Fun for the whole family

 (In which the Blob again departs from Sportsball World to roam unfettered, and possibly naked, through the America of 2026. Hall passes available for all who request them.)

 Today the Blob introduces a new and possibly one-off feature, Which Parts Of This Are Real And Which Are Not. And, listen, it's not as easy to separate one from the other as it sounds.

But you make the call ...

Last night I dreamed the United States military was going to publicly execute a man in a wheelchair by firing squad.

(The man, Nidal Hasan, is the infamous Fort Hood spree shooter who murdered 13 people in cold blood and wounded 32 others back in 2009. He's probably got it coming.)

In any case, in my dream I read where this would be the U.S. military's first execution by firing squad since World War II. I also read it will be the first public execution in the United States since 1936, when a black man named Rainey Bethea was hanged in Owensboro, Ky. Thousands of people showed up to watch. They brought their kids. Vendors sold hotdogs.(1)

Now, I dreamed, we're going to do it again. Last week Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, a 12th-century humanoid mistakenly transported to 21st-century America, announced plans to livestream Hasan's demise.

"We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public, because people need to understand there's serious for these types of things," Hegseth told right-wing streaming network Real America's Voice, in my dream. "I encourage every American to tune in. Have watch parties. Grill up some burgers and 'dogs. It'll be fun for the whole family!" (2)

In my dream, Hegseth went on to say the Pentagon is negotiating not only with Real America's Voice but Fox News, Netflix and ESPN, "as long as they don't assign any of their woke commentators," he said.(3)

"Pat McAfee would be perfect," Hegseth said in my dream. "Heck, maybe we could get the whole College Gameday crew to come. They could invite Lee Corso back as a special guest and he could put on one of those mascot heads. Death's Head or 12th-Century Crusader Head? Which will Corso choose?

"It would be awesome!"

In my dream, I was then transported to the day of the execution. The cameras were rolling. The streamers were 'streamin'. Bon Jovi performed a soulful version of "Shot Through The Heart," and somehow Keith Jackson and John Madden were there.

"Whoaaa, Nelly!" Keith exclaimed as the shots rang out.

"One second he was alive, and then BOOM!" cried Madden, madly scribbling on his Telestrator.

And then I woke up ...

(Footnotes: "1" is real; "2" is real except for the last four quotes; "3" is not real, as is everything after it. At least as far as we know.)

"Oh, come on, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "NONE of that is real. A public execution? In this day and age? Heck, the only part of your dream that's real is the part about the last public execution taking place in Kentucky in 1936. And it was the last one because there was a massive wave of revulsion about turning what should be a somber occasion into some sort of get-your-red-hots-here carnival sideshow. 

"We're a lot more civilized now. Aren't we?"

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 5

 And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the Blob feature that's the famous last word in Blob features, and of which critics have said, "Famous last words? Yeah, just wait, buddy", and also "You want some famous last words? How about 'Ouch, that hurts!'?":

1.. "Eh, we got plenty of time. PLENTY of time." (The Washington Commanders, who somehow frolicked away almost a minute and let the clock run out before they could get off what would have been a game-winning field goal)

2. "Geez, Louise, look at them boys frolic!" (The New York Giants, who wound up tying the Commanders 27-27 in overtime)

3. "Eight seconds to play, baby! We got this thing LOCKED!" (The Philadelphia Eagles, after taking a 17-16 lead against Jacksonville in London with, yes, eight seconds to play)

4. "Wait ... what?" (Also the Eagles, after the Jaguars' Ameer Abdullah returned the ensuing kickoff 53 yards, setting up Cam Little's game-winning 57-yard field goal as time expired)

5. "Wait .. what?" (The Los Angeles Rams, after becoming the first team in NFL history to lose to the Buffalo Bills in overtime. And at home, no less)

6. Meanwhile, in Green Bay ...

7. "Look at those clowns! We'll win this easy!" (The Chicago Bears, taking on the Packers, who were wearing throwback uniforms -- gray, with weird white helmets and funky numerals -- that should have been thrown back)

8. "Wait .., what?" (Also the Bears, after getting paved 31-7 by the Packers AND their ugly unis).

9. In other news, the Titans, Chargers and Dolphins remained winless. But the previously winless Buccaneers went to Dallas and -- say WHAT? -- beat the Cowboys 24-16 in prime time Thursday night.

10. "The Buccaneers? Pffft. They're trash. We win this easy." (The Cowboys, prior to kickoff)

Good craziness

 The Blob has beaten this horse's carcass into macrame, but Saturday was another of those days that showed us why college football is way better than the En Eff Ell, no matter how hard it is tell them apart here in the age of NIL and transfer madness.

Exhibit A: The Red River Rivalry in the Cotton Bowl.

In which Oklahoma didn't have a first down until the second quarter, and yet  somehow managed to knock off No. 1 Texas on a walk-off field goal. This was after the Sooners scored a touchdown on a blocked punt, scored another touchdown on a pick six, and put up just 238 total yards to the Longhorns' 382,  and averaged just 2.7 yards per carry on 31 rushing attempts.

But Texas placekicker Gianni Spetic missed a potential go-ahead field goal with 1:55 to play, and Oklahoma got the ball back with 19 seconds left when Arch Manning threw his second interception of the fourth quarter. That set up Tate Sandell for the winning kick, and completed Oklahoma's 17-point fourth quarter.

It was the first time the Sooners had beaten a No. 1 team in 19 years. And it happened on a day when initially it looked like they could play another 19 years and never score.

It was renegade journalist/provocateur Hunter S. Thompson who coined the phrase "bad craziness" to describe the insanity of his times. Well, consider Oklahoma 27, Texas 24 good craziness.

But wait, there was more!

There was unranked Kentucky beating No. 10 LSU in overtime on Kenny Minchey's two-point conversion, after the Wildcats missed two field goals in the fourth quarter and finally made one to force overtime with 12 seconds left in regulation. 

There was unranked South Carolina pounding No. 16 Florida 38-19 in the Swamp.

There was Harvard winning on a hook-and-lateral as time expired; UCLA beating Oregon in Eugene; Purdue lumping up Minnesota in West Lafayette; and of course the biggest one of all: No. 2 Georgia beating No. 7 Alabama 20-17 in Tuscaloosa.

Which happened because of one of the worst non-calls ever.

'Bama was driving toward a tying field goal when quarterback Keelon Russell threw deep into the end zone. But before the ball even got there, Georgia safety KJ Bolden raced over and shoved the intended receiver to the ground.

It was so blatant the "Flag" graphic went up on America's TV screens. Except there was no flag, and, while Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer lost his mind on the sideline, Russell was sacked on the next play to essentially end it.

Bad craziness if you were 'Bama. Good craziness if you were Georgia.

And just a normal college football Saturday for the lucky rest of us.

Trapped (and not)

 Indiana, unbeaten and for the most part untried, marched into a sun-washed cauldron of red out there in Nebraska yesterday, and nearly put its shiny 21-game winning streak in the ditch. In front of a bunch of goobers wearing plastic corncobs on their heads, no less.

Meanwhile, in West Lafayette ...

Giddy Minnesota marched into Ross-Ade Stadium under cover of darkness, and did put its 4-1 record in the ditch. The Purdue Boilermakers -- like Pinocchio having suddenly become a real boy -- mashed all that giddy into odd shapes and sizes in a resounding 41-13 romp.

Both of those games were trap games, one more than the other. And you could see 'em both comin' from a mile off.

That was especially true in West Lafayette, where Minnesota likely was still hung over from its big Little Brown Jug takedown of Michigan last week. It was the first time the Golden Gophers had beaten the Wolverines in Minnie in 50 years, and delirium reigned: The fans stormed the field, irrepressible head coach P.J. Fleck crowd-surfed his team in the locker room, and you knew -- you just knew -- the party was going to last all week.

Which made the Gophers prime chumps for the Purdues, who were coming off a huge road win at Illinois and came back home understanding what it takes to win football games in the Big Ten.

It's a Purdue team markedly more talented than last year's sadsacks, with a now-poised quarterback in Ryan Browne and a bunch of hungry transfers on defense and another transfer, Fame Ijeboi, gouging out meaningful yards on the ground. And here came the school he'd transferred from, Minnesota, still pumped full of helium from the week before.

Classic trap game.  And the Gophers done got trapped.

Meanwhile, back in Lincoln, Neb. ...

Here came the seventh-ranked, undefeated defending national champions, a week away from the big clash in Bloomington against Ohio State. And here was an amped-up Memorial Stadium and  an equally amped-up (and equally unbeaten) mob of Nebraska Cornhuskers, who were absolutely laying for them.

And so, for a long time, the home team had Indiana in six kinds of trouble. The Huskers blocked better; they tackled better; they executed with more discipline and more passion. And all the while the cornheads roared and howled and drowned the Hoosiers in a tsunami of sound.

At halftime, the score was 10-3, Nebraska. Then it was 10-6. Then, early in the fourth quarter, it was 17-6, and the cauldron of red filled the world.

 And then ...

And then, Indiana got gnarly. It got gritty. It got as stubborn as its head coach, Curt Cignetti, who'd spent most of the afternoon restlessly pacing the sideline wearing his patented Coach Cig Mask O' Granite.

In the game's last 12 minutes, Josh Hoover finally hit the chunk play he'd been looking for all day, a 75-yard strike to Nick Marsh. Then he found Marsh again for 44 yards and another six, completely suckering the Cornhuskers on fourth-and-1. The defense hunkered down and grew some nasty, and Indiana pulled it out, 20-17.

Cignetti later called it a W for "indomitable will," and maybe it was that. Or maybe it was just the realization the Big One in Bloomington next week wouldn't be big at all if the Hoosiers didn't get it done in Lincoln.

Look. This is not the Indiana of a year ago. Hoover is not Fernando Mendoza. Outside of Marsh and Charlie Becker, the receiver corps is not last year's receiver corps. And the DBs are not last year's DBs, which means if the front seven doesn't bring it every week, opponents are going to dent the scoreboard.

But if Saturday showed us anything at all, it showed us these are still the Cignetti Hoosiers. They will come at you with their jaw stuck out a mile, daring you to take a poke. They will fight you to the last whistle. And many more times than not, they'll be ahead on the scoreboard when that last whistle bleats.

Trap game?

Indiana laughs at your trap game. Minnesota, on the other hand, left the last laugh to Purdue.

Narrative fail

 Ancient truism in the sportswriting biz, and the best comeback to every Joe Fan who ever declared, "You just hate (Joe Fan's team)!":

We don't root for the team. We root for the story.

Which brings us to the best story in baseball this season, until it wasn't.

That would be your Chicago White Sox, who made the postseason after losing 329 games across the previous three seasons, including a modern-day record 121 two summers ago. Last year they went 60-102.

This year: 84-78.

In other words, the 2026 White Sox would have finished an astounding 24 games ahead of the 2025 Pale Hose. So just making the playoffs was the baseball story of the year, and it's not even debatable.

And then ...

And then, the Sox wiped out Houston two straight in the best-of-three wild-card round.

And then ...

And then, they beat their nemesis, the Cleveland Guardians two straight in Cleveland in the ALDS to go back to Chicago needing just one more win in the best-of-five to advance to the ALCS.

And then ...

Ahem.

And then, the Guardians showed why they were the AL Central champs, and the White Sox were not.

They bombed the White Sox 9-3 in Game 3, then bombed them again, 9-5. Last night, back in front of the home crowd, they completed the comeback with a 2-0 win to send the best story in baseball home for the winter.

In those final three games, Cleveland outscored the Sox 20-8. 

That's what those of us in the biz call a "narrative fail." And not just any narrative fail, but a big-time narrative fail.

Ah, well.

Da Man

 Unavoidably, this morning, you think of Da Bearz, of the Superfans, of George Wendt and Joe Mantegna and Chris Farley and his chronic heart attacks. And of Mini Ditka and Regular-Size Ditka, of course.

"So if Dikta went to meet God, who would win?"

"Mini Ditka or Regular-Size Ditka?"

"Regular-Size Ditka."

"Oh, well, then Ditka for sure."

"Ditka."

"Ditka."

"Ditka."

Well, of course, Mike Ditka talked God (or wrestled God) into letting him into heaven. He's Ditka. Heck, even Mini Ditka could beat the stupid Packers with one arm behind his back. You think he couldn't defeat the afterlife?

And so this morning he's probably up there in the Great Hereafter trading punches with Buddy Ryan, that back-stabbing SOB. He's telling Walter Payton to leave him the, um, heck alone, because how many times does a guy have to apologize for letting the Fridge score that touchdown in the Super Bowl?

 He's running up the seam and snatching a football out of the sky, while celestial spectators exclaim "Dang, I didn't know a tight end could do THAT."

Before he was head coach of the Super Bowl Shuffle Bears, see, Mike Ditka was a Bears tight end, which some people tend to forget. Now he's neither, having gone to meet his Maker yesterday at the tender age of 86.

A big piece of whatever makes Chicago, Chicago, went with him. 

In the city of big shoulders he was the big shoulders, a kid from the steel towns of western Pennsylvania who came to represent another closed fist of a town in the Midwest. If Ditka wasn't Chicago -- all sweat stains and elbow grease and no fancy put-on airs -- no one was Chicago. He was Stan Mikita's tough mug and Tony O in goal; Rodman diving six rows into the high-dollar seats chasing a loose ball; Jason Hayward saying whatever he said to the Cubs during the rain delay in Game 7.

He was Harry Caray and the Go-Go Sox and a Chicago 'dog and Rush Street. Lou Malnati's and Lakeshore Drive and the El and the U505 over there at the Museum of Science and Industry. He was all of that.

Of course he'll mainly be remembered as the man who corralled those irrepressible '85 Bears -- Richard Dent and Danimal and Mongo McMichael, and that crazy Yalie Gary Fencik -- and turned them into the real Monsters of the Midway, brutalizing the rest of the league with Ryan's ferocious 46 defense. Except for one lost night in Miami, Jim McMahon and Walter and Refrigerator Perry and that defense destroyed everything in their path that season, finishing it by clowning the New England Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX.

Oh, and that lost night in Miami, when Dan Marino and the Dolphins strapped an inconceivable 38 points on 'em?

A couple of days later Da Bearz recorded Da Super Bowl Shuffle. Talk about big brass ones.

Which gets us around to Ditka again, Da Man who epitomized Da Bearz and everything else. So much so, perhaps, that people do indeed tend to forget he's in the Hall of Fame as a player, and a groundbreaking one at that.

 Before Ditka came snarling out of Pitt, tight ends were basically just a fifth offensive lineman. Theirs was not to reason why; theirs was but to block linebackers and defensive ends.  But then Iron Mike went out and rung up more than 1,000 receiving yards in his rookie year, and tight ends became an offensive weapon forever after.

Oh, and before you ask: It was Regular-Size Ditka who did that.

Not that Mini Ditka couldn't have, of course.

Fed. Up.

 Caitlin Clark is far too savvy a public figure to say what she'd like to say out loud. But she's frankly sick of some of you.

She wishes you would, you know, get bent. Go away. Stop being racist hilljacks bogarting her orbit. Stop wearing her jersey when you go off on stupid rants about how she's the GREATEST WOMEN'S BASKETBALL PLAYER OF ALL TIME and no one appreciates her because she's white and straight and all those black lesbian b*****s are just jealous of her.

Enough. The object of your obsession is fed up with you.

Or so Clark made clear the other day in her end-of-season presser, if in a far more politic way.

"I think as far as people have used me to demonstrate racist rhetoric or hate or discrimination, that's not something I stand for," is how she put it. "That's never been something I've stood for. "

She went on to say other things, too, like how she loves her (black) teammate Kelsey Mitchell, who's apparently caught some racist flack of her own and admitted it's sometimes hard to play for "fans" like that. And how the media-driven "feud" between Clark and Angel Reese is unfiltered BS and needs to stop. And ... and ...

Well. No need to elaborate. It's all stuff Clark has said before, after all, over and over again.

How weary she must be of repeating it.

How weary she must be of constantly tight-roping that fine line between calling out the more deranged members of her cult and expressing her appreciation for the more mentally stable fans who flock to see her.

"I think for the real fans that do show up and do support and do respect, I applaud you," Clark said. "And there are a lot of you, and not just here in Indianapolis. That's across the league."

And as for the Hate-lin Clark crowd?

Go away. Just go away.

How much clearer can she make it?