IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 8 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour

Starting Five

Privatize (“They’re Watching You, They See Your Every Move”)

Taking a cue from POTUS, Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk tweeted yesterday that he’d rather the company be private. Musk added another tweet saying he’d take shares of the stock to $420 (it was at around $344 when he sent the first tweet) and that shareholders could either sell or remain with the company as it privatized.

Shares of Tesla (TSLA) jumped 10% in the wake of that tweet and even more short-sellers than usual were cursing the South Africa native’s name. You could’ve bought TSLA before last week’s earnings report at $298. Now it’s at $380.

2. SI Also Named Names

Yesterday we noted that ESPN was releasing a Top 50 College Football Players list. We’d forgotten that SI had released its 3rd annual Top 100 College Players list back in mid-June (but my page only stopped buffering on Sunday).

Both ESPN and SI have Ed Oliver at number one, but after that I much prefer SI’s list, which is not as agog over quarterbacks and sagely places Khalil Tate, ESPN’s 3rd-rated QB in the Pac-12 alone, as the number one overall QB in the nation (ESPN’s list reads as if Todd McShay wrote it with an eye on how dudes will be drafted as opposed to what they can do on a Saturday).

Clemson D-line: The big unit

What we like even better, and agree with, is SI’s Top 25 team rankings in which they put Clemson No. 1 over Alabama. The Tigers have that mammoth, super-talented D-line and the Crimson Tide has both a championship hangover and what could become a toxic QB controversy (ask Notre Dame fans how that worked out, the latter part, two years ago).

3. Remember Him?

What, as a Notre Dame alum, you should really love about both ESPN’s and SI’s lists is that the Fighting Irish’s returning starter at quarterback, Brandon Wimbush, does not appear on either. Under the radar. Low expectations.

Remember how in love Notre Dame fans and the media were with Wimbush after September and October last season? The Irish were 8-1 and Wimbush, then a first-year starter, had thrown 13 touchdowns versus only two interceptions. He’d also rushed for 13 touchdowns and had four 100-yard rushing games.

Then the wheels fell off at Miami and Stanford, where honestly, Ian Book was the preferred option. It’ll be interesting to see what the lack of fanfare does to light a spark under both Wimbush and this entire Irish squad. Are they overrated in the mid-teens or have people forgotten just how explosive a dual-threat Wimbush can be? We’ll see.

 

p.s. We still believe Wimbush got hurt on that helicopter tackle (at the :37 mark above) near the goal line versus Wake Forest far worse than Notre Dame let on. To us it’s the X-factor of why his season went awry.

p.p.s. What to watch for with Notre Dame offense if you’ve not been paying close attention: Wideouts Miles Boykin (remember him from the LSU game) and Chase Claypool are 6’4″ and 6’5″, respectively, and both upperclassmen with experience. You’ll see a lot of deep jump balls for them this autumn.

4. The Other Tate

Martell in the spring game

SI thinks Khalil Tate is the nation’s best college football quarterback. Two years ago Scout.com believed Tate Martell, out of Las Vegas’ Bishop Gorman, was the nation’s top prep QB. Martell matriculated at Ohio State, where he redshirted last season.

So Ohio State names Dwayne Haskins, a kid with three years of eligibility remaining, its starting quarterback. And Haskins, like not a few of his Buckeye predecessors this century, has a game that’s better-suited to college, not the NFL. Which suggests he’ll want to hold onto this gig for three seasons. Which is to say we foresee a Jacob Eason-type future for Martell: West Coast hot shot goes east, gets a good look at the pine, follows Horace Greeley’s advice.

Martell, who is only 5’11”, may be waiting to see how L’Affair d’Urban turns out. But it would make sense if he transfers out of Columbus before the season begins, thereby giving himself three potential seasons as a starter somewhere else as opposed to, if he plays this season for the Buckeyes as a clipboard holder, two. Chip Kelly might enjoy his company in Westwood.

5. The Cyclists and ISIS

First, we cannot believe that Outside magazine and/or Jonathan Krakauer did not find this story first. Second, this will be a movie (remember what we said about the McNopoly story? Affleck and Damon have already bid on it).

Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, a pair of 29 year-old Georgetown alums both working in D.C.—he for HUD, she in Georgetown admissions—quit their jobs, shipped their bicycles to Africa, and embarked on the adventure of a lifetime. That was in July of 2017.

Last week, while riding through Tajikistan on Day 369 of their journey, the couple and two other cyclists were run down by ISIS militants in a car. It was not an accident.

A personal note: I often take off on bicycle excursions on my days off here. Last week I did a 50-miler, on my mountain-hybrid bike, beginning on the Upper West Side, traveling through the Bronx to the Bronx River Pathway (one of the little-known wonders and delights of America’s largest city) and up past the Kensico Dam in upper Westchester.

When I’m on these treks, I often think of how much improved everyone’s mental health would be if they just got out on a bike and experienced the outdoors like this. How people get caught up in all the wrong trappings of societal convention (Do you really want to spend your Saturday attending that 3 year-0ld’s birthday party?) and really are never free.

It’s a tragedy that Austin and Geoghegan were killed. Then again, they had 368 days of wonder and adventure that most people will never, or rarely, experience. And for me the tragedy is that so many of us don’t even realize how trapped we are.

Another aside: I bartended a party on Monday night where I made friends with one man, age 55, who told me he’d retired from the Granite & Mason (?) Union because of an aortic aneurysm. How do you spend your time, I asked him? “Whales!” he said with fervor, and then proceeded to show me photos of whale-watching trips he’d taken in Mexico, California and Cape Cod. It was something he’d only taken up after he’d been forced to retire. “I’m 55 going on five,” said the man, Peter.

He’s lucky enough to have discovered wonder before it was too late. Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan were smart enough to figure it out earlier in life. Good for them. I hope no one who knows or loves them is sad or feels regret. They were probably truly happy when it ended.

p.s. The murderers’ motive was to protest Westerners infiltrating their culture, but they used an American invention (the automobile) to carry out their deed. We’ve long since given up explaining hypocrisy to demagogues and/or the people who follow them.

Music 101

Then Came You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_PzcgyqMwE

What happens when you pair The Spinners, who to this point in their career had a pair of top ten hits, with Dionne Warwick, who’d had seven top ten hits? This 1974 song, which shot to Number One on the Billboard charts in the summer of 1974. Neither act had ever had a No. 1 hit before they hooked up. That’s Bobby Smith on lead male vocals.

Remote Patrol

Margin Call

11:35 p.m. TMC (NOT TCM!)

The Big Short, Too Big To Fail, The Wolf of Wall Street and even both Bernie Madoff films (HBO and one for TV) likely earned more attention than this 2011 film dealing, in a fictitious manner, with the sub-prime mortgage crisis. We contend that this may be the best of them all, or at least in the same league with The Big Short. The above scene is Jeremy Irons at his very best, and you can see from the board room table some of the other actors in this film: Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Simon Baker and Demi Moore. That’s Zachary Quinto, Mr. Spock, as the deer in the headlights who actually is the boy genius. You will also catch an excellent, as usual, Stanley Tucci.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 4 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour


It’s time to recommend PFT Commenter for “Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee.”

Starting Five

Yemen-stration

What’s happening: In 2015 rebels ousted Saudi-backed Yemen president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. So then Saudi Arabia attacked its neighbor. And now the U.S.A., without invoking the War Powers Act or declaring war, is doing everything to help the Saudis (refueling planes, targeting assistance, drones) without actually placing boots on the ground.

Thus far more than 13,000 Yemenis, mostly civilians, have been killed, millions have been displaced and there is an epic famine taking place. Over the weekend a bomb went off in a crowded market, killing 55, and Saudi Arabia is widely believed to be behind the massacre. But we’re all too busy reading and responding to a certain orange person’s tweets (guilty as charged).

The Red Cross is succinct: “The disregard of international humanitarian law in Yemen cannot be tolerated.” The Saudis are blocking Yemeni ports. Those Yemenis not being bombed or gunned down are starving to death.

Why? Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East but as you can see from the map, its location plays a ginormous role in what a former U.S. president but might call “strategery.” The Houthi rebels have claimed the capital, Sana, and they may be receiving assistance from Iran. It’s Syria all over again, and once again the innocents will suffer the most.

2. They Named Names

Oliver is ESPN’s top player.

ESPN’s Top 50 Players in College Football list was released today. Not to be confused with SI’s Top 100 Players in College Football list (Did ESPN do this last year? We can’t recall). A few thoughts on what is overall a desultory roster:

–Houston DE Ed Oliver (he’s an Ed who’s also a DE) is No. 1, and everyone likes Ed, but we’re gonna ask: If you’re a DL and you’re NOT playing in the SEC, are you really the nation’s top player, much less defensive lineman?

–Oliver is one of three non-Power 5 players on the list. The other two are UCF QB McKenzie Milton (20) and Florida Atlantic RB Devin Singletary (50).

–Seven quarterbacks in the Top 20 and 14 overall. Sorry, we don’t see it. There just aren’t that many outstanding quarterbacks in this year’s class. Also, not among those 14: Eric Dungey of Syracuse, who is the top returning Total Offense player from a Power 5 conference. Dungey finished immediately behind a dude named Baker Mayfield last season, and sixth overall; another dude who finished ahead of him? Lamar Jackson.

–Sun Devil junior wideout N’Keal Harry, a serious Biletnikoff Award candidate and a physical freak, did not make the list. He’s a first-rounder next spring.

Harry caught 82 passes as a sophomore last season but somehow was unable to catch ESPN’s attention

–No Texas or Nebraska or Notre Dame or Tennessee or USC players made the list. That’s your second-, third-, fifth-, ninth- and tenth-winningest programs of all time, respectively. Florida, Michigan State and Boise State also failed to put a player on the list.

–Four Clemson defensive linemen in the Top 24.

–Northern Illinois defensive end Sutton Smith, who led the nation in Tackles for Loss and Sacks, is not on the list. Whaaaaaaaaat??????

Smith is a phenomenal player and a hilarious interview. How does he not make ESPN’s list?

–Three Pac-12 quarterbacks (Justin Herbert, Jake Browning and Khalil Tate) are in the Top 20. The trio’s teams went 0-3 collectively versus Arizona State last season, whose senior quarterback Manny Wilkins is not on the list.

–Presumptive MH Red Grange Award preseason favorite A.J. Dillon, a sophomore RB from Boston College, comes in at No. 36.

–On the strength of one really good half of football, Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa comes in at No. 11. Jalen Hurts, on the strength of two really good seasons at the same position, is not on the list.

Shocker! The SEC put the most players on ESPN’s list, but no one in the top 9. Stidham, above, was the first SEC player on the list at No. 10.

–Four Michigan players make the list. That’s by far the most of any school that has not advanced to the College Football playoff.

–Two quarterbacks in the Top 20 on the  list, Tagovailoa and Milton, are from Hawaii.

–18 of the players, or 36%, are from SEC schools. Eleven, or 22%, are from Big Ten schools.

–Four of the quarterbacks on the list are transfers: Will Grier, Florida to West Virginia; Jarrett Stidham, Baylor to Auburn; Shea Patterson, Ole Miss to Michigan; Kyler Murray, Texas A&M to Oklahoma.

–No punters or place-kickers made the list.

3. Baseball? Still Awesome

deGrom is in the midst of an historic season, but because he’s a Met, that comes with a caveat

Dog days? We won’t hear of it! Baseball is great (even if millennial bloggers need to be introduced to it). Here’s some fun with numbers:

–There are 11 teams with better run differentials than the Philadelphia Phillies, but rookie manager Gabe “Mr. Kot-tair!” Kapler’s team is in first place in the National League East.

–All three National League divisions have two teams within 1 1/2 gamea of one another for first place. Strap in.

–The Oakland A’s (67-46), in the midst of a 6-game win streak, have baseball’s best record since mid-June. On June 15 Oakland was 34-36. They are 33-10 since.

–The New York Yankees are 43-4 when receiving a quality start (six innings pitched, three runs or fewer allowed), a .914 win percentage. They’re on pace to set an all-time record for wins after quality starts in baseball history. It would be even better than that (44-3) were it not for that ninth inning choke job at Fenway Park on Sunday evening.

Khris Davis would like not to be confused with Chris Davis

—Khris Davis, Oakland A’s: 31 home runs, 86 RBI, .253 average. Chris Davis, Baltimore Orioles: 13 home runs, 37 RBI, .161 average. Khris will earn $10.5 million this year, Chris will earn $23 million.

–The Pittsburgh Pirates are tied with Cleveland for the Major League lead in shutouts (12) but are 8 1/2 games out in the N.L. Central. Of the top ten teams in terms of shutouts pitched, only Pittsburgh and San Francisco would not make the playoffs if the season ended today.

-Mets ace Jacob deGrom has baseball’s lowest ERA (1.85), the National League’s second-lowest WHIP, and a 5-7 record. Does Max Scherzer win his fourth Cy Young Award this season or does deGrom, who has autocorrected twice to “legroom” as I’ve typed his name in this sentence, become the first starting pitcher to win the award with both 1) a sub-.500 Won-Loss record and 2) fewer than 10 wins.

4. Smokey The Boor

At least California is only making an ash out of itself

The northern California Carr Fire, which is the second-worst in the state’s history, has burned more than 161,000 acres. It began on July 23 when a flat tire caused a car’s rim to scrape the asphalt, creating a spark that ignited the fire. Such is fate.

(No, don’t suggest calling it the Car Fire.)


Anyway, as more than 14,000 fire fighters battle the blaze that has claimed seven human lives and countless animal lives, President I-Don’t-Wanna-Visit-California-Because-They-Don’t-Like-Me sent out a tweet that, even for him, was startling in its ignorance (and we’re back to what we noted in Item 1).


The only “water” Trump could be referring to are rivers that, you know, by nature, flow into the ocean. And “tree clears” are a way of life out west. It’s also known as “fire breaks.”

5. Mamma Mia!

Two trucks collided outside of Bologna, Italy, and one of them was carrying flammable materials. At least one person died. Now imagine if this had happened in northern California. The video is incredible.

Music 101

Only The Lonely

The Motels were pretty much a one-album wonder, but this song deservedly was ubiquitous on the radio, and more to the point, on the MTV, in the spring of 1982. Martha Davis’s hauntingly mournful vocals and a sax solo (move over, Quarterflash) helped propel the tune to No. 9 on the charts. We also like “Remember The Nights” if you want to dig deeper on this Berkeley-based band.

Remote Patrol

Safety Last

8 p.m. TCM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuflxdBe9JQ

You may have seen the above clip from the 1923 silent film classic starring Harold Lloyd, but have you ever seen the entire film? Neither have we. We’re still not sure how they did this. Also, on AMC at 8 p.m., if you want to be taken seriously as a film buff or simply as a adult and it’s still on your “To Do” list, there’s The Godfather: the film that explains business, family, America and how to cook meatballs. Not in that order.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 5 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

Bat’s Entertainment: Pearce had four home runs in the series.

Lost Weekend

The Yankees are swept in a four-game series at Fenway Pahk, and the only thing worse is knowing that Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner are likely robbing the till this morning.  The Yanks lost in almost every conceivable fashion: an 8-run 4th inning on Thursday night led to a 15-7 blowout; a one-hitter on Friday (4-1); a listless performance on Saturday, where they went from down 4-0 with two outs and no one in the ninth to having the bases loaded and the go-ahead run at the plate, only for Greg Bird to send a lazy fly ball to center.

Finally, Sunday night: a 4-1 lead when closer Aroldis Chapman enters and promptly walks the number 9 hitter, then another one. Thirty-nine pitches and three runs later, it’s extra innings; and in the 10th the Sawx launch the winning rally with two out and no one on: single, wild pitch, seeing-eye game-winning single.

Just brutal. Boston now leads the Yankees by 9 1/2 games, and while the A.L. East isn’t over, the gravedigger just picked up the spade. No other division has as wide a margin between its first- and second-place teams.

p.s. The Bombers have not gone long in the past three games.

p.p.s. We wish George Steinbrenner were still around to witness this. He’d be going nuts this morning (“Costanza!”) and probably would have fired the bullpen. The back pages of the Post and Daily News would have his rage-quotes all over them. Are you really the Yankee manager if you aren’t required to answer George’s tirades to the press?

2. Oh, THAT Meeting With the Russians?

His son and son-in-law attended, but how would you expect him to know anything about it?

In a stunning reversal—but not really—of posture, President Trump now admits that the June 2016 meeting with the Russians that took place in Trump Tower was about getting dirt on probable presidential election foe Hillary Clinton. This confession came via Sunday morning tweet.


Donald, who just by osmosis should have earned three law degrees by now, added that it was “totally legal” (it’s not, because the people offering the dirt were foreigners) and “done all the time in politics” and how would he even know that, being the political outsider he claims to be?

And all those poor Russian children waiting to be adopted. How will they feel knowing the meeting (which, for now at least, Trump still claims he knew nothing about at the time, but it only took place a floor below his office and involved his oldest son and some of his closest campaign officials) was not about them? Guess they can feel some solace in knowing they’re not in detention facilities with no idea where their parents are.

3. ESPN Strikes Out

We only joined ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball telecast—Matt Vasgersian, Jessica Mendoza, A-Rod—in the seventh inning last night, but here are the errors we picked up. We’ll begin with the most egregious:

–Top of the 9th, the Yanks lead 4-1 and have two runners on base and Vasgersian says, “Don’t look now, but the tying run comes to the plate in the form of Miguel Andujar.” Whhhaaaaaat?

–A-Rod twice alluded to teams “loading the dice.” It’s rolling the dice.

–Vasgersian alluded to a scout’s mom as “being the woman behind all the men at the Padres for years.” A-Rod, to his credit, succinctly said, “Expand on that, please.” Yes, please do.

–In the top of the ninth inning, A-Rod discussed how the Red Sox were going to be very happy having won three out of four against the Yankees. He did not even place a conditional on that statement, even though he himself maintained more than once that “three runs at Fenway is like one run,” alluding to the Yankee lead. Of course, Boston would overcome its three-run deficit and win.

–Finally, on SportsCenter after the game, A-Rold told host Steve Levy that “the Yankees came to Boston trailing by 4 1/2 games and after being swept four games, leave trailing by 9 1/2.” If a first-ballot HOF’er can’t do simple Games Behind math, what hope do the rest of us have.

Let us say, though, that A-Rod’s an ex-ballplayer. His errors are somewhat more forgivable. Vasgersian’s gaffe is what happens when ESPN talking heads attempt to fill your living room with all the information they’ve digested in game prep to the neglect of discussing what’s taking place right in front of their eyes. It was the worst gaffe we’ve heard during a game in quite some time, not because it’s misidentifying a player or the score, but it’s presuming the team that leads by three runs is actually trailing by three. It’s like, Oh yeah, I wasn’t even paying attention.

We watch a lot of local Yankee broadcasts: Michael Kay, accompanied by a rotating crew of Paul O’Neill, David Cone, John Flaherty, Al Leiter and Ken Singleton. They do a phenomenal, and to Kay’s credit, highly professional job. They’re so much better than any ESPN crew we hear. Not knowing Kay but feeling as if I do (we’re the same age from the same area), I can only imagine he wonders how mistakes like the ones ESPN aired last night happen.

4. Clark Kent Is Aquaman?

It’s a bird, it’s a plane…maybe it’s a fish

A 10 year-old boy from northern California broke one of Michael Phelps’ age-group swimming records (the 100-meter butterfly) by a whole second. His name: Clark Kent Apuada.

5. World War II Casualties Still Piling Up

In the Swiss Alps, a vintage World War II plane carrying 20 passengers crashes, killing everyone aboard. As an eerie note, TCM was airing Where Eagles Dare that same night. Seventeen of the passengers were Swiss and three were Austrian.

Music 101

If You Really Love Me

In the early Seventies, the dueling pianos of Elton John (ivory) and Stevie Wonder (ebony) ruled the pop music kingdom. This 1971 hit peaked at No. 8, so it is not one of Stevland Hardaway Morris’ (his birth name) ten No. 1 hits.

Remote Patrol

Better Call Saul

9 p.m. AMC

What to remember as we prepare for the Season 4 premiere: Chuck’s dead, Kim’s injured, Mike and Gus are a team, and Jimmy’s on the path to breaking bad himself.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 6 Comments

by John Walters

Tweet du Jour


Pretty much.

 

Starting Five

Pearce (right) crushed the Yanks all by himself

Boston Massacre

At Fenway Park, the New York Yankees led by four runs early and also trailed by six runs early and it suddenly felt like Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS all over again. The Red Sox, baseball’s best team, won going away, 15-7. Yankee hitters belted four home runs, including a shot by Gone Carlo Stanton that must have ended up on the other side of the Charles.

That would normally be enough, but Steve Pearce of the Red Sox hit three home runs all by himself. The top three batters in the Sawx lineup—Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi and Pearce—reached base 13 of 18 times and had 10 RBI.

The Sox are 42 games over .500. The Yankees are a respectable 29 games over .500, but are just 18-17 the past 35 games. In each of their last two contests, they’ve made at least two infield mental errors that your Babe Ruth League team would be embarrassed about.

P.S. Not for nothing, but in the same week that the Yankees traded away their most reliable middle reliever, Adam Warren, their bullpen just allowed 13 runs in one game. Terrible move by Brian Cashman there.

2. The Enemy, The People, and The Press

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9ms9KoVk8c

When the inevitable The Worst Wing 30-for-30 doc does eventually appear (unless, of course, we become a fascist state in the mold of Russia and North Korea and no such docs are permitted), we’ll have to set aside 2 minutes of time for this exchange between CNN’s Jim Acosta and White House press secretary Sarah “She’s No C.J. Cregg” Sanders.

Sarah’s right. It’s the media who are lowering the level of discourse in this country.

3. Powell Police State

This is most likely the uncharged suspect from that 2015 case

You know how every day on Twitter you read how the president is somehow breaking the law with a withering “He CAN’T DO THAT” and yet nothing ever seems to happen to Donald Trump (latest examples: promoting books of alt-right wingers he likes from the Oval Office, which is against the law). Well, the virus is spreading.

In Ohio, the Powell police department is blatantly ignoring the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by refusing to release the records of the 2015 incident involving Courtney and Zach Smith. The Powell police, as their defense, is saying that an uncharged suspect cannot be identified regardless of how long a case is open and that this release would have a high probability of revealing who that uncharged suspect is.

I think we already know. Besides, the case isn’t really open. It’s not being investigated. It’s closed and has been for some time.

4. Green Eugene

A big day for one of our favorite towns in America: Eugene, Oregon. First, and not a big surprise, Track Town U.S.A. was awarded the 2020 Olympic Track and Field Trials. Second, the town will host the 2021 World Track & Field Championships and to celebrate the event will plant 2,021 Sequoia trees (if you’ve been to Eugene, you know that tree scarcity is not really a problem).

Sequoia trees can live hundreds of years and grow 300 feet tall. We’ll soon be saying that about NBA centers.

5. I Don’t Give Haddam*

*The judges will also accept “Fascist Forward” 

That’s Melissa Schlag, a town official in the small Connecticut municipality of Haddam (south central, not too far from New Haven). She kneels during the Pledge of Allegiance before town hall meetings to protest the presidency of Donald Trumps and vows to continue doing so until he is out of office.

Scholar began her daily protest on July 16 (the day Trump handed the keys to America to Vladimir Putin) and has been vilified loudly in this town of 7,700, where 51% of the voters pulled the lever for Trump two years ago. It’s moments like this when we really miss Gilmore Girls.

Schlag’s NFL career is over, by the way, before it ever began.

Reserves

The James Gang

Our favorite line of ESPN.com’s “Rookie Derwin James Robbed At Gunpoint” story is right here: James and his uncle were walking to his Rolls-Royce when two assailants armed with guns allegedly snatched a chain from James’ neck and also robbed him of his Rolex watch.

I realize I’m infusing my Conservative White Guy Values here, and you can do whatever you want with your money. Still, you’re 21 years old (James turns 22 today; the incident took place on June 23 in Hollywood), you have yet to play in an NFL game, and you’re cruising L.A. in a Rolls and flashing a Rolex?

James has a four-year, $12.4 million deal. He’s paying at least 35%, closer to 40%, on income taxes. Let’s lowball it. That’s still $4.3 million in taxes. That leaves him with $8.1 million in walking-around money over the next four years and he just spent in the neighborhood of $300,000 on a car, a highly depreciable asset.

More importantly, when you’re that age driving around in that car, you’re basically one of those dudes on the corner swinging around a sign that says, “ROB ME!”

Do whatever you want. But don’t be mad at us if we call it stupid. And we’ll see how much money you have at age 35.

Music 101

Cigarette Dangles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsMGlHtVV9o

Back when people still tuned in to MTV, this was one of the last songs that received heavy rotation from a one-hit (make that two-hit; “I’m An Adult Now”) wonder band, The Pursuit of Happiness, from Canada. This video appeared on Beavis and Butthead and if we remember correctly, there must’ve been a joke or two around the word “dangles.”

Remote Patrol

The Basketball Tournament

Championship Game

9 p.m. ESPN

The winner-take-all $2 million event plays its final tonight from Baltimore featuring has-beens, sorta-beens and near-was’es. Three-time champions Overseas Elite, led by Kyle Fogg (great name), will face Eberlein Drive, which dispatched of Team Fredette by 4 points last night.

IT’S ALL HAPPENING!

by John Walters | 5 Comments

by John Walters

Starting Five

Goodbye, Columbus?*

*The judges will also accept “Urban Blight” and “B1G Trouble,” but not “Fire Meyer!”

Here’s the problem with being sanctimonious (take it from a Notre Dame alum, we’re familiar with the syndrome): As soon as you stub your toe, the world is happy to tackle you.

Ohio State coach Urban Meyer, who fired wide receivers coach Zach Smith last week after unemployed college football reporter Brett McMurphy released some texts from Smith’s ex-wife, Courtney, about physical abuse, could have fallen on his sword and noted that he was too lax in taking action. Instead, he stood up at Big Ten media days and said, ““I got a text late last night that something happened in 2015. There was nothing. Unless… Once again, there’s nothing. Once again, I don’t know who creates a story like that.”

Bam.

This was even worse than not using Ezekiel Elliott against Michigan State in 2015.

As soon as Meyer said that, he set himself up for yesterday’s avalanche. McMurphy releases a meticulously detailed and utterly convincing story—on Facebook!—with texts between Smith (who is not the same Courtney Smith as the one from Melrose Place, in case you were wondering) and Urban’s wife, Shelley Meyer, among others, dating back three years.

So now it’s either the coach’s wife knew and never told him (she’s a nurse with Ohio State, so this would make it a fireable offense for her) or, more plausibly, she did tell him and he did nothing. That’s before we even get into the tale of Urban’s hatchet man/lawyer Hiram de Fries persuading Smith not to press charges against her hubby six years earlier when all were at the University of Florida.

For us, this clip from 2009 or ’10 provided an illuminating window into Meyer’s sanctimonious soul. He berates beat reporter Jeremy Fowler for doing nothing more than accurately quoting one of his players and suggests that they’d be throwing down if the player were his son. Fowler, by the way, is a good guy. And when McMurphy left CBS for ESPN a few years back, guess who CBS hired to replace McMurphy? Fowler…who has since moved to ESPN.

What will forever link Fowler and McMurphy, besides the job-hopscotch, is that Urban Meyer publicly showed disdain for them. The reason? They were simply doing their jobs. And that compunction to humiliate the media (where have we seen that before?) instead of being forthright is what will cost Meyer his career. Worth it?

Sorry to drag politics into this, but Meyer reminds us much of vice president Mike Pence: humorless, rigid, judgmental, overly pious and more than just a little bit smug. I’ve never bought either man’s act. When you cannot have a sense of humor about yourself or compassion for the inevitability of human imperfection, we usually smell a hypocrite in the henhouse.

We’ll be surprised if Meyer, who has won three national championships at two different schools in the past 12 seasons and is now on paid administrative leave, survives this crisis with his job.

2. McMurphy’s Lore

Meanwhile our old friend and former colleague at AOL Fanhouse, Brett McMurphy, had himself quite a day. By posting his story on Facebook McMurphy basically dunked on his former employer, ESPN, as well as on Meyer, of course, and really on every sports news outlet that exists. He broke the biggest college football story of 2018 and got paid in “Likes.”

Brett was one of 100 or so employees ESPN laid off in April of 2017, and while he is still being paid by ESPN through early autumn, it still was a major blow to his pride. Brett’s a bulldog of a reporter, the Woj of college football, really. ESPN just never figured out how to deploy him on TV (we loved Brett’s Saturday morning pieces with daughter, Chesney, but his true value is in breaking news before anyone else has it).

You can say what a sad state that sports journalism is in when one of its very best has to break a story on Facebook. Our reading of this is that Brett probably has a non-compete until the WWL money runs out and that he’s just too energized about college football to let a story worth pursuing go unchased. Bully for him. This was the best moment of vindication we’d seen since the final 15 minutes of The Shawshank Redemption.

3. ESPN’s Four-Hour Delay

We were a little rough on our friends yesterday on the Twitter. But we do maintain that this was a moment that could have altered, for the better, the path of their program. Even if it required outright rebellion.

Brett’s story “broke” on Facebook shortly after 10 a.m. We tuned in to First Take about an hour later to hear a spirited debate (do they have any other kind?) on whether the Lakers would advance beyond the second round of the NBA playoffs next spring. Again, it was August 1st.

No mention of the developing Urban Meyer story.

We tuned into High Noon, a show that takes its name from an iconic movie in which the title character demonstrates uncommon courage, acting alone, even though the odds are heavily stacked against him (of course, but if he wins, he gets Grace Kelly, sooooo) because it’s simply the right thing to do, and again, no mention. Not even a drive-by such as, “There is a story from former ESPN reporter Brett McMurphy alleging that Urban Meyer knew all about the Smith domestic violence situation. This is a developing story that we have not yet vetted and we’ll have more to say about it tomorrow…”

That’s all they had to say. We were pretty rough on our friends Bomani and Pablo, and for that we apologize. Like other ESPN employees, they were acting under orders from higher-ups who put a strict ban on discussing this story until the news team had a chance to vet it (we suppose; even Bob Ley ignored it completely on OTL, and that must have killed him to do). We get it, but this is an extremely bad look for ESPN. You’re America’s sports channel, you have LIVE programming on a weekday, and you’re ignoring the biggest story of the day on an extremely slow news day….WHY?

It’s not even like you’re CBS being forced to report on the misdeeds of Les Moonves. Urban Meyer doesn’t even work for you (any more). By the time ESPN eventually acknowledged this story existed, after 2 p.m., they had nothing new to add to the story. They were just riding McMurphy’s wake.

What ESPN should’ve done: Report that the report is out there. Acknowledge that McMurphy, a former employee, broke the story. Provide the context of the Big Ten Media Days kerfuffle. Move on. The silence on this story was deafening. And because it wasn’t even personally embarrassing to ESPN (it’s not as if Chris Berman was accused of hitting his wife, for example), there’s no good excuse for not reporting it. Lord knows if some nobody even tweeted that Brian Kelly was covering for a coach that it would be all over SportsCenter.

Where was Herbie? Where is Herbie? Will we see him today?

Lastly, ESPN needs to put Kirk Herbstreit, a former Ohio State quarterback, on TV to discuss this. I’ve attended one of those ESPN college football seminars (this is where the ESPN college football group apparently was yesterday, and for some reason last night Rece Davis was in Atlanta, so maybe they held it there?) and what I can tell you is that in that room, Herbstreit is the king of the jungle. He’s the voice of authority, the person the higher-ups look to for guidance and the lower-downs listen to with absolute fealty.

His input on this story is needed here. Like, yesterday already.

4.  White House Down

Game, Set, Match here.

5. Tesla: Historic Loss, Big Gain

The Model 3

We don’t pretend to understand the stock market (okay, that’s a lie; but when situations like yesterday’s Tesla earnings report happens, we are at a loss). After the closing bell yesterday Elon Musk’s cool electric car company posted its LARGEST QUARTERLY LOSS since first firing up its battery-powered engines, and yet the stock has soared 10% this morning.

What gives?

The company lost $717.5 million in the second quarter (will someone pay US to do that?), but the market liked that Tesla was able to meet its production goals of manufacturing 5,000 Model 3 vehicles per week. So they don’t mind the burn rate as long as the production rate matches expectations.

Still, wouldn’t it be good if these millennial monoliths (Tesla, Amazon) eventually started posting profits? Crazy idea, we know.

Music 101

She Talks In Stereo

Early New Wave here with Gary Myrick and the Figures. That over-the-shoulder keyboard is all over the song. You could probably speed up the tempo, blast some guitar here, and you’d have a terrific punk song. From 1980. I hear a little Tom Petty in the vocals, no?

Remote Patrol

Myrna Loy Night on TCM

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dreamhouse

6:15 p.m. 

Love Crazy 

8 p.m.

I Love You Again

10 p.m.

Smart, beautiful, funny and a redhead. Myrna Loy was never a Rita Hayworth pin-up type, but closer to Katharine Hepburn minus all the vinegar. She was the perfect complement to a leading man, from Cary Grant in the first film tonight to her frequent partner in crime (fighting) in the latter two films, the criminally under-appreciated and unknown (by almost anyone under age 50) William Powell.

Every wisecracking heterosexual crime duo (see: Moonlighting) should be paying royalties to this pair, who created the genre