dangly earrings and all. She shot a 78 in the first round, 15 strokes off the lead. She’s going to miss the cut for the seventh time. Why is this a story at all, much less the lead? At what point can (or should) golf fans cease to be impressed by this carnival attraction? You want to impress me, Wie? Turn down one of those exemptions. Then issue a statement: “Thanks, but I’m not able to compete on that level.” That would be impressive.

As the old saying goes, she had me at hello. It was a nice run. Now go away.