And the winner is ...

 I wrote this today for my old employer, the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. It's yet another chance for me to throw in a plea for all good Blobophiles to subscribe to the JG, on account of local journalism is a vital public service and we'll never know how much we miss something until it's gone.Here's the link. Sign up today.

History is yelling at me, from up there in the nosebleeds. It has a voice like an air-raid siren and it's laughing and hooting and calling me a softhearted sap with a head to match.

That's because it knows what I want to do.

What I want to do, what all of America wants to do, is pick Marco Andretti to win the Indianapolis 500 today.

He's the first Andretti to sit on the pole for the 500 since his granddad, the great Mario, did it 33 years ago, and he almost always runs well here. He's finished in the top ten eight times in 15 starts, and at some point during the day, no matter where he starts, he almost always clambers into the mix up front.

So he's got that going for him.

"Ha!" history responds.

Then it says the guy starting from the pole in the Greatest Spectacle In Racing has little more than a one-in-five chance to finish the day pouring milk over his head in Victory Lane. It says only three times in 104 runnings has the pole winner won the 500 in consecutive years -- and because Simon Pagenaud won from the pole last year, Marco Andretti therefore has a 2.8 percent chance of winning this afternoon.

Two point eight percent. And that's not even getting into the family history, which of course tells us there's nothing Indy enjoys more than slapping around an Andretti.

More numbers: Across three generations, an Andretti has raced in the 500 a total of 72 times. An Andretti has won it ... once.

Grandpa Mario. 1969. And then the so-called Curse and everyone knows that story.

It bit Michael in '92 when he led 160 of the first 188 laps and had a 30-second lead until his fuel pump let go with 11 laps to run. And it bit Marco in his very first start, when he was 200 or so yards  from the checkers and then Sam Hornish Jr. came from next door to nowhere to snatch it away.

So there are all sorts of reasons, concrete and less so, not to pick Marco to win. The smart money goes elsewhere today.

Mostly it goes to the man sitting next to him in the front row, Scott Dixon, who's dominated all season and won the Indy Grand Prix in a walk on the infield road course July 4 weekend. The most dominant IndyCar driver of his generation, he hasn't won the 500 in a dozen years. Logic says he's too good not to win it again.

It's why I keep picking him periodically, and am always wrong when I do. This year I won't, which of course means you should put every dime you have on him.

I don't care. I still won't pick him -- and I won't pick Ryan Hunter-Reay or Alexander Rossi, two former winners who also start in the first three rows and who also seem likely to win again at some point. I won't go rogue and pick Rinus VeeKay, the 19-year-old Dutch wunderkind who starts his first 500 on the inside of Row 2, or Alex Palou, the 23-year-old Spaniard who starts his first on the inside of Row 3.

I won't pick Graham Rahal, even though I'd like to because Graham Rahal is a cool guy. And I won't pick Helio or Josef Newgarden or Will Power or James Hinchcliffe -- even though Hinch has an Andretti Autosport horse under him this time, and Indy owes him big for nearly killing him a few years back.

No, no and no. And no Colton Herta, Felix Roseqvist or Marcus Ericsson, either.

This time, this year, I go with the flow, and against history. This year I pick who I really want to pick, and who America wants to pick.

This year I pick the Andretti.

Go ahead and laugh, history. Go ahead and laugh.