The discerning reader prefers the news (and most foods) wrapped in bacon and liberally salted with panic. Therefore, we provide your Thursday morning sports-centric swine flu stories to better arm you at the water cooler to pass along the latest gossip mumbled through your faux designer mask:

• Texas has suspended all baseball and softball tournaments, eliminated regional track championships, and otherwise postponed all athletic and academic competitions for public schools until at least May 11th.
• Ditto Alabama.
• Arizona and Illinois (among other states) are monitoring the situation. In other words, both high school sports organizations happen to own televisions, thanks for asking.
• Also in possession of a television for monitoring purposes: the NBA and legendary Dodgers trainer Stan Conte. That’s why he’s the best, ladies and gents.

• NASCAR fans headed to Richmond have been warned that washing hands may be useful. Also, don’t get hit by a car. (By the way, the 17-year-old girl that had her jaw shattered last weekend by Carl Edwards’ car will be fine.)
• The Kentucky Derby has few worries about swine flu, apparently; the head of the Louisville Health Department plainly stated that “I’m going to Derby, and I will not be wearing a mask“.
• The Nationwide Tour postponed its Mexican Open indefinitely.
• Mexico’s soccer leagues told fans to stay home. All the games that would normally be pay-per-view will be free.
• However, Club America (a Mexican side) played the Chicago Fire in Bridgeview, IL, last night with nary a concern. That is, if installing hand sanitizers everywhere was just a promotional stunt. Which it wasn’t.
• One of Mexico’s best soccer players has been effectively quarantined because friends from Mexico visited him in England recently. Also, he might have watched a telenovela.

Whew. That’s a lot of abject terror sensible precaution for one morning. Please add any additional sports-related swine flu stories to the comments below so the few remaining survivors have a record of these final days.

Thankfully, our few remaining moments left as a functional species can be well-represented by the following people tellin’ it like it is and keepin’ it real with the kids, assuming your kids take Don Rickles’ routine at face value:

• Geno Auriemma spoke to the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford after visiting President Obama earlier this week and explained to the assembled that “… there’s not a lot of difference between Italians and Jewish. Same part of the world and trust me, my mother and every Jewish mother I’ve ever met have a lot of characteristics in common.”
• Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone provided a charming amount of cover fire for Formula One President Max “Springtime for Hitler with Handcuffs” Mosely by suggesting F1 could really grow as a sport if they just had “a female pilot who is black and Jewish.”
• Unfortunately, this theoretical driver wouldn’t be very welcome to an Australian football club’s “All White Night”, complete with a picture of Klansmen on their Web site.

(Emergency vehicle sized appropriately to emergency)

Finally, a false alarm (possibly a fire alarm) in the eighth inning could not shake the New York Yankees from barely holding onto a 8-6 lead at Comerica Park over the Detroit Tigers last night despite holding a 7-1 advantage late in the contest. As Joe Girardi put it, “In this day and age, that’s a little scary.”

Heck, Joe … in this day and age, what isn’t?

And now a hail of bullet points caused by two heroin-slingin’ senior citizen sisters (though you can’t fault them for looking for a new retirement plan these days) …

• Usain Bolt wrecked his Beemer with his brother and “a female companion” inside and would have walked away unscathed, except he hurt his foot stepping out of the car.
• Rashard Lewis has a race horse in the Kentucky Derby this weekend.
• Now Greg Paulus is visiting Nebraska. Charles Kuralt never saw this much of the country.
• A crushing injury in the AFL as the Iowa Barnstormers’ coach couldn’t get off the field fast enough to avoid being gang tackled.
• The New Orleans Hornets have left the playoffs.
• An $85m state surplus could help renovate the Superdome in an attempt to keep the Saints in New Orleans. Except … they have a state surplus in Louisiana?
• Farewell to the excellent NASCAR writer, David Poole, who passed away at age 50 on Tuesday.
• The Detroit Lions’ seventh-round pick holds a serious grudge against all the teams that passed on him. We assume he also holds 6/7ths of a grudge against the Lions themselves.
• Hey, a Peter Warrick sighting!
• Greg Biffle got beat in racing by a girl. Of course, it wasn’t Danica Patrick.
• The Tennessee Titans signed Chris Mortensen’s son as a rookie free agent. Now that’s just smart scouting of media soft spots.