by John Walters

How much have times and conventional wisdom changed in baseball since 1981? In his ROOKIE year, at the age of 20, Fernando led baseball in Games Started (25), Innings Pitched (192.1) and Complete Games (11). He also led in Shutouts (8) and Strikeouts (180). He was a phenomenon, but he was also washed up by the age of 26 (even though he lasted another 10 unremarkable seasons). 

Starting Five

Un-Bear-able

You may not have noticed, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the National Football League has a ratings problem (in related news, Betty Lou’s getting out tonight).

It took awhile for America to catch up to the cruddy product they’ve been watching for years now, but at least we finally did. Last night I watched two plays of Vikings-Bears and then switched over to the World Series of Poker. Here’s the thing: I watched two hands of the WSOP without thinking about whether or not I was enjoying it, without being interrupted by a replay of someone’s bet, without a stoppage of play for an injury. I was just, well, in the thrall of the action.

Many reasons why NFL viewership is down, and maybe some day we’ll do that item. But Colin Kaepernick doesn’t make it onto the Top 10 of my personal list of why I find the NFL unctuous and unwatchable. What does make it near the top of my list: It’s just not fun, the people who run it aren’t fun, the talking heads who bloviate it on and on about it aren’t fun, etc. It’s more serious than a heart attack. All the time. The people who run it forgot that it’s just a game. Or that’s what it was supposed to be.

The funniest part about all of this, at least to me, is that there is no sport I love to watch more than COLLEGE football. So it’s not the game itself that myself and many others find repugnant. It’s the nature of the NFL that is the turn-off.

And, it wasn’t always this way. Those of us who grew up in the Seventies, who remember the eras of the Cowboys, Steelers, Raiders, Vikings, Rams and Broncos, we couldn’t get enough of THAT NFL. And it’s not as if there aren’t good teams today. It’s just a completely different environment (and maybe we just weren’t as aware of the players beating up their wives?).

But I’m thinking, Why don’t we crowd-source this? Maybe in the Comments section you can give just ONE REASON (of many) that you don’t enjoy watching the NFL as much as you used to, if that’s the case.

2. Fahrenthold 451

Of the breakout media stars of this election—Megyn Kelly, Katy Tur, Van Jones and yes, even KellyAnne Conway—the one in print who has probably done the most damage is The Washington Post‘s 38 year-old reporter, David Farenthold. Bully for him for being handed a relatively dry topic—charitable donations—and unleashing a powder keg (full disclosure: I don’t know, without looking it up, what it is to “unleash a powder keg” and I sort of wonder whether it’s an IPA) of powerful stories.

Here’s how Farenthold, a Harvard alum, did it: plain ol’ rolling up of the sleeves (I do know what that means; I think).

I watched Farenthold on TV last night. He’s articulate, good-looking, direct and concise. He’ll be a good TV presence, like Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC. I just hope that he keeps writing.

3. Senior-itas!

It’s not polite to ask a woman her age, or so they say. But you have to be a little curious as to what it says on the driver’s license of Peggy Lee Brennan, the newly minted Ms. Senior America. I won’t say (60), but Brennan, Miss Missouri, was the youngest possible age one could be and still enter.

The best thing about the Ms. Senior America pageant, other than of course the positive role models that it provides for impressionable young women in their 40’s and 50’s? That would be that Donald Trump doesn’t own it.

And if the lovely Ms. Brennan looks familiar to you—especially if you are closer to her age—that’s because she played Radar O’Reilly’s girlfriend on M*A*S*H.

4. Sweet Home, Chicago

So, it’s only one week of an NBA season and they’ve been a little overshadowed by that baseball club from Wrigleyville, but the new look Chicago Bulls may just be a thing. Dwyane Wade has pulled a LeBron and returned to his snow-belt ancestral home, pulled in another free agent starter (Rajon Rondo), and galvanized the best remaining player from the previous year’s edition (Jimmy Butler).

The Bulls are 3-0 (note: they haven’t played anyone yet), Rondo is happy dishing dimes, Wade and Butler are getting their points and The Great White Hoop, Doug McDermott, is finally beginning to fulfill his promise in Season 3 with 14 ppg. It’s early, but maybe they’ll make the East a little more interesting.

5. At the Halloween Parade

Quickly becoming a Halloween tradition, the crowd-sourced rendition of “Thriller.” They did it for the sixth consecutive year last night, on what was a lovely late(st) October evening, with just the right chill and thrill in the air (this video is from last year, but not much is different). It’s also as fitting an annual salute to a fallen musician as the annual guitar circle for John Lennon in Central Park on December 8.

Music 101

November Rain

The early Nineties was a fruitful time for rock star narcissism, over-wrought double albums and model-infused music videos. Per the second part of that trifecta, Bruce Springsteen, Smashing Pumpkins and Guns ‘n Roses all released double albums when in each band’s case, a single album would have more than sufficed. Have you ever listened to the second side of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness a second time?

For example, imagine the SINGLE album Bruce would have given us if these were the only tracks: “Human Touch,” “Roll of the Dice,” “Man’s Job,” “Cross My Heart,” “All or Nothin’ At All,” “Better Days,” “Lucky Town,” “If I Should Fall Behind” and your closer, “Beautiful Reward.” Nine songs. That’s all we needed. One more than Born To Run, one fewer than Darkness…

Anyway, this is a GnR item. If you have the audacity to do a double album, you better have one audacious SONG to put on it (see: Pink Floyd, “The Wall” or Elton John “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” or even the Pumpkins with “Tonite Tonite”). A classic. Bruce had good songs on Human Touch and Lucky Town, but not a classic.

And that’s the thing of it about Use Your Illusion I & II. GnR accomplished the hardest part: they wrote an epic rock-and-roll classic, and not only that, but a song that completely fit the band’s character. And then they put out a kick-ass video featuring the most popular supermodel in the world at the moment, Stephanie Seymour. Axl and Slash and the boys just forgot one thing: to write enough good songs to fill out two sides of two discs.

The two albums have 30 songs and just three gems (originals, not covers): “Don’t Cry,” “Civil War” and this tune. And GnR seemed to empty the tank in the effort, as it has released just two albums and zero memorable songs in the 25 years since. Don’t you need some time on your own? Well, sure, but a quarter century…?

Remote Patrol

Game 6, World Series

FOX 8 p.m.

FOX has found chemistry in it pre- and post-game set with A-Rod, Petey, The Big Hurt and host Kevin Burkhardt. The main booth is much improved with John Smoltz, the Hall of Famer who speaks matter of factly while dispensing pearls of wisdom and between-the-lines insight. He’s baseball’s Troy Aikman. Are we headed to a seventh game or, with Jake Arrieta on the mound tonight for the Cubs, will it end tonight? If the Cus win in seven, Is John Cusack reprising Jimmy Fallon’s role in Fever Pitch, even though Fallon reprised Colin Firth’s role in the original Fever Pitch?