Whither the Yahoo Headlines Sorter.

So I was on the Yahoo sports home page just now, and I really have to wonder about the guy who sorts the headlines and what sort of priorities he has in mind.

At first I thought perhaps the headlines are just sorted chronologically, but a quick look at the time stamps disproves that.

Or perhaps there’s some sort of popularity aggregator at play with minimal human involvement.

Or maybe there is a guy working that shift, and he is one cynical bastard.

The second story, after the Saints’ big win, was the White Sox being eliminated from playoff contention.

Then the FOURTH story was how the Twins clinched a playoff berth tonight.  So the team NOT making the playoffs is a bigger story than the team making it.

“But Kevin,” you say.  “The team that missed are the defending champs! So in this case it IS a bigger story.   And when am I gonna get that $50 back that I lent you?  Dude, you’re a good guy, but you’re really putting me in a spot here.  I’m at the end of my rope.  I feel taken advantage of.”  Fair enough (about the Yahoo! part), but it gets better.

The NINTH story is this piece about another college football player, Dale Lloyd is his name,  dying at practice, this time at Rice (I can’t link to the Y! story itself, for some reason).

Ninth?  Dude died.  I’m not trying to be melodramatic or suggest that we need 40’s style “War is Over” type coverage, I’m just saying, ninth?   When someone gets seriously hurt on the gridiron, the announcers never miss a chance to somberly remind us, “It’s times like this when you realize football, it’s just a game.  LIFE is what REALLY matters.” before going back to devoting all available brain cells to the just-a-game.    Not that I’m any better, perspective-wise, but I sure don’t get all sanctimonious when something like this happens.  Except, perhaps, right now. 

But what REALLY makes the Yahoo headline order bizarre is what appears in seventh, two spots above the Rice story.   One of the Duquesne basketball players who got shot has undergone treatment to get bullet fragments removed from his head.

So there you have it.    The more excitingly acquired injuries take precendence over the mundane ones, even if the dramatically injured guy survives and the boringly collapsing guy perishes.  “If it bleeds, it leads” is very literally true.

My only question is, did they stop just for one goddamn second to consider that Rice is a higher-profile school than Duquesne, which doesn’t even have a D-1A football program?  Assholes.

In the NFL, it’s always about the quarterbacks…

Some thoughts on Sunday’s action. Thoughts on Saturday’s tomfoolery to follow a little later in the week, I think.

• I’ve said it before, but I won’t say it again: You aim to lose when you put your eggs in the Kurt Warner basket. I don’t understand why he was ever so highly touted, to be honest. Disregard that Super Bowl season. Actually, don’t. Go back. Watch how many times he throws into double/triple/quadruple coverage. He had an arm. He had a great deal of good fortune. Perhaps, as he pronounced after the Super Bowl, it was all about Jesus, because he’s been plagued by the same devils as any average QB since.
• I hope Chris Simms is okay. The next biggest question in Tampa is who will be the next coach. Gruden quits after this season, I predict. If he’s not fired.
• What’s wrong with Tom Brady? It’s okay to be pouty about not having any wide receivers in week one. But, by week three, something should have clicked. It’s not all his fault, the sub-standard performance by the Pats, but some of it has to go on his shoulders. He repeatedly skipped balls two and three yards ahead of his receivers last night against Denver. It was both weird and kinda cool. I like Brady, have been a supporter of his for years, but I’m sick of the Patriots, and not at all upset to see them lose.
• Is something wrong with Phil Simms? He called Ben Roethlisberger’s INT late in the game v. Cincy “a good decision.” Um, did you watch the play, Phil? In Ben’s defense, it didn’t appear he had anywhere else to go with the ball. Still… he should have thrown it out of the end zone, not into coverage.
• More on the CBS 1st teamers: Ben threw an INT that appeared to have been the result of either arm weakeness, wind, or stepping on someone. Phil noticed after a third replay showing Ben fall down after throwing the ball that perhaps he stepped on an OL. Jim Nantz, ever the asshole, said definitively, “NO!” And the replay wasn’t shown again. Fast forward to the quotes after the game, and you’ll hear Ben tell us that he stepped on his center’s foot as he threw the ball, which might have had a little bit to do with the ball not going where he meant it to go.
• Palmer is going to get killed on the field of play if his OL doesn’t learn a little pass blocking. Anytime the Bengals ran a five-step or more drop, Palmer predictably ended the play on his face or his ass. The plays in the second half when that didn’t happen came on 3-step drops, far too little time for a LB to whip the tackles. But only barely.
• Jake the Snake didn’t do what I expected him to do v. the Pats. I fully expected a four TO day. Instead, he was rather restrained and the Broncos… well, let’s just say the Broncos won because they’re better than the Pats. And Plummer didn’t feel like hurting his own team last night. That’s once this year.
• Tonight’s game is interesting. Which of these teams is better poised to win the NFC South? Or will the winner simply bow out later in the season to the oncoming Panthers? (One win! It’s the beginning of their dominance!) Do you go with the guy who can run like the wind but can’t throw when the pressure’s on? Or with the guy who’s proven he can throw? Does tonight’s QB matchup constitute the smallest QB competition ever? Combined, the two are only twelve feet tall. I suppose any game that included Doug Flutie was shorter, but not by so much…
• Let the competition for Brady Quinn begin! Houston. Or Oakland. Tennessee stands a good chance to be in position to take him, too, but we’ll guess they’ll go with a legitimate linebacker or running back next year, given that they have to give Vince Young till at least the end of next season to prove he’s not a pro QB.
• Or is the NFL game about to endure a subtle but interesting shift? Much has been made in the last couple weeks of the Atlanta Falcons running a spread option offense the likes of which are run exclusively at the college level, and then only by teams with athletic quarterbacks. Will Tennessee be watching the Falcons and their experimentation with this style of offense at the pro level. Granted, Young’s no Vick, but the difference in speed isn’t that great. If the QB’s that much quicker than the LB and the safety, might he be better suited to be the ball carrier in some instances? Especially considering how much of the spread option offenses are based on deceit, you have to wonder. For twenty years, we’ve been getting misdirection cues from running backs and offensive linemen. Is it time, since QBs are less and less statuesque, for the QB to be more than a ball-distribution device?

I love NPR, but…

Sometimes, they get a little off their rocker.

Friday morning’s Marketplace Morning Report included a brief report and commentary on the state of college athletics, apropos of Reggie Bush’s current dilemma of sorts.
The commentator, some woman named Diana Nyad, complained that Southern California should not be held responsible for the activities of its students. At least, that’s the upshot of her rant, anyway.
She railed against a system that kept student-athletes from affording to take their girlfriends on dates, from doing their laundry in a timely manner. She came this close to suggesting they couldn’t afford to eat.

She suggested that the taking of $100,000 worth of gifts and services by Bush and/or his family wasn’t wrong, in a moral sense. Portraying Bush as some starving athlete (whither the starving artist, eh?), he had no choice, in her estimation, but to accept the money and the gifts and the bribes to sign with this agency or that one.

What a load of shit.

(I love the blogging life. I curse like this, perhaps even more, in my natural speaking, so it’s difficult to get around in a forum or what-not where your curses will be redacted, nullifying the stunning efficacy of such meaningless words as shit and fuck.)

She completely ignored the fact that these student-athletes are supposed to be amateurs. Not paid for their effort. Playing for the love of the sport, the competition.

The definition of amateur, according to the electronic dictionary built into my operating system defines amateur thusly:
a person who engages in a pursuit, esp. a sport, on an unpaid basis

Further, the origin of the word amateur comes from the Latin amator, meaning “lover.”

In other words, in any society not obsessed with cash, these kids are playing their sport for the love of the game. Not the cash.

I know what’s coming. “But the world is different! It doesn’t work that way! Those kids need that money to eat and do laundry!”
You forgot, “And buy XBox 360 video games.”

And I nearly forgot, “And weed.”

I’m not completely naïve. I know things aren’t what they once were. That sports are a means to an end, not necessarily an end unto themselves. I’m also aware of the fact that sports have long (always?) been an endeavor of finance for the colleges and universities sponsoring them.

Yet, I just can’t get past the fact that student-athletes (walk-ons excepted, of course) are getting a payment that goes beyond cash, goes beyond sports, in the form of a free education. And I can’t wrap my head around the idea that that isn’t enough.

If we were getting stories of student-athletes who were starving and had to give up their beloved sport so they could have a job in order to eat two meals a day, well… I’d be way more sympathetic.

The story out of Clemson two weeks ago regarding the NCAA making an exception to their rules that forbid the extra-scholarship financial support of a student-athlete is an exception that I not only understand, but support whole-heartedly. It’s this sort of situation that requires the NCAA to make its exceptions. And perhaps these stories are more common than we know. (The NCAA could use a public relations expert.)

But, it’s these stories that make us overlook why the NCAA has its rules in place in the first place.
The Bush story isn’t even a very good reminder, because the agent in question appeared to be simply attempting to secure the services of a future pro athlete who would bring the agent tons of cash and invaluable credibility points. The agent has no concerns about what Bush does on the field, insomuch as he steps off the field healthy after each game, and preferably after juking a couple kids of their jocks, leaping over Touchdown Jesuses and scoring no fewer than 24 points a game on 35 touches.

Let’s return, then, to the Troy Smith story of nearly two years ago. We see a younger OSU QB taking cash from a university booster, presumably for no reason at all. The idiot booster brags about owning Smith.
Owning him.

As I noted above, I’m not naïve. Boosters give handouts mostly so that these student-athletes can go about living their lives in a relaxed state. A mind too occupied by wondering when he can next do his laundry, buy his girl something not on the dollar menu, etc., is not conducive to scoring points and winning games. And that’s generally all boosters want: points and wins.

But, some boosters provide money with a quid pro quo. “Take this money and do what you can to keep the total under 55.” “Here’s a little something for you. There’s more if you guys win by ten or less. Or fifty or more. Or score another touchdown.” Whatever proposition the “booster” has lined up for his weekend deal.

Nefarious characters are everywhere. (If they can be in Oregon, they can be anywhere!)

Then there’s the other reason (some might even call it a “real” reason) universities are forbidden providing extra cash to their student-athletes aside from the scholarship and stipend: fairness.

A university such as Harvard or Yale or Carnegie Mellon (my alma mater) could have every athletic championship plaque and chalice in their gold-adorned cabinet in the Hallway of Champions if they were permitted payouts to student-athletes. These schools, among others, would pay enormous sums to bring in the best athletes and quickly forsake their academic values because those kids bring in wads and wads of real cash.
Sure, some of that cash gets reinvested in next year’s crop of über-athletes, but some of it can go toward a new dorm (probably for the atheletes), some of it can go toward a new wing in the library, some of it can go toward that really controversial professor with the book about the thing that everybody’s excited about.

Which would be really cool for the ten or fifteen schools whose endowments would permit them a kind of carte blanche in buying up every super-athlete under the sun.

But, what about the state schools, where geeks like me would end up having to go because all the students in the Humanities & Social Sciences College at Carnegie Mellon are attending for free because they play lacrosse, football, soccer, baseball, ballroom dance? “We love your SATs and your high school GPA,” they could have started (like they did), “But we simply don’t have room for a student your caliber,” could have been the terrible ending.

And those state schools, wildly underfunded anyway, are trying to educate kids with fifty year old textbooks and three-hundred year old globes (which are cool for history class, and really nothing else).

Of course, hyperbole rules the day. Of course it wouldn’t be that bad (did they make globes three hundred years ago? I didn’t really study history in college or high school. Not the history of education or navigation, leastways).
And the libertarians are screeching (you can hear them, can’t you? sounds kind of like a train screeching to a stop) “What’s wrong with that?! Free markets rules!!” (They will have gone to state schools, after all…)

What is wrong with that? Is it any different than our current situation, in which schools like the University of Miami or Ohio State University or University of Akron lure in the better athletes with the lower standardized test scores with the promise of not having to attend classes (or taking tests, anyway)?

Well, I suppose it has something to do with the definition of a word. Amateur.
These kids are supposed to be amateurs. They’re supposed to love the game. In a fairer society, perhaps they would play for the love of the game. Instead, they play for the highest bidder and in hopes of getting a fat paycheck.

Instead of fixing the inequities of life and money and assuring that the student-athletes go to college first and play a sport second, let’s just pay them, the commentator on NPR says. Let’s open up the market. Let’s pay the athlete-students. Far too onerous a proposition to deal with gamblers (a too lucrative venture to be completely abolished, ever), well-meaning boosters, or degenerate extortionists (all those who bribe have something they want to take from you, else they wouldn’t offer you that envelope with three thousand dollars cash in it). Far too something, expensive, I guess, to provide an education at an appropriate level for these kids to use and fall back on. Let’s just pay them. They are, after all, making gobs of money for their school.
Who treats them so shabbily. “Fuck tuition. I just wanna do my laundry.”

You can hear them all saying that. I heard it all the time from the football players on my dorm floor in sophomore year. I think I overheard Johnny Majors complain that his kids couldn’t even afford fries at “The O,” and they were starving, and that’s why WVU whipped their asses at the one game I attended at old Pitt Stadium.

I have another idea: Let’s do away with college athletics altogether. Universities can open athletic academies, if they’re so inclined, wherein they teach the best of the best how to run go routes, how to swing for the fences, how to bounce pass across the paint. The academies can be the conduit to the professional world for these athletes. The academies can join in business alliances with specific agencies, practically promising agents a certain number of clients, and hence a certain median income. The academies can spend significant time teaching the athlete-students the do’s and don’ts of illegal drugs, loose women, and “autograph signing when you can’t read.” These academies can even be a for-profit arm of otherwise non-profit universities, allowing the universities to suck up all the cash from boosters and agents and whatever other riffraff and put it right into the pockets of their athelete-students and into the well-groomed pants of their own suits.

Ultimately, I’m not opposed to a real-world informed stipend for each student-athlete. If the stipend provided by The Ohio State University isn’t enough to get by in Columbus, by all means, OSU should increase the stipend. I don’t know and am too lazy to go learn how stipends are determined. I assume they’re enough for these kids to get by. I’m guessing Diana Nyad’s proclamations otherwise are false, because I’ve never heard of a student-athlete who starved. One (hundreds!) who did illegal things? Absolutely. Never starved, though.

And Southern California, if the regulatory body of the NCAA deems it so, should be punished for allowing Bush his liaisons with agents and what-not. The NCAA has rules that are meant to protect the integrity and the amateur nature of the sports played at the college level. If USC allowed (it seems nearly impossible to believe that the administrators at USC were unaware of where Reggie’s beach house came from, who he spent some of his non-football/non-college time with) Bush his little promiscuities, they should be punished. It seems unfair, since Bush has moved on to his professional life, and is giving so much of his massive contract back to the city where he plays. But, USC knows the rules. If they allowed one player to bend them, they’re likely to allow others to do so, too. And it’s a fair bet that Bush’s kickbacks didn’t happen in a vacuum.

Some Picks

It’s been a long week.  I’m ready for my college football.

I might even do a two or three team parlay somewhere for small change.   Here are the games I’m leaning towards.

Most of the picks I like I have seen forecasted elsewhere, except the play I like best.  

Rice is at Florida State this weekend.  Now Rice is pretty bad and Texas destroyed them last week, but they put up a good fight at UCLA, losing by ten, and against Houston.    Florida State got handled at home to Clemson and needed a 4th quarter comeback to put away Troy the week before that.  I’m not even sure the ‘Noles are better than UCLA at this point, and yet the sportsbooks are giving THIRTY points to Rice.   I’m all over that one.

I also like Syracuse, who has played well the last two weeks, to put away Miami of Ohio, the only team Northwestern has managed to blow out (which they couldn’t do against New Hampshire or Eastern Michigan), by more than the current spread of 7 at home.

I feel like we don’t know much about Boston College yet.  They have won three games, but they’ve all been close (including Central Michigan), and I feel like the teams they have squeaked out victories against are also unknown quantities.   Beating Clemson looked good in light of Clemson’s win in Tallahassee, but as per the above I wonder if Florida State is even worse than we thought could be possible.  They also needed overtime to put away BYU (who lost to Arizona) at home.

On the other hand, we do know something about North Carolina State:  They suck.  And yet they are only 6.5 point underdogs at home vs. BC.  I’ll take the Eagles to round out my parlay.

Other teams I like are Nevada (to beat Northwestern at home tonight by more than 7), Connecticut (2 point underdogs at Indiana), and USC (to beat Arizona by more than 17 in the desert).

Something We Can All Disagree On.

The Oklahoma-Oregon game and fallout continues to be the college football story du jour (around here, anyway).   Dave mentions below that these monumental fuckups is “just one” of the reasons he does not support instant replay.

I do support it, even still, and perhaps I’m taking this opportunity to elaborate on my position ’cause Dave suggests we all “shut up” about it, and I want to defy him.  Still….

 …my support of Instant Replay is simple.  I realize that there will always be bad calls and blown calls even with it (although not “every week,” at least not on the order where everyone basically agrees that the replay call was blown, as Dave suggests).   I just want there to be less of them.   And with replay, there is less.   For every reversal of the call on the field that is monumental in its badness, there’s 100 that’s either agreed upon that it’s a good call, or at least, something that reasonable people can debate.   That’s good enough of an improvement for me.   The odds of someone getting the call right after looking at it 20 times in slow motion from 5 angles is greater than a 6o year old insurance salesperson getting it right the first time, in real time.  That’s the bottom line to me.  Not tradition, not the Beauty of the Human Error.

On the other hand, I don’t understand how the Oklahoma-Oregon  debacle happened.   We ALL agree, outside of the lunatic fringe, that the replay officials blew this call.  So how did it happen?    Were they biased, or corrupt?  Is there some medical problem with the way their brain processes the information the eye takes in?  I mean, seriously, this wasn’t about rules interpretation or anything.  What the hell happened?  That’s what bothers me.  But again, the bad replay calls that are this cut-and-dried wrong (and not a matter of rules interpretation) are infrequent enough for me to continue to endorse replay.

I can’t believe Dave trotted out the hoary “The refs messed up.  The players lost the game” tater.   Granted, as cliche as it is, it’s usually true.  And it’s also true that teams should accept their fate in close games, and blow out everyone if they don’t like it.  That said, if the refs got this call right, I recklessly take for granted that the Sooners would have taken a knee and run out the clock, that there would be no Off-Broadway Joe Pisarcik-like disaster in store for them.   So yeah.  If the refs had made the right call, the Sooners would have won the game.  Hence, the refs cost Oklahoma the game.

So what is the proper rectification?  Suspending the officials in question is justified, but that doesn’t go far enough for OU President David Boren, who believes “the Big 12 should request that the game should not go into the record books as a win or loss by either team in light of the level of officiating mistakes.”

Wow.  That’s…big.  That’s unprecedented.  And sorry, I can’t get behind that, trouper for fairness though I may be.   I couldn’t really enunciate, even internally, why I would be against changing or eradicating the result, it just feels wrong.  Fortunately, the wonderful Sunday Morning Quarterback found the words and put them to music:

“There is about zero chance the game will ever be wiped from the official record. Oregon wil not allow this, the PAC Ten will not allow this, the NCAA will not allow this and the 2001 Oakland Raiders, 1996 Baltimore Orioles and 1990 Missouri Tigers will be first in a line of hundreds to get their referee-induced losses off the books, too.”
Yeah, that.

That’s an outstanding listing of The Great Officiating Howlers of our Time, by the way.  Before reading this piece, I was thinking about whether the Oregon onside kick was the worst officiating job I’d ever seen in college football, and I decided it was, but I completely forgot about the Missouri-Colorado fifth down game. That was worse.  How can that ever be beat?  And to double the injustice, the Buffs, with one tainted win, one loss, and one tie, still split the National Title (I forget if it was the AP or the coaches that gave it to them) with Georgia Tech, who had no losses and one tie.   Let’s go to the monitors and review that one.

Professional commenters suffer short-term memory loss

Listening this morning to yesterday’s ESPNU College Football Insider podcast from Disney Sports:College Edition, Ivan Maisel wondered allowed, along with the host (Dave somebody, not Revson), why the NFL doesn’t have the problems with replay that reared its ugly head this past weekend.

I walked out of the room before the wierdness in the LSU-Auburn game, and was unaware of it till they discussed it in the podcast. Sounds like the SEC needs to talk to the guys who ran that replay a little bit.

The Pac-10 suspended their crew working the OU-UO game that KB referenced in his previous post.

But, what exactly happened in the OU-UO game that’s never happened in the NFL’s version of replay?
What, replay officials in the NFL never fuck up? Are you kidding me?

Does anyone recall the insane call that went against the Steelers in the playoffs, in which Troy Palomalu made an interception, popped up from a roll (going untouched by Colts players) and knocked the ball from his hands with his knee? The play that NFL Head of Officiating Michael Perriera apologized for on the Tuesday following the game, and noted that the rule had been interpreted incorrectly.

Has no one watched an NFL replay and wondered what the hell the official saw when he announced his decision?
It happens every week.
It’s one of the weaknesses of replay. And merely one reason I hate it.

But, since college has now adopted it, they get to see what the NFL lives with week-in, week-out.

Is what happened to the Sooners a bad thing?
Absolutely.
But, that’s a part of the game. Teams lose because of official incompetence. This isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last time.
At the same time, what the hell happened to the Sooners D in that situation?
The officials messed up.
The players lost the game.

And the NFL’s replay situation isn’t any better, college folks. Get used to it or get rid of it. And shut up.

UPDATE: It should be noted that I wrote and published this item prior to reading Pat Forde’s similar sounding rant at OU’s president. Really. I almost never read Forde, actually.

College Football Quick Hits, Week 3

* Man, Steve Slaton is fast.

*A missed PAT cost Vanderbilt the game against Arkansas, Fresno State the game against Washington (more on that in a bit), and forced Boston College into overtime against BYU.  Memo to all NCAA coaches: Kickers should not be a recruiting afterthought.

*Wow, did Oklahoma really, really, really seemed to get jobbed twice by the refs in the last couple of minutes in Oregon’s big comeback…the zebras were guilty of not reversing a call on Oregon’s successful onside kick that really seemed to warrant it,  and reversing a call on the ensuing drive that really seemed to NOT be warranted.  No one defends officials more than I do, but I just don’t understand this.  Are they privy to some secret camera angles that we don’t see at home?  Why do several of the replays we see on television seem to clearly indicate one thing, with the post-review ruling EMPHATICALLY (by which I mean, citing indistputable evidence) going the other way?

*Washington might be back.  They knocked off Fresno State a week after a respectable showing against Oklahoma.   Good to see Tyrone Willingham avenged.

*Everyone I know is sort of rooting for Sylvester Croom to do well, but it’ll be difficult to justify his continued current employment for must longer.   They lost to Tulane on Saturday and the Bulldogs have shown zero improvement in Croom’s tenure.

*TCU beat Texas Tech 12-3?  What?  Didn’t these two teams combine for about 100 a couple years ago?

Dese Wimmin’

I just read Bill Simmons’ week 1 NFL predictions column (yes, I am getting around to it a tad late), and I see he’s adding a new wrinkle to his picks this year. Noting that he puts a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into his picks and yet barely manages to break even on them, he enlists his wife, who “hates” football, to make random picks this year as well, to see if he can at least beat someone who knows nothing about the NFL.

So what? Well, this statement leaped out at me:

“Am I risking a wave of negative picks karma from every female reader who will be rooting for her to beat me?”

Ha. He thinks only the women are rooting for his wife in this contest? That the men are a united front behind him in the gender war he wages in half of his columns? We’re all pulling for him to beat the old lady? Maybe that’ll shut up dese wimmin, with their WNBA and their feelings.

Man, he’s even more pompous and delusional than I thought. Which was very pompous and delusional.

I have news for Bill. Everyone in America is rooting for your wife to beat you. I’m not even really exaggerating. Guys like me are rooting for his wife because we want el Smuggo taken down a peg or two. His fans, friends and supporters are also rooting for his wife, because they want to have something to bag on him about (Simmons deifies jolular teasing over…well, everything in life, it seems).

SportsGal, if you are reading this (and I can’t imagine that she’s not), just pick all the home teams every week. That should be plenty sufficient to take your other half out, week 1 weirdness with road teams winning everywhere notwithstanding.

Bonnie Bernstein’s Panties

First, I’m still working on Kevin’s challenge regarding my college division relegation system. In general, I don’t pay much attention to what happens to western Division I-AA teams, unless they play Division I-A teams. Not a cop-out. I just have some research to do.

Second, and the reason for the title of this post:
Did anyone else think that Bonnie Bernstein wanted to pull her clothes off and just jump on Philip Rivers in the postgame interview of the late Monday Night game? I swear, she’s standing next to him, beaming, watching him, making him uncomfortable by staring and drooling with a silly school girl grin. Compare to the interview with Shawne Merriman, in which she contains her lust for professional football players until she spontaneously asks Merriman a question about Philip Rivers, and she starts beaming that Bonnie Bernstein smile again. When the interview is over, as the camera is pulling out, we see her go straight-faced again.

So, my question: Did she mail Philip Rivers her panties after the game, or did she just see to putting them in his locker while he was in the shower?

(Guilty admission: Of all the super-hot or just plain cute female sideline reporters that are employed by Disney Sports–Jill Arrington, Suzy Kolber, Erin Andrews, Bonnie, anyone else whose name I’ve ignored–Bonnie is the one I most desire. I don’t have a real reason, but she makes me want to mail her my panties.)

It’s Been So Long….

..since I last posted, I’m glad to see the blog doing well in Dave’s capable hands.

 I actually have a couple counterpoints to Dave’s posts.

*Not only is Nick Saban every bit the loser Dave explains him to be, but Saban’s argument doesn’t make any sense.  There’s these things called headsets.  Someone upstairs can yell into it to Saban, “Challenge the call! Challenge the call!”

 Hell, even if technical problems forbid such communication, go down to True Value, buy a pole or a flagstick, have the booth wave it out the window when they want a call challenged, and, if you’re Saban, remember the right press box section to look towards.  (Or maybe that’s not such a hot idea.  If I was a beat writer with a seat in the window next to the assistant coaches, I would bring such an item and wave it at times it would be a bad idea to challenge, just to try to sabotage the Dolphins).

Point is, if you can’t figure out a way to send a message about 400 feet in the 15-20 second window after they in the booth have a chance to look at it, and before the next play is snapped, then I have no sympathy for you.

*I’m having fun with Dave’s Relegation/Promotion thing.   I ask him this:  Colorado lost to I-AA Montana State, who then went on to lose to D2 Chadron State (alma mater of Don Beebe).   Your test questions:

1.  Based on the above, properly classify Colorado, Montana State, and Chadron State (show your work).

2. Colorado is defending Big 12 North champions.  Does that make you laugh?

3. To what extent can we attribute Colorado’s demise to the fact that CU recruits no longer get strippers and alcohol and shit?

4. Can we pretend that Chadron State is a better team than the defending Big 12 North Champions?

5. Please?

I’ve been away because I’ve been on vacation, an experience I would described as “Griswoldian.”  We went to Atlantic City, but the Louis C.K show we were going to see got postponed with no announced make up date…we had less money than we thought we had, which almost became a minorly urgent matter, and just a bunch of other little things went wrong that severely mitigated my enthusiasm for playing poker for the first time in a brick-and-mortar casino, something I’ve been jazzed about for a month.

Sorry, I’m gonna have to give you a bad beat story.   I’ll keep it brief. I sat down at the $1-$2 tables with $50 (which was the minimum buyin, and everyone but me bought in for more).  But I lost 40% of my stack when my top pair was outkicked by one, and then I went all in later, in the face of a raise, when my ace paired from the big blind.   Dude called and then turned over NOTHING, needing runner-runner help to beat my aces.  Which he did, to make a flush.  Even the dealer let out an, “Ohhh!”   Yep.  First time in a casino.

I signed up for an $100 tournament, along with 57 others.   20 minute blinds, and you start with 100x the big blind.

This was the highlight of a forgettable night of poker.  I finished 15th, and only the top 9 played, but I was happy to make is as far as I did, even though I only won two hands.   One was when I limped in with 4’s and then flopped a full house (477).   The other guy in the hand would double me up on the turn. “Shit, man,” he said.  “I put you on a pair, but not THAT pair.”   Then I took down the blinds again on the very next hand on a bluff, when I figured the 993 flop didn’t catch anyone and that people wouldn’t be looking to tangle with me just then.

That was it.   It was a big fold-a-thon after that, I just no cards….the full house double up was all it took to make it to the bubble, though…a testament to the value of tight play.   

Two other hands of interest:   I had about 5 times the big blind left, got K10, and called only because the big blind was so crippled that she was allin just by posting.   Another guy called as well.   Board came 6 2 2 8 10.   I bet small on the river after catching that pair.   The guy said, “You must have caught a piece,” and folded.  I got ready to take down the pot, which was significant because the blinds were getting so big, and the Big Blind (the lady who was allin) says, “I made the straight” and turned over 7 9.   That’s twice that someone went runner-runner on me this evening to deny me a pot, if you’re scoring at home.

The hand I went out on went like this….I had about 6 big blinds left and was the big blind.  The guy to my right had about 2 and went all in.   I already was half invested in the pot, with a non-terrible hand, so I called.  One other guy, who had us both covered, called as well.  

 Flop came K22.   I checked, the bigger stack made a bet, and I reraised him allin.  He called.   “Do you have the 2?”  He asked.  “No,” I said, and turned over my hand.  He turned over KJ. 

My reaction was to curse, then apologize for cursing as I quickly recalled that some tournaments do call for a ten-minute penaly for cursing, and then asked the Poker Gods to grace me with the one card that would put me ahead. 

To put it another way, I said, “FUCK!  Sorry.  TEN!”

Didn’t happen, and I was out in 16th place.   The other allin guy got knocked out too, turning over 77.

That’s twice where being outkicked by one cost me a big pot, if you’re scoring at home.

Finally, an STT (Single Table Tournament, aka “Sit ‘n Go” game).  I was looking forward to this the most, because I play that the most online.    But it turns out the the blinds were way too aggressive for my tastes…we started with 20x the big blinds instead of 100, the blinds were 15 minutes long instead of 20 (and that extra 5 minutes makes a world of difference), and the blinds doubled at each level instead of going up 50%, which they did in the Multi Table Tournamentt

I just could not adjust after bubbling in the first tournament with patient play….I made a clumsy bluff attempt that cost me 40% of my chips, doubled up when I hit for a full house yet again (this time the turn created it), and then….I just never got any cards and the blinds ate me away…..I finally went all in with less than one blig blind with K5 and only the Big Blind called me, and showed me AJ.   Board helped him even more and I went out in sixth.

That was all as far as AC poker went….I lost every last cent I had earmarked months ago for it.  In several hours of play there, I never got AA, AK, KK, QQ, or JJ.  I got 10 10 once and I THINK I got AQ once.  That’s it.

We decided to leave a day early to save money….”Great,” I thought.  “I will be able to get home in time to watch the second half of the Akron game.”  But then we developed muffler problems, necessitating a search for a good muffler place (this first one we tried was seedy, only accepted cash, and had signs saying they won’t release your car without getting cash from you, and the mechanic suggested in broken english [after looking at it for a minute and a half,] that we needed a new muffler).

We sought a second opinion from a reputable chain place and finally found one who fixed our muffler while we waited.  It was pretty cheap, too, but it meant we were stretching our credit out further still than we wanted to, and it meant I missed the Akron game in its entirety, which was only the biggest win in the history of the Akron program, forged by a field-goal-to-tie-eschewing-touchdown-run on the very last play of the game, that’s all.

Then I played a little poker online tonight.  Specifically, I played in a $4 (+rebuys and add-ons) satellite to a $200 tournament, the winner of which would travel to participate in next year’s Aussie Millions, plus spending cash and a hotel room in Melbourne.

The blind escalation was utterly ridiculous (every six minutes), but I was basically just trying to finish off the remaining $12 I had on this site (Paradise Poker), which would mean I could rebuy twice, or rebuy once and add on once.  I figured that cancelled out the fast blinds to a certain degree.  

The play was very aggressive and, unlike in AC, I caught cards, and I was able to punish people with them….by the time the break came, I had not needed to rebuy, and so I added on, and I was the chip leader at my table.

I went from first to fifth at my table in about five mintues, without even playing a hand.   The blinds were insanely high, everyone was in allin-or-fold mode, and everyone was doubling each other up.

I just decided to lay low, wheather the storm and let everyone knock each other out….I was not willing to go out on K9 or some other marginal hand that everyone else was pushing all in with.   That worked in terms of thinning the field while I remained standing, but it left me severely crippled.  I was in 12th place out of 12 at one point, with only a couple big blinds.

FINALLY I get a premium hand (AA) and double up with it and give myself some breathing room.  Then once again, a few more rounds of terror/allinfests, and I’m the short stack again without having played another hand, this time with about 7 or 8 people left, and I pushed in the rest of my chips with A 10.

Did I mention the top five won entry into the Aussie Millions Qualifier?   Sixth, seventh, and eighth won piddly cash prizes (20, 13, and 8 bucks respectively, still a net loss if you re-bought a bunch of times).

Everybody’s play seemed pretty solid, if a bit panicky.  The only one who jumped out at me was this guy named “Donator1968.”  Boy, was the name apt, it would turn out…. but he took down huge pot after huge pot by catching big on board after board….he had the chip lead when I joined his table, he took down hundreds of thousands of chips after I joined, and just put himself way, way out of reach.

It must be said, I do not believe he played the monster stack well….anytime someone went allin, he would call, with anything.   Granted, he had such a huge lead that he probably had pot odds to call every time, but it would always be with nothing, and the person going allin always had…well, the type of hand you are going to push with if you need to make up some chips.  It was like being at the table with Santa Claus.  Need chips?  Wait for a good hand, and get paid off.  It was annoying, though, because no one was getting eliminated as a result.

So it was my turn to sit on Santa’s lap with A 10, but of course, this time he really did have a hand…55.

The ten came on the turn….I stayed alive again.

The blinds were so big at this point that, besides doubling up, picking up the blinds and antes was  huge….it would not only give me breathing room, but it pulled me out of last place…past a couple people…

But Santa got right back down to work, and there were about 5 hands that I could’ve gotten into the top six or five with if he had won, but he lost each time and I was inching towards the short stack AGAIN with, now, six people left.

I had about 2 1/2 big blinds left, and the guy to my right had less than one big blind left.  I decided to wait until he became the big blind, refuse to play with anything else, and hope he got picked off in the big blind.

When he did get the big blind, I yelled at the screen “EVERYBODY CALL!”   It’s just what makes sense to me.   If everyone calls, and everyone checks down the board, then he’s got to beat five of us, and even if he does, we are still alive anyway.

But every fuckhead folded, including some people who could REALLY afford to call, except me (with K7os) and, you guessed it, Donator1968.

Flop comes 10 10 9.   I check, and of course Santa is determined to make us all hate him (Bad Santa, if you will) and bets out.   He had done it before: knocked people out of the hand with still another person all in, and revealed himself to have no hand.  It’s called “bluffing at a dry side pot” and it’s such an aggressively stupid thing to do in tournaments, for reasons I won’t bore you with.  But it’s Poker 101.

I angrily fold, and he turns up…10 4.   Good thing, too, because the allin guy caught a piece of the flop as well, turning up 9A.   Turn is a six, River is a six, and the big blind was eliminated.   The tournament stopped, right there.   The instant the hand ended, I got a popup box saying, “Congratulations!  You have finished in first and have been entered into the $200 Aussie Millions Direct Qualifier!” even though I wasn’t even in the same area code as the chip leader (who was still Donator1968 when play stopped, bless his heart). So that was that. 

The first online tournament I ever played was 16 months ago. I finished 7th in it and won $65.  I had not been able to improve on that result in the time since, which was internally embarrassing and annoying.  I may not know much about poker, but I certainly know a lot more than I did then.

With this prize of a $200 ticket, funded entirely by other player’s $4 entries, rebuys, and add-ons (this was not a “guaranteed” tournament.  If less than $200 worth of people participated, then they wouldn’t have awarded the package), I FINALLY knock that monkey off my back.   And, it’s a gateway to a tournament  (last year’s version, of course), I have actually been watching and getting into on television.

So, the tournament will be this Saturday at 8 Eastern.  Even though that’s a time most people have plans of some sort, I am hoping a couple of friends and well-wishers will download Paradise Poker, find the tournament, click on my name in the participant’s list (mreleganza), click on my table, and leave a note of good luck in the chat box (observers can chat with the participants).  It would mean a lot to me, actually.  This is a big deal to me. And hopefully, no one will attempt to do so at 8:15 and found I’ve already busted out.   That’s why I’m also gonna post this diatribe in my other blog and on the Sports Central Message Boards. I’m nothing if not a publicity whore well-wishing junkie.  The poker could be good and watchable, too.