STARTING FIVE

1. Throw Up For Grabs

I don’t have a singular photo of it, but watch The Big Lead’s video of Cincinnati Bengal QB Matt Scott tossing his cookies just moments before tossing a touchdown last night during an exhibition win against the Kansas City Chiefs. It’s promising to see that Scott hasn’t lost the touch he displayed back in college in Tucson…

Perhaps the question should be whether the position of quarterback lends itself more to regurgitation. Do quarterbacks, both actual and figurative, just endure more stress during a performance, which leads to spewing? Maybe. You say Cincinnati Bengals, I say Barden Bellas. “I saw the sign…”

2. “Outlined Against a Blue August Sky…”

the One Horseman rode again. In dramatic lore his name is…”

I love it. Ninety years ago (October 18, 1924) Grantland Rice was a famous sports writer who wrote a lede –after a halftime talk with a Notre Dame student media relations assistant during an otherwise desultory contest at the Polo Grounds–that inspired one of the most iconic staged photos in the history of sports.

 

Today, Grantland is a web site (I wonder how many of their staffers can recite the lede verbatim; that should be mandatory, no?) and Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly rode a horse onto the practice field at Culver Military Academy in Indiana.

UPDATE: Half an hour into practice, Kelly subbed out the first horse and brought in a fresh horse from the sideline that he has dubbed “Tommy.” All part of his Next Mane In credo.

3. Tiger Beaten

On Tuesday I wondered whether the question of if Tiger Woods could win this week’s PGA Championship from Val-HOLLA! was even the pertinent inquiry. To me, it was more to the point to ask how many holes he’d even play, because never for a moment did I think he’d play 72. Would he miss the cut and drop out after 36 or would he voluntarily retire –again–due to back spasms?

It looks as if it’ll be the first option. Tiger, three-over-par after the first round, tees off later today and is currently two shots behind making the cut. I find this “Far Side” cartoon illustrates Tiger’s current predicament better than anything I might say. Yes, he’s “gifted”, but he’s trying too hard and he’s definitely working against himself. And as poorly as his back aches, I still believe most of his problems are between his ears. Go away for awhile, even a year or two, and then come back in a proper frame of mind.

I believe my old colleague Sally Jenkins agrees with me.

4. The Return of Coach Lasso

In six minutes of delightful parody, Jason Sudeikis makes a film that is about eleventy billion times funnier than “We’re The Millers.” And cost a lot less to make –and view.  The purpose, of course, is to promote NBC’s airing of the English Premier League, which begins its season on August 16th, which as you are well aware, is the second birthday of Medium Happy (and th 60th of some other publication).

Best line? When Lasso tells Tim Howard, over beers, “I think I literally have a better understanding of who killed Kennedy than I do of offside…it was the mob.”

By the way, Ted Lasso’s wife has gotten some major press lately…

…and also in that booth…

5. Bill Boredom

Just want to make sure of something: ESPN gives Dan LeBatard his own weekday afternoon show and titles it “Highly Questionable” and then is abashed when he pulls a highly questionable prank? And it wasn’t even highly questionable. It was actually mildly amusing (which may be a better title for the program?).

All I know is that 1) you reap what you sow, Bristol, and 2) I’ve canceled my “You’re Welcome, Scalabrine” billboard that was actually going to be a lawn sign in Roxbury, Mass.

Here’s The Sherman Report on it…

 Reserves

I love this idea by Sports Illustrated to publish the “60 Greatest Stories” of its first 60 years, one per day for next 12 weeks (my math calculates that to mean only weekdays). The first one is Steve Rushin’s epic –literally, since I believe it to still be the longest piece ever to run in the mag– “How We Got Here” that ran on the occasion of the mag’s 40th anniversary. And here’s a terrific Q&A with Steve, a “Behind the Music” of how the piece came about.

At least a dozen Rushin pieces belong on this list, as does Jeff MacGregor’s rattlesnake piece, Franz Lidz’s profile of Don King, Bill Nack’s elegy for Secretariat (“Pure Heart”) and Gary Smith’s “Crime and Punishment” piece on Richie Parker.

What does concern me is that this list will neglect many wonderful pieces that were either written on a tight deadline (the story of ND ending UCLA’s 88-game win streak was terrific, as were Alex Wolff’s numerous NCAA basketball tournament championship pieces that had to be written on the tightest deadline imaginable, since the mag normally goes to press at about the time the game tipped off) or by writers who are no longer GFOPs.

Tim Crothers’ piece on Red Klotz, for example, is not only a classic but Crothers, then a fact-checker, penned the story on the sly –he knew that if he suggested it that it would be given to a senior writer–spent the cost of one Metro North ticket and a hot dog reporting it, and then turned in a 3,000-word piece that was just so captivating that the editors were forced to run it. The story behind that story is nearly as good as the story itself.

(Years later, Crothers, no longer at SI, pitched a story to the mag that they turned down; he then took it to ESPN, where it was nominated for a National Magazine Award for Excellence in Feature Writing, then turned into a book, and Disney even now has the movie rights to it. Some people never learn.)

***

Where in the World?

Previous: Chalk Pyramids, near Oakley, Kansas