Today in Curse news

 The Chicago Cubs finally won a baseball game last night, pummeling the Blob's Pittsburgh Cruds 10-4 before a gathering of the chronically disappointed in PNC Park. This was big news for the northsiders, because A) they actually scored some runs, and B) the win snapped a 10-game losing streak.

About that ...

Some astute observer on the Interwhatsis the other day, when the Cubs were still losing, noted that the Cubs last won a baseball game on May 15. Which, the observer went on to note, was also the day beloved Chicago tavern owner Sam Sianis died.

Sianis, of course, was the longtime owner of the fabled Billy Goat Tavern. It was founded by his uncle, William, whom legend has it put a curse on the Cubs after owner P.K. Wrigley wouldn't let him bring his pet goat into Wrigley Field.

The Billy Goat Curse survived in myth and legend for 71 years, until the Cubs supposedly broke it by winning the 2016 World Series.

And then ...

And then the heir to all that died.

And on the next day -- the very next day -- the Cubs began to lose. For, like, 11 straight days.

So what do call this? The Curse II? Heir Beware? A Brief Unfortunate Return To Those Goat-y Days Of Yore?

Only Sam, William and that damn goat know. And they're not talkin'.

Paying the piper

 (In which Sportsball World once again cannot hold the Blob. You know the protocol: Read on, or take your hall pass and skedaddle.)

So I see my alma mater will have to fork over a quarter million dollars to fired employee Suzanne Swierc, and I say, too effing bad. Ball State University should have to pay her a quarter mill. In fact, if it were up to this alum (Class of '77, thank you very much), Ball U. would be paying a lot more.

It got off cheap, in my estimation. So pay the piper and don't bitch, ya lint brains.

I say this because the current administration showed no stones and less integrity in dismissing Swierc last September, simply because she chose to lay a little truth on everyone about right-wing martyr Charlie Kirk. The deification of Mr. Kirk was well underway by then, and Swierc was deemed not properly genuflective (to totally make up a word).  

She wasn't nasty. She didn't "celebrate" his death, as the more fevered of her detractors btried to claim. She simply pointed out that Saint Charlie occasionally said some pretty hurtful things about certain people who'd never done him any harm, and sometimes one reaps what one sows when you do that.

Now, not a word of that was untrue. But Ball State's administration went into cringe mode anyway, apparently afraid governor Mike Braun and attorney general Todd Rokita would come after them with pitchforks and torches. So Swierc was canned for reasoning that smelled worse than any cow pasture in Indiana.

Or as the Blob put it last September:

In its official release the University said it went strictly by official guidelines, which state that a public institution can justify a dismissal by applying a two-part test to determine whether or not an employee's speech disrupts the workplace. The release went on to say the University determined Swierc's post did exactly that.

"... Our administration evaluated the impact of the significant disruption to the University's mission and operations and the effect of the post on her ability to perform her work in her leadership position," the release said, in a masterwork of handbook-speak.

And to which the Blob says this: Oh, balls.

Tell me how, precisely, Swierc's post was a "significant disruption" of her ability to (what did she do again?) promote and advocate health issues. Tell me how, again precisely, a post entirely unrelated to her job made it difficult for her to do that job. Explain yourselves -- or to put it in more educational terms: Show me your work.

Indeed. Or, better yet, be honest about it: Say you were a-feared of the Guv and Sanctimony Todd, and decided to cave instead of doing what higher ed is supposed to do.

Which is, stand up for the truth-tellers. Because seeking truth is supposed to be a university's core mission, is it not?

Any university worth the name, that is.

In the interest of self

 Mike Elko is as right as ham on rye, if it matters at all. Which it doesn't.

This is because saying out loud what is self-evident doesn't make it less self-evident. And what Texas A&M's football coach said the other day at the SEC spring meetings was as self-evident as it gets.

What he said was, essentially, is that everyone in college football these days is in it for themselves.

"I don't know why you ask us," he replied in response to a reporter's question about the Power 4's latest harebrained idea, which is a 24-team playoff. "It doesn't matter what we think. I don't know why we're trying to become a trophy sport. What does Mike Elko want? 40 (teams). Then I won't get fired.

"None of us are answering for the good of the sport. We're answering for the good of ourselves."

Well, sure. The 24-team proposal being pushed hardest by Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti is because, essentially, the Power 4 conferences need cash to pay their worker bees, who've become as mercenary as their coaches and universities. More Power 4 teams in the playoff would mean deepen the revenue stream. And, yes, it would help Coach hang onto his job because, by golly, he made the playoff even if he only went 8-4 or 9-3.

With the glaring exception of the SEC -- which, let's face it, doesn't need anyone's help now that it's swallowed up half the Big 12 -- the other Power 4s are slowly coming around to Petitti's hard sell. That it's a profoundly stupid idea that finishes blowing up what once made college football great matters not at all.

For example: One of the arguments advanced by the pro-24 crowd is that it would compel teams to schedule more marquee opponents instead of Lower Eastern Murgatroyd Tech. This makes absolutely zero sense, of course; if anything, teams would be compelled to schedule more Lower Eastern Murgatroyd Techs in order to get to the magic playoff threshold, which with a 24-team playoff would go from 10 or 11 wins to eight or nine.

Also: If everything becomes about making the playoffs (and getting one's hands on all that lovely green stuff), what happens to the lifeblood of the sport -- i.e., the traditional rivalries that have given college football a historical texture the Sunday version can't match?

"That's silly, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "Alabama-Auburn will always be Alabama-Auburn. Michigan-Ohio State will always be Michigan-Ohio State. Army-Navy will always be Army-Navy."

The latter I'll give you, because Army-Navy is unique among rivalries. But the rest of 'em?

If making the playoffs becomes the Alpha and Omega of college football, what of them? Alabama and Auburn might still despise one another, but what happens if they both wind up playing one another in the playoff? Will the rivalry game still be THE RIVALRY GAME, or will it merely be a warmup act?

At least now those end-of-season rivalries sometimes have the added spice of a possible playoff berth; last year, for instance, Michigan needed to beat Ohio State to have a shot at getting in. In a 24-team field, the Wolverines would have already had a berth nailed down. With the prospect of playing Ohio State again down the road.

Dilutes the hell out of The Game, the name Michigan-Ohio State swiped from Yale-Harvard. Because bragging rights would be postponed until later.

Me?

I'd rather just keep watching Army-Navy every December. Stubborn coot that I am.

A Knick(s) in time

 Your New York Knickerbockers are back in the NBA Finals again, and, listen, pal, they mean bidness. Lathered the Cleveland Cavaliers in four straight in the Eastern Conference, winning Games 2, 3 and 4 by a combined 66 points. That includes Game 4 in C-town, when they squashed the Cavs like a bug, 130-93.

One-thirty to 93! That's 37 points to you and me, kids.

In any case, they look unstoppable right now, having won 11 straight playoff games. Now they await the winner between the Spurs and the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, either of whom will presumably be the favorite in the NBA Finals.

Think New York will care. if so?

Hell, no, New York won't care. This is, after all, the first time the Knicks have been in the Finals in 27 years. And it's the first time they've been in the Finals after a full 82-game season in 32 years.

The 1998-99 season, see, got cut to 50 games thanks to a lockout, and the Knicks only showed up for a little more than half of those. They went a "meh" 27-23 in the regular season, then shocked a whole lot of people by making it to the Finals.

Beat Reggie Miller, the Davis boys and the Indiana Pacers in six games in the Eastern Conference finals, the Knicks did. Lost in five in the Finals to the Big Fundamental, Tim Duncan, and the San Antonio Spurs. 

Patrick Ewing, Allan Houston, Latrell Sprewell and Marcus Camby were the big names on that Knicks team. They're all in their 50s now -- except for Ewing, who's 63.

Which is to say, 1999 was a long time ago.

It's so long ago nine players on the current roster hadn't even been born. Bill Clinton was president, and everyone was worried about Y2K, one of the biggest nothingburgers in contemporary American history. "You've got mail!" was still a thing; Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and TikTok were not. Heck, MySpace wasn't even around yet.

That year, the Yankees won the World Series. John Elway was still playing football, and Wayne Gretzky was still playing hockey.  Dr. Jack Miller the Racing Dentist was racing in the Indianapolis 500, and so were Jeret Schroeder, Stan Wattles, Buzz Calkins and John Hollansworth Jr. And instead of a Ford or Offy power plant, almost everyone was driving an Oldsmobile. 

The winner that year?

Kenny Brack, a Swede.

The winner this year?

Felix Rosenqvist, another Swede.

One of the two teams playing for the right to face the Knicks in the Finals?

The Spurs. Same as in '99.

Hmm.

I sense some temporal convergence here. But maybe that's just me.

Da race

 Somewhere, no doubt, Scott Goodyear must have nodded his head and said, "Of course."

And somewhere else, Marco Andretti must have nodded, too, and said, "Yep."

And when the day was done, Helio Castroneves must have watched the replay and said, "Been there, done that."

Because the Indianapolis 500, see, went the full 500 yesterday before the winner emerged.

Because not even the blink of an eye, or the twitch of a nerve ending, separated the winner from the heartbreak of second place.

Because young David Malukas, who drove an impeccable race and looked more and more like the chosen one the longer the day went on, was going to win the biggest motorsports prize in the world. And then he didn't.

And then, in the last, what, 50 feet or so, Felix Rosenqvist -- new father and fastest man at at the Speedway for most of the month -- got a run. A millisecond later, he was crossing the yard of brick a nose cone ahead of Malukas. Hell, not even a nose cone ahead.

Zero point zero two seconds. That was your margin of victory after 500 miles.

 Closer than Al Unser Jr. over Goodyear in '92. Closer than Sam Hornish over Marco in '06. Closer than Ryan Hunter-Reay over Helio in '14. Closest finish ever.

Rosenqvist, whose month of May began with the birth of he and his wife Emille's first child and ended with -- let's face it -- a damn miracle, was properly overjoyed. Malukas was just as properly crushed. What do you say to a young man who had the Indianapolis 500 in the palm of his hand one second, and then the next -- literally, the next -- didn't?

"Better luck next time" ain't gonna cut it. That I can assure you.

In any event, it was an unreal finish to an unreal day, with a record 70 lead changes among 14 drivers and a red flag and a caution in the last eight laps. When the green and white flags flew together after the caution, Malukas went from fourth to first with a brilliant outside move in traffic, and then held off everyone until Rosenqvist's perfectly timed push swiped it off the kid's plate.

Some other observations:

* Red is the new fashion statement.

No grumbling from the geezer section, if you please, about the policy of red-flagging the 500 in the final laps of the race. It's the best decision IMS and IndyCar have made in years.

The first year it was instituted was 2014, and it produced Hunter-Reay's thrilling duel to the checkers with Helio. Subsequent late stoppages have set up some of the best finishes in the 110-year history of the 500 in the dozen years since. No one would rather see the race finish under yellow because some back marker got cozy with the wall.

In this particular circumstance, tradition be damned.

* Fuel strategy is not boring. It's what makes the Race, the Race.

Because, as ever, it was a major Indy 500 plotline.

Malukas, Alex Palou, Josef Newgarden, Scott McLaughlin and Conor Daly were on one stagger. Rosenqvist, Marcus Armstrong, Pato O'Ward et al were on another. It meant the latter had to make their last stops ten laps or so later than the former, and then hope they could run Rosenqvist and Co. down or pressure them into running out of fuel.

In the end, Caio Collet's hard crash and Mick Schumacher's kiss of the wall in the last eight laps -- the first stopping the race, and the second slowing it for a crucial lap -- made that a moot point. 

* Oh, Pato.

How many times is Pato O'Ward going to be right there, only to not be there?

He finished fourth on Sunday, which means he's now finished fourth or better four times in the last five years. Once more he was hanging around the front all day; once more he played all the strategic cards right to put him up front as the laps got skinny.

Everyone keeps saying he's going to win the Greatest Spectacle someday, because he's always good here. But as the Blob has noted before, maybe he could also be the modern-day Ted Horn -- who finished fourth or better nine straight times between 1936 and 1948, but never won.

* Dixie!

Scott Dixon may never win the 500 again, but that doesn't mean you can keep him away from the front. The greatest IndyCar driver of his generation led 32 laps yesterday, second only to polesitter Alex Palou's 59. It extended his all-time 500 record for laps led to 709, which are 65 more than second-place Al Unser Sr. 

It also marked the 17th Indianapolis 500 in which he's led at least one lap. Not bad for a guy who somehow has only won the Spectacle once, and who'll turn 46 on July 22.

* And speaking of old guys ...

At 49, Takuma Sato did not have the car to win his third Indianapolis 500 Sunday. But he did have the car to finish 10th.

Counting his victories in 2017 and 2020, it was his sixth top-ten finish at Indy -- and his second in a row for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

The only older driver in the field was, of course, Helio who at 51 didn't come close to a record fifth 500 victory. He finished 25th.

And yet ...

And yet, he won, sort of.

He won because Rosenqvist won, which made Helio a 500 champion as an owner.  He owns a piece of Meyer-Shank Racing, for whom he won his fourth 500 in 2021 and for whom Rosenqvist won Sunday. 

Of things given

 This being Memorial Day, when we remember the ones who didn't come back from our wars and rumors of wars -- when we remember who bought us our cookouts and our trips to the lake and all of a peaceful life's pleasures and, yes, annoyances, too -- the Blob offers in this space something I wrote eight years ago on this day. It is the perfect message for these times, when the man-children running our country play army with real lives and treat war as some sort of glorious crusade instead of the mean, ugly business it is.

And that's all I'll say about that.

Of the rest, I say this:

Always I remember the crosses, on this day. Pristine white, laid out row upon perfectly symmetrical row, they sprout like a field of wildflowers in this quiet green place, every cross representing a father or son or brother who didn't come back from what was naively termed the Great Adventure.

Every cross representing something given, without expectation of payment.

War is the great waster, thief of life and potential and what-might-have-been. It is never something to be glorified, to be held up as some shining beacon of human virtue. Even in a good cause -- and the good causes almost without exception look less so in retrospect -- it reveals the worst of what we are.

And also the best, in an oddly paradoxical way.

The latter is why, on this Memorial Day, we go to the cemeteries and place American flags on graves. It's why on this day I remember those white crosses in the St. Mihiel American Military Cemetery near Thiaucourt, France, where so many of our countrymen rest who died trying to reduce the St. Mihiel salient in September of 1918.

It was the first major American engagement of the First World War, and if it was a victory it was a costly one, part of less than six months of combat that would steal some 53,000 American lives. The cemetery at Thiaucourt lies at the center of the old salient, a peaceful place set down in the middle of lush French farmland. If you didn't know any better, you'd swear you were in Indiana somewhere -- at least until, in the middle of a field of wheat, you spied the crumbling remains of an old German pillbox.

Or looked out over all those crosses, row on perfectly symmetrical row. Or stepped into the cool marbled shade of the memorial, where name upon name is etched in gold on a black plaque that stretches almost from floor to ceiling. The names go on forever, representing eight different American divisions. They are the names of the American soldiers who fought in the St. Mihiel region, and who now "rest in unknown graves."

Outside, in a leafy alcove, stands a white marble monument with an American doughboy carved on it in bas relief. Bareheaded, eyes closed, he holds his helmet at his waist in his left hand. Beneath him is this inscription: "Blessed are they that have the home longing, for they shall go home."

Around it, beneath those crosses, other American doughboys sleep on. They are home at last, in a sense. And because they and so many of their brothers are, generations of other Americans got to sleep peacefully in their own homes.

And because we do, we remember them this day. And on all days. 

Da prediction

 People keep asking me, because they know what I used to do. It's Indianapolis 500 week, and I covered it for four decades as a professional scribbler, and so of course I must know, of course I have the wisdom of the ages when it comes to predicting who's gonna win the Greatest Spectacle today, other than the rain.

"Beats me," I say. "Could be any of a dozen guys."

Everyone looks crestfallen.

"Oh, come on," they say. "Pick somebody, You've GOT to pick SOMEBODY."

In that case, I say, you could do worse than Alex Palou. Defending champion, starts on the pole, has won three of five races so far on the IndyCar circuit as he pursues his fourth straight title. The Dominator.

Everyone nods.

"Palou," they say. "Well, sure."

Except ...

Except I have this weird feeling he won't be the one slamming the milk at the end today (or tomorrow).

Mainly I say this for the completely irrational reason that it's too easy -- too obvious -- to pick Alex Palou. Indy, after all, doesn't always do obvious on Memorial Day weekend. And when it's this obvious, it hardly ever happens.

Well, OK. Except when Al Unser Sr. won back-to-back in 1970 and '71 in the fabled Johnny Lightning Special. And except when Bill Vukovich won in 1953 and '54. And except when Wilbur Shaw won in the Boyle Maserati in 1939 and '40 ... and when Rick Mears won all those times for Roger Penske ... and when Simon Pagenaud won from the pole in 2019 ... 

Like I said: Irrational.

Except ...

Except that weird feeling won't go away.

It's the feeling I get sometimes when I think this is a year when Indy gets quirky on us, which it's fairly notorious for doing on occasion. How else to explain Mario Andretti only winning the 500 once in 29 starts? Or Lloyd Ruby and Michael Andretti never winning? Or Scott Dixon winning just once, or Ted Horn finishing in the top four, like, every damn year, but never finishing first?

So, no, I'm not picking Palou. I'm also not picking Pato O'Ward, who starts on the outside of Row 2 and has finished second, second and third in three of the last four 500s. He's going to win this race someday. If it's this year, well, that would figure. But I don't think it will be.

Dixon, back there in Row 4? Maybe. Two-time winner Takuma Sato, who led a race-high 51 laps last year and starts on the outside of Row 5? Always up there. Ditto Santino Ferrucci, Marcus Ericsson, two-time winner Josef Newgarden, four-time champ Helio Castroneves.

Ditto Conor Daly.

Who starts in the middle of Row 3 and could very well win this today (or tomorrow), after leading 13 laps and finishing eighth last year for Juncos Hollinger Racing. He's the hometown boy, from just up the road in Noblesville. Makes him a sexy pick for a lot of people.

Me?

Well ...

Well, try this name on for size: David Malukas.

He's a 24-yearold from Chicago who qualified seventh and finished second last year for A.J. Foyt, and now he has Will Power's old ride with Penske. Stuck it on the outside of the front row in qualifying, during which he drove with a calm efficiency that reminded you a little  (OK, so, reminded me a little) of a young Rick Mears. I know, crazy, right?

Know what's crazier?

I think this is a David Malukas kind of year. Write it down.

In pencil, at least.