by John Walters

Happy 75th to Pele!

Starting Five

The CBJ are ice cold and we haven’t even had our first frost

1. Goodbye, Columbus?

We’ve barely bid farewell to Columbus Day and already it may be near the time to say goodbye to the Columbus Blue Jackets’ chances of NHL playoff contention. Sure, that’s hyperbole, but the CBJ have started off 0-8 and already fired coach Todd Richards and replaced him with John Tortorella, who led the Tampa Bay Lightning to a Stanley Cup in 2004.

The CBJ, Medium Happy’s new favorite hockey franchise, lost to the Minnesota Wild last night, 3-2. They’ve allowed 37 goals while scoring 15. That’s not good.

2. Swords With Fiends

A man walks into a school in Trollhattan, Sweden, dressed like this. Two students see him, believe it is a prank, and ask to be photographed with him. He obliges. A teacher walks into the hall, sees what’s up, and tells the man to leave. The man, a 21 year-old, fatally stabs the teacher. He killed one other person, a teenage student, before being shot dead by police.

This answers that question, at least in part, What would it be like if guns were far harder to obtain in the U.S.? Mentally deranged people would still walk into schools and wreak havoc, although perhaps not quite as much.

3. The Black List

Classic exchange between ESPN’s premier duo, Neil Everett and Stan Verrett, on last night’s Post-SVP SportsCenter. The set-up: Stan is doing a V/O of Cal-UCLA highlights.

Stan: “And those are UCLA’s ‘City’ uniforms (all black). I don’t like them. I don’t like teams wearing black if black isn’t their normal color.”

Neil: “And you can say that because black is your normal color.”

(Silence for a few seconds….finally, Stan; “You went there?” as both chuckle).

4. Does Bo Know?

For the record, Bomani has always been GREAT to me. I’m sure this morning he is wondering why Whitlock opted to choose this fight, of all fights, to wage publicly and likely without any warning.

“There’s no racist conspiracy working for Cousins and working against RG3,” wrote ESPN AOL Sports FOX Sports ESPN FOX columnist Jason Whitlock on his site, j.school, yesterday. Whitlock thus crushed the opinion, framed in numerous posts, of former colleague Bomani Jones of ESPN, who has spent the past few months on Twitter insinuating that both the Redskins’ and the media’s promoting of Kirk Cousins (white) over Robert Griffin III (black) has been racially motivated.

I don’t follow the situation closely enough to parse the truth here. I imagine Bomani has taken this crusade a little too far, but the team is named the Redskins. Racism is their bag, baby. Still, it is quite rare for a nationally known African-American media type to publicly trash a fellow African-American media type’s opinion this way.

Whitlock

Will we be hearing more about this on His and Hers later today?

Meanwhile, Whitlock being Whitlock, he was unable to resist throwing a self-aggrandizing line into his column: “The reason so many people in the media hold me to a standard of perfection is because my record of achievement is so high.” (Resists urge to make “cholesterol level” quip).

for a number of reasons, it will not. hate to disappoint. can’t do it with whitlock. won’t do it with whitlock. https://t.co/unzSci1ZYI

— El Flaco (@bomani_jones) October 22, 2015

Bomani chose to take the high road.

5. Where In The World?

Yesterday: Casa Brutale, Greece

Music 101

Stay With Me

Before this great Scot began tearing pages out of the Great American Songbook, Rod Stewart was a grade-A blues rocker with his band, Faces. When the Rolling Stones poach your lead guitarist (Ron Wood), your band must be doing something right. This 1971 tune climbed up to No. 17 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Remote Patrol

Memphis at Tulsa

ESPN 8 p.m.

Probably not a good idea to dub this team the “Lynch Mob” within 400 miles of Memphis

Dig: The Tigers are 6-0 and last week defeated the team, Ole Miss, that defeated Alabama last month. Quarterback Paxton Lynch is No. 2 on Mel Kiper, Jr.’s board after only Jared Goff (the difference between the two? Lynch’s team wins more often). The AAC has three undefeated schools (Temple and Houston, too) and Justin Fuente’s team will take on both of them on the road next month.

by John Walters

Happy 77th to Doc Brown (also to Jim Ignatowski, Judge Doom, and Taber), a.k.a. Christopher Lloyd. More on him below.

Starting Five

As long as we’re doing that Murphy thing, the Cubs were knocked out of the playoffs after the first full season of Murphy Brown (1989) and during the last full season of Murphy Brown (1998)

1. Awesome Murphy!

As far as my Google searches can tell me, SB Nation (5 days ago) was the first to make a connection between the Mets’ Daniel Murphy, who homered in a sixth straight game last night, and the many other Murphys (goat, GM, announcer, stadium) who have dogged the Cubs over the decades.

So the Cubs must wait at least another year, while the rest of us wonder just what the potential for the Mets may be if they can keep all four young pitchers healthy and happy and in New York City. They’ll own this town.

In 9 postseason games, Murphy, who turned 30 on April Fool’s Day, has 7 home runs and 11 RBI

Also, are the LGM! really going to let Daniel Murphy walk after this season? Especially if he keeps hitting like this?

2. Deja Viewing

Aaron Sorkin script? Check.

Bay Area renegade genius? Check.

Bay Area renegade genius/iconoclast whom underlings found temperamental and impossible to please? Check.

Bay Area renegade genius whose sole humanizing trait was that he was a single dad with a sweet and precocious daughter? Check.

Former cast member from Superbad as the brains behind genius’s wizardry? Check.

Look familiar?

You may think you’re going to see Steve Jobs this weekend, but maybe what you’re really seeing is Moneyball with a fresh coat of paint.

3. They Even Got Huey Lewis & The News

You’ve read more than enough on October 21, 2015 and its connections to Back to the Future II. Enjoy.

4. Take A Walk!

“Put one foot in front of the other…”

While the weather remains kind, here’s a list of the “50 Best Hikes” from Men’s Journal.  Your mileage may vary.

5. Where In The World?

Yesterday: Anaconda Smoke Stack, Anaconda, Montana, the tallest man-made structure between Seattle and Minneapolis.

by John Walters

Happy 50th Birthday, Billy Zabka!!! The Cobra Kai lives….

Starting Five

As I wonder how many bars in New York City are named Murphy’s

1. Murphy’s Lore (Cont.)

Daniel Murphy reportedly won’t re-sign with the Mets next season, but the second baseman has now gone full Carlos Beltran, hitting a home run in his fifth consecutive postseason game last night (four of which came off Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Jon Lester and JakeArrieta). That ties an MLB record.

The Mets won and so now lead the Cubs 3-0 in the NLCS. And yes, we’ll note that the last time Theo Epstein was the GM of a club that had gone more than 80 years since winning a World Series, that franchise fell behind 3-0 in an LCS to a team from New York and then promptly won 8 consecutive games and the World Series. Just sayin’….

2. “Are You O.K.?” Corral

Ouch!

There was a gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, last Sunday, which is not unusual. The historic southeastern Arizona town stages commemorative gunfights daily to draw tourists, reenacting the famous shootout involving Wyatt Earp and others on October 26, 1881.

The problem with last Sunday’s shootout is that one of the gunmen used live rounds of ammunition. Ken Curtis fell to the ground after being struck by a bullet fired by fellow reenactor Tom Carter. Curtis had surgery and should be fine. As for Carter, I can only wonder if they will “Hang ‘Em High” before he is able to catch the “3:10 to Yuma.”

3. “What’s Your Problem?”

Someone on the staff of Jimmy Kimmel Live had a terrific idea for the show’s visit to Brooklyn this week. With JayZ appearing as a guest last night, they riffed on the Brooklyn native’s song, “99 Problems,” by asking New Yorkers “What’s your problem?” 99 times.

Also: There is no K subway line.

4. Hot Carl

Nassib was a freshman during Joe Paterno’s tumultuous final season in Happy Valley

This is Carl Nassib, a 6’7″, 275-pound fifth-year defensive end at Penn State who was not offered a scholarship out of high school. Nassib, younger brother of former Syracuse quarterback Ryan Nassib, currently leads the nation in Sacks (11.5), Tackles for Loss (15.5), and Fumbles Forced (5).

Schobert is somewhat undersized at 6’2″, 236

We’d call Nassib the second coming of J.J. Watt, who also was not offered (at least not by a B1G school) out of high school and then went on to become an All-American, and perhaps he is. However, there is an outside linebacker at Watt’s alma mater, Wisconsin, who is No. 2 in the nation in all three of those categories (9.5, 14.5, 4), right behind Nassib, and he, too, was not offered a scholly out of high school. His name is Joe Schobert and he, too, is likely an All-American this season.

5. Where In The World?

Hint: Somewhere in the United States

Yesterday: Mount Maunganui, New Zealand

Music 101

Black Balloon

The late ’90s produced A TON of forgettable rock music and bands (Thank you for saving us, Jack White), and the Dolls of Goo Goo probably fit that mold. Still, there were some gems that stay with us (I’ll hear no pleas on behalf of Matchbox 20, though; no redeeming qualities there), such as this 1999 song about a girl struggling with heroin addiction that reached No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Remote Patrol

Royals at Blue Jays, ALCS Game 5

FS1 4 p.m.

You’re up, Joey Bats. It was one weekday afternoon ago today that the Blue Jays — and Rangers — treated us to one of the more memorable elimination games in baseball playoff history. Here we go again as Toronto trails 3-1 in the ALCS to the defending AL champs, Kansas City. Toronto is 3-0 in elimination games this month, but must go 6-0 to advance to the Fall Classic.

by John Walters

Happy 26th, Candace Swanepoel! Life’s a beach.

Starting Five

Lorelai and Rory are returning to Stars Hollow. Coffee! Coffee! COFFEE!

1. More Gilmore

Great news! What, Jaylon Smith is returning for a fourth year? No, not that great, silly. NetFlix has ordered four 90-minute episodes of Gilmore Girls, a show that loved side quips as much as it did Friday night dinners. Sookie and Richard Gilmore won’t be back, but count on seeing Lorelai, Rory, Luke, Emily, Taylor Doose, Kurt and hopefully, a performance or two by Hep Alien.

I have no idea if Logan Huntzberger will return, but really he and Christopher can go suck an egg.

So we might be getting those “final four words” that creator Amy Sherman-Palladino always wanted to put into the series finale.

2. You Had To Be a Big Short, Didn’t Ya?

Bale as Michael Burry should be fabulous

I only read one book about the 2008 sub-prime mortgage disaster — I was too busy throwing darts at photos of Lloyd Blankfein — but the book I did read was The Big Short by Michael Lewis, and it was exquisite. The book takes you through the financial crisis by focusing on the outliers, the few people who had the insight to see the approaching bubble, to bet against the system and conventional wisdom, and to reap huge sums of money. A truly spectacular read and a lesson in sticking to your guns when you know you are right.

Anyway, Hollywood is all in on this one, with a December 11 release and starring roles for Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling (nearly unrecognizable) and Brad Pitt.

3. Poutine Heartthrob

Trudeau is the son of former PM Pierre Trudeau. Canada also believes in political nepotism.

That’s Justin Trudeau, who was either just elected as Canadia’s next prime minister or Canadia’s Next Top Model. He’s even more popular than Jose Bautista right now. Trudeau won on a platform of building a wall — made of ice — between the USA and Canada and promising that the country will produce a Stanley Cup winner while he is in office.

4. Jan Hammers

Frodeno brings that 6’4″ frame crashing toward the finish line

A week or so late here, but Germany’s Jan Frodeno won the Hawaii Ironman two weekends ago in Kona. Frodeno won the gold medal in Beijing in the Olympic triathlon, which is a far shorter course. He becomes the first person, man or woman, to win an Olympic gold medal and the Hawaii Ironman, and that feat probably won’t be seconded until Michael Phelps takes up jogging.

5. Where In The World?

Hint: It’s not Hawaii

Friday’s Answer: Amedi, Kurdistan

Music 101

Room At The Top

Happy 64th birthday to Tom Petty (we love you, but you’re not bumping Candace Swanepoel from that perch, babe; unique views and all)! Gainesville’s favorite son becomes our first repeat offender in this space and instead of posting one of his biggest hits, here’s one from his 1999 album, Echo. Just a consistently excellent musician; yes, I’m a Petty-file (come after me, Chris Hansen, I dare you!).

Remote Patrol

The Grinder

FOX 8:30 p.m.

Yes, we have DAY BASEBALL from Toronto, as well as a playoff game from Wrigley Field tonight, but I’m putting in a little pitch for The Grinder, a FOX sitcom that’s pretty smart and pretty funny. If not tonight, give it a try soon. Rob Lowe and Fred Savage already have fantastic chemistry.

by John Walters

Happy 49th birthday to Jon Favreau, who taught a generation of men exactly what not to do when leaving a phone message for a woman you’ve just met.

Starting Five

O’Neill had an 80-yard punt in the first quarter, but ended the day with the most infamous punt attempt in Michigan football history

1.Fail To The Victors

Two tales of failed fourth downs in the Midwest this weekend and lets begin in Ann Arbor, where a storybook autumn for Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines ended in the worst way possible. You already know the details and have seen the play, so allow me simply to add this: Not only did Michigan State put 11 men on the line, but they absolutely failed to put a man head-to-head against the Wolverine end who was split out to the left (nearer to the MSU sideline).

Not that Blake O’Neill would have eschewed punting the ball to simply throw a ball up toward the left side for a first down, but kudos to Sparty for recognizing that UM was less likely to notice it or alter the plan since he was on the far hashmark — away from UM’s sideline.

Also, remember that MSU only trailed by 2. Once Jalen Watts-Jackson fielded that ball — it flew directly into his arms — he was golden as long as got inside the 20 and was tackled before time ran out. As you may known, JWJ suffered a dislocated hip when his teammates piled atop him in the end zone, which crosses from football into the realm of epic poetry. He’s out at least for the season and, who knows, maybe forever. Still, he has won immortality, which may eventually seem like a fair exchange.

Finally, kudos to ESPN’s Sean McDonough (and in all likelihood, to his spotter) for recognizing the MSU player (Watts-Jackson) who had the ball as the play was taking place. That’s some quick spotting and processing there. It’s also fun to hear McDonough’s voice crack, no?

2. Defeat Formation

“What in the world?” — Al Michaels, NBC

I’m trying to give Indianapolis Colt coach Chuck Pagano the benefit of the doubt here. As you know — or can tell from the photo — Indy is facing fourth and 3 from its own 37. The score, as you see, is 27-21 late in the 3rd quarter.

Now, here’s what I DO understand: Griff Whalen, the center on this play, is ordinarily a wide receiver. And, because no one is lined up to his left, Whalen is actually the split end on this same play, so he is an eligible receiver (one of the wonderful quirks of football that I hope they never “fix”).

And here’s what I DON’T understand: Given that the only two conceivable chances of this play working is if 1) the Pats jump offsides or 2) Whalen runs a route and the Pats do not think about covering him, there’s little chance that his play will work if the quarterback is not in a shotgun formation. So why is that?

Meanwhile, how about this PAT block by a Pat, Jamie Collins, after Indy scored a late TD to make it 34-27? I can’t recall ever seeing someone do this before.

Two more things: 1) Be careful when you try to outsmart the smartest guy in the room. New England’s players, to their credit, did not panic. They lined up properly and had three players near Whalen and the QB. 2) What the hell is the punter doing here? He’s line up 13 yards behind the line of scrimmage and at least that far laterally to the football. What is his purpose?

3. Deja Vu at SNL

Sanders, a 74 year-old Jewish man from Brooklyn, had to love the impression that David (above), a 68 year-old Jewish man from Brooklyn, did of him.

— Former Saturday Night Live writer (Check)

–Goes on to greater fame and greater fortune writing and starring in his/her own sitcom (Check)

–Returns to SNL as a presidential candidate (Check).

Yes, Larry David as Bernie Sanders is the new Tina Fey (as Sarah Palin). Unlike Fey, David never achieved any success while at SNL — he quit after one of his sketches was scrapped at the last minute, then told his neighbor, Kenny Kramer, who told him to return to the office on Monday and act as if it had never happened; as you know, that entire anecdote played out later on Seinfeld.

Imagine the vindication David must have felt being able to not only star in the show’s cold open, but also to be given the chance to proclaim, “LIVE FROM NEW YORK….IT’S SATURDAY NIGHT!”

The best part about this is how inseparable David and Sanders are from one another, both physically and metaphysically. I can totally see Bernie Sanders welcoming the Blacks into his home.

What next? As long as Sanders remains in the race, why wouldn’t Lorne Michaels beg David to reprise this role on occasion? And what else is Larry doing right now other than attempting to shoot par?

4. “Character Takes Many Shapes”

The man in the No. 2 jersey is TCU quarterback Trevone Boykin, who may or may not win the Heisman Trophy this season, and who may or may not lead the Horned Frogs to the national championship. Both goals are definitely within his grasp.

The girl, I don’t know her name or her circumstances, but she is definitely rooting for Iowa State, which is where Saturday’s game was played. I believe it was Matt Shoultz, the Cyclones’ assistant athletic director of communications, who took this shot and posted it on Twitter.

Judging from the light in the background, this encounter took place during pre-game warmups. That any player from the visiting team took time to notice a wheelchair-bound girl during warm-ups is cool. That it was the best player on either side is tremendous. And I don’t know if someone asked Boykin to speak to her or not, but he did. Great moment, and the kind of photo you used to see in Life magazine.

TCU won, 45-21.

5. The Nature of Wealth

Bella Hadid, who has no involvement in this item but who was forced to hang out with my friend A.J. yesterday (as was Ellie Goulding)

Yesterday’s thought: Wealth is a function of how well you spend your time, not your money. 

I like that one so much I’m going to ask if there are any objections to making this Rule No. 5. No? Okay, the motion is passed.

The postulate: Yes, it certainly is easier to spend your time better if you have more money with which to spend it, but far too many of us wind up chasing the means as opposed to the end.

Which brings us to this Q&A moment with billionaire Warren Buffett, which is worth reading:

Now, you may say, “But J.W., why is Warren Buffett, who is worth about $67 BILLION, still paying so much attention to acquiring wealth at the age of 85 while still living in a modest house in Omaha?” And my answer to that is, “Go ask your mother,” i.e., I haven’t the foggiest.

Music 101

When You Close Your Eyes

Thanks to radio — and the drug-buy scene from Boogie Nights — “Sister Christian” became Night Ranger’s biggest hit. And rightfully so. But I always loved the third single off their 1983 album “Midnight Madness” (Did the NCAA hoops term pre-date the album? I don’t think so), after SC and “You Can Still Rock in America.” This tune hit No. 14 in 1984.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-RAUQ2BTo8

Remote Patrol

ALCS Game 3: Royals at Blue Jays

FS1 8 p.m.

How will Jose Bautista celebrate his 35th birthday?

Good news for Blue Jays fans: Today is Joey Bats’s 35th birthday. Bad news: Harold Reynolds is still calling their games.