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. This apparently is part of a more general scheme to present Fearless Leader as a martyr to the cause, and to recast January 6 as just a small 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 reminded 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, there are exceptions, of course. 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  it, 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 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 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.