Welcome to the A-Blog, also known as The Blog Seeking a Better Title.

The current moniker has its virtues, foremost a sense that every time I write something here I can feel like a part of the A-Team. A normal day might consist of posting an entry, then hitting Mr. T. with a bunch of sedetives, throwing the aviaphobe on a plane and fighting bad guys in far-away places.

First Name: Mister. Middle Name: Period. Last Name: T.

All the same, there is something…spare about it, and I’m certainly open to better suggestions.

One colleague in the pressbox was enthused about “Burning Speier,” in homage to the reggae legend. However, I couldn’t in good conscience make the inspiration for this forum a man who blogs once a month.

I also seriously considered “Abstract Pontification.” That notion reached back to my time as a geeky sports fan in grade school (in marked contrast, my wife reminds me, to my current status as a geeky adult sports fan) who deserved but did not receive beat-downs from my peers. (My ninth birthday present was a subscription to USA Today so that I could read box scores. I’m really not sure how I escaped fisticuffs.)

My moods were often tethered to the fortunes of the Washington-area (yup, I’m a transplant) sports teams for whom I rooted. But while I was intensely partisan (a trait that I have left behind in recent years), I also found that sports were as much an intellectual curiosity as a rooting interest.

Enter John McEnroe.

Who wears short shorts?

I was never a big tennis fan, but McEnroe was always fascinating thanks to the fine line between lunacy and genius that he navigated in his outrage towards authority. I watched his matches like many folks now watch NASCAR — waiting for the crash. My greatest reward came sometime in the mid-80s, when McEnroe proved typically brazen in informing a chair umpire of a missed call.

“While you were sitting up there, engaged in abstract pontification,” I recall (probably inaccurately) McEnroe saying, “there was a match going on down here that you missed.”

So, that would have been a fine muse, except for the fact that it would have done little for my reputation for circumlocution. It also would have been rather misleading, since I do like to watch the games that I cover.

Hence, in the interests of accurate representation (or at least not inaccurate representation), I offer The A-Blog… until, that is, someone offers a better suggestion. Clearly, the bar is set low: as if we were asking Javier Sotomayor to clear the high jump at two feet.

Both I — and my colleague, Sergeant Bosco Albert “B.A.” Baracus — await your insight.