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.

…..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)