Starting Five

1.  Cards’ Wild Wildcard… Defending World Series champion St. Louis wins  inaugural MLB willdcard game with a little assistance from a poor interpretation and execution of the infield fly rule. Inveterate baseball fans learn that the home plate umpire will draw a giant air ‘P’ to indicate a gme is being played under protest.

2. Notre Dame crushes Miami, 41-3,  while West Virginia wins another shoot out with a school from Texas, 48 -45. The Irish and Mountaineers are still undefeated? Well, stick that Roxette tape in the tape deck cuz imust be be 1988.

Notre Dame. West Virginia. They’ve got the look.

3. Florida State leaves Florida, the state, and loses. This is exactly why MH refuses to believe in teams until they play a real road game at someone else’s abode. As Dr. Saturday (Matt Hinton) notes, Seminoles have now lost eight of last nine on road as a ranked team versus unranked underdogs.

4. The Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium: Bill O’Reilly and Jon Stewart square off in D.C. Stewart: “Do you believe in Social Security?” O’Reilly: “Yes.” Stewart: “Then we’re both socialists.”

5. Another debate that was both more illuminating and entertaining…

Replacement Refs

Our friend Dan Wolken relocates to Atlanta. Braves fans react to awful call by behaving like an angry mob without any sense. We feel obliged to place blame where it belongs. Hence, The Wolken Dead.

Deconstructing Notre Dame and West Virginia. First, the Irish. Yes, Miami had a case of the dropsies early and should have scored a touchdown, but 41-3 in prime time is 41-3. Notre Dame has yet to trail in 300 minutes of play this season and against three teams that were ranked in the preseason or have been since — Michigan State, Michigan and Miami — did not allow a TD. Of the three TDs allowed in five games, one was in garbage time versus Navy and the other came after a turnover game Purdue first down from the Irish 11. Currently only Alabama has a stingier defense than the Irish (7.0 to 7.8 points per game).

If you witnessed the Notre Dame efense (not a typo) of the Charlie Weis era, you find this incredible in the literal sense of “not easy to believe.”

The Mountaineers: huge road win against a potential top ten foe in Austin. Geno Smith has now tossed 24 touchdowns and zero picks and has the kind of Heisman lead that only schools who schedule Savannah State can understand. He leads the nation in passing efficiency and is No. 2 in total offense and completions per game. However, the Couch Igniters are 102nd in total defense and scoring defense and you just wonder when that will catch up to them.

The smart way to light a couch on fire

“According to Nielsen numbers, at least 70 million people watched the presidential debate on TV, on-line or from one of the podiums.” If you were The Peacock, would you consider giving Seth Meyers a nightly window to do Weekend Update either right before local news or right before Leno? Have you ever heard anyone say, “I’m not much of a Seth Meyers fan?”

Our good friend Michael Davis, one of the sweetest guys we’ve ever met in journalism and the definitive authority on Sesame Street, takes on Mitt Romney in defense of Big Bird. Davis’ most salient point: PBS accounts for .013 percent of the federal budget.

This is Kay Burley of Sky News…

Kay’s not very popular in the UK right now. Here’s why. The again, there are always openings on Nancy Grace’s staff.

Oh yeah, baseball. Justin Verlander was at his Verlandest last night as the Tigers, taking full advantage of the 3rd-best record clause in the 2012 MLB postseason, beat Oakland, 3-1. Coco Crisp led off the game with a home run for the A-Men, but they never crossed the plate after that as Verlander struck out 11 in seven innings.

Oh, Ace Sanders, you do that shimmy like it’s nobody’s business…

This headline bothers us. MH had a conversation the other night and, as usual when MH starts talking politics, more sophisticated minds stared at us as if we’re a speckled unicorn. Our argument: You’re the president of the United States. What if you just say, for 2012, “I’m not going to spend a minute of my time flitting across the country to speak at $50,000/plate fundraisers. I’m not going to spend a dime on television ads. I’m simply going to DO MY JOB. It’s only, you know, the most important job in the world. The media already has a mandate to cover me because, well, you know I’m the Presi-freaking-dent of the United States.” Wouldn’t you, as a voter, respect that? We would. Your thoughts…

Naked freshman shot dead at the University of South Alabama…

Georgia State did a cash voucher drop for its students, and since it was open to ALL STUDENTS, scholarship athletes were also allowed to participate. And suddenly athletic directors at a bunch of SEC, Big 12, Big Ten and dare we say, certain schools that may be located within 20 miles of an ocean and have won a national championship in the past 15 years, suddenly perk up and go, “Hmmmm.”

Johnny Cueto may have only thrown eight pitches, but six of them were for strikes. Cueto may be available for Tuesday’s Game 3…

…Which reminds us: Jered Weaver was the best pitcher in the American League this season as far as we were concerned. However, on the final day of the season Weaver, who finished 20-5, threw a no-hitter and tied for the lowest WHIP in the majors, lasted just one inning in a 12-0 loss to Seattle. The Angels pulled him after a 25-pitch first inning in which he allowed two runs and labeled it “general fatigue.” Hey, the Angels had already been eliminated and maybe, just maybe, a few of the players went out the night before to commemorate their final night together. We have no way of knowing if they did. We’re simply wondering. What is odd is that the AP game story never even mentions Weaver. Strange, no?

New Mexico is 3-3 with a three-point loss to Boise State. The Lobos won three games total from 2009-2011. So it can be said: Bob Davie is DEFINITELY a better football coach than he is an announcer.

No one, by the way, is doing a better job as a game analyst this season than CBS’ Gary Danielson. Nobody.

We thought we lipread Penn State’s Bill O’Brien saying something about “farging corksuckers” late in the fourth quarter of Penn State’s mild upset of Northwestern and if we are mistaken, we’re sorry. It’s the heat of battle and coaches are bound to lose their #$&! in those moments, but really, there’s no worse epithet you can hurl if you are the head coach in Happy Valley. O’Brien has done an outstanding job otherwise this season and we cannot help but think that every last player who remained in State College is richer for having done so.