Notre Dame just unveiled its uniforms for the October 6 Shamrock (Shake) Series contest against Miami at Soldier Field. Honestly, I just want to know what Rick Reilly thinks of them… (more to follow)

Everyone credits Albert Einstein for the theory of relativity, though probably fewer than 10% of us can explain it (I cannot without Google). Everyone understands television, but about the same fraction of us know who deserves credit it for it. While Charles Francis Jenkins may have invented televsion, Philo T. Farnsworth was its first great pioneer here in the U.S.A. Plus, he has a more melliflous moniker.

Think of Farnsworthy as our daily guide to premium programming (all times Eastern)

• Elvis on Tour (TCM, 8 p.m.): Ironic that The King died while seated on a throne of sorts. On the 35th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death, TCM presents a documentary of his 1972 cross-country tour. Yes, this is Fat Elvis territory.
• Point Break (Reelz, 10 p.m.): “The FBI’s gonna pay me to learn to surf?” Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow directed this 1991 cult favorite about beach boy-bank robbers starring Keanu Reeves as Johnny Utah. Patrick Swayze is bad-guy Bodhi, a tremendous risk coming off “Dirty Dancing” and “Ghost”, and yes, that is the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in a minor role.
• Inside Fenway Park: An Icon at 100 (PBS, 8 p.m.): Reminding us that a heist was set inside this structure in Ben Affleck’s “The Town”, a film that used the same conceit — robbers wearing rubber masks that look like other people (presidents exchanged for nuns) — as Point Break. The Rolling Stones, Springsteen, the NHL, Notre Dame, FDR, Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore, and of course Oil Can Boyd,,
• have all frolicked in the shadow of the Green Monster.

They’re not yelling, “Fire Bobby Valentine!”, they’re just saying, “Bruuuuuuuuce!” Springsteen wraps up two nights of shows at Fenway Park, playing 57 songs (not channels) with only ten repeat tunes. On opening night, and perhaps this is coincidence, as the news broke that former Red Sox second baseman Johnny Pesky, 92, had died, The Boss played Johnny 99… The number 23 plays a role without any mention of Michael Jordan or a Jim Carrey flick. Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners becomes the 23rd MLB pitcher to hurl a perfect game while Team USA soccer wins for the first time in Mexico City after 23 losses (and one tie) in a period that spans 75 years. Yesterday was 8/15, which adds up to (cue Twilight Zone theme)… Kudos to ESPN, by the way, for having the foresight to send Bob Ley, Alexi Lalas and Casey Keller to Azteca Stadium… Hope Solo appears on “Morning Joe” because, after all, SHE was the biggest story in U.S. soccer yesterday… As a former SI bullpen colleague of the man, I find this difficult to believe (seriously)…Apparently the new contestant must be as close to six-foot-four without going over the listed height… Melky Cabrera extends the streak of hitters with the second-best batting average in the National League testing positive for PEDs to two years in a row. Cabrera, recall, was the All-Star Game MVP… If Vince Lombardi were alive today, would he say, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s whether the outcome will be vacated?”… Recalling that one of The Sports Guys “Yep, these are my readers” crew once suggested an even better nickname for King Felix: F-Her… If you have an hour to kill and want to read a compelling piece on last summer’s mass murder in Norway, courtesy of GQ… Rick Reilly trashes an institution for not being as stellar as it once was, wants its privileges revoked, then turns and assiduously does not look into the mirror… It isn’t easy to be a .200 career hitter and still have a statue erected in your honor outside a ballpark, but then who among us has Bob Uecker’s sense of humor?…  Last Channel freakiness: If you were flipping between MLB Network and HBO yesterday afternoon, it was possible to watch F-Her’s perfect game in Seattle and Kevin Costner’s perfect game in Yankee Stadium — i.e., the movie “For The Love of the Game” — simultaneously (re-cue Twilight Zone theme)….

–John Walters

Tempus Fugit

1954: Sports Illustrated, with Eddie Mathews of the Milwaukee Braves on the cover, launches. Newsstand price: 25 cents. Two weeks later Pamela Nelson will become the first swimsuit-clad beauty to appear on SI’s cover.

1974: “One! Two! Three! Four!” The Ramones play their first public gig at New York City’s famed CBGB.

Hey. Ho. Let’s go.

1987: Harmonic Convergence. The world’s first globally synchronized meditation. Basically, a bunch of weirdos attempt to get the whole world to sign on. It’s working better for Tom Cruise than it did for them.

1995: Bob Costas delivers the eulogy at Mickey Mantle’s funeral. Mary Carillo hosts the late night viewing.

2009:  Tiger Woods loses a major golf tournament for the first time when entering the final round atop the leaderboard. Y.E. Yang runs Woods down and wins the PGA Championship.

–Bill Hubbell

“I’m not a former New York City prosecutor, but I play one on TV…”

Episode 8: “The Blackout Part I/Tragedy Porn”, which, let’s face it, sounds like an ambitious high-concept album from Green Day, was The Newsroom’s best episode yet. Considering that most of you loathe Aaron Sorkin’s latest offspring, that’s saying little. However, as unabashed fans of the program, (that’s right, we are entirely without abash) we will gladly provide a detailed account — but not a synopsis — of what you missed.

Most Valuable Player: Don (Thomas Sadowski)

“Forget everything you know about the news.”  Don had one scene in the middle of the program, the Nancy Grace tutorial, and he owned it. It was like watching Chris Perez strike out the side in the fifth inning. Also, is it us or does Don/Thomas appear as if he’s getting more sleep than he did in the first few episodes?

Also Receiving Votes: McKenzie McHale if for no other reason than her pronunciation of “douchebag” , Leona Lansing for making 74 look like the new 54, and Maggie Howard for registering both contempt and politeness while saying, “You cannot possibly have a decaf latte.” Also, for  overcoming the handicap of being a female character without an alliterative appellation (see what I did there?).

Pop-ourri (In which we attempt to note and elaborate on all of the references tossed about in the episode)*

*Kudos to Mr. Sorkin for having “98 degrees” appear as many as four times in the script without adding a quip about a boy band. He showed admirable restraint. 

• Camelot: Sorkin’s obligatory weekly reference to a musical. He got this one out of the way early.
• New York Mets: Reese Lansing must be referring to the Let’s Go’s epic collapse of 2007, when they regurgitated a seven-game lead with 18 games remaining and missed the playoffs.
• Real Morons of South Beach: A reference to both “The Real Housewives” and “Jersey Shore” franchises, both of which would outdraw “Newsnight”.
• Raver: Sloan Sabbith’s nod to getting funky on her sabbath. She meant a rager, or this was a wonderfully abstruse reference to actress Kim Raver.
• “Relax, J. Edgar: A reference, by Maggie, to former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. The second in her beguiling series of cutesy pop-trivia aliases for Jim “James Tiberius” Harper, her office crush, who has yet to realize he’s wanted back at Dunder-Mifflin by Pam.
• “Tougher Questions than a Match.com Profile”: The correct answer is “spiritual but not religious.”
• Dark Knight/Morgan Freeman: I, too, do not know that machine.
• Donald Sutherland in JFK: Kiefer’s dad was even creepier in this film than he was as the pothead prof in “Animal House.”
• CSI Miami: A highly entertaining television show that does not exactly care about providing an accurate portrayal of its workplace environment. Hmm, what other shows on TV are like that?
• The Broadway Danny Rose of tabloid suffering: And we have a winner! Reference of the night, by Don. Broadway Danny Rose was a fictitious Tin Pan Alley agent played by Woody Allen in the eponymous 1984 film. All of his clients had bizarre and mostly unmarketble talent (“If you take my advice you’ll become one of the great balloon-folding acts of all time!”) and now they’d all receive standing ovations on “America’s Got Talent.”
• “Lana Turner sitting at the drugstore counter“: A starlet of the studio golden age of Hollywood, Turner was actually discovered (not by Broadway Danny Rose) while sipping a Coke at a cafe while skipping out on typing class at Hollywood High School. Truancy pays.
• Sarah Lawrence ideals: Sarah Lawrence was until 1968 an all-girls’ college located in Bronxville, N.Y., and yet it still has won as many bowl games as New Mexico State since that year.
• Aunt Bee: No one in Mayberry bakes a finer pie.
• Dan Rather’ed: Betrayed from within, a reference to the former CBS anchor.
• Taylor Swift: Not a Weiner girl… although if you ask John Mayer…

–John Walters