Today in awesome cheating

 Golf is the gentleman's game, or so we've been told, the only sport other than playground hoops where you call your own fouls and take your punishment like a man (or woman) -- even when the infraction for which you're being penalized looks as silly as kittens on laughing gas to those of us outside the golfing culture.

(I refer here, as I always do, to the time Dustin Johnson was penalized two strokes for grounding his club in a bunker during the U.S. Open, even though the bunker resembled a bunker the way I resemble, say, Jason Momoa. Spectators were actually standing in it, for crying out loud.)

Anyway, cheating in this gentleman's -- or gentlewoman's -- game therefore is regarded as the lowest form of human behavior, punishable by forfeiture of A) your brand-new Callaway driver with the built-in radar function; and B) your entire wardrobe of John Daly Loudmouth golfwear. (The latter being especially cruel.)

On the other hand ...

On the other hand, since golf is such a gentleman/gentlewoman's game, it makes it that much more hilarious when someone cheats as extravagantly as Zach Holland did recently.

Holland, a 2-handicap, was playing in a membership event at WingHaven Golf Club in O'Fallon, Mo., when he decided to fake a hole-in-one. He did via an elaborate scheme that included -- not even kidding -- a mythical phone call from his dead grandmother. 

(Actually, she was only critically ill. But still.)

What happened was, Holland took a cart out to the par-3 fourth hole at WingHaven before his tee time and placed a golf ball in the cup. Then he told the rest of his group he'd go on ahead to the fourth hole after saying he had to take a phone call from his sick grandmother.

When the rest of his group showed up, Holland claimed to have "thinned" his tee shot and didn't see where the ball ended up. Imagine his surprise and delight when he discovered it nestled in the bottom of the cup!

Unfortunately, according to Holland, security cameras caught him driving his cart near the fourth green well before his tee time. Busted.

"There's no excuse for what I did, and I was completely in the wrong," Holland told a local ESPN radio show out of St. Louis, adding that he'd resigned from WingHaven, as well he should have.

But is what he did not a total Carl Spackler "Caddyshack" moment, or what?

Here he is, Zach Holland, Cinderella boy, about to win the Masters ... It's in the hole! It's in the hole ...

Only thing missing was the groovin' gopher.

That Cunningham woman

 Sophie Cunningham is all over social media again, and not because she pointed at someone or said girls sports should be protected from trans women, which is kind of like saying girls sports should be protected from Puff the Magic Dragon, but, OK.

No, sir. This time it's because she got clotheslined by Djonai Carrington of the Chicago Sky, which got Carrington properly ejected with a Flagrant 2 and got all the keyboard  warriors stoking the fires of a racial animus they say is rampant in the WNBA.

It's not, but the warriors' frankly racist narrative -- that clean-cut straight white girls are being targeted for abuse by animalistic black lesbians -- continues to have legs, because never underestimate the staying power of manufactured grievance.

"White privilege," Carrington, who is black, tweeted after her ejection, which of course only stoked this particular fire.

"Black privilege," fired back butt-hurt former swimmer Riley Gaines, who's whiter than Wonder Bread.

Apparently this was Gaines' way of saying, "I can even more ridiculous than you."

Look. I've watched the video of the Carrington foul half a dozen times, and I don't see a deliberate mugging. I see Carrington making an awkward swipe at the ball as Cunningham drove to the rim, and then lowbridging her on the follow-through. I see a reckless and potentially dangerous foul, which was why it drew a Flagrant 2.

This is basically what Fever coach Stephanie White said postgame, for which she of course was vilified by the keyboard crowd because it didn't play into their preferred storyline. According to them, this couldn't simply have been Carrington being Carrington, given she has a reputation for brutal takedowns. This was Carrington punishing Cunningham on behalf of the "woke" WNBA because of her alleged transphobia.

(Which has been overblown, too, by the other side in the culture wars. Just to show they're all off their meds.)

Anyway, according to the keyword crowd, Carrington was Luca Brasi and the league was the Godfather, sending her out to take care of the "problem." Riiiight.

Rational deduction quickly laughs this scenario out of the room, even if rationality has fallen out of favor these days. Regardless, its message remains: Carrington has an established rep as a dirty player, and Cunningham isn't exactly a shrinking violet herself. Last week she caught an elbow to the jaw because she was aggressively bodying an opponent looking to make a pass; last season, of course, she did this to Jacy Sheldon of the Connecticut Sun.

So: One clothesline vs. one out-and-out tackle. Seems like a tit-for-tat cheapshot tie to me.

Of course, I don't have an agenda to sell. 

Beware the machines

 The first time I saw one of those Waymo self-driving cars it freaked me out.

We were in San Francisco and an old friend of my wife's was showing us around -- he lives in Berkeley, just across the water -- and suddenly this car went past and THERE WAS NOBODY IN IT.

"Yah!" I said, or something like it. "Now that is creepy."

My wife's friend chuckled.

"It's the future, Ben," he joked.

"I don't care," I replied. "It's still creepy."

And I stand by that judgment, stubborn codger that I am.

I especially stand by it now that Kyle Shanahan has revealed his Tesla was in autopilot mode -- not exactly the same thing as Waymo, but close enough -- when he caused an accident that (as former Indiana football coach Bill Mallory used to say) boogered him up considerable.

Wound up with a serious concussion, a broken hand, a broken nose, three broken ribs and 40 stitches in his face. Damn near lost an eye, too.

Shanahan said his phone slid off his leg and he took his eyes off the road to look for it, never a winning move in a motor vehicle. This week he added the autopilot detail.

"See?" my inner stubborn codger said. "You can't trust the machines. Doesn't anyone remember how Skynet created the Terminators?"

"Oh, come on," you're saying now. "That was just a movie. Movies aren't real. If they were, 5-foot-7 Tom Cruise and 74-year-old Liam Neeson would be indestructible action heroes."

Well, maybe. But I still don't trust the machines. 

When I'm in a car, I want my hands on the wheel, not some invisible AI Mario Andretti. That's because you'd never know when Mario was going to morph into Fender Bender McGee or someone.

What an epitaph that would be: "He Lived. He Died. He Let An AI Whittington Brother Drive."

No way, baby. I'm not getting a Tesla with an autopilot feature, and not because it boogered up Kyle Shanahan. And I'm for sure not climbing into a Waymo taxi -- yes, they have Waymo taxis now -- unless I'm either unconscious or heavily sedated.

"Where to, buddy?" my invisible taxi driver would say.

And then he'd turn around, and it would be Arnold at the end of the first Terminator, with all his skin worn away and one angry red eye glaring at me.

"Yah!" I'd shout.

If the heart attack didn't get me first.

No-brainer

 There was no way Drew Brees was ever going to wind up in Canton, until there was no way he wasn't. You want to sum up a guy's journey in a single sentence, that would be it.

He was too short and he didn't have a rocket launcher for an arm, and that was before he blew up his shoulder and the San Diego Chargers shipped him off to New Orleans like a sprung couch. Set him out by the curb for the Salvation Army to pick up, and that was the last anyone would hear of him.

Except.

Except now we're 25 years down the road from all that, and, hey, look who's in Canton today. The sprung couch is about to go into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and rarely has there been more of a no-brainer than that. 

Twenty years in the league, a Super Bowl MVP and 13 Pro Bowls will do that for a guy. More than 80,000 passing yards, 571 touchdowns and a ridiculous 67.7 completion rate will. And being the heart and soul and light in the night for a wrecked city after Katrina took N'awlins down to the studs?

Well, that'll do it, too.

Not a bad deal for a guy who came out of Purdue as its latest Bob Griese/Mike Phipps/Jim Everett, only a miniature version of same. Yes, he blew away every passing record Purdue and the Big Ten had, but the tape measure stubbornly refused to declare him more than a smidge over six feet even. And then there was the arm strength thing. And then ...

And then, he languished into the second round of the NFL Draft before the Chargers said "Ah, what the hell" and snatched him up.

Those of us who watched him light up Ross-Ade Stadium for four years couldn't figure it out. Yes, he was short -- at 6-1, I'd never interviewed a major-college quarterback shorter than I was until I met Brees -- but, good lord, and holy gee, besides. Did the draft gurus not see what we saw?

Did they not see Brees-to-Morales for six?

Because the Purdue faithful will always see it, and not just because it beat Ohio State to all but seal the Boilermakers' first trip to the Rose Bowl in 34 years. Brees-to-Morales for six was, for those of us who were there, the first time you could see him in Canton some day.

It wasn't just that it was the knockout blow in a knock-down, drag-out hammerfest between the Big Ten's two heavyweights that year. It was because Drew Brees kept passing Purdue into the lead and then passing the Boilers out of it with four picks -- the last a Mike Doss interception that set up OSU's go-ahead score with a bit over two minutes left.

A couple plays later, with Ross-Ade one giant held breath and all the pressure of a pressurized afternoon bearing down hard, Brees took the snap 64 yards from the end one and dropped back.

He looked at Vinny Sutherland.

He looked at Tim Stratton.

And then, finally, he looked at Seth Morales free and clear downfield, and launched a perfect strike that won it for the Purdues once and for all.

"It wasn't designed to go to me," Morales said later. "Drew looked at Vinny, and he looked at Stratton, and he just came to me."

So it was a third-read touchdown at the biggest moment of an impossibly big day. And a revealing look into why Drew Brees is going into Canton today.

Because he was cooler than Arctic winter when nothing less would do.

Because when the heat was hottest, Mr. Cool went through his progressions like a man studying a bus schedule.

Because if the pros wrinkled their fussy beaks over his arm strength or lack thereof, they missed something else: That Brees' arm was more laser than rocket launcher, capable of throwing a football through a keyhole from ... well, from 64 yards away.

That's why they'll unveil his bust and slip the yellow jacket on him today. And that's why "Well, duh," is the only proper response to that.

Oopsie

 Look, I'm not here this morning to make fun of Tommy McClelland, Purdue's new athletic director. The poor guy came to West Lafayette from Rice. I hear lots of stuff hasn't gotten down there yet.

But ye gods, what a Florsheim insertion into mouth yesterday. You wanna come in swingin' at your fiercest rival in your introductory appearance -- especially when you're coming to a school that could use that sort of feistiness -- at least land a glancing blow. And have, you know, at least a nodding acquaintance with timing.

Here's what Tommy said, which has everyone from Valparaiso to Rising Sun guffawing today (but not me!): "We are here to win championships. If you don't want to win championships, go to Indiana."

Which, of course, just won the only championship that really matters, going 16-0 and beating everybody in the College Football Playoff.

Now, if the Blob were inclined to make fun here (and, really, I'm not!), it would point out what a lot of the online snarkmeisters were pointing out, which is that Indiana has won 24 NCAA titles over the years to Purdue's, um, five. And in the two biggies -- football and men's basketball -- the score is IU 6, Purdue 0.

Conference championships?

OK, there McClelland's on firmer ground. The Boilermakers have won or shared 83 Big Ten titles across the years, including 25 in men's basketball and eight in football. Indiana has won 22 and two-and-a-half in the Big Two, respectively. So neener-neener-neener, Hoosiers.

Also, good news for McClelland, who now has a handy escape hatch for yesterday's oopsie -- which at least one mean IU fan called "the most Purdue thing ever."

Wait, you thought I meant NATIONAL championships? you can hear McClelland saying. Oh, HELL, no. I meant we're here to win BIG TEN championships. Which we have more of in football and men's buckets than Indiana, by the way. So neener-neener-neener.

That would work, right?

Um, riiiight?

American echoes

 "It wasn't long before the attacks (on Irish-Catholics) began. The ranks of the Know-Nothings swelled. What was happening to the United States was a conquest, they claimed, indirect and unplanned, by foreign hordes, unknowing of our ways, with foreign values."

-- Timothy Egan, "The Immortal Irishman", of the Irish-Catholic diaspora of the 1840s

"It's not racist to say you don't want Muslims in America."

-- Current Vice-President JD Vance, not a Know-Nothing as far we, well, know

Someone smarter than most of us once said history doesn't so much repeat as reverberate. Its echoes tumble down the years from one age to the next, fetching up in the present with only the details altered, not the substance.

(And, yes, we're taking a drive outside the Sportsball compound again. Standard protocols apply.)

Which brings us to the two quotations above.

The first, as noted, takes us back to the 1840s, when a political movement grounded in anti-Catholic hysteria decided the Irish fleeing the Great Famine were militant Papists whose goal was not the opportunity America presented for a better life, but its subjugation to Rome.  If the "invasion" of Irish-Catholics was not checked, the Know-Nothings warned, soon all of America would be bowing to the Pope.

And the second quotation?

It advances a theme every bit as hysterical: That Muslims in America are militant Islamists whose goal is not the opportunity America presents for a better life, but its subjugation to Mohammed. If the "invasion" of Muslims is not checked, JD Vance and his ilk warn, soon all of America will be bowing to the mullahs.

In both cases, the assumptions are identical. Roman Catholics/Muslims aren't really Americans; they don't share our common values; they are incompatible with our culture. Or as Egan went on to write of the Know-Nothings' warnings: "No country on earth had tried to form a common bond without common ancestry -- it could not be done. And America was not by design a haven for the world's rejects ..."

At which point the echoes of  1840s America become thunderous. It's as if the anti-Muslim bigots -- no, not racists, but certainly bigots -- are following the Know-Nothings' script word-for-word.

Everything changes and nothing changes, in other words. The fear and loathing that has greeted almost every succeeding immigrant wave from the Irish onward employs the same weary rhetoric, advances the same weary ideology, fuels itself with the same weary ignorance.

And we should be weary of all of it -- or at least recognize it as the divide-and-conquer boogaloo charlatans and scoundrels have employed to hold onto power since the beginning of time.

Speaking of which, let's go back to JD Vance echoing what a lot of his fellow travelers have been saying out loud: That Islam is fundamentally incompatible with American "culture" (despite the fact our "culture" is not one but many), and therefore its followers should be cast out of the country no matter what the Constitution says.

The great irony, of course, is that's exactly the sort of religious bigotry that drove the Pilgrims to our shores to begin what we now call America.  And the other irony?

That JD Vance would so perfectly echo the old Know-Nothings.

Because JD Vance, you see, is Roman Catholic.

Karma sighting

 Your Chicago Cubs took care of the Los Angeles Dodgers yesterday, 7-6, completing a three-game sweep of the Trolley Dodgers in Wrigley Field. Even beat L.A.'s shiny new toy, Tarik Skubal,  by a 5-1 count on Tuesday.

The sweep extended L.A.'s current spiral to six straight Ls, which makes the Blob wonder something now that everyone's saying how unfair it is that the back-to-back World Series champs, already shamefully loaded, were able to pluck a two-time Cy Young winner (Skubal) before the trade deadline.

What I'm wondering is this: Is the Dodgers' six-game skid karma? Or something like it?

Because no  one likes an overdog. And you have to figure the baseball gods don't, either.

Random thought for today.