Thursday, June 28, 2012

Today's High 5: College football's unimpressive playoff. Also: vacations for me ... and Erin Andrews

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5. Four teams? Please.

The college football playoff needed to accommodate at least eight teams to make it a true national tournament -- as well as to keep cronyism at bay. You know the selection committee will be filled with big-money-conference types who will protect their golden geese. 


The bloated bowl system remains intact, too, which is nice for fans of the Beef O'Brady's Bowl.

As satisfying as it was to hear the powers-that-be finally admit that the BCS was a huge failure, this is barely progress. And for some head-scratching reason, college honchos felt the need to lock this new system in place for 12 years.

Wake me when we have a real champion, please.

4. White Sox GM Ken Williams gets criticized often, but I always have admired the way he swings for the fences. His latest move, getting Kevin Youkilis from the Red Sox for spare parts, bordered on brilliant.

3. I took some time off from TBT while Roberta and I visited Chicago. We drove up from Charlotte with our beautiful pup, Simcha -- who was in the car, not strapped to the top in an air-tight cage.

We spent most of our time with young'uns Katie and Ben, who are doing wonderfully, thanks for asking. We also got to visit our dear friends, the Marks, the Pellikans and the Brundidges.


On Friday, I golfed with sportswriter buddies Rick Morrissey, Teddy Greenstein, Mike Imrem, Lindsey Willhite and Adam Rittenberg. That's right: a Sun-Times guy, a Tribster, two Daily Herald dudes and an ESPN.com scribe; that's about as diverse a group as a bunch of lily-white males can be. It would have been even more diverse (and more white and more male) if the Southtown Star's Phil Arvia had joined us as planned. He wimped out with the lamest of excuses: his wife broke her leg. Two days later, I hit the links with my two best Marquette friends, Tom Chodzko and John Lamich. I shot a pair of 93s, so it's a good thing the company was great!


One of the trip's highlights took place Saturday night, when my wife and I saw our favorite band, Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, rock the Cubby Bear. Katie and Ben joined us and a fantastic time was had by all.


Oh, and of course, we ate at Pequod's, the best deep-dish pizza on earth.

All in all, it was a super fun Chicago visit before we returned to Charlotte -- just in time for it to be 100-plus degrees all weekend. Pass the deodorant, please.

2. I have yet to decide if I love HBO's newest series, The Newsroom, but I'm pretty sure I don't hate it.

And I must admit that I laughed out loud upon hearing that Jeff Daniels' character, combustible newscaster Will McAvoy, spent a vacation in the tropics canoodling with Erin Andrews.

You know ... I had wondered why I hadn't seen her lately.

1. After winning our previous three games, including our playoff opener, by double-digit slaughter-rule scores, our 45-and-over softball team, the Blue Thunder, suffered a tough defeat Tuesday night.

Yours truly had two line-drive hits, scored a few runs and had an RBI ... but I also messed up: Playing catcher, I failed to scoop a low throw that would have cut off a run; I also got thrown out at the plate trying to score. As a team, we played a little too loose in the field, walked a few too many batters and didn't have quite enough hits, all contributing factors to us blowing a late lead and losing by two runs.

We're not done yet, though. It's a double-elimination tournament, and we already have scored decisive victories over the next two teams we'll face (if we win our next game, that is).

Why am I boring everybody with my softball team's exploits? Well, because I can. It's my blog!

Besides ... our playoffs, unlike major college football's, will produce a true champion.
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1 comment:

  1. I figure the wife's broken leg saved me. You'd have taken my money with a 93!

    ReplyDelete