Today in anachronism

 Yeah, well, that's just like your opinion, man.

-- The Dude

Sometimes a guy's heart just has to go out to the Harrison Butkers of the world. Imagine waking up every day and realizing it's not the 17th century anymore.

By now you've heard, or maybe not, about Butker's commencement address at tiny Benedictine College, in which the Kansas City Chiefs placekicker unleashed the traditional lament of the man out of his time. To say he's a conservative Catholic does not lend nearly enough weight to the term "conservative", and so of course he told the women graduates how much more rewarding it would be if they'd stay home and raise babies instead of pursuing (ugh) a career. And a bunch of other stuff, besides.

He said President Biden isn't a real Catholic because he's all in favor of killing babies. Bashed gays by obliquely referring to Pride Month as a deadly sin. Inveighed against IVF, surrogacy, "dangerous gender ideologies" and the "tyranny of diversity, equity and inclusion," and lamented what he perceives as the decline of masculine culture.

(The last of which, by the way, almost always makes the Blob smile. Ever notice it's always the men who trumpet their masculinity who are the first to whine about how men are disrespected these days, simply because they get pushback now when they say and do stuff for which they didn't used to get pushback? Some masculinity.)

Anyway ... none of that was particularly shocking, given Butker's particular worldview. There was a lot of vintage Thomas-More-taking-on-Henry-VIII in it, and perhaps a whiff or two of 1692 Salem. It wasn't hard to imagine Butker dressed as a disapproving Puritan of those times, complete with broad-brimmed and buckled black hat. Pass that turkey, John Alden, and let's get on with the witch-burnin'!

That's an exaggeration, of course, but the truth is Butker came off as such an anachronism it was hard for me to work up a lot of outrage at what he said. As the Dude said, that was just like his opinion, man. That it was so out of touch with the reality of 21st-century America -- that he saw such darkness in those who are simply different from him, or who support certain practices (IVF, surrogacy) out of a different sense of human charity -- made him a figure more to be pitied than scorned.

I can't speak for anyone else. But I reserve my scorn for those who reflexively jump to the defense of the Harrison Butkers, and who castigate anyone who has the temerity to call them out. I reserve my scorn for those who loudly promote freedom of speech for those with whom they agree, but try to muzzle it for those with whom they don't.

Look. I don't particularly care if Harrison Butker comes out and says Copernicus and Joe Biden should burn in hell side-by-side, or that any woman who chooses a career over staying at home and birthin' babies should be cast into outer darkness. There will always be people out there like that. And in most cases, thank God, they will be more a curiosity than a menace.

The menace comes from those who believe anyone who speaks out against the Harrison Butkers are a menace. They are not, and that is a dangerous path to tread. History is rife with examples of what happens when that sort of mindset gains power, and those examples are always stained with the blood of innocents.

And that's MY opinion, man.

Big Mo loses again

 The Blob makes no claim that he has figured out the NBA. But it seems I have figured out the NBA.

See what happened in Indianapolis Sunday?

Yes, those were your Indiana Pacers laying an almighty tattooing on the New York Knicks, 121-89 to even their Eastern Conference semifinal series at two games apiece.

See what happened in Madison Square Garden last night?

Yes, that was those very same Pacers getting floor-waxed in Game 5 by those very same Knicks, 121-91.

If you're keeping score at home, that's a 61-point swing. And while the Blob didn't exactly predict that, it did write the following two days ago, for those who might have forgotten:

... And now the series goes back to New York all even at two games apiece, with the Pacers (what a surprise!) suddenly not uttering a peep about the officiating. Any idea what happens in Game 5, momentum being what it's not?

Sure you do: The Knicks will hit everything they put up, and win in a walk. 

Only thing I got wrong there was the walk part, because when you win by 30 you've won in a dead sprint, not just a walk. Jalen Brunson, who was 5-of-17 from the floor in Game 4 and missed all five of his attempts from the arc, scored 44 points on 18-of-35 shooting. Josh Hart added 18 and Miles McBride 17. And some guy named Alec Burks scored 18 off the bench and was 5-of-8 from Threeville.

All told Sunday, the Knicks made just seven threes, not nearly enough for a team that lives on the three-ball. Last night, they made 12, which was more like it.

And the Pacers?

They actually made a dozen threes themselves, on 44.4 percent shooting. But the Knicks forced 18 turnovers and outboarded Indiana 53-29, which hardly seems possible.  Twenty of those rebounds came on the offensive end, which seems even less possible.

Momentum is a phantom, in the NBA. It's as mythical as Paul Bunyan, as tall a tale as  Mark Twain ever spun.

And that means what, boys and girls?

Thaaat's right. Pacers win Game 6 back in Indy to force Game 7.

To repeat what the Blob said the other day: Book it.

And now, the reality

 The rook played like a rook. And not just a rook, but, you know, a rook.

As in "Welcome to the bigs, rook."

People waited 2 1/2 hours to get into the arena in Uncasville, Conn., last night for Caitlin Clark's official WNBA debut, and the Connecticut Sun handed out 170 media credentials, and what they saw was an old, old story. What they saw was a rout -- and, no, not the Sun making kindling out of the Indiana Fever, 92-71.

What they saw was reality once again smacking hype upside the head.

Folks who should know better have been saying Clark is the greatest women's player ever, and saying she will turn the woeful Fever around all by her lonesome, and saying ... oh, hell, all manner of fanciful things. It got to the point where you began to feel sorry for Clark, because there's no way she could possibly meet all the absurd expectations heaped upon her unless she actually grew wings and flew in last night's debut.

She did not. What she did, instead, is demonstrate that the WNBA is an entirely different level than women's college buckets -- as some WNBA vets have been saying, and for which they were dismissed as jealous old grumps.

Well, hello, people. With veteran WBNA guard DiJonai Carrington putting the clamps on on her for much of the night, Clark didn't score until midway through the second quarter, didn't warm up from the 3-point line until the second half, and played a horrendous floor game, turning it over 10 times. It was the most turnovers in a career debut in league history.

She did score 20 points to lead the Fever, but was 2-of-10 from the floor while Carrington was dogging her and dished just three assists. Welcome to the bigs, rook, indeed.

None of this is to suggest Clark isn't a terrific player, She is, or will be. What she's not -- yet -- is the greatest women's player ever, nor even the greatest WNBA rookie ever. The Blob can name at least half a dozen more accomplished rooks, the most recent being Breanna Stewart.

And in the meantime?

In the meantime, Clark continues to have her head screwed on far straighter than a lot of those around her.

After last night she said, look, she was disappointed, but she wasn't going to dwell on it, because that wouldn't be good for anyone. All she can do, she said, is learn from the experience and keep moving forward.

Good advice at any time, and for anyone.

On Pace(rs) again

 So remember the other day, when the Indiana Pacers were whining about the refs like a bunch of losers, and the Blob was saying whining about the refs is what losers do, and they were down 2-0 to the New York Knicks and looking like, well, losers?

Um ... forget all that.

Forget all that, because the Blob forgot one of the major tenets in NBA basketball and pro sports in general, which is there's no such thing as momentum. It's a myth, Big Mo is. It exists only in that brief window of time between the shot you just hit and the one you're about to miss. Or the one you just missed and the whole buttload you're about to hit.

Hear what happened in Indy yesterday?

Well, your Pacers hit a whole buttload of shots and buried the Knicks deeper than Pompeii with them.  Routed the New Yorkers by 32 points, 121-89, after leading at halftime by a ridiculous 28 points and at the end of three quarters by an even more ridiculous 38 points.

The Knicks, last seen shooting 57 percent from the floor and 46.7 percent from the 3-point arc, shot 33 percent and missed 30 of 37 three-ball attempts. And their vaunted starting five, which scored 118 of their 130 points in Game 2, scored just 39 in Game 4.

Oh, yeah: And now the series goes back to New York all even at two games apiece, with the Pacers (what a surprise!) suddenly not uttering a peep about the officiating. Any idea what happens in Game 5, momentum being what it's not?

Sure you do: The Knicks will hit everything they put up, and win in a walk. And the Pacers will miraculously re-discover how bad NBA officiating is, and how small-market teams never have a chance, and how it's just not fair.

Book it. Book it right now.

Premi-notions

 Alex Palou won the Grand Prix of Indianapolis for the second straight year yesterday, and he won it from the pole. And maybe that means this will be Palou's month of May the way last year was supposed to be Palou's month of May, and the year before that was supposed to be his month of May, and maybe even the year before that.

All I know is this: At some point, it is going to be Palou's month of May. We all take that as gospel, right?

Well ...

Well, here is something else I know, having spent most of my life either covering the Indianapolis 500 in May or hanging out at the Speedway in May: The Big Five is both the most venerable event in motorsports, and also the most capricious. It eats assumptions for breakfast -- even gospel assumptions -- and if there are any left over, it eats them for dinner. No place is as adept at transforming premonitions into mere premi-notions.

A.J. Foyt, Al Unser Sr., Rick Mears and Helio Castroneves have won the 500 four times. Mario Andretti, the greatest race driver in American history unless it's Foyt, won it once, in 1969. He never won it again in 24 more starts stretching from 1970 to 1994.

Scott Dixon, the most accomplished IndyCar driver of his generation, won the 500 in 2008 and hasn't won it since. Bill Vukovich could and probably should have won four times in a row from 1952 through 1955, but his car broke with nine laps to run after he dominated the '52 race, and he was killed while leading the race yet again in '55.

Not-quite-superstars like Buddy Rice, Buddy Lazier and Kenny Brack all gulped the milk in Victory Lane. Marquee names like Michael Andretti, Lloyd Ruby, Ted Horn and Rex Mays never did. You just never know with this place.

Palou, for instance?

He's one of the brightest young stars in a series crammed with more of them than IndyCar has seen in three decades. He's got the skill set and temperament that fits the place and the event, and he races for Chip Ganassi, who knows how to win at Indy on Memorial Day weekend. 

And none of it means a thing once the green drops on race day.

Last year, for instance, he won the Grand Prix, and then won the pole for the 500. And he finished fourth.

In 2022, he finished second to Marcus Ericsson.

In 2021, he finished ninth in his first season with Ganassi.

This year?

Well ... we'll see. 

ybe it'll be his month of May. Maybe it'll never be. Only Indy knows.

A mixed review

 Well, OK. So maybe the kid isn't the next Bob Gibson. Not yet, anyway.

This just in from PNC Park in Pittsburgh, where my always underwhelming Cruds lost to the Cubs yesterday in phenom Paul Skenes' major-league debut, but not because of the Phenom:

The kid can bust the fastball.

And, the bullpen is trash.

The first we kinda already knew, but yesterday pretty much confirmed it. Skenes gave up six hits and three earned runs in four innings' work in the 10-9 loss, but he also struck out seven and cracked 100 mph on the gun 17 times. So he's got that going for him.

And the bullpen?

Gloriously Cruddy.

After Skenes departed with no one out in the fifth inning, see, it took three more arms  for Pittsburgh to retire the side. Before they did, however, those three arms had issued six bases-loaded walks. Six. It was the most walked-in runs by a major-league team (or, in this case, an alleged major-league team) in 65 years.

Sixty-five years! Good lord, Ike was still president then. Sputnik was a thing. So were hula-hoops, Bill Haley and the Comets and big honkin' cars with big honkin' tailfins.

The names of the perpetrators of this historic buffoonery?

They were Kyle Nicolas, Josh Fleming and Colin Holderman. Together, in the fifth, they walked six batters -- including three on 12 straight balls by Nicolas.

(And, no, before you ask, I don't know where the Cruds found these guys. In the beer line at PNC would be a good guess. Or maybe waiting for a sandwich at Primanti's.)

In any case, the Phenom showed flashes of Phenomhood, and also flashes of being just 21 years old. And so, on balance, he's probably not going to turn out to be Kyle Nicolas, Josh Fleming or Colin Holderman.

Good enough for now.

Coachin' 'em up

 Alrighty, then. So maybe the coach of an NBA team does serve some constructive purpose, other than being a suit who calls timeouts, plots sub rotations and wrangles wayward egos. 

Maybe he can call out his players when necessary. I know, what a concept.

Hard so say if that was the case last night with Nuggets coach Michael Malone up in Minnesota, but something happened to the defending NBA champs on the flight from Denver to Minneapolis. After losing the first two games of their series with the Minnesota Timberwolves at home, the second horrendously, they put a whuppin' on the Wolves last night in front of Minnesota's home crowd, 117-90.

And maybe it was just a coincidence that the win came a day after Malone scolded his guys, telling them they were the defending champs and it was time they started acting like it. Or maybe they were actually listening and responded.

Jamal Murray, for one, responded with 24 points in front of a hostile Target Center crowd that booed him incessantly, two nights after he shot 3-for-18 and threw a heat pack and towel onto the floor during the Nuggets' 26-point loss in Game 2. The NBA lightened his wallet by $100,000 for that little tantrum.

Last night, he scored 18 of his 24 points in the first half and splashed 11-of-21 shots. League MVP Nikola Jokic added a 24-point, 14-rebound, nine-assist stat line, and all five Nuggets starters scored in double figures.

In other words, they were the defending champs again.

Reminder or no reminder.

Arms alert!

 I hesitate to bring this up, first off. Past experience may not guarantee future results, after all, but it does guarantee present howls of derision and, I don't know, maybe even showers of rotten fruit.

Know what happens tomorrow, boys and girls?

My Pittsburgh Pirates will send the Next Nuclear Arm to the mound against the Chicago Cubs.

Yes, my Cruds are calling up Paul Skenes, whom they took with the first pick in the 2023 draft and who has been mowing down batters like a zero-turn Toro goes after your grass. Skenes, a 6-foot-6, 235-pound righty, has a 102-mph heater according to the gun, and mixes in a 95-mph combo splitter/sinker, a high-80s slider and an 88-mph changeup just for funsies.

And lest you think the Cruds are acting a bit rashly, considering this is Skenes' first full pro season and he's only 21 years old ... well,  in their defense, to which I rarely feel compelled to come, the kid's wasting his time in Triple A. In 27 1/3 innings in Indianapolis, he's allowed just three earned runs with 45 strikeouts. That's a shade under two strikeouts per inning to you and me, kids.

"Greeaat," you're saying now. "Like you needed another excuse to talk about your stupid Pirates and their stupid cruddiness and, geez Louise, where's the off switch on this Blob?"

Oh, pipe down. These are the Cruds we're talking about, remember. I give Skenes two seasons max before his arm either explodes in a shower of tiny arm bits, or he asks to re-do his deal and the cheaper-than-Jim-Harbaugh's-khakis Cruds swap him for prospects the way they do all their other homegrown studs.

In which case, you won't hear another word about him from this precinct. Unless it's how dashing he looks in Dodger blue or Yankee pinstripes, that is.

So you've got that going for you.

Nah, they're good

 I wouldn't know Ethan Strauss if he went upside my head with a ball-peen hammer. But let me start out this morning by saying I do know a couple things about him:

1. He's a guy. (I'm pretty sure)

2. Like some guys, he thinks guys suggesting ways to help out wimminfolk is just what an enlightened, 21st-century, equality-huggin' fella does.

I understand that impulse, being a guy myself. But I also understand how that impulse can come off sounding not enlightened by condescending, and therefore insulting in an entirely unintended way.

I say this after Strauss, whoever he is, went on Bill Simmons' podcast recently and suggested the sudden surge in the WNBA's popularity could be helped by tying it more closely to its male counterpart (and subsidizer), the NBA. His solution, or part of it, was to have all the WNBA teams change this nicknames to their NBA counterparts -- i.e., the Indiana Fever would become the Indiana W-Pacers, the Los Angeles Sparks the W-Lakers, the New York Liberty the W-Knicks. And so on and so forth.

The Blob can't speak for the women of the WNBA, but I figure this is not the path they'd prefer to follow to raise their league's profile.

This is because the women, one would assume, don't want to be seen as just the NBA's little sister, a perception which Strauss's suggestion would inevitably create. One would assume, again, that they want to forge their own identity and their own brand, tied to the belief that the women's game is not the men's game, but its own unique entity with its own unique appeal.

In other words, the women are likely saying this right now: "Nah, we're good." And that's especially true now that Caitlin Mania has thrown an even brighter spotlight on the WNBA than ever before. 

The Fever, after all, drew 13,000 fans to Gainsbridge Fieldhouse last night for Caitlin Clark's first home game, and it wasn't even a regular home game. It was a preseason home game. No. 22 Fever jerseys are almost literally selling out as fast as they can be produced. Consequently, every semi-conscious person in America knows exactly who the Indiana Fever are.

Why would you need to rename them? Why would the WNBA need to be Lil' Sis when the Caitlin Effect has already shoved it to the front of the American sports consciousness -- to the extent that the league announced this week it will begin providing charter flights for its teams the way a big-time professional sports entity should?

Shoot. Way it's all going, maybe the Pacers should change their name to the M-Fever. Just a thought.

Just play basketball

 The Indiana Pacers are down 2-0 to the New York Knicks in the NBA conference semis after losing the first two games in Madison Square Garden, and now the Pacers are hollering "No fair!"

They're saying the officiating in New York was atrocious, and most of the atrocious landed on their doorstep.

They've submitted to the league office 78 calls against them they claim are suspicious,  and want to know what the hell's going on with that.

Pacers coach Rick Carlisle even went to the conspiracy well after Game 2, hinting the Association is agin' 'em because Indiana is just a little ol' small market team, and it would be better for the NBA if a major player like New York advanced instead of, ugh, Indianapolis.

Me?

I think Tyrese Halliburton has a better grip on reality than Coach Rick does.

Here's what he said after Game 2, for instance: "Let's not pretend like (officiating) is the only reason we lost. We just didn't play good enough. We just got to be better."

In other words: You want to take officiating out of the equation? Start guarding Jalen Brunson. Stop letting the Knicks' starting five use our starting five like Handi-Wipes. Just play some damn basketball, the way we did against the Bucks.

Look. The Blob is not going to tell you the Pacers haven't gotten hosed on some calls at crucial times. They have. But running off to the league office to whine about it isn't going to magically turn around the series. Because that's what losers do.

So what do winners do?

Well, they don't do is what they did last night, which is let the Knicks' starters combine for 118 of their 130 points. They don't let Brunson drop 29 on 11-of-18 shooting two nights after dropping 43 in Game 1. They don't let the Knicks shoot 57 percent -- 67 percent in the decisive third quarter -- and 46.7 percent from the 3-point arc. And their starters don't go a combined minus-87 on the night.

Minus-87. Man, you have to be trying to be that bad.

Oh, Halliburton bounced back after his no-show in Game 1, scoring 34 points to give with nine assists, six rebounds and three steals. But no one else in the starting five took his cue.

Myles Turner scored just six points in 31 minutes. Pascal Siakam, who's been virtually invisible so far, scored 14 in 36 minutes. Were it not for the play of Obi Toppin (20 points in 20 minutes) T.J. McConnell (10 points and a dozen dimes in 23 minutes) and the rest of the Pacers bench, this would have been a platinum-grade blowout instead of the nine-point mini-blowout it was.

But, yeah, let's make it about the officiating. As if NBA officiating is the gold standard for the craft, instead of the poop show it generally is.

Enough with that. Time for the Pacers to listen to Halliburton -- a leader who does what a leader does, which is cut through all the noise.

Just play basketball. Just play some damn basketball.

Punishment phase

 Comes now the word that Indianapolis Star columnist Gregg Doyel, who became a flash point for the Big Issue brigade when he went full creepy mode on Caitlin Clark last month, is in the midst of a two-week suspension by his newspaper.

The news was announced not by the Star, which for the usual lawyer-ly reasons tried to hide it from the public and, as night follows day, succeeded only in making themselves look like gutless connivers. Instead, it was Bob Kravitz, veteran sports scribe and Doyel's predecessor at the Star, who broke the story. According to Kravitz, the Star not only gave Doyel a two-week sitdown, but will also bar him from covering Clark and the Indiana Fever in person

Which sounds a lot more like a restraining order than it probably should.

This is because the Blob remains convinced that Doyel's skeevy exchange with Clark was not intended to come off that way, but was Doyel just looking for a column hook. I haven't talked to Gregg and I certainly don't know that for sure, but that's my educated guess. I absolutely do not think he's a dirty old man who was hitting on a woman young enough to be his daughter, simply because nothing in his professional background suggests that's the case.

This of course doesn't stop people who have an axe to grind with Doyel from painting him that way. Social media is a jungle that thrives on hyperbole, false generalization and suspect motives, after all, and certain of its species enjoys nothing better than feeding on the carcasses of the fallen.

Not to get all hyperbolic myself, of course.

No, what I think in this instance is a two-week sitdown sounds proportional, and not just because I suggested that's what should happen when this first blew up. Firing Doyel would have been rash overkill, and I suspect most of the people who endorsed that either have some personal beef with the guy or don't like the positions he takes on certain issues. Nor do I agree with the Big Issue people, who tried to turn the whole thing into some referendum on the way predominantly male sports media routinely belittles and objectifies women athletes (which it does).

Sorry. But in this case, all I see is a guy blowing his assignment. Deeper meaning than that I leave to the navel-gazers.

And the notion that he should be cast forever into outer darkness?

I leave that to social media, dark lord that it is.

The sons of the fathers

 I'll credit Dylan Sinn of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, my old newspaper home, for pointing this out. But you know what Marian University hiring Pat Knight as its new basketball coach means, among other things?

It means Pat Knight will be coaching in the Crossroads League, an NAIA powerhouse. And that means Knight's Marian teams will be playing Huntington University on the regular, because the Foresters are also in the Crossroads League.

And you know what that means?

It means Pat Knight, the son of Bob Knight, will be coaching against Huntington's Kory Alford, the son of Steve Alford.

Who of course played for Bob Knight at Indiana. And who got crosswise with him later on when Steve was coaching Iowa, and Knight supposedly snubbed him (although maybe he didn't). And it became his whole thing where Knight supposedly resented Steve because he thought Steve was angling to be his successor at IU, even though Steve was never actually doing so.

Anyway ... 

Anyway, the Blob being the oddly wired creature he is, this immediately made me proclaim the following: "It's like 'Creed II' come to life!"

"Creed II," of course (or maybe not "of course" if you're not into movies), is the film in which Adonis Creed, the son of Apollo Creed, fights Viktor Drago, the son of Ivan Drago, who killed Apollo in the ring in "Rocky IV." Creed the son gets his ass kicked by Drago the son, and then comes back to beat him in the traditional Big Climactic Fight That In Real Life Would Have Been Stopped Long Before The Hero Rallies To Win.

 "Why, that's the stupidest, most trying-too-hard analogy I've ever heard!" you're exclaiming now. 

Yeah, well. I suppose that's true if you consider Pat and Kory won't be out there at midcourt trying to cave in one another's skulls, or looking to avenge their fathers, or probably won't have any feelings about it at all other than their shared bond with IU basketball. But if you ignore all that ...

"It's still stupid!" you're saying.

Man. You guys are no fun.

Stanley rules

 I don't know what you were doing Saturday night, but here's what I was doing: Examining another piece of evidence pointing to an irrefutable fact. 

That fact being, the Stanley Cup playoffs are the best playoffs. And Stanley Cup Game 7s are the best Game 7s.

And Game 7 sudden-death overtimes?

Shoo. It's like watching a bunch of teenagers in a horror flick approaching That Door That Should Not Be Opened. Except the tension s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s out like bleeping Gumby for minutes at a time.

And then, in a flash, the door is flung open. And it's all over.

Saturday night that happened in Boston, and, damn, it was glorious. The Bruins once again were trying to eliminate the Toronto Maple Leafs -- they seem to take a perverse glee in doing that, like Sid torturing his army men in "Toy Story" -- and, sure enough, they did it again. And after cruelly giving the Leafs a brief glimmer of hope, to boot.

Game 7, see, was dominated by the Leafs early, but they couldn't get the biscuit past Jeremy Swayman in goal. Down at the other end, meanwhile, Ilya Samsonov was a wall in the Leafs net. So it was 0-0 after one and 0-0 after two, and then, midway through the third period, the Leafs went up 1-0 on a William Nylander goal.

And for just over a minute, they could see daylight. For just over a minute, they weren't the same old Leafs anymore, capable of breaking the hearts of their believers in any circumstance.

But then -- just over a minute later -- Hampus Lindholm tied it for the Bruins, and on it went. And then, a tick fewer than two minutes into overtime, Lindholm fired the puck into the zone as David Pastrnak streaked down the wing after it, and you know what happened next: The puck took a crazy bounce off the corner boards, Pastrnak played carom perfectly, and just like that, it was over.

Bruins 2, Leafs 1.

On a goal that looked like an ordinary dump-and-chase until -- wait, what?

You won't see a purer example of the suddenness of sudden death than that. Nor a better example of why Stanley's Game 7s are the best -- unless it was Game 7 last night between the Dallas Stars and Vegas Golden Knights, when Radek Faksa scored the go-ahead goal for the Stars 44 seconds into the third period and the Stars put the clamps on Vegas thereafter to eliminate the defending Stanley Cup champs 2-1.

Stanley rules. Rules, I tell you.

By a nostril

 A bob of the head. A hoof striking the turf a millisecond before some other hoof. The flare of a nostril.

Choose your standard of measurement. Choose your method of description. And bag the metaphors, because this time a horse race wasn't a congressional race or a presidential race or a race for Chief Cook And Bottle-Washer of Succotash County.

This time a horse race was actually A HORSE RACE. 

This time it was three horses coming dead abreast to the wire, and the Kentucky Derby hadn't seen the like of it since 1947, or so the record books tell us. Closest three-horse finish since Jet Pilot nosed out Phalanx and Faultless that year. Even closer, actually.

Yesterday, it was another longshot, Mystik Dan at 18-1, who brought it home, and if you ever bet anything but longshots in the Derby again, may empty pockets be forever turned out. Saturday marked the third straight year a horse that went off at least 15-1 wound up with the blanket of roses, so call it officially a trend. 

Also call it officially one hell of a, well, horse race.

How close was it, down there at the end?

It was so close that if the Derby distance were a stride longer, Mystik Dan would have been the "place" horse and not the "win" horse.

Your winning horse would have been Sierra Leone, who was coming like a freight train with Forever Young half-a-stride back. All the momentum was with those two; Mystik Dan was just trying to get to the wire in front.

And he did. By that aforementioned bob of the head, planted hoof, flare of a nostril, as people watching in bars and restaurants all over America yelped "Whoaaa!"  

I know this because that's what everyone yelped where my wife and I were.

Hell of a horse race.

Don't ask, go to hell

 Couple of questions about the now-viral video of Bucks guard Patrick Beverley telling an ESPN reporter she wasn't allowed to ask him a question because she didn't subscribe to his podcast:

1. How does Patrick Beverley's head not take up the entire locker room?

2. Will Eddie Murphy ("I am Gumby, dammit!") play him in the movie?

Ay-yi-yi. I know arrogance is a common malady in professional sports these days (always has been, really), but Beverley has introduced an entirely new strain into the national bloodstream. I mean, it's not like he's LeBron or KD or Giannis. He's an NBA journeyman who's on his seventh team and has a lifetime scoring average of 8.3 ppg. Who the hell is Patrick Beverley?

And yet, there he was the other night, pulling high-handed BS far beyond his station in NBA life. He might only be Patrick Beverley, but he is Gumby, dammit!

Know what the scary part is, though?

Even though he's likely to be fined by the Association for this and for throwing a basketball at Pacers fans the other night, he might actually be ahead of the curve in future player/media relations. 

Now, as an old newspaper grunt, I understand the day is long past when athletes needed us to buff up their images and attract endorsements. Along came the worldwide web and Mom's-basement bloggers and, yes, podcasts, and with them an acceleration in how and through what conduits information (and disinformation) flows.

It's an instant gratification world more than ever now, and also a world in which athletes can bypass the media filter completely. Newspapers have tried to keep up, but the parameters by which print media must operate work against it in the everyone's-a-journalist-now reality. 

Thus we get Patrick Beverley pimping his podcast by dissing the media -- although telling the ESPN reporter "no disrespect" was a howler, considering disrespecting her was exactly what he was doing. And thus, the continued devolution of "journalism" into something that is nothing of the kind.

Telling a reporter he or she can't even ask a question without contributing to an athlete's own online "media" is only the latest step in that process. Rest assured Beverley won't be the last person to pull the stunt he pulled the other night.

Unless.

Unless, the reporter disrespected the next time goes ahead and asks his or her question anyway. And asks again. And asks again. And asks ... again.

Look. Every person under media scrutiny has the absolute right not to answer a reporter's question. Freedom of the press does not include that stipulation. It does, however, include the stipulation that the press has every right to ask that question, and really any question.

Plus, it's not like anyone can stop it from doing so. It is, in fact, literally impossible.

Which is why the other night, when Beverley told the ESPN reporter she wasn't allowed to ask a question if she didn't subscribe to his podcast, she should have immediately responded with a question: "And why is that, Patrick?"

And then told him to go piss up a rope.

OK. So maybe not that last.

And now, the rematch

 OK. So not really.

But the Pacers closed out the Bucks last night, blowing them out two nights after the Bucks blew them out.. And the Knicks, after epically choking in Game 5, finished off the 76ers. So now it's on to Pacers-vs.-Knicks in the second round -- or, as it was known almost 30 years ago, Hicks-vs.-Knicks.

Indiana against the Big Apple. Broadway against County Road 303. Half-a-million a month for a walk-in closet with a Murphy bed against ... well, a hell of a lot less for a hell of a lot more living space.

It won't be as glorious a culture clash as it was back in the day, but a guy can dream can't he? 

Dream of that afternoon in the Garden when Reggie scored, I don't know, eight points in two seconds or something, then made the choke sign at Spike Lee over there in the Knicks' Nicholson seats. Dream of John Starks skulking around making threes and dunking over guys and maybe letting the air out of Reggie's tires when he wasn't looking.

Dream of all those muscleheads bumping and banging and throwing nuclear elbows under the basket, because those were the days when NBA low-block play was more like pro wrestling than basketball.

This won't be that. 

Tyrese Halliburton won't be making the choke sign at Spike after sticking another J or dishing a dime to Pascal Siakam. The Knicks' OG Anunoby, who played his college ball in Bloomington, won't be posterizing Obi Toppin and then saying something mean about Mother Bear's or Nick's English Hut. There just won't be the same old enmity.

Although all it would take to revive it is Jalen Brunson making a joke about cornfields. Or, I don't know, Myles Turner coming back with "Does Walt Frazier still play for you guys?"

Please, gentlemen. Please do it, just for old time's sake.

Derby time ...

 ... in which the Blob once more professes his undying love for the Kentucky Derby, a sporting event he's never attended and understands even less, except for that song by Dan Fogelberg ("Run for the Roses") and that story by Hunter S. Thompson ("The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent And Depraved"). Also the Twin Spires and mint juleps and old guys who dress like Harlan Sanders, and ladies who wear hats constructed by either Frank Lloyd Wright or Home Depot.

"But what about the horses, Mr. Blob?" you're saying now. "Surely your depth of insight into horses and such can guide us toward a productive betting experience?"

Hmm. Well, here's a name you might want to remember: Secretariat.

"But Secretariat's dead!" you're saying.

Well, yes.

But mentioning Secretariat, the greatest thoroughbred in history, allows me to mention Mage, who was not Secretariat but a 15-1 shot who somehow horsed around (Get it? Horsed around?) and won the Derby last year. And it allows me to mention Rich Strike, who was REALLY not Secretariat, but an 80-1 meat loaf who started on the very outside in 2022 and, you guessed it, also won the Derby that year.

In other words, the last two Derby winners have been mutts. Which might make you pause a moment before you plunk down your hard-earned two bucks on this year's Derby favorites, Fierceness and Sierra Leone.

You can probably throw Catching Freedom in there, too, and T.O. Password and Forever Young, a pair of Japanese horses whom the people who know about these things have mentioned as possible winners.

Me?

Hey, don't look at me. My only horsey wisdom consists of the following:

1. Never bet on the gray horse. Gray horses are frequently Alpo.

2. Bet the jockey. Whoever Tobey MacGuire is riding would be a fine choice, seeing he did such a great job in "Seabiscuit."

3. Bet the trainer. Look for someone who wears a lot of tweed and goes by names like Peter Rouse Merriott Chard or Ian Michael Grayson Braithwaite. Do not look for That Guy With The White Hair, aka Bob Baffle or Biffle or Baffert or something. It seems Churchill Downs is still miffed at him for cheating a couple years back, and thus he remains banned from the premises.

And last but not least ...

4. Bet the mutts. Because after the last two years, who knows?

Besides, there's a trend going on down in Louisville these days, and it's a damned interesting one. My sportswriting acquaintance and longtime Derby reporter Rick Bozich alerted me to it the other day, when he wrote a piece pointing out that five of the last eight Derby winners never won another race. Either they got hurt and had to be retired, or they never again caught the same lightning in a mint julep they did on the first Saturday in May.

Now, I don't know a fetlock from the Soo locks or a wither from whither-thou-goest, but this sounds like an open invitation to take a flier on Society Man or West Saratoga or Epic Ride, all of whom opened this morning at 50-1. Of those, I say put some bitcoin down on Epic Ride, who's only in the field because another horse scratched and who starts way out there from the 20 hole. 

Which means he might as well be starting from, I don't know, Jeffersonville. Or maybe New Albany.

Here's the thing, though: Epic Ride is exactly where Rich Strike was two years ago (Rich Strike was also a scratch replacement). So I say go for it. Hell, it's not my money.

Just make sure Ian Michael Grayson Braithwaite has something to do with it.

That "Uh-oh" feeling

 The partisans in Milwaukee the other night, they could see the future. Sometimes the road ahead is a constant surprise, full of blind hairpin turns and reverse-camber corners; sometimes it runs straight as a string and you can see where it leads from miles off.

The partisans got the latter the other night, or thought they did. Because what were they chanting, after their Bucks sent their playoff series with Indiana back to Indianapolis with an unacceptably easy 23-point win?

"Bucks in seven ... Bucks in seven ... Bucks in seven ..."

Could be they're right. 

Could be they're wrong, but only if the Pacers get over blowing -- and I mean really blowing -- the perfect setup for a close-out two nights ago.

Leading 3-1 in the first-round series, playing a crippled Bucks team without their two biggest stars, the Pacers simply ... didn't show up. They not only let the Bucks off the hook, they unscrewed it from the wall for them. Darn, that looks uncomfortable. Lemme dig out my Phillips and take it down.

You don't go very far in the playoffs with a deficient killer instinct, and apparently that's what these Pacers have.  revealing stat: In beating the Pacers the other night, the Bucks became the first team in NBA history to win a playoff game without their two top two scorers (in this case, the injured Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, both looking on in streets from the bench). And they won it by 23 points.

Yikes. And also, whoa, what th- and good grief, Pacers.

They pounded the Bucks three times in the first four games, but then they exhaled a game early. Now it's not too much to say Game 6 in Indy tonight is a must-win situation for them, because it pretty much is a must-win situation.

That's because the partisans are right: If the Bucks can take the series back to Milwaukee for Game 7, the Bucks will win. Two extra days of rest would mean Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard likely would be back in the lineup, for one thing. And for the second thing, the third thing, and the fourth thing, too.

All together now, Indy folk: Uh-oh.

Wardrobe change

 So remember back in spring training, when Major League Baseball introduced new lightweight uniforms, and everyone got their shorts in a twist because the pants were so lightweight you actually could see their shorts in a twist?

Also, they rode up in the crotch something fierce.

(Nah, that part I made up)

Also, they were kinda cheesy-looking, as if MLB had decided to go with the Chico's Bail Bonds look from "The Bad News Bears."

(That part I didn't make up)

Anyway, like every other debate in the history of baseball -- the designated hitter, dead ball-vs.-live ball, was Ty Cobb a racist asswagon or just misunderstood -- the uni-storm did not dissipate. The players kept crabbing, and finally, just the other day, MLB sighed and said, fine, we'll got back to the old uniforms or something very much like them.

Of course, being baseball, it won't be doing that until next season. I mean, it took 'em 75 or so years to figure out Josh Gibson and  Oscar Charleston and them wouldn't have ruined their lily-white game, and at last let Jackie Robinson into the club. So it's not like bold decision-making is a hallmark of this crowd.

At any rate, justice eventually will be served, and everyone can go back to arguing about the DH again. 

Well. Unless the White Sox bring back those damn shorts, that is.