My crazy Urban Meyer theory; Notre Dame dissed him

Unlike other reports about Urban Meyer's Christmas decision to resign as Florida's coach, then reverse himself after a single Sugar Bowl practice the very next day, this column does not rely on what the coach or anyone connected to the university has said over the past week. It does not rely on those often-used (and sometimes fabricated) "sources close to the Florida program." This is pure speculation as to why Meyer did what he did, but until answers are forthcoming that are more convincing than those given by Meyer during his pre-Sugar Bowl news conference, the truth could indeed lie somewhere amongst the speculators. Some believe the truth points north, to South Bend, Indiana.

After Tyrone Willingham was fired by Notre Dame following the 2004 season, one of the names at the top of the list of prospective replacements was Urban Meyer, who had just coached Utah to an undefeated season. Meyer, who is Catholic, used to be an assistant with the Irish and has on a number of occasions described Notre Dame as his "dream job." But for whatever reason, probably money since we are discussing college football coaches, Meyer instead was lured to the opening at Florida. Since coming to Gainesville, Meyer had said several times that he would never leave Florida for South Bend. Just last month, Meyer said he would stay with the Gators "as long as they'll have me."

That, however, was before Meyer's Gators, ranked number one at the time, were decimated by Alabama in what appeared to be a changing-of-the-guard moment in the SEC Championship. Having won two BCS titles in five seasons and with the best player in Florida history about to leave the program, Meyer had to be wondering what there was left to prove in the Swamp. Perhaps he waited for the call from South Bend to come again as Charlie Weis's time neared it's end. Sure, he said he would never leave Florida, but college football coaches say that all the time, and who believes them anymore? Apparently, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick believed it when Meyer said it.

During the search for Weis's successor, of all the names bandied about, the one name you did not hear mentioned was that of Urban Meyer. That surprised some of us, and I believe it stunned Meyer himself. It doesn't appear that Swarbrick even bothered to put out a feeler for Mr. "Dream Job", and that if Meyer attempted to contact Swarbrick to show interest, Meyer was ignored. Perhaps Notre Dame still stung from being passed over by Meyer five years ago. Perhaps Swarbrick took Meyer at his word that he would never leave Gainesville. Mr. Swarbrick apparently doesn't know that college football coaches are the best liars in the nation, well, next to Members of Congress. Then again, new Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly was surprisingly honest for the most part about being courted by Swarbrick while Kelly was still at Cincinnati. Maybe Notre Dame is one of the few schools left which wants some truthfulness from their football coach.

Meyer does have, apparently, some legitimate health problems. But the way this story has unfolded so far, there is no way that health is the only reason for his resignation and subsequent flip-flop. The Notre Dame theory may sound far-fetched and may not even be close to the truth, but it is as good a theory as any that has been given, at least until Meyer himself gives us the truth and does so convincingly.

If Richt keeps Garner as D. Coordinator, Richt will be fired 11 months from now

"I think we probably need to start out by saying what a fantastic job our defensive coaches did," coach Mark Richt said after Georgia's 44-20 blowout of a middling (at best) Big 12 team in the Jacked Up Energy Drink Used By Michael W. Smith Independence Bowl Tuesday night. It should have been obvious that Michael W. needed to be jacked to get through an entire show of his schmaltz, but that's another story. Georgia's much maligned defense was the story in Shreveport, but Richt would be a fool to let last night's game govern his decision on who becomes Georgia's next defensive coordinator.

This is not meant to take anything away from the job Rodney Garner and a collection of duct-taped pieces of fiber board did in getting the Bulldogs' defense ready. Within the context of the turmoil of the last month, that performance was remarkable. But the Georgia fan who is now clamoring for Garner to be named head of the defense going in to next season should keep two things in mind, the team that Georgia beat last night and the legacy of Dennis Felton.

Texas A&M proved last night just how much quality the Big 12 doesn't have. That was the same inept Aggies offense that scored 39 points on what supposedly is the number two team in the nation one month ago. That was the same vaunted "12th Man" special teams unit that gave up a kickoff return touchdown to the astonishing Brandon Boykin, and the Aggies sported a punting team that resembled our pathetic winless intramural team during this column's days at Jacksonville State. Sure, a win is a win, and it was great to see a Georgia team that has had so many problems this year actually produce eight victories. But this win does not tell us anything about whether a Rodney Garner-coached defense could begin to compete against the middle of the pack in the SEC, much less the conference's elite.

You may remember that two years ago, Georgia was set to fire basketball coach Dennis Felton, whose program had become a joke. Georgia decided to wait until the 2007-08 season ended, which probably wouldn't have happened in football because SEC schools care about football and, other than Kentucky, aren't sure why anyone would want to fool with a ball that is not oblong. You know the rest of the story. Felton's team got lucky and won a few games in a row, as happens in hoops sometimes. Those few games just happened to be in the SEC tounament, and Georgia athletic director Damon Evans didn't have the courage to do the right thing and say "damn the Big Dance. We're still a joke. You're still fired." The Bulldogs were pathetic last season, and the rebuilding of the program that should have started in 2008 instead began one year later.

Richt knows it doesn't matter that he has averaged almost ten wins per season in his nine years in Athens. If he doesn't compete with Florida for the division title next year, he is toast. Richt may in fact be under more pressure to win the division thanks to Urban Meyer's apparent use of a 'Magic 8 Ball' to decide his future with Florida. To win in 2010, Richt knows that Georgia needs a defensive coordinator whose resume includes more than a single victory against a middle-of-the-pack team from a less-than-stellar conference.

Okay, Maestro, we love you, but where's George?

The Savannah Philharmonic Chorus, conducted by the always effervescent Peter Shannon, brought holiday cheer blah blah blah, yappity yap yipperoo, etc., et al, and all that flippin' jazz. So goes what would be a normal review of the Chorus's "Carols In The Cathedral" show on Friday. The show was indeed excellent, all that and a keg of Allagash White (which, if you haven't ever tried it, oh...my.....goodness). But while Maestro Shannon and his legion of wonderful musicians have now conquered the tunes of Santa and The Lord, after successful previous conquerings of Beethoven, Mozart and other purveyors of the classics, it occurred that 'The Phil' has not yet taken on one of music's most important people, Gershwin.

George Gershwin is a great pianist and composer. Yes, he died 72 years ago, but I use the present-tense 'is' because George lives in our house. He is the imaginary friend of our daughter, the first-grader. He taught her how to play a good chunk of "Rhapsody In Blue" by ear on her keyboard, not to mention "Swanee." Thankfully, she hasn't tried to do a blackface Al Jolson performance at the elementary school yet. I often wonder what George truly thought when I made the mistake of recording the horrifically inaccurate biopic "Rhapsody In Blue" off of Turner Classic Movies. He must have lied and told the first-grader he was thrilled. She drew us a picture of George watching the hideous film exclaiming to her "Look! I'm on TV!" Useless fun fact: George in the movie was portrayed by Robert Alda, father of Alan Alda.

Despite the ignominious biography, Gershwin and his contemporaries were American music for much of the previous century. Shoot, in addition to the obvious Gershwin successes (Rhapsody, An American In Paris, Porgy and Bess), he was so good that he wrote "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off", "They Can't Take That Away From Me", "A Foggy Day (In London Town)" and "Nice Work If You Can Get It" in the last year of his life while suffering from excruciating headaches caused by the brain tumor that would kill him. So, Maestro Shannon, where's the concert with George? Or, for that matter, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin and, of course, Mr. Mercer? Toss in some Duke Ellington/Billy Strayhorn if you want.

"The Phil and The Great American Songbook." Sounds like a show idea to me. At the Lucas Theater with some of the musical numbers performed on stage. Shoot, I'd even put on tap shoes for that one, and would bribe Stratton Leopold to put them on with me. I'd bet Stratton's money (since I don't have money) that we'd bring down the house, but not nearly as much as our wonderful orchestra conducted by the indomitable Mr. Clean. So, Maestro, you game?

Brylcreem and Lucky Strikes, dang it

So I'm watching this silly musical I Tivo'd off of Turner Classic Movies, "Stage Door Canteen." Because I'm weird and I have the urge to tap dance, that's why. In one of the opening scenes, soldiers on their way to fight in World War Two fall all over themselves when their train stops and a young lady starts tossing them free packs of cigarettes, and I'll be darned if it didn't make me want a smoke, and I don't even like cigarettes (I'm a cigar guy, though I couldn't tell you the last time I smoked one).

This got me thinking...hold on, don't do the duck and cover exercise, hear me out. What would happen today if we handed out smokes to soldiers on their way to Iraq or Afghanistan? We would be denounced by a bunch of TV news reporters with their noses stuck up in the air at 90 degree angles. At least that's how they would be on camera just before the camera clicked off and they snuck off for a smoke. We would be called "terrorists" by various health groups. Worst of all, we would be subjected to the most hypocritical of arenas; the congressional hearing, sentenced to Hades by a group of thugs who don't pay all their taxes, who get sweetheart deals on mortgages and any number of other things, who hand out our tax money as if it were candy canes at a Christmas parade, and who sincerely believe that you are too stupid to make your own decisions about your money, your body, and...well, just about anything.

I know smoking too much will kill you, especially if you inhale. I have read the various Surgeon General warnings; my favorite, "Warning! Taking one drag off your very first cigarette will cause your manhood to turn plaid and fall off." But I miss the days when you could relax with a drink and a smoke without making a passerby believe they and the next four generations of offspring were going to immediately keel over from the secondhand smoke (don't get me started on the science behind that). I'd love the days when you could see the shine of Brylcreem on a guy's head from a mile away, and I didn't even live in those times. It was Brylcreem, wasn't it? Or maybe Vitalis or Royal Crown pomade (Elvis's favorite) or, if you wanted to land the Paula Deens of yesteryear, lard (the choice of Alfalfa from 'Our Gang').

"But look how many people from that era died of cancer." Sure. Both my grandfathers did, though one was caused by asbestos in his workplace. The other one never smoked his entire life. Look at how many people die from cancer today. Cancer deaths are falling, but is that because of fewer smokers or cutting edge medical research? Probably both. On the other hand, do you think that in the past the country was filled with anal retentive people whose sense of humor took a flying leap from the tallest building? My guess is that back then, every other person wasn't separated at birth from Ferris Bueller's friend Cameron.













Insert lump of coal here.

Geez, this is a stupid rant. Why am I griping? Minnie The Moaner here must need a smoke, but it won't happen, except vicariously through the old movies.

Another Bowl Copout

As expected, and as predicted by some goofy, no-talent writer a few days ago, the Crimson Heffalumps will play the Porterhouse Steaks Of The Future in the Mr. Rogers Land Of Make Believe Bowl for the fake national championship of college football. No surprise there, even though one could make an excellent case that TCU played at least as difficult a schedule as Texas and was much more dominant than the 'Horns. But all that is au jus on my prime rib now. The big beef, again, lies in the rest of the bowl schedule, some of which looks as if it were put together by Bozo The Clown's old sidekick Whizzo (doo-de-doo-de-doo-de-doo!)

First, the BCS bowl honchos must have gotten a conference call from SEC Commissioner Mike Slive, ACC Commish John Swofford, and Big East boss man Humpty Dumpty a few days ago that went something like this: "Hey, Fiesta Bowl?" "Si Senor?" "You gotta take TCU and Boise." "Si. Por que?" "'Cause we can't have them embarrassing us the way Utah embarrassed Gawd (Nick Saban, if you are just joining us) last year at the High Fructose Corn Syrup Bowl." "Si." By all rights, either TCU or Boise State should be playing Florida in New Orleans, while the other should be playing Georgia Tech in the "Okay, Remind Us Again Of The Person Who Tied Us In To The Crummy ACC So We Can Fire His Butt Bowl" in Miami.

Lastly, one could look at the Gator Bowl as a crisis since it passed over We Miss The Thugs U. and Michael Vick?, Who's He? U. (9 wins each), as well as Auburn With A Lake* and Remember Us, We Had Doug Flutie and...some other guys College (8 wins each) in favor of watching 6-6 Florida State lose again. The claim is that since it is the final game for retiring coach Bobby Bowden, the game will sell out. Since the only things that sell out in Jacksonville are "The World's Largest Cocktail Party" between Florida and Georgia and tractor pulls, the city needs the booties in the seats even if it means putting the 100th best team in college football in a New Year's Day bowl game. While it isn't fair, it isn't that big a deal. If nothing else, it gives players with the Indigenous Persons Who Greased NCAA Palms More Than Those From Illinois one more chance to cheat on those ridiculously tough exams in Sports Psychology and Music Cultures Of The World without the head coach taking the fall.

Also, one more time...with feeling. The reason for the moniker "fake national championship" is simple. You can't have a real national champion without a playoff. It is not possible, and no reasonable person can make an argument otherwise. Of course, that opinion and 99 cents will buy you one of those giant pickles at the convenience store, so until next time, doo-do-doo-de-doo-de-doo.


* RIP Lewis Grizzard

Fearless Freep football prediction

The question before the committee (that would be your correspondent); whom to pick in tomorrow's SEC Championship game. Number one Florida versus Number Two Alabama, with the winner to play for the fake 'national championship' of college sheetbay. 'Sheetbay' was my word for football during the toddler years. No one knows why, but it's probably for the same reason that mashed potatoes were 'week-weets', local newspaper the Dade County Sentinel was (and remains) the "weekly wipe", and brussel sprouts were "stinking, steaming pieces of monkey dookie." One cannot predict the outcome of a game of this magnitude without considering all the proper intangibles.

Much space could be wasted analyzing the offenses and defenses of the Tuscaloosa Packaderms and the Steve Irwin (RIP) Back Riders from the Everglades. Much has also been made of the two head coaches, Urban Meyer (henceforth referred to as Notre Dame's Next Head Coach, or NDNHC) and Nick Saban (henceforth referred to as Gawd). But those analyses would cause the oversight of the two factors that will decide tomorrow's game; books and Tim Tebow's private life.

Tebow, as you may know, makes Dale Murphy look like Michael Vick. But sources tell me that the ghost of legendary Bama booster Logan Young is stalking Tebow in Atlanta as we speak, armed with copious amouts of (alleged) Spanish Fly. A few spikes of Tebow's pomegranate juice cocktail (hold the pomegranate) and Mr. Heisman promise ring will spend the wee hours of Big Game Eve at the Gold Club shouting "Praise Gawd!" ("Did someone call me?" asked Saban.) While Tebow on 37 minutes of sleep will still be better than Rex Grossman and Danny Wuerffel combined, it will slow him down. That alone, however, won't give The Guys With the Big Trunks the victory. The win will come because of Bama's talent with the written word.

My sources tell me that Bama has secretly acquired NDNHC's playbook, and that players have used their scholarship money to purchase copies for the entire team, along with 53-percent of the Alabama student body, at Buffalo Phil's Pub and Used Bookstore. As Jesse "The Body" Ventura used to say, "cheaters always win and winners always cheat", or as Saban said, "The strong survive, but sometimes, the strong cheat their @$&* off." The adept fingering of the UF playbook will lead to seven Leigh Tiffin field goals (since Bama still won't be able to get in the end zone.) Final score: Dumbo 21, Wally Gator 14.

Immediately after the game, NDNHC will become NDHC approximately 14 minutes after denying that ND even exists except in the 5th Dimension of the McCoo Galaxy. Gawd will be sent to South Korea and cloned. The clone will be cryogenically frozen, placed in the HealthSouth Memorial tank, and buried at Elmwood next to the plaid-hatted 'Daddy Of Gawd', ensuring fake national titles for Tusky in perpetuity. That is at least until there is a playoff and real national titles to win.

I lost a good friend to politics. I almost died from politics. Politics suck. And I love it.

The title is a paraphrase of the distinguished line from ex-Sex Pistol Steve Jones in a commercial for the ironic 1980's campaign "Rock Against Drugs" (as the late Sam Kinison once said, "Isn't that sort of like 'Christians Against Christ?'). There is no better way to sum up my feelings about the game of politics, the dichomatic game that despite it's vast entertainment value unfortunately causes the most massive casualties among those who don't play.

The minutiae of the political game is more compelling than the oeuvre of "24." Granted I don't watch "24", but I hear it's pretty good. Politics is funnier than every episode of "Top Gear" and "Monty Python", of which I have seen most. Okay, maybe not Python, but it's pretty close. It is even makes for better viewing than the 1989 Ric Flair/Ricky Steamboat match at WrestleWar in Nashville (where Flair regained the gold!). But politics also infuriates as much as a Flair/Steamboat 2009 rematch, brought to you by Depends and Cialis, would.

After I discovered Rush Limbaugh in the Fall of 1990, I became a committed conservative and actively sought to help Republicans beat the snot out of Democrats. Some friends and I were in the extreme minority when wore mournful black armbands on the campus of Jacksonville State University (Jacksonville, Alabama in case you are wondering) the day after Bill Clinton beat H.W. Bush in '92. Then sometime between '92 and 2000, it occurred to me that most Republicans weren't actually conservatives, and on some issues neither was I.

There was no single 'Road To Damascus' conversion moment. Perhaps it was the lame excuses made by Republican Members of Congress (henceforth known only as Members) for spending my tax money on things that would be named after them, manicures, research on rabbit dung, or whatever else tickled their fancy. Their favorite reason seemed to be "if we don't give out pork, these 'worthwhile projects' will never get money via the federal bureaucracy." Translation, "recipients of pork money are the hookers and we, the Members, are the pimp daddies, and it feels goooooooood." Prostitution minus the farking* (or in some cases with the farking.) In their rare moment of honesty, many Democrat Members were at least up front in saying they wanted to bring home the bacon for their constituents. Deficit? What deficit?

Perhaps it was hearing for the 8,745th time that our public schools would be fantastic if only Jesus (or Juh-EEE-sus depending on where you live) were allowed in the schoolhouse door. To paraphrase my friend, diehard conservative and devout Catholic Michael Graham, do you really want a government employee telling your kids how to pray? It could have been the country's ridiculous war on drugs where the purveyors of the illegal stuff are always three steps ahead of those trying to stop them while, simultaneously, some believe that my enjoyment of a perfectly legal cigar puts me in the same class as the Roman soldiers who led Juh-EEE-sus up Golgotha.

When my right-wing passions cooled, however, that did not mean I became a liberal. Anyone who is willing to trust the government to take care of them in any way, especially their health care, might be in need of a lobotomy. (You better hurry up and get that Starbucks brain stir stick quick, as there might be a Webster's Dictionary-sized waiting list this time next year.) I tried to relax and watch both sides drone on and on about how much the other party was making the Founding Fathers drink even harder in their afterlife than they did on earth (yes, they consumed. A lot.). But now, though I want to continue to enjoy the Washington cock and hen fights, it is getting ever more difficult to do so.

Every time I log on to Facebook, someone's ridiculous status is yet another uncreative effort to tell me how much President Obama sucks. This is usually followed up by the worn out comments that Obama is a socialist, that he is really a Muslim, that he was actually born on the planet Felspoon where the mountains sway in the breeze (hat tip: Doctor Who), that he raises his pinky when he drinks his tea, or worst of all, is a secret Tennessee Vols fan. If you disagree with this line of inanity, The Pope immediately reserves a place in Hell for you.

Then there is the other side, the Olbermanns we will call them, named after the man who is simultaneously one of the most gifted writers and one of the worst TV hosts in the country. You think Obama sucks? It is the fault of George W. Bush. Don't like the health care plan? Bush's fault. Have painful gas because you ate too much chili last night? Hang that one on W as well. In the world of the Olbermanns, everything wrong with the world can be six-degreed back to the previous president, and judging by most of his speeches so far, Obama is a dedicated Olbermann. One more diatribe about the "mess" he "inherited", as if he accidently became president through no fault of his own, will cause a major upchuck of my morning PB&J. And then I will blame Bush.

So, sadly, politics is usually a taboo subject, lest I lose the ability to converse with most of the people I know. It is sometimes difficult watching from the sidelines as the Dems, who are concurrently terrified of ticking off Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and people making decisions for themselves, take on the GOP, who are concurrently terrified of ticking off Glenn Beck or the producers of "Meet The Press" and people making decisions for themselves. But living a life of talking and writing about baseball, old movies, beer, college football, beer, cigars, and beer is a pretty good one. "But you aren't making a difference in the world" the lefty and righty nut jobs would say. Sure I am. I hope to help cure the aneurysms you nut jobs cause. But if I don't, you could always see if a politician will get you a "grant", then you should blame Bush, then see a doctor. Well, hurry and see a doctor while you still can.


*God Bless Drew Curtis, founder of FARK, the greatest web site.....in THE WORLD!

Wal-Mart = Drugs, but not so much anymore in Rincon

Behind crystal meth, crack cocaine and Pringles, the fourth-most addictive thing in the world is Wal-Mart. No, it wasn't discussed at our first grader's school during the recent Red-Ribbon week, where at the end of the week the kids went to a "rock concert" to, in my little girl's eloquent words, "celebrate Halloween and drugs." But Sam Walton's creation is one of the most insidiously addictive substances in America, at least until recently. This year may be the year I finally break my Wal-Mart addiction because our neighborhood Wally World in Rincon, GA has apparently lost its best feature; Miss Doris.

Wal-Mart's tentacles have had me in their firm grasp all my adult life, even before the days of eight gazillion square foot "Supercenters." One reason I needed to get my regular "low prices" hit after my family and I moved to Effingham County was the lovely lady who usually greeted us at the Rincon store. Miss Doris appeared to be in her 80's and always had a smile, a lollipop and smiley-face stickers for my little girl. As a special treat for my daughter, Doris also usually sang a few lines of "K-K-K-Katy", a song written in 1918 that to Doris's amazement I knew (she didn't realize that I am about 50 years older than I appear).

Since The Wiggles never recorded "K-K-K-Katy", my little girl wasn't too enamored with the song, but what she couldn't wait to hear every trip to Wal-Mart was Miss Doris playing the harmonica. If you didn't happen to catch her playing it when you came in the door, you could bet that while you pushed your shopping cart with one wheel getting stuck every 13 seconds you would hear Miss Doris's tones echoing past the Oxy Clean and the baby food, all the way back to the automotive department. Sometimes it would be church hymns, which gives you pause when you are shopping in certain parts of the health and beauty section and find yourself humming "There's Power In The Blood" along with Miss Doris's harp.

Holidays, however, are when Miss Doris's music shone the most. Not only would you hear "America The Beautiful" on Independence Day or "Silent Night" around Christmas, Doris would outfit herself in enough seasonal-colored rhinestones to make Porter Waggoner roll over in his grave. The purgatory that Wal-Mart often becomes, watching your ice cream melt while waiting longer to check out than it took you to shop because enough registers aren't open, was a little more palatable because you couldn't help but smile at Miss Doris and marvel at how much she enjoyed saying "Hello" to everyone and playing her music.

Then one day, a few months back, I noticed that it had been a while since we were greeted with harmonica music, bedazzled vests, and someone freely handing out stickers and singing special songs to my kid. Miss Doris didn't seem to be coming to work any more. My child asked me why the other greeters weren't as nice as Miss Doris, and the only answer I had was that Miss Doris was a special person. I couldn't tell my girl that the other greeters thought of what they did only as a job, that human interaction apparently was too difficult a concept for them to understand. After all, they only get paid to make sure everyone has a cart and to pretend to make sure no one is stealing anything when they leave. I couldn't tell my daughter that because she would have repeated it word for word to the new greeters. Yes, she is one of those types.

I feel horrible because I haven't mustered the courage to ask someone at Wal-Mart what happened to Miss Doris, whether she passed on or simply retired. If she has gone on to be a greeter at a more important place and the Rincon Wal-Mart hasn't paid homage to her with a picture at the front of the store or something, then Wal-Mart should be ashamed of itself. My addiction will require me to visit Wal-Mart frequently, especially with The Holidays arriving. But we miss the music and the stickers, and if there is a way for me and my family to say "thanks" to Miss Doris, wherever she is, I hope that will be my surprise Christmas gift this year.

Wow, Baseball Writers really are smarter than Members of Congress, at least this year

Tim Lincecum, or as my pal, Giants Superfan and former Savannah Sand Gnats' play-by-play man Mike Passanisi calls him "Jesus's Son", won his second straight National League Cy Young Award yesterday. As much as it pains me not to mock Mike with my continued claim that someday Tim's windup will cause his arm to spontaneously combust, the Baseball Writers Ass. of America nailed this one, just as they did in giving the A.L. Cy to K.C.'s Zack Greinke.

The entire city of St. Louis and wherever you can find some expatriate Cardinals' fans disagree with me. Their thoughts are echoed by St. Louis Times-Dispatch writer Jeff Gordon, who presumably has not been dumped by 3 former Miss NASCARs:

Chris Carpenter was the best starting pitcher in the National League. When he pitched, he was the toughest starter to hit. That is why he won the league’s earned-run average title.

Adam Wainwright built the best season -– from start to finish -- so he deserved the NL’s Cy Young Award this season....

...“Usually the guy with the most first-place votes wins,” observed Post-Dispatch baseball writer Rick Hummel, who seem baffled by the outcome.

Let's examine Mr. Gordon's arguments. First, how can Chris Carpenter be the best pitcher in the National League if Adam Wainwright had "the best season"? And are either of these claims true? We shall see. All phrases in quotes are from Mr. Gordon's column.

"Chris Carpenter was the best starting pitcher in the National League. When he pitched, he was the toughest starter to hit."

Really?

Opponents Batting Average:
Lincecum .206
Carpenter .226

"That is why he (Carpenter) won the league’s earned-run average title."

The actual reason Carpenter won the ERA title is he had a better defense behind him that Lincecum. I know, you think ERA is supposed to be independent of defense, hence the term 'earned runs.' But you know and I know there are an enormous number of errors that go down as hits in the official score book. Some statistical gurus created a stat called FIP (Fielding Independent Percentage), which measures how well a pitcher pitched based on things that pitchers can only control (home runs allowed, strikeouts, walks, hit-by-pitches, etc.)

FIP:
Lincecum 2.34
Carpenter 2.78

"Personally, I was in the Wainwright camp. He went the distance for the Cardinals last season. He was their horse. He shouldered large pitch counts and worked deep into games"

Indeed, Adam had the most pitches of any pitcher in the National League, but they don't hand out BBQ contest awards by virtue of "the butt with the most sauce." And I don't think Adam looks anything like John Elway, so the horse comment was completely unnecessary.

"Wainwright won the most games in the NL, 19. Winning games is the whole point of playing, so that statistic should carry great weight."

When Albert Pujols wins the N.L. MVP award, maybe I can get his good friend Bobby Deen (Paula's boy) to tell him "You know you wouldn't have done diddly squat with the bat without Adam Wainwright. You think hitting and defense actually wins games? You must think my Momma hates butter."

"When Carpenter pitched, he was even better than Wainwright. But he started six fewer games and worked 40 1/3 fewer innings. Lincecum pitched at Carpenter’s pace, with many more strikeouts, over the long haul. But he faded, going 1-3 with a 3.50 ERA in September. "

Never mind that this is as ludicrous as saying Wainwright doesn't deserve the Cy because he had a 3.82 ERA in June. Mr. Gordon also conveniently omits Lincecum's last regular season start...IN OCTOBER...in which he gave up only two earned runs in seven innings. In fact, Lincecum had only one bad start in September/October, Sept. 20 against the Dodgers (4 innings, 5 earned runs). In his other four starts, Tim went seven innings in each and gave up no more than two earned runs. But in Mr. Gordon's world, he faded because he 'lost' three starts. Dang it, Tim, you should have known the Giants had no hitting outside of a cute and pudgy third baseman, so if you don't pitch shutout ball every time out, you stink! Carpenter also had only one bad start down the stretch, Sept. 13 against the Braves (6 IP, 7 ER), but he went 3-1 in Sept./Oct., I'm sure because of his grit and determination, his poise, his class, and his New Hampshire roots.

"Wainwright went wire to wire for his team. He battled through all the usual aches and pains. He is the one pitcher that Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan would consistently push through the late innings."

Average Innings Per Start:
Lincecum 7.04
Carpenter 6.88
Wainwright 6.85

Complete Games:
Lincecum 4
Carpenter 3
Wainwright 1

Guess there were two pitchers the Cards' manager and pitching coach pushed, one more than another.

"When a pitcher leads the league in innings pitched, that large workload will take a toll in the efficiency numbers (ERA, WHIP, batting average against) that sportswriters use to analyze pitcher. And yet Adam’s efficiency numbers held up pretty well, all considering."

So did Zack Greinke, who pitched just four fewer innings than Wainwright with a ERA almost a half-run lower (2.16 to Wainwright's 2.63). Or Felix Hernandez, who pitched 5 2/3 MORE innings than Adam with a 2.49 ERA, like Greinke in the better-hitting American League. Lincecum, missing a couple of starts due to an actual injury rather than the mysterious "aches and pains" that Dr. Gordon says Toughman Adam pitched through, only pitched eight fewer innings than Wainwright with a better ERA, almost 50 more strikeouts, and almost 50 FEWER hits allowed.

Mr. Gordon would have made just as good an argument by saying Wainwright should have won because he is a manly 6'7", as opposed to Lincecum's 5'11" (at least when his hair is dry). But I can see why the Jeff Gordon's of the world are upset. Awards voting is changing for the better, with voters finally taking a close look at statistics that actually measure a pitcher's performance as opposed to numbers that are out of a pitcher's control, and Gordon is peeved because it cost his guys a Cy that one of them probably would have easily won just a few years ago. Instead, the big trophy went to the guy who actually earned it. What a concept! As ESPN.com's Rob Neyer points out, if that concept had been around 22 years ago, Mr. Gordon and St. Louisians would have been ecstatic because Ozzie Smith would have won the 1987 MVP Award he deserved. Instead, Andre Dawson of the Cubs won simply because he had the most homers and RBI.

We'll find out soon if the voters have made similar progress when it comes to evaluating the MVP's.

Norma Rae: "Union NOW, and someday I'll beat the snot out of a Boy Scout with this sign!"

When we were forced at the point of an evil snarl to watch "Norma Rae" by our high school economics teacher, who knew that when Sally Field was skinny dipping with Yankee union organizer Reuben what's- his-name, they were actually plotting the destruction of the Boy Scouts. From the Morning Call of Allentown, PA:

In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park.

Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city's largest municipal union.

Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park.

"We'll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails," Balzano told the council.

Balzano said Saturday he isn't targeting Boy Scouts. But given the city's decision in July to lay off 39 SEIU members, Balzano said "there's to be no volunteers." No one except union members may pick up a hoe or shovel, plant a flower or clear a walking path.

Thanks goodness for the SEIU. Otherwise, the nation would be overrun with people who need a good butt whipping because they had the audacity to simply attend a Congressional town hall meeting, not to mention a bunch of goody-two-shoes Eagle Scouts who need to have a sock stuck in their "Be Prepared."

I love my union friends, but when is it going to occur to them that there are only three ways they have been able to recruit new members lately? (a) Have the government take over General Motors and Chrysler and effectively hand them to the unions, (b) say a bunch of bad things about Paula Deen to Mexican pork plant workers who don't care as long as they can stay in the country, or (c) have health care legislation finagled in such as way as to force a bunch of people to join a union whether they want to or not. Well, (c) hasn't occurred yet, but it would if the House health care bill becomes law.

"Hey, unions just have a few bad apples. Not only that, but Dick Trumka (head of the AFL-CIO) unfurled a plan that would create or save (a bogus, phony-baloney phrase that should never be believed coming from anyone, regardless of political persuasion) two million jobs! He wants to lend TARP money to small businesses!" No doubt small businesses that do business with unions, but the digression can wait. "Dick also wants to get the government moving on roads, schools, etc." I'm sure the small string attached will be the labor has to belong to a union, with it's requisite pay level, regardless of actual labor costs. Union leaders and their backers have tried this argument before, that bigger unions help the economy recover. In fact, as James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal's "Best Of The Web Today" pointed out, the New York Times' editorial page made this argument almost a year ago:

• "The argument against unions--that they unduly burden employers with unreasonable demands--is one that corporate America makes in good times and bad. . . . The real issue is whether enhanced unionizing would worsen the recession, and there is no evidence that it would. There is a strong argument that the slack labor market of a recession actually makes unions all the more important."--editorial, New York Times, Dec. 29, 2008

The New York Times organization completely stands by that assertion today. Oh, wait a minute:

• "The New York Times News Service will lay off at least 25 editorial employees next year and will move the editing of the service to a Florida newspaper owned by The New York Times Company. . . . The plan for the news service calls for The Gainesville Sun, whose newsroom is not unionized and has lower salaries, to take over editing and page design."--news story, New York Times, Nov. 13, 2009

Unions gave more than $400 million in contributions to politicians last year. Members of unions should ask their leaders whether, if that money hasn't bought them anything in the way of serious bribed influence in Washington yet, could they at least get some decent hair for Dick Trumka.













Unless, of course, he is waiting for his hair to be covered under a government health insurance plan, since it appears to be a pre-existing condition.

In other news, Nathan Deal smells a fluffy

Larry Peterson in the Savannah Morning News reports:

Nathan Deal calls On Obama to produce birth certificate proving he's eligible for presidency

In other news, Deal just blew his shot at the Georgia G.O.P. gubernatorial nomination, though I thought he was running for governor rather than gubernator (Goobernator, perhaps? Or, did Jimmy Carter already take that title in the '70's?). Gubernatorial is one of those great words journalists like to use to make everyone think they are smart.

Every story featuring Deal will now also be accompanied by this "Wow, who let one?" photograph. Priceless!

And that's today's edition of "Unbelievable Endings Of Political Careers." I'm Red Whenexcited. This has been a Blue Network Production.

Happy 100th Mr. Mercer!

You Need Quotas? I Gots Quotas!

"A new study finds a lack of diversity in the key leadership positions at Football Bowl Subdivision schools and conferences", reports the Associated Press:

The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida released the report Tuesday. It found that for the 362 campus leadership positions studied, more than 91 percent of the officials were white.

The report examined positions such as conference commissioners, school presidents, athletic directors, faculty athletics representatives and head football coaches. It found that white men made up 77.5 percent of presidents and 82.5 percent of athletic directors.

Institute director Richard Lapchick says "the numbers simply do not reflect the diversity of our student-athletes.

So as not to be accused of complaining about something without offering a solution, I now offer my remedy for what clearly is a serious problem of Caucasian overrun. My guess is that Dick Lapchick would agree with me that the only way to tackle this is to institute strict hiring quotas for athletic directors, college presidents, head football coaches, etc. After all, it is absolutely vital that the folks in charge of our students and student-athletes should reflect, in Mr. Lapchick's words, "the diversity of our student-athletes." To accomplish this, my quota system would ensure that a certain percentage of many important groups of student-athletes would be hired for all college coaching and athletic administrative positions:

36% Functional illiterates

10% Cum Laude graduates or higher

77.3% Users of Performance Enhancing Drugs

15% Armed Robbers

4.8% Samoan warriors

18.9% Like butter and salt on their grits (92.3% for hires in the S.E.C.)

7.6% Foreign-born tennis and soccer players who don't speak English

22% Those who fathered a child before college

4.7% Rapists

1.2% Virgin Quarterbacks

9% Lied on a resume (like Central Florida coach George O'Leary)

5.5% Have been arrested for getting nekkid and showering in a car wash

0.5% Defecate in closets of female students after breaking into their dorm

In the haste to publish, I probably missed a few important groups, and for that I apologize. However, this plan should be implemented immediately to start us on the path to a much happier, much more fair and most importantly, a more diverse world of college presidents, coaches, and athletic directors. Sure, the universities may look a little more like "Animal House", but who better to handle the football player who rapes another student than an athletic director who is a fellow rapist, someone who can properly "feel their pain"? In the name of diversity, we must......act.......now.

Zacky G Wins the Cy: Baseball Writers Actually Get Something Right

Zack Greinke (spelled G-R-E-I-N-K-E, but pronounced Throat Wobbler Mangvove*) wins the American League Cy Young Award. Even though he won only 16 games, voters gave him the trophy because he has such a cute butt.

Actually, Zack deserved the award, as he was by far the best pitcher in the majors. That and the "cute butt" vote already went to Derek Jeter for his fourth (undeserved) Gold Glove. So we give a rare kudos to the Baseball Writers Ass. of America for actually getting one right. That means they are doing pretty well so far, with okay choices for Rookies of the Year (Florida's Chris Coghlan in the N.L. and Oakland closer Andrew Bailey in the A.L.) plus the clear-cut choice of Greinke.

Well except the one voter who gave a first-place Cy Young vote to the Tigers' Justin Verlander. He should have his voting rights taken away and be waterboarded on the comfy chair.

Just so there is no confusion, baseball's managers and coaches vote for the Gold Gloves, and once again they mangled all but about three or four of them this year. Apparently they are swayed by the pretty posterior as opposed to actually being able to field your position. Now you know why managers slap people on the butt all the time.


* - RIP Graham Chapman

Pollsters Wish Gay Marriage Was Legal, and that Pete Carroll Was Available

Boosters at the University of Southern California (henceforth USC, the REAL USC regardless of what you hear from the South Carolina folks) must be having a tough time during the recession. A downturn in the economy must mean lower payments to football prospects, which means more of those prospects end up elsewhere, or perhaps they don't put out as much on the field as they do off the field when the bills are of the Andrew Jackson variety rather than the Benjamins they are used to seeing. As I search the halls of ludicrousness (if the previous scenario is actually ludicrous) for the reason USC won't win the Pac-10 for the first time since W. was still a new president, one thing has become abundantly clear. The folks who cast votes in the college football polls continue to suckle at the teet of SC head coach Pete Carroll, because they still haven't figured out that the Trojans are just another mediocre football team this season.

USC is ranked number 22 in the Associated Press writers poll this week, number 21 in the baloney-filled USA Today coaches' poll, and an amazing 18 in the BCS standings, helped out by a number 14 computer ranking. Regardless of what computers say (and I will diffuse that portion of the equation in a bit), let's examine just how the humans who cast votes could come to the conclusion that the Trojans are rated higher than other teams with three losses, and even a number of teams with two losses.

You may have already heard my previous arguments as to why the Trojans are annually rated higher than they probably should be, so I won't revisit my theory that pollsters lust after Pete Carroll because he seems to be a cool, hip, California dude, the closest the hot dog eaters of the polling world will ever come to hanging with Tom Cruise, well, without the jumping on the couch, spousal mind-control, and hangin' in the closet with R. Kelly on South Park. Theories on poll inflation aren't needed when empirical evidence shows that a number of teams should be ranked ahead of USC, even amongst the supposedly more fair world of computers.

USC has three losses this season, so let's examine them versus teams ranked below them (or not ranked at all) who have three or fewer losses. Two of the Trojans losses have been to higher-ranked teams, at least they are higher ranked now; Oregon and Stanford. Those two losses were whoppers, by a combined 61 points, and the loss to Stanford was on SC's home field while the Cardinal were NOT ranked. The Trojans other defeat may be the worst loss by a ranked team this season, to 3-7 Washington. Despite this, the pollsters absolutely insist that SC is one of the 21 or 22 best football teams in the country.

Ranked just below the Trojans in both polls are a pair of teams with two losses, Houston and Utah. Houston's two losses were to an okay Central Florida team (6-4) and to a not-so-okay UTEP (3-7), which may rival SC's loss to the Huskies. The Utes, on the other hand, have a pair of legitimate defeats, at Oregon (by a touchdown versus USC's 27) and a blowout loss to unbeaten TCU. So why are the Trojans ahead of Utah? Because the hot dog eaters can't get snockered on 3.5-percent beer in Utah, and they'd much rather get a rubdown with the head coach in sunny SoCal rather than snowy Salt Lake City. Perhaps if Utah coach Kyle Whittingham recruited some of those ladies that helped sway the International Olympic Committee a few years ago, he'd have better luck with the poll voters.

Other teams who either could or should be ranked ahead of SC include 7-3 Clemson (a bad loss to 2-8 Maryland, but other losses to TCU and 10-1 Georgia Tech by a combined seven points), 7-3 Nebraska (all losses to teams with winning records, Virginia Tech, Texas Tech, and Iowa State), 7-2 Rutgers (losses only to unbeaten Cincinnati and one-loss Pittsburgh), 7-3 Ole Miss (losses to winning-record teams South Carolina, Alabama, and Auburn), not to mention 8-3 Navy and 8-2 Central Michigan and Temple (TEMPLE for crying out loud!).

"But USC has some better wins than those teams. I mean, they won at Ohio State, Ray. AT OHIO STATE. And AT NOTRE DAME. Top that, Schmucky Steele!" Well, if you insist. Sure, Ohio State is the Big 10 champion, which once again means they might as well be the champion of the Big Two. Any conference that allows a mediocre Iowa team only two losses in a year isn't a very good conference. That Ohio State win is also the reason SC is rated so high by the computers, as there is no good explanation as to why the 9-2 Buckeyes, with a loss to 4-7 Purdue, are ranked higher than 9-1 Pittsburgh. Well, there is no good explanation other than the hot dog eaters enjoy sweater-vest shopping with Jim Tressell (code name: BCS Title Game Loser) almost as much as hot tubbing with Pete Carroll.

Notre Dame? Once again, coach Charlie Weis has a quarterback and a giant collection of Lucky Charms marshmallows, and it took a last-minute goal line stand for SC to beat them. The Trojans only truly good win was at home over a solid Oregon State team, and most of the teams mentioned above have wins at least as good.

Yes, this is a losing battle. Despite the avalanche of evidence against ranking them now, it would probably take a losing record to get the Trojans out of the top 25, and even then there would be one or two sucklers in the media making the argument as to why a seven-loss SC team still belongs in the BCS. Even if they stunk or if all of their best players landed in jail now rather than later, the lure of seeing Coach C minus the shirt is just too tough for a pollster and a blank top-25 list. Is that your poll writing pen in your pocket, or are you just.........oh, never mind.

Thank You, Veterans!

Mr. Dan Gillespie is now 87, and fortunately for me is now a dear friend. He also just happened to help build the "Fat Man" atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, August 9, 1945. I didn't do much that was truly worthwhile on the old radio show, but this interview from Veterans Day two years ago is one of my most valued treasures, among the best radio moments of my life.

Thank you, Mr. Gillespie, for your service that helped save the world, and thanks to all of our Veterans who are the reason we are all free.

Dancing Nekkid ain't for me, and it dang sure ain't for my daughters

As the father of two young daughters, I want both to be enormously successful when they grow up. Both of my girls also like to dance. I should say they LOVE to dance, and that's an understatement. Playing pin the tail on the donkey after a six-pack of Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA is easier than feeding a child who loves to dance. There's nothing wrong with dancing, though once one becomes an adult it only provides a steady living for a select few. So, if my daughters are thinking about dance as a career, I am seriously thinking about finding a few places for them to observe, perhaps serve an apprenticeship in a few years, places where they will see women earning good money while dancing. I'm thinking the Pink Pony in Atlanta, Thee Southern Belle in Raleigh, Uncle Harry's right here at home, or next time we're in Alabama the Platinum Club (if it is still around).

Or, I could just enroll the girls in what appears to be your typical dance school, as there are times when they and the aforementioned strip joints...errr, "classy" nightclubs are indistinguishable.

To be sure, I love dancing about as much as a straight man can. While there is certainly nothing wrong with watching 12 consecutive hours of college football, my family would tell you with a sigh the size of Hurricane Hugo that I would be just as happy watching a marathon of Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire movies. I even stop everything I'm doing when I come across "Breakin" or especially "Breakin' 2, Electric Bugaloo" on the tube. However, when I first saw those movies first in my youth, I never imagined that one of the reasons I would continue to enjoy them many years later was that Shabba-Doo and Shrimp didn't engage in a nekkid breakdance-off with Popin' Pete and Popin' Taco.

My sister, eight years my junior, was an avid clogger and baton twirler in her youth. I am pretty sure she had to wear some makeup during her performances, even though she was between seven and nine years old at the time. I am also absolutely positive that she was never made to dance in apparel you are more likely to see on Spring Break at Tybee with makeup caked on so thick that it would take Rodin three weeks to chisel it off. Lil' sister also never was asked to "perform" some of the "dance moves" that apprarently are so popular among local dance troups today.

A few months ago, driving to my Summer gig as Public Address Announcer for the Savannah Sand Gnats, my car was stopped at a red light on 37th Street in front of a dance school. On the sidewalk in front of the school, an instructor was showing a group of girls who couldn't have been older than eight how to properly, hmmm...how to say this, shake their doodlies. The practice of this maneuver continued the entire time I was stopped at the traffic signal, a good 30 seconds or so, and perhaps continued after I moved on. Aside from the obvious question of the purpose of eight-year-old girls shakin' their thangs when they don't have thangs to shake, even if you are older and are doodly-endowed, would it not require lots of chiropractic care (not to mention a cast iron brassiere) to shake them for such a long period of time?

This past weekend, the family was "treated" to performances by another dance team at a local festival, complete with dancers sporting two coats of makeup applied by a van load of Mexican painters and showing more skin than the docs at the Georgia Institute of Plastic Surgery typically see. The dancers, and especially their proud mommies, beamed through their Tammy Faye pancake, rouge, and lipstick as they performed 20 routines involving the only two songs apparently allowed at this particular dance school, the "Cha Cha Slide" and "Soulja Boy." "Ain't they so purty?", one momma observed.

So is it too harsh to compare our petite, purty doodly-shakers to strippers? The only differences I see are their ages and their wallets. The older gals seem to bring in a lot of coin, as I imagine they get a certain number of dollars per doodly-quiver. A few years ago, when my brother-in-law got married, the best friend of the bride paid for the entire reception out of her pocket....from the money she made spinning around on a pole. This was astonishing to me considering that, if the girl had 30 dollars in her wallet, she would have about 16 more dollars than she had teeth. Since I have never been to a strip joint in my life (yes, really!), perhaps that is the norm.

I know. I have grown up to be an intolerant prude, but if that's the case, so be it. If my daughters want to learn to dance, for the sake of decency I will learn to dance and teach them myself. Since I don't plan on growing doodlies, my instruction will probably be limited to Gene Kelly-style ballet-influenced tap. If I had ever had five-grand to burn, I would bet you that the girls and I replicating a number from "Singin' In The Rain" would tear down the house. But by the time that happens, there will probably be a full-fledged and barely-thonged mini-whoooooooore spinning on a portable pole on the fall festival program. I can already hear the girl's proud momma and momma's sixth husband both exclaiming "Ain't she so purty?"

I would furlough, but it isn't in my job description

Imagine a world where your 300-pound neighbor is walking his Pekingese and toy poodle down your street when, suddenly, out of nowhere, a giant piece of space junk comes hurtling through the sky at breakneck speed. The neighbor, with surprising cat-like quickness, prepares to dodge it when, from out of nowhere on the other side comes Madonna, whose extreme meditation session causes her to levitate thousands of miles from her home in New York, London, Abu Dhabi, or wherever the heck she is living now, and is now warbling back toward the earth. Madonna slams into Mr. 300, knocking him into the path of the space junk, which lands squarely on his legs. He survives, but is trapped. You run out of your house to help. Your other neighbors run out, too, but they refuse to help. One says he can't lift because he stubbed his big toe taking out his trash. Another says helping his neighbor is not in his job description as provided by the Succubus Homeowner's Association. Stupid? Yes, but amazingly, this is exactly how unionized labor in the United States works, well, minus the whole Madonna flying through the air thing.

This week, Ford, the only Detroit automaker to not take the government's bailout scam, announced that things were turning around. Ford is actually starting to make money, and Consumer Reports found that the quality of Ford vehicles was equal to or, in some cases, superior to Honda and Toyota. That's the good news. The bad news for Ford is that the United Auto Workers rejected contract amendments that would have saved the company money but, more importantly, would have helped rid Ford of something dumber than the B.C.S. and martinis made without gin. It is called job classification.

In a nutshell, job classification means that there are more job titles at a Ford plant than there are women who have slept with Wilt Chamberlain. If a piece of machinery breaks down, only someone with a specific job classification can repair it, even if someone else standing three seconds from the malady could take care of it. That means an assembly line comes to a halt, which means Ford doesn't make cars, which means Ford (and it's unionized workers) don't make money. I'm glad our Succubus Homeowner's Association hasn't thought of this; the idea that if my dishwasher breaks, because I am not a trained dishwasher repairman, I am not allowed to fix it and have to wash my dishes by hand until a Succubus-approved repairman arrives. This is the main reason the Ford Fusion, which recently received higher ratings that the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, is built in Mexico withOUT union labor.

I know what you're thinking, and you're right. It doesn't make sense to protect union jobs that may disappear anyway since the union rejected the deal. But what appears obvious to us is an eternal "Unsolved Mysteries" marathon to the union mind. Take what's happening with teachers in Savannah.

Yesterday, teachers' union members protested outside the Savannah-Chatham County School system offices. The reason for their demonstration, they said, was two-fold. First was the fact that the school board was holding a regular meeting on one of the teachers' state-mandated furlough days, and that is an excellent point. If we really are that desperate to save taxpayer money, the board's business can wait a few days or a week. But had corporal punishment not been outlawed by the EPA, USDA, NBA, AAA, and ESPN, the second reason for the protest would merit the big board.

The teachers say they received an e-mail from School Superintendent Thomas Lockamy saying more furlough days may be necessary to help balance the budget. The union leaders say teachers can't make ends meet with the estimated two-percent loss in their annual salaries caused by the three furlough days currently on the calendar, much less a few more. As someone who has been forced to make ends meet with an almost 100-percent loss in his annual salary this year, I will gladly present the world's smallest violin to the union members so they can Jack Benny their troubles away.

Secondly, I'm sure Alfreda Goldwire, local American Federation of Teachers President, and her counterpart with the Georgia Association of Educators would be happy to help the teachers make up that two-percent loss by refunding their union dues money. After all, if the school board should feel the pain of the teachers, so should the union that professes to represent it's best interest. However, if I were Kenny Rogers in "The Gambler 26, Dr. 90210 Scuplts The Perfect Poker Face," I would bet that President Obama will go hot-tubbing with Glenn Beck before any union gives up their moolah.

Why give money back to help your members continue to engage in what the union endlessly tells us is "The Most Important Profession.......In THE WORLD" when they can instead give some of that money, in the form of political contributions, to such lovely, hometown folks as the Service Employees International Union, which sent thugs to physically assault people at one of those infamous Congressional town hall meetings in St. Louis this past August. National teachers unions also regularly give teacher's money to such wholesome, milk and cookie-type groups as ACORN and Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Wonder if the Rev. will foot a teacher a hundred or two so their power doesn't get cut off?

To be sure, unions are not the only problem here. American car companies have been mismanaged for decades, and no one, not teachers, not administrators, not politicians, not even many ordinary people have the guts to introduce true competition in the education system to improve schools (or especially to give me the $9,000 or so in my tax money that's being spent on my first-grader so I can choose how best to educate her). But when someone does come along with solutions to problems, it's a good bet that a union leader will try to be there to get their piece of the pie, and the solution (and the union rank and file) be damned. America needed unions many decades ago, when sweatshops and filthy working conditions were common. But while teaching and building cars aren't exactly cushy work, sweatshops they are not, and today's union leaders are the ones who more closely resemble yesterday's industry barons.

Leave A-Rod Alone

My hatred of the New York Yankees is similar to that which might be felt at a Sons Of Confederate Veterans outing to a Spike Lee movie. I haven't even remotely thought of rooting for the Yanks since my early boyhood hero, Reggie Jackson, went to the California Angels in 1982, and by that time I had become a die-hard Braves' fan thanks to Ted Turner's daily tubular injections. The need to make that abundantly clear will be evident with the next sentence I write, which is anathema to just about every non-Yankee lover in America, along with all the women who wish they were the Budweiser Derek Jeter Girlfriend Of The Week (you didn't know he had a corporate sponsor for his women, did you?). It is time to stop criticizing Alex Rodriguez for, well, being Alex Rodriguez.

A-Rod began his career as a Wunderkind shortstop in Seattle, with many predictions that he might someday be the greatest player of all-time. While Cal Ripken deserves credit for making shortstop a position for power hitters instead of a place where five-foot-three guys batted .177 while catching everything hit between them and the stadium parking lot, Rodriguez was Ripken cubed. A very good fielder (much better in the field than Jeter, but that's another column), and power hitter extraordinaire, not too many people were surprised when A-Rod signed as a free agent with the Texas Rangers in 2001 for enough money to buy Hilton Head Island or to pay for the Texas electric chair's power bill for about a week-and-a-half.

The beginning of his Texas tenure is supposedly when A-Rod discovered the Power of Injection (wonder if that's going to be Dr. Wayne Dyer's next public TV pledge drive special?). Sure enough, Rodriguez averaged a third-more homers during his three cowpoke-land doping years, and I'm sure that the cat-turd-sized Arlington ballpark and the Texas summer heat had NOTHING to do with that, not to mention that virtually everyone across the majors was hitting more dongers during that period. Um-hmmm. When A-Rod's positive steroid test from all those years ago became public, this past February, the baseball world immediately grew long beards, put on those "End Of The World Is Nigh" placards, and paced up and down our TV's. This happened around the same time that Alex's manager during most of his Yankee years, Joe Torre, took the brave step of using his book to rip him. You know, man-to-man, or man-to-book.

So how did Rodriguez respond to all this? After missing the beginning of the season due to injury, he should be the Yankees' team MVP this year. True, Derek Jeter had a great season, even (for him) in the field, and Mark Teixeira was also great, but Tex didn't start hitting until he had A-Rod hitting behind him in the lineup. "Oh, yeah? Well, A-Rod plays like Nancy Pelosi governs in the playoffs!" Um, actually he played good playoff ball in Seattle. He did play as if Madonna had him in constant meditation during his first few Yankee postseasons, but so far this postseason, A-Rod is batting .360 (with a .484 OBP and.820 slugging avg.), six bombs and 18 RBI. Simply put, i fhe Yanks win it all this year, the reason they will do so is "A-Fraud." Also, no one seems to care that Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Jeff Bagwell, Stan Musial, and Ty Cobb all stunk it up during their playoff careers. Why is the bar for A-Rod higher than for some of the other greatest players ever?

Well, I know that answer. Unlike Rodriguez, those other guys didn't make enough money to bribe all the Facebook clones into actually complimenting Georgia Bulldogs' coach Mark Richt. "No one is worth all that money." Au contrare. The market has determined that A-Rod IS worth all that money. "Those other guys didn't use steroids!" Maybe that's true, but there have been many different ways of cheating since the invention of baseball, and if you believe that Hank Aaron never popped a "greenie" (amphetamine), in his career, you also probably believe that the cost of government entitlements actually goes down over time. Also, if A-Rod, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and others are permanently tainted by drugs, then for consistency's sake we have to throw out the stats of virtually every NFL player, and probably a lot of college football players in the 1970's and '80's. When an NFL'er is suspended for steroids, they should also be treated with the same public contempt given to A-Rod instead of being treated as conquering heros for your fantasy team when they return.

I would rather watch C-SPAN speeches or that weird polka show on RFD-TV than another Yankees ticker-tape parade this week. But one thing I am very glad to see this playoff season is Alex Rodriguez incontrovertibly establishing himself as perhaps the greatest baseball player of his era, or at the very least a close second to Albert Pujols. And if you ever mention steroids and A-Rod in the same conversation, I will give you three guesses as to where you can stick your asterisks.

Predicting the Sports Headlines...

A few that I am expecting from the anti-SEC sports media...

"USC drops two spots to 6th in new BCS standings after closer-than-the-score indicated, super narrow, really it was close until the 3rd quarter, the last quarter-and-a-half doesn't really count anyway, loss to Oregon. How's that Mr. Carroll? Can we still do lunch and a massage Wednesday?"

"Florida barely hangs on to top spot in rankings after failing to beat Georgia by 87 points. Biased officials force Bulldogs to wear black helmets and black pants, sealing their fate."

"Alabama drops three spots despite bye week. Voters in coach's poll dispute claims they are jealous of Nick Saban's paycheck."

"Texas vaults to number two in BCS after sterling victory over super-double-stuffin-tough Oklahoma State. What Cowboys' loss to Houston? Who is Houston? Everyone gets to have an off week, except SEC teams. After all, Ok State beat Georgia! Yeah, Georgia was good back then! Wait, I just complimented an SEC team. Dang it!"

Quotes Of The Week

Quotes Of The Week:

1) The First-Grader, with an example of why it might not be a good idea to hold "Red Ribbon Week" at school the same week as Halloween. She told us on Thursday, "Tomorrow at school, we're having a rock concert to celebrate Halloween and drugs!" So, rock concerts at school are the same as rock concerts everywhere else. THAT'S a relief.

2) A Production Director for a radio cluster in Savannah, reading a short commercial after a newscast. I won't mention where he works. I'm only snarky enough to do that if it were my old employer, and it wasn't! Anyway, the commercial asked me to "come to the Con-Coarse Dee-Ele-gants in Hilton Head..." this weekend. The Alabama pronunciation of Concours D'Elegance invades Savannah! Is that how they speak in the South of France?

Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson My Eye

It's official. Kevin Cronin of REO Speedwagon is now The Joker. I caught him the other night on one of those Time-Life Music infomercials. I believe it was the "We Used To Have Roadies Carry Suitcases of Aqua Net and Groupies With Only One Disease, and Now We're Lucky To Get a Gullible, Failing, Corporate Classic Rock Station To Believe There Are Still Five People Who Give a Crap About Us; I Guess We'll Wait To See If Celebrity Fit Club Comes Calling" collection.

Those Time-Life infomercials are addictive. The guest shots by the old celebs are priceless. Mickey Gilley doing the "When Country Music Was All About Beer Drinkin', Coon Dawgs, and How Much I Love My Beer and Coon Dawgs More Than My Woman" collection, Cuba Gooding, Sr. with the "You Know My Son, Don't You? Well I Ain't Him! My Son's a Lot More Famous Than Me, Don't Remind Me! No, I'm Not Doing that Jerry McGuire Thing, That Wasn't Me, That Was My SON, DAMMIT" collection, and the great Bobby Vinton co-hosting the "I Have So Much Vibrato, My Uvula Looks Like a Boxing Speed Bag" collection.

I just saw a couple more, and it's interesting they were shown back to back. The first was the "Best Of The Midnight Special: The In Our Prime, Doing Lots of Cocaine, and Lovin' It" DVD set, which I have to admit looks pretty awesome. Right after that came the "Rock And Roll Hall of Fame Concerts: The Post Rehab/Mortem, Blondie Ain't Blondie Any More, We Have To Sing Everything An Octave Lower Except For That Fro'd Punk Leo Sayer" DVD set.

Speaking of rehab, I obviously need some, because this Time-Life addicition is either out of control or I am just a big, honkin', grotesque loser.

I'm Goin' Straight To Hell

The old Drivin' N Cryin' song from my college years is never more appropriate than this time of year, the time when ghosts, fairies, pirates, Gene Simmons, Spider Man, and Transformers arrive at your doorstep with the Adam Sandler commandment "Gimme some candy!" on the tips of their tongues. It is also the time of year when the costume industry absolutely insists that every woman in America wants to dress up as, to paraphrase the Mrs. and some of her friends, a whoooooooooore. So what do candy and ho's have to do with me and my destiny to shake hands and play poker with Mephistopholes when my number is up? Well, to believe the Halloween antimatter cottage industry that has developed over the last couple decades, everything.

When I was growing up, my then-church (First Baptist Church of Trenton, GA) threw a Halloween party every year. Don't worry, you haven't had too much S'Mores Schnapps. You read that correctly. A HALLOWEEN PARTY was given by a Southern Baptist church in the buckle (or maybe the fourth or fifth hole) of the Bible Belt every year in the 1970's and early 80's. It usually included loads of candy that made us behave like, well, (imagine this) kids, bobbing for apples, and (GASP!) a haunted house! I must say with all modesty that, having personally worked in many of those haunted houses, they were some of the best in Trenton year after year. They were also some of the most painful because instead of running away while screaming, those who go through Baptist haunted houses tend to leave you with shiners and loose teeth while screaming.

(Completely random thought: Can you scare the bejesus out of someone in a Baptist haunted house? Just wondering.)

I might have missed their conception, but I first remember hearing about alternatives to Halloween parties and to Halloween itself during my college years. One of the loudest and (at least for a while in the South) ubiquitous of these alternatives was the "Judgement House." In a nutshell, Judgement Housing was designed to scare the bejesus INTO someone by showing them, often times graphically, how'd they'd be whittling away their time with The Devil if they didn't come to know The Lord. I could make a comment about a loving God dressing up for Halloween and going "Boo", but I won't. Folks are free to believe what they want and to share those beliefs as they'd like. What gets me more than the Judgement House alternative to All Hallows Eve are the folks who sincerely believe that I will end up in the final scene of the Judgement House simply by taking my kids trick or treating.

Those folks will claim this isn't the case. "We only hold 'Fall Festivals' or 'Harvest Festivals' or 'Trunk or Treat' or 'Keep Your Kid Out of Hay-ell" events on Halloween to keep children safe." After all, for the last 70 years, there has been a long line of deranged adults who eat the corpses of children for a living. They spend 364 days a year preparing the poison to be injected into copious packages of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and other treats, which, when you think about it, may explain the flavor of Candy Corn. I am not trivializing bad neighborhoods or the rare occasion when something bad happens, but do we need 8,000 alternatives to one of the most fun nights of the year when all that needs to take place is for parents to (get ready for one of my few Einstein moments) stay with their kids and only go to decent 'hoods with lots of lighting? I know. Not all parents are decent parents, which makes the victims my kids since only a handful of homes in my neighborhood actually welcomed trick-or-treaters last year.

If the purveyors of Halloween alternatives really wanted to help, they would turn their own neighborhoods into a giant welcome mat for kids who just want to have fun and give themselves a three-day sugar coma. But they don't want to help Halloween, they want to kill it, and usually it's because of an e-mail they received from their mother-in-law; you know, the one that has obviously been forwarded to about 97,000 people. That e-mail says Halloween comes from ancient pagan rituals which included the worship of Satan, raising your pinky when drinking a cup of tea, turkey bacon, the burning of Lee Greenwood records, and worst of all, the cancelation of college football games! And of course, since everything we read on the internet is true.....and you're going to Hades, too if you don't forward this to 50 people!

So, I humbly ask for your prayers, as I obviously need them. Because even though there may be fewer places for them to collect their chocolate booty, I can't wait for this Saturday. My older kid will be dressed as a doctor, so she'll be ready to perform animal sacrifices, while my toddler, dressed as a pumpkin, will surely be screaming "Yoo hoo, Satan, I'm here to serve you! My pumpkiness is your pumpkinness, oh evil one." My guess is that, in the end, my personal religious beliefs won't be worse off.

Oh, the first time I heard the song "I'm Goin' Straight To Hell" was at a Drivin' N Cryin' concert at Jacksonville State University in Alabama, circa 1991; a show I attended with some friends.....from the school's Baptist Campus Ministries chapter, who screamed the lyric at least as loudly as I. Well, at least I will have some good company.

Better choices to rank college football teams

Another week, another collective college football voter Cialis moment for Pete Carroll. Maybe its just me, but year after year, it seems that the cerebrally-challenged folks who rank the teams for college football's top 25 polls are simply trying to win the favor of the USC coach (by the way, that's the real USC in Southern California, and you South Carolina folks just need to stop right now). Guys, you remember how you desperately wanted to hang out with the cool guy in school, the leader of the pack, the man who got all the chicks and passed out the ones he didn't have time for to his buddies? That is how the hot dog eaters (hat tip to my pally Kevin Miller for that term) of the college football media and coaching world treat Mr. Carroll year after year, and this week there is yet another downright embarassing example of guys willing to be Pete's urinal hand-man.

Don't get me wrong. Pete Carroll has restored greatness to USC football. The program that was dominant throughout much of the 60's and 70's went through a swoon in the 80's, generating win-loss records that are only acceptable at places that believe they are big time but aren't, like Ole Miss or every ACC school except for Virginia Tech and, lately, Georgia Tech. But the Trojans has been mostly glorious over the past decade, and Carroll gets most of the credit for paying good money for....., errr, for rebuilding them. But Carroll also always gets a pass for losing games that USC should win in about the first five minutes of the first quarter, such as the Washington game this year. The reason for this is, well, he's just so dang cool. Instead of the 50-something guy that he is, Pete acts as if he's 23 and doing Red Bull/Crunk Juice shots on the sidelines during the game. Members of the media act like women trying to catch the garter at a wedding reception as they beat the snot out of each other just so they can inhale three seconds of the Carroll aura. How else to explain the fact that, despite suffering the worst loss of any top-ten team this season, Carroll's Trojans are ranked ahead of not one, not two, but THREE unbeaten teams in the new BCS standings.

I know what those pollsters who are desperate seeking some Cinemax skin-flick time with Mr. Carroll would tell me. "Do you really think Cincinnati could beat USC?" Well, Cincy's thugs beat Oregon State on the road by a larger margin than USC's thugs beat the Beavers at home. "Come on, Ray. TCU and Boise State ahead of USC?" Answer: Boise beat an Oregon team that may go to the Rose Bowl this year, and you have been shopping at those Cali Pot Shops too much if you really believe the Pac-10 is better than the Mountain West. "Who wants to see that dang blue field, again, or something called a Horned Frog when you can watch (cue the Marilyn Chambers music) Matt Barkley, the sexiest...errrrrrr, the best freshman QB in the country?" Bow-chicka-bow-bow. I always thought there was something pornographic about guys who follow football recruiting so closely. Now, we see that extends to media folks and other pollsters living their vicarious "Animal House" existence through those guys after they start their college careers.

Since the powers don't have the cojones to implement a playoff, the only way to fix the fight for college football's mythical national championship is simple. It is time to ditch all the pollsters and only allow a small "blue ribbon" panel rank the teams. Who would be on this panel? Glad you asked.

1) Me. Since, as should be obvious by my earlier analysis of media lust for Pete Carroll, I know everything.

2) Adam Van Brimmer, Savannah Morning News, the only pollster worth his salt. Even though for whatever reason he isn't allowed to write about sports on a regular basis any more, and the SMN's sports section is much worse for it, he is still an Associated Press Top 25 voter, and his rankings actually make some bit of sense. Adam can also defend his rankings with the best of them, using actual on-field results as his guide, not some hypothetical "but seriously, do you think..." rationale that so many other pollsters apparently use.

3) My kids. They are smarter than me. My first-grader could probably crank out a computer program that could correctly predict the results of every football game as well as the number of bribes your elected officials will take while running the country into a ridiculous amount of debt. My toddler, by simply walking up to the computer whenever one of those annoying espn.dot.com auto-play videos starts on every single web page, already watches more football every week than at least half the current pollsters.

4) My cats. I would talk to them about each school, then see how long it takes them to poop on the floor after the talk to determine the rankings. Yes, on the floor, as they apparently believe the litter box is a one-use item.

5) My Magic 8-Ball. I used a radio station contest several years ago to successfully prove that the 8-Ball could predict the outcome of football games as well as any human. Ranking a top-25 with an 8-Ball would be easier than the CEO's version of Marco Polo; "Budget Cuts! Everyone's Fired!"

"That isn't a representative sample of the nation, Ray. You have to have lots of people from all over the country pick the teams to be fair." No, you don't, because that would just lead to what we have this year, a bunch of guys desperate to sleep with Pete Carroll and desperate to keep two teams from what overwhelmingly is the best conference in the nation, the SEC, from playing for the mythical crystal fuball. Also, the beauty of the Steele system is that no one would know who was behind the rankings! We could just pretend that there are still a gazillion pollsters, not tell anyone the truth, and get something that actually resembles the best teams in college football competing for the fake national title every year. No one would ever have to know the truth!

Sure, it's ludicrous. So are this week's BCS standings.