And now this season's final edition, probably, of The NFL In So Many Words, the endlessly self-derivative Blob feature of which critics have said "What do you mean 'probably'?", and also "Oh, nice! 'Probably!' Curse you with ampersands, hashmarks and other stand-ins for non-FCC approved swear words":
1. The Colts!
2. Also, the Colts!
3. And don't forget, THE COLTS!
4. In other news, the Bears!
5. (See Nos. 2 and 3 above)
6. "Aieee! It's Nick Foles!"
7. (Everyone in the NFC playoffs, allegedly, now that the Eagles are in and Foles is running the offense again.)
8. Hey, look! The Lions placekicker, ol' what's-his-face, just threw a touchdown pass!
9. "Big deal. I coulda done that, too, if Griese had worked with me a little. Selfish ampersand hashmark." (Garo Yepremian)
10. "Oh, no! The Colts!" (The Houston Texans)
Monday, December 31, 2018
Sunday, December 30, 2018
A brief cautionary tale
Word out of Nashville this a.m. is that Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota will sit out today's showdown game with the Colts, which no doubt will gladden the hearts of Horsie Nation. Without Mariota, after all, the Titans will have to go with Blaine Gabbert, and that cracks open the door to the playoffs just a tad wider.
The Blob has two words to say about this:
Billy.
Volek.
Who, back in 2008, came off the San Diego Chargers' bench in the fourth quarter of a playoff game in Indianapolis after Philip Rivers limped off with an injury. The Chargers were down 24-21 to Peyton Manning and the Colts and were without star running back LaDainian Tomlinson. The old Hoosier Dome was rocking. And here came a guy who'd played his college ball at Fresno State and who, in five NFL seasons, was just 3-7 as a starter.
So what happened?
He completed one pass. He completed another. Then he completed another, and pretty soon the Chargers were at the 1-yard line, and shortly thereafter Volek was sneaking it in for the winning score in a 28-24 upset of the Colts.
Volek was 3-of-4 passing for 48 yards on the drive. He never played in another playoff game. In 2011, he retired after playing just 39 games in nine NFL seasons.
In other words ... don't celebrate yet, folks. The Titans could still Volek this up.
The Blob has two words to say about this:
Billy.
Volek.
Who, back in 2008, came off the San Diego Chargers' bench in the fourth quarter of a playoff game in Indianapolis after Philip Rivers limped off with an injury. The Chargers were down 24-21 to Peyton Manning and the Colts and were without star running back LaDainian Tomlinson. The old Hoosier Dome was rocking. And here came a guy who'd played his college ball at Fresno State and who, in five NFL seasons, was just 3-7 as a starter.
So what happened?
He completed one pass. He completed another. Then he completed another, and pretty soon the Chargers were at the 1-yard line, and shortly thereafter Volek was sneaking it in for the winning score in a 28-24 upset of the Colts.
Volek was 3-of-4 passing for 48 yards on the drive. He never played in another playoff game. In 2011, he retired after playing just 39 games in nine NFL seasons.
In other words ... don't celebrate yet, folks. The Titans could still Volek this up.
Same story. Different day.
Well. At least the damn leprechauns have gone back where they came from.
They tried their best to pull the Blob into their fantasies, to make it believe Notre Dame had a chance when reason and logic screamed otherwise. Everyone knew what was going to happen, and of course it happened. But you can't sell a great big neon football game by admitting that.
And so, yes, for the briefest of moments, the Blob was tempted to ignore the obvious by those charged with selling those great big neon football games. For the briefest of moments.
But along about the time Dabo Swinney took his foot off the gas in last night's Cotton Bowl, that moment was long gone. Clemson won laughing, and how could we have ever thought otherwise? The final was 30-3, a counterfeit construct itself. When Swinney began sending in the scrubeenies after it got to 30-3, the truth was out there: The Clemsons could have named their score, but chose not to.
And Notre Dame?
The Irish had a fine year.
They were a better football team than the one that got rolled by Alabama back in the first blush of 2013.
But the Clemsons and the Alabamas and their ilk remain on a different level.
That's why everyone rolling out the E-word -- "exposed" -- in the wake of 30-3 are wrong, because to say the Irish were exposed implies that they were masquerading as something most people knew they were not. They were not Clemson or Alabama, or probably Oklahoma, which at least dropped 34 on 'Bama in a similarly predictable losing effort in the other national semifinal. And neither were they Georgia, an actual top four team which missed the playoffs because of one brain-cramp Saturday in Baton Rouge.
That was made abundantly obvious last night. But it was frankly obvious before that.
This is not to begrudge the Irish their place in the playoff; they earned that by going 12-0, and looking damn good doing it much of the time. And they did it against a schedule that, in a normal year, was as representative as anyone's.
In a normal year, a schedule that included a Michigan, a Stanford, a USC, a Florida State and a Syracuse is no less daunting than a schedule that included a Furman or a Citadel, as Clemson's and Alabama's did this year. Unfortunately, this was not a normal year for a lot of the traditional powers on Notre Dame's schedule -- a circumstance for which no one can blame Notre Dame.
Fact is, they played everyone who was put in front of them and beat them. Georgia did not, Ohio State did not, Michigan did not. Central Florida did, for the second straight year, but given a choice, who was more unbeaten? A school that beat Michigans and Stanfords, or a school that beat South Floridas and Temples?
And so the Irish got in, and the Irish went down, as expected. And Oklahoma went down, as expected. And the two best teams in the country will play for the national title, which is how it's all supposed to work out.
You can argue forever whether or not Notre Dame or Oklahoma deserved to be in the playoff. You can argue that the results last night suggest the playoff should be expanded to eight teams, a much better argument. But the plain truth is, the two best teams won, and they remain head-and-shoulders above everyone else.
In or out of the playoff. Worthy or unworthy. Exposed or not exposed.
They tried their best to pull the Blob into their fantasies, to make it believe Notre Dame had a chance when reason and logic screamed otherwise. Everyone knew what was going to happen, and of course it happened. But you can't sell a great big neon football game by admitting that.
And so, yes, for the briefest of moments, the Blob was tempted to ignore the obvious by those charged with selling those great big neon football games. For the briefest of moments.
But along about the time Dabo Swinney took his foot off the gas in last night's Cotton Bowl, that moment was long gone. Clemson won laughing, and how could we have ever thought otherwise? The final was 30-3, a counterfeit construct itself. When Swinney began sending in the scrubeenies after it got to 30-3, the truth was out there: The Clemsons could have named their score, but chose not to.
And Notre Dame?
The Irish had a fine year.
They were a better football team than the one that got rolled by Alabama back in the first blush of 2013.
But the Clemsons and the Alabamas and their ilk remain on a different level.
That's why everyone rolling out the E-word -- "exposed" -- in the wake of 30-3 are wrong, because to say the Irish were exposed implies that they were masquerading as something most people knew they were not. They were not Clemson or Alabama, or probably Oklahoma, which at least dropped 34 on 'Bama in a similarly predictable losing effort in the other national semifinal. And neither were they Georgia, an actual top four team which missed the playoffs because of one brain-cramp Saturday in Baton Rouge.
That was made abundantly obvious last night. But it was frankly obvious before that.
This is not to begrudge the Irish their place in the playoff; they earned that by going 12-0, and looking damn good doing it much of the time. And they did it against a schedule that, in a normal year, was as representative as anyone's.
In a normal year, a schedule that included a Michigan, a Stanford, a USC, a Florida State and a Syracuse is no less daunting than a schedule that included a Furman or a Citadel, as Clemson's and Alabama's did this year. Unfortunately, this was not a normal year for a lot of the traditional powers on Notre Dame's schedule -- a circumstance for which no one can blame Notre Dame.
Fact is, they played everyone who was put in front of them and beat them. Georgia did not, Ohio State did not, Michigan did not. Central Florida did, for the second straight year, but given a choice, who was more unbeaten? A school that beat Michigans and Stanfords, or a school that beat South Floridas and Temples?
And so the Irish got in, and the Irish went down, as expected. And Oklahoma went down, as expected. And the two best teams in the country will play for the national title, which is how it's all supposed to work out.
You can argue forever whether or not Notre Dame or Oklahoma deserved to be in the playoff. You can argue that the results last night suggest the playoff should be expanded to eight teams, a much better argument. But the plain truth is, the two best teams won, and they remain head-and-shoulders above everyone else.
In or out of the playoff. Worthy or unworthy. Exposed or not exposed.
Saturday, December 29, 2018
End of the beginning
OK, OK. So the Music City Bowl wasn't exactly a symphony for the Purdue Boilermakers.
No, if the Music City were set to music for these Purdues, it would be a country-and-western song, with all the appropriate themes. Dogs would die, cheatin' hearts would run off, the goldurn pickup truck would break down. Whisky, that ruinous drink, would lead to Folsom Prison. Sainted mothers would clutch the good book, mournful train whistles would blow, and finally redemption would be found in the shelterin' arms of Jesus.
Or, you know, something like that.
Everything but Mom and Jesus happened to Purdue yesterday, as we all got a reminder that half-assed SEC teams are still way better than half-assed Big Ten teams. The final was 63-14, one of the worst drubbings in Purdue history. Auburn led 56-7 at halftime. They scored 42 points in a virtual eyeblink. And the game ended with the Tigers on the Purdue 1-yard line, which means 70 points was just a measly step away.
And now, because we live in the knee-jerk biosphere of social media, the question will rise up from at least some segments of Boiler Land: "Why did we just drop that chunky new contract on Jeff Brohm?"
More perceptive segments will answer this way: "Because this is just a bump in the road. And we're just discovering how long that road is likely to be."
Here's the skinny: If yesterday illustrated anything, it wasn't that Brohm is just another counterfeit savior. It was an illustration, and a stark one, of the depths to which Purdue football has sunk in almost a decade of Danny Hope, Darrell Hazell and Morgan Burke's benign neglect. College football at the Power 5 level is so hyper-competitive that if you fall behind -- and Purdue fell not just behind but way behind -- catching up is the devil's own work. You need commitment, you need continuity, and mostly you need patience in bulk quantities.
The latter, of course, is the hardest to pull off in college football these days. It is as corporate an enterprise as exists anywhere, and that means there is money at stake, and that money is stake continually. Which in turn means the pressure to win now, and win always, is more relentless than it's ever been.
And so Auburn 63, Purdue 14, and a 6-7 season that followed a 7-6 season and a bowl win, is not the sort of performance arc that keeps the natives from getting restless. But it's still a step up, albeit an incremental one, for a program that was mostly spare parts and inch-thick dust when Brohm showed up. And there is reason to believe other upward steps are going to follow.
The biggest indicator is in recruiting, the life force of any program. Brohm delivered a top 25 recruiting class this year, and if that doesn't sound as sexy as, say, a top ten recruiting class, it's still yea better than what Purdue is used to. The last time Purdue had even a top 30 recruiting class, after all, was 13 years ago. That's an eternity when you're trying to keep up with the Auburns of the world.
As yesterday amply demonstrated, that process is still in the catch-up stage. And while it certainly didn't look like it, that process is underway.
It might have looked like the end of something. But maybe it was only the end of the beginning.
No, if the Music City were set to music for these Purdues, it would be a country-and-western song, with all the appropriate themes. Dogs would die, cheatin' hearts would run off, the goldurn pickup truck would break down. Whisky, that ruinous drink, would lead to Folsom Prison. Sainted mothers would clutch the good book, mournful train whistles would blow, and finally redemption would be found in the shelterin' arms of Jesus.
Or, you know, something like that.
Everything but Mom and Jesus happened to Purdue yesterday, as we all got a reminder that half-assed SEC teams are still way better than half-assed Big Ten teams. The final was 63-14, one of the worst drubbings in Purdue history. Auburn led 56-7 at halftime. They scored 42 points in a virtual eyeblink. And the game ended with the Tigers on the Purdue 1-yard line, which means 70 points was just a measly step away.
And now, because we live in the knee-jerk biosphere of social media, the question will rise up from at least some segments of Boiler Land: "Why did we just drop that chunky new contract on Jeff Brohm?"
More perceptive segments will answer this way: "Because this is just a bump in the road. And we're just discovering how long that road is likely to be."
Here's the skinny: If yesterday illustrated anything, it wasn't that Brohm is just another counterfeit savior. It was an illustration, and a stark one, of the depths to which Purdue football has sunk in almost a decade of Danny Hope, Darrell Hazell and Morgan Burke's benign neglect. College football at the Power 5 level is so hyper-competitive that if you fall behind -- and Purdue fell not just behind but way behind -- catching up is the devil's own work. You need commitment, you need continuity, and mostly you need patience in bulk quantities.
The latter, of course, is the hardest to pull off in college football these days. It is as corporate an enterprise as exists anywhere, and that means there is money at stake, and that money is stake continually. Which in turn means the pressure to win now, and win always, is more relentless than it's ever been.
And so Auburn 63, Purdue 14, and a 6-7 season that followed a 7-6 season and a bowl win, is not the sort of performance arc that keeps the natives from getting restless. But it's still a step up, albeit an incremental one, for a program that was mostly spare parts and inch-thick dust when Brohm showed up. And there is reason to believe other upward steps are going to follow.
The biggest indicator is in recruiting, the life force of any program. Brohm delivered a top 25 recruiting class this year, and if that doesn't sound as sexy as, say, a top ten recruiting class, it's still yea better than what Purdue is used to. The last time Purdue had even a top 30 recruiting class, after all, was 13 years ago. That's an eternity when you're trying to keep up with the Auburns of the world.
As yesterday amply demonstrated, that process is still in the catch-up stage. And while it certainly didn't look like it, that process is underway.
It might have looked like the end of something. But maybe it was only the end of the beginning.
Thursday, December 27, 2018
Shake down the tempters
Those damn leprechauns, they are at it again. No sooner does the Ghost of Christmas Present clear out than they are flooding my bedroom with sickly green light, appearing promptly on the stroke of zero dark thirty to whisper things in my ear I know are lies ... or think are lies ... or ...
Hell. I don't know what they are.
I do know this: I can hear 'em.
"The Irish can do this," they're whispering.
"This isn't the 2012 team," they're whispering.
"This team has athletes all over the depth chart, and they have a real quarterback, and no one has seriously challenged them except a couple times when they lost interest," they're whispering.
And then, the kicker:
"Plus, Clemson isn't that good. Really, it's not."
And, OK, yes, now I am almost convinced, in spite of myself. Because a lot of what the damn leprechauns are whispering is true, especially the Clemson part.
Yes, the Tigers are 13-0. But it's almost as counterfeit a 13-0 as Notre Dame's is.
Thirteen wins, and only three came against Division I opponents with more than seven wins. Six of Clemson's wins came against teams with either 7-6 or 7-5 records. One came against 2-10 Louisville. None came against teams with more than nine wins.
This is marginally better than Notre Dame, who beat six teams who were .500 or worse to get to 12-0. But I don't know if this means Clemson should be the prohibitive favorite it is in the Cotton Bowl. I think the wise guys in Vegas might be undervaluing the Irish this time, much as I am loathe to say it because I know what happens every time I say something like this.
"Nah, you're right this time," the leprechauns are whispering. "Vegas is undervaluing us."
Oh, shut up.
Hell. I don't know what they are.
I do know this: I can hear 'em.
"The Irish can do this," they're whispering.
"This isn't the 2012 team," they're whispering.
"This team has athletes all over the depth chart, and they have a real quarterback, and no one has seriously challenged them except a couple times when they lost interest," they're whispering.
And then, the kicker:
"Plus, Clemson isn't that good. Really, it's not."
And, OK, yes, now I am almost convinced, in spite of myself. Because a lot of what the damn leprechauns are whispering is true, especially the Clemson part.
Yes, the Tigers are 13-0. But it's almost as counterfeit a 13-0 as Notre Dame's is.
Thirteen wins, and only three came against Division I opponents with more than seven wins. Six of Clemson's wins came against teams with either 7-6 or 7-5 records. One came against 2-10 Louisville. None came against teams with more than nine wins.
This is marginally better than Notre Dame, who beat six teams who were .500 or worse to get to 12-0. But I don't know if this means Clemson should be the prohibitive favorite it is in the Cotton Bowl. I think the wise guys in Vegas might be undervaluing the Irish this time, much as I am loathe to say it because I know what happens every time I say something like this.
"Nah, you're right this time," the leprechauns are whispering. "Vegas is undervaluing us."
Oh, shut up.
Bowled over
We are now in the very beating heart of bowl season, which the Blob eagerly awaits every year because every year they add more exhibition games, er, Very Important Postseason Bowls.
This means the Blob can still hold out hope that the Shredded Tire Bowl will someday be a reality, and also the Luke Duke Jorts Bowl, and also the Oscar Mayer Bologna And Miracle Whip Bowl.
Alas, so far no luck. But at least we'll always have the fabulously epic First Responder Bowl.
OK, so, no. No, we won't.
This is because the First Responder Bowl did not, well, respond to expectations yesterday. Boston College and Boise State lined up and commenced playing down there in Dallas, and then an apocalyptic thunderstorm moved in, and there was a lightning strike and another and another -- six in all, eventually -- and by the time the lightning strikes were done, three hours had gone by with nothing much to show.
And so, at somewhere just past 3:30 p.m. local time in Dallas, they canceled the game.
Yes, you heard that right. They canceled a bowl game -- and not at, like, midnight, but in the middle of the afternoon. Just said, "Ah, to hell with it."
This just reinforces what the Blob has thought for some time, which is that the advent of the College Football Playoff has reduced 99 percent of all bowl games these days to meaningless exhibitions. And even the people putting them on realize it.
It's why more and more potential NFL draft picks opt to bail on them these days, to the grumbling of old-school types who cling to the quaint notion that high-end college football is still some rah-rah, all-for-one, one-for-all enterprise.
It's not. It's a business, and the players are the workforce, employed by the university for relative peanuts to sell the university's athletic brand. And so it should not be any surprise at all that the players have come to see it that way, too.
If their schools are building their brand on the "student-athletes'" backs, the "student-athletes" are in turn building their own brands in anticipation of the big payday at the next level. It's sort of an implied reciprocal relationship, which is why most coaches don't get all that bent out of shape when one of their future NFL draft picks opts out of the bowl game to better prepare for the draft -- and also to avoid a possible injury that would damage their draft stock.
In the meantime, enjoy the bowl games. Just remember what it is you're watching.
And also what it is you're not.
This means the Blob can still hold out hope that the Shredded Tire Bowl will someday be a reality, and also the Luke Duke Jorts Bowl, and also the Oscar Mayer Bologna And Miracle Whip Bowl.
Alas, so far no luck. But at least we'll always have the fabulously epic First Responder Bowl.
OK, so, no. No, we won't.
This is because the First Responder Bowl did not, well, respond to expectations yesterday. Boston College and Boise State lined up and commenced playing down there in Dallas, and then an apocalyptic thunderstorm moved in, and there was a lightning strike and another and another -- six in all, eventually -- and by the time the lightning strikes were done, three hours had gone by with nothing much to show.
And so, at somewhere just past 3:30 p.m. local time in Dallas, they canceled the game.
Yes, you heard that right. They canceled a bowl game -- and not at, like, midnight, but in the middle of the afternoon. Just said, "Ah, to hell with it."
This just reinforces what the Blob has thought for some time, which is that the advent of the College Football Playoff has reduced 99 percent of all bowl games these days to meaningless exhibitions. And even the people putting them on realize it.
It's why more and more potential NFL draft picks opt to bail on them these days, to the grumbling of old-school types who cling to the quaint notion that high-end college football is still some rah-rah, all-for-one, one-for-all enterprise.
It's not. It's a business, and the players are the workforce, employed by the university for relative peanuts to sell the university's athletic brand. And so it should not be any surprise at all that the players have come to see it that way, too.
If their schools are building their brand on the "student-athletes'" backs, the "student-athletes" are in turn building their own brands in anticipation of the big payday at the next level. It's sort of an implied reciprocal relationship, which is why most coaches don't get all that bent out of shape when one of their future NFL draft picks opts out of the bowl game to better prepare for the draft -- and also to avoid a possible injury that would damage their draft stock.
In the meantime, enjoy the bowl games. Just remember what it is you're watching.
And also what it is you're not.
Monday, December 24, 2018
Merry holidays!
Or Happy Christmas. Or whatever it is you're celebrating right now.
In any case, the Blob is taking a couple of days off to indulge in its own revelries.
("It's a Christmas miracle!" you're saying. Yes, I heard that.)
Be good. Hope all your holiday wishes come true, and no one leaves Nathan Peterman in your stocking. And just to send you on your way, I'll dust off my usual passage from Dickens, just to set the mood:
In any case, the Blob is taking a couple of days off to indulge in its own revelries.
("It's a Christmas miracle!" you're saying. Yes, I heard that.)
Be good. Hope all your holiday wishes come true, and no one leaves Nathan Peterman in your stocking. And just to send you on your way, I'll dust off my usual passage from Dickens, just to set the mood:
"Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea—on, on—until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him."
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Sunday, December 23, 2018
Your completely partisan moment for today
"This had better not be more whining about your stupid Pirates," you're saying.
Why, yes! It is!
It's more whining because the Pirates may have locked up next season's NL Central Battle for the Cellar by doing, well, nothing. This is because the Reds, the runaway Battle for the Cellar winner in 2018, did something.
They just completed a blockbuster trade with the Dodgers that landed them not one, not two, but three All-Star quality players.
To wit: Yasiel Puig, Matt Kemp and Alex Wood are now Dodgers.
Kemp made the All-Star team this season. Puig, the talented, mercurial slugger, is a former All-Star. So is Wood, a solid part of the Dodgers' pitching rotation.
This suggests the Reds are going to be a far more formidable team in 2019. Now, they may not be -- you never know how trades are going to work out until they work out -- but on paper this looks like a major upgrade to their lineup.
My Pirates, meanwhile, have done nothing of note in the offseason. Which suggests they're going to be pretty much what they were in 2018, which was OK (82-79) but not, you know, really OK.
Let the Battle begin.
Why, yes! It is!
It's more whining because the Pirates may have locked up next season's NL Central Battle for the Cellar by doing, well, nothing. This is because the Reds, the runaway Battle for the Cellar winner in 2018, did something.
They just completed a blockbuster trade with the Dodgers that landed them not one, not two, but three All-Star quality players.
To wit: Yasiel Puig, Matt Kemp and Alex Wood are now Dodgers.
Kemp made the All-Star team this season. Puig, the talented, mercurial slugger, is a former All-Star. So is Wood, a solid part of the Dodgers' pitching rotation.
This suggests the Reds are going to be a far more formidable team in 2019. Now, they may not be -- you never know how trades are going to work out until they work out -- but on paper this looks like a major upgrade to their lineup.
My Pirates, meanwhile, have done nothing of note in the offseason. Which suggests they're going to be pretty much what they were in 2018, which was OK (82-79) but not, you know, really OK.
Let the Battle begin.
The principle of the thing
Lots of chatter out there in Interwhatsis Land about the African-American wrestler who was forced by a white referee to have his dreadlocks cut off in order to compete.
By now, we all the know particulars: The kid, Andrew Johnson of Buena Regional High
School in New Jersey, had to stand there and have his dreads cut off after the ref, Alan Maloney, ruled he couldn't compete with them -- even though wrestlers in New Jersey (including girls) routinely cap their hair to wrestle in New Jersey. Nothing in the rulebook precludes it.
It's been noted that Maloney has a history of racist actions, including calling a fellow black ref the N-word. So we've got that going on.
Here's what the Blob wonders about this:
Johnson went along with this reprehensible shaming for the good of the team.
Why didn't his coaches and teammates refuse to go along, also for the good of the team?
In other words, if I'm the coach -- who did protest vehemently, to be fair -- I would not have stood there and let this happen. I would said, "Sorry, you don't get to do this," pulled my team off the floor and forfeited the match. And then immediately filed a grievance against Maloney with the state high school athletic association.
It is, after all, only a wrestling match.
The principle involved here is far bigger than that. Or so it seems to me.
By now, we all the know particulars: The kid, Andrew Johnson of Buena Regional High
School in New Jersey, had to stand there and have his dreads cut off after the ref, Alan Maloney, ruled he couldn't compete with them -- even though wrestlers in New Jersey (including girls) routinely cap their hair to wrestle in New Jersey. Nothing in the rulebook precludes it.
It's been noted that Maloney has a history of racist actions, including calling a fellow black ref the N-word. So we've got that going on.
Here's what the Blob wonders about this:
Johnson went along with this reprehensible shaming for the good of the team.
Why didn't his coaches and teammates refuse to go along, also for the good of the team?
In other words, if I'm the coach -- who did protest vehemently, to be fair -- I would not have stood there and let this happen. I would said, "Sorry, you don't get to do this," pulled my team off the floor and forfeited the match. And then immediately filed a grievance against Maloney with the state high school athletic association.
It is, after all, only a wrestling match.
The principle involved here is far bigger than that. Or so it seems to me.
Friday, December 21, 2018
Teachable moment
So Urban Meyer -- who coddled an alleged wife beater at Ohio State, and on whose watch at Florida some 30 football players were arrested -- has decided on his post-football career.
He's going to teach a business course at Ohio State.
The course will focus on "character and leadership."
Insert punchline here.
He's going to teach a business course at Ohio State.
The course will focus on "character and leadership."
Insert punchline here.
Thursday, December 20, 2018
Distant horizons
Remember back in the day (a mythical place where everything seemed ever so much better than it actually was), when basketball was all about finding the shortest distance between two points? In other words, when the likes of Wilt and Kareem and Patrick and Hakeem set up on the low blocks, and it was a perimeter guy's Job One to execute a precise entry pass?
The skyhook was a thing, then. Getting your man on your hip, turning and going to the rack was a thing. 7-footers could be sentenced to long prison terms for attempting any shot beyond five feet.
Needless to say, it's not that game anymore.
No, sir. Now the perimeter guy's Job One is to hang out at the 3-point line, wait for an open look and make it rain. A big man setting up on the low blocks, in 2018, will wait so long there will be buzzards circling his head before he sees the basketball.
And so to last night, when the Houston Rockets gave us the most extreme example of today's game yet.
Twenty-six 3s. Twenty. Six.
Even more astonishing: The Rockets shot it 55 times from beyond the arc to get those 26 3s. That was 25 more times than they shot it from anywhere else on the floor. Which means the entire focus of their offense, the place where they set up in the halfcourt, was 23 feet, 9 inches from the basket.
And if you're thinking here, Mr. Crotchety Back In The Day Get Off My Lawn Geezer, that this isn't basketball ... well, your fellow geezers would agree with you. They would also agree, given how often Steph Curry and his contemporaries start loading up as soon as they cross center court, that perhaps it's time the NBA moved the 3-point line back a ways.
I suggest Jupiter.
The skyhook was a thing, then. Getting your man on your hip, turning and going to the rack was a thing. 7-footers could be sentenced to long prison terms for attempting any shot beyond five feet.
Needless to say, it's not that game anymore.
No, sir. Now the perimeter guy's Job One is to hang out at the 3-point line, wait for an open look and make it rain. A big man setting up on the low blocks, in 2018, will wait so long there will be buzzards circling his head before he sees the basketball.
And so to last night, when the Houston Rockets gave us the most extreme example of today's game yet.
Twenty-six 3s. Twenty. Six.
Even more astonishing: The Rockets shot it 55 times from beyond the arc to get those 26 3s. That was 25 more times than they shot it from anywhere else on the floor. Which means the entire focus of their offense, the place where they set up in the halfcourt, was 23 feet, 9 inches from the basket.
And if you're thinking here, Mr. Crotchety Back In The Day Get Off My Lawn Geezer, that this isn't basketball ... well, your fellow geezers would agree with you. They would also agree, given how often Steph Curry and his contemporaries start loading up as soon as they cross center court, that perhaps it's time the NBA moved the 3-point line back a ways.
I suggest Jupiter.
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
A brief cinematic interlude
Raise a glass this a.m. to Laverne, aka Penny Marshall, who passed yesterday at the age of 75. She was a giant, an actress and filmmaker who was that rarest of creatures: A woman who yielded heavyweight clout in Hollywood, which talks a good game about the advancement of women but in practice is as chauvinistic a culture as exists anywhere.
Marshall defied that, making films about and featuring women that were more than just the standard Tinseltown lip service paid by her male contemporaries. The best of them, in the Blob's estimation, was "A League of Their Own," a tribute to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League of the 1940s and '50s that remains one of the Blob's favorite sports movies.
And so raise a glass to that, too. And to the Blob's "A League of Their Own" story, which is likely somewhat different than most.
It's not every day, after all, that you get to watch a film about someone alongside the actual someones.
This happened because Fort Wayne was home to the Daisies, one of the AAGPBL's anchor franchises, and I was a sportswriter in Fort Wayne. This occasionally brought me in contact with the real-life women fictionalized by Geena Davis, Lori Petty and Rosie O'Donnell in the film. They were a delight, these women -- accomplished athletes who still carried themselves with the swagger of athletes even into their 70s and 80s, and who always seemed forever young because of that.
And so it was regrettable that my contact with them usually happened when one of them passed.
My phone would ring and Dottie Collins, who faithfully kept tabs on all the gals, would be on the line telling me this or that AAGPBL alum had died. And then one day the phone rang, and it was another of the gals, telling me Dottie herself had died.
Saddest of days, that one.
Happiest of days when "A League of Their Own" opened in Fort Wayne.
It wasn't just that the film was coming to one of the old AAGPBL cities, you see. It's that a whole clutch of former AAGPBL players showed up in the Fort for it. And so my wife and I watched "A League of Their Own" sitting in a movie theater filled with those who actually lived it.
You know that scene at the end, where they play the Madonna theme song over footage of the real-life AAGPBL players playing a game on the diamond at Cooperstown?
Half of those women on the screen were in the audience that night. And so every time one of them appeared, cries of recognition rose up out of the darkness.
There you are! .... Look, it's (insert name here)! ... Oh, you're really givin' it to the ump there! ...
A night at the movies doesn't get more magical than that.
Marshall defied that, making films about and featuring women that were more than just the standard Tinseltown lip service paid by her male contemporaries. The best of them, in the Blob's estimation, was "A League of Their Own," a tribute to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League of the 1940s and '50s that remains one of the Blob's favorite sports movies.
And so raise a glass to that, too. And to the Blob's "A League of Their Own" story, which is likely somewhat different than most.
It's not every day, after all, that you get to watch a film about someone alongside the actual someones.
This happened because Fort Wayne was home to the Daisies, one of the AAGPBL's anchor franchises, and I was a sportswriter in Fort Wayne. This occasionally brought me in contact with the real-life women fictionalized by Geena Davis, Lori Petty and Rosie O'Donnell in the film. They were a delight, these women -- accomplished athletes who still carried themselves with the swagger of athletes even into their 70s and 80s, and who always seemed forever young because of that.
And so it was regrettable that my contact with them usually happened when one of them passed.
My phone would ring and Dottie Collins, who faithfully kept tabs on all the gals, would be on the line telling me this or that AAGPBL alum had died. And then one day the phone rang, and it was another of the gals, telling me Dottie herself had died.
Saddest of days, that one.
Happiest of days when "A League of Their Own" opened in Fort Wayne.
It wasn't just that the film was coming to one of the old AAGPBL cities, you see. It's that a whole clutch of former AAGPBL players showed up in the Fort for it. And so my wife and I watched "A League of Their Own" sitting in a movie theater filled with those who actually lived it.
You know that scene at the end, where they play the Madonna theme song over footage of the real-life AAGPBL players playing a game on the diamond at Cooperstown?
Half of those women on the screen were in the audience that night. And so every time one of them appeared, cries of recognition rose up out of the darkness.
There you are! .... Look, it's (insert name here)! ... Oh, you're really givin' it to the ump there! ...
A night at the movies doesn't get more magical than that.
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 15
And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the holly-jolly Blob feature Santa leaves under the tree for all children on his nice list, and of which critics have said "That's a damn lie! It's what Santa leaves for Naughty List kids!", and also "You're a lying liar, Liar McLiarson!":
1. THE DALLAS COWBOYS ARE THE GREATEST FOOTBALL TEAM IN THE HISTORY OF FOOTBALL TE--
2. Oh. Wait.
3. "Tom Brady is a bleeping cyborg!" (Consensus opinion, 2001-2017).
4. "Tom Brady is the iPhone 3 of cyborgs!" (Consensus opinion, late 2018)
5. "And when did the Patriots replace Rob Gronkowski with a regular run-of-the-mill tight end?" (Also consensus opinion, late 2018)
6. Hey, look, it's the Browns!
7. And they're not Brownsing anymore!
8. Meanwhile, Jared Goff.
9. Has vanished. Like, Gonesville. 'Cause I don't care what you say, that's Nathan Peterman out there in a wig and a fake beard. Like he thought that would fool everyone.
10. "Crap, I thought that would fool everyone!" (Nathan Peterman)
1. THE DALLAS COWBOYS ARE THE GREATEST FOOTBALL TEAM IN THE HISTORY OF FOOTBALL TE--
2. Oh. Wait.
3. "Tom Brady is a bleeping cyborg!" (Consensus opinion, 2001-2017).
4. "Tom Brady is the iPhone 3 of cyborgs!" (Consensus opinion, late 2018)
5. "And when did the Patriots replace Rob Gronkowski with a regular run-of-the-mill tight end?" (Also consensus opinion, late 2018)
6. Hey, look, it's the Browns!
7. And they're not Brownsing anymore!
8. Meanwhile, Jared Goff.
9. Has vanished. Like, Gonesville. 'Cause I don't care what you say, that's Nathan Peterman out there in a wig and a fake beard. Like he thought that would fool everyone.
10. "Crap, I thought that would fool everyone!" (Nathan Peterman)
Monday, December 17, 2018
Mea culpa, Part Deux
So remember a couple of weeks ago, when the Blob admitted it was wrong, wrong, wrong about the Indianapolis Colts?
Well, it's time for the latest installment of that. In which the Blob admits it was not just wrong, wrong, wrong, but preposterously wrong, cataclysmically wrong, why-the-hell-didn't-I-see-this-coming wrong.
"Because you're stupid?" you're saying.
I would like to think not.
"Because you're always wrong about everything, then?"
Come on, that's a gross exaggerati ... OK, an exaggera ... OK, not technically accurate.
"Because for a guy who used to cover sports, you sure don't know much about sports?"
Absolutely not true. I know more about cricket than most people.
OK, most people in America, then.
OK, most people who live on my block.
Where was I again?
Oh, yeah. The Colts.
Who went down to Texas and whupped the hottest team in the AFC last week, the Houston Texans, who previously had won nine straight games. And who came home yesterday and whupped a Dallas Cowboys team that had won five straight -- and not just whupped them, but shut their America's Team butts out.
That moves the Colts to 8-6 and keeps them in the playoff hunt, and, yes, Pinocchio, you're a real football team now. They've now won seven of their last eight games, and it would have been eight out of their last eight if not for that strange hiccup in Jacksonville a couple of weeks back. And they were so impressive yesterday that the Blob is now in full bandwagon mode, in the sense that it's wondering how many AFC teams are now desperately hoping the Horsies don't make the playoffs.
Because really, would you want to play them right now? Especially if you watched the way they rendered helpless a team that had been one of the most potent offensively in the league the last month-and-a-half?
Look, this being the NFL, there's still a chance the Colts could Jacksonville this thing away in the next two weeks. I mean, the Patriots lost to the Steelers yesterday, even though the Steelers had been playing like a bunch of goofs. The previously unbeatable Rams lost to the "meh" Eagles. There's no predicting anything in this league.
Doesn't seem likely, though.
To start with, Andrew Luck is finally answering the questions fans have been asking for four years -- i.e., how good would he be if he had an offensive line that could block a stiff breeze? Marlon Mack has given the Colts a run game. And the defense, stuffed with talented, athletic young players, seems to get scarier every week.
And you know what they say: You get to December and January, defense and a run game win the games for you.
In other words, the same Blob that said this team was no playoff team when it was 1-5 is now saying it doesn't really matter if the Colts make the playoffs or not. Because you know what?
That was a playoff team I was watching yesterday. It just was.
Well, it's time for the latest installment of that. In which the Blob admits it was not just wrong, wrong, wrong, but preposterously wrong, cataclysmically wrong, why-the-hell-didn't-I-see-this-coming wrong.
"Because you're stupid?" you're saying.
I would like to think not.
"Because you're always wrong about everything, then?"
Come on, that's a gross exaggerati ... OK, an exaggera ... OK, not technically accurate.
"Because for a guy who used to cover sports, you sure don't know much about sports?"
Absolutely not true. I know more about cricket than most people.
OK, most people in America, then.
OK, most people who live on my block.
Where was I again?
Oh, yeah. The Colts.
Who went down to Texas and whupped the hottest team in the AFC last week, the Houston Texans, who previously had won nine straight games. And who came home yesterday and whupped a Dallas Cowboys team that had won five straight -- and not just whupped them, but shut their America's Team butts out.
That moves the Colts to 8-6 and keeps them in the playoff hunt, and, yes, Pinocchio, you're a real football team now. They've now won seven of their last eight games, and it would have been eight out of their last eight if not for that strange hiccup in Jacksonville a couple of weeks back. And they were so impressive yesterday that the Blob is now in full bandwagon mode, in the sense that it's wondering how many AFC teams are now desperately hoping the Horsies don't make the playoffs.
Because really, would you want to play them right now? Especially if you watched the way they rendered helpless a team that had been one of the most potent offensively in the league the last month-and-a-half?
Look, this being the NFL, there's still a chance the Colts could Jacksonville this thing away in the next two weeks. I mean, the Patriots lost to the Steelers yesterday, even though the Steelers had been playing like a bunch of goofs. The previously unbeatable Rams lost to the "meh" Eagles. There's no predicting anything in this league.
Doesn't seem likely, though.
To start with, Andrew Luck is finally answering the questions fans have been asking for four years -- i.e., how good would he be if he had an offensive line that could block a stiff breeze? Marlon Mack has given the Colts a run game. And the defense, stuffed with talented, athletic young players, seems to get scarier every week.
And you know what they say: You get to December and January, defense and a run game win the games for you.
In other words, the same Blob that said this team was no playoff team when it was 1-5 is now saying it doesn't really matter if the Colts make the playoffs or not. Because you know what?
That was a playoff team I was watching yesterday. It just was.
Sunday, December 16, 2018
And now, the reactions
There must be a name for what Robert Phinisee did in the last half-heartbeat of Indiana's game against Butler yesterday, other than That Is Totally Ridiculous. A 3-ball launched from, I don't know, Greenwood, maybe? At the buzzer? To win the game, 71-68?
There are any number of possible ways to celebrate that. The Blob, of course, not being particularly imaginative, has decided the best way is to rework its treadworn Blob feature, The NFL In So Many Words, into Reactions To Robert Phinisee's Game-Winning Shot In So Many Words.
("Seriously? You are so pathetic," you're saying.)
Anyway ... here goes:
1. "Well, looks like over-- What the HELL?" (Dozens of Indiana fans in sports bars, living rooms and lavishly appointed, totally-crimson man caves)
2. "Well, looks like over-- What the HELL?" (Dozens of Butler fans, etc., etc.)
3. "Well, looks like over-- What the HELL?" (Indiana coach Archie Miller)
4. "Meh. Been there, done that." (Christian Watford)
5. "Arrrrgh! Been there, done that." (John Calipari)
6. "Hey, look, it's Steph Curry!" (Fans of Steph Curry)
7. "Hey, that's my shot, dammit!" (Steph Curry)
8. "Dear Mr. Phinisee: This is a letter advising you to cease-and-desist immediately, or risk legal action for copyright infringement." (Steph Curry's attorney)
9. "Please, dude." (Guy guarding Robert Phinisee, as he rose up to shoot)
10. "What the HELL?" (Same guy, a second or so later)
There are any number of possible ways to celebrate that. The Blob, of course, not being particularly imaginative, has decided the best way is to rework its treadworn Blob feature, The NFL In So Many Words, into Reactions To Robert Phinisee's Game-Winning Shot In So Many Words.
("Seriously? You are so pathetic," you're saying.)
Anyway ... here goes:
1. "Well, looks like over-- What the HELL?" (Dozens of Indiana fans in sports bars, living rooms and lavishly appointed, totally-crimson man caves)
2. "Well, looks like over-- What the HELL?" (Dozens of Butler fans, etc., etc.)
3. "Well, looks like over-- What the HELL?" (Indiana coach Archie Miller)
4. "Meh. Been there, done that." (Christian Watford)
5. "Arrrrgh! Been there, done that." (John Calipari)
6. "Hey, look, it's Steph Curry!" (Fans of Steph Curry)
7. "Hey, that's my shot, dammit!" (Steph Curry)
8. "Dear Mr. Phinisee: This is a letter advising you to cease-and-desist immediately, or risk legal action for copyright infringement." (Steph Curry's attorney)
9. "Please, dude." (Guy guarding Robert Phinisee, as he rose up to shoot)
10. "What the HELL?" (Same guy, a second or so later)
Saturday, December 15, 2018
Circus maximus
Faithful readers of the Blob ("Don't you mean 'reader'?" you're saying) know the Blob loathes its inner skeptic. Inner Skeptic is a mean, shriveled soul who roots for old man Potter in "It's A Wonderful Life." He hopes Ray Kinsella builds it but no one comes in "Field of Dreams." And don't get him started on "Hoosiers."
Little school beats all the big schools with five guys and Ollie. Jimmy Chitwood scores every point except, like, six or seven.Yeah, right.
Anyway, Inner Skeptic is the worst. And God knows he's no fun at parties.
Except ...
Except sometimes he has a point.
Which brings us to indoor football, which is about to make its fifth appearance in Fort Wayne. The other four appearances (and disappearances) apparently taught the locals nothing about the spit-and-baling-wire nature of indoor football. It is, even at the top level, a niche sport. And at the level a market the size of Fort Wayne is going to be involved, it's a niche-niche-niche sport.
This means it is highly unlikely to attract, shall we say, the best people. You won't find any Rooneys on the ownership roster. You won't find any Kurt Warners -- the most famous indoor football player ever -- hiding out among the players, either.
You will, however, occasionally find a guy who claims to have played in the NFL but didn't.
And so let's go to the introductory news conference for the Indiana Blue Bombers of the National Gridiron League, and to an offensive lineman named Ricardo Agnant, who is on the Blue Bombers' roster. Apparently Agnant claims to be a former Miami Dolphin. Unfortunately, there's no record he ever actually was a Dolphin.
But at least there's only one of him. You can't say that for the Indiana Blue Bombers.
That's because there will be two teams named "Indiana" in the NGL, on account of people in Georgia would be confused if there weren't. No, really. This was the explanation the league president and owner, Joe McLendon III, gave at the introductory news conference. The Blue Bombers will play in Fort Wayne, and Other Indiana will play in Evansville, but McLendon figured people in Georgia would more readily identify with "Indiana" than with "Fort Wayne" or "Evansville." So there'll be two teams with the same name.
Now, why anyone in Georgia would care about two teams in Indiana (and how naming them both "Indiana" won't be even more confusing) is a very good question. So is how you're supposed to establish a distinctive brand with the local fan bases in Fort Wayne and Evansville when, again, both teams are called Indiana.
("Now, the Blue Bombers. Is that the team in Fort Wayne, or the team in Evansville?" -- Random guy in Indiana.)
Anyway, things are certainly off to the usual bang-up indoor football start. The introductory news conference did not actually introduce much of anything; there was no team logo on display, and apparently there's no schedule for the Blue Bombers yet. There is, apparently, a roster, but no one knows who's on it except for the Fake Dolphin.
Oh, yeah. And the head coach, Kelvin Kinney?
He wasn't at the news conference because of a travel delay. He's also a felon.
The Journal Gazette reported today that Kinney pleaded guilty to workers' compensation fraud, a fifth-degree felony, in Ohio in 2014. He also pleaded guilty to a handful of misdemeanor charges in Ohio from 1999 to 2009.
On the other hand, Kinney is actually a former NFL player. Unlike Fake Dolphin.
So at least we got that goin' for us, Fort Wayne.
Little school beats all the big schools with five guys and Ollie. Jimmy Chitwood scores every point except, like, six or seven.Yeah, right.
Anyway, Inner Skeptic is the worst. And God knows he's no fun at parties.
Except ...
Except sometimes he has a point.
Which brings us to indoor football, which is about to make its fifth appearance in Fort Wayne. The other four appearances (and disappearances) apparently taught the locals nothing about the spit-and-baling-wire nature of indoor football. It is, even at the top level, a niche sport. And at the level a market the size of Fort Wayne is going to be involved, it's a niche-niche-niche sport.
This means it is highly unlikely to attract, shall we say, the best people. You won't find any Rooneys on the ownership roster. You won't find any Kurt Warners -- the most famous indoor football player ever -- hiding out among the players, either.
You will, however, occasionally find a guy who claims to have played in the NFL but didn't.
And so let's go to the introductory news conference for the Indiana Blue Bombers of the National Gridiron League, and to an offensive lineman named Ricardo Agnant, who is on the Blue Bombers' roster. Apparently Agnant claims to be a former Miami Dolphin. Unfortunately, there's no record he ever actually was a Dolphin.
But at least there's only one of him. You can't say that for the Indiana Blue Bombers.
That's because there will be two teams named "Indiana" in the NGL, on account of people in Georgia would be confused if there weren't. No, really. This was the explanation the league president and owner, Joe McLendon III, gave at the introductory news conference. The Blue Bombers will play in Fort Wayne, and Other Indiana will play in Evansville, but McLendon figured people in Georgia would more readily identify with "Indiana" than with "Fort Wayne" or "Evansville." So there'll be two teams with the same name.
Now, why anyone in Georgia would care about two teams in Indiana (and how naming them both "Indiana" won't be even more confusing) is a very good question. So is how you're supposed to establish a distinctive brand with the local fan bases in Fort Wayne and Evansville when, again, both teams are called Indiana.
("Now, the Blue Bombers. Is that the team in Fort Wayne, or the team in Evansville?" -- Random guy in Indiana.)
Anyway, things are certainly off to the usual bang-up indoor football start. The introductory news conference did not actually introduce much of anything; there was no team logo on display, and apparently there's no schedule for the Blue Bombers yet. There is, apparently, a roster, but no one knows who's on it except for the Fake Dolphin.
Oh, yeah. And the head coach, Kelvin Kinney?
He wasn't at the news conference because of a travel delay. He's also a felon.
The Journal Gazette reported today that Kinney pleaded guilty to workers' compensation fraud, a fifth-degree felony, in Ohio in 2014. He also pleaded guilty to a handful of misdemeanor charges in Ohio from 1999 to 2009.
On the other hand, Kinney is actually a former NFL player. Unlike Fake Dolphin.
So at least we got that goin' for us, Fort Wayne.
Thursday, December 13, 2018
Chief of Stuff
"Stuff," in this case, being PG for ... well, you know what for.
The Blob being an intermittently family friendly Blob, it won't use the other, more scatological word, even if seems to fit Our Only Available President's accelerating clown car of an administration. And the Blob only brings this up because a refugee from Sportsball World has entered the conversation, in the person of Jose Canseco.
Who tweeted to OOAP yesterday that "u need a bash brother for Chief if (sic) Staff."
Yes, that's right, America. Jose Conseco has thrown his hat in the ring to be OOAP's latest chief of staff.
Now, it's true he has zero qualifications for the job, unless you consider being a former beefcake slugger and the unlikely bearer of truth about PEDs qualifications. This, however, pretty much makes him the perfect candidate, given that zero qualifications are a badge of honor in OOAP's world.
I mean, look at the man himself. Or most of his Cabinet. Or the fact he just named a former "Fox & Friends" airhead the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Who needs expertise when you've been on TV?
So, yeah, bring on Conseco. After all, who could forget the signature moment of his career?
Looks like the perfect man for the job to me.
The Blob being an intermittently family friendly Blob, it won't use the other, more scatological word, even if seems to fit Our Only Available President's accelerating clown car of an administration. And the Blob only brings this up because a refugee from Sportsball World has entered the conversation, in the person of Jose Canseco.
Who tweeted to OOAP yesterday that "u need a bash brother for Chief if (sic) Staff."
Yes, that's right, America. Jose Conseco has thrown his hat in the ring to be OOAP's latest chief of staff.
Now, it's true he has zero qualifications for the job, unless you consider being a former beefcake slugger and the unlikely bearer of truth about PEDs qualifications. This, however, pretty much makes him the perfect candidate, given that zero qualifications are a badge of honor in OOAP's world.
I mean, look at the man himself. Or most of his Cabinet. Or the fact he just named a former "Fox & Friends" airhead the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Who needs expertise when you've been on TV?
So, yeah, bring on Conseco. After all, who could forget the signature moment of his career?
Looks like the perfect man for the job to me.
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
The filter of memory
So I'm cruising Deadspin the other day, where I discovered to my dismay that the site's spleen-rupturing funnyman Drew Magary will not be posting his annual (and cripplingly hilarious) Hater's Guide To the Williams-Sonoma Catalogue this year, on account of he apparently had an accident and is laid up for the time being.
"Bummer," I said, because the Hater's Guide To The Williams-Sonoma Catalogue is Blob appointment reading for the holiday season, just as the George C. Scott version of "A Christmas Carol" is Blob appointment viewing.
Then I saw this other item.
It was a quote from a podcast discussion with free-agent reliever Adam Ottavino, who opened that eternal can of worms, How Would The Sports Legends Of Yesterday Fare Today. The legend in question was Babe Ruth. Ottavino said he would strike the guy out every time he faced him.
"I remember I had an argument with a coach in Triple-A about Babe Ruth’s effectiveness in today’s game, and this was, like, 10 years ago," Ottavino said. "I said, 'Look, Babe Ruth, with that swing, swinging that bat—I got him hitting .140 with eight homers.'
"He was like, 'Are you nuts? Babe Ruth would hit .370 with 60 homers,'and I’m like, 'I would strike Babe Ruth out every time.' Like, I’m not trying to disrespect him, you know, rest in peace, you know, shout out to Babe Ruth. But, it was a different game. I mean, the guy ate hot dogs and drank beer and did whatever he did. It was just a different game."
Now, I have to confess, as only a very casual observer of the baseball landscape these days, that I frankly have never heard of Adam Ottavino. Apparently he's a hell of a reliever, though, with filthy stuff. And while I don't know if he'd strike out Babe Ruth every time, I think he's generally spot-on with his assessment.
It is a different game. They're all different games these days. Athletes today are bigger, stronger, faster and generally more skilled than athletes 30 or 40 or 50 years ago. That's simply a fact, and it has irrevocably altered the very nature of the games we grew up watching.
Let's take the NFL, for instance.
A good NFL offensive lineman back in the day -- let's say the '60s -- ran about 260 or 270 pounds tops. Today they go 320, 330, and they're in infinitely better shape. They're also as fast, if not faster, than some running backs were then. The running backs and wide receivers, meanwhile, are light years faster -- and bigger and stronger in a lot of cases, besides.
Yet in my memory, those players from the '60s remain immortal. Time and context does this to us; what you remember from when you were a kid always seems bigger and louder and more majestic than what you experience as a grownup. That's simply how memory works.
Know how I know this?
Because not so very long ago, I ran across an old NBA game from the '60s on one of those sports classics channels. Suddenly I was transported back to my childhood, watching all those guys who, in my memory, made every shot and played impeccable defense running up and down the floor.
Running ... but very slowly.
Truth is, I was astounded by what I saw. Those immortals who never missed a shot when I was growing up clanked plenty. Compared to today's players, they were slower, less athletic, almost clunky. And the defense I remembered them playing so much more effectively than the defense NBA players play today?
Not even close. The defense those '60s immortals played, at least in this game, was shockingly lax. The ball pressure I'm used to seeing today was virtually non-existent. Ditto the help-side shifts. And of course it was all played at 45 rpm as opposed to the 78 rpm at which today's game plays out.
In other words, it wasn't remotely the same game.
Which I think someone else said on that podcast.
"Bummer," I said, because the Hater's Guide To The Williams-Sonoma Catalogue is Blob appointment reading for the holiday season, just as the George C. Scott version of "A Christmas Carol" is Blob appointment viewing.
Then I saw this other item.
It was a quote from a podcast discussion with free-agent reliever Adam Ottavino, who opened that eternal can of worms, How Would The Sports Legends Of Yesterday Fare Today. The legend in question was Babe Ruth. Ottavino said he would strike the guy out every time he faced him.
"I remember I had an argument with a coach in Triple-A about Babe Ruth’s effectiveness in today’s game, and this was, like, 10 years ago," Ottavino said. "I said, 'Look, Babe Ruth, with that swing, swinging that bat—I got him hitting .140 with eight homers.'
"He was like, 'Are you nuts? Babe Ruth would hit .370 with 60 homers,'and I’m like, 'I would strike Babe Ruth out every time.' Like, I’m not trying to disrespect him, you know, rest in peace, you know, shout out to Babe Ruth. But, it was a different game. I mean, the guy ate hot dogs and drank beer and did whatever he did. It was just a different game."
Now, I have to confess, as only a very casual observer of the baseball landscape these days, that I frankly have never heard of Adam Ottavino. Apparently he's a hell of a reliever, though, with filthy stuff. And while I don't know if he'd strike out Babe Ruth every time, I think he's generally spot-on with his assessment.
It is a different game. They're all different games these days. Athletes today are bigger, stronger, faster and generally more skilled than athletes 30 or 40 or 50 years ago. That's simply a fact, and it has irrevocably altered the very nature of the games we grew up watching.
Let's take the NFL, for instance.
A good NFL offensive lineman back in the day -- let's say the '60s -- ran about 260 or 270 pounds tops. Today they go 320, 330, and they're in infinitely better shape. They're also as fast, if not faster, than some running backs were then. The running backs and wide receivers, meanwhile, are light years faster -- and bigger and stronger in a lot of cases, besides.
Yet in my memory, those players from the '60s remain immortal. Time and context does this to us; what you remember from when you were a kid always seems bigger and louder and more majestic than what you experience as a grownup. That's simply how memory works.
Know how I know this?
Because not so very long ago, I ran across an old NBA game from the '60s on one of those sports classics channels. Suddenly I was transported back to my childhood, watching all those guys who, in my memory, made every shot and played impeccable defense running up and down the floor.
Running ... but very slowly.
Truth is, I was astounded by what I saw. Those immortals who never missed a shot when I was growing up clanked plenty. Compared to today's players, they were slower, less athletic, almost clunky. And the defense I remembered them playing so much more effectively than the defense NBA players play today?
Not even close. The defense those '60s immortals played, at least in this game, was shockingly lax. The ball pressure I'm used to seeing today was virtually non-existent. Ditto the help-side shifts. And of course it was all played at 45 rpm as opposed to the 78 rpm at which today's game plays out.
In other words, it wasn't remotely the same game.
Which I think someone else said on that podcast.
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 14
And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the magnanimous Blob feature which epitomizes this season of giving, as in "I give up! Now please stop!", and also "I'm giving you one last chance to quit this stupid thing!":
1. It's Tuesday morning and Kenyon Drake is still in the end zone.
2. "Dammit! How'd he get in the end zone?" (Patriots fans everywhere)
3. "Dammit!" (More Patriots fans)
4. "Dammit!" (Yet more Patriots fans)
5. Meanwhile, the Colts!
6. Are alive! Yes, they are! You saw them move, right?
7. "Dammit! They were supposed to be dead! Why are they moving?" (The Houston Texans)
8. Hey, look! It's the Bears!
9. "And there's, like, a hundred of them! Where did they come from? And why are they all after m--!" (Rams quarterback Jared Goff)
10. "HOW DID HE GET IN THE END ZONE??" (Still the Patriots fans)
1. It's Tuesday morning and Kenyon Drake is still in the end zone.
2. "Dammit! How'd he get in the end zone?" (Patriots fans everywhere)
3. "Dammit!" (More Patriots fans)
4. "Dammit!" (Yet more Patriots fans)
5. Meanwhile, the Colts!
6. Are alive! Yes, they are! You saw them move, right?
7. "Dammit! They were supposed to be dead! Why are they moving?" (The Houston Texans)
8. Hey, look! It's the Bears!
9. "And there's, like, a hundred of them! Where did they come from? And why are they all after m--!" (Rams quarterback Jared Goff)
10. "HOW DID HE GET IN THE END ZONE??" (Still the Patriots fans)
Monday, December 10, 2018
The shame of shaming
Kyler Murray of Oklahoma won the Heisman Trophy Saturday night, a pinnacle moment in the life of any young athlete and one in which Murray thoroughly deserved to revel.
Unfortunately, the withered souls who inhabit Interwhatsis Land decided otherwise.
Not very long after Murray held aloft college football's highest award, see, some floating turd in human form decided to ruin his night by re-posting a few years-old Murray tweets. The tweets included homophobic slurs. Murray was 14 or 15 years old when he tweeted them. They were therefore about as relevant to the young man bench-pressing the Heisman as winged flight is relevant to an armadillo.
Nonetheless, a number of major media outlets -- USA Today, the New York Post and Yahoo among them -- decided this was a story. And so they gifted Turd Boy with prominence he in no way deserved by posting "news" items about Murray's tweets.
This compelled Murray to have to apologize for something he did when he was a child. Just to completely clear the air, he also apologized for 1) writing "a bad word" on the blackboard when he was in fourth grade; 2) leaving a flaming bag of dog poop on old man Johnson's front porch one Halloween when he was 12; and 3) christening the dining room wall with crayoned artwork when he was 3.
OK, OK. So he didn't do any of that, so far as the Blob knows. Or apologize for it.
That, after all, would have been absurd. And yet the idea that he should have had to apologize for those tweets is no less absurd. And the idea that major news outlets would consider said tweets newsworthy ...
Well. That, boys and girls, is off-the-charts absurd.
Look. Some people have always been awful, and that's just the reality of it. They are indeed withered souls, and their driving instinct is to rain on however many parades they can get to in a given day. It doesn't really matter whose parade it is, or if the withered soul doing the raining knows anything about them. Spite for spite's sake is the only goal.
The unfortunate part about that is it's 2018. This means social media has made the withered souls' dissemination of spite easier than it's ever been. And that includes the withered soul in the White House.
What the alleged mainstream news media needs to do is stop aiding and abetting that dissemination.
Let the withered soul in the White House fire off all the pointless juvenile tweets he wants. Let Turd Boy excavate all the pointless ancient history he wants. Ninety percent of it isn't news; it wasn't before social media made it so accessible and public, and it isn't now. So quit treating it like it is.
You know the sad thing about that?
Once upon a time you didn't have to tell anyone this.
Unfortunately, the withered souls who inhabit Interwhatsis Land decided otherwise.
Not very long after Murray held aloft college football's highest award, see, some floating turd in human form decided to ruin his night by re-posting a few years-old Murray tweets. The tweets included homophobic slurs. Murray was 14 or 15 years old when he tweeted them. They were therefore about as relevant to the young man bench-pressing the Heisman as winged flight is relevant to an armadillo.
Nonetheless, a number of major media outlets -- USA Today, the New York Post and Yahoo among them -- decided this was a story. And so they gifted Turd Boy with prominence he in no way deserved by posting "news" items about Murray's tweets.
This compelled Murray to have to apologize for something he did when he was a child. Just to completely clear the air, he also apologized for 1) writing "a bad word" on the blackboard when he was in fourth grade; 2) leaving a flaming bag of dog poop on old man Johnson's front porch one Halloween when he was 12; and 3) christening the dining room wall with crayoned artwork when he was 3.
OK, OK. So he didn't do any of that, so far as the Blob knows. Or apologize for it.
That, after all, would have been absurd. And yet the idea that he should have had to apologize for those tweets is no less absurd. And the idea that major news outlets would consider said tweets newsworthy ...
Well. That, boys and girls, is off-the-charts absurd.
Look. Some people have always been awful, and that's just the reality of it. They are indeed withered souls, and their driving instinct is to rain on however many parades they can get to in a given day. It doesn't really matter whose parade it is, or if the withered soul doing the raining knows anything about them. Spite for spite's sake is the only goal.
The unfortunate part about that is it's 2018. This means social media has made the withered souls' dissemination of spite easier than it's ever been. And that includes the withered soul in the White House.
What the alleged mainstream news media needs to do is stop aiding and abetting that dissemination.
Let the withered soul in the White House fire off all the pointless juvenile tweets he wants. Let Turd Boy excavate all the pointless ancient history he wants. Ninety percent of it isn't news; it wasn't before social media made it so accessible and public, and it isn't now. So quit treating it like it is.
You know the sad thing about that?
Once upon a time you didn't have to tell anyone this.
The kooks are loose
Look, I don't know. Maybe they're spiking those water bottles on NBA sidelines with fluoride or something.
But that would be a conspiracy theory, too (one of the John Birch Society's favorites), and the Blob is not going down that road. Too many folks in the NBA -- aka, the National "By Jove, Look, Elvis Is On The Grassy Knoll" Association -- have already preceded me, to the point where the Bats**t Conspiracy Highway is now eight lanes wide and growing. So let's just put it down to the current zeitgeist of the nation, in which Fox "News", Infowars kook Alex Jones and the Birther in Chief himself, Donald J. Trump, are continually spinning fantastical tales.
And so here came Kyrie Irving of the Celtics, telling us the Earth was flat before kinda-sorta admitting he was kidding. And now comes Golden State star Steph Curry, who said on a podcast the other day he doesn't believe humans ever landed on the moon.
This is a popular meme these days, fueled by several sketchy documentaries. They raise a lot of questions, but they never answer the question no conspiracy theorist ever answers.
Which is, given the thousands of people involved in the space program's moon landing push, how come not a single person of merit ever 'fessed up to faking the whole thing? All those people, and not one said, "Yeah, it was B.S."? In half a century? In a country where no one can keep a secret for five minutes, especially in the age of social media?
And what would have been the purpose to stage such an elaborate hoax, anyway? Just to hang onto funding for a mission that was never going to happen anyway?
Yeesh. Look, I don't know. Maybe Steph has just watched this too many times.
Which, you notice, starred O.J.
Speaking of a guy making stuff up.
But that would be a conspiracy theory, too (one of the John Birch Society's favorites), and the Blob is not going down that road. Too many folks in the NBA -- aka, the National "By Jove, Look, Elvis Is On The Grassy Knoll" Association -- have already preceded me, to the point where the Bats**t Conspiracy Highway is now eight lanes wide and growing. So let's just put it down to the current zeitgeist of the nation, in which Fox "News", Infowars kook Alex Jones and the Birther in Chief himself, Donald J. Trump, are continually spinning fantastical tales.
And so here came Kyrie Irving of the Celtics, telling us the Earth was flat before kinda-sorta admitting he was kidding. And now comes Golden State star Steph Curry, who said on a podcast the other day he doesn't believe humans ever landed on the moon.
This is a popular meme these days, fueled by several sketchy documentaries. They raise a lot of questions, but they never answer the question no conspiracy theorist ever answers.
Which is, given the thousands of people involved in the space program's moon landing push, how come not a single person of merit ever 'fessed up to faking the whole thing? All those people, and not one said, "Yeah, it was B.S."? In half a century? In a country where no one can keep a secret for five minutes, especially in the age of social media?
And what would have been the purpose to stage such an elaborate hoax, anyway? Just to hang onto funding for a mission that was never going to happen anyway?
Yeesh. Look, I don't know. Maybe Steph has just watched this too many times.
Which, you notice, starred O.J.
Speaking of a guy making stuff up.
Your wagering PSA for today, Part Deux
So, if you are still betting on the NFL ...
Well, then I have a great investment opportunity for you.
Oceanfront property in Nebraska, baby!
It's cheap as dirt right now! You can get it for a song! And then, when the Big One hits Cali ... woo-hoo! You'll be a FREAKIN' REAL ESTATE MOGUL!
Trust me on this!
Or, you know, keep betting on the NFL. It's about as sure as a bet, and I have fresh evidence this morning to prove it:
1. Colts 24, Texans 21.
2. Dolphins 34, Patriots 33.
3. 49ers 20, Broncos 14.
4. Raiders 24, Steelers 21.
That is all.
Well, then I have a great investment opportunity for you.
Oceanfront property in Nebraska, baby!
It's cheap as dirt right now! You can get it for a song! And then, when the Big One hits Cali ... woo-hoo! You'll be a FREAKIN' REAL ESTATE MOGUL!
Trust me on this!
Or, you know, keep betting on the NFL. It's about as sure as a bet, and I have fresh evidence this morning to prove it:
1. Colts 24, Texans 21.
2. Dolphins 34, Patriots 33.
3. 49ers 20, Broncos 14.
4. Raiders 24, Steelers 21.
That is all.
Sunday, December 9, 2018
The best of the best game
Saturday evening was Annual Christmas Soiree Night at the Smith-Creek household, and so the Blob manned its usual station Saturday afternoon. Which is to say, I was on sweeping/dusting/latrine duty.
But the TV was on, of course. How could it not be?
That's because the day of our annual party is also the day of the Army-Navy football game, and that is appointment viewing for the Blob. It is not the most skilled display of college football, admittedly. But it is the best display of college football, because it embodies everything college football ought to be but no longer is at the very top levels of the game.
The young men of West Point and the Naval Academy, see, do not play for the greater glory of their schools' corporate sponsors. They don't get trotted out there by their schools primarily as billboards for whatever apparel company with whom their schools have chunky deals. And they're not there as quasi-professionals building resumes for the day when they become actual professionals.
Nope. The West Point young men are out there to beat Navy. The Navy young men are out there to beat Army. Both are out there not as future professionals, but as future defenders of America.
Those aforementioned logos, for instance?
The most prominent one on the Army uniforms Saturday did not salute Nike or Adidas or Under Armour. It was a small red patch on the front of their helmets with a "1" on it -- i.e., the insignia of the Big Red One, one of the most celebrated combat units in U.S. military history.
And so there is meaning behind every block, every tackle, every moment of striving in this game, meaning that goes far beyond the mundane considerations of commerce that so infect college football elsewhere. There is meaning behind the pageantry -- the entrance into the stadium of the midshipmen and the corps of cadets; the singing of the alma maters at game's end -- that exists nowhere else. And that is why the Blob watches.
It's also not alone. As John Feinstein professes here.
Could not agree more.
But the TV was on, of course. How could it not be?
That's because the day of our annual party is also the day of the Army-Navy football game, and that is appointment viewing for the Blob. It is not the most skilled display of college football, admittedly. But it is the best display of college football, because it embodies everything college football ought to be but no longer is at the very top levels of the game.
The young men of West Point and the Naval Academy, see, do not play for the greater glory of their schools' corporate sponsors. They don't get trotted out there by their schools primarily as billboards for whatever apparel company with whom their schools have chunky deals. And they're not there as quasi-professionals building resumes for the day when they become actual professionals.
Nope. The West Point young men are out there to beat Navy. The Navy young men are out there to beat Army. Both are out there not as future professionals, but as future defenders of America.
Those aforementioned logos, for instance?
The most prominent one on the Army uniforms Saturday did not salute Nike or Adidas or Under Armour. It was a small red patch on the front of their helmets with a "1" on it -- i.e., the insignia of the Big Red One, one of the most celebrated combat units in U.S. military history.
And so there is meaning behind every block, every tackle, every moment of striving in this game, meaning that goes far beyond the mundane considerations of commerce that so infect college football elsewhere. There is meaning behind the pageantry -- the entrance into the stadium of the midshipmen and the corps of cadets; the singing of the alma maters at game's end -- that exists nowhere else. And that is why the Blob watches.
It's also not alone. As John Feinstein professes here.
Could not agree more.
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Whither loyalty
I play, coach stays. He goes, I go.
-- Jimmy Chitwood
Emma Wilson looks nothing like Jimmy Chitwood.Like most distance runners of repute she's a mere slip of a thing, a scrap of a kid who looks as if a puff of air would carry her off like a hotdog wrapper or an exhausted autumn leaf. But do not be fooled.
There is steel in this young lady. Steel and something Chitwoodian, as IndyStar writer David Woods suggested in breaking this bombshell: Indiana's top female distance runner is no longer going to run for her high school.
That would be Greencastle High School, for whom Emma Wilson has won five state titles, two in cross country and three in track. Last month she won her second straight state title in cross country, becoming the first girl in 10 years to win back-to-back titles. Next fall, she'll be running for the University of Illinois.
But she and her high school are quits, she says. This because Greencastle last week placed her coach, former Pike High School and Butler runner Craig Jordan, on administrative leave. The reason cited was "an irretrievable breakdown in your professional relationships that cannot be resolved."
Which sounds as if Jordan has gotten crosswise with the mucketies in the school system and can't get un-crosswise.
In any event, Wilson's loyalties are clear: She's siding with her coach, whom she and many others -- including Greencastle's 2018 valedictorian Ben Gellman, now running for Colorado College -- swear by. So she will forfeit an almost certain third state title in the 3,200 meters next spring to do what she regards as the right thing.
“They say he’s not a good coach when all the kids say they love him and want to run for him,” Wilson told the Star. “I just decided I wasn’t going to represent Greencastle anymore because of the way they treat people.”
So that's that. And, well ...
Look. I don't know much about much, but I do know this: It is fashionable, and more than a bit cliché, to say These Kids Today are going to be the ruination of everything, that they are too coddled and too entitled and just not centered enough to shoulder the responsibilities that await them. It is the endless refrain of every generation -- just as it's the endless refrain of every generation to swear that it's different this time.
It is not, of course. Our parents said the same thing about us. Their parents said it about them. Go back 2,000 years and Gaius Maximus was saying it about his ne'er-do-well son Scipio.
But somehow Scipio always turns out OK. And These Kids Today?
If Emma Wilson is any measure, it sounds like they're going to be OK, too. More than OK.
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Name that team
So exciting news has come down out of the National Hockey League: Seattle is joining the party!
Which is to say, the home of the Space Needle and Starbucks is getting an NHL franchise, and what fun it's going to be. There'll be that great border wars rivalry with Vancouver, or so one would presume. There'll be a lot of fans wearing self-aggrandizing No. 7 jerseys for the same reason Seahawks fans wear No. 12 jerseys -- for "The 12th Man," aka the fans. Seattle hockey fans will be The Seventh Man.
Even more fun will be trying to come up with a name for the new franchise.
The Blob being an Official Naming Zone, it has some suggestions. In so doing, it follows the accepted rules of naming hockey teams, which state that there must be an inordinate number of suggestions that include the word "ice," and also an inordinate number of suggestions that include the word "dogs."
Here we go:
1. Seattle Ice Dogs.
2. Seattle Needle-Nosed Ice Dogs.
3. Seattle Sea Dogs.
4. Seattle Grunge Dogs.
5. Seattle Iced Latte Dogs.
6. Seattle Rainiacs.
7. Seattle Icy Rainiacs.
8. Seattle Fightin' Chinooks.
9. Seattle Chinooks Fightin' Upstream While It Rains Cats And Dogs.
10. Seattle Fightin' Red Holiday Cups.
Seriously, though ...
Seriously, the best suggest comes from a friend of the Blob, who points out that the coolest idea would be to resurrect the name of a former Seattle minor league team: The Seattle Totems.
Which wore these way-cool jerseys.
Think we've got a winner.
Which is to say, the home of the Space Needle and Starbucks is getting an NHL franchise, and what fun it's going to be. There'll be that great border wars rivalry with Vancouver, or so one would presume. There'll be a lot of fans wearing self-aggrandizing No. 7 jerseys for the same reason Seahawks fans wear No. 12 jerseys -- for "The 12th Man," aka the fans. Seattle hockey fans will be The Seventh Man.
Even more fun will be trying to come up with a name for the new franchise.
The Blob being an Official Naming Zone, it has some suggestions. In so doing, it follows the accepted rules of naming hockey teams, which state that there must be an inordinate number of suggestions that include the word "ice," and also an inordinate number of suggestions that include the word "dogs."
Here we go:
1. Seattle Ice Dogs.
2. Seattle Needle-Nosed Ice Dogs.
3. Seattle Sea Dogs.
4. Seattle Grunge Dogs.
5. Seattle Iced Latte Dogs.
6. Seattle Rainiacs.
7. Seattle Icy Rainiacs.
8. Seattle Fightin' Chinooks.
9. Seattle Chinooks Fightin' Upstream While It Rains Cats And Dogs.
10. Seattle Fightin' Red Holiday Cups.
Seriously, though ...
Seriously, the best suggest comes from a friend of the Blob, who points out that the coolest idea would be to resurrect the name of a former Seattle minor league team: The Seattle Totems.
Which wore these way-cool jerseys.
Think we've got a winner.
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Urban flier
Please, do not bring up the A-word. That is the Blob's modest request for this day.
That is its tiny favor to ask on the day a clearly ailing Urban Meyer announces he will retire from coaching (at least for now) after the Rose Bowl. That is its humble entreaty of all the TV lacquerheads and sports-talk radio poodles who will undoubtedly weigh in on this -- and in and in and in.
Whatever you do, guys, do not breathe the word "adversity." Because it doesn't apply here.
Yes, Meyer was suspended for three games at the beginning of the season, but that is not adversity when you're beating the wadding out of welcome mats like Oregon State (2-10), Rutgers (1-11) and TCU (6-6) in those three games. It is also not adversity when you brought that suspension on yourself by coddling a psycho assistant coach and then offering an explanation no one outside of Columbus, Ohio, could possibly believe.
Adversity is what happens when you are visited by unforeseen and undeserved misfortune. It is not what happens when that misfortune is self-inflicted.
Meyer has inflicted a lot of misfortune on himself across the years, so much so it has become an irretrievable part of his decidedly mixed legacy. On the one hand, he undisputedly is one of the two greatest college football coaches of the modern era along with Nick Saban. On the other ...
On the other, he's been pretty good at looking the other way when it was to his advantage.
Virtually unparalleled success on the field has gone hand-in-hand with some sketchy ethics for Meyer, and you cannot assess his career without considering both. Yes, he won two national titles at Florida; then again, some 30 Florida football players also were arrested during his six years there. Yes, he won another national title at Ohio State; then again, more arrests also happened there on his watch, on top of the whole Zach Smith mess.
One hopes both would get equal time in the inevitable media eulogy today. One also hopes the Rose Bowl won't become A Tribute To Urban Meyer a month hence.
Holding one's breath while hoping for that probably wouldn't be a wise option, however.
That is its tiny favor to ask on the day a clearly ailing Urban Meyer announces he will retire from coaching (at least for now) after the Rose Bowl. That is its humble entreaty of all the TV lacquerheads and sports-talk radio poodles who will undoubtedly weigh in on this -- and in and in and in.
Whatever you do, guys, do not breathe the word "adversity." Because it doesn't apply here.
Yes, Meyer was suspended for three games at the beginning of the season, but that is not adversity when you're beating the wadding out of welcome mats like Oregon State (2-10), Rutgers (1-11) and TCU (6-6) in those three games. It is also not adversity when you brought that suspension on yourself by coddling a psycho assistant coach and then offering an explanation no one outside of Columbus, Ohio, could possibly believe.
Adversity is what happens when you are visited by unforeseen and undeserved misfortune. It is not what happens when that misfortune is self-inflicted.
Meyer has inflicted a lot of misfortune on himself across the years, so much so it has become an irretrievable part of his decidedly mixed legacy. On the one hand, he undisputedly is one of the two greatest college football coaches of the modern era along with Nick Saban. On the other ...
On the other, he's been pretty good at looking the other way when it was to his advantage.
Virtually unparalleled success on the field has gone hand-in-hand with some sketchy ethics for Meyer, and you cannot assess his career without considering both. Yes, he won two national titles at Florida; then again, some 30 Florida football players also were arrested during his six years there. Yes, he won another national title at Ohio State; then again, more arrests also happened there on his watch, on top of the whole Zach Smith mess.
One hopes both would get equal time in the inevitable media eulogy today. One also hopes the Rose Bowl won't become A Tribute To Urban Meyer a month hence.
Holding one's breath while hoping for that probably wouldn't be a wise option, however.
Save of the year!
It's true, you know. Dogs really are a man's best friend.
Latest evidence can be found here, in which Fido goes all kick-save-and-a-beauty to rescue some poor human from extreme mortification. It's the sort of thing Lassie would have done had America known what soccer was back when that heroic pooch was melting hearts on TV. Presumably, it would have happened somewhere between Lassie saving the little girl who fell down the well and dragging an unconscious Timmy from the burning house.
After which Timmy, regaining consciousness, would have said: "You're the best, girl!"
And then:
"Except you know that save you made? It cost my team a goal."
Latest evidence can be found here, in which Fido goes all kick-save-and-a-beauty to rescue some poor human from extreme mortification. It's the sort of thing Lassie would have done had America known what soccer was back when that heroic pooch was melting hearts on TV. Presumably, it would have happened somewhere between Lassie saving the little girl who fell down the well and dragging an unconscious Timmy from the burning house.
After which Timmy, regaining consciousness, would have said: "You're the best, girl!"
And then:
"Except you know that save you made? It cost my team a goal."
A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 13
And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the festive Blob feature critics have called "As welcome this time of year as the 1,456th playing of 'Wonderful Christmas Time'", and also "The blogging equivalent of a lump of coal in your Christmas stocking":
1. "We're going to make the playoffs!! NOTHING CAN STOP US NOW!!" (Indianapolis Colts, December 1)
2. "What th--?!" (Indianapolis Colts, evening of December 2)
3. "We are the greatest team in the history of teams!!" (Dallas Cowboys)
4. "Geez, will you guys just shut up already?" (Everyone else)
5. "I got it! I got it!" (Charles Clay, Buffalo Bills tight end)
6. "I ain't got it!" (Also Charles Clay)
7. "Dammit, Charles!" (Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills quarterback)\
8. Meanwhile, Mike McCarthy!
9. Is free now to work for a front office less populated by idiots.
10. "No, really! I got it this time! I -- Crap!" (Charles Clay)
1. "We're going to make the playoffs!! NOTHING CAN STOP US NOW!!" (Indianapolis Colts, December 1)
2. "What th--?!" (Indianapolis Colts, evening of December 2)
3. "We are the greatest team in the history of teams!!" (Dallas Cowboys)
4. "Geez, will you guys just shut up already?" (Everyone else)
5. "I got it! I got it!" (Charles Clay, Buffalo Bills tight end)
6. "I ain't got it!" (Also Charles Clay)
7. "Dammit, Charles!" (Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills quarterback)\
8. Meanwhile, Mike McCarthy!
9. Is free now to work for a front office less populated by idiots.
10. "No, really! I got it this time! I -- Crap!" (Charles Clay)
Monday, December 3, 2018
The right thing. Sort of.
The Kansas City Chiefs kept on keepin' on Sunday afternoon, beating the Hapless Oakland Raiders* (* -- Official name) without running back Kareem Hunt, who didn't play on account of a couple of minutes of hotel surveillance video from back in February.
In other words, Hunt got Ray Riced.
It was Ray Rice who caused the NFL to cartoonishly backpedal when video of him punching his then-fiancée in an elevator surfaced after he'd already been disciplined. Suddenly the Shield got all sanctimonious (as the only the Shield can) about domestic violence, and pretty soon Ray Rice was out of the league.
As is Kareem Hunt.
In February he got off scot free after shoving and kicking a woman in a skinny-hours altercation in a Cleveland hotel. He wasn't charged, and the Chiefs and the league pretty much ignored the incident after listening to Hunt's version. Then this showed up.
As with Rice, the reaction was instantaneous, and somewhat, yes, cartoonish. All of a sudden everyone was again very concerned about domestic violence. All of a sudden they were horrified that one of their players could be involved in such brutal behavior, even though no one seemed to wonder at the time why one of their players was getting into an altercation with a woman at zero dark thirty in the morning.
And so on Saturday, a day after the video surfaced, the Chiefs released Kareem Hunt, who had already rushed for 824 yards and seven touchdowns this season. And everyone applauded the Chiefs for demonstrating with such swiftness and clarity that domestic violence Will Not Be Tolerated in their organization, or by extension the NASH-unal FOOT-ball League itself.
Except.
Except the Chiefs official statement didn't exactly say that.
No, sir. The official statement declared that Hunt was being released because he was less than truthful with team officials. In other words, they weren't nearly as troubled by the fact their star running back got caught on video shoving and kicking a woman as they were with the fact he lied about it.
So, once again, it's not about domestic violence with these folks, really. The Chiefs weren't sticking up for the woman involved. They were sticking up for themselves because the worse offense, apparently, was committed against them. Kareem Hunt lied to us!
And so it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut used to say.
In other words, Hunt got Ray Riced.
It was Ray Rice who caused the NFL to cartoonishly backpedal when video of him punching his then-fiancée in an elevator surfaced after he'd already been disciplined. Suddenly the Shield got all sanctimonious (as the only the Shield can) about domestic violence, and pretty soon Ray Rice was out of the league.
As is Kareem Hunt.
In February he got off scot free after shoving and kicking a woman in a skinny-hours altercation in a Cleveland hotel. He wasn't charged, and the Chiefs and the league pretty much ignored the incident after listening to Hunt's version. Then this showed up.
As with Rice, the reaction was instantaneous, and somewhat, yes, cartoonish. All of a sudden everyone was again very concerned about domestic violence. All of a sudden they were horrified that one of their players could be involved in such brutal behavior, even though no one seemed to wonder at the time why one of their players was getting into an altercation with a woman at zero dark thirty in the morning.
And so on Saturday, a day after the video surfaced, the Chiefs released Kareem Hunt, who had already rushed for 824 yards and seven touchdowns this season. And everyone applauded the Chiefs for demonstrating with such swiftness and clarity that domestic violence Will Not Be Tolerated in their organization, or by extension the NASH-unal FOOT-ball League itself.
Except.
Except the Chiefs official statement didn't exactly say that.
No, sir. The official statement declared that Hunt was being released because he was less than truthful with team officials. In other words, they weren't nearly as troubled by the fact their star running back got caught on video shoving and kicking a woman as they were with the fact he lied about it.
So, once again, it's not about domestic violence with these folks, really. The Chiefs weren't sticking up for the woman involved. They were sticking up for themselves because the worse offense, apparently, was committed against them. Kareem Hunt lied to us!
And so it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut used to say.
Your wagering PSA for today
The NFL will have a kinda-sorta team (the Raiders) in Las Vegas soon, which suggests it's kinda-sorta not four-square against gambling on its product, as long as you're quiet about it and don't make it open its eyes by shouting HEY, LOOK, NFL, WE'RE GAMBLING ON YOUR PRODUCT.
That said ... there are reasons you might not want to gamble on the NFL. And none of them have anything to do with the fact that if you let gamblers in (officially, that is) guys named Bugsy and Rocco and Paulie Walnuts will move in and take over the sport.
No, sir. You don't want to gamble on the NFL for three reasons:
1. Jaguars 6, Colts 0.
2. Cardinals 20, Packers 17.
3. Giants 30, Bears 27.
In other words, a team that had lost seven games in a row shut out a team that had won five in a row behind one of the hottest quarterbacks in the league. A really, really awful team from Arizona beat Aaron Rodgers in Lambeau Field in December. And a cruddy Giants team beat a Bears team that looked like it really had its stuff together.
To sum up: The NFL is stupid. There is no such thing as momentum and you can't predict anything from week to week. And so it's the sucker bet of all sucker bets.
But go ahead, plunk some more down on next week's games. I'm sure you'll win big.
That said ... there are reasons you might not want to gamble on the NFL. And none of them have anything to do with the fact that if you let gamblers in (officially, that is) guys named Bugsy and Rocco and Paulie Walnuts will move in and take over the sport.
No, sir. You don't want to gamble on the NFL for three reasons:
1. Jaguars 6, Colts 0.
2. Cardinals 20, Packers 17.
3. Giants 30, Bears 27.
In other words, a team that had lost seven games in a row shut out a team that had won five in a row behind one of the hottest quarterbacks in the league. A really, really awful team from Arizona beat Aaron Rodgers in Lambeau Field in December. And a cruddy Giants team beat a Bears team that looked like it really had its stuff together.
To sum up: The NFL is stupid. There is no such thing as momentum and you can't predict anything from week to week. And so it's the sucker bet of all sucker bets.
But go ahead, plunk some more down on next week's games. I'm sure you'll win big.
Sunday, December 2, 2018
Expansion tale
I know what I saw Saturday, down there indoors in Atlanta, Ga. I saw two of the top four teams in college football.
One of them will get credit for that, thanks to the recovered glory of a previously glorious quarterback. The other will not, because there are certain inimitable laws about this constricted creature called, with a woeful absence of imagination, the College Football Playoff.
One of those laws is Thou Shalt Not Make The Playoff With Two Losses.
Sadly for fans of the Bulldogs, that applies to Georgia, which lost to LSU earlier in the year before coming from ahead to lose to previously unchallenged Alabama last night. Just as in the national championship game back in January, the Bulldogs dominated 'Bama for most of the day, leading 28-14 deep in the second half. And just as in the national championship game, 'Bama somehow pulled it out, 35-28, behind its backup quarterback.
The only difference was, the backup this time was Jalen Hurts, who was the starter in the national title game. And the starter was Tua Tagovailoa, who won the national title game in relief of Hurts, then had to give way to Hurts yesterday after Georgia sent him limping to the sidelines with the Tide down by a touchdown.
Enter Hurts, who scored the winning touchdown on a 15-yard run. Enter also Georgia coach Kirby "Maybe Not All That" Smart, who called for a fake punt with the score tied, saw it get stuffed and then watched Hurts cash in the brain cramp.
So Alabama remains unbeaten and likely will remain the top-ranked team in the upcoming CFP. And Georgia, per the inimitable laws, will go off to maul someone in some halfway decent bowl game somewhere.
But you know what?
To hell with the inimitable laws. I know what I saw.
I saw two of the top four teams in the nation, on one football field. And one of them won't get to prove it in the CFP.
Oklahoma?
Yeah, the Sooners will likely fill the No. 4 spot after beating Texas by 10 in the Big 12 title game. And that will happen because Ohio State didn't bury Northwestern in style points in the Big Ten title game, And yet neither one, for my money, is better than Georgia. The eyeball test is rarely wrong, and that's what my eyeballs tell me.
Which gets me to thinking about numbers. Specifically, two of them: Four and eight.
Four is what the CFP consists of now. Eight is what it ought to consist of.
An eight-team playoff would mean the champion of every Power 5 conference would get an automatic bid, just like the NCAA basketball tournament. That would leave three at-large bids for, say, a Central Florida, which just completed its second straight unbeaten season. Or for a Georgia, which paid dearly for that misstep down in Baton Rouge back in October.
Without that, the Bulldogs are a one-loss team. And likely would have remained in the playoff even with the loss to Alabama, simply because they're the only team that's given the Tide even a moment's pause this season. And thus seem pretty clearly one of the four best teams in the nation.
And, yes, I understand expanding the playoff to eight teams perhaps opens a floodgate the NCAA is loathe to open. If eight teams make it, why not 12? Why not 16? On and on and on.
I also understand this is a reaction to a circumstance specific to this one year. There will not be a two-loss team as good as Georgia most years. So, yeah, there's a little knee-jerkery going on here.
And yet ...
And yet, I know what I saw.
And I wish I had the chance to see it again.
One of them will get credit for that, thanks to the recovered glory of a previously glorious quarterback. The other will not, because there are certain inimitable laws about this constricted creature called, with a woeful absence of imagination, the College Football Playoff.
One of those laws is Thou Shalt Not Make The Playoff With Two Losses.
Sadly for fans of the Bulldogs, that applies to Georgia, which lost to LSU earlier in the year before coming from ahead to lose to previously unchallenged Alabama last night. Just as in the national championship game back in January, the Bulldogs dominated 'Bama for most of the day, leading 28-14 deep in the second half. And just as in the national championship game, 'Bama somehow pulled it out, 35-28, behind its backup quarterback.
The only difference was, the backup this time was Jalen Hurts, who was the starter in the national title game. And the starter was Tua Tagovailoa, who won the national title game in relief of Hurts, then had to give way to Hurts yesterday after Georgia sent him limping to the sidelines with the Tide down by a touchdown.
Enter Hurts, who scored the winning touchdown on a 15-yard run. Enter also Georgia coach Kirby "Maybe Not All That" Smart, who called for a fake punt with the score tied, saw it get stuffed and then watched Hurts cash in the brain cramp.
So Alabama remains unbeaten and likely will remain the top-ranked team in the upcoming CFP. And Georgia, per the inimitable laws, will go off to maul someone in some halfway decent bowl game somewhere.
But you know what?
To hell with the inimitable laws. I know what I saw.
I saw two of the top four teams in the nation, on one football field. And one of them won't get to prove it in the CFP.
Oklahoma?
Yeah, the Sooners will likely fill the No. 4 spot after beating Texas by 10 in the Big 12 title game. And that will happen because Ohio State didn't bury Northwestern in style points in the Big Ten title game, And yet neither one, for my money, is better than Georgia. The eyeball test is rarely wrong, and that's what my eyeballs tell me.
Which gets me to thinking about numbers. Specifically, two of them: Four and eight.
Four is what the CFP consists of now. Eight is what it ought to consist of.
An eight-team playoff would mean the champion of every Power 5 conference would get an automatic bid, just like the NCAA basketball tournament. That would leave three at-large bids for, say, a Central Florida, which just completed its second straight unbeaten season. Or for a Georgia, which paid dearly for that misstep down in Baton Rouge back in October.
Without that, the Bulldogs are a one-loss team. And likely would have remained in the playoff even with the loss to Alabama, simply because they're the only team that's given the Tide even a moment's pause this season. And thus seem pretty clearly one of the four best teams in the nation.
And, yes, I understand expanding the playoff to eight teams perhaps opens a floodgate the NCAA is loathe to open. If eight teams make it, why not 12? Why not 16? On and on and on.
I also understand this is a reaction to a circumstance specific to this one year. There will not be a two-loss team as good as Georgia most years. So, yeah, there's a little knee-jerkery going on here.
And yet ...
And yet, I know what I saw.
And I wish I had the chance to see it again.
Friday, November 30, 2018
The glory of disdain
One of college football's grittiest rivalries gets a do-over Saturday for the first time since 1903, and once again this week we've been treated to the reason the college game is so much more outright fun than that stuff they play on Sundays.
It's Oklahoma vs. Texas for the Big 12 title, a rematch of the October game in which the Longhorns handed the Sooners their only loss. And, boy howdy, the enmity is flowin'.
To sum up: OU's quarterback doesn't like UT's quarterback. UT's quarterback doesn't much care for OU's quarterback. None of their teammates like the other team's quarterback either.
Best quote of the week so far?
This from Texas defensive tackle Chris Nelson: ""It's gonna be a dirty game. You'll probably see hitting after the whistle. You'll probably see a lot of stuff if you keep your eyes open.\
"It's gonna be a dogfight. But I love it, man."
Who doesn't?
It's Oklahoma vs. Texas for the Big 12 title, a rematch of the October game in which the Longhorns handed the Sooners their only loss. And, boy howdy, the enmity is flowin'.
To sum up: OU's quarterback doesn't like UT's quarterback. UT's quarterback doesn't much care for OU's quarterback. None of their teammates like the other team's quarterback either.
Best quote of the week so far?
This from Texas defensive tackle Chris Nelson: ""It's gonna be a dirty game. You'll probably see hitting after the whistle. You'll probably see a lot of stuff if you keep your eyes open.\
"It's gonna be a dogfight. But I love it, man."
Who doesn't?
Thursday, November 29, 2018
Perception is all
Five million lost viewers.
Thirteen years.
This is not the sort of calculus that works, if you're a once-going concern that wants to remain a going concern. This is, in fact, as bad as it gets when the once-going concern is the most wildly successful motorsports entity in American history, a motorsports entity that once gushed money with such ease it briefly imagined itself the nation's fourth major sport.
That was then. This is now.
This is post-NASCAR NASCAR, the bust after the boom. In 2005, nearly 8.5 million people watched each Cup Series race, according to the latest figures. In 2018 fewer than 3.5 million did. This means almost twice as many people have stopped watching NASCAR across the last 13 years than watched it this year.
This was would be awful news for any professional; for a motorsport like NASCAR, which relies heavily on sponsorship dollars for its very breath, it is catastrophic.
Eyeballs attract sponsors. Lack of same sends them screaming into the night. That is not a good thing.
So why is this happening?
At least part of it, one senses, is that NASCAR is experiencing exactly what IndyCar did in the early '90s, when so many reliable draws retired almost at once. Within a three or four year span, A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Rick Mears and Al Unser Sr. all hung it up. Every one of them represented a chunky fan base. At least a portion of those fan bases never caught on with the next generation of stars, none of whom shone with nearly the sustained brilliance.
NASCAR, same deal. Four of the biggest draws in the sport -- Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Carl Edwards -- have all walked away from the sport in the last four years. A fifth, Jimmie Johnson, has become a diminished presence. The next generation of sustainable draws is still in the development stage, and a few of the established remaining veterans aren't particularly likeable.
So NASCAR is stuck in neutral, for the time being. And as has been pointed out in this space before, a lot of that is its own doing.
All that aforementioned wild success, you see, created expectations that were unrealistic and unsustainable. This was especially true among sponsors and potential sponsors, who saw that gusher of money and assumed it would gush forever. It was never going to -- anyone who understood that motorsports is and always will remain a niche entity could see that -- but booms are hothouses for delusion. If the money's rolling in, it's always going to roll in. Right?
Well ... no. And so we've come to a place where 3 million plus viewers for every Cup race is a catastrophe because of the backdrop against which it's playing out. Thirty, 40 years ago, when NASCAR was still largely a regional phenomenon, 3 million plus viewers would have had everyone in the sport turning cartwheels. And sponsors would have been lined up out the door.
Now?
Now it's sending them fleeing out the door.
What a difference perception makes.
Thirteen years.
This is not the sort of calculus that works, if you're a once-going concern that wants to remain a going concern. This is, in fact, as bad as it gets when the once-going concern is the most wildly successful motorsports entity in American history, a motorsports entity that once gushed money with such ease it briefly imagined itself the nation's fourth major sport.
That was then. This is now.
This is post-NASCAR NASCAR, the bust after the boom. In 2005, nearly 8.5 million people watched each Cup Series race, according to the latest figures. In 2018 fewer than 3.5 million did. This means almost twice as many people have stopped watching NASCAR across the last 13 years than watched it this year.
This was would be awful news for any professional; for a motorsport like NASCAR, which relies heavily on sponsorship dollars for its very breath, it is catastrophic.
Eyeballs attract sponsors. Lack of same sends them screaming into the night. That is not a good thing.
So why is this happening?
At least part of it, one senses, is that NASCAR is experiencing exactly what IndyCar did in the early '90s, when so many reliable draws retired almost at once. Within a three or four year span, A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Rick Mears and Al Unser Sr. all hung it up. Every one of them represented a chunky fan base. At least a portion of those fan bases never caught on with the next generation of stars, none of whom shone with nearly the sustained brilliance.
NASCAR, same deal. Four of the biggest draws in the sport -- Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Carl Edwards -- have all walked away from the sport in the last four years. A fifth, Jimmie Johnson, has become a diminished presence. The next generation of sustainable draws is still in the development stage, and a few of the established remaining veterans aren't particularly likeable.
So NASCAR is stuck in neutral, for the time being. And as has been pointed out in this space before, a lot of that is its own doing.
All that aforementioned wild success, you see, created expectations that were unrealistic and unsustainable. This was especially true among sponsors and potential sponsors, who saw that gusher of money and assumed it would gush forever. It was never going to -- anyone who understood that motorsports is and always will remain a niche entity could see that -- but booms are hothouses for delusion. If the money's rolling in, it's always going to roll in. Right?
Well ... no. And so we've come to a place where 3 million plus viewers for every Cup race is a catastrophe because of the backdrop against which it's playing out. Thirty, 40 years ago, when NASCAR was still largely a regional phenomenon, 3 million plus viewers would have had everyone in the sport turning cartwheels. And sponsors would have been lined up out the door.
Now?
Now it's sending them fleeing out the door.
What a difference perception makes.
Spurning home
This was a no-brainer, or so some of the wise guys thought. Who doesn't want to go home again, if offered the chance? Especially when the chance comes with so many dollar signs attached to it?
And so Jeff Brohm was going to go to Louisville. He was, wasn't he?
The circumstances were all weighted in that direction, after all. He was a high school star in Louisville. Then he was a collegiate star there, just as his brother had been. If Louisville, a basketball school in a basketball town in a basketball state, had a first family of football, it was the Brohm family.
Who better to resurrect the football program Bobby Petrino had just burned to the waterline, than the guy who sorted through the wreckage Darrell Hazell left behind to win 13 games in two seasons at Purdue?
On the other hand ... who better to stick around and see the job through?
Which you have to figure was at least partly what it came down to for Brohm, who hinted at as much in announcing he would turn down home to stay 180 miles away at Purdue. If the fit sounded as right as a fit gets, it seems, the timing wasn't. Everything at Purdue was just getting started. He'd made commitment to both the university and a passel of recruits. Louisville, if it ever happened, could wait.
And you had to wonder, when the news came down yesterday and all of West Lafayette audibly exhaled, just when Brohm's decision shifted in Purdue's favor. Does it go this way without a certain October night in Ross-Ade Stadium, when Purdue crushed the life out of then No. 2 Ohio State and Brohm got swept up in the magic of a lost program finding its mojo again? Does it go this way without athletic director Mike Bobinski's concerted push to pour money into the football program? Or Purdue solidifying its commitment to that program, and to Brohm, by reportedly topping Louisville's offer?
So many variables. What if Ohio State had beaten Purdue that night the way the Buckeyes had in three of the last four meetings? What if Bobinski's predecessor, Morgan Burke, hadn't decided to retire? Would Brohm had stuck around if Burke had stuck around?
Fair questions all. And, of course, a tidy window into just how much karma or circumstance or plain old garden variety luck plays into these things.
Far too often, plain old garden variety luck has turned its back on Purdue. This time it didn't. Score it a W.
And so Jeff Brohm was going to go to Louisville. He was, wasn't he?
The circumstances were all weighted in that direction, after all. He was a high school star in Louisville. Then he was a collegiate star there, just as his brother had been. If Louisville, a basketball school in a basketball town in a basketball state, had a first family of football, it was the Brohm family.
Who better to resurrect the football program Bobby Petrino had just burned to the waterline, than the guy who sorted through the wreckage Darrell Hazell left behind to win 13 games in two seasons at Purdue?
On the other hand ... who better to stick around and see the job through?
Which you have to figure was at least partly what it came down to for Brohm, who hinted at as much in announcing he would turn down home to stay 180 miles away at Purdue. If the fit sounded as right as a fit gets, it seems, the timing wasn't. Everything at Purdue was just getting started. He'd made commitment to both the university and a passel of recruits. Louisville, if it ever happened, could wait.
And you had to wonder, when the news came down yesterday and all of West Lafayette audibly exhaled, just when Brohm's decision shifted in Purdue's favor. Does it go this way without a certain October night in Ross-Ade Stadium, when Purdue crushed the life out of then No. 2 Ohio State and Brohm got swept up in the magic of a lost program finding its mojo again? Does it go this way without athletic director Mike Bobinski's concerted push to pour money into the football program? Or Purdue solidifying its commitment to that program, and to Brohm, by reportedly topping Louisville's offer?
So many variables. What if Ohio State had beaten Purdue that night the way the Buckeyes had in three of the last four meetings? What if Bobinski's predecessor, Morgan Burke, hadn't decided to retire? Would Brohm had stuck around if Burke had stuck around?
Fair questions all. And, of course, a tidy window into just how much karma or circumstance or plain old garden variety luck plays into these things.
Far too often, plain old garden variety luck has turned its back on Purdue. This time it didn't. Score it a W.
Wednesday, November 28, 2018
Still a ways to go
OK. So at least now we know.
At least now we know just how good Archie Miller's impressive collection of newbies and returning vets are -- and more to the point, just how good they aren't. They aren't as good as Mike Krzyzewski's even more impressive collection of newbies and returning talent at One-and-Done U. One-and-Done U. -- aka, NBA Team-In-Training, aka, Duke University -- is better. Like, way better.
Miller's Indiana Hoosiers and One-and-Done U. met in Durham last night, and 'tweren't pretty for the Bloomington lads. One-and-Done had them down 53-29 at halftime before Coach K lifted the throttle. The final, 90-69, was therefore something of a mirage in gauging exactly how much distance there is between K's legions and Miller's.
In any case, the obvious conclusion is that Romeo Langford, Robert Phinisee 'n' them ain't R.J. Barrett, Zion Williamson 'n' them. This is no knock on the former; right now hardly anyone is R.J. and Zion 'n' them. Which suggests, if you're a Hoosiers fan, Indiana will hold fast to that knowledge and not let last night's beatdown sour them going forward. Instead, they will apply some perspective, and realize that Romeo, Robert 'n' them are still a vast upgrade over last season, and that they'll still be good enough to beat most comers on most nights this winter.
In other words, they'll use last night as a measuring stick, not a stick with which to beat themselves over the head. Or at least Hoosier Nation can hope.
At least now we know just how good Archie Miller's impressive collection of newbies and returning vets are -- and more to the point, just how good they aren't. They aren't as good as Mike Krzyzewski's even more impressive collection of newbies and returning talent at One-and-Done U. One-and-Done U. -- aka, NBA Team-In-Training, aka, Duke University -- is better. Like, way better.
Miller's Indiana Hoosiers and One-and-Done U. met in Durham last night, and 'tweren't pretty for the Bloomington lads. One-and-Done had them down 53-29 at halftime before Coach K lifted the throttle. The final, 90-69, was therefore something of a mirage in gauging exactly how much distance there is between K's legions and Miller's.
In any case, the obvious conclusion is that Romeo Langford, Robert Phinisee 'n' them ain't R.J. Barrett, Zion Williamson 'n' them. This is no knock on the former; right now hardly anyone is R.J. and Zion 'n' them. Which suggests, if you're a Hoosiers fan, Indiana will hold fast to that knowledge and not let last night's beatdown sour them going forward. Instead, they will apply some perspective, and realize that Romeo, Robert 'n' them are still a vast upgrade over last season, and that they'll still be good enough to beat most comers on most nights this winter.
In other words, they'll use last night as a measuring stick, not a stick with which to beat themselves over the head. Or at least Hoosier Nation can hope.
Meanwhile, in chess ...
Time now for another exciting update from the world chess championships, where reigning world champion and LeBron James of chess Magnus Carlsen and mega-talented American challenger Fabiano Caruana are locked in an epic struggle of knights, pawns and castle-looking things (aka, rooks.)
So what has happened since the last time we checked in?
Same as last time: Not a damn thing!
Carlsen and Caruana have completed the 12-game match, and nothing has been settled. In fact, no one has yet won a single game of the 12. Every one has ended in a draw. This includes the last game, when it looked like Carlsen had Caruana on the ropes but refused to press his advantage, opting instead to offer the all-but-beaten Caruana another draw.
Not being a dummy, Caruana eagerly accepted.
According to people who know way more about chess than the Blob, this was extremely wuss-like behavior for a reigning champion. In fact many of the people who know way more about chess than the Blob all but called Carlsen a big fat chicken. Apparently it was like the LeBron James of chess imitating the real LeBron James and giving up the basketball with the game on the line.
(This is not exactly what LeBron James ever did, mind you. What he did was find the open man, which is what you're supposed to do when you're double- and sometimes triple-teamed. But you can't educate everyone about basketball overnight.)
Anyway ... so now it goes to a tiebreaker. The Blob has no idea what a tiebreaker in chess entails. You play only with the castle-looking things and knights? Speed checkers? Each player gets 10 moves and then you A) declare it a tie, in which Carlsen retains his title, or B) settle it with a rousing game of Stratego?
Beats me. All I know is, I'd have a huge advantage if they went the Stratego route.
Carlsen always hides his flag in the same place, you see. Always.
So what has happened since the last time we checked in?
Same as last time: Not a damn thing!
Carlsen and Caruana have completed the 12-game match, and nothing has been settled. In fact, no one has yet won a single game of the 12. Every one has ended in a draw. This includes the last game, when it looked like Carlsen had Caruana on the ropes but refused to press his advantage, opting instead to offer the all-but-beaten Caruana another draw.
Not being a dummy, Caruana eagerly accepted.
According to people who know way more about chess than the Blob, this was extremely wuss-like behavior for a reigning champion. In fact many of the people who know way more about chess than the Blob all but called Carlsen a big fat chicken. Apparently it was like the LeBron James of chess imitating the real LeBron James and giving up the basketball with the game on the line.
(This is not exactly what LeBron James ever did, mind you. What he did was find the open man, which is what you're supposed to do when you're double- and sometimes triple-teamed. But you can't educate everyone about basketball overnight.)
Anyway ... so now it goes to a tiebreaker. The Blob has no idea what a tiebreaker in chess entails. You play only with the castle-looking things and knights? Speed checkers? Each player gets 10 moves and then you A) declare it a tie, in which Carlsen retains his title, or B) settle it with a rousing game of Stratego?
Beats me. All I know is, I'd have a huge advantage if they went the Stratego route.
Carlsen always hides his flag in the same place, you see. Always.
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 12
And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the unmitigated gall-ish Blob feature of which critics have said "Why, the unmitigated gall of this feature!", and less harsh critics have said "I don't know. I think the gall here is pretty well mitigated.":
1. "Please. Help me. I'm being held hostage by a bunch of idiots. Aaron."
2. (Message found in an empty water bottle on the visitor's sideline Sunday night in U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.)
3. "Please. Help us. We're being held hostage by a football team that CAN'T EVEN COMPETE WITH THE STUPID BROWNS."
4. (Message found scrawled on a torn Bengals banner in the stands Sunday in Paul Brown Stadium. Also scrawled on the banner: "BITE ME BENGALS!")
5. "The Broncos? The freaking Broncos?! Are you freaking serious?!"
6. (Message left on a beer coaster in a sports bar in Pittsburgh Sunday by some guy wearing a Jack Lambert jersey.)
7. (OK, also by guys wearing Lynn Swann jerseys, Joe Greene jerseys, Rod Woodson jerseys, etc.)
8. "Please. Help us. We have to play Drew Brees next."
9. (Message found on the message board at the Dallas Cowboys complex Monday afternoon.)
10. (Shortly before it was taken down.)
1. "Please. Help me. I'm being held hostage by a bunch of idiots. Aaron."
2. (Message found in an empty water bottle on the visitor's sideline Sunday night in U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.)
3. "Please. Help us. We're being held hostage by a football team that CAN'T EVEN COMPETE WITH THE STUPID BROWNS."
4. (Message found scrawled on a torn Bengals banner in the stands Sunday in Paul Brown Stadium. Also scrawled on the banner: "BITE ME BENGALS!")
5. "The Broncos? The freaking Broncos?! Are you freaking serious?!"
6. (Message left on a beer coaster in a sports bar in Pittsburgh Sunday by some guy wearing a Jack Lambert jersey.)
7. (OK, also by guys wearing Lynn Swann jerseys, Joe Greene jerseys, Rod Woodson jerseys, etc.)
8. "Please. Help us. We have to play Drew Brees next."
9. (Message found on the message board at the Dallas Cowboys complex Monday afternoon.)
10. (Shortly before it was taken down.)
Your non-news item for today
Or in other words: "Hey, look! That Blob guy was wrong again!"
This, because, in defending Frank Reich's gamblin' man decision to go for it on fourth down against the Texans on Sept. 30 -- a decision that backfired when Andrew Luck threw a one-hopper to Chester Rogers and the Houston Texans took possession a hop, skip and jump from field goal range in a 37-34 Texans' victory -- the Blob opined this: Even four games into the season, it's become apparent (if it wasn't from Day One) that this isn't a playoff team. It's a team positioning itself for the future, with a glut of promising young players, particularly on defense, who are still growing into their jobs.
Well. At least I was partly right.
The Colts do have a glut of promising young players. And they are still growing into their jobs.
I just didn't figure they'd grow into them quite this fast.
Which is to say, I might have been a mite, uh, premature to say the Colts weren't a playoff team when they were on their way to a 1-5 start. Since then, of course, they've won five in a row and are now 6-5.
That puts them second in the AFC South. It also makes them the seventh seed in the AFC playoff scenario right now, just out of the playoff picture behind the Ravens, who are also 6-5. And they seem to be getting better every week.
The return of Marlon Mack, first of all, has given them an actual semblance of a running game. And Luck, secure at last behind an offensive line that isn't the Seven Blocks of Al Dente Spaghetti, is simply embarrassing everyone he faces.
Three more touchdown passes yesterday against the Dolphins give him 32 for the season. His QBR (quarterback rating) hasn't been below 123.5 since Oct. 14. He's thrown at least three touchdown passes in every game since Sept. 30, and three times in that span he's thrown four.
In other words, the Blob was wrong, wrong, wrong. With the prospect that it could get even more wrong before this is all over.
I know, I know. Stop the presses.
This, because, in defending Frank Reich's gamblin' man decision to go for it on fourth down against the Texans on Sept. 30 -- a decision that backfired when Andrew Luck threw a one-hopper to Chester Rogers and the Houston Texans took possession a hop, skip and jump from field goal range in a 37-34 Texans' victory -- the Blob opined this: Even four games into the season, it's become apparent (if it wasn't from Day One) that this isn't a playoff team. It's a team positioning itself for the future, with a glut of promising young players, particularly on defense, who are still growing into their jobs.
Well. At least I was partly right.
The Colts do have a glut of promising young players. And they are still growing into their jobs.
I just didn't figure they'd grow into them quite this fast.
Which is to say, I might have been a mite, uh, premature to say the Colts weren't a playoff team when they were on their way to a 1-5 start. Since then, of course, they've won five in a row and are now 6-5.
That puts them second in the AFC South. It also makes them the seventh seed in the AFC playoff scenario right now, just out of the playoff picture behind the Ravens, who are also 6-5. And they seem to be getting better every week.
The return of Marlon Mack, first of all, has given them an actual semblance of a running game. And Luck, secure at last behind an offensive line that isn't the Seven Blocks of Al Dente Spaghetti, is simply embarrassing everyone he faces.
Three more touchdown passes yesterday against the Dolphins give him 32 for the season. His QBR (quarterback rating) hasn't been below 123.5 since Oct. 14. He's thrown at least three touchdown passes in every game since Sept. 30, and three times in that span he's thrown four.
In other words, the Blob was wrong, wrong, wrong. With the prospect that it could get even more wrong before this is all over.
I know, I know. Stop the presses.
Sunday, November 25, 2018
Reservation for ... someone
Well. That was informative.
Or, you know, not.
America deserved what happened in college football yesterday, because the best part about college football has always been the debates, and now we'll get one. The debates, after all, were the one saving grace of the traditional system for determining a national champion, when the polls decided the issue. AP and UPI would make their call, and in barrooms and living rooms across the country everyone argued just how mythical the so-called mythical national champion was.
And so we came to Saturday.
When it looked like the time had come for Jim Harbaugh to finally beat Urban Meyer, until he looked across Ohio Stadium and said, "Wait, that's Urban Meyer. I can't beat that guy."
And so Ohio State strapped a 62-spot on Michigan and made the nation's alleged best defense look like a series of slalom gates, Buckeye receivers schussing through the UM defensive backfield like Lindsay Vonn. And now ... well, it gets interesting.
Now Michigan will leave vacant one spot in the College Football Playoff, and Georgia will occupy it until it loses to Alabama in the SEC title game. That means one spot will be open again -- and the teams most likely to fill it (presuming they both win their conference championship games) will be Oklahoma and, yes, Ohio State.
Let the debating will begin.
Yeah, you're 11-1, they'll say in Norman, Oklahoma. But it's kind of a Johnny-come-lately 11-1. Sure, you looked overwhelming against Michigan, but you let 5-7 Maryland put 51 on you and barely escaped with your lives, and you had all kinds of trouble at home with a 4-8 Nebraska team, and let's not forget what a .500 Purdue team did to you (49-20, in case you've forgotten. )And you only beat TCU by 12 while we road-killed the Horned Frogs 52-27. Clearly we're the better team.
Pshaw, will be the response in Columbus, Ohio. Or, you know, something like that.
Clearly the better team? they'll say. Your heads must be as empty as all that endless prairie down there. Need we remind you that you gave up 40 points to freaking Kansas? And 56 to West Virginia? And 47 to Oklahoma State, 46 to Texas Tech, and, of course, 48 to Texas in your one loss? You guys couldn't stop a stiff breeze. Heck, you'll probably lose to Texas again in the title game anyway the way you've been playing the last three weeks. So this debate might be kind of moot.
Yeah, but we've got Kyler Murray! they'll say in Norman.
And we've got Dwayne Haskins! they'll say in Columbus.
Yeah, well ... our mascot's cooler! they'll say in Norman.
(Brief pause while the folks in Columbus look at Brutus Buckeye, a guy with a giant nut for a head.)
OK. You got us there, they'll say.
Or, you know, not.
America deserved what happened in college football yesterday, because the best part about college football has always been the debates, and now we'll get one. The debates, after all, were the one saving grace of the traditional system for determining a national champion, when the polls decided the issue. AP and UPI would make their call, and in barrooms and living rooms across the country everyone argued just how mythical the so-called mythical national champion was.
And so we came to Saturday.
When it looked like the time had come for Jim Harbaugh to finally beat Urban Meyer, until he looked across Ohio Stadium and said, "Wait, that's Urban Meyer. I can't beat that guy."
And so Ohio State strapped a 62-spot on Michigan and made the nation's alleged best defense look like a series of slalom gates, Buckeye receivers schussing through the UM defensive backfield like Lindsay Vonn. And now ... well, it gets interesting.
Now Michigan will leave vacant one spot in the College Football Playoff, and Georgia will occupy it until it loses to Alabama in the SEC title game. That means one spot will be open again -- and the teams most likely to fill it (presuming they both win their conference championship games) will be Oklahoma and, yes, Ohio State.
Let the debating will begin.
Yeah, you're 11-1, they'll say in Norman, Oklahoma. But it's kind of a Johnny-come-lately 11-1. Sure, you looked overwhelming against Michigan, but you let 5-7 Maryland put 51 on you and barely escaped with your lives, and you had all kinds of trouble at home with a 4-8 Nebraska team, and let's not forget what a .500 Purdue team did to you (49-20, in case you've forgotten. )And you only beat TCU by 12 while we road-killed the Horned Frogs 52-27. Clearly we're the better team.
Pshaw, will be the response in Columbus, Ohio. Or, you know, something like that.
Clearly the better team? they'll say. Your heads must be as empty as all that endless prairie down there. Need we remind you that you gave up 40 points to freaking Kansas? And 56 to West Virginia? And 47 to Oklahoma State, 46 to Texas Tech, and, of course, 48 to Texas in your one loss? You guys couldn't stop a stiff breeze. Heck, you'll probably lose to Texas again in the title game anyway the way you've been playing the last three weeks. So this debate might be kind of moot.
Yeah, but we've got Kyler Murray! they'll say in Norman.
And we've got Dwayne Haskins! they'll say in Columbus.
Yeah, well ... our mascot's cooler! they'll say in Norman.
(Brief pause while the folks in Columbus look at Brutus Buckeye, a guy with a giant nut for a head.)
OK. You got us there, they'll say.
Meanwhile, in South Bend ...
This is not going to happen again, by God. I am not going to get fooled this time, not going to let all the lore and gleam off those gold helmets pull me back in, like Michael Corleone in "Godfather III."
I am not going to fall for Notre Dame again.
I am not going to say what I heard some sports poodle saying on the radio this week, which is that Notre Dame has the kind of team that can compete with Alabama and/or Clemson, even if it might not beat them.
I am not going to be sucked in by that goose egg in the Irish loss column, by all the glitter that attends a 12-0 record when it's the Fighting Irish who put it up, by the ease with which they handled Syracuse, the highest ranked team on their schedule after Michigan in week one.
I am not going to say what I've said before, which is that this Notre Dame team can Play With Anyone and Look Out For The Irish.
No, sir. I am going to say instead what I saw last night, which is a team that could barely play with a 5-7 USC team.
The final was 24-17, and, frankly, despite my vow not to get carried away again by the Notre Dame hype, I was more than mildly surprised. I figured it would be about 42-10, because (again, despite my vow) I think Notre Dame's pretty damn good. And USC is not.
But I have learned to be temperate in my advancing years. I have learned to be ... wary.
Especially when it comes to Notre Dame as coached by Brian Kelly.
I won't dispute the obvious, which is that he's the best coach Notre Dame has had since Lou Holtz. What I will say is his teams, even this 12-0 team, seem to follow a pattern, and that pattern is not always one that guarantees Domer Nation a good night's sleep.
Which is to say, Kelly's Irish have a curious tendency to struggle on occasion, even in situations where they shouldn't struggle. Last night was one of those. Pitt, Vanderbilt and Ball State were three others.
Bottom line, I just don't know exactly how 12-0 the Irish are. Seven of their 12 opponents, after all, finished .500 or worse. That's not their fault, of course, but it makes it difficult to gauge them. And so ...
And so, no Michael Corleone this time.
Maybe. Probably. Or not.
I am not going to fall for Notre Dame again.
I am not going to say what I heard some sports poodle saying on the radio this week, which is that Notre Dame has the kind of team that can compete with Alabama and/or Clemson, even if it might not beat them.
I am not going to be sucked in by that goose egg in the Irish loss column, by all the glitter that attends a 12-0 record when it's the Fighting Irish who put it up, by the ease with which they handled Syracuse, the highest ranked team on their schedule after Michigan in week one.
I am not going to say what I've said before, which is that this Notre Dame team can Play With Anyone and Look Out For The Irish.
No, sir. I am going to say instead what I saw last night, which is a team that could barely play with a 5-7 USC team.
The final was 24-17, and, frankly, despite my vow not to get carried away again by the Notre Dame hype, I was more than mildly surprised. I figured it would be about 42-10, because (again, despite my vow) I think Notre Dame's pretty damn good. And USC is not.
But I have learned to be temperate in my advancing years. I have learned to be ... wary.
Especially when it comes to Notre Dame as coached by Brian Kelly.
I won't dispute the obvious, which is that he's the best coach Notre Dame has had since Lou Holtz. What I will say is his teams, even this 12-0 team, seem to follow a pattern, and that pattern is not always one that guarantees Domer Nation a good night's sleep.
Which is to say, Kelly's Irish have a curious tendency to struggle on occasion, even in situations where they shouldn't struggle. Last night was one of those. Pitt, Vanderbilt and Ball State were three others.
Bottom line, I just don't know exactly how 12-0 the Irish are. Seven of their 12 opponents, after all, finished .500 or worse. That's not their fault, of course, but it makes it difficult to gauge them. And so ...
And so, no Michael Corleone this time.
Maybe. Probably. Or not.
Saturday, November 24, 2018
Dead Solid For Real
In the end, reality one-upped fiction. Which should have surprised no one given the state of the country these days, when fiction has become official government policy.
At any rate, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson did their little head-to-head deal yesterday, and it ended in a scene straight out of Dan Jenkins' legendary golf novel, "Dead Solid Perfect." What they did was, they went Goat Hills on the thing.
Goat Hills, in Jenkins' novel, was a scruffy track in Fort Worth, Texas, where the novel's protagonist, Kenny Puckett, learned the nuances of the game. In one scene, he and the other Runyonesque characters who frequented Goat Hills decided on a unique wager: They'd play one mammoth hole that started on the golf course, wound through Fort Worth, and ended in the closet of one of the players. First one to hole out in a loafer lying on its side in said closet won the pot.
Enter Tiger and Lefty.
Who, after settling nothing through 18 holes and one playoff hole, decided to pay tribute to the loafer-in-the-closet scenario. They invented an extra, 20th hole -- a 93-yarder that began on the practice putting green behind the clubhouse and ended in a newly cut hole on the 18th green.
It took three tries, but Mickelson finally won it with a four-footer.
This immediately got the Blob playing its favorite game, "What If?" As in, "What if they kept playing and no one could win the made-up hole? Would they make up other stuff to settle it?"
The Blob, naturally, has a few suggestions in that area:
1. A chipping contest in the parking lot. First one to chip a ball through the driver's side window of the other guy's car and into the cupholder wins. Bonus points for denting the other guy's car.
2. A chipping contest in the pro shop. First one to chip the ball into Judge Smails' ugly hat from outside the door wins. Loser has to wear Judge Smails' ugly hat at next year's Masters.
3. The Ty Webb Blindfold Challenge. Closest to the pin wins. And no peeking.
4. Putting contest at Pirate Mike's Yo-Ho Miniature Golf. First one to bank one in off the treasure chest and the giant flagon of ale wins. Loser has to wear an eyepatch and answer all questions with "Arrrr, matey" at next year's Masters.
And last but not least ...
5. Proxy shooting contest between Larry Bird and Michael Jordan. Off the floor, off the scoreboard, off the bankboard, no rim. Go.
At any rate, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson did their little head-to-head deal yesterday, and it ended in a scene straight out of Dan Jenkins' legendary golf novel, "Dead Solid Perfect." What they did was, they went Goat Hills on the thing.
Goat Hills, in Jenkins' novel, was a scruffy track in Fort Worth, Texas, where the novel's protagonist, Kenny Puckett, learned the nuances of the game. In one scene, he and the other Runyonesque characters who frequented Goat Hills decided on a unique wager: They'd play one mammoth hole that started on the golf course, wound through Fort Worth, and ended in the closet of one of the players. First one to hole out in a loafer lying on its side in said closet won the pot.
Enter Tiger and Lefty.
Who, after settling nothing through 18 holes and one playoff hole, decided to pay tribute to the loafer-in-the-closet scenario. They invented an extra, 20th hole -- a 93-yarder that began on the practice putting green behind the clubhouse and ended in a newly cut hole on the 18th green.
It took three tries, but Mickelson finally won it with a four-footer.
This immediately got the Blob playing its favorite game, "What If?" As in, "What if they kept playing and no one could win the made-up hole? Would they make up other stuff to settle it?"
The Blob, naturally, has a few suggestions in that area:
1. A chipping contest in the parking lot. First one to chip a ball through the driver's side window of the other guy's car and into the cupholder wins. Bonus points for denting the other guy's car.
2. A chipping contest in the pro shop. First one to chip the ball into Judge Smails' ugly hat from outside the door wins. Loser has to wear Judge Smails' ugly hat at next year's Masters.
3. The Ty Webb Blindfold Challenge. Closest to the pin wins. And no peeking.
4. Putting contest at Pirate Mike's Yo-Ho Miniature Golf. First one to bank one in off the treasure chest and the giant flagon of ale wins. Loser has to wear an eyepatch and answer all questions with "Arrrr, matey" at next year's Masters.
And last but not least ...
5. Proxy shooting contest between Larry Bird and Michael Jordan. Off the floor, off the scoreboard, off the bankboard, no rim. Go.
Friday, November 23, 2018
Your rivalry moment for today
And, yes, I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking, "Ooh, Jim Harbaugh must have gotten off a good burn on Ohio State, or maybe the whole entire state of Ohio."
You're thinking, "Some deranged Alabama fan must have poisoned another tree at Auburn."
You're thinking, "A passel of IU fans must have stolen Purdue Pete's hammer and chased him around with it" ... or, "Tommy Trojan must have suggested Knute Rockne do something anatomically impossible" ... or, "Some enterprising Georgia Tech students must have sneaked onto the Georgia campus and stolen poor Uga, the Georgia bulldog."
Well. I could see how you'd think that.
This is, after all, the traditional weekend for big rivalry games in college football, which means it's the weekend where college football most starkly displays why it's way, way better than that other game they play on Sundays and such. This is because the other game, the NASH-unal FOOT-ball League, doesn't really do rivalries. Oh, they like to pretend they do. But, you know, not really.
Not like college football.
Not like Alabama-Auburn, or Ohio State-Michigan, or USC-Notre Dame. Those games, of course, are all happening this weekend, along with Georgia-Georgia Tech, Florida State-Florida and the Old Oaken Bucket game between Purdue and Indiana -- aka, This Is Actually A Basketball Rivalry, But We Don't Like Each Other In Football, Either.
Well ... your rivalry moment for today doesn't come from any of those. It comes from the Egg Bowl.
Now, if you don't who plays in the Egg Bowl, don't feel bad. It's not one of your more well-known rivalries, truth be told. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have a healthy quotient of enmity.
And so down in Oxford, Miss., on Thanksgiving Day, Ole Miss and Mississippi State went at it again for all the, um, eggs. And in the third quarter of what turned out to be a Mississippi State rout, things got a little out of hand.
Which is to say, they had themselves a full-on brawl.
It happened right at the end of the quarter, after Ole Miss appeared to score a touchdown. Some pushing and shoving ensued, and that turned into some punches, and pretty soon both benches emptied and everyone was throwing down in the end zone.
Four players were ejected.
And that just goes to show you that, even if Ole Miss-Mississippi State isn't a marquee rivalry outside the state of Mississippi, inside the state lines it's as heated as any rivalry anywhere. They don't like each other just as much as two rivals anywhere don't like each other.
And ain't that grand?
You're thinking, "Ooh, Jim Harbaugh must have gotten off a good burn on Ohio State, or maybe the whole entire state of Ohio."
You're thinking, "Some deranged Alabama fan must have poisoned another tree at Auburn."
You're thinking, "A passel of IU fans must have stolen Purdue Pete's hammer and chased him around with it" ... or, "Tommy Trojan must have suggested Knute Rockne do something anatomically impossible" ... or, "Some enterprising Georgia Tech students must have sneaked onto the Georgia campus and stolen poor Uga, the Georgia bulldog."
Well. I could see how you'd think that.
This is, after all, the traditional weekend for big rivalry games in college football, which means it's the weekend where college football most starkly displays why it's way, way better than that other game they play on Sundays and such. This is because the other game, the NASH-unal FOOT-ball League, doesn't really do rivalries. Oh, they like to pretend they do. But, you know, not really.
Not like college football.
Not like Alabama-Auburn, or Ohio State-Michigan, or USC-Notre Dame. Those games, of course, are all happening this weekend, along with Georgia-Georgia Tech, Florida State-Florida and the Old Oaken Bucket game between Purdue and Indiana -- aka, This Is Actually A Basketball Rivalry, But We Don't Like Each Other In Football, Either.
Well ... your rivalry moment for today doesn't come from any of those. It comes from the Egg Bowl.
Now, if you don't who plays in the Egg Bowl, don't feel bad. It's not one of your more well-known rivalries, truth be told. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have a healthy quotient of enmity.
And so down in Oxford, Miss., on Thanksgiving Day, Ole Miss and Mississippi State went at it again for all the, um, eggs. And in the third quarter of what turned out to be a Mississippi State rout, things got a little out of hand.
Which is to say, they had themselves a full-on brawl.
It happened right at the end of the quarter, after Ole Miss appeared to score a touchdown. Some pushing and shoving ensued, and that turned into some punches, and pretty soon both benches emptied and everyone was throwing down in the end zone.
Four players were ejected.
And that just goes to show you that, even if Ole Miss-Mississippi State isn't a marquee rivalry outside the state of Mississippi, inside the state lines it's as heated as any rivalry anywhere. They don't like each other just as much as two rivals anywhere don't like each other.
And ain't that grand?
Thursday, November 22, 2018
Thankful in Cleveland
And so, on Thanksgiving Eve, Cleveland gave thanks. The native, and occasionally prodigal, son came home again, and this time there was no enmity, no bitterness, no venting of scorn.
This time, they drowned LeBron James in love.
The Cavalier-turned-Laker was greeted with an immense ovation upon his return, a stark contrast to his last, first homecoming with the Miami Heat. Partly this is because he came back -- who comes back to Cleveland, once they're gone? -- and, of course, delivered on his promise to bring the city its first professional championship in half a century. And partly, you have to suspect, it is because he brought the city more than that.
Athletes get dinged all the time for straying beyond the proscribed boundaries of their profession, both actual and figurative. In great measure this is because their profession is regarded as frivolous -- just a bunch of overgrown boys and girls playing children's games for a living -- and so, by extension, they are frivolous, too. And so when they venture an opinion on the inequities and ills of American society, they're told to shut up and play. Or, as one right-wing babbler told LeBron James when he called it like it is about Our Only Available President, "Shut up and dribble."
As if some radio jock were any more qualified to speak her mind, or what passed for it, on the issues of the day. As if the President himself was, having prepared for his current job by being a game show host.
Here's the thing, see: I covered the alleged children's games for 38 years as a sportswriter in Indiana. In that time, I met more than my share of nitwits. I also met more than my share of thoughtful, informed people whose interests and knowledge went far beyond those aforementioned proscribed boundaries. And who didn't just talk the talk, but walked the walk.
Which gets us back to LeBron James, and the appreciation to which he was treated last night. It sprang not just from delivering that title, but for giving back to his hometown in myriad ways -- not the least of which was the I Promise School for at-risk children he helped found in Akron last summer.
He paid a surprise visit to the school yesterday afternoon, and last night, Cleveland thanked him for that, and for walking the walk, not just talking the talk. And for never forgetting where he came from.
Last night, for instance?
In the Lakers' 109-105 victory, he wore a special pair of shoes. They weren't Lakers purple and gold. They were green and white.
The colors of his old high school, St. Vincent-St. Mary's in Akron.
This time, they drowned LeBron James in love.
The Cavalier-turned-Laker was greeted with an immense ovation upon his return, a stark contrast to his last, first homecoming with the Miami Heat. Partly this is because he came back -- who comes back to Cleveland, once they're gone? -- and, of course, delivered on his promise to bring the city its first professional championship in half a century. And partly, you have to suspect, it is because he brought the city more than that.
Athletes get dinged all the time for straying beyond the proscribed boundaries of their profession, both actual and figurative. In great measure this is because their profession is regarded as frivolous -- just a bunch of overgrown boys and girls playing children's games for a living -- and so, by extension, they are frivolous, too. And so when they venture an opinion on the inequities and ills of American society, they're told to shut up and play. Or, as one right-wing babbler told LeBron James when he called it like it is about Our Only Available President, "Shut up and dribble."
As if some radio jock were any more qualified to speak her mind, or what passed for it, on the issues of the day. As if the President himself was, having prepared for his current job by being a game show host.
Here's the thing, see: I covered the alleged children's games for 38 years as a sportswriter in Indiana. In that time, I met more than my share of nitwits. I also met more than my share of thoughtful, informed people whose interests and knowledge went far beyond those aforementioned proscribed boundaries. And who didn't just talk the talk, but walked the walk.
Which gets us back to LeBron James, and the appreciation to which he was treated last night. It sprang not just from delivering that title, but for giving back to his hometown in myriad ways -- not the least of which was the I Promise School for at-risk children he helped found in Akron last summer.
He paid a surprise visit to the school yesterday afternoon, and last night, Cleveland thanked him for that, and for walking the walk, not just talking the talk. And for never forgetting where he came from.
Last night, for instance?
In the Lakers' 109-105 victory, he wore a special pair of shoes. They weren't Lakers purple and gold. They were green and white.
The colors of his old high school, St. Vincent-St. Mary's in Akron.
Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Your chess update for today
(Anticipated Blobophile response: "We don't care about stupid board games! Tell us who's going to win Michigan-Ohio State!")
Actual Blob response to the anticipated Blobophile response: Too bad. I'm going to give a chess update anyway. It won't take long.
That's because reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen and mega-talented American challenger Fabiano Caruana remain -- Yes! You guessed it! -- tied after eight games of the 12-game world championship. Apparently Caruana could have taken control with some bold moves in a couple of games, but didn't. So there you are.
I predict the whole deal goes to a tiebreaker in which the two players are allowed only a rook, a knight and a queen, and Carlsen performs some sort of magic rook/knight-y thing and wins when Caruana goes for it on fourth-and-2 and doesn't make it.
Or, you know, something like that.
Stay tuned!
(Anticipated Blobophile response: "No!")
Actual Blob response to the anticipated Blobophile response: Too bad. I'm going to give a chess update anyway. It won't take long.
That's because reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen and mega-talented American challenger Fabiano Caruana remain -- Yes! You guessed it! -- tied after eight games of the 12-game world championship. Apparently Caruana could have taken control with some bold moves in a couple of games, but didn't. So there you are.
I predict the whole deal goes to a tiebreaker in which the two players are allowed only a rook, a knight and a queen, and Carlsen performs some sort of magic rook/knight-y thing and wins when Caruana goes for it on fourth-and-2 and doesn't make it.
Or, you know, something like that.
Stay tuned!
(Anticipated Blobophile response: "No!")
Hey, what about Ohio State and Michigan?
Oops. Sorry, forgot.
Well, let's see. Michigan hasn't won in Columbus since the beginning of time, or something like that. Ohio State struggled to beat a crummy Nebraska team at home and, last week, should have lost at Maryland except the Terrapins decided to hand it to the Buckeyes down there at the end.
Meanwhile, Michigan's defense is the best in the country.
Conclusion: Harbaugh finally beats Urban Meyer this time.
But not by as much as you'd think.
Well, let's see. Michigan hasn't won in Columbus since the beginning of time, or something like that. Ohio State struggled to beat a crummy Nebraska team at home and, last week, should have lost at Maryland except the Terrapins decided to hand it to the Buckeyes down there at the end.
Meanwhile, Michigan's defense is the best in the country.
Conclusion: Harbaugh finally beats Urban Meyer this time.
But not by as much as you'd think.
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Put a sock in that rivalry, son
Somewhere today an old Texas boy named Harold Philipp is rolling his eyes so far back in his head he can see his shoulder blades.
Ol' Harold, see, was a fullback for the Texas Longhorns back in the day, and one year before what they used to call the Red River Shootout -- Texas vs. Oklahoma, one of college football's oldest and greatest rivalries -- someone asked him what he thought of a Texas boy playing for Oklahoma.
"Why, that's just like somebody from the United States playing for Nazi Germany," ol' Harold said.
There is no record that ol' Harold was publicly reprimanded for that.
Of course, it was a different day then. Nobody thought it was a swell idea to muck up great rivalries with a lot of air kisses and phony sweet talk. Nobody walked around with sticks up their nether orifices, finger-wagging and tsk-tsking about sportsmanship and respect even if your opponent is your most bitter rival.
That's not the case now, as another UT player, linebacker Breckyn Hager, can attest. It seems as he was walking off the field after Texas beat Iowa State, someone mentioned that Kansas, of all people, had dinged Oklahoma for 40 points that day.
Well, gee, Hager said. That's probably because "OU sucks."
Now, in Austin, that's pretty much received wisdom. But this being 2018, when simple wholesome enmity between bitter rivals is strictly verboten, the Big 12 took offense. Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said Hager had violated the league's sportsmanship and ethical conduct policies, and so he drew a public reprimand.
Hence the eye-rolling from Harold Philipp, wherever in the cosmos he is.
And Hager?
Through UT, he issued a statement in which he said he was "truly sorry," and that he had "no ill intentions when I made my comments about Oklahoma." Moreover, "I have the utmost respect for the University of Oklahoma and their football program."
Fortunately for him, no one noticed what he was undoubtedly saying under his breath, which was likely along the lines of "Screw OU ... Screw OU ... Screw OU."
Or that, as he dictated his statement, his fingers were firmly crossed.
Ol' Harold, see, was a fullback for the Texas Longhorns back in the day, and one year before what they used to call the Red River Shootout -- Texas vs. Oklahoma, one of college football's oldest and greatest rivalries -- someone asked him what he thought of a Texas boy playing for Oklahoma.
"Why, that's just like somebody from the United States playing for Nazi Germany," ol' Harold said.
There is no record that ol' Harold was publicly reprimanded for that.
Of course, it was a different day then. Nobody thought it was a swell idea to muck up great rivalries with a lot of air kisses and phony sweet talk. Nobody walked around with sticks up their nether orifices, finger-wagging and tsk-tsking about sportsmanship and respect even if your opponent is your most bitter rival.
That's not the case now, as another UT player, linebacker Breckyn Hager, can attest. It seems as he was walking off the field after Texas beat Iowa State, someone mentioned that Kansas, of all people, had dinged Oklahoma for 40 points that day.
Well, gee, Hager said. That's probably because "OU sucks."
Now, in Austin, that's pretty much received wisdom. But this being 2018, when simple wholesome enmity between bitter rivals is strictly verboten, the Big 12 took offense. Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said Hager had violated the league's sportsmanship and ethical conduct policies, and so he drew a public reprimand.
Hence the eye-rolling from Harold Philipp, wherever in the cosmos he is.
And Hager?
Through UT, he issued a statement in which he said he was "truly sorry," and that he had "no ill intentions when I made my comments about Oklahoma." Moreover, "I have the utmost respect for the University of Oklahoma and their football program."
Fortunately for him, no one noticed what he was undoubtedly saying under his breath, which was likely along the lines of "Screw OU ... Screw OU ... Screw OU."
Or that, as he dictated his statement, his fingers were firmly crossed.
A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 11
And now a special Thanksgiving week edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the stubbornly resistant Blob feature of which critics have said "I'm thankful we only have to endure this for a few more weeks," and "Oh, good, more turkey. Just what we need this week!":
1. It's Tuesday morning and the Rams just scored again.
2. No, wait, the Chiefs!
3. The Rams!
4. The Chiefs!
5. "You thought we were dead? Ha! We're not dead! Look at us! We're ALIVE, suckers! We're dancin' like Nureyev, fools!"
6. (The Indianapolis Colts)
7. (Or some unsuspecting turkey somewhere)
8. Meanwhile, in Chicago, people are pointing and saying "Hey, is that ... is that the Bears?"
9. "Hello? Hello? Where'd everybody go? Come on, you guys, this isn't funny!"
10. (Aaron Rodgers)
1. It's Tuesday morning and the Rams just scored again.
2. No, wait, the Chiefs!
3. The Rams!
4. The Chiefs!
5. "You thought we were dead? Ha! We're not dead! Look at us! We're ALIVE, suckers! We're dancin' like Nureyev, fools!"
6. (The Indianapolis Colts)
7. (Or some unsuspecting turkey somewhere)
8. Meanwhile, in Chicago, people are pointing and saying "Hey, is that ... is that the Bears?"
9. "Hello? Hello? Where'd everybody go? Come on, you guys, this isn't funny!"
10. (Aaron Rodgers)
Saturday, November 17, 2018
Things passed along
"Swing level," the tall man says. "Don't try to kill it."
He is bent at the waist, his eternally angular frame assuming the rough approximation of a question mark. His right arm is extended. In his hand is a baseball.
Standing considerably closer to him than the requisite 60 feet, 6 inches is a speck of a boy who looks as if he were rush ordered from the Department of Runty Kids With Really Huge Glasses. The bat on his shoulder is almost as big as he is. It is high summer in Indiana; some indeterminate evening, twilight dawdling along as twilight tends to do in high summer, man and boy in the backyard of their neat brick home on the southeast side of Fort Wayne.
The man shakes the ball.
"Swing level," he says again. "Don't try to kill it."
He lobs the ball gently.
The boy swings level.
Above the ball. Below the ball. Above the ball again. On and on, the man shaking the ball and lobbing it, the boy swinging and missing.
"Swing level," the man keeps saying. "Don't try to kill it ..."
***
My father never raised no major leaguers.
His only son was comically small for his age and couldn't see a damn thing without the glasses that sat on his face like a pair of binoculars, the lenses thicker than the bottom of a Coke bottle. Baseballs ducked and ran for cover when he swung. Dribbling a basketball was like trying to dribble Jupiter. He couldn't throw a football 20 yards, and when he did hunters all over northeast Indiana went for their guns to bring down that quacking duck.
I was no athlete, in other words. I had the fine motor skills of a tree stump, and my track coach -- the only sport I ever quasi-participated in -- once damned me with this faint praise: "You've got great form. If you had any endurance, you could be pretty good."
So there were no "Field of Dreams" moments between us, father and son lobbing a baseball back and forth in the gloaming. Mostly this was because I couldn't catch a baseball with a three-state dragnet. And, partly, it was because my father was never more than a nominal sports fan.
Oh, he'd watch baseball or football or mostly basketball, because, at 6-foot-3, he played high school basketball the way most 6-3 boys in Indiana played it in the 1940s. For a time he was fascinated with tennis, mainly because he loved watching Bjorn Borg play. But we never really bonded over sports; the supreme irony of our mutual lives, and something we frequently laughed about, is that I grew up to be a sportswriter.
We will laugh about it no more, sadly. Dad left us yesterday in the skinny hours of morning, going peacefully in his sleep. At 91, he lived his full measure of years and more, and few men ever lived them better or more worthily. He was not famous or weighted with earthly honors or a great man as the world measures these things, but he was true and honest and everyone who ever knew him loved him. And surely there is greatness in that.
And, like all true and honest fathers, he will endure because of the things he passed along to his children.
If we never mastered the art of swinging level, for instance, we mastered other things, as father and son. Because of Dad, a former Civil War re-enactor, I am a Civil War nerd of the first order; his old re-enactor's uniform hangs in my hall closet, and I squeeze into it every Halloween (I am neither as tall nor as angular as the old man). Every few springs, alone, I make a pilgrimage to Gettysburg or Shiloh or some other Civil War haunt. That is my father's legacy.
So, too, is a general reverence for history, for the lessons it teaches that human beings routinely and blithely ignore, and for its relics. They are all around my house, these days; on the bookshelf in our den are Civil War minie balls and a chunk of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain's wall and a tiny round button from a World War I German grenade, salvaged from the torn earth of the Western Front.
On another shelf is my Dad's old baseball glove. In one corner leans a cut-down hockey stick that belonged to his father, its age-dark handle wrapped in ancient black tape. And in the kitchen, on one wall in the breakfast nook, hangs a narrow knickknack shelf.
On it, carefully placed, are a clutch of wooden blocks and a glass jar of marbles. Scattered among them are several small lead soldiers, striking belligerent poses. Old campaign buttons -- two of them Roosevelt/Wallace buttons dating to 1944 -- lie at their feet, as if the soldiers were tasked with guarding them.
That shelf, and those things, have been there for so long I rarely notice them anymore. But in the pre-dawn darkness yesterday, when the phone rang and the word came that Dad was gone, I found myself looking at them again. And thanking God I'd known a man who treasured such things, and how lucky I was to be his son.
"Swing level," the tall man says. "Don't try to kill it ..."
Always, Dad. Always.
He is bent at the waist, his eternally angular frame assuming the rough approximation of a question mark. His right arm is extended. In his hand is a baseball.
Standing considerably closer to him than the requisite 60 feet, 6 inches is a speck of a boy who looks as if he were rush ordered from the Department of Runty Kids With Really Huge Glasses. The bat on his shoulder is almost as big as he is. It is high summer in Indiana; some indeterminate evening, twilight dawdling along as twilight tends to do in high summer, man and boy in the backyard of their neat brick home on the southeast side of Fort Wayne.
The man shakes the ball.
"Swing level," he says again. "Don't try to kill it."
He lobs the ball gently.
The boy swings level.
Above the ball. Below the ball. Above the ball again. On and on, the man shaking the ball and lobbing it, the boy swinging and missing.
"Swing level," the man keeps saying. "Don't try to kill it ..."
***
My father never raised no major leaguers.
His only son was comically small for his age and couldn't see a damn thing without the glasses that sat on his face like a pair of binoculars, the lenses thicker than the bottom of a Coke bottle. Baseballs ducked and ran for cover when he swung. Dribbling a basketball was like trying to dribble Jupiter. He couldn't throw a football 20 yards, and when he did hunters all over northeast Indiana went for their guns to bring down that quacking duck.
I was no athlete, in other words. I had the fine motor skills of a tree stump, and my track coach -- the only sport I ever quasi-participated in -- once damned me with this faint praise: "You've got great form. If you had any endurance, you could be pretty good."
So there were no "Field of Dreams" moments between us, father and son lobbing a baseball back and forth in the gloaming. Mostly this was because I couldn't catch a baseball with a three-state dragnet. And, partly, it was because my father was never more than a nominal sports fan.
Oh, he'd watch baseball or football or mostly basketball, because, at 6-foot-3, he played high school basketball the way most 6-3 boys in Indiana played it in the 1940s. For a time he was fascinated with tennis, mainly because he loved watching Bjorn Borg play. But we never really bonded over sports; the supreme irony of our mutual lives, and something we frequently laughed about, is that I grew up to be a sportswriter.
We will laugh about it no more, sadly. Dad left us yesterday in the skinny hours of morning, going peacefully in his sleep. At 91, he lived his full measure of years and more, and few men ever lived them better or more worthily. He was not famous or weighted with earthly honors or a great man as the world measures these things, but he was true and honest and everyone who ever knew him loved him. And surely there is greatness in that.
And, like all true and honest fathers, he will endure because of the things he passed along to his children.
If we never mastered the art of swinging level, for instance, we mastered other things, as father and son. Because of Dad, a former Civil War re-enactor, I am a Civil War nerd of the first order; his old re-enactor's uniform hangs in my hall closet, and I squeeze into it every Halloween (I am neither as tall nor as angular as the old man). Every few springs, alone, I make a pilgrimage to Gettysburg or Shiloh or some other Civil War haunt. That is my father's legacy.
So, too, is a general reverence for history, for the lessons it teaches that human beings routinely and blithely ignore, and for its relics. They are all around my house, these days; on the bookshelf in our den are Civil War minie balls and a chunk of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain's wall and a tiny round button from a World War I German grenade, salvaged from the torn earth of the Western Front.
On another shelf is my Dad's old baseball glove. In one corner leans a cut-down hockey stick that belonged to his father, its age-dark handle wrapped in ancient black tape. And in the kitchen, on one wall in the breakfast nook, hangs a narrow knickknack shelf.
On it, carefully placed, are a clutch of wooden blocks and a glass jar of marbles. Scattered among them are several small lead soldiers, striking belligerent poses. Old campaign buttons -- two of them Roosevelt/Wallace buttons dating to 1944 -- lie at their feet, as if the soldiers were tasked with guarding them.
That shelf, and those things, have been there for so long I rarely notice them anymore. But in the pre-dawn darkness yesterday, when the phone rang and the word came that Dad was gone, I found myself looking at them again. And thanking God I'd known a man who treasured such things, and how lucky I was to be his son.
"Swing level," the tall man says. "Don't try to kill it ..."
Always, Dad. Always.
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