Starting Five
Grilli and Martin celebrate the Bucs’ first postseason win since 1992, a year in which Right Said Fred, Kris Kross, and Sir Mix-A-Lot ruled the charts.
1. The Bucs Start Here
Pay attention, class.
Pittsburgh Pirates: Good.
Somali Pirates: Bad.
Somali Pirates: Lack a closer.
Captain Phillips: Good.
Wilson Phillips: Bad.
Pirates hold on for one more day…actually, for at least five or so…
Oh, and as long as we’re doing this, Pittsburgh Steelers: Bad.
Sorry to remind you, Yinzers. The Steel Curtain is 0-4 for the first time since 1968. The Pirates win a playoff game for the first time since 1992. The last time they won one, this round of the playoffs didn’t even exist.
2. The Curious Case of Tom Hanks’ Overlapping Characters
Captain’s courageous. Hanks’ latest role…
…and as Capt. Miller in “Saving Private Ryan.”
Maybe it’s just a matter of the most beloved actor of our time getting a lot of work over the past quarter-century plus, but “Captain Phillips” will mark at least (this is not an exhaustive study; feel free to correct me) the sixth time that Hanks has piloted a vessel in a film…
1. The Polar Express
2. Apollo 13
3. Cast Away
4. Forrest Gump
5. A League of Their Own (he briefly becomes the bus driver)
6. Captain Phillips
…and the third time* he has held the rank of captain…
Hanks (as Uncle Ned) and Michael J. Fox in “Family Ties.” The original “Drunk Uncle.”
1. Apollo 13
2. Saving Private Ryan
3. Captain Phillips
*I’ll note that I don’t remember the rank he held when he was discharged from the Army in “Forrest Gump” nor do I recall what rank he achieved in the Navy before leaving in “Larry Crowne.”
3. Should We Be Paying Attention To…Baylor?
Lache Effect: Seastrunk leads the nation in yards per carry at just under 11 per.
I will grant you that the Baylor Bears of Waco, Texas, have, through three contests, yet to play anyone better than the Buffalo Bulls and that through September they were no better than the second-best “BB” show to emanate from the American southwest. I’ll grant you all of that.
On the other hand, through three games Art Briles’ squad has scored 69, 70 and 70 points and have beaten up on FCS Wofford, the aforementioned Bulls (who gave Ohio State a decent game in the Horseshoe on August 31), and Louisana Monroe by an average margin of victory of 62 points, which is more than anyone else in the FBS is even scoring per game.
Even Oregon (a school that shares the same colors as Baylor, you know, when it chooses to wear them).
Which brings us to Lache Seastrunk. You remember him. He was the Texas teen who was involved with Will Lyles, whose “scouting service” Oregon thought so highly of that they sent him $25,000 in payment, which got the NCAA curious, which certainly helped Chip Kelly decide that the NFL was beckoning him. Seastrunk attended Oregon for a year, but raced back home to the Lone Star State.
He is now –and again, the competition has been feckless — averaging 11 yards per carry. That’ s a first down-and-change per carry, after 38 carries. Meanwhile, consider this. Oregon is No. 2 in the nation in scoring (59 ppg, behind Baylor, of course) but the Ducks lead the nation in rushing yards per game (332). As lethal as the Quack Attack is, can you imagine just how ridiculously scary they’d be if Seastrunk still played in Eugene?
Baylor hosts an actual football program, West Virginia, this Saturday in Waco. The line is 27 points. I’m curious.
Wheel People
David in his showroom: Most of his sales are in cash (hmm) and to people for whom English is, at best, a second language.
Fascinating interview this morning on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” with Brett David, a Lamborghini salesman out of Miami who sold $1 BILLION worth of those highest-end Italian vehicles by the age of 26. David commutes to work in a gold-plated Lambo –and that ain’t no bull…though, since it’s a Lamborghini, it kind of is— and his first sale, at age 17, was to Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott. According to David, he spotted her and a broken-down Ferrari at a gas station and told her, “Ferraris are for people who want to be somebody. Lamborghinis are for people who already ARE somebody.”
Granted, David, who is just 25, got his precocious start because his father owned the business, Prestige Imports. But when his dad died of a heart attack in 2007 (the elder David blamed his early demised on the stress of running the business), David, then just 19, took over the business.
By the way, this story says his dad “died unexpectedly of a fourth heart attack.” Where are editors these days, I wonder?
This is David’s ride. If you have to ask…. okay, it’ll run you $550,000.
Anyway, in the younger David’s first full year in charge, auto sales jumped 400% and Prestige Imports became the top-selling Audi dealer in the U.S.A.
Twenty-five years old, wealthy, successful, and driving a gold-plated Lamborghini around the sexiest city in the U.S. Brett David is the Johnny Football of car salesman.
Shouldn’t he be a movie already?
5. “We have elected people to govern us who do not believe in government…”
Send in the clowns…
Charles Pierce in an Esquire blog with some vociferous words on “the reign of morons.” I’ll state a few points, then hang up and listen.
1. Whether or not you like or dislike the Affordable Health Care Act, it’s a LAW and it was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. If, as a U.S. Congressman, you fail to respect laws, well, that’s like Brett David not believing in internal combustion. Right now a certain faction of Congress –we know who they are — is THAT GUY who agrees to go to the concert with you as long as he gets to ride shotgun, and gets to pick what music you play on the way to the show, and where we will stop to eat, even though there are four other people in the car. And the thing about that guy? He’s a dick. Leave him home.
2. I don’t think I should be COMPELLED to purchase health care. I shouldn’t have to pay a penalty if I choose not to. And if I don’t, and am diagnosed with diabetes and/or cancer, well, I’ll head down to the local watering hole, purchase a draft beer, and raise a glass to Darwinism. Your right not to have to buy health insurance extends only as long as your willingness to step out on that limb. I’m all for hospitals refusing care to those of us who don’t.
3. The best health care out there is a sensible diet, steady exercise and a low level of stress. I say this as someone with a very close friend who enters chemotherapy treatment this morning (“Breast Cancer Awareness Month”, yeah, she knows) for her fourth bout with cancer. And she’s only 46.
Which is to say, I know genetics play a role. But after that, diet, exercise and a sensible lifestyle are the key contributors. If you want to tell government –which, by the way, is you and I — that it doesn’t have a right to tell you what sized soda you can jam down your gob hole, fine. But then I (again, I’m government; so are you) have a right to reply that I’m not throwing my money down the drain taking care of you afterward. You don’t let a bicycle sit out in the rain to gather rust and then take it into the bicycle shop and demand they fix it. Most bike owners are smarter than that.
That is all. Have an A-1 day.
Remote Patrol
Champions League: FC Copenhagen at Real Madrid
Fox Deportes 2:45 p.m.
The Danish champions’ initials are FCK. Real Madrid is coming off a La Liga weekend defeat at the feet of Atletico Madrid, which hadn’t beaten their neighbors since 1999. Gareth Bale is out with a thigh injury
Ronaldo is ready to cream Danish.
. Cristiano Ronaldo is not happy. This should be a clinic.
Valiant points made on the Health Care. In most cases – keeping in mind that SOME have to do with generics – diseases that lead to death are correlated with your will to be active in life. Imagine if the majority of our country took being healthy serious – healthy, as in being remotely active, not necessarily a marathon runner. Instead, a lot of people want to have their cake and eat it too (pun fully intended). However, I will digress on this topic. . .
Great points about health care.
I get the point about having a choice to opt out of health care coverage or insurance. However, it’s not that simple to say it’s just an individual choice. Who wants to be the doctor or nurse who has to say “you have a treatable disease, but you opted out, so there’s nothing we can do for you. You’ll have to leave and die somewhere else.”
And I agree that we shouldn’t have to pay for the dumb choices other people make. But can’t we just price that into the choice? Every pack of cigarettes should have enough taxes added to cover the increased health risks and costs associated with smoking. Kind of a mini insurance policy on each pack. The flip side is smokers would pay the same amount as everyone else for an insurance plan.
Genetics & luck is, at minimum, 75%.
And for all those whose “healthy lifetsyle” includes riding a bike on streets &/or other auto-traveled roads, you BETTER have the best damn health & life (if you have a family to support) insurance money can buy.
One is COMPELLED to wear seatbelts. To wear a helmet (in most states I believe) while riding a motorcycle. To not drink & drive. To not text & drive & in some states (hopefully all eventually) to not talk on a cellphone while driving. One is compelled to have auto insurance & yet those who comply, pay ever increasing rates because of all the selfish, myopic idiots who don’t. So, what’s the big deal about compelling health insurance? Plus, if one truly has that “healthy lifestyle” & is fairly young, the price would not be that expensive.
Nobody wants to have to ‘pay’ for the bad choices of others, be it lifestyle, consumption, work, relationships, etc. And yet you do everyday as soon as you step outside your house. If some uninsured driver runs you down on your walk-run to work & you have no health insurance, who’s gonna pay? If mandatory health insurance helps lower the risk AND the cost for ALL, then I’m on board.
It pains me to work out the math, but I think Emo Phillips is worse than Wilson Phillips. If I were Rushin, I’d have a full ranking, but I get stuck weighing the relative merits of Lou Diamond and -head screwdriver, not to mention Michael Thomas.