I’m sorry.
I think this is really funny.
Peggy Kusinski reported on ESPN 1000 today, in Chicago, that the gunshot fired inside New Comiskey during a White Sox game was accidental. A woman who “snuck the gun in past metal detectors hiding it in the folds of her belly fat” accidentally fired it. Nothing to see here, folks. Just a belly gun. Who among us.
First of all, my understanding is everybody is fine. If that’s wrong, whoops, shit, my bad, but it’s still at least a little funny, right? It’s a belly gun! If you get paralyzed by a belly gun, I think you still have to do a little laughing. It *is* the best medicine, you know.
Secondly, let’s address the obvious questions. No, I don’t know if belly fat renders metal detectors useless. Yes, I have some ideas as to why someone would bring a gun to a White Sox game. Have you seen how the White Sox have been playing??
In other White Sox-adjacent news, they might have broken Joe Kelly. Our hero is not expected to return for the Dodgers all that soon, but Dave Roberts was emphatic in saying Joe Kelly will be back for the playoffs. I hate this, this is far too reminiscent of the 2019 legs situation before Howie Kendrick hit that harmless fly ball to the warning track (and then a little bit past, where it became harmful). I am also glad we will still allegedly get October Joe Kelly. There is little like that rush. I have never tried cocaine, but I’ve had a lot of Red Bull–vodkas, and they do not compare to Joe Kelly pitching in the playoffs.
What Justifies a Hunger Strike?
How can the Spanish women’s soccer coach who kissed a player against her will be misogynistic if his own mother is staging a hunger strike to protest people protesting his continued employment???
From Euronews:
In a desperate move, the mother of Spain’s football chief has locked herself in a church in southern Spain and declared a hunger strike, as prosecutors open an investigation into his conduct.
I’m most curious about the church part of this. Why a church? Do hunger strikes always need a location? Or did Luis Rubiales’s mom just want to be somewhere far away from the pantry? You scared of being too close to the Oreos, Ms. Béjar? I would be scared of being too close to the Oreos. I would hate going on a hunger strike. I guess that’s the point, though.
People have asked whether there’s a double standard being applied to Rubiales here, or whether Spain’s royal football federation would have reacted in the same manner had Becky Hammon forcibly kissed Brandon Davies after winning the NBA’s Las Vegas Summer League in 2015. I don’t know the answer to that, but you know what we are going to get answers on? What happens when someone goes on a hunger strike about something really, really dumb. Usually, hunger strikes are about serious issues. Sometimes, they’re conducted by prisoners who are already getting tortured, so their torture can just be switched to forcefeeding. Circumstances have differed, but I’m unaware of another hunger strike which has been primarily comic in its nature. This is uncharted territory, and I hope we get a lot of updates from our colleagues in Spain.
Trey Lance Is Back in Frisco
Since we last noted, Trey Lance was traded from the 49ers to the Dallas Cowboys. This should be a really good thing for Trey Lance. The guy has played in Frisco before, and for the time being, that appears to be the only place he’s going to play.
At the end of the 2019 FCS season, North Dakota State won its third straight national championship and its eighth in a nine-year span (shoutout to our friends from JMU, and yes, that’s plural, there are at least two of you). The game was held at Toyota Stadium, four miles north of the Cowboys’ practice facility. Trey Lance was the game’s MVP. It wasn’t NDSU’s most emphatic victory in one of these (I like 2015), but it was a national championship, and it’s hard to quarrel with a national title. Of course, plenty of people are quarreling with it now, nobody is giving Trey Lance the respect he deserves for his (collegiate) sophomore campaign, but they aren’t being too convincing about it!
Let’s get to the point.
Trey Lance is at his bottom right now. Can a return to the place he peaked turn him around?
The problem for Trey Lance is that Covid happened, so he missed out on a chance to play in the national championship the next year. His choices became to either play a full FCS season and risk millions upon millions of dollars with no benefit but winning a second FCS title or sit out and get drafted in the top ten. He chose the latter. This is unfortunate for a few reasons—it’s largely responsible for convincing Sam Houston State it’s good enough at football to succeed in Conference USA—but among them is that Lance spent his pre-draft year mostly not playing football. He played in one game in October that was basically a showcase for NFL scouts, and then he sat for the spring campaign and NDSU lost to the Bearkats in the national quarterfinals. Sam Houston State won a Mickey Mouse title, Lance went to the 49ers, things haven’t gone great for either since.
I suppose the best case here is that Jerry Jones orchestrated this whole thing, identifying Lance as his quarterback of the future and responding by engineering and releasing Covid in Wuhan, something which ultimately kept the Cowboys’ historic rival in check while supplying Jones with a franchise quarterback. (Can you imagine how good the Niners would be if they’d retained those draft picks?) This might be giving Jerry Jones a little too much credit, though. If Jerry Jones was capable of engineering viruses and releasing them with that much precision, Robert Kraft would have died a long time ago. So, we’re probably dealing with the worst case: Another dynamic NDSU quarterback has showed promise in the NFL but ultimately flopped. Easton Stick, save us.
Auston Matthews vs. The Sens
I always forget that Auston Matthews spells his last name normally. I assume it only has one T. An unconventional spelling paired with a normal one? That’s a rope-a-dope if I’ve ever seen it. Pretty perverted, to be honest. Auston Matthews is probably a huge pervert. That mustache? Grew up in Scottsdale? Grew up playing hockey in Scottsdale? Pervert. This is all conjecture and speculation, but if Auston Matthews could **** *** **** * ***-***** ****** and ********* ** ** ***** ***** *** *** *** *********, I bet that pervert would.
Anyway, Auston Matthews signed a big extension with the Leafs, eating up all their cap space when they already suck and making it that much easier for the Ottawa Senators to keep winning the Atlantic Division every year. What an idiot.
Oh Crap the Carabao Cup Exists
I’m off my Burnley game, but our favorite buffalo-named soccer tournament is underway, with the Burnleys opening tomorrow at Nottingham Forest.
It’s a tricky draw for a few reasons. First, kind of sucks to play another Premier League team right away. Wish the lads could have drawn Wrexham or Blackburn instead. Second, kind of sucks to play a team the lads are battling in the relegation race in a game with no relegation consequences. I’m going to have a hard time tomorrow remembering this doesn’t affect my happiness come May. Third, kind of sucks to play a team the lads are about to play in a league game. If I was confident, I would say I hope Vincent Kompany plays the first team and runs Nottingham through then does it again in a few weeks. I saw part of the Aston Villa game on Sunday, though. I’m not confident. Burnley hasn’t allowed three goals in consecutive games since New Years 2021–22, and that doesn’t count because it was a holiday (also, Leeds was probably cheating, knowing Leeds). Maybe this is part of the process, but I am deeply uncomfortable. Gonna bet the over, though.
More Old Cricket Drama
We found another old cricket story. Much older than the last one.
In 2006, umpires ruled Pakistan’s national cricket team had tampered with the ball. The ol’ Clay Buccholz sandpaper trick, I imagine. (I don’t remember if that’s what Buccholz specifically was accused of or not but I remember reading someone say a pitcher was gluing a piece of sandpaper to his fingertip to scuff the ball and then flicking it off when an ump came out to investigate, and I thought and still think that is the coolest way to cheat.) Pakistan was docked five runs, a new ball came in, who cares about five runs it’s cricket these games are always in the hundreds. Well, it turns out Pakistan cared about five runs, because Pakistan refused to come back out after tea. The thing took three years to resolve, but eventually, the forfeit victory initially awarded to England stood.
What I’m curious about with this is the role of tea in both this controversy and the last one we talked about. Caffeine is a drug, remember, and while it’s no Joe Kelly Playoff Appearance, I wonder if it’s getting these cricketers a little too fired up.
NASCAR Did It Again
I am excited to inform you that NASCAR has again produced a terrifying, flame-filled wreck without killing someone. In the same race in which Ryan Blaney survived slamming the wall in the same spot as Dale Earnhardt, Ryan Preece survived this:
Thank God. Also, good work by NASCAR. I know they want to keep the cars on the ground, but keeping the drivers alive is the more important part, and they did it!
In other NASCAR news from the weekend, Kurt Busch will never again be cleared to race a full season, so he’s retiring. It’s a sad way for it to end, and it’s bad work by NASCAR because drivers should not be getting *that* bad of concussions (a little concussion I understand, but a career-ending one shouldn’t be necessary). That all said, it gave us this emotional farewell video, and I have always been a sucker for a montage.
How The Hawk Turned Out
Saint Joe’s new Hawk is a lot like its old one. A little spiffed up, sure, but it’s a very similar Hawk. Here’s the look.
What I don’t get is why Saint Joe’s hyped this up so much and then didn’t just release a full frontal picture of the Hawk. Viewers had to pause the announcement video at *just* the right time to get a good look at the thing. That’s a display of weakness.
Shaka Smart and the Most Important Thing
“What have we always said is the most important thing?”
“Breakfast.”
Shaka Smart handed out breakfast this week to Marquette students on their way to their first day of class. Think of how nourished those kids were. Think of how attentive they were while professors read through syllabi and let them out twenty minutes early. Rodney Terry? More of a lunch guy. Hate to pit them against each other, but I’m not the one who makes employment decisions in Austin. Reactionary fans who only watch a couple games a year are evidently the ones who make employment decisions in Austin.
Myself and Gilligan
You ever have the experience where someone’s making fun of you in a group of people but you enter the conversation late and you don’t really know what’s going on so you try to join in on making fun of this mystery person you don’t know but later you realize you were making fun of yourself?
Evidently Sean Payton was talking about my kind of hat when he called it a “Gilligan hat” and banned them from the Broncos preseason games. Evidently Sean Payton isn’t the only one to use this phrase for a bucket hat. I don’t mind—Gilligan’s Island is a classic for a reason, and the reason is fashion—but Sean Payton is such a prick and such an overrated joke of a coach that I’m glad to have another reason to personally dislike him. Enjoy fighting Josh McDaniels for third place in the AFC West, you fucking loser.
