How do you know when a situation’s getting out of control? There are plenty of different metrics for figuring something like that out, but “when Drew Rosenhaus is acting as the voice of reason” should be pretty high on the list.

(Bayless, probably saying something ridiculous that he doesn’t even mean.)

And wouldn’t you know, that’s what’s going on in the weird world of sports-related Twitter today. Apparently, Chad Ochocinco - who might be clinically insane - found out that ESPN’s favorite contrarian butthole Skip Bayless was A) on Twitter and B) not genuflecting at the Ochocinco altar. The Skip quickly hit the fan.

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Skip Bayless has made his name by throwing out brash declaratory statements that tend to be pretty inflammatory. His lived up to that reputation earlier this week on ESPN’s “First Take” (formerly “Cold Pizza”, before that conceptual nameplate was killed off ritualistically), when he said that Dallas Mavericks fans were engaging in “Philly-style behavior“.

Evidently it has something to do with Mark Cuban insulting Kenyon Martin to K-Mart’s mother — and Cuban’s apologizing a day later — and the ejection of Carmelo Anthony’s fiancee, LaLa Vasquez, with Vasquez refusing to back down from her claim that Dallas fans are racists.

Not surprisingly, that left proud Philadelphians pretty upset, considering that the insinuation was that they were completely rash and uncivilized. So the city struck back today on Philly ESPN radio host Mike Missanelli’s show Tuesday afternoon.

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• Sorry, fellas - Victoria’s Secret supermodel Adriana Lima is officially off the market after eloping with Memphis Grizzlies guard Marko Jaric.

• Meanwhile, fellow lovely lingerie poser Gisele Bundchen has finally made an honest man out of Tom Brady.

• Could Gina Carano soon be following in Adriana’s & Gisele’s high heels? After all, she just did a spread for Maxim - while her bra is up for bids.

• Speaking of awesome auctions, a Mickey Mantle-autographed “F*** Yogi” baseball was on the block. But Mickey’s son may be calling foul.

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• A debt-ridden professional poker player is arrested for killing his parents in an attempt to get at his inheritance sooner than scheduled.

• Jonathan Papelbon has a premonition that he isn’t long for this world.

• Isn’t there anyone who wants to stay #1 in college basketball?

• A 45-year-old Ohio man loses 200 pounds on his way to becoming a college wrestler.

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You might just know Skip Bayless as the blowhard on ESPN who says outrageous statements just to get attention. (Versus, basically, every other personality on ESPN who does exactly the same thing.) Among his greatest hits are his on-going hatred of LeBron James and his belief that Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were boycotting a golf event because it was sponsored by Mercedes.

(ESPNer Bayless reiterated stand on Aikman’s sexual preference)

So you might be surprised - shocked, even - to learn that Bayless used to be more than a talking head seeking out controversy: he used to be a writer seeking out controversy. THE STARTING FIVE has Part One of an exhaustive interview with Bayless about his columns and books, focusing on his expose “Hell-Bent: The Crazy Truth About the’Win or Else’ Dallas Cowboys,” which created a scandal for allegedly “outing” Cowboys QB Troy Aikman. And Bayless isn’t backing down. Sort of.

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As The Duke was so kind to inform us all of this morning in the Speed Read, Adam “Pacman” Jones was cut by the Dallas Cowboys yesterday after a story on ESPN talked about his supposed involvement in a shooting outside an suburban Atlanta strip club back in June 2007.

According to the story, while no charges were ever filed against Pacman or anybody else for the shooting, an informant told police that it had been ordered by Jones. Apparently he’d been in some kind of altercation with one of the men that was shot at. Well, as you can easily figure out, Pacman isn’t exactly thrilled with ESPN right now for running the story that cost him his job. So now he needs to find a new way to make money to pay for all these lawyers to keep him out of prison, and the only way to do that would be to sue ESPN.

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If the fine folks at the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES knew that all it would take to get rid of sports columnist Jay Mariotti was to send him halfway around the world for an assignment, it would’ve happened long ago, I suspect.

Seventeen years later, and fresh off a stint in Beijing to cover the Olympics, one of the angriest, most vindictive, frullet-ed (and some say talented) journalists to ever to grace the pages of the Chicago paper, has resigned. (Going-away parade starts promptly at 5 PM. Pre -parade keg stands in Rick Telander’s office begin at noon).

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