…..we’ve got a few other tasks to tackle today. May get something posted later. Direct all inquiries and complaints to Susie B…..

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 46th to Josie Bissett, the belle of Melrose Place.

Starting Five

Incarnation hits Toronto’s first postseason walk-off homer since Joe Carter in 1993

1. Uh O’s*

*The judges will also accept “The Buck Stopped Here”

The Orioles lose in 11 innings. The Blue Jays, thanks to a three-run walk-off home run rocket launched by Edwin Incarnation, live to see another series. The larger story is that Oriole manager Buck Showalter never even takes his most reliable weapon, American League saves leader Zach Britton, out of his holster. Ubaldo Jimenez, who entered with one out in the 11th, allowed two singles to left and then the coup de grace on the first pitch he threw to Incarnation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7460TJ5G__k

“Nobody has been pitching better for us than Ubaldo,” said Showalter, displaying an acute case of Larussa-itis. Britton was perfect in 47 save opportunities this season. Sure, this was not a save situation, but Showalter rolled the dice, hoping to take the lead in the top of the inning and then having Britton at his disposal to slam the door shut. Problem is, it never advanced to that moment.

2. Recom-Pence

Kaine and Pence, but you knew that

In the vice presidential debate at “Norwood” University, Mike Pence made up some of the ground his running mate lost one week earlier. Showing Donald how it’s done, Pence won the folksiness and less-annoying categories over Tim Kaine, even if he flatly denied many an assertion Kaine made about his running mate that he knew to be true. The Indiana governor also made “There you go pulling out that Mexican thing again” a thing.

“@Jnelson52722: @realDonaldTrump @Susiesentinel Kaine looks like an evil crook out of the Batman movies”

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 5, 2016

Pence repeatedly referred to the Clinton-Kaine ticket as “an insult-driven campaign,” which he did with such warmth and sincerity that you almost forgot how ironic those words were coming from the mouth of Donald Trump’s running mate. In fact, Trump was hurling insults on Twitter in real time as Pence was denying that Trump insults people.

Moderator Elaine Quijano, born in Chicago, or as Trump would refer to her, ‘The Filipino moderator.”

3. Carter—Graydon, Not Jimmy—Trashes Trump

Carter

If you read one thing all week (besides Medium Happy, of course), this Vanity Fair column by its chief editor, Graydon Carter, on Trump must be it.

The Waverly Inn. You can do no better in NYC.

Two quick asides referring to Carter’s introductory anecdote: 1) One of my closest friends sat with Trump and Marla Maples during a boxing match in the same era that anecdote occurred. He recalled at the time how Trump was telling him, a journalist, about Marla’s physical attributes while comparing them against other females in attendance.

Vendela

2) In the year that Vendela Kirsebom appeared on the cover of the SI Swimsuit issue, she came into our offices for a reception. We were all invited to take a photo with her, just not one at a time. I posed with two friends, fellow reporters Tim Crothers and J.B. Morris. We were all in our early 20s. Later I cropped my two friends out of the photo, and sent the pic of Vendela and I out as my Christmas card. A few relatives phoned my parents, not knowing who my “new girlfriend” was.

(See, J.B., you made it!)

4. Stop, Thief

The Cats were cool under pressure

Wild story from Minnesota: the University of Arizona cross-country team was one of many that descended on the Twin Cities for the Ray Griak Invitational. A thief broke into one of their hotel rooms, but a Wildcat harrier, Collins Kibet, spotted him and gave chase. You can guess what happened from there. The best moment was when the thief, who had taken some bags and a wallet, threw a wallet at the runners who had cornered him, hoping they’d let him go if he returned the wallet: the problem was that he tossed them his own wallet.

5. Tower

The first mass school shooting in the USA occurred 50 years ago at the University of Texas, when a sniper took aim from atop the clock tower on campus (I know: odd that a gunman would shoot someone from atop a building in Texas). Fifteen people died and 33 were wounded on that hot August day. Now comes a documentary that is partially animated. Out next week in theaters. Seems intriguing.

Music 101

Daydream Believer

Cheer up, sleepy Jean! There was a reason The Monkees were a monster success in the latter half of the Sixties: they wrote bright, textured hits, baby! This was a synthetic band, arguably the first boy band: the idea for the band predated the musicians knowing one another. The original idea was for a television show, which happened, and you’ll notice how the band’s name, with one letter misspelled, reminds you of another pop-driven foursome of the time. Three of the members were American but lead singer Davy Jones was British. The song went to No. 1 for four weeks at the end of 1967 and early ’68.

Remote Patrol

Giants at Mets

8 p.m. ESPN

MadBum versus Thor, a.k.a. Noah Syndergaard (above). Kind of a great pitching matchup. Just three nights after Kanye cut short his concert at Citi Field, one of these two men will cut short the other team’s season. As you probably know, besides being mostly average the past six years or so, the Giants won the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014. So, yeah….

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 75th to Roy Blount, Jr., one of the most talented writers to ever have a byline at Sports Illustrated

Starting Five

Second-year defensive end Danielle (yes, that’s his name) Hunter was the youngest player in the NFL last season at 21

Yikes! Vikes!

The Vikes won again last night, 24-10, over the Giants, and are now 4-0. Guess which two teams have allowed the fewest points in the NFL after four games? The Eagles (27) and the Vikings (50). Guess which two unbeatens play one another in Philadelphia on October 23rd? Remember when the Eagles traded their starting QB to the Vikings in August? Guess who got the better deal on that trade? Both of them.

2. Trump Tank

“You lost $916 million in one year?!? I’m sorry, but I’m out.”

Giving this one away to the writing staff at Saturday Night Live: Do a parody of Shark Tank in which the entrepeneur appearing before the sharks is Donald Trump. “I’m looking for $916 million for 5% of a new hotel I’d like to build in CHI-na.” What were your revenues last year? “They were the best revenues.” Etc. Mark Cuban gets to play himself. Take it from there.

By the way, do you realize that Mark Burnett is the creator of both The Apprentice and Shark Tank? $$$$$ (as well as Survivor, of course).

3. Unwelcome Matt

Did I read that a hurricane was captured by ISIS? Nope. I read that footage of a hurricane was captured by ISS. The International Space Station. Ohhhhhhh. Never mind.

4. A Murder of Crows Fan?

Nappi, left, and Smith. The latter is a Mount Vernon firefighter.

In Baltimore Sunday, two mooks from Westchester County here in New York who were at the Raiders-Ravens game cheering on the visitors got into a fight with a 55 year-old Ravens fan. The 55 year-old, Joseph Bauer, suffered head injuries and is now in critical condition. The mooks, Scott Smith and Andrew Nappi, who both appear to be in their late 20s, are out on bail. But if Bauer dies, I can see 2nd-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter charges coming.

The last NFL game I attended, and the last one I likely will attend as a fan, was in September of 2012. Cowboys at Giants, Monday Night Football. I was wearing a Cowboys hat and my companion a Cowboys jersey. Three mooks confronted us in the parking lot after the game, which Dallas won. They wanted trouble so we got in our car to avoid them. One of the books threw a glass beer bottle as hard as he could at my head. The driver’s side window stopped it. We never even said anything inflammatory to them.

You’ve got a problem, Mr. Goodell.

5. Vin, Fin

Let’s leave on a lighter note. We didn’t get a chance yesterday to post Vin Scully‘s farewell message from his final broadcast on Sunday. Sixty-seven years with the same employer. Can you imagine what his 401-K looks like. May the rest of your years be wonderful, Vin. Also, a grateful goodbye to Dick Enberg, who also retired on Sunday. In the late Seventies he was NBC’s top sports announcer, doing the NCAA Final Fours and its biggest AFC games. In many ways, every bit the legend that Vin is.

Music 101

Go Your Own Way

I don’t know if an album could explode in this decade the way Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours did in 1977. The album spent more than half a year at No. 1 on the Billboard chart and spawned four singles, including this one. All this from a band with a California sound at the height of the disco era. The album has now sold 45 million copies and is right there with Dark Side of The Moon, Saturday Night Fever, Tapestry, London Calling, Born To Run and Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols among the most significant albums of the Seventies.

Remote Patrol

American League Wildcard: Orioles at Blue Jays

8 p.m. TBS

Britton only matters if the O’s are leading late

Just one week ago these birds convened in Toronto for a three-game set and now they’re back for one game, winner take all. The Orioles won two of those three. The Jays are starting Marcus Stroman, who went 0-5 in six September starts. The O’s are all about home runs (they led the majors with 253) and closer Zach Britton (a league-best 47 saves with a 0.54 ERA)

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 43rd to Lena Headey, a.k.a. Queen Cersei,

Starting Five

Et Tu, Alec?

If you have not yet seen it, Saturday Night Live opened its 42nd season by distilling last Monday night’s 90-minute presidential debate down to less than 10 minutes. Love the nod to Willy Wonka in Hillary/Kate McKinnon’s entrance.

Here’s what Alec Baldwin, who nailed Trump in this skit, had to say about a Trump presidency to Howard Stern back in July.

2. Another Hobnail Boot

In the space of about, oh, 10 minutes early Saturday evening, North Carolina and Tennessee ruined Florida State’s and Georgia’s seasons, respectively. Oh, it was glorious.

First, in Tallahassee: the Seminoles scored with :23 remaining, as quarterback Deondre Francois ducked under a sack  on a blown up play at the seven-yard line, then sprinted and dove into the end zone for the go-ahead score. Seminoles 35 (post-PAT), Tar Heels 34.

But it was not over.

Tar Heel QB Mitch Trubisky, the nation’s leading passer in terms of completion percentage (76%), completed a 23-yard pass, then the Heels got a pass interference flag. Onto the field strides kicker Nick Weiler, who booms a Hail Mary field goal, from 54 yards out, through the uprights, as the Surrender Cobra makes an appearance in Tallahassee. UNC 37, FSU 35. The Heels end the nation’s longest home win streak, 22 games, as Weiler sprints down the field doing the Tomahawk Chop, and give the Seminoles a a second loss while moving to 4-1 themselves. UNC could win the ACC Coastal.

Weiler and the Heels seem pretty excited about a non-playoff game. Weird.

So you flip the channel from ESPN to CBS and Uncle Verne. And as you do, Georgia freshman QB Jacob Eason hits wideout Riley Ridley in stride for a 47-yard touchdown pass along the left sideline with 0:10 remaining. Was it a Hail Mary? Not really. It was just bad coverage.

But it was not over.

Ridley took his helmet off in the end zone (unsportsmanlike conduct, 15 yards), plus UGA was offsides on the kickoff (5 more yards). So that’s 20 yards in penalties before Tennessee even takes a snap. Did Mark Richt ever really leave Athens?

So the Vols snap the ball with ;04 to play from the Georgia 43, after returning the kickoff. Josh Dobbs throws it into the end zone on a Hail Mary and Jauan Jennings retrieves it, fighting off a few Dawgs who defended like puppies. Tennessee 34, UGA 31. And now the Dawgs have two losses while the Vols remain undefeated as they travel to Texas A&M (two road games against ranked teams in as many weeks: always bad).

Vol fans celebrated between the hedges

Meanwhile, this week in college football, it’s all about the Northeast: Clemson travels to Boston College, Meechigan to Piscataway, and Houston to Annapolis.

The Medium Happy Excellent Eight: 1) Ohio State 2) Alabama 3) Clemson 4) Texas A&M 5) Michigan 6) Washington 7) Houston 8) Louisville

3. Sticking Up With the Kardashians

Last week in Paris, this ass-grabber was stopped going after Kim. Tough week in France.

Two masked gunmen wearing police uniforms somehow infiltrated Kim Kardashian’s apartment inside a mansion in Paris and held her up at gunpoint. They stole an estimated $10 million worth of bling. Kim was in Paris with her mom and two of her sisters, Kourtney and Kendall Jenner, for Fashion Week.

Meanwhile at Citi Field, Kanye West canceled his show mid-song, though I believe the auto tune continued for a few minutes. Who’d have thought that the most interesting thing that ever happened to Kim would take place off-camera?

4. He’s With Her 

Will Nike now come out with an Air Hillary?

The King has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. You may have read that Ohio is a fairly large battleground state. LeBron James didn’t just answer a reporter’s question and say, “I guess so,” when asked if he would be voting for Clinton, he wrote an op-ed in Business Insider. I wonder how this will sway voters in the Buckeye State, and/or if his mentions will be filled with “Stick to sports.”

Will Nike now come out with an Air Hillary?

Also, pro-Hillary: “I’m With Her.” Pro-Trump: “I’m With Herr!”

Meanwhile, The New York Times posted Donald Trump’s 1995 tax returns (I don’t think that’s legal, is it, Jethro?) over the weekend and strongly intimated that he has not paid personal income taxes in 18 years.

5. Rickie, Don’t Lose That Number

Fowler, on the right, should’ve made a move on Paulina (left) here. Her lips seem unoccupied at the moment

I hear the USA won the Ryder Cup, which fills me with tremendous patriotic pride. I guess. For those of us non-duffers, this picture of the Yanks celebrating with their wives as teammate Rickie Fowler just sort of looks around and waits to download Tinder is pretty special.

Music 101

Day After Day

If you lived in a dorm room equipped with a bong pipe and an eight-track player in the early- to mid-Seventies, you probably owned a Badfinger album. Millennials recognize this band as the one whose song, “Baby Blue,” closed out the final moments of the series finale of Breaking Bad. This song, which was produced by George Harrison (that’s him on the signature slide guitar solos), rose to No. 4 in early 1972. Monetary disputes left the band destitute, however, because of a corrupt manager, which led first to the suicide by hanging of lead singer Peter Ham, in 1975, followed by the suicide of his close friend and the band’s guitarist, Tom Evans, who had discovered Ham’s body, eight years later. Badfinger is the ultimate “Behind the Music” waiting to be made.

We don’t do Editor’s Choice here in Music 101—I guess they all are—but some tunes stand out more than others. This is one of those. It’ll be on “Now That’s What I Call Not Crappy,” the MH compilation album, from K-Tel)

Remote Patrol

Giants at Vikings

8:30 p.m. ESPN

The Purple Peeps keep losing invaluable players in their backfield, and they keep winning. Their QB is now Sam Bradford and their top rusher a dude from Georgia Southern, but they are 3-0. Win tonight and we could be looking at a matchup of unbeatens when they visit Philadelphia (Bradford’s old team) on October 23.

by John Walters

A Medium Happy 85th to everyone’s favorite North Dakotan, Angie Dickinson

Starting Five

Wild Cards

St. Louis won the Missouri Lottery last night. Its game-winning hit was a double that smacked off the lottery sign in left field, which should have been ruled a ground-rule double, thus preventing the winning run (the baserunner was between second an third) from scoring The umps missed it.

So who’s going to advance to what my old friend Matt Eagan dubbed, a full decade before MLB created it, “The Death Game?” In the A.L. it’s hard to go against Toronto and Baltimore, both 87-72, but there is a potential hot mess looming. The Blue Jays visit Fenway, where Boston will be resting its top guns, while the Orioles visit the Yankees, who will give them a fight.

Miguel Cabrera (36 HR, 105 RBI) has been cleared for takeoff

Detroit (85-73)visits last-place N.L. club Atlanta, but the Braves have actually won 9 of 10. Keep in mind: Detroit’s game with Cleveland yesterday was rained out. If the Tigers are within half a game of either Baltimore or Toronto on Monday morning, they’ll play the Indians at Comerica on Monday. If they win, they’ll play a playoff to get to the playoff on Tuesday—I think. If they win that, there’s the A.L. wildcard game on Wednesday. If they win that, they’ll most likely travel to Texas to play the Rangers on Thursday.

So, from Sunday through Thursday, the Tigers could be looking at games in Atlanta, Detroit, Baltimore, Toronto (or vice-versa on these two) and then Arlington.

In the N.L., it’s simpler, but it’s still anyone’s call as three teams are within two games of one another. The Mets visit Philly, the Cards host Pittsburgh, and the Giants host an already-clinched Los Angeles. Color me as pulling for the Mets and Giants, both of whom are ahead of the Cards.

2.  USA Today Goes Never Trump

More than a few of the men pictured here were in the midst of their last day on earth. One of their peers wrote a pretty insightful piece on the GOP candidate.

The “Nation’s Newspaper,” which has never endorsed a presidential candidate since it began operations in the early 1980s, posted an editorial early this morning in which it disendorsed (Is that a word?) Donald Trump.

“This year, by unanimous consensus of the Editorial Board, one of the candidates…is unfit for the presidency,” the editorial states. Among other things, the articles writes in boldface type that Trump “traffics in prejudice” and that “he is a serial liar.”

Meanwhile, I’d advise reading this essay by The New Yorker’s eminence grace, 96 year-old baseball writer AND World War II veteran Roger Angell, who remarks that Trump’s incident with the Purple Heart back in August was a defining moment. I’ve always thought so, too.

Also meanwhile, Megyn Kelly has gone TOTALLY off the FOX reservation. Here she is scolding Kellyanne Conway last night. There’s a moment early when Kelly says, “Kellyanne, c’mon,” which is how white folks says, “Ni**er, please.” I mean, this is on FOX.   In prime time.

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

And here’s Howard Stern on Trump and the Iraq War. This should be self-evident to all by now, but just in case someone out there isn’t paying attention: The point isn’t whether or not Trump supported the Iraq War (a lot of good people were duped by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld), it’s that there’s documented evidence that he did, that there is no documented evidence that he did not before the war began, and yet, faced with the audio evidence, he still will obfuscate the truth.

So look at it this way: If this is how brazenly Trump lies when the truth is evident to all, imagine how much the truth matters to him when it is not as crystal-clear.

3. Putt Up or Shut Up

I thought for sure when I first heard about this, considering that the Ryder Cup will be staged in Chaska, Minn., this weekend (let’s pour one out for His Purpleness), that is was either occasional MH contributor Bill Hubbell or his brother-in-law (who’s married to frequent MH contributor Katie). But no, it was North Dakotan David Johnson. Props to European pros Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose and Andrew Sullivan for pulling the heckler out of the gallery and giving him the opportunity to have a moment he’ll never forget.

4. “And I Wonder, Still I Wonder, Who’ll Stop the Train?”*

*The judges apologize to any Soul Asylum fans reading this, and we know who you are, who’d hoped we’d go in another song direction.

A commuter train in Hoboken, N.J., fails to come to a stop as it pulls into the station yesterday morning, leaving a 34 year-old woman who had been standing on the platform dead. The engineer, Thomas Gallagher, a 29-year veteran of NJ Transit, is hospitalized. I’m going to go ahead and assume Gallagher was not chanting “Allah Akbar” as the train pulled into the station, but America’s favorite alt-right-handed pitcher, Curt Schilling, may beg to differ.

I am hoping to be wrong. But given a train ran at high speed INTO the station, I am going to say terrorism. If I’m wrong cool.

— Curt Schilling (@gehrig38) September 29, 2016

5. The Legend of Dan Cooper

Back for another installment of “The Rest of the Story…” You may already have known this, but I just learned it. In the Fifties there was relatively obscure comic book called “Dan Cooper” about a Royal Canadian Air Force test pilot. He was very adept at ejecting from planes and surviving.

Then, in 1971, a man identifying himself as Dan Cooper boarded a Northwest Orient flight from Portland to Seattle and handed a flight attendant a ransom note. He told her that he had a bomb in his briefcase, and showed it to her, and demanded $200,000. That man, who later parachuted from the plane after it landed in Seattle and he forced the flight crew to remain on board and fly him south, is known to us as D.B. Cooper. 

Dan’s the man

How did the famed hijacker, who was never found, come to be known as D.B. if he was listed on the passenger manifest as Dan? A single AP writer got the name wrong, and papers all over the country repeated it. And it never was properly corrected.

Anyway, it’s most likely that “Dan Cooper” lifted his nom de criminale from that comic, as he was so inspired, and it’s most likely that he landed in a lake, in late November, near the Washington-Oregon border. He most likely drowned or froze to death first.

Medium Happy’s editorial board is always searching for cool Paul Harvey-type stories. Feel free to write in with historical notes such as this one and yesterday’s and pitch suggestions. We’ll pay you nothing, but there may be a commemorative MH sponge in it for you.

Music 101

Orinoco Flow

“Sail away, sail away, sail away….” Did New Age even exist, as a genre or a cultural phenomenon, before Enya wafted into our lives? The Irish singer’s tune hit No. 1 on the UK singles chart for three weeks in the autumn of 1988, but it’s really a tune out of time. It doesn’t belong to an era as much as it does to a mystical place. I really would have liked to see The Ramones cover it. This is a song (and album, Watermark) that gave birth to a million yoga studios. Anyway, the Orinoco is a very long river that runs through Colombia and Venezuela out into the Atlantic. Columbus happened upon it in 1498.

Remote Patrol

No. 7 Stanford at No. 10 Washington

ESPN 9 p.m.

Jake Browning has thrown 14 TDs and just two picks in U-Dub’s 4-0 start

Give the Cardinal credit:They’re in the midst of a four-week gauntlet that sees them playing  three difficult road games: at UCLA, at the Huskies, and in two weeks at Notre Dame (we know, we know…that was supposed to be a difficult road game). The Huskies have looked impressive, but who have they played? No one. The Cardinal have already taken down USC and the Bruins. Note: Christian McCaffrey has never scored a touchdown away from Palo Alto.