Idle chatter from sick bay on a general potpourri of topics ?If you’re wondering what – if anything – is going on with the Jarell Byrd/Lynn English situation, here it is in a nutshell.Byrd is now at English and has applied for a waiver to play basketball for the Bulldogs this winter. The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association turned him down, but that decision has been appealed and will be heard sometime around Thanksgiving. And even if the appeals process is exhausted, the family is still free to fight it out in court (it’s happened many times before).So the situation is far from resolved.Ordinarily, I’d look at a game between Gloucester and anyone up in Newell Stadium and conclude that the Fishermen will win going away.I may be going out on a limb here, but I don’t think so this year. English started the football season with a lot of question marks in skill positions ? and for the most part those questions have received a positive response.I don’t say it’ll be easy, or without peril, but I think the Bulldogs have a real shot up there Friday night.The game, of course, could make or break both teams in the race to win the Northeastern Conference/North. Neither – after this week – has a team remaining on its schedule with a better overall record.It seems incongruous that someone as pleasant as Glen “Big Baby” Davis is involved in a fight with an ex-teammate. But gee whiz, you’d think – and especially after the Celtics went through the trouble of re-signing him this summer – he’d be smart enough to walk away, regardless of how he thinks it makes him look.The guy who baited him isn’t working on a multi-million dollar contract, and does not have the responsibilities that go with it.I agree with Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck. Davis needs to be suspended and hit in the wallet. It kind of appears as if he’ll never learn any other way.Wyc, by the way, stands for Wycliffe. And if you’re interested, along similar lines, the real name is Willard Mitt Romney.If I were to compare the Lynn mayoral race to a sports event, it sure wouldn’t be a Patriots game ? where the Pats bend over backwards not to offend the upcoming competition. Or didn’t you notice Bill Belichick turned both the Tennessee Titans and Tampa Bay Buccaneers into Super Bowl contenders in the last two weeks?No. It’s either a contest between Muhammad Ali and (pick your opponent) or those old Celtics-Lakers wars when M.L. Carr insisted on running off at the mouth. You’d rush to buy the paper (or, these days, go online) to find out what one was saying about the other TODAY!Every time I read about trouble in Pop Warner (and it seems to happen way too often), it makes me wonder whether – in our zeal to indoctrinate kids into participating in adult-run team athletics – we’ve gone completely overboard. Could it be that some of the kids who play Pop Warner football are just too young, and too underdeveloped physically, to cope with the emotions that go with contact sports?I can’t think of anything more boring, and more unappealing, to me than a Yankees-Phillies World Series. I couldn’t care less about either team, really.Was anyone else besides me jumping for joy over the fact that the Minnesota Vikings lost Sunday and that a couple of Brett Favre misplays had a hand in it?He’s become pro football’s A-Rod ? the entire sport seems to revolve around him!If there’s any way the Red Sox can get Johnny Damon back here for a two-year wrapup of his career, they should try. Damon still has something left, and could certainly handle left field at Fenway.Plus, even though Jacoby Ellsbury had 70 stolen bases and has made some good circus catches, there’s a report out that puts him in the lower quadrant of centerfielders in the major leagues. Perhaps Damon could give him a few pointers.Finally, Damon is the anti-J.D. Drew. Where Drew asks out of the lineup if he cuts himself shaving, Damon’s arm could be falling off and he practically has to be forced to sit.Steve Krause is sports edito