Pack Over Spiders

This is how big guys beat little guys: depth.

An Eagles' Fan's Dearest Hope

Here is every Philadelphia Eagles fan's fondest wish:

The Real Reasons ESPN Put Keith Law on Twitter Suspension

By now, ESPN’s ludicrous “Twitter suspension” of baseball writer Keith Law has wrapped up, leaving numerous unanswered questions in its wake. Questions such as “Why the hell did they suspend Keith Law?” and, well, that’s about it, though the popular wisdom is that it’s because Law brought the heavy lumber when walking gamedev nightmare Curt Schilling started spouting off on Twitter about how evolution isn’t real neener neener neener. 

ESPN, for its part, claims that the Twitter exchange had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the suspension and now they’re sticking their fingers in their ears so they can’t hear you LA LA LA LA LA LA WE’RE NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT THIS. 

On Rooting For Some Of The Bad Guys

There's a lot of talk swirling around the Tampa Bay Rays these days. They lost their GM to the Dodgers. They lost their manager, under weird circumstances, to the Cubs. They traded a former Rookie of the Year for prospects, they're making minor deals left and right, they DFA'ed their starting catcher whose pitch-framing genius never seemed to translate into getting above the Mendoza line at the plate, and they're the subject of persistent "maybe they'll move to Montreal" rumors.

It is the official position of this blog:

That Curt Schilling is an addle-pated ninny.

That is all.

Gratuitous Who Lyric Reference

So the differences between the BCS and the "College Football Playoff" are:

1-The playoff isn't called the BCS, which let the parties involved renegotiate their sponsorship deals.
2-The playoff involves 4 teams instead of 2, though once again the participating teams will be chosen by an arcane illogical process superficially disguised as "scientific".

The similarities are:

Conspiracy Theories For Fun And Profit!

The great thing about conspiracy theories is that they only have to make sense within their own context, which they conveniently create. Once you're inside the bubble, every fact becomes new evidence of the theory and every fact that disproves the conspiracy theory becomes evidence of a coverup, which ends up lending credence to the conspiracy theory all over again. This is how people find themselves believing that the Smithsonian Institute is actively engaged in a massive coverup to hide proof that giant half-alien hybrids colonized the US in the 5th century, among other less intellectually defensible positions. Never mind that it makes absolutely no sense, once you're convinced that those giant alien-human hybrids existed and learn there's no evidence, then logic (such as it is) immediately dictates that the evidence must have been destroyed. The alternative - that there never were any half-alien power forwards lurching across the landscape during the Moundbuilder period and the whole concept is loonier than a pile of Canadian currency - is unthinkable.

Like I Was Saying

A post-game handshake between two members of the Cleveland Cavaliers is now a national controversy. LeBron saying he wasn't letting his kids play football, like about a gazillion other parents, now a national controversy. Oy, the geshrying.

God help the national sports media when they actually start playing winning basketball.

So That Was Ugly (Panthers-Eagles Edition)

I'm out of town this week, but I can only imagine the wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth back home over the Carolina Panthers' extended demolition at the occasional hands of Mark Sanchez. No doubt the drums are beating for the team to do something about Cam Newton - what "something" is, nobody is quite sure, except it boils down to "play better for less money" - and to burn Riverboat Ron Rivera and the front office in effigy for letting Steve Smith go. Sometimes, it is true, riverboats catch on fire and sink.

RAUL! (And Charlie)

Word came down the pike this morning that Durham Bulls manager Charlie Montoyo is one of the finalists for the vacant managing job in Tampa, and this has me torn.

ACC Weekly...Oh, The Heck With It.

So the ACC stacks up like this:

• Florida State - Actually very good, especially when their quarterback isn't doing things with online memes, criminal investigations or seafood that keep him off the field. An almost certain lock for the playoff.

The Sky Is Falling (In Cleveland)

We are now 4 games into The LeBron Redux era in Cleveland, and the alarm klaxons are officially sounding. They lost their first game! Their rookie coach called a team meeting after that first loss! LeBron said something about players from a culture of losing! LeBron's not taking enough shots! They haven't won all four games by a gazillion points each! Sports talk guys are discussing how LeBron's gone soft! How he doesn't have the motivation he had in Miami! How people like him too much! LeBron and Irving had a "healthy discussion"! Something something Dion Waiters something! 

But the Sanchize Is Also Cursed

Insofar as I root for anything related to the NFL, I root for the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles lost their QB of record for the foreseeable future in Sunday's game against the Texans. This leaves them, at least temporarily, in the hands of former Jets punching bag Mark Sanchez, and Eagles fandom in the equivalent of the old "But the frogurt is also cursed" routine from the Simpsons. To wit:

Game Changers in the Temple

Going to go out on a limb here and predict the impossible: that Temple will beat Penn State this season. Sometimes, a team just gets that look of destiny - and by "destiny" I mean "the laws of probability take a double hit from the bong whenever this team is around" - and
In their opener, Temple - still theoretically reeling from losing coach Al Golden to Miami a while back - beat Vanderbilt. This was the first time they'd beaten an SEC team since the late Triassic, and cause for minor celebration on North Broad Street.