by John Walters

Happy 161st, Oscar Wilde! If you’re anything like Dorian Gray, you don’t look a day over 30 (just don’t look at that portrait up in the attic)

Also, a VERY Happy Birthday to Phyllis, who keeps hearing from strangers how great she looks. She’s the head turner of Sun Lakes.

We don’t have an actual photo of Phyllis, but this is pretty close.

Starting Five

Murphy made up for five years of “Oh, no!” moments with the Mets last night.

1. Murphy’s Lore

The MVP of Game 5, if not the entire NLDS, was the Mets’ (“Mess,” RIP) Daniel Murphy, who was responsible for all three of New York’s runs versus arguably the most dominant pitcher in baseball, Zack Greinke. Murphy tripled in Curtis Granderson in the first inning and hit a solo homer in the sixth, but it was his heads up baserunning in the 4th inning that was rightly the most memorable play.

With one out and the Mets trailing 2-1, Murphy stood on first. Pull-hitting lefty Lucas Duda was batting, so the Dodgers put on their heavy shift. Duda walked and Murphy slowly trotted toward 2nd, but then he noticed that all of the Dodger infielders were playing with dandelions and chewing the laces on their mitts and he raced to third. Nobody was near him. The next batter, Travis d’Arnaud (autocorrect hates you, dude), lofted a sac fly to right and Murphy scored.

The Dodgers plum gave away a run. Both they and the Rangers lost Game 5 due in part to fielding gaffes that would drive a Little League manager bonkers.

2. Pac-12 After Sark

McCaffrey does not so much run as he churns. He has a very economical and fluid stride. Pretty to watch.

Did you stay up to watch Stanford and white rushin’ stud Christian McCaffrey last night? Whoa. The Cardinal look dominant and McCaffrey, son of Ed, whose bio shows that he pretty much dominated Colorado high school football in 2012 and 2013, looks like a speedier version of Toby Gerhart. You know, because they’re both white and both attend Stanford and I’m a lazy sportswriter.

Last night against UCLA, an opponent who was a Top 10 team only a few weeks ago, McCaffrey rushed for a school-record 243 yards and extended his lead as the nation’s all-purpose yardage leader with a 96-yard kickoff return (in total, he had 369 all-purpose yards).

And, oh yeah, there was this amazing third-quarter touchdown catch off a flea flicker from Kevin Hogan to Francis Owusu (I hope the UCLA DB is also invited to the ESPYs, and that they reenact this pose as the award is handed to Owusu).

Stanford, which lost its season opener at Northwestern, 16-6, (West Coast teams should never agree to 11 a.m. local kickoffs two time zones away), looks mighty scary now. The toughest remaining games — Washington, Oregon, Cal and Notre Dame — are all in Palo Alto, while the Pac-12 title game is only 13 miles away. A one-loss Stanford team is headed to the college football playoff, and that seems entirely conceivable right now with the way McCaffrey and the rest of the offense (46 ppg the past 4 games) is humming.

3. Doc Drowns

The mouth of the Lumahai

A few days ago Jamie Zimmerman, a physician and medical correspondent for ABC News, drowned in Hawaii. Zimmerman, 31, slipped while walking along some rocks at the mouth of the Lumahai River in Kauai and was swept 200 yards out to sea (no one has yet reported if Zimmerman was knocked unconscious when she fell and if that played a role in her drowning). By the time rescuers arrived, it was too late to revive her.

Zimmerman posted this photo on Facebook hours before her death

The site where Zimmerman drowned was also used to film the musical number “I”m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair” in the 1956 film, South Pacific. That’s Mitzi Gaynor warbling.

4. Tip…of the Iceberg

So, Danny Meyer, restauranteur extraordinaire, plans to eliminate tipping from his restaurants. Meyer appeared on CNBC this morning and explained, “When I first started using Uber, I thought it was weird not to tip my driver. Now I kind of like it.”

Meyer’s plan is to eliminate tipping and then to just charge diners approximately 20% more for their meals. He cites the disadvantage that back-of-the-house staffers such as cooks and dishwashers are at because of the tipping policy. Well, hey, if cooks and dishwashers wanted to be tipped, they should’ve just been better-looking. Gah!

Honestly, though, it may not work in every industry, but this server can tell you that tipping HIGHLY incentivizes your server and that his tips trickle down to other members of the staff (runners, bussers, bartenders) who appreciate his motivation. If you want cooks and dishwashers (green card!) to earn more, pay them more, Danny.

Meanwhile, I can’t help feeling that somewhere between what Meyer will be paying his wait staff and the increase in his prices to diners will be a nice little windfall for the restaurant itself, i.e. Meyer himself.

You’ve lost me as a customer, Danny (I think you’ll survive)

5. Where In The World?

Hint: Not in the Catskills

Yesterday: Seljalandfoss, Iceland.

Music 101

Boogie Nights

You can ask me what the Seventies were like, and I can just show you this video from the band Heatwave. This 1977 hit, which climbed to No. 2, is not only a signature song of the disco era, but it inspired the film title for one of the best movies not to win Best Picture nearly two decades later.

Remote Patrol

Saturday

No. 7 Michigan State at No. 12 Michigan

ESPN 3:30 p.m.

The Wolverines have pitched three consecutive shutouts. Sparty has beaten its last two foes, Purdue and Rutgers, by a total of 10 points. The momentum says Khaki, but the sharps say, “Not so fast, my friend.” My guess is that Corso goes green.

by John Walters

Happy 70th to Scottsdale High School’s own Jim Palmer (the school no longer exists, but the three-time Cy Young Award winner still does)

Aaaaand….

Happy Birthday to Nicholas Sparks’s former teammate and the current legal genius of McHenry County, Ill., Smo Dad!

Starting Five

Bautista’s 3-run blast did not clinch a World Series, as Joe Carter’s did 22 years ago, but it may ultimately achieve greater legend…

1.Ohhhhhhhh! Canada

Rule No. 6: Every time you attend a baseball game, there’s a chance you may see something you’ve never seen before. Such as…

Meanwhile, I have to ask you, does this…

…remind you at all of this?

Here’s my story about it all in Newsweek ( <– shameless promo).

By the way, the Astros and Rangers went 0-4 after the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, sent out this tweet earlier this week:

By the way, not that anyone outside Kansas City cares, but Royal pitcher Johnny Cueto did retire 19 in a row last night as K.C. clinched, too.

2. The Daily Harrumph: Who Killed Harmed Lamar Odom?

So on Thursday afternoon Dennis Hof, who owns the Love Ranch South and is no stranger to appearing on TV, shows up on Nancy Grace and reveals that Lamar Odom showed up last week and told him to charge $75,000 on his credit card in exchange for “two girls, round-the-clock” for a minimum of three days bur no more than five.

So if the question is, Can you both own a whorehouse AND be a publicity whore, Dennis Hof demonstrates that the answer is yes. There seems to be a lot of that going around here in terms of the people the former Sixth Man of the Year surrounded himself with off the court.

Even though CNN.com asked last night, as a headline, “Clue To Lamar Odom’s Death?” the 35 year-old retired NBA star is still clinging to live in a Las Vegas hospital room.

3. Donald Trumps Irony

The essential irony of the GOP candidate and those who so fervently support him, in 140 characters or less. And this sort of speech leads to these sorts of confrontations.

To be fair (someone is trying to be fair), there’s a difference between arriving here legally and illegally. But I’m sure many of the people who arrived here via Ellis Island a century ago took someone’s jobs, too, no?

4. Bill Simmons Meets Mike Francesa

Haven’t we run enough photos of Simmons on this site by now? This is Mary. She’s from Sweden.

The Sports Guy at long last appeared on the Mike Francesa Show yesterday afternoon, where it was revealed that Francesa and his former partner, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, will appear on a “30 for 30” (Simmons, who created the series, was floored by the news) and that Simmons still really does not know exactly what his HBO show will be about (“I’m not a stand-up comedian”….he and HBO are just realizing that now?). If you’re a sports/sports media nerd, you may enjoy this.

5. Where In The World?

Hint: Not located in Scotland

Yesterday: The architecturally charm-free Carlton Centre, which is 50 stories tall and is located in Johannesburg. It’s the tallest building in Africa.

Music 101

(Keep Feeling) Fascination

In honor of Notre Dame linebacker Joe Schmidt referencing a tune that was a hit before he was born yesterday –which is not to say that the Fighting Irish middle linebacker was born   one day ago, I mean that would be nuts — by The Human League, I’m inserting another one of their mid-Eighties hits. This one reached No. 8 in 1983. What a great decade.

Remote Patrol

Mets at Dodgers, Game 5

TBS 8:07 p.m.

In his first full season in the big leagues, Met ace Jacob deGrom finished fourth in the National League in ERA (2.54) and fifth in WHIP (0.98). His counterpart on the hill tonight, Zack Greinke, finished atop the NL in both categories (1.66 and 0.84). Both pitchers earned a win last weekend in LA, which also means deGrom, who struck out 13 last Saturday, is pitching on one more day’s rest (by the way, will deGrom still be autocorrecting to “legroom” after he wins a Cy Young in a few years?).

by John Walters

Happy 36th to Barney Stinson’s and George Clooney’s ex, Stacy Kiebler!

Starting Five

Close, Mr. Sign Maker, very close….

1. Bear Market!

2015: Joe Maddon is hired. Ernie Banks passes away. 2+1+5=8, so that “0” and “8” (streeeeeeetch). The Cubs looked more than robust in dispatching the team with baseball’s best record, St. Louis, and also clinching a series at Wrigley Field for the first time in franchise history (Wrigley is only 101 years old).

…Will Ferrell as Harry Caray. It’s eerie.

Joe Maddon and…

Meanwhile, a potential Cubs-Mets NLCS would yield a celebrity harvest of John Cusack, Bill Murray and Eddie Vedder for the North Siders and Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld (and JR Moehringer) for the lads from Queens. If the Dodgers win, we get more Magic Johnson. You decide.

Meanwhile, how about Theo Epstein? Did Michael Lewis write the wrong book, Aaron Sorkin the wrong movie? Here’s a man who, before his 42nd birthday, may bring championships to fan bases that waited 86 and 107 years, respectively, for a World Series. Let him work on the tax code next.

Men who appeared in “Singles” and “Better Off Dead

Meanwhile, both the Mets and Dodgers sent ambassadors to watch Game 4.

2. Feel The Bern

“What the hell!?! I thought we were going to see Criss Angel!”

The five Democratic presidential candidates held a debate in Las Vegas last night as elsewhere in the city, EMS workers were grappling with the fact that they were unable to airlift Lamar “Oh, Brothel, Where Art Thou” Odom and his 6’10” frame from the Love Ranch South to a hospital (I hope he did not take a rookie).

I didn’t watch much, but it sounds as if Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were the only two to walk away from the tables with more money than they walked in with. I like Bernie, even though 78% of the time he fits George Costanza’s description of an angry sea: “Like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli…”

Meanwhile, it may be time to send Curt Schilling over to Syria….

3. Mmm, Mmm, Good Bit

I’ve only seen Stephen Colbert on Late Show in bits and pieces, and so maybe it’a a little early, but my quick take is that I miss the character. In the early part of the show, when he gets to just be the snarkmeister he was on The Colbert Report, he’s fantastic. Once guests come on and he’s simply the decent human being that he happens to be in real life, the interviews need work (unless he’s interviewing a natural foil, such as Trump).

Anyway, this bit on Campbell’s Soup new ad with two dads and the resulting outcry from the “One Million Moms” activist group is classic Colbert Report, right down to the final connection between Campbell’s and a certain pop culture icon. Brilliant stuff.

p.s. I like that Seth Meyers has reverted to a “deskalogue” and realized, Why scrap something I do so well? Here’s hoping that Colbert brings “The Word” to his new venture.

4. Oh, Brother, Here Art Thou

Here’s the thing about Seth Meyers’s younger brother, Josh Meyers, who is an actor: He’s both devilishly handsome AND an extremely entertaining talk-show guest. Last night Josh appeared on big brother’s show and the opening anecdote was about how Josh emailed Seth to tell him that he was in town on Monday so that the two Vermont natives, who are Pittsburgh Steeler fans, would be able to watch the Steelers on on Monday Night Football. “Great,” Seth replied, “What are you doing in town?”

Josh: “I’m appearing on your show.”

Josh also had an interesting take on social media, particularly Twitter: “‘Northwestern just scored! I have an opinion! Let me share it!’ Who cares!?!” (Guilty….and he’s right).

Anyway, Josh Meyers looks and sounds like a guy who is more talented than any of the material he’s been handed thus far (though I’ve never seen him anywhere except on his brother’s couch). Funny guy. Charming. Keep an eye on him.

5. Where In The World?

Yesterday: Crescent Lake, in the Gobi Desert, China

Music 101

Because The Night

I’m sure there are other candidates (“Nothing Compares 2 U,” from Prince to Sinead O’Connor), but this is one of the best examples of a song written by a famous artist (Bruce Springsteen) that became the signature tune of another artist (Patti Smith and, yes, I’ve got Manfred Mann on my mind as well). The “Behind The Music” story of the song is that the two artists were recording in adjacent studios and that Springsteen scrapped it before truly finishing it. Smith wrote a lot of the lyrics that appear on the song that rose to No. 13 in 1978. Still, it’s about as Springsteen-y sounding a song as you will find, and of course Bruce cannot resist playing it himself.

Remote Patrol

Rangers-Blue Jays, Game 5

FS1 4:07 p.m.

Astros-Royals, Game 5

FS1, 8:07 p.m.

“If you need a base hit/And a steady mitt/Lo Cain He don’t lie, he don’t lie, he don’t lie…Lo Cain”

Harold Reynolds is as popular in Canada as Chase Utley is in New York City. Two elimination games, one beginning in the afternoon. I love October baseball!

by John Walters

Happy 48th to Kate Walsh, who’s not a doctor, but she plays one on TV…

Also happy birthday to the sister of an MH staffer, who does not play a doctor on TV…

Starting Five

Matt Harvey is the Dark Knight, but Yoenis Cespedes is Bat Flip Man

1. Departing Flights

Salvador Perez

Carlos Gomez

Correa: Did you know he’s only 21? (Yes, you did)

Carlos Correa

Carlos Core again

Colby Rasmus

Eric Hosmer

Josh Donaldson

Kevin Pillar

Kyle Schwarber

Starlin Castro

Bryant’s first career postseason home run. Many more to come…

Kris Bryant

Anthony Rizzo

Jason Heyward

Jorge Soler

Dexter Fowler

Stephen Piscotty

Travis d’Arnaud

Yoenis Cespedes (BOMB!)

Adrian Gonzalez

Howie Kendrick

One day of playoff baseball, four games, 21 home runs, which is a Major League Baseball record for dongs in one day of the postseason (in unrelated news, Florida QB Will Grier was suspended for an entire season for using an over-the-counter supplement). There were also a total of 61 runs scored. Are you not entertained? Only one of the eight teams, the Texas Rangers, failed to hit a home run on Monday.

2. Another Day, Another USC, Another Steve…

Spurrier: From Heisman Trophy winner to beloved HBC

The HBC is now the FHBC, as Steve Spurrier resigns in the midst of a season when everyone could see the handwriting on the wall. He took South Carolina places it had never been, although he was unable to get them to the summit he had gotten the Gators to in Gainesville. He departs, at the age of 70, with a record of 228-89-2 and one national championship, at Florida, in 1996.

The HBC also owns a Heisman Trophy and some of the most memorable quotes in the history of coaching. No one was more unapologetically pleased if a barb at the expense of an opponent was actually. My favorite is when he saluted Peyton Manning for returning for a senior season at Tennessee because “he wants to become a three-time Citrus Bowl MVP.”

Spurrier, by the way, is originally from Tennessee. A glorious career and a highly intelligent man who never lacked for confidence in doing things his way who also just happened to have the keenest of wits. Here’s one of his former players, Florida walk-on offensive lineman Andy Staples, with a few words….

By the way, my Top 5 for vacant Southern Cal job: 1) Chip Kelly 2) Chris Petersen, Boise State 3) Brian Kelly, Notre Dame (why not?) 4) Tom Herman, Houston (raised in Simi Valley, and was actually a PA at XTRA sports radio in LA) 5) Bryan Harsin, Boise State.

3. Novocure: The Cure for the Common Stock Portfolio*

Novocure involves putting wires on your head. Whatever works

*At least for now….

On October 2, just 11 days ago, the cancer drug biotech Novocure (NVCR) went public with an IPO price of $22. But this was in the shadow of that dude who had hiked the price of his company’s AIDS pill %5,500, and the subsequent Hillary Clinton tweet that made everyone loathe biotechs, or at least their stock prices, for a few days.

So NVCR quickly sank to $20 a share. Five days later, on October 7, or last Wednesday, the stock plummeted to $15 per share. At that point Jim Cramer opened his show, which airs after the closing bell, Mad Money, by featuring NVCR. “This is exactly the kind of recent biotech IPO that I think is worth betting on,” Cramer said, “and the fact that Novocure is down nearly 19 percent from where it came public last Friday only makes that opportunity more attractive,” Cramer said.

You may loathe Cramer — I don’t, which is not to say that I think he always speaks the gospel truth. But this time I listened. Today the stock reached a peak of $30.89, or in other words greater than a one-hundred percent leap in just six days. That doesn’t happen very often.

4. Aggie-ravated Assault (or Worse)

Former Texas A&M wide receiver Thomas Johnson has some anger issues. On Monday morning Johnson, 21, who withdrew from school a couple of years ago, hacked a random jogger to death on the White Rock Creek Trail in Dallas.

Two bizarre footnotes: 1) Johnson had three catches (thrown by Johnny Manziel) in the Aggies’ upset of No. 1 Alabama in Tuscaloosa in 2012 and 2) three other people were killed near White Rock Lake on Monday in two other unrelated incidents. Four homicides, three incidents, if you’re keeping score. Is that better or worse than a lone gunman on a shooting spree?

5. Where In The World?

Friday’s answer: Eiffel Tower

Music 101

Animal

This tune from Provo’s finest, Neon Trees, reached No. 13 on the Billboard chart in 2010. They first gained exposure by opening for The Killers in 2008 and I have to wonder if they wrote this song before or after that since it sounds exactly like a song The Killers would write.

Remote Patrol

Cardinals at Cubs, Game 4

TBS, 4:37 p.m.

Dodgers at Mets, Game 4

TBS 8:37 p.m.

Meet the Matz! Mets rookie pitching phenom (no, not that one, the other one…no, the OTHER one) Steven Matz who, like his franchise, is from Long Island (Stony Brook… the Mets play in Queens, but it is part of Long Island), gets the chance to send Clayton Kershaw to an 0-2 postseason….again. But first in Wrigley, John Lackey tries to keep baseball’s best team during the season from dropping out in the divisional round. A Mets-Cubs NCLS would be insane, though.

by John Walters

No, silly, these are not identical twins. That’s Hugh Jackman, above, who turns 47 today, and devoted MH reader and good friend Greg Auman, below, who turned 40 yesterday.

Starting Five

1. Sark-nado

USC head football coach Steve Sarkisian is asked to take a leave of absence (“He gone”) by athletic director Pat Haden after arriving at football practice on Sunday and, according to one anonymous player, having the smell of liquor on his breath.

You know about the “(Bleeping’) Fight On!” scene at the USC booster event in August. I’ve got an unconfirmed report that Sark was not exactly on his best behavior during Pac-12 media days two weeks earlier. Also, when USC played at Arizona State on September 26, people tell me that Sark was acting bizarre when the Trojans came out for warm-ups, yelling at ASU players and random other people on the field.

It’s sadly apparent that Sark, 40, has a substance abuse problem of some sort. Also, that he’s not going to to be coaching any more games on the north sideline at the Coliseum. He needs help for his problem, and no school the size of USC can expect to compete for recruits when the parents of four- and five-stars know that the head coach has a substance abuse problem. Four-star LB Daelin Hayes of Ann Arbor, Mich., who had verbally committed to Troy last summer, already decommitted. He will be at the USC-Notre Dame game this Saturday in South Bend.

Sark led the Cougars to a 14-1 season in his senior year. Provo is a dry campus.

But this also falls on Pat Haden’s leadership. When Sark behaved so odd at the booster function and then it was left to Cody Kessler and the Trojan team captains to “discipline” him? And they had him do up-downs, as if he had arrived late to a meeting as opposed to being publicly intoxicated at a team function? No one there took this seriously enough until it was too late.

Weird Facts You May Not Know About Sark: 1) Had no scholarship offers coming out of high school, but led Brigham Young to a 14-1 record in 1996 as a senior (the Cougars were the first D-IA team to win 14 games in a season) and 2) He once completed 31 of 34 passes in a game, setting a then-NCAA record for completion percentage in a game at 91.2%.

2. Happiness Is a Warm Gun

Why does Taran Killam look so much like Jason Sudeikis?

Comedienne Amy Schumer hosted Saturday Night Live and this gun clip (!) is the most memorable moment. You may remember there was a fatal mass shooting at a showing of her film The Trainwreck this summer, but who can keep up with all the mass shootings?

3. Nicked Chubb

Ow

Another SEC game featuring Tennessee, another devastating knee injury to the rusher on the other side (remember Marcus Lattimore). Georgia’s Nick Chubb, Medium Happy‘s preseason pick to win the Grange Award, is lost for the season on the first play from scrimmage in Knoxville. Because it’s Georgia, where a little misery is never enough, the Bulldogs later blew a 24-3 lead and lost to the Vols. Grayson Lambert did throw a go-ahead 55 or so yard TD catch late, but the ball fell through his receiver’s hand. It isn’t easy living Live Between the Hedges.

4. Utley Chased Out of New York

Whenever they say “head over heels,” the heels are usually, in fact, over the head….

Phillies Dodgers second baseman Chase Utley has been excused from taking part in Games 3 and 4 at Citi Field. and in what is the most hated slide in New York City postseason history in perhaps ever. I mean, Hal McRae bowled over Willie Randolph in 1977…

…and Pete Rose got frisky with Bud Harrelson in 1973, but neither player suffered a broken fibula as did the Mets’ Ruben Tejada.

My take: It wasn’t so much about the location of Utley’s slide, it was how late (Utley is practically at the base before he even begins to drop into his slide) he began the slide. And yes, it was also about Tejada making an awkward and likely unnecessary pivot because he was never turning two on that play. And if you want to argue that such slides are commonplace, you may be right. In fact, FS1 aired a timely montage of such slides just from this postseason.

The difference is that this one broke someone’s leg, and it happened in prime time in the postseason, and in a game featuring the two largest market teams and, yes, arguably it cost the Mets the game. And so of course MLB feels under some pressure to take punitive action.

5. Herding Zombies

The first 300 finishers receive a T-shirt…

Missed opportunity for the producers of The Walking Dead in last night’s Season 6 premiere. As Sasha and Abraham were leading the walkers away from Alexandria, their radio should have been blaring Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way.”

Meanwhile, why did they have Rick (?) tell the others, “We’ll do it live?” Does one of the show’s writers have a jones for referencing obscure Bill O’Reilly meltdowns?

Hey, I’m not a football coach and I don’t understand all the minutiae of the game, but if you’ve got a thousand or so zombies trapped in a quarry, why not, instead of wondering when a wall will give way, why not set the quarry on fire and let them burn? Do zombies not burn (Is this something I should know)?

Anyway, seems like a colossally stupid strategic blunder by Rick, just supposing Daryl’s good looks and motorcycle would be enough to lure all the zombies down a road out of town (maybe if all the zombies are 40 year-old housewives, sure…). It felt like Lonesome Dove meets Dawn of the Dead.

Here’s one review...

Music 101

I’m Your Captain/Closer To Home

There wasn’t much funky about Grand Funk Railroad, but they were an authentic and internationally acclaimed blues rock band in the early Seventies (Have I ever told you how lucky I feel to have grown up when I did? I have? Oh, well…). This 1970 tune helped launch this Flint, Michigan, band, who one year later sold out Shea Stadium in 72 hours, or less time than it took the Beatles to do so. Not even nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is silly (Janet Jackson?!?! Really? C’mon.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8MYsii4DZY

Remote Patrol

Dodgers at Mets, Game 3

TBS 8 p.m.

A plunking we will go, a plunking we will go….The Dark Knight, Mets pitcher Matt Harvey, will likely not bean any Los Angelenos because 1) he could get tossed and 2) why give this anemic-hitting team a free base? The first postseason game in ever at Citi Field. It’ll be absolutely electric.