A parting's sweet sorrow

 It appears obvious now the Anthony Richardson Experiment in Indianapolis is done like dinner, with word coming down yesterday that the Colts were not picking up his option for 2027. And if you have any sort of beating heart at all, you should feel something about that.

Sadness, certainly. Pity for a lovely young man. The disappointment of high hopes gone to ash. 

Anger?

Well, yes. That, too.

Anger, first and foremost, that the Colts took a flier on a grass-green prospect of un-surpassing athleticism, and then basically said, "OK, kid, play." Richardson was still just 20 years old at the time, and he'd started just 13 games in college. He likely was still humming his high school's fight song when the Colts plucked him with the fourth pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.

And yet ...

And yet, two weeks into his first NFL training camp, they named him their starting quarterback.

This was insane on its face; the kid was nowhere near ready to be a QB1 in the NFL, and anyone with a working porch light should have known it. And so, as night follows day, we all know what happened next.

He failed.

In 17 starts across three seasons, he threw 11 touchdowns with 13 interceptions, and completed a touch over half his throws in a league where 65 percent or so is the benchmark. He got hurt, over and over, trying to do the sort of things against grown-ass men he did against high school and college kids. As the Colts' starter in 2023 and '24, he missed 17 games; last season he languished on injured reserve after sustaining an orbital fracture in a bizarre pregame mishap involving a resistance band.

By that time, however, it was becoming unnervingly obvious that he might not The Guy the Colts drafted him to be. His immaturity became an issue, because -- hello -- how could it not have been? It culminated when he took himself out of the game to "catch his breath" during a potential winning drive.

He got roasted for that by all the social media brainiacs, and the brainiacs actually had a valid point for once. On the other hand, who handed Richardson the reins -- and the truckload of responsibilities that come with it -- in the first place?

Hint: It wasn't AR.

It was Chris Ballard, Shane Steichen and the rest of  'em, who kept trying to clean up the mess they'd made until they couldn't. So they brought in Daniel Jones, and Jones won the starting job, and then the eye thing happened, and suddenly Richardson was third on the depth chart behind Jones and Riley Leonard out of Notre Dame.

And now, perhaps not even that.

Parting is such sweet sorrow, the bard told us. And all the people in their Horseshoe Blue said, "Amen."

Derby time!

The 152nd Kentucky Derby goes off tomorrow down at Churchill Downs, and, sadly, once again My Friend Flicka is not among the favorites. Neither is National Velvet, Mr. Ed or his smart-aleck son Mr. Ted, who mouthed off one too many times and wound up holding together some second-grader's art project.

"Oh, nice, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "Don't you think it's time to come up with some new material? You make the same jokes every year."

You mean the one about all the women wearing hats designed by Frank Lloyd Wright?

"Yes," you're saying, through gritted teeth.

The one about how the Derby field is always three or four actual horses and 16 cans of Alpo?

"(Grumble)."

The one about how mint juleps are just Robitussin in a fancy glass? Or how the Twin Spires are great because, look, there's two of 'em? Or how "My Old Kentucky Home" has got nothin' on Dan Fogelberg's "Run For The Roses"?

"Oh, great, let's not leave THOSE out," you're saying.

Wouldn't think of it. Also wouldn't think of failing to mention (again!) how much I love everything about the Derby, even though I've never been and the only thing I know about horses is they have something called a fetlock and something else called withers, which I think once wrote a song called "Ain't No Sunshine."

"Aaaand here comes the Bill Withers joke," you're saying, rolling your eyes.

Anyway ...

Anyway, it's time for another hardy perennial, Derby Advice From A Guy Who Doesn't Know Anything About Horses, Except That Sometimes They "Walk The Shedrow," Whatever That Is:

* The Derby favorite as of this morning is a horse named Renegade, but don't put your money on his nose. This is because the betting favorite hardly ever wins the Derby, and also because Renegade drew the inside post position. Which is kind of like starting 33rd in the Indianapolis 500.

* There's a Japanese horse in the Derby this year, but don't drop your coin on him, either. Not only is he a 20-1 shot as of this morning, he's a Japanese horse. Japanese horses are mutts in the Derbo; ten horses bred there have run the Run for the Roses, and only one has finished better than fifth.

However, this one does have a cool name: Danon Bourbon. No, I don't know what it means. But if you're one of those carefree souls who bet on horses' names, have at it. Hey, it's not my money.

* Speaking of foreign horses, you know who was the last Derby winner to be bred outside North America? Tomy Lee, way back in 1959. I don't know squadoosh about him, either, but you might win a bar bet with that nugget.

* And speaking of mutts ...

As of this morning, there are three 50-1 shots in the Derby field: Six Speed, Great White and the Blob's personal favorite, Ocelli.

Ocelli drew the 20th and last post position, which means he basically starts the race across the river in Jeffersonville. He's winless in six starts, but he does have D. Whitworth Beckman as his trainer.

Now, I don't know anything about D. Whitworth Beckman, which is no surprise. But he sounds like one of those crusty old guys in British horse movies who wears a lot tweed, smokes a pipe and goes around snarling at people to keep their hands off the horse, laddie.

(Alas, my imagination fails me again. D. Whitworth Beckman is actually a local. Grew up in Louisville. And he's only 43 years old.)

And last but not least ... 

* Your Derby pick.

I'm going with a horse named So Happy.

So Happy is a 15-1 shot right now, but at least he's not starting from the No. 1 or No. 20 post position. He's also not starting from the No. 2 post (no Derby winners since Affirmed in 1978); the No. 9 post (last Derby winner, Riva Ridge in 1972); the No. 12 post (Canonero II, 1971); the No. 14 post (Carry Back, 1961); and the No. 17 post, from which no Derby winner has ever started.

No, So Happy starts from the No. 7 hole, and he's got a poignant back-story. Not only was he a bargain buy -- he initially went for just $14,000 at auction -- he's trained by Mark Glatt, who's got a horse in the Derby for the first time at the age of 53. It would be a joyous occasion for him had he not lost his beloved wife Dena in February.

Taking So Happy to the gate will be jockey Mike Smith, who has his own story. Officially he's listed as 60 years old, but Smith keeps insisting he's only 59. So you've got a horse purchased on the cheap, a first-time Derby trainer weighed down by grief, and a jock who's either 59, 60 or, hell, who really knows.

That gets my money.

Two bucks on So Happy to win. I'm goin' all in.

Hoosier hysteria

 The Indiana High School Athletic Association is weighing an NIL proposal for its high school athletes, and, boy, howdy. You know what that means, boys and girls.

"The end of days?" you're saying now. "Lakes of fire, rivers running backward, dogs and cats living together?"

Well ... no.

But you can't help imagining all of that, as Hoosier Hysteria becomes simply hysteria in some corners of our fair state.

What if the parents of the kid who gets cut from the team sues the coach for restraint of trade?

What if South Northwest Podunk High sues Big Suburban Moneybags High for stealing its 6-9 center with a chunkier endorsement deal?

What if the parents of the current Big Suburban Moneybags High center sues the school for lost wages, because the 6-9 move-in now has their Johnny's former endorsement deal?

Sound, well, hysterical?

Maybe. But any and all of the above could happen. Although a lot of it probably won't.

That seems to be the way these seismic events tend to unspool, with the hand-wringers' worst-case scenarios making only sporadic appearances. Will there be lawsuits? Well, yes, because this is America, and in America everyone sues everyone for everything. Also there already have been lawsuits here and there (emphasis on "here and there") in a lot of the other states that have adopted high school NIL.

Which is almost of them.

As of the turn of the year, 45 states plus the District of Columbia have some form of Name, Image and Likeness at the high school level. Indiana is one of the five that doesn't, which figures. We are, after all, the stubborn coot of states, forever coming around last; we're so notorious for it, in fact, the state seal should include the aforementioned coot shaking his liver-spotted fist and shouting at a too-modern-looking cloud.

Me?

I just wonder WWOD. Or what WWDD. Or WWRMD.

As in: What Would Oscar Do, and What Would Damon Do, and What Would Rick Mount Do. Or George McGinnis, Jay Edwards, Shawn Kemp, Glenn Robinson, any number of others.

Bobby Plump has made a career out of hitting that mid-range jumper for Milan back in 1954; he even has a restaurant named Plump's Last Shot. But he didn't open it in high school. If NIL had been around, he could have -- or at least lent his image to it for a handsome fee.

Damon Bailey?

Shoo. There's already a monument to him in his hometown of Heltonville, and John Feinstein made him famous -- as an eighth-grader -- in "A Season on the Brink." By the time he took Bedford North Lawrence to the state finals as a freshman, everyone in the state had heard of him. Heck, he was so famous he could have opened his own rib joint.

(Ha-ha, just kidding. I know the Damon's Grill chain wasn't named for Damon Bailey. Or at least I don't think so.)

Oscar Robertson, meanwhile, is only the greatest basketball player ever to come out of our basketball state, unless it's Larry Bird.  And Rick Mount was the first high school athlete ever to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated. Think they couldn't have made some NIL jack?

As for the others ...

Well, Glenn Robinson actually had a nickname: The Big Dog. He could have been the public face  -- again, for a handsome fee -- of a chain of dog-grooming places called Big Dog's Daring 'Do's. How perfect is that?

"Umm ... not very?" you're saying now.

OK. But you get the gist, right? 

The point is, the possibilities are endless, and not just in basketball. Just now, for instance, I'm remembering Indiana football legend Jade Butcher, who, before he starred for IU's first Rose Bowl team, was a hometown high school legend at Bloomington High School. Imagine what sort of NIL deal he could have landed as the public face of a rare gem shop?

Hi, I'm Jade Butcher from Bloomington High, and welcome to Jade's House of Jade ...

Great, right?

Um, right? 

March Mediocrity

 Word out of college basketball today is the NCAA is about to expand its cash-cow men's and women's basketball tournaments to 76 teams, and, oh, goody. I can't wait.

I can't wait to see eight play-in games instead of four, which is the current plan for the expanded tournaments. I can't wait to see, on the women's side, Geno Auriemma pound a couple more teams 70-12 in the early rounds. 

Now, I'm sure there are folks out there who think this wouldn't be such a bad deal. More March Madness is more March Madness, right? Especially if it means more of those fan-favorite Power 4 mids get in. 

Which of course is what this is all about.

It certainly isn't about the Ivy League, the Patriot League or the MEAC getting another team or two into March Madness, even if that team goes 27-2 and then stubs its toe in the conference tournament. Oh, hell, no. Let 'em continue to eat NIT cake, the posers.

No, this is so the selection committee can wedge even more Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12 teams into the show, whether or not they deserve to be there. The Power 4 poobahs -- most notably Greg Sankey from the SEC -- have been bitching and moaning 'til hell won't have it about how these small-conference automatic bids deprive some of their back-marker schools from getting in. It just tain't fair.

 "We are giving away highly competitive opportunities for automatic qualifiers (from smaller leagues), and I think that pressure is going to rise as we have more competitive basketball leagues at the top end because of (conference) expansion ..." Sankey said in 2024.

This was right before his conference got a record 14 teams into last year's NCAA Tournament.

Fourteen teams! And I bet some of 'em actually breached the .500 mark in conference play.

The SEC put 10 teams into the Madness this time around, leaving out the likes of Auburn (7-11 in conference) and Oklahoma (ditto). Add another eight teams to the pile, and they'd have likely gotten in. 

Ditto the Big Ten, which was represented by nine teams but left Indiana (9-11 in conference), Minnesota (8-12) and USC (7-13) curbside. Again, add eight more teams, and at least two of those might have squeezed through the door.

The ACC? Eight teams this year, including an SMU squad that went 8-10 in conference. 

Big 12? Also eight teams, including Central Florida, BYU and Baylor, which finished a combined 24-30 in conference play.

To reiterate: Oh, goody.

Look. The Blob has been shouting this to the heavens until it's blue in the face, which is nothing anyone needs to see: The first two days of March Madness are what sell the whole deal, and no one's tuning into them to see some crud Big 12 school play some crud SEC school in that riveting 8-9 matchup. No, sir. They're tuning in to see, I don't know, Hofstra take down North Carolina or some such thing. 

The little guys are the heartbeat of the Madness. So now we're going to add eight more Power 4 cruds to the mix? How does this do anything but let the Power 4s stuff even more cash in their already bulging pockets?

It certainly doesn't make the tournament more attractive. Or maybe adding even more March Mediocrity to March Madness is some genius-level strategy mere mortals fail to grasp.

Nah.

Journalist to the rescue

 I once saw a local media goober cut the line to get a selfie with Muhammad Ali.

The Greatest was in town for a Fort Wayne Komets hockey game, and also to meet with a bunch of kids with cancer. Local media was prevented from interviewing him -- his Parkinson's was quite advanced by then -- but we were invited to his suite in the arena to watch him interact with the kids.

One by one they queued up to meet the champ and pose with him for photos, as if Ali (who loved kids like no one else) were some sort of fistic Santa Claus. It was a sweet scene.

Until.

Until the aforementioned goober metaphorically shoved the cancer kids out of the way so he, too, could have his moment with Ali. The rest of us (and by "rest of us," I mean the other media goobers in attendance) were appalled. Like the world doesn't already think we're a bunch of lowlife hotdog-munching slobs?

"Thanks a lot, dip(bleep)," we said. Or at least thought.

Why do I bring this up?

Because the other night in Cleveland, a home run sailed into the stands, and a guy tried to grab it. Instead, he muffed it, and it rolled to a stop at the feet of a young girl. Who of course reached down to pick it up.

After which the guy who dropped -- a grown man, for God's sake -- leaped forward to wrestle it away from her. Stole candy from a baby, so to speak.

The home broadcast team said nothing. The broadcast team for the visiting Tampa Bay Rays, on the other hand, called the guy out on the air, as well they should have.

That wasn't the best part of this, however.

The best part was another guy named Ryan Bass took another baseball down to the where the girl and her family were sitting, and presented it to her. Then he posed for a selfie with them.

Ryan Bass is a Tampa-area TV broadcaster, podcaster and digital and print beat writer who covers the Rays for Otter PR. So score one for the hotdog-munching slobs.

Who frankly need the kudos these days, given that the current Regime and its acolytes despise the free press, verbally abuse any of its members who have the temerity to do their jobs, and banish any media from its presence who aren't bootlicks for said Regime. It's all straight out of that well-worn playbook, Tips For The Successful Autocrat.

Well, neener-neener-neener on them. This time, it was a journalist to the rescue.

Hooray for us.

History obscura

 Remember, on this Monday morning, the alliterative name Sabastian Sawe, because Sunday he did something no man, woman or child had ever done before. Remember, too, the name Yomif Kejelcha, who may have done something even more amazing.

What Sabastian Sawe did, on a flat course on a perfect dry day, was become the first human in history to run an official marathon in less than two hours. 

And Yomif Kejelcha?

He became the second human in history to run an official marathon in less than two hours -- and in his very first try.

Sawe won the London Marathon in one hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds. Sixteen seconds later Kejelcha -- running in his first marathon -- crossed the finish line in one hour, 59 minutes, 46 seconds.

Sawe is from Kenya, ancestral home of distance runners since the days of Kip Keino almost 60 years ago. Kejelcha is from Ethiopia, second ancestral home of distance runners since the days of Abebe Bikila and Mamo Wolde, who won the marathon in three straight Olympics.

Wolde won in Mexico City in 1968. Bikila, the father of Ethiopian distance running, won it back-to-back in Rome and Tokyo in 1960 and '64. In Rome, he won it running barefoot.

All this, or at least Sawe and Kejelcha's historic achievement, you might have seen on the network news last evening, or perhaps even in your local paper. Where you didn't see it was on the lead page of  ESPN's website -- where it was inexplicably, and conspicuously, absent.

Lots of NFL post-draft stuff was there, of course. NBA and NHL playoff coverage and highlights. Also baseball; WNBA fantasy news; NWSL soccer; Nelly Korda going wire-to-wire to win her third LPGA major at the Chevron Championship; UFL football and NASCAR.

Heck. There was even a clip on there of Gettysburg College scoring a spectacular last-second goal in men's lacrosse.

But no Sawe. No Kejelcha. History obscura, so to speak.

Now, to be fair, you could find the Sawe/Kejelcha story on ESPN's site. But it was buried on the Olympic sports page, along with news about Chelsea Clinton running the Boston Marathon for the first time. And I suppose it's possible it was at one time on the lead page -- but by 7 a.m. this morning it was already gone, while every other sporting event from Sunday was still present and accounted for.

Doesn't seem right. Just doesn't.

Cautionary tale

 Diego Pavia's phone never buzzed this week, or whatever it is phones do these days. Not on Thursday. Not on Friday. Not even on Saturday, when the last name called in the 2026 NFL Draft was a linebacker from Buffalo named Red Murdock.

That made Murdock this year's Mr. Irrelevant, a title more coveted than it probably should be.

And Vanderbilt's Pavia?

Well, what do you call a Heisman Trophy runnerup who doesn't get drafted at all, and in the hours after the draft ended didn't even get an invite -- not from a single one out of 32 NFL teams -- as an undrafted free agent?

I don't know. Mr. Cautionary Tale, maybe?

Because, listen, it's not just that Pavia is a quarterback who tops out at 5-10 and 198 pounds. It's that Pavia is a quarterback who tops out at 5-10 and 198 pounds, and has a definite Johnny Manziel vibe to him.

Remember him? Johnny Football? The guy who beat Alabama, won the Heisman Trophy as a freshman, and loved to make that money-money-money gesture with his fingers every time he pulled a rabbit out of a hat at Texas A&M?

Manziel got drafted by the Cleveland Browns, where flashy QBs regularly go to become insurance salesmen. The Browns ruin quarterbacks the way most of us eat ice cream. Except in Manziel's case, he kinda did that to himself.

First of all, he wasn't as good as his hype.

Second of all, his hype was, if not entirely manufactured by Manziel himself, at least aided and abetted by him. Self-absorption practically rolled off him in waves, which is why he regularly wound up embroiled in off-the-field ... situations. Hey, he was Johnny Football, dammit. Why couldn't he (fill in off-the-field situation here)?

It only took the Browns two seasons to grow weary of all that. That's the same amount of time it took everyone else in the NFL to grow weary of  him, and also to realize he just wasn't very good. Which is why no one else signed him.

 He wound up playing in the CFL for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Montreal Alouettes, before the CFL kicked him out for violating the terms of his contract. After that he played briefly for some team called the Memphis Express in something called the Alliance of American Football, and later for some team called the Zappers in something called Fan-Controlled Football.

Now, I have no idea if Diego Pavia's career path will track that way. But if Johnny Football is his cautionary tale, Diego Pavia is Cautionary Tale 2.0 -- i.e., "How to guarantee you won't get taken in the NFL Draft."

It wasn't that he couldn't play; like Manziel at A&M, the guy beat Alabama, and he also beat Auburn three times. Vandy went 10-3 last season, with Pavia throwing for 3,539 yards and 29 touchdowns and running for 862 yards and 10 more sixes.

And did it all with, um, let's be polite and call it "swagger." A LOT of swagger.

After beating Auburn for the third time, for instance, he hinted that maybe Auburn coach Hugh Freeze might have fared better against him if Freeze had recruited him.

He also openly campaigned for the Heisman Trophy -- and, when he was beaten out by Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza, he went on social media and posted "(Bleep) all the voters", then partied at a New York nightclub under a sign that read "(Bleep) Indiana."

He later apologized, but the damage was done. NFL teams are almost comically terrified of potential distractions, especially among quarterbacks. And everything about Pavia screamed potential distraction -- even the fact he didn't find it necessary to hire an agent.

Everything about him screamed Johnny Football, in other words.

And thus, for three days, his phone didn't scream at all.