Starting Five

1. October rocks, which is why FM radio stations refer to it as Rocktober. Baseball has more than met its obligation, as all four divisional series go five games for the first time since divisional play began in 1995. Also, as of this moment, the last three World Series champions — St. Louis, San Francisco and New York — are still playing.

— Joe Girardi pinch-hits for Pay-Rod again, this time in the 13th inning. Lord bless us, we want Joe G. to pinch-hit for Pay-Rod in the bottom of the first in Game 5 tonight just to see what happens. Ballgame over. Yankees lose. Thuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Yankees lose.

— Jayson Werth, Natitude walk-off. How has he not landed a deal as Brawny’s paper towel endorser yet?

— Justin Verlander: allowed a home run to first batter he faced in ALDS — our man Coco Crisp– then shut down the A-men on four hits in 14 innings. The Chain Smokers advance.

— Cincy-SF: Five games, all won by the road team, and the side that went down 0-2 won the series. That had never happened.

Strike a Posey

2. The top right-hand corner of the front page of yesterday’s New York Times had this piece on Lance Armstrong and the manner in which he and other U.S. Postal Service riders obviated the mandatory drug testing procedures overseen by the USADA. We’ll say this: for years now we’ve always pointed out to friends that Armstrong was resolute about saying how he’d “never tested positive” as opposed to saying that he had never blood-doped or taken PEDs. We always thought that was revealing. Apparently, so does the Grey Lady.

3.  One photo tells you all you need to know about last night’s Vice Presidential debate. Net week Sasha and Malia take on Tagg, Matt, Craig, Ben and Josh in Family Feud.

4. The Pittsburgh Polamalus lose on a walk-off field goal (or do they not call it that in football) at Tennessee. Pittsburgh has now lost at Oakland and at Tennessee. Those should have been gimme games for the Asymmetric Helmets.

5. Roger Ebert loves Argo, which opens today. We think we’re going to love it as well. Turns out that Will Hunting’s best friend, who has now produced both this and “The Town”, is “wicked smaht” as well. How do you like them apples?

Reserves

The European Union wins the Nobel Peace Prize. “We’d like to thank Adolf Hitler for being the worst person of the 20th century and thus somewhat necessitating our union…”

A Yankee pitcher was hit by a flying bat in the postseason and somewhere Mike Piazza is laughing his ass off.

Bat-itude?

The Colorado Buffs trail Arizona State in Boulder, 20-17, at halftime. Then apparently the entire team hit The Hill for pizza and beer. The Sun Devils outscored them 31-0 in the second half. Colorado, the only state whose borders are straight lines, has fallen off the map as both a football school and, sadder yet, as a party school.

Up next for Todd Graham’s 5-1 Sun Devils: a Thursday night visit from  No. 2 Oregon. This could be interesting. If you don’t think every college football writer in America is not trying to persuade his/her editor to send him to Tempe next week, well, then you’ve never been to Scottsdale/Tempe.

Flori-Duh: The words “Enema Tampering” appear in the headline. Read on at your own risk.

Babs does Brooklyn: Barbra Streisand, 70, returns to her home borough (The Way We Were, indeed) and performs at the Barclays Center. She even name-dropped Jay-Z, another Brooklynite who christened the arena last week, in a tune.

I wanna rock and roll all night! (wait, wrong post-60 year-old performer who played in NYC this week)

Also in New York City one day earlier, KISS performed live on Letterman and did a post-show concert for fans (and for a live webcast). What does it say about pop culture in 2012 that Streisand, KISS and Dave still move the dial? Oh, and if we only had tickets to Peter Gabriel’s show at Mohegan Sun tomorrow night…