by John Walters

A Medium Happy 45th to Sacha Baron Cohen! Very niiiiiiice!

Starting Five

The Audacity of Grope

I know, I know. The issues. ISIS is chopping off people’s heads. And honestly, if The Donald just refused to engage all of these new sexual harassment allegations from years ago, that would be his better strategy.

But, here is whey this is going down: 1) Friday’s tape in which he bragged about in essence sexually assaulting women and 2) Sunday’s debate in which he told Anderson Cooper, “I have tremendous respect tor women, no one has more respect for women than me…no, I have not (grabbed them by the…..).”

Make it stop….

Now Trump is lashing out, threatening to sue The New York Times. Is he also going to sue the Palm Beach Post? And People? And…people? If he sues, the NYT can depose him and depose every woman who ever had a gripe with him. Meanwhile, the election is less than four weeks away…unless it’s actually will be held on November 28.

That’s award-winning New York Times reporter Megan Twohey. When she phoned Trump for a comment Tuesday night, he called her “a disgusting human being.” We’re so far beyond why he’d be a terrible leader at this point, no? But I’m sure there’s a banana republic (or a Banana Republic) he’d be able to manage.

A New Leaf

Matthews scored a hat trick and then added a fourth goal cuz why not?

Making his NHL debut for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Scottsdale, Ariz., native Auston Matthews, 19, scores FOUR goals in the first two periods. No one has ever done that. The Maple Leafs still lost to Otttawa, 5-4, in OT. The Leafs last won the Stanley Cup in 1967—this season marks the 50th anniversary of their drought.

3. Ballad of a Thin Man

Not a bad week for Hibbing, Minn., native Bob Zimmerman. He opened for the Rolling Stones last Friday night in Indio, Calif., and will do so again tomorrow night, and today it was announced that he has won the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature. And he didn’t even have to submit a manuscript to a publisher! When asked to comment on the honor, the man we know as Bob Dylan replied, “Himmmina mummina ho. Zibbit rikkish ooh.”

4. All’s Well That Ends Wells…

Remember that Wells Fargo CEO with the made-up-rich-kid name (John Stumpf) who was getting his hiney chewed out by Elizabeth Warren during a congressional subcommittee a few weeks back? We wrote about it. He “retired” yesterday.

On September 20 Warren called Stumpf’s leadership “gutless” and added “you should resign.” Well, he has. Effective immediately.

5. “Oh, Bob”

Cubs, I am 87 and I am getting too old for this… #GoCubsGo #FlyTheW pic.twitter.com/d4tnkgRCl0

— Bob Newhart (@BobNewhart) October 12, 2016

Forgot to post that yesterday. That’s comedian Bob Newhart, whose eponymous Seventies sitcom was based in Chicago, reminding the Cubbies that he’d really like to see them win a World Series before he moves on. Other voluble and famous Cubbies fans include John Cusack and Eddie Vedder.

Dr. Robert Hartley, completely over-chicked

Back in the early to mid-Seventies, before people began televising college football on Saturday nights, CBS owned Saturday night prime-time. You had The Mary Tyler Moore Show, followed by The Bob Newhart Show, followed by The Carol Burnett Show. And no one put a #Funny on the screen to inform you that you were watching comedy. It was sort of self-evident.

Sorta wondering whom the Cubs will have throw out the first pitches when they advance to the World Series (yes, they will). They’ll host Games 3, 4 and 5.

***

Also, a Happy Birthday to my sister. She’s somewhere north of 29…..

Music 101

Rapture

What a band Blondie was. Gorgeous lead singer with a seductive voice, and they could go from punk (“Atomic”) to uptempo rock (“Call Me”) to dreamy (“Sunday Girl”) to reggae (“The Tide Is High”) to this, disco-infused-rap. The only thing Debbie Harry couldn’t do, as this video illustrates, is dance. She’s Elaine Benes out there. This song hit No. 1 for two weeks in 1980. Yes, a blonde white girl sang the first rap song to hit No. 1 on the charts (apologies, Sugar Hill Gang).

Remote Patrol

Game 5: Dodgers at Nationals

FS1 8 p.m.

How can you expect to hit one of this dude’s pitches when his eyes are hip-motizing you!?!?!?

This is why the Nationals signed heterochromiac Max Scherzer. To take the hill in a closeout game. Scherzer is earning $210 million over seven years.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 66th to Susan Anton. It was the Seventies; don’t judge.

Starting Five

That sight, so rare in our lifetimes, of seeing the Cubs celebrate

Maddon-ing

Earthquakes, Bay Area residents knows, are sudden and shocking and create seismic change. So did the Chicago Cubs last night at AT&T Park. Down 5-2 in the ninth, having just gotten two hits off Matt Moore (10 strikeouts), the Cubs went single (Kris Bryant), walk (Anthony Rizzo), double (Ben Zobrist), single (Wilson Contreras), error (on what should have been a double play), and single (Javy Baez) off his bullpen.

Four runs and only one out, off five relievers. Cubs win, 6-5. Game over. Series over. Even-numbered year streak over, at three.

The Giants and their fans will always wonder What if? What if we’d just gotten three outs and moved the series back to Chicago? With Johnny Cueto on the hill and MadBum waiting in the bullpen and with all the pressure of 108 long years pressing down on Wrigleyville.

We’ll never know. Maybe these Joe Maddon Cubs really are different.

2. Miracle Met

Yes, Tim Tebow laid his hand on a person who was suffering from a seizure in Arizona, and then that victim seemed to be comforted. The man’s name was Brandon and he told Tebow, who was signing autographs after going 0-3 at the plate in his Arizona Fall League debut, that he was a Georgia fan. Brandon, who was on the ground for 15 minutes, was whisked off by paramedics and is okay.

That’s one miracle for Tebow. Two, if you count that he won a playoff game as a starting quarterback in the NFL.

3. Onward, Christian Soldiers*

McCaffrey had just 35 yards rushing after getting hurt in the first half versus Wazzu….

*The judges are entirely plugging the Newsweek story of a hack they know. Skip immediately to the next item!

If you stayed up to watch Washington State at Stanford last Saturday night in Pac-12 After Sark (and I did, because I never miss an opportunity to watch Christian McCaffrey), you saw a vintage McCaffrey gallop in the second quarter. The junior, last year’s Heisman runner-up, took the handoff and headed right behind his blockers. Seeing the running lanes more clogged up than the 101 during rush hour (pro tip: ALWAYS take the 280!), he quickly reversed field and scampered 23 yards.

It was the most 2015 McCaffrey play of 2016. Soon after, though, he was gone, not to return. All coach David Shaw will say is that he is “banged up” and that they will not make a decision on him until Friday or Saturday, regarding Saturday’s was-supposed-to-be big game at Notre Dame.

Is this the play on which McCaffrey was hurt?

I wrote about McCaffrey in Newsweek. About how it wasn’t fair that he was robbed of the Heisman last season, and about how it’s a shame that this season has been such a disappointment. In Stanford’s last three games, they’ve scored five touchdowns: two on defense and another two, both to J.J. Arciga-Whiteside, with less than :30 on the clock. There was a fifth meaningless second-half TD to JJAW at U-Dub.

No McCaffrey TDs. None.

4. Vagina Monologue*

*Warning: NSFP. Not Safe For Phyllis

On her show, Full Frontal, host and The Daily Show alumna Samantha Bee went off, not exactly half-cocked, at Donald Trump’s 2005 bus comments. She ended her rant by free associating about every last euphemism for that part of the female anatomy that has ever been conjured.

Meanwhile, at NBC, it’s Bye, Bye Bushy.

5. Checkout: Gwyneth*

Check out that rack (of magazines)

*The judges also considered “Paper or Plastic,” “Six-Pack” “One Item or Less”  and “I’d Bag That”

Yes, that’s Oscar winner Gywneth Paltrow, who’s been working out, for a Bazaar photo shoot. My instincts tell me that’s the Pioneer Market (the signs on the window are a giveaway) on Columbus Ave., which is this fantastic anachronism of a grocery store on the posh Upper West Side in the 70s. However, the other photos don’t seem to verify my claim. We’ll get MH’s (on) crack research staff to look into this.

The Pioneer Market. A scene out of the UWS’ gritty past….

Music 101

Lightning Crashes

Probably the only time “placenta” has been used in a hit song. In the last great days of MTV as a music station, the band Live from York, Pa., went to No 12 on the charts with this 1994 song. Few lead singers have had a less glamorous name look or name than Ed Kowalczyk. The song was not originally released as a single, but the album (Throwing Copper) was a hit and people couldn’t help but notice that this song was actually better than the three songs that had originally been pulled as the singles. Live, along with Soul Asylum, were a Lollapalooza-worthy if not R&R HOF-worthy band of the early ’90s.

Remote Patrol

Speechless

ABC 8:30 p.m.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u55WK6AbaM

Can a half-hour comedy on network TV that is not exactly a sit-com (no live studio audience) actually succeed in the 21st century? Probably not, but we like that, like The Grinder last autumn, someone is giving it a try. Solid premise, and Minnie Driver gives the show about an untraditional family plenty of cred. If only it were on NetFlix or AmazonPrime.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 49th—yes, he’s still alive—to Artie Lange

Starting Five

Ken Bone: Red, White, and You

Bones

It is actually Emily Deschanel’s birthday today, so this is kind of a two-fer

He’s 34, married, and has a son. His parents were enjoying “Thanksgiving dinner” the previous night, which means there’s probably some Canadian in his family or background. He’s self-deprecating and quick-witted. Ladies and gentlemen, Ken Bone (@kenbone18), the one good thing that has emerged from this election.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqchRR1tZvc

2. Cubs Lose, Cubs Lose

The Giants refuse to relent on this whole even-numbered thing…

Madison Bumgarner was far from perfect, surrendering a three-run homer to opposing starter Jake Arrieta in the 2nd inning, but the Giants still do not know how to lose when MadBum pitches in an elimination game. San Francisco won 6-5 in 13 innings on Joe “Don’t” Panik’s RBI double. The game lasted five hours and our minutes, so if you were watching on the East Coast, you were up past 2:30 a.m.

Separated at Mirth: Hunter Pence and….

…Pied Piper founder RIchard Hendric

Aroldis Chapman gave up a two-run triple in the eighth off a 102 mph fastball to Conor Gillespie to allow San Fran to take the lead, but then Kris Bryant’s two-run homer in the ninth off Sergio Romo tied it and forced the four extra frames.

Both Los Angeles and San Fran host Game 4’s today in which they will be attempting to stave off, as opposed to staving on, elimination.

3. Adios, Papi Grande

Ortiz, 40, will likely gain at least that many pounds in the next six months

The Red Sox went meekly into the New England night, being swept by the Cleveland Indians. David Ortiz, the Dominican Babe Ruth, walked in the eighth inning and was pinch-run for with the Sox trailing 4-3. The runner never scored and Papi’s place in the order never came up again, anyway.

Boston, which scored more runs than any club in baseball this season (878, or more than 5 per game) was held to seven runs in three games and never scored more than one per inning. They last led in the third inning of Game 1, 2-1. The Sox won 11 straight in mid-September, then folded like a cheap tent, losing eight of their final nine.

Still, we’re going to miss Big Papi. There was simply no one who smote a baseball quite like he did, and no one in baseball who seemed to deliver more frequently in the most crucial moments. In his final two at-bats, he lined a screamer to center that nearly dropped, but still was good for an RBI, and then later walked on a 3-0 count. He was kind of hoping, you could tell, that the ump was going to call Ball 4 a strike. On to mofongo.

4. Carnage in Vermont

All five teens were 15 or 16 years old

Late Sunday night in Vermont, five teens in a Volkswagen Jetta heading southbound on I-89 were struck head-on by a Toyota Tundra headed the wrong way in their lanes, The car burst into flames and all five, high school juniors, were killed.

It gets weirder. As the first policeman arrived on the scene and attempted to douse the flames, someone stole his police cruiser, drove off, and crashed into multiple cars before being ejected. It’s assumed that the thief, Stephen Bourgoin, 36, is the same man (at least by me), but police have yet to confirm that. Bourgoin, of Williston, Vermont, is in critical condition.

5. Trump Tapes (Cont.)

The gift that keeps on giving, a.k.a. “The GOP Elephant in the Room.” Here’s Seth Meyers last night:

And here’s the latest Ana Navarro-Scottie Nell Hughes fracas. The Trump apologist went to Fifty Shades of Grey, the Twilight films, and Magic Mike to defend Donald Trump’s ugly sexism. As Navarro called Nell Hughes’ argument, it’s “Fifty Shades of Crazy.”

And here’s Mike Huckabee calling the GOP who are abandoning Trump as “bed-wetting, hand-wringing Republicans.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4VrXn9A0F4

Music 101

I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)

Here’s David Letterman introducing Scottish twin brothers Charlie and Craig Reid, a.k.a. The Proclaimers, in 1989 as they perform their one major hit. The tune went to No. 1 in Australia (where someone we know once danced atop a picnic table to it; XXXs beer may have been involved) and New Zealand, and to No. 3 in the U.S.A. “Haver,” by the way, is not Scottish for vomit; it means babble or talk nonsense.

Remote Patrol

Golden State Doubleheader, Game 4s

Nationals at Dodgers

FS1 5 p.m.

Cubs at Giants

FS1 8:30 p.m.

Yasiel Puig is 0-4 in the postseason

Day baseball at Dodger Stadium with Clayton Kershaw taking the hill as L.A. attempts to force a Game 5 and a trip back East. Twilight baseball at AT&T, as the Giants try to force a Game 5 at Wrigley.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 57th birthday to Bradley Whitford. This may be my favorite scene from The West Wing, and this ran years before Twitter existed and before the true nature of commenters, trolls, etc., was fully appreciated. Long live LemonLyman.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAB858elJOw

Starting Five

Well… #debate #trump pic.twitter.com/SDBHUSfeUI

— ? (@E__R__O) October 10, 2016

Pu**y Riot*

*The judges mean “Puppy.” What did you think we meant?

Thoughts and ideas from Debate II and the latest weekend of Trump….

—First Donald Trump threw Mike Pence under the bus, then he boarded the bus and told Billy Bush about how his fame allowed him to sexually assault women.

Look out! He’s behind you….

—Even if it is “locker room talk (it’s not)”, Trump wasn’t in a locker room.

K-Bone! You rock.

—Kenneth Bone, (K-Bone?) you’ve just extended Bobby Moynihan‘s career on SNL. You also down with a Bone-Pence 2020 ticket?

—Yes, the most dangerous Bush to Trump all year turns out to be Billy…

“She’s Just Not That Into You” https://t.co/0moaFXgh3K

— Medium Happy (@jdubs88) October 10, 2016

—Even your own daughter knows….

—Hillary looked feckless on the emails and on that whole “I saw a Stephen Spielberg film once” answer. She should have gone with Saving Paul Ryan. Not her best debate, She’s definitely hiding something on the deleted emails. Nothing as bad as, “We need to out nuke Russia,” but something bad.

“I had the time of my life/And I’ve never felt like this before/And I swear/It’s the truth/And I owe it all to you-ooou-ooooo”

—I mean, even @KellyAnnePolls is subject to a slip.

—Trump suggested that he’d be throwing HRC in jail if he becomes president. He’ll make a wonderful Third World dictator.

—Is Donald still answering the Aleppo question? Call me when he’s done.

—”And I’m unproud to be an American…”

—Just broked: NBC has suspended “Bushy.”

2. Toronto Rougneds Up Texas

Sign of the times, eh?

Toronto sweeps Texas, 3-0, and sends home a second team in one week with a walk-off hit at the Rogers Centre…okay, this one was a walk-off fielder’s choice with an error, the first such series-ending play in divisional series history.

One out, bottom 10th, runners on first and second. Russell Martin hits a grounder to short off Texas reliever Matt Bush (yet another Bush from Texas), Elvis Andurs throws a low relay to Rougned Odor, renowned Jose Bautista abuser, who throws a one-hopper that pulls first baseman Mitch Moreland off the bag, and that he fails to field cleanly. Blue Jay runner Josh Donaldson sprints home and dives headfirst into the ALCS.

Blue Jays win, 7-6. Series-ending error on Odor. Do you believe in karma?

3. We AARP The World*

The Stones brought their A-game, or so we are told….

*The judges are  also considering “Rock of Aged,” Sucking In Their Seventies,” “Long-Lived Rock,” and Their Generation.”

Considering the lineup over the three days—Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, Roger Waters and The Who—I expected to hear more about the inaugural Desert Trip in Indio, Calif., but I really didn’t. The Los Angeles Times gave the shows an Under-My-Thumbs Up

4. Mark Burnett

Burnett started out in the USA as a Malibu nanny and selling T-shirts on Venice Beach. No lie.

In October of 2002 I had the good fortune of spending three weeks in Fiji, covering the final Eco Challenge. The event’s founder, Mark Burnett,  was there the whole time. I had a lot of time to hang out with him and a few other journalists.

Now Burnett is better known as the creator of Survivor, The Apprentice and Shark Tank. All of which brings us to Donald Trump. What intrigues me about Burnett, who had as much to do with where Trump is today as anyone outside of Fred Trump, is that unlike Donald he is a self-made man; a war hero; an immigrant.

There’s actually a youth hostel and a bar on this island. I spent an excellent Sunday there once.

And yet he appears to be a Trump supporter, albeit not a vocal one. I guess once you get into that top one-tenth of one percent, your perspective changes. It’s also curious that Burnett produces Shark Tank, whose star is Mark Cuban, an outspoken Trump adversary. Arguably THE most outspoken one among billionaires.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this nugget of wisdom I recall Burnett sharing with me, as he discussed why some four-person Eco-Challenge teams were less likely to succeed than others. One night he said, “You’re never completely a failure until you blame someone else.” I wonder if he remembers saying that. And I wonder if he ever thinks about that wisdom in his assessment of Donald Trump.

5. Splashmouth Football

N.C. State: We came to rain!

It just keeps spiraling downward for Notre Dame (in a downward direction, Brian Kelly can really spin it), which has now lost six of its last eight games. Saturday’s 10-3 loss to North Carolina State in the outer reaches of Hurricane Matthew might have been forgivable if Coach I-Know-What-I’m-Doing had put the Fighting Irish in position to win.

But Kelly didn’t. Despite having at least two future first or at worst second round picks on his offensive line, Kelly insisted on throwing the ball in a hurricane (according to the indomitable and intrepid Pete Sampson of Irish Illustrated, the Irish ran just two more times than they passed in 64 plays). You’ve got Quenton Nelson and Mike McGlinchey, future NFL starters, on the same side. Run the ball behind them.

Subtract sacks from the rushing attempts and add them to passes. Notre Dame finished with 33 rushes/31 passes in hurricane conditions.

— Irish Illustrated (@PeteSampson_) October 8, 2016

You’ve got  Malik Zaire and C.J. Sanders, two of your five best playmakers, and you give each of them the ball once. You mess with your punt call, which is the play that cost you the game.

In short, your hubris compelled you to think that your mental acumen, translated to the actions of your players, could transcend a natural disaster. You sped right into the iceberg because you believed nothing could stop you. And yelling at your center, Sam Mustipher, at the end of the game was a pretty bad look. No one gets to yell at you. Trust me, they want to.

The Irish are 2-4 with five of their final six games against teams that can beat them. Irish do host Stanford next, maybe the only school having as bad a time the past few weeks outside of them and Michigan State.

Music 101 

Time of the Season

The British band The Zombies recorded this tune in 1967 at Abbey Road Studios in London. It climbed to No. 3 on the charts in 1968. A quintessential late Sixties tune, right down to the Hammond organ. This may be the best Doors song that the Doors didn’t actually write.

Remote Patrol

Baseball Orgy

Nationals at Dodgers (4 p.m., MLBN, 1-1)

Indians at Red Sox (6 p.m. TBS, 2-0)

Cubs at Giants (9:30 p.m., FS1 2-0)

Maybe not in sheer numbers, but in terms of awe and a sense of being larger than life at the plate, Big Papi is the closest thing to Babe Ruth we’ll see in our lifetimes

Nat-Dodgers: Will Vin Scully show up in person? Tribe-BoSox: Is this the last call for David “Milk of The Papi” Ortiz? Cubs-Giants: MadBum pitching in an elimination game. SF has Chicago right where it wants them.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 48th to Thom Yorke, who’s not a creep.

Starting Five

Game 1 Heroes: Miller, Perez, Francona

It Was Miller Time

When the gamble pays off, you’re a genius (Terry Francona), and when it does not, you’re a dope (Buck Showalter). The Tribe led 4-3 with two outs in the top of the fifth inning in Game 1 in Cleveburg last night. With no Red Sox on base, Francona brings in his closer, 6’7″ lefty Andrew Miller.

The southpaw allows a double and a walk, but then he strikes out David Ortiz to end the inning. He pitches a flawless sixth and gets two outs in the seventh before being lifted. Six outs, 40 pitches, four strikeouts, one hit, no runs.

The Indians go on to win, 5-4. Riskier move than Buck’s decision to save Zach Britton so long that he never actually used him? Your call. But the Indians won.

By the way, that Ortiz double in the top of the eighth? That’s what makes him Big Papi. I don’t know anyone who can hit a ball that hard, that screams to the warning track without ever seeming to get higher than 12 feet off the ground.

2. West World Better Than Watters’ World*

*The judges will also accept, ‘Ricky Watters Better Than Jesse Watters”

If you’ve never seen a Jesse Watters field report on FOX News (he’s Bill O’Reilly’s answer to a Daily Show field correspondent), the Chinatown piece might surprise you. If you have, you’d know this is not out of the norm for him. He did a similarly smug report from Harlem last summer.

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

As this Daily Show rebuttal from correspondent Ronnie Chang illustrates, the Watters piece referenced karata (Japanese), Tae Kwan Do (Korean) and Mr. Miyagi (again, Japanese) in its “humorous” sendup of “CHI-na.”

3. Rock Me Like A*

Not a good weekend for biking in Port au Prince

*The judges will also accept “Water’s World >> Watters’ World”

Having ravaged Haiti, Cuba and the Bahamas, Matthew is now making its way up the Florida coast as a Category 3 storm. The difference is that the eye of the hurricane is now offshore.

The LSU-Florida game in Gainesville has been postponed due to the storm, while the Georgia-South Carolina game has been moved to Sunday (watch as ESPN realizes this game will draw eyeballs and begins scheduling one Sunday afternoon college game each week next season). Anyway, the Florida-LSU game becomes problematic if either school is in the hunt for an SEC division title at the end of November. The two schools do not have  a common open date going forward and the SEC title game is scheduled for the Saturday after the regular season ends.

It would make sense to just let them play that December weekend and move the SEC Championship Game back one week, if their game has conference title implications, no?

4. “A Person To Be Shunned”

Trump and Letterman used to have genuinely funny and entertaining sparring sessions

Off the air for nearly 18 months now, David Letterman’s voice and thoughts have been sorely absent from this presidential campaign. But he recently gave an interview and was willing to discuss the GOP candidate. Letterman, who took down Trump years ago with Donald seated right next to him, exposing him for having his Macy’s ties manufactured in China as Trump pretended not to know where they were made, calls Trump “a person to be shunned” as well as “a damaged human being.”

I’ll let you read the rest, but it’s short and to the point and on-target. Letterman, on how Trump’s outrageous and often ugly comments only made him more popular because the media couldn’t stop talking about them: “Kids, if you turn off the light, the moths will stop coming.”

5. Toronto’s Most Wanted

Pagan, center, stares straight ahead after the beer can is tossed onto the field

Last night Ken Pagan, 41, turned himself into Toronto police, but Pagan, a journalist, isn’t saying that he was the infamous 7th-inning beer tosser from the A.L. wildcard game. Evidence may exonerate him, as Pagan was seen drinking beer from a cup immediately after the can was hurled onto the field. Still, maybe he’s simply that crafty. Stay tuned. Will the mystery LaBatt’s tosser strike again in Game 3 of the ALDS?

Music 101

Trapped

Is this the best cover that The Boss ever performed? How many others are there? Bruce Springsteen took this obscure Jimmy Cliff tune from the Seventies and made it a staple of his shows on the “The River” tour. Then Bruce’s live version of the song by the reggae artist made its way onto the We Are The World album in 1985 and that was that.

Remote Patrol

Baseball Orgy!!!!!!

Blue Jays at Rangers 1 p..m. TBS

Red Sox at Indians 4 p.m. TBS

Dodgers at Nationals 5:30 p.m. FS1

Giants at Cubs 9 p.m. FS1

Kershaw, the most dominant pitcher of this or most any era (with a 2.37 ERA), has a sub-par 4.59 ERA in the postseason.

What an insanely talented cadre of dudes taking the hill today: Yu Darvish, David Price, Corey Kluber, Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Johnny Cueto and Jon Lester. Yes, I left off J.A. Happ, who is happ-less compared to this group.