Well, there’s no doubt the Argonauts won the news conference yesterday because you automatically win the news conference when you bring out the eminently wonderful Mike Clemons.

I don’t know that I’ve met a more genuinely nice and always positive and eternally friendly guy than Pinball, who as far as I can tell is universally loved and respected.

We maybe run into each other three or four times a year, at Raptors game or some function or other and it’s always hugs and smiles and handshakes and, I swear, no matter how you’re feeling, when you leave a conversation with Michael, you feel better.

So of course when he took on the unenviable task of being the general manager of the Toronto Argonauts – remember them? – he was full-on energized Pinball and spread good messages and good cheer all around.

“My greatest strength is to understand how important I am not and I mean that sincerely,” he said in the story we ran by noted CFL scribbler and Hall of Famer Dan Ralph of The People’s Wire Service.

“We’re going to build a strong, capable team around us. That’s only way we’re going to have any success.”

And, you know, I would love for Pinball to succeed. I’d would love for his enthusiasm, his energy, his persona, his history to re-vitalize the football team. I really would.

You folks know that I think the CFL – to often in spite of itself – is an important national entity. It’s small and a bit quirky and it’s football so there are inherent issues with player safety and violence that cause much personal conflict for me but it’s still “ours” like no other game is, really, and there needs to be place for it.

Whether that includes Toronto, though, I honestly do not know. The Argos have won and won big in basic anonymity, they’ve got a lovely little park that should be perfect for their game and they drew fewer than 10,000 fans for one game this season, the smallest crowd, I’d imagine, since they were running the single wing at Varsity Stadium.

So maybe it doesn’t work, maybe it just dies on the vine and we lament the passing of a great, great Canadian sports tradition and that would be tragic.

And that’s why I want Pinball to succeed, to somehow – and I do not have any specific answers as to how to precisely do it – breathe life into the franchise and the sport.

I don’t know about his talent evaluation skills but, in many ways, they’re almost secondary.

Pinball needs to get out and go all Pinball on the people. Shake hands and twist arms, smile and coerce and help people realize that this is a sports team worth saving.

I know he’s going to work hard and work tirelessly and work enthusiastically because that’s the only gears he seems to have.

I don’t know if he can do it but I wish him luck and I truly hope he can.

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It’s too slow over at mailbag central, by the way.

You need to help fill it up for Sunday morning so you’ve got something to read before Thanksgiving dinner and in order to do that, you gotta click on askdoug@thestar.ca and come up with some probing question.

Do it today, please.

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I told you that you should have watched Game 4 of the WNBA final last night. It was outstanding and close and intense and wonderful basketball and you need to see where you can see the fifth and deciding game on Thursday night.

I guarantee you’ll come away with a new appreciation for the game.

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So we’re doing it.

Along with the good folks at Viking Canada – and they might rue the day they ever heard my name as the next few months unfold – we’re putting together a 25-year Raptors tome for next fall that’s going to be daunting and terrifying and fun all at the same time.

So when I get grumpier and crankier than usual over the next little while, you’ll understand why.

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Word from The Land Of The Rising Sun this morning is that, yes, the Raptors practiced and, no, nothing untoward or newsworthy emerged from the day and that, yes, Marc Gasol is expected to play tomorrow morning against the Rockets but that Kyle Lowry is not.

I don’t know what else I can manufacture in the way of a story today so that might be about it, I’ve got some Super Secret Pre-Season Stuff to work on that might be the better use of my time.

But we’ll see and we will be here before crack of dawn tomorrow (like 6 a.m. ET) to see if the exhibition season juggernaut can run its record to 2-0.

This has been a weird camp, stranger than most for the Raptors.

The defending champions aspect of it is weird enough but it certainly hasn’t been a source of stories or interest, actually. It’s been a business-as-usual couple of weeks with very little mention of what went on last June.

The roster fights are somewhat drab, to tell you the truth. We already expect the top eight to be Lowry, VanVleet, Anunoby, Siakam, Gasol, Ibaka, Powell and McCaw – at least that’s what Nick hinted at in Quebec and figuring out which of Davis, Hollis-Jefferson, Thomas or Johnson fit into the final two slots is hardly an earth shaking story in need of daily updates.

Calm has been the order of the day, especially now that Lowry is firmly in the fold until the season unfolds and we see what Masai and Bobby want to do in February.

It’s been nice in that regard and it’s particularly nice to know that we’re now less than two weeks away from the start of the regular season.

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Seriously, if you’ve got nothing to do tonight, finding your way to the Rivoli and catching this installment of Hoop Talks mightbe a good way to send some time.

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