Chasing the past

 So I texted my sis the other day wondering what was up with NASCAR, on account of it's pretty much off my radar these days, especially once college football starts up, and it's still kinda on hers.

"So what happened to the playoffs?" I asked. "Aren't they doing that anymore?"

She said, yes, there's still a 10-race Chase, with 16 drivers in the field, but they did away with the elimination rounds. Now it's just a points deal, with the 16 qualifiers all starting from zero. Guy with the most points after the 10 races wins the Cup.

"Wait ... isn't that pretty much what they had before the Chase?" I asked. "And isn't NASCAR just turning back the clock to the days when the points leader wrapped up the title early, making the last couple of races moot?"

Well, no, she said, and yes. Yes, right now Kyle Larson, who came from 11th to first on the last lap to win at Talladega last week -- a 'Dega finish if ever there was one -- leads by enough points that he may have already clinched the title by the time everyone rolls into Homestead for the last race of the season. But, no, because only 16 guys are vying for the title now.

Which doesn't sound like much of a difference to me. After all, when was the last time 16 drivers all had a shot at the title in the last month or so of the season?

I'll take "never" for $800, Alex.

All of this makes me want to look up Matt Kenseth on the old Magic Google-ey Search Engine Machine, because he's the guy who's responsible for the Chase to begin with. In 2003, see, Kenseth was so dominant -- he won just one race but had 11 top-fives, leading the points for the last 33 weeks of the 36-week season -- that the season was almost anticlimactic. Finishing 90 points ahead of runnerup Jimmie Johnson, he clinched the championship with one race to go.

The next year, NASCAR's honchos said to heck with that. No one wanted to see a guy claim the Cup while winning just one race and clinching it a week early. So they dreamed up the Chase -- and they've been tinkering with it ever since, to the mutual displeasure of pretty much everyone.

Now they're back to Square One, without actually calling it Square One. (Of course, they still have the stage racing they instituted a few years ago, which is only the most heinous bit of phony sporting event  manipulation to come down the pike in some time. Stopping and then starting over again twice between the actual start and actual finish?  Who's the genius who came up with that one, and how many  bourbon-and-branch-waters had he put down his neck?)

Anyway ...

Anyway, it looks to this casual observer like NASCAR's chasing the past, and catching it. Can't wait 'til the boys go full throwback and bring back that old skyscraper-wing Dodge Charger. Those were the days, boy. 

 

Everything must go

 And now … let the teardown begin.

Quentin Nelson, the anchor of the offensive line?

Traded to Seattle.

Forest Buckner, the keystone of the defense?

Traded to San Francisco.

Jonathan Taylor? Daniel Jones? Anthony Richardson? Head coach Shane Steichen and his staff?

Stay tuned.

Everything must go: This is what Indianapolis Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon signaled when she told general manager Chris Ballard to hit the bricks a week ago. And if you at all have been paying attention for the last seven years — ever since a battered Andrew Luck abruptly walked away, a wise decision from a wise man — you know it’s been a long time coming.

The rot in this franchise has been obvious for awhile, after all. The Horseshoes haven’t won a playoff game since 2018. They haven’t even made the playoffs since 2020. Since then they’ve done this: 9-8, 4-12-1, 9-8, 8-9, 8-9.

Beige on beige, in other words.

In that time, they’ve tried journeyman Carson Wentz and Geezer Patrol alums Philip Rivers and Matt Ryan at quarterback. Then they drafted a kid barely two years out of high school — 20-year-old Anthony Richardson, an off-the-charts athletic talent who’d started just 13 games at Florida — threw him into the deep end right off the bat.

No seasoning. No learning curve. No bring-him-along-slowly. Just, “yep, he’s good to go.”

And then they were shocked when he wasn’t.

So here we are, three fruitless years later, and Richardson is backing up Daniel Jones, which was likely the plan all along when the Colts got him from the New York Giants.  Jones was a revelation for nine games last season, and then he got hurt, and now he’s back to being New York Daniel Jones: Serviceable, occasionally more than serviceable, but rarely the guy who’s gonna win games for you when no one else can.

So is he on the block now?

Maybe. Probably. Everything must go, right?

 When you’re 2-5 this season and 2-12 since that 8-1 start a year ago, after all, that’s not just a sales catchphrase. That’s your mandate.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 7

 And now this week’s edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the bigly Blob feature of which critics have said, “Hey, you ain’t all THAT bigly,” and also “Come over here, Bigly, and lemme small-ify you.”:

1. “Ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha! Told ya we were bigly good!” (The Dallas Cowboys, after paving the floundering,  Jalen Hurts-less Eagles 38-21 to get to, um, 3-4 on the season)

2. “Hey, lookit us, baby! We’re 5-2 and you’re not! If that ain’t bigly good, what is?” (The Cleveland Browns, after squeaking by the 1-6 Tennessee Titans)

3. “Yeah, but it was the 1-6 Titans.” (Unimpressed America)

4. “Yeah, but that sorry Deshaun Watson’s still your quarterback.” (Also unimpressed America)

5. In other news, the Dolphins won a game; the previously 1-5 Buccaneers crushed the Panthers 43-13; the previously winless Dolphins beat the Jets in the Meadowlands; the previously 2-4 not-really-the-Super-Bowl-favorite-anymore Rams trucked the Raiders; and the Giants scraped by the Texans with Cam Skattebo and JJ Abrams, er, McCarthy, at quarterback.

6. “See? We do not either suck!” (The Rams, the Bucs, the Giants)

7. “But we do!” (The Raiders)

8.  “And we kinda did Sunday!” (The Panthers and Texans)

9. “Hey, we beat the Jets on the road! You know how hard that is?” (The Dolphins)

10. “Eh, not very.” (Unimpressed America — and thoroughly disgusted Jets fans.)

(Manning)cast aside

 Your Indianapolis Colts lost again yesterday, in typical Indianapolis Colts fashion, which is to say they looked pretty good for awhile until they didn't. 

They were actually leading at halftime in Minneapolis against unbeaten Minnesota, 10-6. Then the Vikings prize-winning defense shut 'em down, until they weren't. Wound up losing 16-10 to fall to 2-5 on the season,  as Daniel Jones threw for just 108 yards and a pick and was sacked four times. The Colts managed just 218 total yards, averaged just 3.7 yards per play, and even their most reliable offensive weapon -- placekicker Spencer Shrader -- missed two field goals.

So, another dreary Sunday afternoon for a franchise owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon has already begun the tear-down on. Things were never like this when Peyton Manning was throwing and Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne were catching.

And speaking of Peyton Manning ...

Adam Schefter of ESPN confirmed over the weekend that the Colts have not reached out to Peyton for the Colts now-vacant general manager job, for the excellent reason that Peyton does not now nor has ever shown an interest in being an NFL front-office guy. He's far too busy with his various business ventures, including the Manningcast co-piloted with his brother Eli. And who would want that job right now, anyway?

So, no, Peyton's not coming back to save the day, even if there is a nine-foot statue of him outside Lucas Oil Stadium. This will undoubtedly disappoint the same flavor of fan who always thought Brad Stevens was going to come back to IU from the Boston Celtics to return the Hoosier basketball kingdom to its former glory.

There was, of course, never a chance Stevens was going to do that. Just as there was almost certainly never a chance Peyton was going to do the same for the Colts.

Sometimes the knight in shining armor's white horse is riderless. Home truth.

 

Survive and …

 … survive. That’s enough, right?

Your sixth-ranked Indiana Hoosiers won the toughest game it will play all year yesterday, and, listen, don’t respond by saying “Yeah, but …”

Yeah, but nothin’. A win is a win is a win.

And, sure, it was only 13-6, and the Hoo-Hoo-Hoo-Hoosiers had to go overtime to do it, and it was against a Michigan team that’s not, you know, Michigan. But you know why it was the toughest game they’ll play all year?

Because it came a week after they lost the Big One at home to Ohio State by the width of Nick Marsh’s foot — their first L in 23 games.

Because seven days later they had to play Michigan in the Big House, which ain’t easy even if Michigan is Michigan Lite this year.

Because a bunch of other teams in a similar position couldn’t do what they did.

For instance: Know what happened a week after Minnesota beat Michigan in the Little Brown Jug game in Minneapolis for the first time in 50 years?

The Golden Gophers went down to Purdue and got their hinders handed to them, 41-13.

Know what happened a week after then-No. 1 Texas was upset by unranked Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry?

The Longhorns came home and lost again, this time to Florida. 

Refocusing is hard. Sometimes teams can do it; sometimes they can’t.

Indiana?

Scratched and clawed and gasped and wheezed but found a way to win when Josh Hoover — so banged up Curt Cignetti thought about pulling him for Grant Wilson — barged into the end zone in overtime to save the day.

This on a day when Auburn, which last week shocked No. 1 Georgia between the hedges in Athens, came home and got filleted 38-17 by LSU. And on a day when BYU, a week after knocking off No. 2 Notre Dame in the biggest game ever played in Provo, went on the road and lost in two overtimes to Central Florida.

Refocusing is hard.

But Indiana did. And now the Hoosiers are 7-1. And as an IU fan told me when it was done yesterday, nothing’s wrong with 7-1.

Nope. Nothing at all.

One codger, exhausted

 And now the Blob presents a singular feature of questionable appeal — Stuff That No Longer Annoys Me Because There’s No Longer A Point To Being Annoyed By It, a surrender of sorts to the inevitability of codger exhaustion.

Which is to say, this codger has seen LaMelo Ball moonwalk a mile or so with nary a dribble, and all he can do is shrug wearily.

Yes, he traveled like Marco Polo. No, I’m not annoyed/perturbed/outraged that he wasn’t whistled for it, because traveling as a violation of the rules of basketball no longer exists in the National (Get Your) Boogey (Shoes On) Association.

Guys walk like Gandhi to the sea and get away with it because they call it a “gather” now; not long ago, a Celtics player went from just inside the foul circle to the rim without taking a dribble because he was “gathering” for a dunk. 

And the Euro Step, which is a conventional travel, is now just … the Euro Step. 

So be it. There’ll be no further shaking of bony fists and “Consarn it’s!” from this locale.

And while we’re at it …

I’m also not going to get annoyed/perturbed/outraged by  clueless high school football coaches, either.

One of them kicked his senior quarterback off the team for audible-ing out of a designed keeper. The kid handed it to his running back instead, figuring the RB had a better chance of getting the first down. 

QB1 was right. The running back got the first down. But Coach Dimmer Switch — i.e. Miles Smith, son of former NFL coach Lovie Smith — didn’t say “nice call”; he threw QB1 off the team for “disrespecting” Coach, and forbade him from having any further contact with his teammates.

A dozen  of whom quit the team in protest after Smith told them if they didn’t like his decision they could leave.

Again, so be it. No getting all exercised about it here.

Know why?

Because the next week Coach Dimmer Switch’s depleted squad lost 49-7. After which he and his dad, a volunteer assistant, resigned.

To which the Blob has only one response: Buh-bye.

Series time!

 The Fall Classic begins tonight in Milwaukee, where mittens might be required before mitts. But who cares? It’s the Fall Classic!

This year, weirdly, it actually pits the top team in each league against each other, and neither is the Dodgers or Yankees, which pleases everyone in America who’s not a network executive.  It’s the Milwaukee Brewers vs. the Tampa Bay Rays, two smallish-market teams who’ve never won a World Series, and who’ve only ever played in one a combined four times.

Three of those times it was the Rays, who are a sound, splendid team that doesn’t beat itself. The Brewers are also a sound, splendid team that doesn’t beat itself. So it should be a great Series.

And if you’re asking, at this point, which sound, splendid team the Blob favors (“We’re not, but OK,” you’re saying now), the answer is the Brewers.

I like ‘em partly because I consider  beer and brats part of a balanced diet; partly because of Laverne, Shirley, Lenny and Squiggy; and partly because Milwaukee hasn’t celebrated a World Series title since 1957, when the Braves beat the Yankees before departing for Atlanta.

The Brewers?

They’ve only played in the Series once, and that was 44 years ago. It was a team led by Robin Yount, Paul Molitor and slugger Gorman Thomas, who looked like a guy who  enjoyed an occasional beer and brat. If Milwaukee suddenly became a sentient being, it would be Gorman Thomas.

So, yeah. It’s time for Gorm’s spiritual descendants to bring home the Big Trophy.

One other reason to root for the Brewers?

They began life in 1969 as the Seattle Pilots, who lasted just one season before relocating to Milwaukee. And whom Jim Bouton made famous in “Ball Four.”

And so, in the immortal words of the Pilots manager Joe Schultz: “S***f***. F***s***. Up and at ‘em, Brewers, and pound that Budweiser.”

Moneyed interests

It’s probably a swipe of the broad brush to say the Big Ten, SEC, Notre Dame and ESPN just decided for everyone else what college football is going to look like going forward. But the Big Ten, SEC, Notre Dame and ESPN just decided for everyone else what college is going to look like going forward.

Which is a 24-team College Football Playoff.

The four entities named above, just hammered out a broadcast deal for said playoff, tentatively scheduled to launch next season. It won’t be finally approved until Dec. 1, but final approval is all but a lock.

This is because the deal with ESPN is expected to be a $300 million haul, and no one in what used to be “college” athletics has ever failed to lunge unbecomingly after every free-floating dollar. It’s how major corporations operate — even ones who style themselves institutions of higher learning.

What this means, ostensibly, is more high-end non-conference clashes and fewer Indiana-vs.-Howard abominations. This is because, in a watered-down CFP ,  teams will be able to lose three or four games and still get into the Big Hoo-Ha.

(Which kinda sucks for the Howards and MAC schools like the Blob’s alma mater Ball State. No more million-dollar guarantee games for you, mid-major losers! And, hey, the Power 4s will still get to raid you for the players you spent a year or so developing! How’s that for a deal?)

Sorry. Where were we again?

Oh, yeah, more CFP dough for more mid Power 4 teams ( and, OK, half a dozen or so Group Of 6 automatic bids). It’ll mean more games for the “student-athletes”  — the season for the national champions will now run uninterrupted from late August to mid January — and the death knell for a whole pile of radial tire, lawn implement and Snoop Dog bowls.

The latter might be the only upside to this, because let’s face it, the world does not need more of 6-6 Directional A&M vs.  5-7 East-Northeast Institute Of Breakfast Technology  in the Carquest Good-And-Plenty Bowl. Plus,  an expanded CFP will also mean the end of conference championship games, which are nothing but a way to squeeze more nickels from the “student-athletes anyway.

Now?

Now the Big Ten, SEC and Notre Dame will get to wring even MORE nickels from their hired hands. And if the Save College Sports or whatever it’s called passes, they’ll have antitrust protection and assurance the hired hands won’t be able to organize like any other workforce in America. Sweet!

As for me …

Well, I miss the days before colleges became Sis-Boom-Bah Inc. — the days of New Year’s Day bowl games and mythical national champions and $1,000 handshakes under the table.

It felt cleaner, somehow. And certainly more human.

Your nothingburger for today

 The WNBA just annoys the hell out of some people. Let’s begin with that home truth today.

Those some people — and you know who they are — see the league as too gay, too black, and mostly too full of women who speak their minds.  Thus, the Some People bash the WNBA as “woke” (because it celebrates diversity and inclusion, those evil Doublemint Twins), racist (look how those mean black girls pick on the white girls!) and … and …

Haters of America!

Yes, that’s the latest.

It’s the latest because the usual suspects — Outkick, Jason Whitlock, even Indiana’s Lieutenant Governor, Micah “I Don’t Like Much Of Anything” Beckwith — are feeding red meat to the masses again. And as usual it’s performance art so contrived and ridiculous you wonder when the hook comes out to drag them off stage.

See, they’ve noticed that both teams in the WNBA finals — the Atlanta Dream and the Golden State Valkyries — leave the floor prior to the National Anthem.  The usual suspects cry that this is a deliberate insult to our great nation, and proof that the WNBA Hates America.

If it didn’t, after all, the league would force these ungrateful opinionated women (Opinionated women! The horror!)  to remain on the floor and stand at attention for the anthem. Because, you know, freedom.

And now for the rest of the story, as they say.

The rest of the story is that, first of all, the Dream and Valkyries are not violating leagues rules, as the usual suspects claim. The rules only say that IF a team remains on the floor for the anthem, its players must stand in a respectful manner. But it’s up to the individual teams to decide whether or not they stay on the floor.

Some teams do. Some teams don’t. The Dream and Valkyries do not, and it’s not because they Hate America. It’s because that’s their pregame routine.

Period. End of story.

In fact, if the usual suspects took the time to check it out instead of trying to manufacture outrage, they’d learn the a LOT of basketball teams retire to the locker room before the anthem. This includes a lot of college teams — including Kim Mulkey’s women’s teams, and, back in the day, Bob Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers.

As far as I know, Micah Beckwith and the rest of the clowns never accused them of Hating America. (Although Mulkey, absurdly, came in for some criticism on this very point last year from a few peawits). This is because neither Mulkey nor Knight would ever be mistaken for “woke” lefties. They are, and were, about as red-blooded unawake America, Hell, Yeah! types as you’d ever find.

So, then. Enough of this nonsense. Just call this what it is: Your nothingburger for today.

In these times, after all, it seems we’re required to have at least one.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 6

 And now this week’s edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the nostalgic Blob feature of which critics have said “Remember the good old days when this crap didn’t exist?”, and also “I’m nostalgic for that time I fed you a knuckle hoagie”:

1. “Remember when everyone thought we were a Super Bowl team?” (The Rams, after losing at home to the Cardinals — the Cardinals! — to fall to 2-4.)

2. “Remember when everyone thought WE were?” (The Cowboys, after losing to the Packers to also fall to 2-4)

3. “No one remembers that.” (Everyone in America who’s not a Cowboys fan)

4. In other news, the Eagles!

5. Lost again, this time to the Panthers. They’re 2-4 now, too, and have lost Jalen Hurts for the season for a scary reason: Blood clots have developed in his lungs.

6. “Remember when the football gods were smiling on us, and we were winning Super Bowls, and people thought Nick Siriani was a pretty darn good coach? What happened? It’s not that we were still jackwagons despite all that, was it?” ( Eagles fans)

7. “Remember when all the smart guys thought we were washed? Well, look at us now, losers!” (The 6-0 Chiefs)

8. “I miss the days when Caleb Williams was out with the dinged hammy.” (No Bears fan anywhere, after Williams returned, completed 30-of-36 passes — including his first 12 — for 305 yards and a touchdown in Chicago’s 31-23 road win over Atlanta)

9. “Remember when I was a GM?” ( Chris Ballard, after being fired by the Indianapolis Colts the morning after the  Horsies jacked around lost to the previously winless Titans at home)

10. “Remember when I didn’t know I was the next to go?” (Colts head coach Shane Steichen, whose team is 2-4 with road games at unbeaten Minnesota and 4-2 Jacksonville next up)

Requiem time, Part Deux

 Well, THAT was quick.

Forget the question mark in the title of the previous post. It is requiem time in Indy.

This just in: The Colts have fired Greg Ballard, roughly 17 hours after losing to previously winless Tennessee.

Doors standard to follow.

Requiem time?

 This is the end

My only friend, the end …

Oops, sorry. Just rehearsing Chris Ballard’s next number.

And that’s Shane Steichen singin’ harmony.

With a nod, and huge apologies, to Jimmy Morrison and the Doors, of course.

And, sure, maybe I’m being a tad melodramatic here, but, hoo, boy, what the heck was THAT yesterday? Losing at home to the previously winless Tennessee Titans, for cryin’ out loud? Making the Titans defense look like all gnarly and fierce, while Steichen’s and Ballard’s Colts looked worthless and weak?*

(*Gratuitous “Animal House” reference)

Here’s how the Horseshoes lost 26-20 yesterday, at home, to one of the weakest teams in the NFL:

* Gave up a 58-yard punt return to set up one Titans score.

* Gave up another touchdown on a blocked punt return.

* Turned it over three times — twice on Daniel Jones interceptions, once on a Jonathan Taylor fumble — and allowed six sacks.

* Got outscored 26-7 in the second half to blow a 13-0 halftime lead.

No wonder Ballard and Steichen might be tuning up that old Doors standard. 

They came into this season with a distinctly un-subtle mandate from owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon — win or hit the bricks — and now the Colts are 2-4 and the two wins were against 2-4 Houston and a 1-3-1 Washington team that was playing a third-string quarterback from Rutgers. 

(They also pushed the Chiefs to overtime in K.C. before losing 33-30. People are still trying to figure out that one out.)

So now here they are with a slower Daniel Jones (thanks to the Achilles tear that knocked him out last season), a “meh” receiver room and a defense whose best player is a 32-year-old nose tackle who was thinking recreating before this season (DeForrest Buckner). 

After starting 8-1 last season, they’ve gone 2-12 since.

This is surely not what Irsay-Gordon had in mind when, in so many words, she said Ballard and Steichen had to show her something or else.

It’s also not what she had in mind when the fans were sending down boos yesterday afternoon.

Those boos might or might not have been a requiem of sorts for Ballard and Steichen. But at this point, you’ve gotta be leaning toward the former.

What th-?

 OK, OK, O-KAY. Lemme see if I can get all of this straight:

* No. 5 Indiana lost to No. 4 Ohio State by the width of Nick Marsh’s foot.

* For the second week in a row, the No. 1 team — Georgia this time — lost on a walkoff field goal. At home, no less.

* Meanwhile the previous No. 1 team (Texas) lost AGAIN, also at home,  this time to a Florida team that had just been paved by 19 at home by an unranked South Carolina team.

* Also, No. 6 Alabama lost to Tennessee.

* Also, No. 2 Notre Dame flunked its first real test of the season, losing to  No. 8 BYU in Provo because the zebras swallowed their whistles and the timekeeper swallowed whatever it is timekeepers swallow on the last play of the game.

(Translation: Leading 28-24, BYU’s DBs knocked down a Notre Dame receiver in the end zone, stole his lunch money, kicked his schoolbooks into the gutter and made fun of his mom. Oh, and when the play ended with one second left, the timekeeper maybe/possibly was juuust a tad slow on the draw, letting the last second run out. Game over, BYU wins!)

Whew. What an insane, what-th? day in college football.

The No. 1, 2, 5, 6 and 7 teams all lost. The No. 3 team (Miami) needed overtime to beat Florida State. The nation’s two longest winning streaks — Indiana with 22 straight Ws and Notre Dame with 16 — both ended.

And about that Indiana game …

The Hoosiers almost pulled off another fourth-and-ain’t-gonna-make-it gamble, but Josh Hoover was crunched as he threw, and his 30-some-yard pass was offline by three inches or so, leading Marsh too close to the edge of the end zone.

And so Marsh stepped out of bounds as he caught what everyone in Bloomington briefly thought was another game-winning miracle by their Hoosiers. But it wasn’t, and Ohio State survived 19-15 in a game every bit as epic as expected.

It was a game Indiana, which never beats itself, probably beat itself, missing two field goals and turning it over twice. And it turned, really, in the second quarter, when Indiana, already up 7-3, drove to the shadow of Ohio State’s goal.

But on third-and-goal, Hoover failed to see Charlie Becker break wide open in the end zone. Instead he tried to squeeze a throw across the middle to Marsh, who was bracketed by three defenders.

Incomplete. And then Indiana’s kicker came on to cash the gimme 32-yard field goal, and he somehow spanked it off the left upright.

Make the right read, and it’s 14-3 and a very different game. Make the kick, and it’s at least 10-3.

Instead, Ohio State marched back downfield and scored on fourth-and-goal to take a 10-7 lead into halftime. The Buckeyes never trailed again.

And No. 4 survived. And No. 5 didn’t.

But, hey. At least they had plenty of company.

And the winner is …

 … not Indiana.

Sorry, Hoosiers fans. Can’t do it. Would like to, but … just can’t.

I think Ohio State wins today in Bloomington, because the Buckeyes have been laying for this one for a year and also because this is not the Indiana team that beat them a year ago.

This Indiana team is good up front on defense, but not nearly as good on the back side. Which is a problem when the best player in college football is Ohio State wideout Jeremiah Smith. 

This Indiana team does not get the same push up front on offense, which is why it struggled to run the ball against Nebraska last week.

This Indiana team has Josh Hoover at quarterback, who’s pretty good but no Fernando Mendoza. And this Indiana team has Charlie Becker and Nick Marsh, but the receiver corps otherwise is not what it was a year ago.

On the other hand …

On the other hand, when Nick Saban said this week we’ll find out what Indiana is made of today, he apparently missed what happened last week in Lincoln, Neb., when the Hoosiers showed us what they’re made of.

Got down 17- 6 to Nebraska in front of all those howling Cornhusker fans, and then got their mean on. Hoover hit the deep ball twice to Marsh, the defense decided to get relentless, and the Hoosiers gritted out a 20-17.

What that told everyone, or should have, that if you’re going to beat this Indiana team, you’d better step on ‘em and keep steppin’ on ‘em. You’d better kill ‘em dead, because they’re not going to stop coming after you until you do.

Which is why I think OSU wins today, but not by much. Say a touchdown. And IU will still be gettin’ after the Buckeyes when the clock hits zeroes.

I could be wrong, of course. I frequently am. 

But I don’t think so.

True Blue Crew

 Let’s hear it out there today for your Milwaukee Brewers, who are headed to the World Series after sweeping — sweeping! — the moneybags Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS last night.

Cleaned the Trolley Dodgers’ plate with a come-from-behind 6-4 win. Ruined, emphatically, the Moneybags’ bid for a Fall Classic three-peat. And became the first team since the beginning of time or whatever to sweep the team that swept them a year ago.

Here’s the best part, though: The True Blue Crew are headed to the World Series for the first time in 44 YEARS!

Yes, boys and girls, it’s true. The last (and only other) time the Brews played in the Fall Classic was in 1982. That was long ago Snapchat hadn’t been invented yet. Also smart phones, Face Thingy, Elon Musk, LeBron, Bad Bunny and most of the loons currently infesting the halls of Congress and our current Regime.

Know who was around then, though?

Saint Robin of Yount, as he’s known in  Milwaukee. Gorman Thomas. Paul Molitor. Lenny and Squiggy and Blatz beer and memories of 1957, when Lew Burdette and the Milwaukee Braves delivered the city’s only World Series title before departing for, ugh, Atlanta.

So here’s to ya, Brewers, and also to Milwaukee. Hasn’t been this much excitement in these parts since Al McGuire got his last technical over there at Marquette.

Fun, Part Deux

 (In which the Blob again flees Sportsball World for … ah, you know the rest)

So apparently dreams, even satirical ones, are nothing but dreams after all. 

This after President Donald John “Hey, Quit Hogging My Crazy” Trump pulled the plug on Secretary of War Pete “I Miss The Days Of Trebuchets” Hegseth’s scheme to televise Nidal Hasan’s execution by firing squad.

Donald John said, nah, not even we’re Stalinesque enough to do THAT. 

Too bad. I hear EA Sports had a new video game ready to launch, too. 

They were gonna call it “Grand Theft Call Of Duty Halo 12: Heart Shot.” Twelfth Century Pete himself was all set to narrate.

Fun for the whole family

 (In which the Blob again departs from Sportsball World to roam unfettered, and possibly naked, through the America of 2026. Hall passes available for all who request them.)

 Today the Blob introduces a new and possibly one-off feature, Which Parts Of This Are Real And Which Are Not. And, listen, it's not as easy to separate one from the other as it sounds.

But you make the call ...

Last night I dreamed the United States military was going to publicly execute a man in a wheelchair by firing squad.

(The man, Nidal Hasan, is the infamous Fort Hood spree shooter who murdered 13 people in cold blood and wounded 32 others back in 2009. He's probably got it coming.)

In any case, in my dream I read where this would be the U.S. military's first execution by firing squad since World War II. I also read it will be the first public execution in the United States since 1936, when a black man named Rainey Bethea was hanged in Owensboro, Ky. Thousands of people showed up to watch. They brought their kids. Vendors sold hotdogs.(1)

Now, I dreamed, we're going to do it again. Last week Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, a 12th-century humanoid mistakenly transported to 21st-century America, announced plans to livestream Hasan's demise.

"We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public, because people need to understand there's serious for these types of things," Hegseth told right-wing streaming network Real America's Voice, in my dream. "I encourage every American to tune in. Have watch parties. Grill up some burgers and 'dogs. It'll be fun for the whole family!" (2)

In my dream, Hegseth went on to say the Pentagon is negotiating not only with Real America's Voice but Fox News, Netflix and ESPN, "as long as they don't assign any of their woke commentators," he said.(3)

"Pat McAfee would be perfect," Hegseth said in my dream. "Heck, maybe we could get the whole College Gameday crew to come. They could invite Lee Corso back as a special guest and he could put on one of those mascot heads. Death's Head or 12th-Century Crusader Head? Which will Corso choose?

"It would be awesome!"

In my dream, I was then transported to the day of the execution. The cameras were rolling. The streamers were 'streamin'. Bon Jovi performed a soulful version of "Shot Through The Heart," and somehow Keith Jackson and John Madden were there.

"Whoaaa, Nelly!" Keith exclaimed as the shots rang out.

"One second he was alive, and then BOOM!" cried Madden, madly scribbling on his Telestrator.

And then I woke up ...

(Footnotes: "1" is real; "2" is real except for the last four quotes; "3" is not real, as is everything after it. At least as far as we know.)

"Oh, come on, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "NONE of that is real. A public execution? In this day and age? Heck, the only part of your dream that's real is the part about the last public execution taking place in Kentucky in 1936. And it was the last one because there was a massive wave of revulsion about turning what should be a somber occasion into some sort of get-your-red-hots-here carnival sideshow. 

"We're a lot more civilized now. Aren't we?"

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 5

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the Blob feature that's the famous last word in Blob features, and of which critics have said, "Famous last words? Yeah, just wait, buddy", and also "You want some famous last words? How about 'Ouch, that hurts!'?":

1.. "Eh, we got plenty of time. PLENTY of time." (The Washington Commanders, who somehow frolicked away almost a minute and let the clock run out before they could get off what would have been a game-winning field goal)

2. "Geez, Louise, look at them boys frolic!" (The New York Giants, who wound up tying the Commanders 27-27 in overtime)

3. "Eight seconds to play, baby! We got this thing LOCKED!" (The Philadelphia Eagles, after taking a 17-16 lead against Jacksonville in London with, yes, eight seconds to play)

4. "Wait ... what?" (Also the Eagles, after the Jaguars' Ameer Abdullah returned the ensuing kickoff 53 yards, setting up Cam Little's game-winning 57-yard field goal as time expired)

5. "Wait .. what?" (The Los Angeles Rams, after becoming the first team in NFL history to lose to the Buffalo Bills in overtime. And at home, no less)

6. Meanwhile, in Green Bay ...

7. "Look at those clowns! We'll win this easy!" (The Chicago Bears, taking on the Packers, who were wearing throwback uniforms -- gray, with weird white helmets and funky numerals -- that should have been thrown back)

8. "Wait .., what?" (Also the Bears, after getting paved 31-7 by the Packers AND their ugly unis).

9. In other news, the Titans, Chargers and Dolphins remained winless. But the previously winless Buccaneers went to Dallas and -- say WHAT? -- beat the Cowboys 24-16 in prime time Thursday night.

10. "The Buccaneers? Pffft. They're trash. We win this easy." (The Cowboys, prior to kickoff)

Good craziness

 The Blob has beaten this horse's carcass into macrame, but Saturday was another of those days that showed us why college football is way better than the En Eff Ell, no matter how hard it is tell them apart here in the age of NIL and transfer madness.

Exhibit A: The Red River Rivalry in the Cotton Bowl.

In which Oklahoma didn't have a first down until the second quarter, and yet  somehow managed to knock off No. 1 Texas on a walk-off field goal. This was after the Sooners scored a touchdown on a blocked punt, scored another touchdown on a pick six, and put up just 238 total yards to the Longhorns' 382,  and averaged just 2.7 yards per carry on 31 rushing attempts.

But Texas placekicker Gianni Spetic missed a potential go-ahead field goal with 1:55 to play, and Oklahoma got the ball back with 19 seconds left when Arch Manning threw his second interception of the fourth quarter. That set up Tate Sandell for the winning kick, and completed Oklahoma's 17-point fourth quarter.

It was the first time the Sooners had beaten a No. 1 team in 19 years. And it happened on a day when initially it looked like they could play another 19 years and never score.

It was renegade journalist/provocateur Hunter S. Thompson who coined the phrase "bad craziness" to describe the insanity of his times. Well, consider Oklahoma 27, Texas 24 good craziness.

But wait, there was more!

There was unranked Kentucky beating No. 10 LSU in overtime on Kenny Minchey's two-point conversion, after the Wildcats missed two field goals in the fourth quarter and finally made one to force overtime with 12 seconds left in regulation. 

There was unranked South Carolina pounding No. 16 Florida 38-19 in the Swamp.

There was Harvard winning on a hook-and-lateral as time expired; UCLA beating Oregon in Eugene; Purdue lumping up Minnesota in West Lafayette; and of course the biggest one of all: No. 2 Georgia beating No. 7 Alabama 20-17 in Tuscaloosa.

Which happened because of one of the worst non-calls ever.

'Bama was driving toward a tying field goal when quarterback Keelon Russell threw deep into the end zone. But before the ball even got there, Georgia safety KJ Bolden raced over and shoved the intended receiver to the ground.

It was so blatant the "Flag" graphic went up on America's TV screens. Except there was no flag, and, while Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer lost his mind on the sideline, Russell was sacked on the next play to essentially end it.

Bad craziness if you were 'Bama. Good craziness if you were Georgia.

And just a normal college football Saturday for the lucky rest of us.

Trapped (and not)

 Indiana, unbeaten and for the most part untried, marched into a sun-washed cauldron of red out there in Nebraska yesterday, and nearly put its shiny 21-game winning streak in the ditch. In front of a bunch of goobers wearing plastic corncobs on their heads, no less.

Meanwhile, in West Lafayette ...

Giddy Minnesota marched into Ross-Ade Stadium under cover of darkness, and did put its 4-1 record in the ditch. The Purdue Boilermakers -- like Pinocchio having suddenly become a real boy -- mashed all that giddy into odd shapes and sizes in a resounding 41-13 romp.

Both of those games were trap games, one more than the other. And you could see 'em both comin' from a mile off.

That was especially true in West Lafayette, where Minnesota likely was still hung over from its big Little Brown Jug takedown of Michigan last week. It was the first time the Golden Gophers had beaten the Wolverines in Minnie in 50 years, and delirium reigned: The fans stormed the field, irrepressible head coach P.J. Fleck crowd-surfed his team in the locker room, and you knew -- you just knew -- the party was going to last all week.

Which made the Gophers prime chumps for the Purdues, who were coming off a huge road win at Illinois and came back home understanding what it takes to win football games in the Big Ten.

It's a Purdue team markedly more talented than last year's sadsacks, with a now-poised quarterback in Ryan Browne and a bunch of hungry transfers on defense and another transfer, Fame Ijeboi, gouging out meaningful yards on the ground. And here came the school he'd transferred from, Minnesota, still pumped full of helium from the week before.

Classic trap game.  And the Gophers done got trapped.

Meanwhile, back in Lincoln, Neb. ...

Here came the seventh-ranked, undefeated defending national champions, a week away from the big clash in Bloomington against Ohio State. And here was an amped-up Memorial Stadium and  an equally amped-up (and equally unbeaten) mob of Nebraska Cornhuskers, who were absolutely laying for them.

And so, for a long time, the home team had Indiana in six kinds of trouble. The Huskers blocked better; they tackled better; they executed with more discipline and more passion. And all the while the cornheads roared and howled and drowned the Hoosiers in a tsunami of sound.

At halftime, the score was 10-3, Nebraska. Then it was 10-6. Then, early in the fourth quarter, it was 17-6, and the cauldron of red filled the world.

 And then ...

And then, Indiana got gnarly. It got gritty. It got as stubborn as its head coach, Curt Cignetti, who'd spent most of the afternoon restlessly pacing the sideline wearing his patented Coach Cig Mask O' Granite.

In the game's last 12 minutes, Josh Hoover finally hit the chunk play he'd been looking for all day, a 75-yard strike to Nick Marsh. Then he found Marsh again for 44 yards and another six, completely suckering the Cornhuskers on fourth-and-1. The defense hunkered down and grew some nasty, and Indiana pulled it out, 20-17.

Cignetti later called it a W for "indomitable will," and maybe it was that. Or maybe it was just the realization the Big One in Bloomington next week wouldn't be big at all if the Hoosiers didn't get it done in Lincoln.

Look. This is not the Indiana of a year ago. Hoover is not Fernando Mendoza. Outside of Marsh and Charlie Becker, the receiver corps is not last year's receiver corps. And the DBs are not last year's DBs, which means if the front seven doesn't bring it every week, opponents are going to dent the scoreboard.

But if Saturday showed us anything at all, it showed us these are still the Cignetti Hoosiers. They will come at you with their jaw stuck out a mile, daring you to take a poke. They will fight you to the last whistle. And many more times than not, they'll be ahead on the scoreboard when that last whistle bleats.

Trap game?

Indiana laughs at your trap game. Minnesota, on the other hand, left the last laugh to Purdue.

Narrative fail

 Ancient truism in the sportswriting biz, and the best comeback to every Joe Fan who ever declared, "You just hate (Joe Fan's team)!":

We don't root for the team. We root for the story.

Which brings us to the best story in baseball this season, until it wasn't.

That would be your Chicago White Sox, who made the postseason after losing 329 games across the previous three seasons, including a modern-day record 121 two summers ago. Last year they went 60-102.

This year: 84-78.

In other words, the 2026 White Sox would have finished an astounding 24 games ahead of the 2025 Pale Hose. So just making the playoffs was the baseball story of the year, and it's not even debatable.

And then ...

And then, the Sox wiped out Houston two straight in the best-of-three wild-card round.

And then ...

And then, they beat their nemesis, the Cleveland Guardians two straight in Cleveland in the ALDS to go back to Chicago needing just one more win in the best-of-five to advance to the ALCS.

And then ...

Ahem.

And then, the Guardians showed why they were the AL Central champs, and the White Sox were not.

They bombed the White Sox 9-3 in Game 3, then bombed them again, 9-5. Last night, back in front of the home crowd, they completed the comeback with a 2-0 win to send the best story in baseball home for the winter.

In those final three games, Cleveland outscored the Sox 20-8. 

That's what those of us in the biz call a "narrative fail." And not just any narrative fail, but a big-time narrative fail.

Ah, well.

Da Man

 Unavoidably, this morning, you think of Da Bearz, of the Superfans, of George Wendt and Joe Mantegna and Chris Farley and his chronic heart attacks. And of Mini Ditka and Regular-Size Ditka, of course.

"So if Dikta went to meet God, who would win?"

"Mini Ditka or Regular-Size Ditka?"

"Regular-Size Ditka."

"Oh, well, then Ditka for sure."

"Ditka."

"Ditka."

"Ditka."

Well, of course, Mike Ditka talked God (or wrestled God) into letting him into heaven. He's Ditka. Heck, even Mini Ditka could beat the stupid Packers with one arm behind his back. You think he couldn't defeat the afterlife?

And so this morning he's probably up there in the Great Hereafter trading punches with Buddy Ryan, that back-stabbing SOB. He's telling Walter Payton to leave him the, um, heck alone, because how many times does a guy have to apologize for letting the Fridge score that touchdown in the Super Bowl?

 He's running up the seam and snatching a football out of the sky, while celestial spectators exclaim "Dang, I didn't know a tight end could do THAT."

Before he was head coach of the Super Bowl Shuffle Bears, see, Mike Ditka was a Bears tight end, which some people tend to forget. Now he's neither, having gone to meet his Maker yesterday at the tender age of 86.

A big piece of whatever makes Chicago, Chicago, went with him. 

In the city of big shoulders he was the big shoulders, a kid from the steel towns of western Pennsylvania who came to represent another closed fist of a town in the Midwest. If Ditka wasn't Chicago -- all sweat stains and elbow grease and no fancy put-on airs -- no one was Chicago. He was Stan Mikita's tough mug and Tony O in goal; Rodman diving six rows into the high-dollar seats chasing a loose ball; Jason Hayward saying whatever he said to the Cubs during the rain delay in Game 7.

He was Harry Caray and the Go-Go Sox and a Chicago 'dog and Rush Street. Lou Malnati's and Lakeshore Drive and the El and the U505 over there at the Museum of Science and Industry. He was all of that.

Of course he'll mainly be remembered as the man who corralled those irrepressible '85 Bears -- Richard Dent and Danimal and Mongo McMichael, and that crazy Yalie Gary Fencik -- and turned them into the real Monsters of the Midway, brutalizing the rest of the league with Ryan's ferocious 46 defense. Except for one lost night in Miami, Jim McMahon and Walter and Refrigerator Perry and that defense destroyed everything in their path that season, finishing it by clowning the New England Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX.

Oh, and that lost night in Miami, when Dan Marino and the Dolphins strapped an inconceivable 38 points on 'em?

A couple of days later Da Bearz recorded Da Super Bowl Shuffle. Talk about big brass ones.

Which gets us around to Ditka again, Da Man who epitomized Da Bearz and everything else. So much so, perhaps, that people do indeed tend to forget he's in the Hall of Fame as a player, and a groundbreaking one at that.

 Before Ditka came snarling out of Pitt, tight ends were basically just a fifth offensive lineman. Theirs was not to reason why; theirs was but to block linebackers and defensive ends.  But then Iron Mike went out and rung up more than 1,000 receiving yards in his rookie year, and tight ends became an offensive weapon forever after.

Oh, and before you ask: It was Regular-Size Ditka who did that.

Not that Mini Ditka couldn't have, of course.

Fed. Up.

 Caitlin Clark is far too savvy a public figure to say what she'd like to say out loud. But she's frankly sick of some of you.

She wishes you would, you know, get bent. Go away. Stop being racist hilljacks bogarting her orbit. Stop wearing her jersey when you go off on stupid rants about how she's the GREATEST WOMEN'S BASKETBALL PLAYER OF ALL TIME and no one appreciates her because she's white and straight and all those black lesbian b*****s are just jealous of her.

Enough. The object of your obsession is fed up with you.

Or so Clark made clear the other day in her end-of-season presser, if in a far more politic way.

"I think as far as people have used me to demonstrate racist rhetoric or hate or discrimination, that's not something I stand for," is how she put it. "That's never been something I've stood for. "

She went on to say other things, too, like how she loves her (black) teammate Kelsey Mitchell, who's apparently caught some racist flack of her own and admitted it's sometimes hard to play for "fans" like that. And how the media-driven "feud" between Clark and Angel Reese is unfiltered BS and needs to stop. And ... and ...

Well. No need to elaborate. It's all stuff Clark has said before, after all, over and over again.

How weary she must be of repeating it.

How weary she must be of constantly tight-roping that fine line between calling out the more deranged members of her cult and expressing her appreciation for the more mentally stable fans who flock to see her.

"I think for the real fans that do show up and do support and do respect, I applaud you," Clark said. "And there are a lot of you, and not just here in Indianapolis. That's across the league."

And as for the Hate-lin Clark crowd?

Go away. Just go away.

How much clearer can she make it?

Lost in translation

 (In which the Blob again escapes Sportsball World in the dead of night, intent on joining the circus. And let's face it, it's all just a great big circus these days.)

I debated writing this. 

I told myself that by writing what I'm about to write, I'd be doing exactly what the gremlins and warlocks of social media want me to do, which is dive down the rabbit holes I regularly lampoon. Don't do it, that still small voice of  reason whispered. Don't go there, because you know as surely as sunrise that people will misconstrue and distort it. Misconstruing and distorting are the national pastime now, after all.

Suffice to say I didn't listen. And the reason I didn't listen is because misconstruing and distortion go right to the heart of this matter.

The matter being, what President Donald John "Look, A Squirrel!" Trump said the other day at a rally in Nebraska. And what he did not say.

He did not, for instance, say he wishes Iran would "take out" Los Angeles and San Diego. As some internet trolls insist he did.

What he said, rather, has been parsed to mean whatever the competing wings of our national divide wish it to mean, neither of which more than brushes up against the truth.

What Squirrel Boy did say, in its full context, is this:

"With the war it's just artificial, it's a little high, it's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They could take out a city!* Let 'em take out Los Angeles!* Let 'em take out San Diego!* It's a small price to pay."

(*Hysterical exclamation points mine).

The subject was gas prices. The message -- or so it seems to me having read the quote and watched the clip multiple times -- was hopelessly mangled on as usual by our Dotty Old Grandpa In Chief, so it looked as if he were saying turning L.A. and San Diego into charcoal briquettes would be a small price to pay for doing whatever it is we're trying to do to Iran.  Let's face it, he's never had more than a nodding acquaintance with the English language, and now that creeping senility has set in he frequently seems to have abandoned it entirely.

And, yes, I know what's coming next. I know those on one side of the divide are going to say I'm making excuses for Der Fuhrer, that he did indeed mean to invite Iran to take out two American cities, and that anyone who believes otherwise is either an apologist or an enabler.

And on the other side?

They'll say how dare you call our Fearless Leader senile, to claim he's not in his right mind, to portray him as some mumbling ancient drooling in his soup.

Here's what I'll say to both of them: Whatever, dude.

Here's what I'll also say: Distortion is not the exclusive property of the left or the right -- although out-and-out lying does seem to have been cornered by the latter. The folks on the right outraged by the folks on the left twisting Fearless Leader's words, after all, are the same folks who regularly (and far more blatantly) twist the words of people they don't like. 

Most of whom seem to be brown or Muslim these days. Or both.

In this case, however, I'll take the other side to task, because I expect it to be smarter than this. See, to me, by claiming their nemesis was doing anything more than lost-in-translation fear-mongering ("He's saying L.A. and San Diego should be destroyed!"), they provide him cover. They give him and his acolytes fuel for their false narratives ("See? The left always lies!"), and obscure the most troubling aspects of this whole episode.

Because the worst part about Squirrel Boy talking about the Iranians "taking out" American cities?

It indicates the President of the United States -- the President of the United States -- more and more inhabits a fantasy world these days.  His obsession with Iran's imaginary nuclear capability, after all, directly refutes what he himself said a little over a year ago.

Which is that the United States had totally destroyed Iran's nuclear capability.

Yet now they're suddenly going to rain hellfire on L.A. and San Diego if we don't continue to do whatever the hell it is we're doing over there? Sure, Jan.

And as for characterizing high gas prices as some minor annoyance ...

Yet more evidence of the massive disconnect between Squirrel Boy's let-them-eat-cake Regime and the American people.

See, it's easy for Fearless Leader to brush off high gas prices when he never has to worry about buying gas, or balancing a checkbook, or robbing Peter to pay Paul. But for those who do have to worry about that, four-buck-a-gallon gas is a hell of a lot more than a temporary inconvenience.

Those are the real issues with Squirrel Boy's latest word salad. That, and one more thing:

When he said "Take out Los Angeles! Take out San Diego!" out there in Nebraska, the allegedly God-fearing Christian patriots in attendance cheered. Cheered. At the thought of two American cities and millions of their fellow Americans being incinerated.

And did the President of the United States wave his hand and say, "Hey, wait a minute, don't be cheering that, you asshats"?

No. No, he did not. 

You want to be outraged about something?

Be outraged about that.

No Gurlz Allowed

 Dumb stuff always becomes a thing when the Intertoobal poodles start yapping, and this week, I guess, the thing is about Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon. 

She's on the sidelines for every game, you see. With a clipboard. Taking notes.

Rational folks would say this just shows she's engaged in the operation of her team, which isn't a bad thing for the owner of a gazillion-dollar business. Besides, she's just there taking notes. She's not pestering the coaches or players or insisting Shane Steichen roll out the old Statue of Liberty play. So what's the problem?

Ah, but the poodles ...

Well. The most prominent among them -- the super-annoying Bill Simmons -- says it's "bonkers" Irsay-Gordon does this. He says it's "crackers," and "nuts" and a bunch of other words. He says if she were a male owner, like, say, fellow sideline stalkers Jerry Jones or Falcons owner Arthur Blank, people would be raising perdition.

This, of course, is exactly backward.

If she were a male owner taking notes on the sideline, Bill-O and the rest of the Magical Twitter/X/Instagram/Podcast-al crowd wouldn't be saying a word.

Let's take Jones, for instance. Or as everyone calls him, "Jerry."

Jerry stalks the Cowboys sideline as regularly as Irsay-Gordon, and, unlike her, he never met a camera he wouldn't chase down to put his face in front of. He's the biggest attention-hound in America. And yet when's the last time you heard Bill-O call HIM bonkers or crackers or nuts?

Hint: Never.

 "So all this much-ado is because she's a woman?" you're saying now.

Of course it's because she's a woman. What, you think the sun rises in the west now?

It's because she's a youngish woman in a world populated by mostly ancient men -- many of whom, one suspects, she's a heck of a lot smarter than. In fact the NFL, you could argue, is the foremost bastion of male hegemony in all of Spfaortsball World. If it were a treehouse, there'd be a faded No Gurlz Allowed sign hanging out front.

Faded, because its time is long past. Still hanging there, because -- Irsay-Gordon aside -- the ancient men still nostalgically cling to it.

Aided and abetted by poodles like Bill Simmons, apparently.

Geez, people. Get with the times, why doncha.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 4

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words -- the yin-and-yang Blob feature that's either really, really good or really, really bad, and of which critics have said "Bad! I'll take bad!", and also, "I got a good fist and a bad fist. You choose which one you want for your knuckle hoagie":

1. The Packers edged the 0-4 Buccaneers 17-14. The Cowboys had to come from behind to beat the 0-4 Texans 34-30.

2. "Ha! See? Told ya we didn't suck!" (The Packers, who, let's face, still pretty much suck)

3. "Ha! See? We are BACK, baby! We are sooooo back!" (The Cowboys, who probably aren't as back as everyone always says they are when they win one)

4. In other news, the Dolphins remained winless after losing to the undefeated Vikings. The Chargers remained winless after losing to the 3-1 Seahawks.

5. "Are we the best team in the NFL? Hell, yeah, we're the best team in the NFL!" (The Vikings, who might be the best team in the NFL, but also might not even be the best team in the NFC North)

6. "Are we still the champs? Hell, yeah, we're still the champs!" (The Seahawks, forgetting the unbeaten 49ers are still in their division)

7. "Are we still in the division? Hell, yeah we're still in the division!" (The 49ers)

8. Meanwhile, the Bills jacked around and lost at home to the Patriots (which they always seem to do),  and the Cardinals jacked around and lost to the Giants (and Jameis Winston)

9. "Gah! How do we always jack around and lose to the Patriots?" (The Bills)

10. "Gah! How did we jack around and lose to Jameis Winston?" (The Cardinals)"

The great unanswerable

 People who know what I did for a living for four decades ask me questions now, and almost always they come away disappointed. This is because they assume I know all things Sportsball, and frankly I don't. 

Exhibit A: What happened the other day.

"So, the Colts," someone said, or words to that effect. "What do you think? Are they any good?"

"Beats me," I replied.

I said that not because I didn't want to talk about the Colts, but because it honestly beats me. I don't know if they're any good or not. I suspect they're OK when healthy, which they're not at the moment. But by "OK", I mean, "No one's going to pick them to go to the Super Bowl, unless they live in London and don't know bad American football from good American football."

London, after all, is where the Colts beat the Commanders 30-13 yesterday, which wasn't exactly a monumental achievement but might have looked like it to the Brits natives. ("By Jove, these Colts are world-beaters!" I imagine them saying). The Commanders, after all, are beat up and pretty crummy right now. Yesterday they were down to their third quarterback, someone named Athan Kaliakmanis -- or, as he was known to most viewers, "Who the hell is THAT?"

"That" turned out to be a seventh-round draft pick from Rutgers, not exactly a football power. He's 23 years old. He's got a great smile, which he showed off more than once yesterday. This is because, as a seventh-round pick, he likely didn't expect to be playing in a real live NFL game anytime soon.

But Marcus Mariota got hurt, and Jayden Daniels remains sidelined with a dislocated elbow, so here came Athan. He wasn't bad: 15-of-33, 186 yards, one touchdown and one pick. And even though he lost big,  his QBR was actually better than that of his Colts counterpart Daniel Jones, who put up more beige numbers in what so far has been a beige year for him.

Jones completed 19-of-34 passes for 143 yards. He threw no touchdown passes and one fairly awful pick.

Not that it was all his fault, mind you. He's still recovering from the Achilles injury that knocked him onto the sidelines last year. And his receiver corps banged up, too; his top target yesterday was backup wideout Laquon Treadwell, who caught five balls for 42 yards.

In the end, the Colts won because they said, "Well, screw this," and handed the ball to Jonathan Taylor, who ran for 85 yards and two scores on 20 carries. So now they're 2-2 with back-to-back wins over Houston and Washington, which sounds great until you realize Houston and Washington are a combined 1-7.

Therefore the question remains the great unanswerable for now.

 Are the Colts any good?

Beats me.

The glory of fall

 October came in this weekend as mellow sunlight in a blue dome of sky, and a flannel-shirt breeze, and a farmer's market hawking pumpkins and squash and sourdough bread and the last peppers of the season.

It came in with  playoff baseball (Go, you White Sox!), and winter peeking around the corner when you surfed the remote and there were the by-god Chicago Blackhawks playing the by-god Buffalo Sabres, and college football -- the very voice of fall --  everywhere, everywhere, 

It was lying on the couch in the aforementioned flannel shirt, watching Minnesota beat Michigan at home for the first time in half a century, then seeing one of the oldest rivalry keepsakes in the game  (the Little Brown Jug) tossing on a sea of gold-and-maroon.

It was watching Missouri finally win a big one, flambe-ing No. 8 Florida a week after Florida flambe-d then No. 4 Ole Miss. It was Indiana over Rutgers big; Ohio State over Iowa big; Purdue beating Illinois in Champaign; Notre Dame winning in the rain in North Carolina.

Alabama crushed Mississippi State in Starkville, suggesting it might be ALABAMA! again. Air Force beat Navy in a service-academy game. And of course the alma mater, dear old Ball State, lost at home to Toledo, but at least put up a fight this time.

The glory of fall is all of that.

The glory of fall is 63 degrees that feels like 58, and maroon and orange and neon yellow in the trees, and the Minnesota student section becoming the Missouri student section becoming the student section of every football school in America celebrating its undiluted youth on a perfect afternoon.

"Wow. You sure red-lined the old Maudlin Meter with this one," you're saying now.

Yeah, well. Sometimes I just can't help myself. 

A fair shake?

 Your Cleveland Browns are now 3-1 after edging Pittsburgh 27-24 on Thursday night, and now everyone's wondering if the Browns are actually good or just, you know, playing the usual cruel tricks on their ever-suffering fan base.

It was a game in which a lot of stuff happened -- including Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy getting caught calling his quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, a "(bleeping) (bleep)hole," for which he profusely apologized even though, let's face it, he wasn't wrong. Meanwhile, Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson once again played effectively, completing 24-of-33 passes for 268 yards and a touchdown.

It continued Watson's brisk start to the season, during which he's thrown for 855 yards and six touchdowns in four games. It also continued some folks' attempt to sell this as some sort of half-assed redemption story, which is absurd if not exactly surprising given the national zeitgeist these days. 

Watson, see, was sued by 20-plus women between 2021 and 2024 for sexual misconduct during massage sessions, which suggests at the very least that the guy has a problem keeping his hands (and perhaps other appendages) to himself. In the midst of all that, the Browns handed him a ginormous stack of money to come play for them. This is because, well, they're the Browns. 

Then he got hurt. Now he's returned, a "comeback" which Prime broadcasters Al Michael and Kirk Herbstreit treated with what seemed undue sympathy.

Rational people, of course, would suggest the sympathy was misplaced, because Watson was solely responsible for derailing his own career. Framing his current success as something inspiring -- Hey, he made some mistakes, but he's a generally good guy who hung in there despite his travails-- therefore seemed a trifle ...

I was going to say "obscene."  But I'm not unreasonable. I'll settle for "distasteful."

No, obscene is closer to what President Donald John Trump said the other day, on the subject of the Cornell 7.

Now, unless you've been living on Tom Hanks' island in "Castaway" lately, you know this story: A young woman and former Cornell student has sued seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity for gang-raping her a couple of years ago.

 The suit alleges that seven Chi Phis took advantage of a drunk 20-year-old, dosed her with fetanyl, and spent the next seven or so hours having their way with her. One of the entitled little snots even sent out text messages to his fellow frat bros that there was "free p****" available and to come join in.

What's remarkable about that (or not), is that none of the fellow frat bros responded by saying "What the HELL??"  There were 57 of them, and not one tried to put a stop to it. Not ... a single ... one.

Who's raising these kids? What kind of twisted values are they being taught? And who's doing the teaching?

I'll tell you who.

The broadcasters trying to suggest Deshaun Watson's journey is a redemptive one, as if his troubles were not well-deserved. And the aforementioned President of the United States, who the other day said he feared the Cornell 7 wouldn't get a "fair shake" because the lead prosecutor in the upcoming criminal proceedings is Letitia James, whom Fearless Leader has been mad at since she dared to prosecute his corrupt ass in New York.

A "fair shake"?

One wonders what kind of fair shake F.L. thinks that young woman got when the Cornell 7 allegedly treated her like a piece of meat on that dark endless night. Hey, guys! Free p****!

Now that's obscene.

So is what Kirk Herbstreit contended on Thursday.

"You want the fans to get behind you, and that goes for pretty much any market," Herbie said to Michaels. "This is an extreme case because of what you laid out with Deshaun Watson, but if you convert third downs, you hit passes, you lead this team to victories, those boos turn into cheers."

And what was obscene about that?

He was absolutely right.

Sports vs. Dummies

 OK, so, I wasn't going to write about this. Hand to God.

I wasn't going to write about a certain senator from Missouri (Eric Schmitt, R-Nitwit) trying to  catch special prosecutor Jack Smith in a lie by claiming he was at an Atlanta Hawks home game on such-and-such a date. Oops! Turns out Smith was actually in Maryland at a Terps women's game against Caitlin Clark's Iowa Hawkeyes.

Which is why Smith seemed honestly puzzled when Schmitt -- who was in full sanctimony mode, calling Smith a "dirtbag" who'd just been caught perjuring himself -- brought up the Hawks game. To put it more bluntly, he looked at Schmitt like he had two heads.

Both of them apparently empty.

(A brief aside: This all happened during the Republicans' attempt to paint President Donald John "I Don't Know Nothin' 'Bout Birthin' No Attempted Insurrections" Trump as the persecuted victim of a vindictive Smith and the Department of Justice vis-a-vis January 6. It's apparently part of a more general scheme to present Fearless Leader as a martyr to the cause, and to recast January 6 as just a group of high-spirited lads getting a bit out of hand on a tour of the Capitol building.)

Anyway ...

Anyway, the whole Hawks/Hawkeyes thing has made a laughingstock of Sen. Schmitt on social media, and reminds the Blob of one of its basic principles: That politicians should be extremely skittish about entering Sportsball World, because it hardly ever ends well.

I wasn't going to write about this because I've written about it a dozen times. But since the Hawks/Hawkeyes memes refuse to die (and are frankly hilarious), here goes again. 

You know why politicians should be extremely skittish about entering Sportsball World?

Because most of them don't know jack doody about it.

Oh, this isn't always the case. Among presidents in particular, Richard Nixon was a devoted and informed follower of pro football. George W. Bush actually owned the Texas Rangers for a  bit, so he knew baseball. Barack Obama knew his White Sox and his hoops, and even Fearless Leader seems to know his Knicks, although his advancing senility makes it increasingly difficult to determine what he knows about much of anything.

Those, however, are the exceptions.

The rule?

The rule is Hillary Clinton, a lifelong Cubs fan, donning a New York Yankees cap while running for the Senate in New York. No true Cubs fan would ever be caught dead wearing a Yankees cap. You'd think Hillary would have known this, but, nah.

And how about John Kerry shouting "Go, Buckeyes!" in an Ohio-Michigan border town that was, um, resolutely Michigan Wolverines territory?

That went well.

Of course, it doesn't just stop with individual gaffes. Congress has decided to go Sportsball World meddling with such measures as the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, an anti-transgender measure that addresses the virtually non-existent issue (i.e., fewer than 10 transgender athletes among 510,000 in NCAA sports) of  male transgenders competing in women's sports.

And then there's Congress' attempt to regulate college sports, which just passed the Senate with overwhelming support. Allegedly it's intended to regulate the currently lawless landscape of big-boy college sports, which ain't a bad idea. But in its present form it mostly seems to protect the  bidness of college sports by imposing almost all of its restrictions on the "student-athletes" while conferring antitrust protections on the schools and conferences. 

Oh, the kids will still get their NIL dough. But the measure currently headed to the House would put a cap on it, because the schools are adamant that something must be done to curtail their skyrocketing costs. Meanwhile, the proposed law would impose no such ceiling on coaches' salaries, so they'll still be paid like CEOs instead of the educators they purport to be. 

Speaking of, you know, curtailing skyrocketing costs.

(The Blob has addressed this issue, too, by the by. You want college sports to become college sports again? Fine. Pay Coach Slobberknocker like any other member of the faculty and require him to teach a history class. Restore freshmen ineligibility so your "student-athletes" can spend at least one year focused on their classes and not their NIL portfolios. And negotiate TV deals that put scheduling back in the university's hands and not ESPN's.)

But enough about that. We've strayed a bit off-topic here -- the topic being politicians consistently starring in episodes of "Sports vs. Dummies."

Eric Schmitt being only the latest example.

Upside down

 Now comes October, the month of ghosts and goblins and nature ablaze, and already it is both spectacular and strange. Rude Christmas has shoved its way onstage two months early, speaking of strange. And speaking of spectacular, in our neighborhood the tree by which I mark autumn's advance has gone orange and red.

Spectacular and strange. Which I guess covers this, on October 1: The Cubs are done playing baseball, and the White Sox aren't.

Who saw that coming, way back in April?

Who saw the Cubs, who've made the playoffs six times and won a World Series in the last decade, bowing out before the White Sox, who were coming off three straight 100-loss seasons?

It's all a journey to the upside-down from "Stranger Things," and mostly the Sox are the culprits. No one figured the Pale Hose, who lost a modern-day record 121 games two seasons ago and followed it with a 106-loss season in 2025, would make an astonishing 24-game improvement and miss winning their division by one measly game. And then go on to sweep the Houston Astros in the wild-card round.

But that's what happened.

Won the opener of the three-game set 6-3, the Sox did. Clinched the sweep yesterday with a 7-3 win. Outscored the 'Stros 13-6 and raked Houston pitching for 19 hits in the two games.

Meanwhile, the Cubs ...

Ay-yi-yi.

Lost the first game out in San Diego 8-0, managing just three hits. Lost the clincher last night 4-1, managing just five more. So in two games, MLB's scoring-est team was outscored 12-1 on just eight hits. 

Even worse: The top of the Cubs order -- Pete Crow-Armstrong, Alex Bregman, Matt Busch and Seiya Suzuki -- were a combined 2-for-27 in the wild card. And PCA and Bregman, the table-setters, were a combined 0-for-14.

Oh, my.

Anyway ....

Anyway, off the northsiders go, despite having won a combined 181 games the last two seasons. And on the southsiders go, despite having lost a combined 180 games in the same span.

October the spectacular. October the strange.

Da Flubs

 Well, that was some kinda Creature Feature.

Your Chicago Cubs didn't get started in their wild-card opener against San Diego until 10 o'clock EDT last night, on account of it was out in San Diego. Which was good if you were a Cubs fan who struggles to make past 10:30 or 11 most nights, and bad if were a night-owl Cubs fan.

Remember back in the day, when one of your local TV stations always aired some ancient horror flick late on Saturday nights?

Every other week, or so it seemed, it was "The Blob," starring a young Steve McQueen. Last night it was also "The Blob," only it starred the Cubs, who mostly just sat there like ... well, like a blob.

Final score from the west coast: Padres 8, Cubs 0.

Number of hits managed by the northsiders, who led the majors in runs scored: Three.

Number of Cub strikeouts against Padres starter Michael King and the Pads bullpen: 11.

It was the first time in 132 seasons the Cubs had been shut out in a playoff game, and it was hardly what anyone expected from Pete Crow-Armstrong and Alex Bregman, or from Matt Busch and Seiya Suzuki, either. Those four, the top of the Cubs' order, were a robust 1-for-13 on the night. PCA and Bregman struck out five times between them. The Padres, on the other hand, raked Chicago pitching for 13 hits. 

All of this makes Game 2 of the three-game wild-card series a must-win for the Bearcubs, and maybe the urgency of the moment will cause their bats to awaken. And maybe pigs will fly, perform barrel rolls and land at O'Hare on slow days, too.

"That's just mean!" you're saying now. " Come on, have some faith!"

Well ... OK. But transforming Da Flubs back into the Da Cubs is gonna take some doing.

Gordie

 Gordon Johncock died yesterday in the full measure of 90 years, and there goes another piece of IndyCar's golden years. There was Gordie and A.J. and Mario and J.R. and Bobby and Al and luckless Lloyd Ruby, and don't forget  McCluskey and McElreath and Donohue and Dallenbach, too.

Those were the days, as someone once said. That was the cast that sucked in a skinny kid with Coke bottle glasses, and holds him fast to this day.

That kid was me, of course, who became an Indianapolis 500 nerd because of Gordie 'n' them, and remains one here in late autumn of my years. It is ridiculous, how cluttered my brain is with geeky morsels from that race and that time. And so I can tell you a few things about Gordon Johncock, gone now to his reward.

I can tell you he was the quiet one from the rookie class of 1965 at Indy, the one that contained Mario and Al and Joe Leonard and sports car star Masten Gregory, and six other rookies. Gordie was driving one of only three front-engine roadsters that year, as the rear-engine revolution reached flood tide. But he finished fifth, behind Jim Clark in his rear-engine Lotus Ford and Parnelli Jones in his rear-engine Kuzma-Lotus Ford and Mario in his rear-engine Brawner Ford and Al Miller in his rear-engine Lotus Ford.

The next year, Gordie was wheeling a rear-engine car, too, on his way to a 26-year career that would see him win 25 champ car races and the 1976 champ car title. Along the way, eight years after '65, he had the bad luck to win the 500 no one wants to remember.

That was the 57th running in 1973, which took three days to run because of rain, killed crewman Armando Teran and driver Swede Savage, and was finally put out of its misery by more rain after 133 laps. It was a pinnacle moment Johncock likely couldn't properly celebrate, because no one did. Everyone was just glad it was over.

Which makes 1982 a redemption of sorts for the little guy from Hastings, Mich., 35 miles northeast of Kalamazoo.

See, Gordie won the 500 that year, too, and this time it was memorable for all the right reasons. Who could forget the last 10 laps, when Rick Mears kept getting closer and closer while Gordie used every bit of his considerable skill to stay in front of him?

By the last lap, Mears was on him like white on rice, but somehow Gordie held him off. Took the checkers 0.16 seconds in front, the closest finish ever to that point.

I was there that day, weirdly, as a civilian, because usually I was there as a member of the working press. Across four decades, it was one of only two 500s I didn't cover for one newspaper or another.

What I remember, hazily, are those last ten laps, and how that distinctive Indy 500 surf-sound of the crowd got louder and louder with every one. Made me fall in love with Indy and the month of May all over again.

So thanks for that, Gordie. And for everything else of which you were a part.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 3

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words -- the multidimensional Blob that features time travel and teleporting, and of which critics have said "Can we go back to a time before you thought up this crap?", and also "Imma send you to another dimension with my fist, pal":

1. In Chicago, Case Keenum arrives from 2014, throws for two scores and runs for another, and helps the Bears pave the Eagles, 27-7.

2. "Hey, no fair! You can't add a guy from 2014 to your roster!" (The Eagles)

3. "Oh, yeah?" (Mike Singletary, who arrived from 1985 and made nine tackles for loss)

4. In other news, Drake Maye's doppelganger and Justin Herbert's doppelganger from an alternate universe where quarterbacks play like goofs continued to play like goofs. Maye threw three picks in the Patriots' 35-6 wipeout against the Jaguars, and Herbert threw a horrendous pick and the Bills dropped two others in the latter's 24-16 win over the Chargers.

5. "We're Brazil's Team!" (The Cowboys, teleported to Rio de Janeiro to play the Ravens)

6. "No, you're not!" (The Ravens, who won the Teleport Bowl on a last-second field goal)

7. "Hey, no fair! You can't add 2011 Aaron Rodgers to your roster!" (The Bengals, who lost 30-27 to the Steelers as Rodgers threw for 292 yards and three scores)

8. "I feel like I'm 27 again! Oh, wait I am!" (Aaron Rodgers, who's actually either 42, 57 or 65)

9. "Hey, no fair! How come we can't add 2011 Aaron Rodgers to OUR roster?" (The Packers, for whom 2011 Rodgers actually played, and who were trucked in Lambeau by the Falcons, 35-14)  

10.  "Woo-hoo! We're 2-1! Feels like we've been teleported back to '86, '87 or any number of other years when our hearts got curb-stomped!" (Browns fans) 

Observations

 Some cool stuff happened over a Sportsball-engorged weekend, and some not so cool stuff, and some frankly abominable stuff from the usual abominable suspects. Therefore the Blob will depart from its usual windy pontificating to offer some brief observations in a feature we'll call, cleverly, "Some Cool Stuff And Not So Cool Stuff And Frankly Abominable Stuff":

* In Detroit, my Pittsburgh No-Longer-Cruds-For-Now beat the Tigers yesterday, 4-2, thereby finishing the 2026 season 82-80. It's the former Cruds' first winning season in eight years, and they also finished third in the NL Central for the first time in a decade.

So here at the Blob, we don't care if you don't care. Raise a cheer anyway, losers.

* Also in Detroit ... on Saturday, when Justin Verlander's young daughter escorted him off the mound after his last game, and the plate umpire saluted him, if your throat didn't get tight you have no soul.

* Desman Stephens II's brutal hit on a sliding Dante Moore in Saturday's USC-Oregon was not the most egregious thing about the whole incident. Seen in real time, Moore slid late and Stephens was already committed. This doesn't mean it wasn't a cheap shot and Stephens didn't deserve his ejection; it only means football at that level is played at warp speed, and so you can understand (well, I can, anyway) how hits like that happen sometimes.

No, what was egregious was Stephens celebrating the hit while Moore lay unconscious and twitching on the field. And USC coach Lincoln Riley not on only not stopping him, but allowing Stephens to remain on sidelines. A real football coach would have banished him to the locker room for the rest of the afternoon.

(Postscript: To his credit, Riley did announce Sunday he was suspending Stephens for one game. Maybe he came to his senses, or the viral blowback from the incident forced his hand.)

* Congratulations, or something, to the Colorado Rockheads, king of baseball's Cruds for the second year in a row. The 'Heads finished 58-104, a comfortable 42 games out of first in the NL West, and four full games ahead of MLB's next Cruddiest team, the Los Angeles Mange-els. It was the fourth straight season Colorado has lost at least 100 games.

So "Huzzah!" to the Mile High Defile.

* In golf news, Team USA came from way back to win its 11th straight President's Cup, beating the International team 17-13. The Americans won nine of the 12 singles matches Sunday, an historic beatdown witnessed by President Donald John "Get My Good Side" Trump, who was on hand to present the trophy.

The President was so excited he immediately signed an executive order to rename it the America's Cup, thereby honking off yacht racers everywhere. Then he grabbed the trophy and ran off with it to his waiting motorcade.

(OK, so he didn't either of those things. But you know he wanted to.)

* And speaking of our Fearless Leader ...

Word came down over the weekend that his Regime is looking into building a ballpark somewhere in Grand Teton National Park, at the request of Major League Baseball. Apparently Fearless Leader 'n' them think this would be a lovely idea, on account of there's nothing they like better than pissing on nature.

Those of us who do not enjoy that pastime would prefer MLB commish Rob Manfred -- who put this benighted idea in F.L.'s head -- be taken on a scouting trip to the Tetons, smeared with honey and left in the path of a grizzly.

"The claws!" Manfred screamed. "Oh, God, the CLAWS!" ...

Beautiful.

The glorious unknowable

 Script? We don't need no stinking script!

-- From "Treasure of the Sierra Madre," almost

What makes college football the best kind of football happened in several places this week, but mostly in Ann Arbor, Mich., and State College, Pa., and Gainesville, Fla. Oh, and Los Angeles, Calif., and Baton Rouge, La., too.

Call it the glorious unknowable, for want of a better term. Plus a healthy disdain for scripts.

But first, how about some John Lennon?

Instant karma's gonna get you

Gonna knock you right on the head ...

Which brings us back to Ann Arbor, and also L.A.

In the former, your Michigan Wolverines had another Big House win all wrapped up in a neat bow, and then they didn't. They were leading 19-14, and the visiting Iowa Hawkeyes had jumped offside on a crucial fourth-and-inches and then missed the subsequent field goal attempt. Now they had the ball on their own 10-yard line or so with not quite two orbits of the clock left.

So of course they marched right down the field and -- on the last play of the game, as the final two seconds drained away -- scored a touchdown to steal it off UM's plate, 20-19. 

So how does John Lennon figure into this?

Because a few weeks back, Michigan stole one off Western Michigan's plate because the Wolverines got a do-over on their own throw into the end zone. The game clock showed zeroes, but the game officials -- who were not, contrary to rumor, the same zebras who gave the Soviets three chances to beat the Americans in the 1972 Olympic basketball final -- decided zero wasn't really zero. So Michigan, given a reprieve, stuck the landing this time to win the game.

A lot of people outside of Ann Arbor didn't think that was fair. Thus a lot of people thought Iowa stealing one in the last second was, you know, instant karma.

Meanwhile, out in L.A., the USC Trojans got a helping of instant karma, too. After a brutal late hit sent Oregon quarterback Dante Moore to the hospital in an ambulance, the incensed Ducks commenced pounding lumps on the home team. Backup QB Dylan Raiola came in, threw for 289 yards and two scores, and No. 20 Oregon, up 13-10 at the time, outscored No. 12 USC 28-17 the rest of the way in a 41-27 rump-roasting. Quack-quack.

And speaking of rump-roastings ...

Here came Trinidad Chambliss and No. 4 Ole Miss into Gainesville still enjoying the afterglow of last week's emotional win over LSU, and the Florida Gators said "Afterglow this, b*tches," or something similar. They turned loose running backs Jadan Baugh and Duke Clark, trampled Ole Miss with 302 rushing yards, and swamped the Rebels in the Swamp, 52-28.

And have we mentioned yet what happened in State College?

Penn State was all over Wisconsin as expected, because, what, you thought the Badgers were going to win in a place where they hadn't won since 2002? Heck, they hadn't beaten the Nittany Lions anywhere in 15 years. So when Penn State went up 17-0, everyone figured it was just more of the same.

But then quarterback Colton Joseph started throwing, and the Badgers defense got prickly, and Wisky outscored the No. 13 Nittany Lions 24-3 the rest of the way, including a 72-yard Joseph touchdown pass with 1:13 remaining. 

Meanwhile, Minnesota took the long roadie out to Seattle, jumped out 24-10 on the Washington Huskies, and held on for a 27-24 win.

Also meanwhile, LSU, still smarting from last week's loss at Ole Miss, came back home to poleax Texas A&M 35-6 in what was supposed to be one Saturday's marquee matchups.

"Script? We don't need no stinking script!" LSU coach Lane Kiffin said when it was done.

OK, so he didn't say that. But you get the idea.

Boiler ... something

 Your Purdue Boilermakers welcome Notre Dame to Ross-Ade today for the traditional rivalry game/ritual sacrifice, and maybe we'll find out if they're actually new and improved or if they're still just Purdue. There have been hints so far the former might be true, but ND will be the measuring stick.

The Irish, after all, are undefeated, ranked ranked third in the nation and, except for one "meh" half, have mostly cruised so far. They've also dropped 122 points on the Boilers in their last two meetings.

Two years ago, it was 66-7. Last year, it was 56-30. 

Today?

Well, today, we're looking at a result closer to last year than the year before, by all indications. Which is to say, in three games the Purdues have hinted that they have another of those Quarterback U. quarterbacks (Ryan Browne), and a pretty good running back with a marvelous name (Fame Ijeboi), and more athletes at more positions than they've had in awhile.

Unfortunately, most of them seem to be on the offensive side of the ball. Also unfortunately, they can't seem to shake the inclination to Purdue it up on occasion.

The latter is why the Boilers come to today's tilt 1-2 instead of 2-1, because two weeks ago they flat out gave one away to Wake Forest. Had a six-point lead and Wake backed up fourth-and-15 in the second overtime, only to surrender the first down because they unaccountably chose to play a soft cover instead of bringing the kind of pressure that had put the Demon Deacons in fourth-and-15 to begin with.

Two plays later, Wake scored. Then the Deacons made the two-point conversion for the walk-off win.

So instead of 2-0, the Boilers were 1-1 heading out to the Rose Bowl last week to take on UCLA. But, hey, look at this: They put up 38 points and 488 total yards against the Bruins, with Browne looking very Quarterback U-ish: 19-of-30 passing, 378 yards and three touchdowns. Ijeboi added two more sixes on the ground.

However ...

However, UCLA scored 56 points. Piled up 645 yards. Rushed for 369 yards and averaged a yawning 7.7 yards per carry. Hogged the football for a shade over 36 minutes to just under 24 minutes for Purdue.

Most disturbing part of that: UCLA was flagged 12 times for 103 yards in penalties. Which makes you wonder how many points the Bruins could have scored had they not been quite so sloppy.

It also pretty much erases the notion that the Boilers could pull off the shocking upset today, as they famously have on several occasions in this ancient series. 

 No, sir. I'm thinking 56-30, Notre Dame, gets it about right. 

In which case, "Boiler up" will continue to be "Boiler ... something."

The first superstar

 Saw on the news the other day that Bob Pettit passed, and it's OK if you don't know the name. He may have been the NBA's first superstar, but no superstar has ever been more cursed by his time and his circumstance than the 6-9 backbone of the old St. Louis Hawks.

Pettit died in his native Louisiana at the full-to-the-top age of 93, but back when the world was young no one in the still-infant NBA could stop him. He was Jordan and LeBron and Kareem and Bird all in one, and he did MJ and LeBron and Kareem and Bird things.

A star at LSU, he played 11 seasons in the NBA , was an All-Star in every one, and was the All-Star game MVP a record four times. In 1956, he was the league's first Most Valuable Player. And in 1958, in Game Six of the NBA Finals, he scored 50 points to beat Red Auerbach and the Boston Celtics and clinch the Hawks' only title.

No one scored 50 points in a game those days, long before the advent of the three-ball and the NBA's current addiction to it. That was an MJ sort of deal. It was a Kobe or Steph or even a Shai Gilgeous-Alexander sort of deal.

All of whose names you know, of course. But maybe not Bob Pettit's.

That's because he played his entire career in a small Midwestern market before ESPN, before FS1, before Apple TV and Prime and Peacock and all those choke-a-horse TV deals.  Before the NBA went global. Back when even the NFL was an afterthought.

So he toiled mostly in obscurity, and that's a damn shame. Because by the time Bob Pettit retired after the 1964-65 season, he was the NBA's all-time leader in points with 20,880. He was second in rebounds with 12,849. For his career, he averaged 26.2 points and 16.2 boards and was the first big man to play a good share of the time facing the basket.

In other words, for his time, he was a singular talent. The problem was his time was not this time, or even the time when he retired. Because by the time he took his bows in '65, the nation was starting to notice the pro game -- largely, of course, because of Red Auerbach's Celtics.

Bob Pettit never got in on that, playing when he did and where he did. More's the pity.

Chicago ... Chicago ...

 ... that toddlin' town ...

And now you're saying this: "'Toddlin'?' 'Toddlin'?' What the heck does that even mean, Mr. Blob?" 

Hell if I know. Hey, I didn't write the song. But that's the song, so stop whinging and nitpicking and just sing it loud and proud, OK?

Sing it loud and proud, because yesterday, the Chicago Cubs clinched a playoff spot with a W over the woeful Miami Marlins. Also yesterday -- on the EXACT SAME DAY -- the Chicago White Sox clinched a playoff spot, too, with a W over the woeful Kansas City Royals.

You know how many times both Chicago baseball teams have made the playoffs, in all of the long and mythology-spangled history of our once-upon-a-time national game?

Three times. And they never clinched on the same day.

First time it happened was in 1906, when the southsiders upset the northsiders in an all-Chi World Series. It was an entire century plus two years before it happened again, in 2008. And then it happened again in the Covid-shortened 2020 season.

And speaking of the White Sox in particular ...

Know how many times a team coming off back-to-back-to-back 100-loss seasons has made the playoffs?

Not once. Not ever. Not even when the Brooklyn Eckfords were tooling up on the New York Mutuals or something back in the 1860s.

The Pale Hose lost 106 games in 2023, but they were just getting started. In 2024, they lost more games than any team in the history of the modern game, going 41-121 and finishing an astounding 51 1/2 games out of first in the AL Central. They followed that with 102 losses last season.

So three years, 329 losses. But this season?

Well, the Sox are 82-77, one game behind the first-place Cleveland Guardians in the AL Central heading into the last weekend of the season. So it's conceivable -- not probable, but conceivable -- they could win or tie for the division title, one year after finishing dead last, 28 games out of first.

In 2025, the southsiders won 61 games. At 82 heading into the weekend, they're already 21 games better than they were a year ago -- and an astounding 41 better than just two years ago.

A 41-game improvement in two seasons? Last place by 51 1/2 games to the playoffs? Who does that?

Your Chicago White Sox, that's who. In like Flynn with their northside rivals.

Toddlin' town, indeed.

Cruds alert!*

 (*Not really)

We're in the last week of the regular season in Major League Baseball season, and exciting news, fans of a team none of you care about: The Pittsburgh Not-Really-Cruds-Anymore Cruds at NOT going to finish last in the NL Central this season.

No way, Vandelay. With five games left in the season, they're four games up on the fourth-place Cardinals and seven games up on the cellar-occupyin' Reds. It'll take a collapse of Cruddian proportions for them not to finish third in the division.

Third in the division! And you thought they were doomed when Paul Skenes unaccountably lost his mojo this summer.

(And, no, I don't know why Skenes suddenly became ordinary. I don't know why Pittsburgh immortal Steve Blass suddenly couldn't throw a strike, either, six months after pitching the Buccos to the 1971 World Series championship. Pitchers are just weird.)

Anyway, the Cruds are no longer Cruds, but good honest Pirates again. And you know something else?

"No, and we don't want to," you're saying now.

Well, TOO BAD. Imma tell you anyway.

With five games to go, the Bucs are three games north of .500. This means (once again absent a major fold job) they're going to finish with a winning record for the first time in eight years.

Last time it happened was in 2018, when they went 82-79 and wound up fourth in the Central. It's been a full decade since they finished higher than that; they were third in 2016.

And now?

Third again. Probably.

Makes me want to pull my Roberto Clemente jersey out of the closet and slip that puppy on. Yessir.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 2

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the excruciatingly formulaic Blob feature of which critics have said "God, this is so excruciating!", and also "Formulaic? I got your formulaic right here, pal":

1. "God, this is so excruciating!" (Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels, after going down with a dislocated elbow)

2. "Ditto!" (Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, after going down with a hamstring injury)

3. "Ditto!" (Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart, after going down with a sprained meniscus)

4. "Hey, what about me?" (Colts wide receiver Alec Pierce, who injured his left heel and is expected to miss several weeks)

5. Meanwhile, A-Aron Rodgers!

6. Did not get hurt. He and the Steelers merely got paved by the Patriots and Drake Maye -- who did not get hurt, either, and better yet did not throw three picks again.

7. In other news, the Ravens lost to the Saints, the Eagles barely survived the Titans and the Browns beat the Buccaneers in Tampa.

8. "What th--?" (Ravens fans)

 9. "Expletive, expletive, what th--!" (Eagles fans)

10. "Oh, come ON! The BROWNS??" (Buc fans)

A tale of two ... weeks

 So remember this time last week, when folks in Chicago were saying "Daaang, these boys are gooood," and folks in Indianapolis were saying "Daaang, these boys are baaaad"?

We thought we were SO SMART. We thought, one game into a season that lasts until judgment trump, that Da Bearz were gonna go through the NFC North like poop through a goose. And we thought the AFC South was gonna go through the Colts like ... well, the same.

See what happened yesterday?

The Bears lost at home to the Minnesota Vikings, 9-3, and Caleb Williams popped a hammy. Seven days after turning the end zone into a campground -- Fifty-nine points! Are you KIDDING me? -- they couldn't find the end zone with search planes and a GPS. Six City became the Forbidden City. It was the starship Enterprise with its shields up.

 And that was before Williams went down like a shot on a scramble. Which didn't happen until there were, what, six minutes or so to play?

So they went roughly 54 of the 60 minutes with their star quarterback pulling the trigger, and instead of 59 points, they generated one lousy field goal. How does that happen?

"Because the Vikings are really, really good?" you're saying now.

Come on. They beat the Bears with Carson Wentz, for pity's sake. Try again.

"Well, it was raining and all," you're saying.

In other words, it was Bear Weather. Try again.

"Weeell ..."

Well, nothing. This was a football team that looked like the king of the world a week ago looking like Dennis the Peasant from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." From the Lady of the Lake holding aloft Excalibur to a watery tart throwing swords in seven short days.

(If you don't get the latter, look up the Dennis the Peasant scene online. It's my favorite.)

Anyway, the whole business should remind us that in the NFL, it's always Not For Long, as Jerry Glanville used to say. Fifty-nine points one week become one lonely field goal the next. One week you're the windshield; one week you're the bug.

And speaking of bugs ...

Here's another example of the NFL's capriciousness: Your Indianapolis Colts.

Who last week got so smooshed by the windshield -- i.e., the visiting Baltimore Ravens -- the home fans were booing them before the first quarter was over. The offense was "meh," putting up 23 points and 251 yards. The defense looked like Larry, Curley, Moe ) and eight other guys who couldn't tackle Lamar Jackson.

Final score: Ravens 41, Colts 23. The ugly details: Lamar 'n' them racked 506 total yards and almost eight yards per play. The equally ugly conclusion: Eight-and-nine, here we come again.

Exactly one week later, I turned on my TV and saw DeForrest Buckner sacking Patrick Mahomes.

"What th-?" I said, along with most of America.

"What th-?",, indeed. The same team that was so odiferous in Lucas Oil Stadium last week was in Arrowhead, giving Chiefs Kingdom all it wanted. The Horsies didn't win, of course -- come on, that would have been too much even for the NFL -- but it took overtime for Mahomes and the Chiefs to finally put them away, 33-30.

"Does this mean the Colts are NOT looking at another 8-9 season?" you're saying now.

No, it doesn't mean that at all. After all, the same names -- Chris Ballard and Shane Steichen -- are still at the top, even though Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon has put them on double secret probation. There are still 15 games for them to start breaking stuff again.

"But is it possible they could make the playoffs for the first time since 2020?" you're saying.

Sure, it's possible. It was also possible Dr. Jack Miller the Racing Dentist could have won the Indianapolis 500 back in the day. But probable?

Well. After last week and this week in Chicago and Indy, I'd say all bets are off on that one. And on pretty much every other one, too. 

In the meantime ...

Let's see what happens this week. 

And the week after that.

And all the weeks after that.