Disrespect, or something

 Look, I know what preseason college football polls are, at least most of the time. Reality is the disease and they're the cure.

I would say they're not worth the paper they're written on, except no one writes them on paper anymore. Still, the essential truth remains: No one's played a game yet; no one, especially in these days of almost yearly roster turnover, knows how the new pieces are going to fit with the old ones; no one knows if the schedule that looked like Cream Cheese City in August will morph into an absolute grind by October.

After all, no one in South Bend saw Northern Illinois coming a couple of years ago. Ditto Appalachian State in Ann Arbor a decade or so before that.

However ...

However, I'm looking at the Associated Press preseason poll this morning, and what I'm seeing is Curt Cignetti crafting another chip for his Indiana football team's shoulders.

This is because Indiana ran the table last year on its way to an astounding national title, becoming the first college football team ever to go 16-0. Along the way, the Hoosiers beat Oregon twice, once by 10 in Eugene and then by 36 in the CFP semis. And they beat Ohio State 13-10 in the Big Ten championship game. 

And now Ohio State is your preseason No. 1, according to the AP. And Oregon is No. 2.

Indiana?

Your undefeated defending national champs came in at No. 6.

Presumably this is because Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza is gone, along with a few other significant pieces from the national champs. It does not, however, take into account that several other significant pieces return, or that the Hoosiers will have another A-lister at quarterback in Josh Hoover. Or that Indiana loaded up again on transfers and top-shelf recruits.

And yet ...

And yet, the AP judges the Hoosiers the sixth best team in the country, and only the third best in their own conference. Ahead of them are the Buckeyes, the Ducks, Georgia, Notre Dame and Texas.

Now, it's true Ohio State returns just about every key piece from the Buckeyes' 12-2 team from a year ago, and added its usual haul of stud recruits. And Oregon returns quarterback Dante Moore and a pile of other notables from its CFP semifinal team. And Georgia's always gonna be Georgia.

But Notre Dame lost the engine of its offense in premier running backs Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price. And, yes, Arch Manning returns for Texas, although the Longhorns finished fifth in the SEC and went 10-3 overall. So you can see how Coach Cig might use that to stoke a few internal fires.

See? They STILL don't respect us. They still think we JUST GOT LUCKY. They still think we're gonna go back to being, you know, Indiana, nothing but the bunch of losers we've always been. 

And so on.

Of course, as always with these matters, a lot of that will be so much stuff and feathers. Indiana's No. 6 preseason ranking is the highest in the program's 139-year history, and most college football gurus predict the Hoosiers will at least reach the CFP quarterfinals. Which perhaps means the disrespect card is not the ace Cignetti will proclaim it to be.

On some level, Cignetti's players no doubt will understand this. But that level will be somewhere in the general vicinity of the sub-basement.

Up top, they'll be wearing that aforementioned chip like a badge of honor. And Coach will quietly be thanking the Associated Press for the woodworking help.

What baseball does

 Maybe you had a better weekend than Joshua Baez of the St. Louis Cardinals, but I doubt it. All he did was take on baseball's entire ringing history and wrestle it to the ground.

Here's what Baez, a rookie call-up to the bigs, did on Saturday in Chicago:

He hit the first major-league pitch he ever saw almost clean out of Wrigley Field. Four-hundred forty-nine feet to dead center.

In his next at bat in the third inning, he went yard to the bleachers in left.

In his third at-bat in the sixth, just to show he played no favorites, he spanked a souvenir to right.

Three at-bats. Three home runs. Five RBI in his first MLB game, an 8-4 win for the Cards.

Also a W over history in our venerable American game, which is its history.

According to the Baseball Almanac, no one in the history of the National League -- which encompasses 22,800 other players from that day to this, according to the Almanac -- ever did what Joshua Baez did on Aug. 15, 2026. And that history goes all the way back to April 22, 1876.

Think about that for a moment.

On April 22, 1876, Ulysses S. Grant was still President of the United States.

George Armstrong Custer was still two months away from getting his at the Little Bighorn.

Cy Young was 9 years old. Henry Ford was 12. Teddy Roosevelt was 17. And Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Knute Rockne and Jim Thorpe had yet to be born.

All of that is relevant again because of what Joshua Baez did Saturday.  

This is what baseball does, in a way none of our other games can match with the possible exception of college football. And even college football, as played by Princeton and Rutgers back in 1869, resembles the modern game the way a Roman chariot resembles an F1 Ferrari.

Baseball, however, survives down the decades mostly intact. The pitcher pitches; the batter swings. Three strikes and you're out. Four balls and take your base. Three outs and your inning is over. From the pitcher's mound to homeplate is 60 feet, 6 inches.

All true in 1876. All still true today.

In his grand soliloquy in that grand valentine to baseball, "Field of Dreams," James Earl Jones' character declares that America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers, but baseball has marked the time. This is not just sentimental fluff. It is as true as true gets.

The game your grandfather watched -- even your great or great-great grandfather, depending on your age -- is at its essence the game you watch today. He yelled at the nearsighted ump who just judged an obvious strike a ball; you yell at the ump for the same reason, and probably use the same words. You both wonder, decades apart, why your crummy centerfielder can't hit the cutoff man. You both wonder, decades apart, why your favorite team is always so bleepity-bleep awful.

And if you watch enough games?

You both eventually see something you've never seen before.

Like, say, Joshua Baez's Saturday in Wrigley Field. Like that.

What's in a number?

 The polls are closed and the votes tallied, and the runaway winner of a new Blob feature I just made up -- "Numbskull of the Week" -- is Jayden Daniels of the Washington Commanders. Also Jayden Daniels' numbskull attorney, Adam Kenner, who this week sent a cease-and-desist letter to Daniels' alma mater, LSU.

The letter warned LSU not to engage in "any further use, display, publication, promotion commercialization or other exploitation of Mr. Daniels' NIL in any manner or medium."

And why did Daniels' mouthpiece send that letter?

Because a new LSU player -- defensive back DJ Pickett -- is wearing Daniels' old No. 5.

You think I'm joking? I'm not joking.

"But ... but ..." you're saying.

I know. I know.

You're wondering, as is most of America, how assigning another player the number of a guy who's been gone from LSU for three years constitutes "promotion" of Daniels' Name, Image and Likeness. Or how it constitutes "commercialization." Or how it constitutes -- good Lord in heaven -- "exploitation."

Talk about stretching those boundaries of imagination in the old "Twilight Zone" intro. 

Personally, I think DJ Pickett should hire an attorney and demand Daniels cease and desist exploiting his NIL. It would be equally laughable.

And, oh, how the internet trolls are laughing.

Best of the burns was delivered by the New York Mets, of all people. After beating the Washington Nationals 4-1 the other night, the official Mets social media account tweeted this: "Stopped at four out of respect for Jayden Daniels."

Boom!

And as for me?

Well, I'm just thinking of all the ways this numbskullery could boomerang on Daniels and Co. ...

Dear Mr. Kenner:

Please inform your client he must cease and desist wearing No. 5 or we will begin legal proceedings.

Signed,

The estate of  Joe DiMaggio

(Also the estate of Paul Hornung)

(Also the estate of Brooks Robinson)

(Also Johnny Bench, George Brett, Albert Pujols, Jason Kidd, etc., etc.)

Boom again.

A grand snafu

 Some days the Blob plays the motorsports loyalist, and thinks IndyCar should get more attention than it does outside Memorial Day weekend in Indianapolis. And, some days it doesn't.

Today is one of those days.

This after IndyCar showed up in Markham, Ontario, for the first time, and fans eager to see Alex Palou and the boys wheel it in person got ... nothing.

It seems the Markham event promoters, Green Savoree Racing Promotions, didn't have  a track for them to run on.

Somehow, on its big IndyCar debut weekend, the Markham street course for the Ontario Honda Dealerships race wasn't ready for Friday's scheduled practice session. Let me say that again: They didn't have the course finished ON THE FIRST DAY OF RACE WEEKEND.

Good lord. What's next, clowns on unicycles?

Now, granted, this wasn't IndyCar's doing, but it was an IndyCar event, so it caught some of the residual embarrassment. Can you imagine NASCAR showing up for a Cup weekend and being told, um, sorry, guys, the track isn't quiiiiite up to snuff yet? Or F1 showing up at, say, Zandvoort for the Dutch Grand Prix and race officials saying, "Wait, you mean that's THIS weekend?"?

Nope. Neither can I.

Worse yet, fans who showed up for Friday's non-practice weren't told what was going on, according to the Indianapolis Star. So they sat there staring at an empty track as Green Savoree stayed mum about the postponement until after the race teams started re-loading their cars on the transporters and drivers left the premises.

Imagine the chit-chat among the fans at that point.

Fan: Hey ... isn't that Scott Dixon getting in that Honda CRV? Where's he going?

Other Fan: Look! Palou just beat him out the gate in HIS Honda CRV! And there goes Newgarden in a custom Vette, and Pato in another custom Vette!

All The Other Fans: The hell is going on?

As every driver, crew chief, and wrench jockey in the paddock no doubt wondered, too.

Ay-yi-yi. Yi-yi.

Names and games

 The chairman of the Chicago Bears met the media yesterday and made the most obvious Chicago announcement ever, aside from declaring Walter Payton the greatest running back of all time, and none of that Jim Brown/Barry Sanders noise.

He announced the Chicago Bears would remain the Chicago Bears.

"We will be the Chicago Bears whether we're in Arlington (Heights, Illinois) or whether we're in Hammond," George H. McCaskey said.

Well, duh. As if anyone actually thought they'd be the Hammond Bears, or that anyone would ever call them that if they were.

(Of course, the McCaskeys could always completely befuddle everyone and revert to the Bears' original name, which was the Decatur Staleys. The Decatur Staleys! Put Caleb Williams in a leather helmet, install the single wing and break out the flying wedge. Beauty.)

Anyway, that the was the no-news portion of the program. The other portion is what McCaskey devoutly wishes was no news, which is that the Bears are still leaning toward an Indiana zip code.

"Our focus is on Hammond, that's where we're advancing our efforts and that's where the bulk of our time, attention and resources are being devoted," he said.

To which chronic skeptics like the Blob continue to say: Yeah, OK.

Because, listen, even after all this time -- and even after Indiana's governor, the spectacularly cotton-headed Mike Braun, promised the McCaskeys everything but Fort Wayne and Evansville as throw-ins on the deal -- stubborn suspicions remain. Chief among them is that all this public devotion to Hammond is just a ploy to crowbar more concessions from Illinois on the Arlington Heights site.

So far, admittedly, Illinois ain't playin'. McCaskey said Thursday the Bears had had minimal contact with state officials, leaving the impression the Arlington Heights option is deader than ... well, the Decatur Staleys. But then he tossed out that "whether we're in Arlington or whether we're in Hammond" line, leaving the impression the Illinois option may NOT be dead yet, whether it's feeling much better or not.*

(* -- Gratuitous "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" reference)

So on the speculation goes, at least for us skeptics. Maybe the Bears really will be playing in Hammond in an (ugh) roofed stadium. Maybe the McCaskeys will strike an 11th-hour deal with the Illinois contingent. Or maybe they'll relocate to, I don't know, Munich or someplace, and call themselves the Munich Fightin' Knockwursts.

The Fightin' Knockwursts! Now there's a name for you.

Shady doin's

 So now the federal government owns the Los Angeles Lake--

I'm sorry, what?

You're saying that's not true?

OK, then, so Donald John "Paws In Every Pie" Trump, president of these United States, owns the Los Angeles Lake--

Excuse me?

You're saying that's not true, either? 

OK, O-kay. I'll take off my tinfoil hat. But as L.A. Times columnist Bill Plaschke writes, something kinda stinks here, and for once it ain't the Prez's Underoos.

This after Lakers owner Mark Walter reportedly sold the Lakers this week for a record $12.5 billion, less than 14 months after buying them. The new owners are Bob Iger, former CEO of Disney, and Josh Kushner, a venture capitalist who recently tried to buy a minority stake in the World Cup until widespread condemnation caused FIFA head Gianni Infantino to back out of the deal.

"Kushner ... Kushner," you're saying now, a bit puckishly. "No, where have I heard that name before?"

To which the Blob replies: Yes, OK, he's the brother of Trump's son-in-law, real estate dude and alleged slumlord Jared Kushner.

This of course raises some eyebrows, and not just Plaschke's. Jared Kushner, after all, has swung some ethically shady deals since his ethically shady father-in-law became president. This includes playing footsie with the Saudis while kinda-sorta serving as an extra-legal representative of daddy-in-law's administration.

Now, that in itself doesn't mean anything. However ...

However, the guy who just abruptly sold the Lakers to Iger and Jared's brother is being investigated for some suspicious bookkeeping by the federal government. Donald Trump's federal government.

"Oh, come on," you're saying now. "You're implying that Trump's feds put the arm on Mark Walter so he'd sell the Lakers to Trump's son-in-law's brother? Like this is some kind of 'Godfather' make-him-an-offer-he-can't-refuse shenanigan?"

Of course I'm not implying that. Besides, Trump says he's got nothing to do with any of this, and whose word is more golden than Trump's?

All I'm saying is, it is a trifle weird, given that Walter became the official owner of the Lakers only last October, when he was unanimously approved by the league. And now he's selling them? And, shall we say, rather abruptly? Who does that, unless ...

But, no. I will be That Guy. I will not put the tinfoil hat back on and start babbling about chemtrails and vaccines causing autism, like the Prez's batshite director of Health and Human Services (and the Prez himself).

Although that tinfoil hat looks mighty fine, if you tilt it just-so. Mighty fine.

That Cunningham woman, Part Deux

 Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White came out swingin' last night before her team's game against the New York Liberty, and applause, applause. At some point money talks and the bullshite walks, and she sent it packin'.

Said the "hate, the fear-mongering, the divisiveness, the stuff that's trying to hijack our league will not win." Said there were a bunch of keyboard culture warriors out there trotting out "narratives that simply don't exist." Corrected one of those narratives, which is that she failed to have Sophie Cunningham's back after DiJonai Carrington of the Chicago Sky clotheslined Cunningham the other night.

Every word she spoke was true. Every word she spoke said "Enough, already." Especially the part where she said she'd stick by her team, and everyone else could go to hell.

This presumably includes Indiana's meddlesome lieutenant governor, Micah Beckwith, our First Culture Warrior and general all-around blowhole. Beckwith said White should be fired either for not standing up for Cunningham, or for not buying into the keyboard warriors' bullshite narrative about poor white girls being mugged by a bunch of jealous black lesbians. 

The Blob's reaction is pretty much White's. And also that the First Culture Warrior should stay in his lane, wherever in the wilds of the extremist right that is these days.

 Because, see, the last I looked, the Fever were 21-12 and had won nine of their last 12 games, despite White's horrible coaching and failure to stand up for her players. That's the fourth-best record in the league. And, oh, yeah: Last night, in a stark display of just how much White has lost her locker room (according to the keyboard warriors),  the Fever blasted the New York Liberty by 14, 106-92.

Led by as much as 21 at one point. Made 16-of-25 threes, the second-highest 3-point percentage in WNBA history.

"No way we were losing this game," declared Caitlin Clark, who put up 22 points and 10 assists, despite her PERFECTLY OBVIOUS disdain for White (according to the keyboard warriors).

And Cunningham, whose back White DEFINITELY DOES NOT HAVE (again, according to the keyboard warriors)?

She chipped in 12 points off the bench and said, as did White, that the reason White merely called Carrington's Flagrant 2 a hard foul was because she'd only seen the play in real time at the time she was asked about it.

"She didn't see the (video) clip ... and that's OK," Cunningham said.

And as for the W against the Liberty ...

"We did it for Steph, and we did it for everyone in the locker room," she said.

Hey, bullshite. There's the door.