This week marks our 8th Anniversary. Silliman on Sports is eight years old! We started on August 24th in 2002. We’re celebrating.

Now, I’m going to let you in on something: today’s column almost never was written, for reasons you will not believe.  I am about to use an excuse teachers hear often but I have never used in my life. I’m about to use a cutesy pun I abhor. You should, too.

It’s the placement of the number 8 as a contraction for the words “ate” or “eat” banks and other advertisers use when they want to be dramatic. You’ve seen it as Gr8R8s and the like. Please h8 this as much I do. Here’s the story. All my research notes turned up missing because… my dog 8 my homework!

Yes, little Moshe found my notes and papers and munched on them. He apparently liked the coffee smell. 

Yes, as I’ve told you before, my dog is crazy. I once found Moshe out in our garden humping on a cantaloupe. Now we have a meloncollie baby.  You want more proof? We planted a sapling in the back yard. Moshe barked at it as he watched this tree grow. Finally we found him in the back yard burying a bone. He was trying to grow a cow!

He’s crazy but he thinks he has special attraction for the females. We think it’s the eye patch. Maybe, we should never have started that.

I’m drinking a glass of my favorite vegetable juice – V8 – as I’m typing this. It’s all about the 8.

I’m hoping every famous athlete who ever wore the number 8 reads this column. That means you: Cal Ripken, Steve Young, Troy Aikman, Kobe Bryant, Dale, Jr, Cam Neeley, Joe Morgan, Yogi Berra.

We’re all about the 8. We’re going to celebrate in an eight-ish fashion.  But, how? Look at the clouds, measure the oktas? Of course not, I just tossed out that one to rope in meteorology students.  Join the campaign to make October the eighth month instead of August? What happens to Halloween?

Should we rent an eight-ish type movie? Butterfield? Octopussy? Spider Man? The House of the Seven Gables plus Clark? Nah, we need it more sporty. Eight Men Out?  It has history, a sports writer – Ring Lardner – and the dark side of some White Sox. Why not?

Also, we’re hoping Kate Gosselin reads our column. Surely, since she realized she can’t dance she’ll have time to read Silliman on Sports. Plus, and this is a nice plus, if she teaches her kids to read our column… we can double our readership.

We’re also wishing Octomom to read our column. We’re thinking ‘nice bedtime stories’ and who else on earth needs more bedtime stories than Octomom. Plus Nadya Suleman, the Octomom, has a last name sounding almost exactly like mine. She might think we’re related. Plus, and this is another nice plus, she has one of the most infectious, crazy laughs in the world. 

Imagine this, we can dream, right, for our eighth anniversary: Octomom, Nadya Suleman, reads Silliman on Sports to her brood and they all start laughing. Seriously, just imagine all 14 of her kids with the same crazy laugh as mom. Uncontrollable mirth, a spontaneous cacophony of cackles. Plus, if they were laughing at something we wrote… or drew, it might be a YouTube spectacle. A viral event not seen since the Big Bang.