A frightful tale

 "Ye don't wanna go in there, sonny," said the old man, scarred and stooped, staring at the stalwart younger man with his remaining blue eye.

The stalwart younger man merely adjusted his navy cap with the yellow "M" and drew himself up tall.

"I'm not afraid, old-timer!" he declared. "I'm Jim Harbaugh, and we're Meeee-chigan! We're not afraid o' no ghosts!"

The old man uttered a chuckle that screeched like a rusty hinge.

"Fine, sonny fine!" he cackled. "Go on in! They're ain't nothin' in there waitin' for ye! Nothin' but a lot of them green meanies that come out when the moon rides a night sky blacker 'n' the devil's soul! You'll see! Youuuu'll see!"\

But stalwart younger man merely laughed, tugged at his cap again and marched into brooding old Spartan Stadium, looming like a ruined House on a Hill, or maybe a Hotel in the Rockies, or maybe a certain Abandoned House in Haddonfield, Ill. ...

And, well, we know what happened.

The stalwart younger man, name of Jim Harbaugh, took his Meee-chigan Wolverines in there, and they were up 30-14 in the third quarter and rolling -- Haunted! Ha! -- and then ...

And then Kenneth Walker III started to run, sifting in and out among the Meee-chigans like a sudden chill in the air.

He ran for a touchdown. He ran for another touchdown. He was there one second and then gone in the Spartan Stadium gloom, and suddenly it was 30-22, and then it was 30-30, and then Harbaugh inexplicably pulled his quarterback, Cade McNamara, who'd thrown for 383 yards and two touchdowns, replacing him with  freshman J.J. McCarthy.

Who promptly fumbled, and Michigan State recovered. Walker scored again. And suddenly it was 37-33, and Jim Harbaugh, that stalwart younger man, had lost to the Spartans again, and Michigan State was 8-0 while the Meee-chigans were 7-1.

Later, as Harbaugh and his players trudged out of the brooding ruined House or Hotel or Abandoned House ...

"I told ye! the old man cackled, as the stalwart younger man stumbled past him, his proud hat now drooping sadly. "I told ye the green meanies would be waiting for ye! I told ye not to go in there, din't I?"

The stalwart younger man stopped. He lifted his head and glared.

"Shut up," he snapped. "Who are you, anyway?"

Another rusty-hinge cackle.

"Why, my name is Duffy, son!" the old man replied. "Duffy Daugherty! And (BLEEP) MICHIGAN!"

And with one last cackle, he turned and ambled back into Spartan Stadium . As he passed through the gates, he became a wisp of smoke, and then a smudge in the gloom, and then he was gone.

It was a long time before the stalwart younger man stopped screaming.

The cost of a Cup, Part Deux

 In which the heads begin to roll, because they pretty much have to.

Three days after the report came out detailing how the Chicago Blackhawks brass sat on their hands as tales flew about one of their coaches perhaps sexually assaulting a young playoff call-up, the coach of the team at the time, Joel Quenneville, resigned as coach of the Florida Panthers.

Quenneville, after all, was the guy in the room who said investigating the incident would be a "distraction" with the Stanley Cup Final coming up, and maybe they should put off investigating it until after the playoffs, or maybe just forget the whole thing. So he had to go.

His resignation came a day after the young playoff call-up, Kyle Beach, went public with his story, pretty much demolishing any suggestion that the encounter between him and video coach/sexual predator Brad Aldrich was consensual. And it came after Quenneville met with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, a conversation that likely went like this:

BETTMAN: "We think it would be a very good idea right now if you'd resign, Joel."

(Leans closer)

"A VERY, VERY good idea."

So Quenneville is gone, and the only two members of the Blackhawks brass who were around for the now-infamous meeting are gone, and several other shoes are likely to drop before this is all done. As well they should.

And Kyle Beach?

He says finally getting someone to listen is cathartic, after 11 years of nightmares. 

But, hey. At least the Blackhawks got a Cup out of the deal, right?

That ol' gamblin' jones

 Stuff becomes part of the landscape, while you're not paying attention. One day anti-vaxxers like Jenny McCarthy are rightly regarded as tinfoil-hat-wearing kooks, and the next she's part of a real live Movement, with elected representatives waving its banner and everything.

One day fringe loonies are just, well, fringe loonies, and the next they're getting elected to Congress -- including right here in northeast Indiana.

One day sports gambling lives in the shadows, and the next ...

Well. Then it suddenly has an honored place at Sportsball World's table.

The strangeness of this occurred to me last weekend, while I was watching Jamie Foxx pimp BetMGM's sportsbook during a commercial break in some football game. Now, I've seen those ads a million times, and I've seen a pile of other sportsbook ads a millions times. and it's all become part of the aforementioned landscape. But for some reason it hit me differently this day.

For some reason, when Jamie crowed about all us winners out there hittin' the overs, and hittin' the unders, and coverin' those spreads, I thought, "But what if you don't?"

No one ever talks about that part of it. And it never popped up in my head before, either, mainly because of that whole landscape thing.

 Sportsbook ads continually airing during sporting events; leagues -- (cough) NFL, MLB (cough) -- that used to flee from any mention of gambling now embracing it wholeheartedly; major sports media entities devoting entire blocks of programming to Vegas touts. It's all just become kind of, well, normal.

I know, I know. I'm old, I'm cranky, I'm shaking my bony fist and shouting why can't it be 1965 again, dadburn it. Meanwhile, America is telling me gambling and sports have a cozy synergy now, gramps. Get used to it.

And yet ...

And yet, I still can't help wondering how we got from there to here.

From the Black Sox and Pete Rose being cast into outer darkness for consorting with gamblers, to a proposed two-story sportsbook right outside Wrigley Field. From Pete Rozelle suspending Paul Hornung and Alex Karras for gambling, to the NFL having a franchise in Vegas and gambling lines (and sportsbook ads) becoming a key component in driving the product.

Now, let me stop right here and say this is not some gambling Carrie Nation talking,  wielding an ax at the first sniff of an over-under. Betting's never been my thing, but I've never been against it, either. You want to plunk your folding green down on an animal with a brain the size of a walnut, or on goofy pro athletes and even goofier college kids, have at it. To each his own.

But when I hear nothing but excitement and winning pumped on these sportsbook ads, I always think of the alternative, being a natural pessimist. I always think of the losers, because the losers are the forgotten element in all of this. And there are probably way more of them than Jamie's winners.

Sports leagues used to recognize that, at least implicitly. Now, because there's so much skin in the gambling game for them, they don't. 

I find that sad. And I wonder how it happened.

Shaking my bony fist all the while, I suppose.

The cost of a Cup

 The Chicago Blackhawks remain one of two winless teams in the NHL this morning, a tumble from grace that is all too appropriate. Joel Quenneville's team, on the other hand, owns the best record in the league, sitting atop the Eastern Conference with a 6-0-0 record and 12 points.

So I suppose sometimes the karma works and sometimes it doesn't, the way Old Lodgeskins' magic did in "Little Big Man."

This upon the report that went off like a nuclear device yesterday, revealing that, in 2010, Quenneville (then the the coach of the Blackhawks instead of the Florida Panthers) and the rest of the Blackhawks front office protected an accused sexual predator because, well, they had a Stanley Cup to win. 

The accused scuzzbucket, Brad Aldrich, was the team's video guy, and he was allowed to continue his duties and hoist the Stanley Cup after the Blackhawks won it, and ride in the parade, and generally be treated like a key member of the team's family. Because, well, the Blackhawks had a Stanley Cup to win, and it would be a "distraction" (Quenneville's word) to take seriously the word of a player who said Aldrich assaulted him and threatened his career on the eve of the Final.

The Blackhawks never did take the player's word seriously. They never did actually investigate the incident, which was followed by another that Aldrich assaulted an intern shortly after the Blackhawks won the Cup.

I guess that was his way of celebrating, the sicko.

The Blackhawks did nothing about any of it. What they did instead was allow Aldrich resign quietly -- after which he went up to Michigan, where in 2013 he was convicted of criminal sexual conduct involving a high school student, and did nine months in the Graybar Hilton for it.

I think if I were the father of that high school kid, I'd be ready to lay the lumber to the head of everyone who was in the room for that infamous meeting. A nice crosscheck to the Chiclets sounds about right.

I also think they should haul that 2010 Stanley Cup banner out of the rafters and burn it. It's forever soiled anyway.

I also think the punishment for this needs to go beyond the resignations of president of hockey operations Stan Bowman and senior director of hockey administration Al MacIsaac, the only two 2010 execs who remain with the organization. I think the other brass who were there -- Quenneville, John McDonough, Kevin Cheveldayoff and Jay Blunk -- should be hitting the bricks, too, from wherever they might be gainfully employed at the moment.

Let 'em eat resumes, by God. Let 'em discover the real cost of a Stanley Cup, seeing as how there was apparently no price they wouldn't pay for one.

You know what, though?

I don't think it will happen, especially in Quenneville's case. After all, he's got his team atop the league right now. 

And, like the 2010 Blackhawks, the Panthers have a Stanley Cup to win.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 7

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the prisoner-of-the-moment Blob feature of which critics have said "Help! I'm being held prisoner!", and also "This is the worst thing that's ever happened in the entire history of the entire world!":

1. "The Ravens are unbeatable!" (Last week, after the Ravens crushed the Chargers)

2. "The Bengals are unbeatable!" (This week, after the Bengals crushed the Ravens)

3. "The (Your Team Name Here) are unbeatable!" (Next week)

4. "The Bears are the worst team in the history of professional football!" (Bears fans, after the Bears were embarrassed by the Buccaneers)

5. "No, you're not! We are!" (Jets fans, after the Jets were embarrassed by the Patriots)

6. "Well ... maybe not." (Bears and Jets fans, after they manage to not be embarrassed next week)

7. "The Colts are ALL THE WAY BACK, BABY!" (Colts fans, after the Colts beat the 49ers Sunday in the middle of a hurricane)

8. "Why couldn't we have a hurricane TODAY??" (Colts fans, after Derrick Henry and the Titans run over them next Sunday)

9. "At least we almost won!" (Lions fans, this week)

10. "At least we almost won!" (Lions fans, next week)

A Series of conflicts

 I am sorry, Dusty Baker. I just can't do it.

I want to root for you, because you deserve this, and also because if you do it (or rather, your team does it) it will be a terrific story about a terrific manager and a terrific human being. So of course I want to root for Dusty. 

But I can't. I just ... can't. 

I can't root for his Houston Astros -- who presumably are not cheating this time, but who knows? That's the stain that comes with cheating and getting caught: Everyone presumes from that point on you're still cheating. So if you're an Astros fan, you can take reaching the World Series again as some sort of validation you can do it clean, but the rest of country is never going to buy it. They're always going to reply, "Yeah, maybe."

Plus, except for the GM and the manager getting shown the road, the Asterisk-Os largey eluded capture. No players were harmed in the making of this deception, and some of them are still the anchors for this team.

So it still feels like they got away with it. And that's why I can't root for Dusty, much as I would love to.

Besides, his opposite number probably deserves this more than he does.

That would be Brian Snitker, who just turned 66 and who has spent most of his adult life riding buses between Nowheresville and That Other Place. In the dictionary beside "baseball lifer," you'll find his picture; since going to work in the Braves organization 41 years ago, he's managed eight clubs in the Atlanta farm system, everyone from the Anderson Braves and Durham Bulls to the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, with whom he won two Carolina League titles.

For awhile he was the third-base coach for the big club, and then it was back to the minors, where he managed the Triple A Gwinnett Braves for two seasons. Finally, after 36 years with the organization, he made it to the big chair, becoming the Atlanta Braves manager on May 17, 2016.

Now he's going to be managing in the World Series, after 41 years. And so, even though I despise all those white people waving foam tomahawks and all that other Tomahawk Chop crap -- like Native Americans of that region haven't suffer indignities enough, now they have to watch Jethro Joe Clampett play pretend Indian? -- I gotta cast my lot with the Braves.

Because Dusty Baker or not, no one's paid more dues than Brian Snitker. No one.

A case of the uglies, Part Deux

 "Pffft. Been there, done that."

-- Surviving members of the 1964 Liberty Center and Marion Swayzee basketball teams, upon learning of yesterday's nine-overtime Illinois upset of No. 7 Penn State

Yes, that's right, boys and girls. Nine overtimes already has been a thing.

It happened in the '64 Marion Regional basketball tournament, when the Lions of Liberty Center and the Speedkings of Swayzee set an IHSAA basketball tournament record that stands to this day. Swayzee eventually won, 65-61, but only after the teams slogged through nine extra sessions, mainly because whoever won the tap to start each OT held the ball for one shot and kept missing.

Illinois and Penn State, alas, did not have that excuse. They went nine OTs in Happy Valley not on purpose, but because neither team could muster the will to make three yards.

Under the new overtime rules in college football, both teams traded field goals in the first two overtimes, then proceeded to flounder around on one-and-done two-point-conversion  attemptsfrom the 3-yard line six times. Finally the Illini bagged the upset on a two-point conversion pass from Brandon Peters to Casey Washington, 20-18.

In between, Penn State botched a trick play, Illinois quarterback Art Sitkowski missed a receiver for the "W," Illinois attempted three more passes that fell incomplete, and on and on and ... on.

I don't know how far Penn State will tumble in the polls now, but if you can't score enough on seven tries from the 3-yard line at home against a 2-5 Illinois team, you probably should pack a parachute for the trip. 

And Illinois?

The Illini get 3-4 Rutgers next week. It probably won't go nine OTs this time.

And put your money on the Scarlet Knights.