unclevlad

The Rockies help provide the coup de grace today, as they beat the Cubs. With the Padres winning, the Cubs are eliminated...and the Rockies *aren't*. 5 NL teams formally eliminated now. 3 in the AL. Rockies, Rangers, and Angels are all dormie, tho...

If they choose to blow an extra $7M rather than wait 3 weeks, firing everyone else on the staff would be nothing. That said, I suspect Meyer would laugh in their faces. He's not gonna touch a near-hopeless situation like that, if he wants to go back to coaching at all. And I can't see a) Meyer in particular taking the job during this season, with no time to get his systems (and people) in place b) Nebraska waiting that long. Granted, that arguably supports cutting the deal with Meyer, so they can announce the change even if the current staff's left as a lame duck for the rest of the season. What wouldn't shock me is if they try to poach a coordinator. To be sure, *finding* someone worth hiring before Thanksgiving is...pretty darn tricky.

He'd checked out of the Hotel California. He just couldn't leave...

Who needs hate? Anyone idiotic enough to even consider the <BLEEP> deserves anything they get. UCLA pulls out a late save...much like Bama last week, looks like, altho I wasn't watching. Box score says down 8 entering the 4th. Got the TD, missed the 2 pointer. Ball back with about 3 minutes, got a nice 30 yard gain to get inside the SouthAl 40, moved, moved, moved, kicked a chippie at the ned. So not entirely last second like Bama; they hadda kick a long FG. The line was WSU -16.5 over CSU, and yes, they're covering so far with exceptional ease. That's one of the stories of the week; the routs are everywhere. Granted, several were givens...Bama's destroying LA-Monroe, DUH. Michigan against UConn had to be a frontrunner for Rout of the Week...#4 vs. #17 with a bullet...that's #17 in the Bottom 10, and likely dropping..... NMSU at Wisconsin...the only hope for the Aggies was a massive Covid outbreak taking the Badgers' first AND second string offense and defense out. Even then, they'd be 10 point favorites. Mild surprise, perhaps, was Penn State taking Auburn behind the woodshed...41-12. But that's what you expect when Auburn is -4 in TOs.

Well.....Colorado's drive to reach #1 has just gotten a nice boost...as, after getting embarrassed by Air Force, the Falcons suffer from overconfidence and lose to Wyoming...whose FPI rank was well south of 100. Minnesota should feel like Vegas is giving them bulletin board material; they're only favored by 27.5. The burning question will be whether the Buffs do worse than the Aggies did......

Albert Pujols continues to have what is likely the best season for a 40+ hitter, ever. Down 2 vs. the Reds in the 6th, he hits #698. 19th homer of the season in ~260 at bats. Never dreamed, at the start of the season, he'd reach 700, but the team has 17 more games after tonight. Unless he changes his mind and comes back next year, he'll end with 2200+ RBI and 1900+ runs. He's at 3370 hits; 3400 seems a stretch. And may hit the 700 homers.

Head of the player's association is calling for his ban now. Late edit, before shutting down for the evening. Opinion piece in USA Today on the situation: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/columnist/jeff-zillgitt/2022/09/16/phoenix-suns-owner-robert-sarver-out-public-pressure-mounts/10397274002/

....and you throw it wide so it flies into the right field corner for a little league home run............

40 seconds in and his level of STUPID snark (like pulling the onion out from by the drain pipe)...no, man. I get avoiding pretension, but he's MASSIVELY overdoing it, to the point where it's his focus. Maybe I'm humor-deficient, but...no. Just...no.

The best impetus to force Sarver out is financial pressure. The Suns have a pretty big deal with PayPal as jersey sponsors...that's a high-vis location. And it looked like there were other cross-promotional aspects. Also, the team's 2nd-largest shareholder publicly called for his removal. Timing may be big here. It's the 16th. Training camps open on the 27th. Opening day for the season is Oct. 18th. Sponsors will feel heat to decide, certainly by opening day, and media heat on the players and coaches will explode when training camp opens.

So MTG is advocating defunding the police....? Oh, wait, only the police she doesn't like....

If the Pac 12 falls apart...granted, a sizable "if"...Colorado's going to need to find a new place to fit into, and who knows? It's geographically more solid, if nothing else. With Nebraska, I think the Big 10 will be unwieldy. Nebraska's never fit well, and they're not bringing a large market with them. Oh, and in case you're wondering about the finances of college football? The Athletic has a story today about what Texas spent during the official recruiting visit made by some kid named Manning, and 8 others. On the official one, there are no limits, apparently. 3 days. Total tab: $280,000. Granted, yeah, it wasn't your average recruit...but that is a lot of money. And it's for just 1 visit. While choosing to fork over the $7.5M rather than waiting 3 weeks is still...interesting, it suggests the common basis: booster money has almost no bounds. So forking out the cash reflected the urgency (or panic) in the AD's office.

Patron saint of sore feet and breaking things...so your real name is Blisterio?

Yeah, Padres have been basically .500 since the trade, and Soto's been a non-factor. That said, he's also gotten 32 walks in 34 games, so it's quite possible that he's not seeing anything to hit. .209 average, 3 HRs in 34 games and 115 ABs. Basically miserable. Also saw this story from B-R...a thought I'd had when the trade happened. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10044252-nl-exec-padres-in-danger-of-entering-angels-territory-after-juan-soto-trade TL;DR summary:

For a story about how serious Nebraska's issues were, and therefore why they chose to eat the full buyout rather than wait: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/scott-frost-was-hired-to-fix-nebraska-football-instead-he-helped-it-reach-new-lows/ One key point: ranking 129th out of 130 in expected points added on special teams...but ALSO not hiring a special teams coordinator until *this* season...his 5th. The litany is extensive.

Some Q&A worth a read: https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/omicron-booster-covid-19

But Newsom's didn't involve transporting people under, at best, questionable circumstances, and at unjustifiable taxpayer expense. And we know: if we just automatically assume that anything any politician said is tied to votes, we'd be right FAR more often than wrong. That said, the Democratic primary season for 2024 could be interesting, to be sure. It's not certain Biden will run again. The Republican primary season...well, we'll have to see how the 22 election goes, but I'm afraid we're going to be dragged through the La Brea Tar Pits with a slew of Trumpists...or have almost no contest, and it's just The Donald. With some wrangling for VP, others positioning for '28.

I really hate that meme, Mr. P. It just screams out for tough love to break someone out of rosy-eyed fantasyland... Besides, the Broncos are 10 point favorites, and if I were to bet that game...I'd give the points, honestly.

Roger Federer announced today that Laver Cup will be his last professional appearance. He is retiring. "As many of you know, the past three years have presented me with challenges in the form of injuries and surgeries," Federer said Thursday in a post on his social media accounts. "I've worked hard to return to full competitive form. But I also know my body's capacities and limits, and its message to me lately has been clear. "I am 41 years old. I have played more than 1500 matches over 24 years. Tennis has treated me more generously than I ever would have dreamt, and now I must recognize when it is time to end my competitive career." Can't be surprising to anyone. The injuries have added up; tennis is very hard on the body in many ways. Not, per se, like boxing or football, but it's a game of explosive motion. Still, this clearly marks the end of an era, with both Roger and Serena retiring.

Not for long. E == 4, so it's quite plausible they'll be gone before you blink twice. Or before the Broncos win a game.

Just out of curiosity, are they recording these now? I've had the 4; I'll probably get the 5th along with the flu shot. (Less rush down here, it's still upper 80s.) But the card's full. I don't remember if I've had 2 or 3 different vaxes. Doing a tag team with the flu virus...probably won't be fun. Yeah, pretty good chance that first 24-36 hours will be unpleasant. Arm soreness is likely to last several days; that's been the pattern with the last 3. Hmm. Maybe I'll set up some beef or chicken stock soon. A good home-made soup is something that's easy to do when one can barely stay standing for more than 5 minutes at a time. (Probably chicken. Plain brown stock..brown means browning the chicken before adding the water. Onion, carrot, celery, salt, pepper, diced garlic, a couple teaspoons of processed ginger, a lovely addition, some pearled barley, cubed, close-trimmed thigh meat. Simmer for 2-3 hours, IIRC, to cook the barley.)

Yeah, Mr. P...complaining about the Broncos is like complaining that Oklahoma has yet to win a game in the College Football Playoffs. (Mind, I segregate criticism about Elway's abilities to run a team. He's never proven anything; he fell into Peyton.)

Not where I'm going. CSU will never be top...but they can be middle. The MAC schools were mid-level. Hawai'i was mid-level. Utah State has been end of season top-20 3 times in the prior 10 seasons. Now? OK, in some cases it may be an aberration...but the MAC, the last couple years, makes me worry it's not. Are we seeing a short-term blip...or an effect of conference realignment, as the rich continually get richer? They take the cream from the top. The lesser Power 5 schools are having to go a bit deeper, but they're Power 5...so they do.

Speaking of that... Haven't looked at the ongoing data in a while. US is averaging over 300 deaths per day. It's been dropping since a slight peak in early August at over 500, but it's been at this level or higher since mid-May. The summer "slow season" has still seen 50,000 deaths.

Are there good times anywhere outside the 2 behemoth conferences? You can't even call the current rankings of OU and USC as 'good' for their current conferences...