A few sporting questions that have floated across my brain in recent days:

• What do coaches and athletes mean exactly when they say a player stayed within himself? Is it possible to get out of one’s self?

When you’re dead, maybe, but such philosophy does not belong in this column.

• Why do pitchers and catchers need courtesy runners in high school baseball and softball games? Can’t they run for themselves?

• Why did New Jersey Devils goalie Martin Brodeur choose the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs to break in a new glove? That’s like a catcher deciding to break in a new mitt during the World Series.

I mean, there’s a right time and place for everything.

• Why does Karns City softball coach Mike Simpson think enough of his team to phone its game results into the paper while on the way to the hospital because his daughter was giving birth to his grandchild, while other coaches don’t think enough of their teams to phone in game results, well, ever?

• Why don’t major league baseball players know how to run the bases anymore? Contrary to popular belief, it’s not just the Pirates.

• Whatever became of the sacrifice bunt?

• How can anybody besides Kobe Bryant or LeBron James be seriously considered for the NBA’s MVP award?

• Just because we have instant replay at our disposal, why do we need to use it to decide the ruling of plays on the field? Didn’t pro and college football, the NHL, NBA and college basketball exist just fine without it for years?

Baseball doesn’t use it, and it’s getting along just fine, thank you — as long as you don’t get tired of watching the Red Sox and/or Yankees on TV.

• Is anybody really rooting for Barry Bonds to break Hank Aaron’s home run record? And how many people honestly rooted for Aaron to break Babe Ruth’s record?

• Speaking of Bonds, does anyone really believe that his success — or the success of any other player — is a product of steroids?

• Why do so many people nationwide critique the NFL Draft the following day when it is virtually impossible to do so?

Remember Steve Niehaus, Ryan Leaf, Huey Richardson, Ki-Jana Carter, etc.? They were all great picks the day after the draft.

• Is Monica Glomb of Mars the greatest softball pitcher in Butler County history? I haven’t been around these parts forever, either, but good luck showing me a better pitcher.

• What is more important: winning a WPIAL team track championship or a WPIAL individual track title? Seems a lot more people can enjoy the former. Just ask Butler and Mars.

• Did anybody think the Adam LaRoche for Mike Gonzalez trade was a bad one when Pirates general manager Dave Littlefield finally swung that deal?

Back then, people were calling for Littlefield’s head if he didn’t make that trade. Now they want his head because he did.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle.