Swift injustice

I suppose, this being the first of October, the Blog should address whether or not Peyton Manning's seams are starting to come undone, or whether or not Derrick Rose has some evil genie who follows him around and periodically breaks parts of him, or who's going to win the World Series now that baseball's postseason landscape is nearly in place.

I'm not going to address any of that. This especially goes for the baseball postseason, because the sight of the insufferable St. Louis Cardinals clinching the NL Central over my saintly Pittsburgh Pirates is simply too painful to contemplate just now.

What I'll do instead is this: Pick on Taylor Swift.

I know, I know. She's the Queen of Pop, the lineal descendant of Michael Jackson, the hugest act in the whole wide world right now. And apparently a decent human being on top of it all.

But the woman is poison. Speaking of, you know, evil genies and the like.

According to ESPNW, the platform the Worldwide Leader puts out there to convince us it's not the buzzing hive of misogyny some have accused it of being, Swift has jinxed not one, not two, but three different baseball teams this season. They include the Padres, the Nationals and the Astros, the most luckless Taylor target of all.

The 'Stros were 55-45 and solidly in charge of the first wild-card spot when, on July 27, they rescheduled Swift's concert at Minute Maid Park from Oct. 13 to Sept. 9 to clear the decks for a possible playoff date.  But since the concert, Houston's gone 7-11, losing seven of eight games immediately after she performed. Wobbling to the finish, the Houstons would not make the playoffs if they started today.

An eerie side note: The last time the Astros failed to make the playoffs after being at least 10 games over .500 at the halfway point of the season was 1989 -- which, of course, happens to be the name of  Swift's current tour. Cue the sudden appearance of Rod Serling, brows knitted alarmingly, cigarette burning between his fingers.

The Nationals, meanwhile, have gone 32-38 since Swift performed at Nationals Park in July, effectively doody-ing their way out of the playoffs. No word if there's any connection between Swift's appearance and the subsequent appearance of serial asshat Jonathan Papelbon on the Nats' roster, but the Blob certainly wouldn't rule it out.

As for the Padres, they've gone 11-17 since Swift's Aug. 29 appearance at Petco Park. Not that they weren't pretty awful before that, but ...

Well.  Tell me she's not a witch. Go on.