One codger, exhausted

 And now the Blob presents a singular feature of questionable appeal — Stuff That No Longer Annoys Me Because There’s No Longer A Point To Being Annoyed By It, a surrender of sorts to the inevitability of codger exhaustion.

Which is to say, this codger has seen LaMelo Ball moonwalk a mile or so with nary a dribble, and all he can do is shrug wearily.

Yes, he traveled like Marco Polo. No, I’m not annoyed/perturbed/outraged that he wasn’t whistled for it, because traveling as a violation of the rules of basketball no longer exists in the National (Get Your) Boogey (Shoes On) Association.

Guys walk like Gandhi to the sea and get away with it because they call it a “gather” now; not long ago, a Celtics player went from just inside the foul circle to the rim without taking a dribble because he was “gathering” for a dunk. 

And the Euro Step, which is a conventional travel, is now just … the Euro Step. 

So be it. There’ll be no further shaking of bony fists and “Consarn it’s!” from this locale.

And while we’re at it …

I’m also not going to get annoyed/perturbed/outraged by  clueless high school football coaches, either.

One of them kicked his senior quarterback off the team for audible-ing out of a designed keeper. The kid handed it to his running back instead, figuring the RB had a better chance of getting the first down. 

QB1 was right. The running back got the first down. But Coach Dimmer Switch — i.e. Miles Smith, son of former NFL coach Lovie Smith — didn’t say “nice call”; he threw QB1 off the team for “disrespecting” Coach, and forbade him from having any further contact with his teammates.

A dozen  of whom quit the team in protest after Smith told them if they didn’t like his decision they could leave.

Again, so be it. No getting all exercised about it here.

Know why?

Because the next week Coach Dimmer Switch’s depleted squad lost 49-7. After which he and his dad, a volunteer assistant, resigned.

To which the Blob has only one response: Buh-bye.

Series time!

 The Fall Classic begins tonight in Milwaukee, where mittens might be required before mitts. But who cares? It’s the Fall Classic!

This year, weirdly, it actually pits the top team in each league against each other, and neither is the Dodgers or Yankees, which pleases everyone in America who’s not a network executive.  It’s the Milwaukee Brewers vs. the Tampa Bay Rays, two smallish-market teams who’ve never won a World Series, and who’ve only ever played in one a combined four times.

Three of those times it was the Rays, who are a sound, splendid team that doesn’t beat itself. The Brewers are also a sound, splendid team that doesn’t beat itself. So it should be a great Series.

And if you’re asking, at this point, which sound, splendid team the Blob favors (“We’re not, but OK,” you’re saying now), the answer is the Brewers.

I like ‘em partly because I consider  beer and brats part of a balanced diet; partly because of Laverne, Shirley, Lenny and Squiggy; and partly because Milwaukee hasn’t celebrated a World Series title since 1957, when the Braves beat the Yankees before departing for Atlanta.

The Brewers?

They’ve only played in the Series once, and that was 44 years ago. It was a team led by Robin Yount, Paul Molitor and slugger Gorman Thomas, who looked like a guy who  enjoyed an occasional beer and brat. If Milwaukee suddenly became a sentient being, it would be Gorman Thomas.

So, yeah. It’s time for Gorm’s spiritual descendants to bring home the Big Trophy.

One other reason to root for the Brewers?

They began life in 1969 as the Seattle Pilots, who lasted just one season before relocating to Milwaukee. And whom Jim Bouton made famous in “Ball Four.”

And so, in the immortal words of the Pilots manager Joe Schultz: “S***f***. F***s***. Up and at ‘em, Brewers, and pound that Budweiser.”

Moneyed interests

It’s probably a swipe of the broad brush to say the Big Ten, SEC, Notre Dame and ESPN just decided for everyone else what college football is going to look like going forward. But the Big Ten, SEC, Notre Dame and ESPN just decided for everyone else what college is going to look like going forward.

Which is a 24-team College Football Playoff.

The four entities named above, just hammered out a broadcast deal for said playoff, tentatively scheduled to launch next season. It won’t be finally approved until Dec. 1, but final approval is all but a lock.

This is because the deal with ESPN is expected to be a $300 million haul, and no one in what used to be “college” athletics has ever failed to lunge unbecomingly after every free-floating dollar. It’s how major corporations operate — even ones who style themselves institutions of higher learning.

What this means, ostensibly, is more high-end non-conference clashes and fewer Indiana-vs.-Howard abominations. This is because, in a watered-down CFP ,  teams will be able to lose three or four games and still get into the Big Hoo-Ha.

(Which kinda sucks for the Howards and MAC schools like the Blob’s alma mater Ball State. No more million-dollar guarantee games for you, mid-major losers! And, hey, the Power 4s will still get to raid you for the players you spent a year or so developing! How’s that for a deal?)

Sorry. Where were we again?

Oh, yeah, more CFP dough for more mid Power 4 teams ( and, OK, half a dozen or so Group Of 6 automatic bids). It’ll mean more games for the “student-athletes”  — the season for the national champions will now run uninterrupted from late August to mid January — and the death knell for a whole pile of radial tire, lawn implement and Snoop Dog bowls.

The latter might be the only upside to this, because let’s face it, the world does not need more of 6-6 Directional A&M vs.  5-7 East-Northeast Institute Of Breakfast Technology  in the Carquest Good-And-Plenty Bowl. Plus,  an expanded CFP will also mean the end of conference championship games, which are nothing but a way to squeeze more nickels from the “student-athletes anyway.

Now?

Now the Big Ten, SEC and Notre Dame will get to wring even MORE nickels from their hired hands. And if the Save College Sports or whatever it’s called passes, they’ll have antitrust protection and assurance the hired hands won’t be able to organize like any other workforce in America. Sweet!

As for me …

Well, I miss the days before colleges became Sis-Boom-Bah Inc. — the days of New Year’s Day bowl games and mythical national champions and $1,000 handshakes under the table.

It felt cleaner, somehow. And certainly more human.

Your nothingburger for today

 The WNBA just annoys the hell out of some people. Let’s begin with that home truth today.

Those some people — and you know who they are — see the league as too gay, too black, and mostly too full of women who speak their minds.  Thus, the Some People bash the WNBA as “woke” (because it celebrates diversity and inclusion, those evil Doublemint Twins), racist (look how those mean black girls pick on the white girls!) and … and …

Haters of America!

Yes, that’s the latest.

It’s the latest because the usual suspects — Outkick, Jason Whitlock, even Indiana’s Lieutenant Governor, Micah “I Don’t Like Much Of Anything” Beckwith — are feeding red meat to the masses again. And as usual it’s performance art so contrived and ridiculous you wonder when the hook comes out to drag them off stage.

See, they’ve noticed that both teams in the WNBA finals — the Atlanta Dream and the Golden State Valkyries — leave the floor prior to the National Anthem.  The usual suspects cry that this is a deliberate insult to our great nation, and proof that the WNBA Hates America.

If it didn’t, after all, the league would force these ungrateful opinionated women (Opinionated women! The horror!)  to remain on the floor and stand at attention for the anthem. Because, you know, freedom.

And now for the rest of the story, as they say.

The rest of the story is that, first of all, the Dream and Valkyries are not violating leagues rules, as the usual suspects claim. The rules only say that IF a team remains on the floor for the anthem, its players must stand in a respectful manner. But it’s up to the individual teams to decide whether or not they stay on the floor.

Some teams do. Some teams don’t. The Dream and Valkyries do not, and it’s not because they Hate America. It’s because that’s their pregame routine.

Period. End of story.

In fact, if the usual suspects took the time to check it out instead of trying to manufacture outrage, they’d learn the a LOT of basketball teams retire to the locker room before the anthem. This includes a lot of college teams — including Kim Mulkey’s women’s teams, and, back in the day, Bob Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers.

As far as I know, Micah Beckwith and the rest of the clowns never accused them of Hating America. (Although Mulkey, absurdly, came in for some criticism on this very point last year from a few peawits). This is because neither Mulkey nor Knight would ever be mistaken for “woke” lefties. They are, and were, about as red-blooded unawake America, Hell, Yeah! types as you’d ever find.

So, then. Enough of this nonsense. Just call this what it is: Your nothingburger for today.

In these times, after all, it seems we’re required to have at least one.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 6

 And now this week’s edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the nostalgic Blob feature of which critics have said “Remember the good old days when this crap didn’t exist?”, and also “I’m nostalgic for that time I fed you a knuckle hoagie”:

1. “Remember when everyone thought we were a Super Bowl team?” (The Rams, after losing at home to the Cardinals — the Cardinals! — to fall to 2-4.)

2. “Remember when everyone thought WE were?” (The Cowboys, after losing to the Packers to also fall to 2-4)

3. “No one remembers that.” (Everyone in America who’s not a Cowboys fan)

4. In other news, the Eagles!

5. Lost again, this time to the Panthers. They’re 2-4 now, too, and have lost Jalen Hurts for the season for a scary reason: Blood clots have developed in his lungs.

6. “Remember when the football gods were smiling on us, and we were winning Super Bowls, and people thought Nick Siriani was a pretty darn good coach? What happened? It’s not that we were still jackwagons despite all that, was it?” ( Eagles fans)

7. “Remember when all the smart guys thought we were washed? Well, look at us now, losers!” (The 6-0 Chiefs)

8. “I miss the days when Caleb Williams was out with the dinged hammy.” (No Bears fan anywhere, after Williams returned, completed 30-of-36 passes — including his first 12 — for 305 yards and a touchdown in Chicago’s 31-23 road win over Atlanta)

9. “Remember when I was a GM?” ( Chris Ballard, after being fired by the Indianapolis Colts the morning after the  Horsies jacked around lost to the previously winless Titans at home)

10. “Remember when I didn’t know I was the next to go?” (Colts head coach Shane Steichen, whose team is 2-4 with road games at unbeaten Minnesota and 4-2 Jacksonville next up)

Requiem time, Part Deux

 Well, THAT was quick.

Forget the question mark in the title of the previous post. It is requiem time in Indy.

This just in: The Colts have fired Greg Ballard, roughly 17 hours after losing to previously winless Tennessee.

Doors standard to follow.

Requiem time?

 This is the end

My only friend, the end …

Oops, sorry. Just rehearsing Chris Ballard’s next number.

And that’s Shane Steichen singin’ harmony.

With a nod, and huge apologies, to Jimmy Morrison and the Doors, of course.

And, sure, maybe I’m being a tad melodramatic here, but, hoo, boy, what the heck was THAT yesterday? Losing at home to the previously winless Tennessee Titans, for cryin’ out loud? Making the Titans defense look like all gnarly and fierce, while Steichen’s and Ballard’s Colts looked worthless and weak?*

(*Gratuitous “Animal House” reference)

Here’s how the Horseshoes lost 26-20 yesterday, at home, to one of the weakest teams in the NFL:

* Gave up a 58-yard punt return to set up one Titans score.

* Gave up another touchdown on a blocked punt return.

* Turned it over three times — twice on Daniel Jones interceptions, once on a Jonathan Taylor fumble — and allowed six sacks.

* Got outscored 26-7 in the second half to blow a 13-0 halftime lead.

No wonder Ballard and Steichen might be tuning up that old Doors standard. 

They came into this season with a distinctly un-subtle mandate from owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon — win or hit the bricks — and now the Colts are 2-4 and the two wins were against 2-4 Houston and a 1-3-1 Washington team that was playing a third-string quarterback from Rutgers. 

(They also pushed the Chiefs to overtime in K.C. before losing 33-30. People are still trying to figure out that one out.)

So now here they are with a slower Daniel Jones (thanks to the Achilles tear that knocked him out last season), a “meh” receiver room and a defense whose best player is a 32-year-old nose tackle who was thinking recreating before this season (DeForrest Buckner). 

After starting 8-1 last season, they’ve gone 2-12 since.

This is surely not what Irsay-Gordon had in mind when, in so many words, she said Ballard and Steichen had to show her something or else.

It’s also not what she had in mind when the fans were sending down boos yesterday afternoon.

Those boos might or might not have been a requiem of sorts for Ballard and Steichen. But at this point, you’ve gotta be leaning toward the former.