The Yuckraker

With his New Orleans Saints off to a rough 0-2 start, Coach Sean Payton is calling upon Mother Nature to give them a lift.

“Ma’am, if you have a horrific, history-making hurricane in you, now’s the time,” Payton said during his Monday press conference. “I mean, I’d prefer it hit Baton Rouge so that the deaths hit home, yet we don’t have to move out of the Superdome, but I’ll take anything you got at this point because I got nothing.”

Drew Brees is sitting on a feeble 66.4 quarterback rating and Reggie Bush is playing like a 21st-century Eric Metcalf, causes that can be directly attributed to the Saints not having anything to rally around.

“This is rough, man,” said running back Deuce McAllister. “If I could have the Dome reopen every game, I would. That got us off to a nice start last year.”

Other ideas Payton and the Saints marketing team have on the table to reverse the Black and Gold’s ways include running pulse-quickening scenes from “K-Ville” on the center video board and conducting pregame jazz funerals with Michael Vick’s body in the casket.

Anticipation is running high as commercial pitchman Peyton Manning begins the follow-up to his magical 2006 season tonight at 8 on NBC.

Manning is coming off a year that saw him produce such memorable spots as “Fake Audible In The Huddle For DirecTV” and “Pass To CircuitCity Salesman Is Too Hard.”

Debuting tonight, and running during every possible commercial break, will be a spot for Summer’s Eve in which Peyton walks a sandy beach with his brother Eli to discuss the benefits of douching.

Other ads will feature Manning touting Canon, Apple, Reebok, GE and Olive Garden, which will conclude with a hilarous punch line from Peyton as the Mannings sit around the table. Wear diapers, everybody!

Manning’s existing spots for Sprint, MasterCard and ESPN will remain. This means that Manning’s work will take up all of NBC’s allotted space except for the brief part of the Arbor Day Foundation commercial that sometimes slips through.

“I’m just trying to set a good example for the kids,” Manning said. “If I can move just one product, then I’ve done my job.”

In between Manning commercials tonight, his Indianapolis Colts will open their defense of the Super Bowl crown against the New Orleans Saints.

Jimmy Antonelli, a Washington County resident who grew up in Brooklyn, New York, was indignant Thursday afternoon.

He took the day off from work to kick back and watch his beloved Yankees take on the Boston Red Sox in a matinee. It turns out he burned one of his 10 precious vacation days for nothing.

“I thought it was a given that the Yankee game would be on,” Antonelli said Thursday night after coming home from a local sports bar. “I mean, it’s nearly September and it’s the Sox. Why wouldn’t I think it was on?

“I tell you what, ESPN had better start showing the Yankee-Sox rivalry some love. I don’t know what the hell that was that they were showing, but it wasn’t the Yankees or the Sox, I can tell you that.”

Of his trip to the sport bar, Antonelli said: “Yeah, they had the game, but it was on NESN so I had to suffer through the yo-yo Boston announcers. What a joke.”

New York won, 5-0, to give itself a series sweep and inch closer to the Red Sox in the AL East standings.

Said Antonelli, who will be back behind the security desk at the Trust Bank Building today: “Are you listening, ESPN? We wear pinstripes and have Jeter and ARod. Look us up.”

Lifelong Houston Astros fan Jack Davis of Katy, Texas, recently became a father for the first time. And amid all of the joy young Scott has given him since his birth, the 32-year-old Davis recently became a bit whistful upon thinking about something they’ll never share.

“I know Scotty will be an Astros fan, just like his daddy,” Davis said, “but he’ll never be able to experience the beauty of the Astrodome, and that makes me sad.”

The first game the elder Davis ever went to ended in a 5-0 Houston victory over the Cubs on May 15, 1981. It wasn’t a Nolan Ryan game, Davis said, but Joe Niekro did toss a four-hit masterpiece. He can remember everything about that day, including the smell of the fresh AstroDome air.

“Until Scotty came out of my wife, the greatest thing I ever experienced was coming up the ramp on the third-base side and seeing that beautiful AstroTurf,” Davis remembered. “I’ve never seen anything so green in my whole life.

“The Juice Box is nice, and the ‘Stros usually have a pretty good ballclub, but it pains me that Scotty will never experience seeing the likes of Terry Puhl and Rafael Landestoy in the dome.

“My only hope is that a retro wave of concrete fortresses hits baseball sometime in the future.”

Taking a short break between the Bridgestone Invitational and the PGA Championship this week, Tiger Woods, his wife and their baby daughter went for a photography session at an Orlando-area Babies R Us.

A pair of the store’s employees would rather he practice knitting during his down time.

Things inititally went smoothly for Babies R Us session photographer Ralph McCreary and his assistant, Mandy Buchanan. Buchanan would hold up a stuffed animal and make funny noises to get the attention of seven-week-old Sam, while McCreary manned the shutter.

But it was when McCreary tried to get a wacky, candid shot in between poses that Tiger became irked.

“Guys, c’mon,” he barked, leaving McCreary stunned and Buchanan near tears.

“It’s such a disruption.”

The PGA Championship begins today at Southern Hills Country Club in Oklahoma.