Meanwhile, in NASCAR ...

 ... and, yes, before you start, it was still going on Sunday.

Yesterday was the last race of the season, in Phoenix.

Kyle Larson won the title for the second time, even though the last race he won was six months ago and he never led a lap Sunday.

Denny Hamlin was the guy who should have won, but, after 20 fruitless seasons, the racing gods kicked him in the tender bits again. And this time they clocked him a good one.

Hamlin, see, was leading the race with three laps to go, and no one was going to catch him. He was finally going to grab the brass ring, or whatever they call the Big Trophy in NASCAR. Unless something really stupid and cruel happened, he would never again be known as the best driver never to win a title.

And then ...

And then something really stupid and cruel happened.

With those aforementioned three laps to run, William Byron flatted a tire and smacked the wall, bringing out a yellow.

Hamlin led the field down pit lane, where he took new rubber all around.

Larson, on the other hand, elected to change just two tires, bringing him out in fifth while Hamlin came out in tenth.

The overtime green-white-checker that followed wasn't enough for Hamlin to make up the difference. He wound up sixth; Larson finished third and won a championship he both couldn't believe and -- let's be honest here -- totally lucked into.

"We were 40 seconds away from a championship," Hamlin said, when at last he could find his voice.

"This sport can drive you absolutely crazy," he said.

"Sometimes speed, talent, none of that matters," he said.

No, it doesn't. And now there will always be questions from those who love to ask questions after the fact.

The Blob's question: Why did Hamlin take four tires when he was already leading and so little time was left?

Why did he pit at all?

And, sure, OK, maybe thought he'd get beat on the green-white-checker restart by everyone who did take fresh rubber. But if his tires were that bad, why was he still  leading?  Wasn't track position more important at that point?

And while we're second-guessing stuff, who else sick to death of these manufactured green-white-checker finishes?

Mind you, this is coming from someone who is not and never has been a Denny Hamlin fan, particularly. But the green-white-checker thing has always annoyed me for some reason. It's always felt ... well, manufactured.

And, sure, without it, Hamlin wins the championship under yellow, which would have been seriously anticlimactic. But at least it would feel, I don't know, honest. If that makes any sense whatsoever.

If not ... well, here's to Kyle Larson, then. He is, after all, probably is the best driver in the sport right now. 

Just not yesterday.

Un-killable

 Somewhere out there is a world where the Los Angeles Dodgers are still just the high-priced spread, the Gucci Gang, a bunch of Limousine Louies wearing their portfolios to the plate the way Jacob Marley wore the chains he forged in life.

That world is not this world, however.

In this world, yes, the Dodgers are the team with a payroll that could choke a Clydesdale, but they sure don't play like it. In this world, the high-priced spread gets knocked down, rises and says, "Yah, nice try, bucko." They dare you to try that again, pal.  They are equal parts grit, stubbornness and sneer.

Gucci Gang?

Shoot. The Rub Some Dirt On It Gang is more like it.

Last night, in a performance typically devoid of glitter, they won the World Series again, beating the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 in 11 innings in Game 7. It was their third road win in the Series. It was their second win in extras, the first coming in Game 3 when they said "Hell, yes, we'll go 18 innings if we have to." And it made the Dodgers the first team in more than a quarter century to win back-to-back titles.

It also made them the team that refused to die. 

Bo Bichette put them down 3-0 early last night with a home run off Shohei Ohtani, who was finally asked to do more than even he could do by starting on three days' rest. The Rogers Centre was in full howl. The Dodger got it back to 3-2, but the Jays immediately answered with another run to make it 4-2.

In the top of the eighth, it was still 4-2, and the Trolley Dodgers were down to their last five outs. 

Then Max Muncy drove one into the seats, and it was 4-3 after eight.

Then Miguel Rojas, who hadn't had a hit since the wild-card round and had hit just one home run since July, took another pitch yard to tie it 4-4.

Then, in the bottom half of the ninth, the Blue Jays loaded the bags with one out. And the Rogers Centre was all but leaning with the noise and the anticipation of the Jays' first Series title in 32 years.

Except here was Rojas again, making an off-balance throw to the plate to get a sliding Isiah Kiner-Falefa by a fraction of a fraction of a second -- a play so bang-bang it had to be reviewed before it was confirmed that, yes, the game would go on.

Not. Dead. Yet.

And here was outfielder Andy Pages chasing down a deep drive to the wall from Ernie Clement, who'd already set a record with 30 postseason hits and, in the instant the ball left his bat, seemed to have ended it once again.

Nah. Pages went back, back, leaped, and somehow made a twisting backhanded grab while crashing into fellow outfielder Kiki Hernandez. 

Not. Dead. Yet.

Not dead, and then never dead, as Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamato took the hill just 24 hours after throwing 96 pitches in a 3-1 win in Game 6 and, unbelievably, did it again. This time, on no days rest, he threw 2 2/3 innings of scoreless, one-hit ball, and Dodgers won it on Smith's homer and a game-ending double play in the bottom of the 11th.

It was Yamamoto's third win of the Series, making him the only pitcher besides Randy Johnson to win three games in the World Series in the last 56 years. He's only the fourth pitcher in history to win both Games 6 and 7. 

He's now 4-0 lifetime in the World Series with a 1.13 ERA. Against the Blue Jays, he pitched the first complete game win in the World Series in a decade; won 3-1 in Game 6 Friday night; and went 3-0 with an ERA of 1.09.

"Incredible," Smith said.

"The GOAT!" Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shouted.

And something else, too, as the Commissioner's Trophy made its rounds in the Dodgers' clubhouse once again:

Un-killable.

For all of it

 So here we go, boys and girls, on a first of November we'll still call October just because: Game 7 for all of it.

Blue Jays vs. Dodgers for the ball of wax, the enchilada, the shebang. Max Scherzer vs. Shohei Ohtani, baseball's Superman, who'll be going on three days' rest and DH'ing.  Jays at home in front of all those yowling Canadians, as if that at all matters in a World Series in which the home team has lost four of the previous six games.

The Dodgers got there last night by a 3-1 score, leaning on Yoshinobu Yamamoto's sturdy  arm, a bullpen that didn't start any fires this time, and Enrique Hernandez's heads-up play in the ninth.

 Yamamoto went six innings this time, giving up five hits and one earned run while striking out six. Relievers Justin Wrobleski, Roki Sasaki and Tyler Glasnow took care of the rest, giving the Blue Jays nary a sniff -- three hits in three innings.

Then it was Hernandez who sealed the deal, charging a soft liner with one out and two on in the bottom of the ninth, making the grab and catching a too-eager Addison Barger leaning off second. Voila: Game-ending double play.

"A bad read," Barger lamented later, saying he thought the ball was going to land untouched and thus he was all but on his way to third.

And Hernandez?

"Game 7, amazing," he said. "This is what we dream of ever since we were little kids."

You bet. And one last whiff of October, no matter what the calendar says.

Circus act

 Louisiana State University once was a place where Paul Dietzel won a natty, where Billy Cannon ran back a fabled Halloween night punt, where Les Miles and Ed Orgeron rode Matt Flynn and Joe Burrow to national titles of their own.

Now it's just a bear on a bicycle, a flying trapeze and 14 clowns in a tiny car.

It's the place where the athletic director, Scott Woodward, agreed to a $50-plus-million buyout to get rid of Brian Kelly, because if he hadn't someone else would have. And it's the place where the governor of the state, Huey Long (sorry, Jeff Landry) publicly says there's no way he's going to let Scott Woodward negotiate the next deal because now the state was on the hook for the $50-million-plus buyout, even though the big-money donors will likely pick it up.

Yesterday, Scott Woodward got the gate, too. Probably was inevitable the first time Jeff Landry opened his mouth.

At any rate, LSU now has no football coach and no athletic director, and political analyst/gadfly/LSU grad James Carville, his voice thick with the bayou, is wondering who the (bad word) will want to come to Baton Rouge NOW. And, yes, it's a total circus act -- in which case who can say Carville, as southern-fried wacky as he can be sometimes, is completely wrong?

Oh, LSU will get someone, and it will probably be a Name of some consequence, because LSU still has Billy Cannon and a couple of nattys and some Heisman Trophy winners in its cupboard. And it's still an SEC job, the creme-de-la-creme of conferences according to every SEC shill who forgets Mississippi State is an SEC school.

But if you're firing Woodward because he threw a poop-ton of money at Brian Kelly even though Kelly couldn't even win a natty at Notre Dame, for heaven's sake, you're forgetting that the market pretty much dictates that sort of reckless spending. As the Blob pointed out just the other day, college football is a lawless, money-bloated landscape these days -- an NIL/transfer portal Wild West where fixes happen at cartoon speed, and two or three or four bad losses will cost Coach Slobberknocker his job.

And not at the end of the season, either, the way it used to be. Right smack dab in the middle of it.

It's happened to seven Power 4 and 10 FBS coaches so far this season, and it's not just LSU that's paying for its we-didn't-win-a-natty-yesterday impatience. Penn State owes James Franklin almost as much as LSU owes Kelly. Oklahoma State and Florida owes Mike Gundy and Billy Napier eight figures as well.

 The message from the LSUs of the world: If you come here, you better win and you better win right now. And we're talking about the Chicken Joint Radial Tire Bowl, we're talking about the national championship.

Which gets us back to Carville's question: In such an environment, what coach with a rep (and in his right mind) is going to go anywhere big without a cushy insurance policy? Specifically, LSU, which just fired its AD in large part because he agreed to a cushy insurance policy?

Just imagine the interview process, going forward ...

LSU: Now, Coach, we'd love to have you, and we're willing to spring for MAJOR DOLLARS to do so, but you'd better deliver a natty by your third or fourth year. 

Coach: And if I don't?

LSU: Well, we'll find someone who will.

Coach: OK. If that happens, what's my buyout deal? 'Cause I have to protect myself financially.

LSU: Well, it will be a lot.

Coach: Eight figures? Seven?

LSU: Oh, heavens, no. That would be fiscally irresponsible.

At which point Coach heads for the door.

And LSU ends up James Carville as its head coach.

An October dream

 Imagine you are Trey Yesavage this morning, just for a moment. 

Imagine you are 22 years and three months old, and you are from Pottstown, Pa., and, dang, you've only been up with the big club for six weeks. That was mid-September, and  you were pitching in Buffalo for the Triple-A (and grammatically incorrect) Bisons. A month and change before that, you were in Manchester, N.H., pitching for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats against the likes of the Chesapeake Baysox.

Before that, you were in Vancouver. And before that -- not quite seven months ago -- you were in A-ball in Dunedin, Fla., a resort town on the Gulf of Mexico hard by Clearwater and Tampa.

Now?

Now you're no longer Trey Yesavage, Dunedin Blue Jay. Now you're Trey Yesavage of the Toronto Blue Jays, and a World Series hero.

Six days ago the Blue Jays handed you the ball and said "Go get 'em, kid," and there you were, starting Game 1 of the World Series against, no, not the Chesapeake Baysox, but the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers. And somehow you did OK. 

Pitched four innings. Struck out five. Gave up a couple of earned runs. Didn't get the win, but the Blue Jays did, 11-4.

Five days later the Jays handed Trey Yesavage the ball again, and this is where it all becomes some backyard October dream. This time Yesavage went seven innings, struck out an astonishing 12 Dodgers -- a World Series record for a rookie pitcher -- and got the W that sends the Series back to Toronto with the Blue Jays leading three-games-to-two.

It was, amazingly, less than 48 hours after Freddie Freeman's walk-off home run in the 18th inning gave the Dodgers the lead in the Series, with two more home games to follow. But over the last two nights the Jays have outscored the home nine 12-3, outhit them 20-10, and now they have two home games to wrap it up.

And all, or at least partly, because of a 22-year-old from Pottstown, Pa., who'd never started a major-league game until Sept. 15, and who'd pitched just 14 innings in the bigs when the playoffs began.

Imagine you are Trey Yesavage this morning. Just for a moment.

Close your eyes. Empty your mind.

Dream his dream.

Quick triggers

 Up in South Bend, where the memories are long and charity is sometimes not next to Godliness, they're still giddy with schadenfreude over Brian Kelly getting the heave-ho at LSU. And, yes, I get it.

You get dumped like a bad habit, there will be a certain ... well, bitterness. This is especially true at Notre Dame, which is not used to being so cruelly spurned for some tarted-up Southern floozy.

But Kelly did spurn the Irish, and now he's done at LSU, with four games still left in the season. He's the latest in a string of mid-season -- even early-season -- firings this fall, a trend which suggests some schools have A) delusions of grandeur; B) extremely itchy trigger fingers; or C) a certain recklessness with the checkbook fueled by the former and resulting in the latter.

The correct answer, of course, is D. As in "all of the above."

Hell of it is, that's really not anyone's fault, from the schools handing out ridiculous contracts to the coaches signing on the dotted line.

That's because when Big Dough University starts flinging dollars around like confetti, Coach is going to go chasing after it. He'll accept the itchy trigger fingers and delusions of grandeur, because at some point they become his delusions, too: They're paying me goo-gobs of money, so I MUST be this good. I CAN win two or three national titles in a row here, because Big Dough really IS the premier program in the country.

Which was basically the Kelly situation in Baton Rouge.

LSU fired him two-thirds of the way through his fourth season because, essentially, the Tiger had lost three of their last four games. That those losses were to three top-ten teams with a current combined record of 22-2 was inconsequential. That two of those losses happened on the road was inconsequential.

LSU brought in Brian Kelly to win it a national title (which is exactly why Kelly was coming there). And he hadn't yet delivered it. Surely four years was time enough.

"When Coach Kelly arrived at LSU four years ago, we had high hopes that he would lead us to multiple SEC and national championships during his time in Baton Rouge," LSU athletic director Scott Woodward said in the official release. "Ultimately, the success at the level that LSU demands simply did not materialize ..."

And then he said this: "I continue to believe LSU is the best football program in America."

First reaction: He's kidding, right? 

Second reaction: If he's not -- if he's really hallucinating this badly -- then of course it makes sense LSU pulled the plug in mid-stream, thereby essentially giving up on the season. And of course Penn State did the same to James Franklin after a couple of bad losses ... and of course Florida did the same to Billy Napier ... and of course Oklahoma State did the same to longtime coach Mike Gundy three games into the season.

In all, 10 FBS coaches have been fired so far this season, and we're not yet out of October. Seven of them have been Power 4 coaches. That their schools couldn't even wait for them to finish out the season  -- and that so many are on the hook now for contracts that in some cases were recently re-negotiated upward -- is a reflection of the hurry-up landscape of college football in the era of NIL and the unrestrained transfer portal.

Quick fixes are in. Programs that have never been powerhouses (i.e., Indiana, Vanderbilt) are suddenly powerhouses. It's all happening at cartoon speed, which explains why so many athletic administrations are operating at cartoon speed -- especially ones who have spent so recklessly on their next presumed saviors.

Now LSU owes Kelly $54 million. Penn State owes Franklin $49.7 million. Oklahoma State owes Gundy $15 mill; Florida owes Napier $21.3 mill.

It's insane. It's irresponsible. It's throwing away money that could be better spent elsewhere -- although, let's face it, we crossed the football-uber-alles bridge a long time ago.

Because you know what?

The alums who are smoking the same funny stuff as their ADs will pony up the cash to get rid of Coach Hasn't-Won-Us-A-Natty-Yet. And three or four years down the road, they'll do it again when Big Dough U. fires the next Coach Hasn't-Won-Us-A-Natty-Yet three games into the season.

And on the mad carousel will spin.

A game for the ages

 Nineteen pitchers. Six hundred nine pitches. Thirty-seven runners left on base.

Eighteen innings. Six hours and 39 minutes. Two-fifty in the morning.

Those were the numbers. That was the outline. This was the artist's rendering of one of the most amazing World Series games ever played, if not the most amazing.

In the end, it was Freddie Freeman -- last year's Series hero -- who ended it with a 406-foot walk-off bomb off Brendon Little, the ninth pitcher the Toronto Blue Jays sent to the hill. The Dodgers won 6-5 in, yes, 18 innings, and, yes, six hours, 39 minutes. First pitch was at 8:11 p.m. Monday; last pitch was at, yes, 2:50 a.m. Tuesday. 

People love to toss around words like "epic" these days, so much so that the word itself frequently gets all the tread worn off it. But this ... this was epic. It was a game for the ages that lasted for ages, to put it another way.

As Jeff Passan of ESPN wrote, it was the second-longest game, time-wise, in World Series history, to start with. It was only the second 18-inning game in Series history -- the last, Passan noted, was seven years ago and also ended in a Dodgers win on a walk-off homer. A little-used Dodgers reliever named Will Klein -- who? -- surrendered just one hit in four innings and struck out five. And Shohei Ohtani was ... well Shohei Ohtani.

Reached base a staggering nine times, something Passan noted had been done only once before in MLB history -- 83 years ago -- and never in the postseason. Hit two homers and two doubles. Drove in three of the Dodgers' six runs and scored three of them.

Remember Game 1, when giddy Blue Jays fans chanted "We don't need you!" at Ohtani in the ninth inning of an 11-4 Jays rout?

Well. Ohtani has gone 5-for-8 and scored four runs in the two games since, both L.A. victories. Four of his five hits have gone for extra bases. Perhaps those Blue Jays fans shouldn't have oughta done that.

And perhaps, with Ohtani scheduled to pitch Game 4, we should all get a jump on Sunday and set our clocks back a few days early. That way, if the Dodgers and Blue Jays again take us into the wee hours, they won't seem quite wee. 

Not that we wouldn't still be wide awake, spellbound in the way only the Fall Classic can spellbind us.