*This is our new home run call, at least for this player during this run
Even the analytics guys cannot spoil this moment for us. Sixty-one years after Roger Maris belted number 61 in 1961, Aaron Judge becomes only the second American League player (and second Yankee) to smile number 61. Meanwhile, a guy named Franke Lasagna, sitting in the first row of Toronto’s elevated left field seats and having brought a glove to the game, whiffs on admittedly what would have been a terrific catch on a baseball traveling at more than 100 m.p.h.
We’d spent the past few nights watching and reveling on the blossoming relationship between Roger Maris, Jr., and Patty Judge (we know: she’s married). By Tuesday we’d even come up with this movie tease: “He broke his father’s home-run record; she broke his heart… ‘Love At First Bat,’ coming to theaters this Christmas.”
Aaron Judge seems like a genuinely good guy. We are happy to say we watched his first Major League at-bat (a home run to dead center in Yankee Stadium) and feel confident that the wealthiest (or one of two) organization in baseball will pay him handsomely this winter and not lose him to Manchester United (about the only other franchise that could afford him). Of course, it would help if the Yanks win the Fall Classic. Lots of drama ahead.
Hurricane Ian strikes Florida’s southerly west coast and it is a banger. Besides being the only hurricane in memory whose name is fully included in the letters of “hurricane,” Ian has brought its 15 m.p.h. winds to places such as Fort Myers and Captiva Island (only 2 m.p.h. below a Category-5 hurricane… imagine if Ian had juiced). And then there’s all that water (it supposedly emptied all the water out of Tampa Bay, and we’re not sure how all of that water displacement works, but we’ve seen the photos). We read yesterday that one cubic yard of water weight 1,600 pounds, which we found difficult to believe, but if true, this explains so much of the devastation. That and winds that turn power lines into match sticks. And… whew… we managed to get through this entire item without mentioning that Gov. Ron DeSantis is a neo-Nazi.
The Hilaree Step Off
If you had not heard of Hilaree Nelson before last week, what you might have learned is that she lived that sort of adventurous life that every longtime subscriber of Outside magazine aspires to. Nelson, 49, lived in the idyllic Colorado mountain town of Telluride with her life partner, Jim Morrison, and two sons. She seemed to make a living by living adventurously, scaling some of the world’s tallest peaks and then, yes, skiing down them. In this video Nelson, a fit beauty and that was likely part of her commercial appeal, describes her ethos:
“I seek out suffering because through suffering I get to know myself a lot more.” Suffering, sure. But not death.
On Monday Nelson and Morrison were skiing in Nepal, down the summit of Mountain Manaslu, the world’s eighth-tallest peak, when she was taken under by a small avalanche. It took two days before rescuers could locate her body. Ten years ago Nelson became the first female in the world to summit both Mount Everest and Lhotse (world’s tallest and 4th-tallest peaks) in a span of 24 hours. The two peaks are separated by a saddle, which Nelson skied across.
We think of the death of free climber Dean Potter. Or of the survival of the protagonist of Free Solo, Alex Hannold. We are fascinated by Nelson and Potter and Hannold because—at least to us—here are people fortunate enough to live in a free society and have first-world problems and yet their thirst for adventure compels them to take the biggest gamble of all: to gamble with their lives when there are zero external forces obligating this. We, at least, think of the millions and millions of people throughout history who never had that luxury, who lost their lives because they were simply born in the wrong country or belonged to the “wrong” religion or were conscripted into battle. And, please understand, we in no way are judging Nelson or the others for this choice. Live your life the way you want. It’s only that, to me, this is why we find these people so compelling. How many humans are willing to risk their lives for… adventure?
Someone on one of Hilaree’s YouTube videos commented, yesterday, that they wonder if she’d think it was worth it all now. We don’t think of it that way. Of course someone who had the appetite for life that Nelson did would never want to have hers extinguished prematurely. We guess the other way to look at it is, How much more living did Hilaree Nelson do in her 49 years than most people would do in 90? RIP.
Balk Showalter
Back to Rule No. 7, which states, as you know by now, that “Every Major League Baseball game offers the possibility to witness something you’ve never seen before.” And you don’t have to be Frankie Lasagna to appreciate that. On Tuesday at Citi Field something we cannot recall seeing: the same Miami Marlins pitcher, Richard Bleier, called for a balk three times during one at-bat. There needs to be a sports doc about this moment. How and why did this happen?
Watch the video. You can definitely make the argument that pitchers balk the way offensive linemen hold (are you going to call it every play?). But as you watch this video, you’ll see that Bleier has a little history with the Blue and maybe they’re reminding him here who’s boss. I dunno. But to allow a two-out single and then see the runner score on a trio of balks? And they wonder why baseball lags behind the NFL and the NBA! Actually, we love the idiosyncrasy and, yes, the possible pettiness.
We missed most of Saturday’s games, so this one will be briefer…
Can U C USC?
Forget for a moment whether you can see USC as a playoff team… I’ll get to that in a bit… Could U C USC last Saturday night? If you do not have the Pac-12 Network, you could not see the Trojans game in Corvallis versus Oregon State. I actually have the Pac-12 Network (555 on Cox cable) and my screen read “One Moment Please, This Channel Should Be Available Shortly.” It was not; still isn’t, though it has worked in the past. My Pac-12 Network is a lot like USC’s offense, apparently: inconsistent.
While much has been made of the Trojans’ ballyhooed transfer haul (upgrades at QB, RB, WR and HC), there are two reasons that we should probably begin to take USC seriously this season: 1) the Trojans lead the nation in turnover margin, and not by a little. USC not only has a +14 in this category after four games but are tied for first both in most turnovers forced (14) and in least turnovers committed (0). This is what good teams do. 2) USC might have choked on the road at Reser Stadium, and yes a dominant team might not have had as much trouble on the road versus an unranked opponent (hello, Clemson?), but the point is they found a way to win. Both of USC’s touchdowns were scored in the fourth quarter and both drives featured a 4th-down conversion. The first came on 4th-and-2 from the Beaver 7, as Travis Dye took a handoff and ran right, untouched, for the score. Then, on the 11-play game-winning drive, there was a Bush Push Deja Vu 4th down play at midfield in which quarterback Caleb Williams first appeared to be stopped on 4th-and-6. Later in the drive Williams hit Jordan Addison for the game-winning TD pass. Dye. Williams. Addison. All plucked off the internet by USC in the offseason.
We’ve watched this play nearly 10 times. No question that two Big Uglies—the center and the left guard—saved USC’s season. Our question: Hadn’t Williams’ forward progress already been stopped? Why wasn’t this whistled dead yet?
Welcome to 2022. The Trojans are definitely the early leaders in CFB’s Brave New World division. Let’s hope we can all see them play come Oct. 15 in Salt Lake City versus Utah, which until proven otherwise, remains the class of the Pac-12.
We were inches away from Jimbo and Texas A&M suffering their second loss of… September. Then the above happened. What made it even better is that ESPN’s play-by-play man was Joe Tessitore, whose son was a college kicker and who’s attended more kicking camps than probably all the other college broadcasters combined. So after the Arkansas kicker Little’s miss—and we’ve never seen one drink off the TOP of an upright—here was Tess explaining in excruciating detail how his right foot got too far under the ball which caused over-rotation, which caused the ball to sail to the right. Great stuff here. Unless you are a Hog.
This is what redemption looks like. Quarterback Adrian Martinez, late of Nebraska, has found a home in Manhattan (If he can make it there, he’ll make it—oops, wrong Manhattan) as he led Kansas State to its third win over Oklahoma of the past four years. This TD run was phenomenal, a moment he’ll never forget. By the way, a guy we know knows a guy in Lincoln who says that Martinez’s successor with the Huskers, Charles Thompson, is not at all popular with his teammates. You may recall that Thompson was formerly the quarterback at Texas. I know, it’s difficult to keep track of all the QB transients.
There’s The Beef
Notre Dame exited the playoff conversation by mid-September (you’re welcome), but last Saturday in Chapel Hill this season’s team may have found its identity. Or borrowed one from Jim Harbaugh’s and David Shaw’s vintage Stanford squads, known for imposing “intellectual brutality.” The Irish rushed for 287 yards as the offensive line at long last lived up to its preseason hype. Sophomore offensive tackles Joe Alt and Blake Fisher (54, above) each run around 6’7″, 320 and will be NFL high-round draft picks. Last Saturday the Irish ran behind them and it also helped to have a third running back, Logan Diggs, back in the fold. Audric Estime scored the most carries (and gained a career-high 134 yards) and reminds us of a junior Jerome Bettis. This year’s Irish are suddenly competitive and while the offense won’t be sexy, with an offensive line like this and a 2023 first-round NFL tight end in Michael Mayer, it’ll be an offense that pulverizes you. Very Lou Holtz-ish, actually.
Is Alt (76) the first modern-day player named after a keyboard function? If the name is familiar, his dad was a two-time Pro Bowler with the Kansas City Chiefs and his older brother skates for the Los Angeles Kings.
The B.S. Wonders…
Another weekend with no Premier League? Did the Queen die again?… Speaking of Premier League-related issues, we’d like to suggest to our good friend Ralph Russo at the Associated Press that he employ relegation rules for his writers who vote in the weekly AP poll. How are a pair of 3-1 Pac-12 teams ahead of 4-0 Washington (if you get credit for good losses over being undefeated, then why is fellow Pac-12 school USC ahead of 3-1 Oregon and Utah while the Huskies are not)? Who actually voted for 2-2 North Carolina (never mind that the Tar Heels had just lost to 2-2 Notre Dame at home while the Irish received no votes, and justifiably so)? How does 4-0 Kansas not merit a spot in the Top 25? If you’re this incompetent at polling, you should lose your position. Plenty of folks (Oh, I dunno who) would gladly do this and better than the existent lot… When will College GameDay visit Fansville and make Hot Mom the celebrity guest picker?…. By the way, on October 15 we’ve got Penn State at Michigan (both could be undefeated) and USC at Utah (Utes with one loss) and I know where I’d vote for Rece and the Gang to visit, but let’s put it this way: there’s a very good chance the guest pickers will be The Chainsmokers… Two baseball rules I’d incorporate, if even just for one game during spring training to liven things up: 1) after each inning, a player must switch to a new position (nine players, nine innings: it’s a natural) and 2) with no runners on base, the batter has a choice whether to run toward first (CCW) or toward third (CW). Thereafter, in that inning, once a player reaches base, that team maintains same direction… Did you see the feature on Career Redemption in Tuscaloosa, where Butch Jones revealed that he earned $4 million his last season at Tennessee as HC (we knew that) and $30,000 the next year as an analyst for Nick Saban? Loved the detail about “infield” and “outfield” at the coaches’ meetings and also that Mike Locksley was a glorified summer camp counselor as part of his gig, taking kids to the swimming pool. Just a terrific piece by Woj—even if it did adhere to Norby standards of only talking about one of eight different programs in college football… Since you asked: Bama, Ohio State, Michigan, Clemson, Georgia, Notre Dame, USC and Texas… Speaking of the Longhorns, did you realize that eight of the ten Big 12 schools have a better record than Texas (2-2) and the ninth, WVU, has the same record? Yes, kudos to UT for scheduling Bama, but still… Is it just us or does Oklahoma seem to annually play an exciting prime-time game in Norman that more often than not lately ends in defeat to someone from Kansas or Iowa?.. Yes, it’s early, but did you realize that Air Force is averaging an insane 412 yards rushing per game? This is Steph Curry-like, as no other team is averaging as many as 295. Dating back to 2009, no school has finished a season averaging as many as 380 yards per game on the ground. So if you’re looking for the Ultimate Misnomer Award, Air Force has it seemingly wrapped up… What will Fox do come November when the World Cup is upon us? We know Rob Stone was a college soccer player and must be hosting the network’s World Cup coverage (from soccer-mad Qatar!) again as he did from Moscow in 2018. So who’ll take the emcee duties at Fox? Kevin Burkhardt’s otherwise engaged with the NFL… Would you not love seeing Aaron Judge’s 62nd home run being an inside-the-park job, which means that it would likely end up in the glove of the opposing team’s catcher?… Roger Federer-Serena vs. Rafael Nadal-Venus. Make it happen… With Kate McKinnon and Pete Davidson gone, who are the top remaining SNL players ahead of this weekend’s season debut? Our ranking: 1) Kenan Thompson, the show’s ultimate Iron Horse, whose mere presence makes you smile, 2) Cecily Strong and 3) Heidi Gardner, both of whom are extremely talented actresses in their own right, 4) Mikey Day, almost by process of elimination (Kyle Mooney, Chris Redd and Alex Moffat all left) and 5) Sarah Sherman, last season’s Rookie of the Year. We did not include Che/Jost in this ranking, but “Weekend Update” should remain the “I’ll-stay-up-until” standard, or at least until the musical guests stop sucking…
** The judges acknowledge that “Charles In Charge” is simply too obvious
It was a mighty majestic run, Queen Elizabeth II, beginning with Winston Churchill as your prime minister and pretty much ending with Boris Johnson (although Liz Truss got in just under he wire, the 16th different person to hold that role in Her Majesty’s 70-year reign). Elizabeth II passes from this mortal coil with the longest reign in the history of the British monarchy (which extends nearly a millennium itself), surpassing the 63-year reign of her great-great grandmother, Queen Victoria (63 years), about whom they referred to an entire half-plus century as the “Victorian Era.”
One solid thing about the queen: she knew how to behave in public. Thus far, less than one week on the job, her son, King Charles, has faltered at that badly.
Then there’s this edifying moment from last Friday. Actor Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon), who is Welsh, provides this articulate history lesson on September 16, it’s meaning to the Welsh people, the title “Prince of Wales,” and Charles’ curious decision to visit Cardiff just one day into his reign. It takes a few minutes, but Sheen is a gifted raconteur. It’s worth your time.
And for those of you who, like me, wondered how on earth you spell that name Sheen keeps repeating, it is Owain Glyndwr Day, commemorating the date in 1400 when he claimed the title.
Max Effort*
*The judges will also accept, “Buck Stopped Here”
Last night in Milwaukee, New York Mets pitcher Max Scherzer took the hill for the first time since Sept. 3. Scherzer, a future first-ballot Hall of Famer, pitched a perfect game through six innings. Nine strikeouts and only 68 pitches. Then manager Buck Showalter, the thinking man’s manager, lifted him.
Now, we get it. You want Max’s arm to be at full strength in October, something it was not when the Dodgers rented him last season. Also, Scherzer is 38. Finally, as Mets fans know, after Johan Santana pitched the franchise’s first no-hitter in 2012 (134 pitches) he was never the same pitcher again. To wit, from USA Today in 2016:
“To many, Santana stands as a cautionary tale against allowing pitchers to blow past their typical workloads in pursuit of no-hitters. On June 1, 2012, Mets manager Terry Collins allowed Santana to throw 134 pitches in an eight-strikeout, five-walk no-hit effort against the St. Louis Cardinals, the first no-hitter of Santana’s career and the first in Mets’ franchise history. That gem lowered Santana’s season ERA to 2.38, but he posted an 8.27 mark over his final ten starts of the season. He has not pitched in a Major League game since.”
And never did.
But here’s the other side of the coin. There have been, what, about 120 different World Series champions since the first World Series was played in 1903. But there have only been 23 perfect games. And Scherzer, who has two no-hitters and three Cy Youngs on his resume, would surely have liked to add that notch to his mitt. Or so we think. If the Mets go on to win their first World Series since 1986, that may overshadow anything Scherzer would have done on the mound last night. No, we’ll go so far as to say it would have.
68 pitches. That’s just one more than half of what Santana threw over nine innings. And Max was 2/3 home. At least, in our opinion, let him go out and pitch the seventh. If he allows a base hit or a walk or even an error, pull him. If not, then you make up your mind then. We could even live with the yanking. But let’s allow the plot to thicken, no?
However, if the Mets fail to win the World Series (only Mets fans still discuss 2015), then a Scherzer perfect game would have put him in that rare company of Cy Young, Sandy Koufax and Randy Johnson, All fo Famers already with an added perfecto to mention on their plaques. So in that sense Buck Showalter short-changed fans, and Max, last night.
Wheel of 4-Chan*
*The judges salute Twitter follower @WoodburnDuck for this genius hed
Apparently this photo was snapped during a dinner in August. Sajak lives in Maryland and owns a publishing house that has published the “works” of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. Hey, it’s fine to be a Republican (or at least it used to be), but posing with a whackadoodle such as MTG makes us wonder if, going forward, the Wheel of Fortune wheel will feature a “Morally Bankrupt” wedge.
The Bash Brothers
No sport courts history quite the way baseball does (see above item), and for this, the regular season’s penultimate week, we have a doozy for history mavens. In the Bronx, Aaron Judge of the Yankees will chase the American League (and franchise) home run record. El Juez has 59 home runs and needs only three to break Roger Maris’ record. The Yankees have six consecutive home games versus Pittsburgh and Boston, each in last place in their respective divisions. So they may as well pitch to him, no?
You gotta wonder how much HR No. 62 is going to be worth on the collectors’ market. If you catch it, do NOT give it to Aaron Judge. He may be your favorite Yankee, but that’s generational wealth you’re holding in your hand. It’s the type of home run that could inspire Don DeLillo to pen a sequel to Underworld (if you know, you know).
Meanwhile, out west, St. Louis Cardinal slugger Albert Pujols will be chasing career home run No. 700 (which would put him in the same company as immortals Bonds, Aaron and Ruth). A month or two ago, the prospect of Pujols reaching 700 seemed the opposite of near-fetched, but he’s been on a tear since the Home Run Derby (which he took part in) and should have his first 20-home run season since 2019 (he has 19 now). The Cardinals begin a three-game series in San Diego tonight followed by a weekend series at Dodger Stadium. You can imagine the Fox (Saturday) and ESPN (Sunday) execs hoping Albert’s at 699 when their day arrives.
Either way, it’s fantastic baseball theater. Two lucky (and wealthier) baseball fans could be among us this time next week.
Carey, Get Out Your Cane
We’ve boon poring over Joni Mitchell’s classic 1971 album, Blue, which is not only the ultimate breakup album but also has been named by both NPR and Rolling Stone as the greatest album ever by a female artist (and No. 2 all-time). One of the song’s singles, the 4th song on Side 1, is “Carey,” which is actually a misspelling. Mitchell, who was vacationing on the island of Crete with a female friend, sort of running out on her relationship with Graham Nash (whose “Our House” was a devotional to their romance), when she met up with the perfect rebound guy bad boy: a redheaded chef at The Mermaid Cafe named Cary Raditz (above). It was a brief Grecian fling that must have torn Nash’s heart out to hear (she formally broke up with him by telegram while she was abroad). She first performed this song for Raditz for his 24th birthday and then it became a timeless classic, one of many she wrote during this era. Listen to the lyrics. Joni doesn’t leave much out (“Oh, you’re a mean old daddy/but I like you, I like you…“).
Postscript: Raditz is still alive and finally acknowledged that he was the “Carey” in the song about six years ago. Mitchell’s next big romance would be a musician who played on this album: James Taylor. But then JT would explode soon after and she couldn’t handle his fame, or at least that’s how the story goes. Also, there was Carly Simon.
I’m so happy to announce that I’ve been hired as pickleball beat writer at The Athletic and it’s the culmination of all my hopes and dreams and here is my Instagram Stories showing the moment I found out and here is my tweet showing me at the pickleball venue press box three hours before the first game and here is my 2,000-word navel-gazer on how I climbed from the depths of a private high school education to overcome insurmountable odds to become a sports writer and, sure, I could be using this time to actually report or investigate stuff but it’s the Attention Age and it’s all about ME after all and….
We should probably be more charitable (that’ll be our epitaph). We get it: you’re excited about your gig. Please remember, though, that YOU are not the story. The people/team you cover are. For example…
We will not name the writer (and he does not work for The Athletic), but this particular scribe posted a tweet of his perch from a football stadium this past Saturday, multiple hours before kickoff (congratulations! You were… on time), then filed a story about a key player on the team he covers who came over during the offseason via the transfer portal. We read the story and then re-read it to make certain that we had this correct and guess what? There is no mention of this player’s previous school, i.e., from which he transferred. Kind of an important element to the story, no? It’s not just a journalist fail here, but doesn’t this writer have an editor (or a “content producer”)? In related news, ASU’s Cronkite School of Journalism just announced that this year’s honoree for the “Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism is going to…. (checks notes)… Gayle King!
Reporting from the front lines of… Oprah’s Hamptons estate
By the way, last year’s winner of this prestigious award was… Al Roker. The award is really about “Who’s a Big Enough Name To Draw Enough Folks to a $TK,000-a-table Luncheon” the proceeds of which will benefit ASU/Cronkite. Mr. Roker even made a joke about this very fact during his acceptance speech last March (about how he was chosen because they knew he’d be able to afford to buy out a table himself).
True story: one of my grad students attended the luncheon, waited in line to meet Al Roker, and then said to him, “I have no idea who you are but they’re going to be having one of these for me some day.” Wow.
Before we depart from this “Great Moments In Journalism” theme, here’s a tweet from ESPN’s Matt Barrie, which is a little disappointing because Matt does an excellent job at ESPN and, as we’ve noted here before, is actually a very good play-by-play man, even though he only moonlights at that gig. Matt’s an ASU/Cronkite alum and Herm Edwards is an ESPN alum (who will likely soon be returning after being fired on Sunday):
Herm is a damn good man who was given an unrealistic task with some hiring missteps along the way. This is on Ray to get it right. And hire a college football coach.
It’s eye opening though how some in the ASU fan base will turn on their own so quickly. So, thank you. Noted.
This is a tweet Matt is probably already sorry that he sent. Yes, everyone likes Herm and why wouldn’t you? But the task was not “unrealistic” and besides, he was well compensated for it and no one forced him to accept it. Matt’s job here is to take off his Sparky the Sun Devil mask and report that a Power 5 school fired its football coach after an embarrassing home loss to a directional Michigan Group of 5 program, the nadir of a tenure that never got off the ground. Of course Matt is allowed to feel bad that it did not work out for Edwards in Tempe, but to attack ASU fans for simply wanting a better product seems a little less than objective. “Turn on their own?” Does he mean himself? Weird.
The Most Interesting Man In College Football
What a fascinating odyssey it has been for Appalachian State quarterback Chase Brice, who capped a sublime Saturday in Boone, N.C., that opened with a College GameDay visit by tossing a 50-plus yard game-winning Hail Mary pass versus Troy and then helping students down from the stands onto the football field.
Immediately after throwing probably the best pass of the year so far, a Hail Mary game winner, App State QB Chase Brice went over to the stands to help his classmates get down safely while they rushed the field. pic.twitter.com/3uOVGnONff
Let’s review a couple of career highlights of Brice, a 6’3″ redshirt senior from Grayson, Ga., who is now in his SIXTH year of college football:
• 2018: After freshman wunderkind Trevor Lawrence is injured in the first half of his first start for Clemson—previous starter Kelly Bryant had left the program earlier in the week after losing his job to Lawrence— Brice is tapped to rescue the Tigers’ season. Brice is a redshirt frosh with no previous experience and Clemson trails Syracuse by 10 at home in the fourth quarter. Brice will be remembered for completing a 4th-and-6 pass that, had it fallen incomplete, would have meant a loss for Clemson and likely a missed berth in the college football playoff. Clemson goes on to finish 15-0, with Lawrence back under center, and winning the national championship.
• In 2020, while pursuing a master’s degree at Duke, Brice completes 20 of 25 passes in a 48-0 loss to Miami that was played in front of no spectators due to Covid. Brice started 11 games for the Blue Devils in 2020, almost all of them played in front of zero fans due to Covid. He completed at least 20 passes in six of those games as the Blue Devils finished 2-9, but he did play in front of sparse crowds at Notre Dame and at Florida State.
• In 2021 joins App. State and is named Sun Belt Conference Newcomer of the Year while throwing for a school-record single-seasons passing yardage mark of 3,337 yards. Starts all 14 games for the Mountaineers.
° Earlier this month threw a school-record six touchdown passes and led App State to 40 fourth-quarter points in the wild 63-61 loss at home to North Carolina. The wildest game of the season and it’ll be hard for any game to top it.
• For those of us who thought App. State might suffer a hangover after that defeat to UNC, we were wrong. Brice led the Moutaineers into College Station and pulled off the convincing upset against No. 8 Texas A&M. If you’re scoring at home, that’s the second time Brice has visited Kyle Field (previously the week before his playing debut with Clemson in 2018, also a win).
• Tops that top-10 upset with a Hail Mary heave to beat Troy on the very day that College GameDay makes its inaugural visit to Boone. Chase Brice has wrung out every last drop of his college experience, and fas in Boon have already had more thrills in two home games this season than most schools’ fans receive in a decade. Then, as you can see above, he actually helps fellow students make their way safely from the stands to the field.
College Football’s Most Interesting Man, three weeks in.
******
“Do your fuckin’ job!”
— Notre Dame offensive coordinator Tommy Rees to quarterback Drew Pyne after a series in which the Irish’s next-man-up QB ditched a gimme five-yard pass to TE Michael Mayer into the turf. Kudos to NBC for airing this moment of unabashed candor from inside Notre Dame Stadium, where the Go ND propaganda often runs thick.
We have a few questions for the NBC troops, since you brought it up: 1) Why didn’t anyone question why the Irish, with the ball at midfield and :04 on the clock before halftime, chose to punt rather than have Pyne heave a Hail Mary (she’s the school’s namesake, for Lord’s sake!) toward the north end zone? Were they trying to protect Pyne’s QBR? Did they know that Pyne cannot heave it that far? Or was this simply a failure of imagination? 2) Why aren’t NBC’s new boothers, Jac Collinsworth and Jason Garrett, discussing why Pyne is Notre Dame’s best option at quarterback (or why he isn’t)? And we don’t mean among ND’s stable of QBs currently, but why were the Irish not able to secure a better backup via the transfer portal?
Okay, sure, Buchner is a sophomore, so any quarterback coming to South Bend would be aware that he may never supplant Buchner, but still, you’re always one play away from being the starter (as this season has demonstrated) at a big-time national brand school that plays 11 nationally televised games a year that always garner spectacular ratings. You’re telling us the Irish coaching staff couldn’t persuade a better QB to come to South Bend? Moreover, you know it’s not going to be discussed (even if they show Drew Pyne’s dad), but there may be something to the fact that George Pyne is a very successful sports media executive operating out of Fairfield County, Conn., which is also home to… NBC Sports.
The Pyne pedigree is something. Three generations of Pyne men played in the NFL, dating all the way back to the Providence Steamrollers of 1931. George is on the board of the National Football Foundation and the National Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of New York. Great, that should earn his son a spot on campus and even a preferred walk-on slot on the team. And, to be fair, Drew Pyne has not been abysmal. It’s just that when you watch that Guinness ad in which NFL legend Joe Montana states that as a freshman at Notre Dame he worked himself down to seventh string, that should particularly sting to Notre Dame fans watching as they wonder what strings two through five on that team must have looked like and then compared it to who the Irish are currently sending onto the field. Next Saturday in Chapel Hill, Pyne will go up against Tar Heel redshirt frosh Drake Maye, who tossed nine TDs in his first two starts.
Drew Pyne was thrust into a role that, frankly, is above his pay grade considering the school he attends (this is not an Ian Book situation). He’d probably be a fairly decent Ivy League quarterback (his dad was a star player at Brown). But it’s on Notre Dame’s coaching staff that this is their Buchner backup.
By the way, quite a few legacy names on Notre Dame’s current roster: You’ve got a younger Eifert (bro of Tyler), a younger Hinish (bro of Kurt), a younger Ratigan (son of former player and team doc), a younger Powlus, a younger Salerno (his big bro’s still on roster), and even a younger Polian (son of former special teams coach). And I guess we’d have to add Jac Collinsworth to that mix. Now we don’t know how many of these players will pan out or are simply there to fluff up the team GPA and/or as legacy favors, but man, that’s a higher quotient for a team that is short on talent, no?
A couple of notes on Jac C.: as the swiftest-promoted legacy this side of Charlie Ebersol, he generally has done a solid job his first two broadcasts. Let’s be clear: he’d never have this gig minus his last name, but he’s been… fine. A couple of slip-ups we noticed besides the Hail Mary omission before halftime: 1) after a late Notre Dame punt rolled into the end zone, Jac noted that Cal would have the ball on its 25 (no, that’s just for kickoffs… it’s still the 20). 2) With the Irish bleeding clock late and facing a 3rd-and-8, Jac asked Garrett if you’d let Pyne throw here. I nearly choked on my Fresca. The fact that Garrett did not reply with a demonstrative, “NO!” was also disappointing.
This is the offsides call against Cal on the missed field goal, which helped set up Notre Dame's opening touchdown. Not only is no one offsides, the box score lists the offending player as No. 50. There is no No. 50 for Cal on the play. pic.twitter.com/n1msMYakAJ
And here is a look at Saturday’s officiating crew…
(Thank you, ARB; file this under “Jokes That Never Would’ve Run at The Athletic”)
Finally, that Cal Hail Mary pass should’ve worked. But I guess when you attempt a Hail Mary in the shadow of Hail Mary atop the dome against Her team, things may not fall your way.
College GameDay: The Bro Show II
Everyone’s entitled to their own preferred tailgate beverage: maybe you prefer a Bloody Mary or a craft beer. Maybe you’re a sicko and imbibe white zin. I’m not here to judge. But I’ve found myself not watching the Fox pre-game show because it’s too much three former college football bros living in a bubble (and reliving their glory days). I used to prefer College GameDay because of nonpareil host Rece Davis and a smattering of ages and viewpoints. The perfect number of panelists was three with Des, Herbie and the Coach, Lee Corso. It was like the Mod Squad if you subbed in an octogenarian for Peggy Lipton.
But now as Corso, understandably, cannot handle the rigors of a three-plus hour show (I’m a viewer and I can’t), ESPN has put both David Pollack AND Pat McAfee on the panel and it’s just another Bro Show.
First, less is more. Second, too many homogenous opinions. Third, it may just be us, but you can almost feel Desmond bristling at this new set-up (Hey, guys, remember I’m the only Heisman winner and/or Super Bowl MVP on this panel). Frankly, we don’t blame him.
We would suggest that Rece, who’s the single-most valuable talent ESPN’s college football universe has, is also aware of and not all that thrilled with the new set-up. On Saturday the show landed South Carolina coach Shane Beamer (a real Cock Commander) as he walked he field of Williams-Brice Stadium during pre-game warmups. McAfee noted that the last time that he and Beamer had seen one another was “on a private island when the power went out.” After the interview concluded, Davis quipped, ““Really sorry to hear about the first-world problems you guys are having on private islands.”
Yes. Exactly. Thank you, Rece. It truly is incredible how grounded Rece Davis remains. He may wonder if fans/viewers appreciate it. We do.
The B.S. Wonders…
If College GameDay cannot provide an insightful, objective view of college football in its three-hour window any more (and it doesn’t), does it really need to bleed over 10 minutes into its fourth hour just for its picks section? You’ll notice that games on Fox kick off promptly at noon Eastern time while those on Disney’s ESPN/ABC kicked off this weekend closer to 12:12. Delay of game on Norby… Is there so little imagination on Madison Avenue that, with more than 10,000 college football players to choose from, both Dr. Pepper and Nissan make Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young the player face of their campaigns? Young is a fabulous player, even a worthy Heisman winner as a sophomore, but where is the creativity? You’ve still got Smoke Monday (Auburn) out there, and Bumper Pool (Arkansas), and there must be some way to connect transferring your car insurance allegiance to a Jordan Addison or a Will Levis? I mean, can’t Stetson Bennett represent what happens to a product that is underappreciated but outperforms?… What exactly happened to Gus Johnson to cause him to miss the rest of the OU-Nebraska game, and wouldn’t it have been cool if Jenny Taft could have landed an exclusive one-on-one with Gus to find out?…
At the risk of piling on College GameDay (props for visiting the correct Boone after all, by the way), why head to Knoxville when you’ve got 3-0 USC at 3-0 Oregon State and, for the hoop heads, 3-0 Duke at 3-0 Kansas? So maybe the lyrics should read “We’re comin’/ To your ci-tay/If it’s east of/The Mississi-pay!”… Why did UCLA kick off in Pasadena at 11 a.m. local time? And why did South Alabama fake a 37-yard field goal when it would have iced the game with it (or if you’re going to go for it, why was THIS your play?). The Bruins would seconds later kick the game-winning FG to steal a win and stave off an embarrassing home loss?
… Who’s the wiseacre at Arkansas who scheduled Family Day to coincide with the return of Bobby Petrino (coaching SE Missouri State)? Good humor there… Don’t you love when a defensive back makes the “Incomplete” signal with his arms after a broken-up pass play only to discover there’s a yellow flag on the ground near him? The look of utter shock on his face EVERY single time is what seals it for us.
Hangin’ With Chad
Eli Manning went undercover at Penn State as walk-on "Chad Powers" and it's absolute gold. pic.twitter.com/jaEYqBRcMh
We don’t know if we’ve ever been more wrong about anyone or anything than we were when we thought that Eli Manning was a goob. I mean, you saw him, especially as a young NY Giant, and he just looked like a …goober. But then the “Football On Your Phone” ad with big brother Peyton played and we thought, Maybe we were wrong about Eli. And there were those two Super Bowl wins, which overshadow all the career interceptions and lost seasons with the G-Men. And the Manning Cast. And now this, which has Ted Lasso-esque potential.
We were wrong, Eli. Long may you reign.
****
We don’ have the quote verbatim, and the TV was on mute at the time, but Fox ran USC wideout Jordan Addison’s hilarious quote on screen in which he said, in effect, “When you’re younger and you’re the fastest, , you get all the girls.” We wish we could have heard the commentator quips regarding that. Also, because we had it on mute, maybe you can tell us: Did anyone address the fact that Kedon Slovis exited USC for Pitt last February, because he knew Lincoln Riley had his own QB and partially because the Panthers had arguably the nation’s top receiver, Addison, only to see Addison depart Pitt three months later to play for… USC??? There’s got to be a story there. Maybe someone has already reported it.
And if you watched Addison’s performance versus Fresno State, he looks like an early Biletnikoff Award favorite?
About USC… we imagine a plethora of traditionalists are rooting against Lincoln Riley’s formula for success (the LeBron superteam model), but it sure looked potent on Saturday night with first-year transfers at WR, featured running back and QB. College football is beginning to look a lot like hoops, and while that may work for the renegade coaches, we don’t think it will be a healthy development for the sport in general. Stay tuned.
As always, if you’d like to contribute via PayPal, it’s trumansparks88@gmail.com. If not, that’s cool. Thank you to those who have. We see you.
Should I weigh in (don’t do it!)? But I want to weigh in (you’ll get canceled!). I’ve already been canceled; how much worse can this be (you’ll regret it!)? I know, but…
Earlier this afternoon I saw two tweets related to Robert Sarver, the Phoenix Suns owner who was fined $10 million and suspended for a year for behaving like a combination of Herb Tarlek and Louie DePalma. The first tweet, from a writer for The Athletic, expressed shock and disappointment that NBA commissioner Adam Silver said out loud what anyone who’s ever worked at a real company already knew: the boss or owner has a greater latitude to get away with stuff than the employees. The second tweet—it may have been from the same scribe, not sure—expressed disappointment that Sarver was only being fined $10 million because to that writer, that would be like the cost of a large iced tea.
So, if you’re keeping score, writer is upset that Sarver is treated differently because he’s wealthy, then writer is upset that Sarver is not treated differently because he’s wealthy. Anyone else see a disconnect here?
I’m no fan of Robert Sarver. Wasn’t a fan of his before Baxter Holmes’ story appeared last autumn and was certainly no fan after. If you live in Phoenix or grew up here and have friends who travel in the Scottsdale/Paradise Valley inner circle, you already know that Sarver is a blowhard real-estate mogul who bought the Suns to satisfy his insatiable ego. Like most Phoenix Suns fans, I’m hardly sorry to see him go and hope that he vanishes forever.
However, I’m also no fan of the handkerchief-wringing, back-of-the-palm-to-forehead “I do declare!” reaction to the revelations about the behavior of a boorish boss. Let’s take this from the top:
1. Last October Baxter Holmes wrote a thorough story about Sarver and the Phoenix Suns’ dysfunctional front office for ESPN.com. As I read it, I kept waiting for the big bomb to drop. In my opinion, it never did. Did Sarver go Weinstein on his female employees? No. Was there a familiar pattern of people being passed up for promotions or jobs based on their skin color, gender, sexual preferences or religion? As far as I can recall, no. Was Sarver a fatuous ass given to inappropriate comments and grab-ass frat boy stunts that came straight out of The Office? Yes.
2. Sarver and the Suns (under his direction) handled this awfully, of course, by attacking Holmes’ credibility and doing the usual song-and-dance of “innuendo, lies and bitter ex-employees.” Bad move there, Robert.
3. Commissioner Silver, who was probably well aware of all of this before last fall’s quasi-bombshell (Sarver had been owner of the Suns for 17 years by now and if you don’t think NBA staffers talk amongst each other and that some of this filters back to the league offices on Madison Ave., you’re nutso), veered directly into CYA mode. Even though Holmes’ piece had handed the Sarver bad behavior on an Adam Silver platter, the league went out and hired a law firm (the first rule is: lawyers get paid) who then spent 10 months and likely $3-4 million of the league’s money and then basically issued a report that said, “Yep, Baxter’s story checks out.” Wow, guys. Only college football coaching search firms are a bigger scam.
4. Silver brings down the hammer—one year’s suspension, $10 million—and the masses are able to tar and feather a rich white guy who was never all that likable in the first place as a “racist” and a “misogynist.” And they feel comfortable saying that such an environment is not a “safe” place to work simply because the boss and owner has no filter. Is he a racist? I don’t know (and neither do you). But in a social media world of “How many likes will this receive?” it’s always better to simply go along with the aggrieved masses than to, I don’t know, make a valid point.
***
As I understand it, and correct me if I’m wrong, the most recent incidence of Sarver pronouncing the N-word in full was in 2017—five years ago— and in all five cases they found, he was using it while “recounting the statements of others.” In other words, something like, “Hey, Coach Watson, how come Eric Bledsoe and Brandon Knight casually address one another as n***** but I cannot?” If I hear that, I don’t think of Sarver as racist. I think of him as someone who has yet to learn that there’s no circumstance in which a white male is allowed to use that term. Yes, it’s a double standard and yes, to me, it seems like a perfectly logical question to ask, especially for a man from his generation, but the difference between Sarver and I is that we’ve had very different paths in life and I’ve learned that there’s just no time you should ever utter the word. The moment you begin to ask why the double standard exists you’ll be accused of “mansplaining.”
You are either a person who lives according to principles or one who accedes to the cult of personality. The principle-ist in me does not believe in double standards (and yes, I realize that my African-American brethren use the word as a means of stripping it of its power) and certainly not circumstantial ones. If you beat the drum for equality for all but also “not equality for you in some cases,” then you do not live by a guiding principle (see the example at the top of this story).
Based only on this evidence (and that’s all that was presented), I would not go so far as to call Sarver racist. Rather, it just seems he never received the memo as to the racial sensitivity mores of the present. One thing I’ve learned from teaching at the college level, particularly grad students, is that young people of this era are particularly implacable when it comes to the older generation not adjusting to their terminology. It’s not about whether you are a racist or a misogynist, it’s whether you sound like one (the Archie Bunker Syndrome). I recall last spring one of my favorite former students, who is the grand daughter of former NFL quarterback Craig Morton, arranged for him to speak to our class. This is a man who started at quarterback in two Super Bowls, who played 17 seasons in the NFL and coached a few years in the USFL. I found it incredibly gracious of Mr. Morton, 79 years of age, to give so much time to our class (via Zoom) and thought that here is someone who has worked alongside men of different colors and backgrounds and seemed extremely well-adjusted.
At some point, late in the conversation, Mr. Morton used a term to describe an ethnic group (I believe) that was at best dated. He certainly did not use the N-word, but he used a word that would’ve been perfectly acceptable in his day but not so much now among Gen Z. I noticed a few of my students making eye contact with one another, sharing knowing smiles. See, the old white guy’s a racist. At that moment I felt sorry for my students; for their judgmental, know-it-all-ness. For their utter lack of empathy for a man, nearly 80 years old, who obviously intended no harm and just hadn’t received the latest update from Urban Dictionary and Twitter as to what’s acceptable. I thought, They’re more interested in sounding decent than being decent. I don’t know if my former student, Morton’s granddaughter, noticed their sidelong glances. I hoped she did not.
****
As for Sarver’s misogyny, may I introduce you to Robert Kraft? Jerry Jones? Just about every NFL or NBA owner in existence? Does that make it right? No, but what is the ultimate aim here? One of my former students reached out to me yesterday, upset that I wasn’t in lockstep with most of the media in denouncing Sarver, and asked if I’d feel safe working in such an environment? Safe?!? Because my boss is a male chauvinist? I have to wonder, who is watching those episodes of The Office that run non-stop, I mean like seven hours per night, on one of the cable networks? I mean, someone must be tuning in, and someone must find it funny and relatable because, taken to an extreme degree, it mirrors his or her own cubicle workplace.
No, it’s not cool that Sarver complained about female workers out on maternity leave (but they were out on maternity leave, no? He didn’t stop them). No, it’s not cool that Sarver made a comment about a female employee’s breasts. Not cool at all. You know what’s really not cool? A boss having an affair with a female employee that winds up derailing her career when at last you decide to run back to your wife (I witnessed this first hand in my own career and I’ve seen that scenario play out multiple times, and those men suffered no consequences).
Over the past day I’ve thought back to the work place sitcoms of the 1970s and 1980s that I grew up watching: The Mary Tyler Moore Show, M*A*S*H, Taxi, Alice, Cheers and WKRP in Cincinnati. Each of these shows had the requisite male chauvinist pig (Ted Baxter, Frank Burns, Louie, Mel, Sam and Herb Tarlek) to varying degrees. They had strong female characters. They had male characters who today would be considered “woke” (Murray, Hawkeye, Alex, Andy Travis). They had, it should be noted, almost no black characters. But as I thought back about these programs that I watched during my formative years (and about All In The Family), I was reminded that the community of the work place regulated itself. If Herb acted too much like an ass—and he almost always did—he felt the scorn not of Twitter but of the people with whom he worked. Same went for Louie.
The important thing is that people were allowed to be themselves and say what they wanted, and that if they veered too far outside of what was acceptable, they felt the wrath of their co-workers. But no one ever thought it was a good idea to send Louie to sensitivity training. When Mel made an insensitive comment to Flo, she didn’t run to HR. She clapped back, “Kiss my grits!’ and they moved on.
I don’t defend any of the things that Robert Sarver said or did. I do worry about who decides what is out of line, how much thinner the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable behavior become, and how quick we are to label people (especially if we don’t like them). I worry about the idea that nobody is allowed to be offended any more, that that is more sacrosanct than candor or truth. And I especially worry about the cult of personality: the idea that it’s okay to crucify people we don’t like while we protect those we do like for committing the same or even worse sins.
When people say that we need diversity in the workplace, I agree. But we also thrive on diversity of opinions, experiences, viewpoints. Which does not mean your workplace is better for having a Robert Sarver; it’s not. But it’s also not better if everyone is Alex Reigert or that milquetoast middle manager who never has the guts to take a stand. I’ve worked in all sorts of jobs (journalism, restaurants, supermarkets, hotels) in the past 30 years and all I want from a boss is someone who’s a straight shooter, whom I can trust, and who doesn’t hold anyone more accountable than he holds himself or herself. And finally, who can take as well as he or she gives.
Robert Sarver is an ass. But the only reason he has been served up for crucifixion is because Baxter Holmes forced the NBA to deal with an issue it was already well aware of and the NBA also knew that nobody likes Robert Sarver.
Finally, I wrote this quickly and without reviewing. I’ll suffer the consequences if you want to roast me for this take.
