Starting Five

1. “S-A-T! S-A-T!”

(The judges will also accept “Oregone…Again”)

At about the same time last night that a former Stanford offensive lineman’s attorney released a memo that began “Jonathan Martin’s toughness is not an issue”, the current Cardinal OL was emphatically hammering home the same point on ESPN. The Farm may be Nerd Nation, but it is also the home of Tough Guy Football west of Tuscaloosa, Ala.

The final score read 26-20, but the Cardinal were dominant. It was 26-0 after 49 minutes as Tyler Gaffney, in the grand tradition of Touchdown Tommy Vardell and Toby Gerhardt (Hmmm….Tommy….Toby….Tyler), carried the ball a school-record 45 times for 157 yards. Why? Because Stanford’s senior-heavy offensive line, guided by All-American David Yankey, hyperlooped the Duck front seven off the ball all night.

Quarterback Kevin Hogan proved that you could be brilliant while only completing seven of 13 passes. Although, in Palo Alto “brilliant” isn’t exactly extraordinary, on this night it was.

The Cardinal will almost certainly win the Pac-12 North now (beware of the Nov. 16 game at USC, though), setting up a conference championship game versus one of four South teams still in the fray. One way or another, the Cardinal should be playing in Pasadena come January.

2. The Tempest-est

That’s an infrared image of Typhoon Haiyan –pardon me, Supertyphoon Haiyan– that battered the Philippines yesterday, but as of now the reported fatalities are still only in the single digits. According to Dr. Jeff Masters (who does not, as far as I know, conduct sex experiments on the campus of Washington University whilst abetted by Lizzy Caplan) of wunderground.com, Haiyan literally was off the scale (the Dvorak Scale, which records typhoon velocities), as the storm’s winds attained a velocity of 193 miles per hour, making it the strongest typhoon to make landfall in recorded history.

3. The Blake Show?

 

Nice win in Houston last night for the Lakers, as they employed the Hack-a-Howard strategy against their one-and-done ex-teammate while trailing late. The Rockets led 93-91 with 3:24 to play when they began fouling Dwight Howard deliberately because, after all, who wants to see James Harden (35 points) shoot the ball? In the next three minutes, Howard would convert just five of 12 FTs (he finished five of 16 for the contest), which allowed the Lakers one last chance trailing 98-96 with mere seconds remaining.

Steve Blake buries the wide-open three. Why is Blake so all alone? One, because Patrick Beverly did not switch but also, two, because future Hall of Famer Steve Nash puts Jeremy Lin in a brief shoulder clinch, just long enough to prevent Lin from having an impact. That’s a pro move. An illegal move, but a pro move.

Kobe must be proud.

Meanwhile, the good news for Blake and his lovely wife, Kristen, is that because he did convert that three, he probably isn’t receiving death threats this morning.

 

Going off on a tangent here, Davidson has basically been employed on either DoOL or The Young and The Restless since 1982. Pret-teee, pret-teee good. Oh, and she’s married to Vince Van Patten, which makes Dick Van Patten (“NICHOLAS!”) her father-in-law, which is cool. Davidson’s final episode on DoOL reportedly airs some time this month.

Finally, after watching Clippers-Heat and Lakers-Rockets last night, Charles Barkley proclaimed that he’d winnowed his list of potential NBA championship-caliber teams from nine to four (after just two weeks!). I’m guessing Sir Charles is referring to Miami, Indiana, Oklahoma City and San Antonio.

4. Now That’s Pro Football Talk

 

I’ve never been divorced–one of the benefits of having never been married–but the statement released by Jonathan Martin’s attorney last night sounds as if it came straight out of a divorce proceeding. I won’t re-run the words here because you’ve probably read them somewhere else and because, you know, Phyllis reads this. You can read the vile statement here, although I have to ask, why did the anonymous Dolphin feel compelled to add “she loves me?”

Anyway, the ol’ locker room adage is some variation on this axiom: “What you see here, do here, say here, stays here.”

That’s the cardinal rule of the locker room. And Martin, through attorney David Cornwell, just violated it.

So perhaps Incognito and the Dolphins crossed the line –by a mile — in their treatment of Martin. Or perhaps everyone was joking and then someone took it too far and now Martin is upset. We don’t really know. What we do know is that in locker rooms and front offices in the NFL’s other 31 parishes, this revelation makes Martin persona non grata (he has no grata).

There’s a reason guys can recite A Few Good Men almost verbatim (because TBS airs it every three days?). It resonates with us. It’s the age-old conflict between doing what’s right and loyalty to the team, and where exactly does one value overtake the other? Coaches prefer players who don’t think, only do. So do platoon leaders. Something tells me that this episode will at least be equally damaging to Martin’s NFL future as it is to Incognito’s, if not worse.

5. Speaking of Which, Has Thayer Evans Gone Markinson?

Funny how quickly people disappear. Have you heard anything about Tim Tebow the past couple of months? And what of Sports Illustrated writer Thayer Evans, who was all over the news when “The Dirty Game” was released? Well, Thayer last sent out a tweet on September 24 and he hasn’t had a story on SI.com since before then. I don’t subscribe to SI, but my searches for Evans revealed no bylines in the mag (if you’ve seen one, feel free to inform me). It’s kind of odd because, well, apparently Evans was NOT suspended (or fired) and yet it’s college football season and that’s supposedly his bailiwick.

So where is he?

I don’t have an answer. Maybe someone else does.

 

Reserves

That Twitter IPO happened. The people who were able to get in at the IPO price at $26 are precious and few, and extremely wealthy. They were able to turn around in the same day and sell that stock for as much as $49 per share, while anyone who earns less than, say, $150,000 per year had no such shot. These people will be bragging about how they turned an 80% or better profit in two hours yesterday until you hear then bitch about being in a higher tax bracket in a few months.

****
Jason Whitlock on the Miami Dolphin mess. Terrific column, particularly the first half. If I were his editor, I’d have cut the second part where it loses steam. Could a white columnist (or even a half-white columnist) have written this without backlash?

***

The best “This is SportsCenter” ad since Neil Everett’s “I’m in the Top Ten, Roger.”

If only these uniforms were a joke. Christmas day, everybody.

 

Most Adorable Smackdown

At the CMA’s, 23 year-old Taylor Swift garnered yet another “You’re-The-Greatest-Thing-That-Ever (Ever Ever Ever)-Happened” type award because the music industry isn’t stupid. How many jobs has she saved? Swift did the whole “I can’t believe this is happening to me” spiel because she wants to be just as adorable as that little girl in the latest “It’s Not Complicated” ad, and that ain’t easy.

(Watch that video just for Justin Timberlake’s and Ellen Degeneres’ tributes; I won’t spoil it).

Hey, I love T-Swizzle. Really. It’s just funny how, five to six years into this phenomenon, she still flashes that “L’il ol’ me?” look.

Remote Patrol

College Hoops: Georgetown vs. Oregon

ESPN 7:30 p.m.

Last year the college basketball season tipped off from an aircraft carrier. Tonight’s season opener on the WWL will tip off from a U.S. Army base in South Korea, all efforts to make the 38th parallel the midcourt line having been exhausted. Two of the Ducks’ key players, Dominic Artis and Ben Carter, will not play due to suspensions incurred for selling shoes, which is a little ironic considering who the athletic department’s chief benefactor is.