RU RUTGERS?

Once a year, the nice folks over at Off Tackle Empire at SB Nation ask me to write something that is tangentially about Rutgers University football. As Rutgers is to football as Olive Garden is to fine Italian cuisine (but with fewer breadsticks), this is what you'd call a target-rich environment.

Here's this year's rendition, which asks the question: who is the Rutgers of every other major football conference. And remember - if you look around the ACC and don't see the Rutgers, you are the Rutgers.

Rose to the Occasion

A rose by any other name would still put fifty bucks on the Padres at home

Here are the things you need to understand about the latest Pete Rose gambling "revelation":

Hack'n'Slush

"Now batting for the St. Louis Cardinals, Number One..."

Players aren't the only ones that cheat. Organizations cheat all the time. The Patriots - dear God, let's not talk about the Patriots. The New York Giants stole signs all the way to Bobby Thompson's home run off Ralph Branca. George Toma was a master of turning the Kansas City baselines into either racetrack or swamp, depending on whom the Royals were playing. Branch Rickey spun off forty-zillion farm clubs so he could sign all the talent and have it rot away in the minors rather than let anyone else have it.

So in one sense, what the Cardinals allegedly did by hacking the Astros is nothing new. In another sense, it's very new, because this sort of interstate computer skullduggery is exactly the sort of thing the Feds take very seriously, largely because if they nail the Cardinals' hide to the wall here, it sets up a lovely precedent for when they go after Goldman Sachs should they be so inclined. And has been pointed out elsewhere, the Feds are not inclined to play nice when it comes to baseball, largely because nailing baseball's hide to the wall is the sort of high-PR low-risk move they're hungry for. See also: Barry Bonds, trial of.

In the Wake of the Triple Crown

Not actually American Pharoah. Either of them.

It has now been one week since American Pharoah won horse racing's triple crown, the first horse to do so in an exceedingly long time. This singular event, like the long-awaited Mayweather-Pacquiao bout, was supposed to breathe life into a sport that has slipped steadily away from the limelight over the past couple of decades, and indeed, it did briefly wash up against the shores of the national sports conversation.

Bold NBA Finals Prediction.

I don't care what happens tonight. The Warriors are going to win the NBA Finals.

Things We Think About What Happened At FIFA

In light of the arrests that have rocked FIFA and the even more shocking resignation of newly re-elected FIFA President Sepp "Baron Harkonnen" Blatter, it's time to take a measured look at what it all really means. To wit:

1. BWAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAAH. I mean, somewhere, John Oliver just wet himself laughing.