Hey ... Remember Me?

 Well ... it's been more than a year since I've posted here. Why? 

1. I've been busy living my life.

2. When I've done any public writing, I've done so professionally (in other words, for $$$$).

3. I'm retired and lazy.

I think that about covers it.

Anyhoo, I'm not gonna make any New Year's resolution about posting daily or weekly or monthly (or even annually) to The Baldest Truth. All I'll say is, "We'll see."

But I'm here now, so here goes ...

The Bald Truth

A lot has gone on with my family since I last posted the day before Thanksgiving 2023.

The main happening of note: Robbie and I sold our home in Matthews, NC, and moved to Seattle to be near Katie and her family, who re-re-located to Seattle in August. (The grandkids had spent two years in Charlotte, reeling us in with their damn cuteness.)

Concluding a 6-week drive that included stops to visit friends and family in Wilmington, Hilton Head, Philadelphia, Easton, Detroit, Chicago, Middle Of Nowhere Wisconsin and Jackson Hole, we arrived in Seattle in mid-October. 

We've been living in a furnished rental while we look for our next home. It's been a humbling and somewhat intimidating experience, given the low inventory and the insanely high prices - basic starter homes that need work run $1 million plus. We are open to renting a nice place for a couple/few years, and we might end up doing just that.

I do miss a lot about Charlotte. I miss going to the Beer Temple every Thursday to get together with Gary, Drew, Scott, Tom and whoever else might join our group in any given week. I miss the monthly wild-card-filled poker nights that Bruce ran, and Jake's more serious Hold 'Em games. We miss our best Charlotte "couple friends," Karen and Tom. And of course I miss the weather - it's gray and rainy in Seattle just about every freakin' day. (But I do know from experience that the summers here will be spectacular, so less than 6 gloomy months to go!)

Life is filled with adventures big and small, and I've always felt that change is healthy. We didn't know a soul in Madison when we moved there as newlyweds, nor did we know anybody when we moved to Minneapolis after I got my first full-time sportswriting gig. We had some people in Chicago when we moved there, but we didn't have all that much opportunity to get together with them because we were busy raising our family. And then we knew absolutely nobody when we moved to Charlotte. At each stop, we carved out a fun, fulfilling and friend-filled experience for ourselves, and I have no doubt we'll do the same in Seattle.

It's certainly been great being around Katie, Ben, Owen and Piper. We see them all the time and enjoy the laughs, love and hugs. In just the past couple of weeks, I've gone with Ben to a Kraken game; I've watched the Sounders with Katie and her friends; and we babysat Owen and Piper so that Katie and Ben could go to dinner with Ben's family, who were visiting from out of town.

I also recently took Owen to a high school basketball game. It's obvious that my 4-year-old grandson is a huge basketball fan, based on his answer when I asked him during the drive home what his favorite part of the game was: 

"Getting a pack of Skittles."

The Balder Truth

Speaking of basketball ...

Last winter, I wrapped up the North Carolina portion of my coaching career. It was my 11th season overall, 7th as a middle-school girls head coach and 2nd at Socrates Academy, a charter school for smart kids that was just two miles from our house. 

Our top seven players from the previous season graduated, and this time we had a bunch of 6th-graders who were eager but mostly not experienced enough to compete against the many talented and older teams in our league. Although the final result was only my second sub-.500 record as a head coach (and first since my very first season), we still had a lot of fun ... and it again was wonderful having Katie as my assistant coach.

I got to Seattle too late to consider coaching here this season, and I haven't decided yet if I'll do so next year. I enjoy working with kids and I love the challenge of building a team, but it's also a solid 3-4 month commitment. And now that Robbie and I are both retired, I'm not sure I'm ready to give up that chunk of time. We'll see what's going through my head when the time to make a decision draws near.

A more successful basketball story for the 2023-24 season was written by my Marquette Golden Eagles. Coached by Shaka Smart and led by Tyler Kolek and Oso Ighodaro, Marquette played inspired basketball all season and reached the Sweet 16 for the first time in a decade. 

I got to several games, including road contests against Butler and Xavier, as well as the first two NCAA Tournament games. MU was 6-0 with me in attendance - I guess I should have gone to the NCAA Regional game we lost in Dallas, dammit! As Steve Martin used to say (back when he was funny): "I blame myself."

We have a real good team again this season, with PG Kam Jones playing like an All-American and getting excellent support from several others. I'm planning to go to three games with my friends in late January. There's also a pretty active Marquette Club in Seattle, and Robbie, Katie and I went to a game-watching event to see the takedown of the always-evil Wisconsin Rodents.

Personally, the best thing about Marquette's resurgence has been the way my old MU buddies like Chodz, Jim and John have really gotten into the team. We have text chains going during every game, we've gotten together to go to numerous games, and it's just been a lot of fun. So thanks to Shaka and the guys! Sports brings people together - one of many reasons I love them.

THE BALDEST TRUTH

Unfortunately, I spent pretty much all of 2024 dealing with serious back problems. At first, it was general soreness in the mid-back to upper-back area that kept me from doing activities I enjoy. But things got worse, and in May an MRI showed that I had a compression fracture. The pain had gotten unbearable and it took a long time for me to be able to do even mundane tasks like tie my shoes or shave.

We ended up having to cancel a scheduled trip to Europe, missing our niece's wedding (Congrats, Caroline and Daniel!), as well as a Rhine River cruise. Total bummer.

While dealing with my injury, I ended up putting extra stress on my lower back and neck, and those became problem areas, too. Making matters even worse, I got the run-around from my health-insurance company and couldn't receive the physical therapy I desperately needed.

Finally, after moving to Seattle, I decided to pay out of pocket for a highly regarded physical therapist - who also happens to be my first cousin's son-in-law, Phil - and I'm doing a lot better now. I've still got a ways to go to be able to do the real fun stuff (such as golfing, or picking up a grandkid), but at least I'm mostly able to function.

I'm looking forward to getting back to full strength in 2025. And it will happen!

Bits & Pieces

• Just because we're in the Pacific Northwest now, it doesn't mean we'll be traveling less to Chicago, where Ben, Sammi, Jack, Logan and Noah live - and where we still have many friends from our 16 years in that great city. We already have a trip scheduled for early 2025 and another tentatively planned for the spring. Our hearts will always lead us to Chicago over and over and over again.
• We lived in the Charlotte area for 14+ years, and in our house on Hickory Lake Lane for most of that time. It was the longest I had lived in any house as an adult - easily beating our 10 years at Bell Ave. in Chicago. The only abode in which I resided longer was 59 Wheeler Avenue in my hometown of Milford, CT - the only house I knew until I went away to college.
• I'm still writing investing articles, but I'm now doing so for a subscription service on the Seeking Alpha site. After years of writing for a free site, I didn't love switching to a situation in which folks have to pay to read my stuff, but that's the most common model in this day and age. And the money I get for writing still buys my beer (and, hopefully soon, my golf) - and that ain't nothing.
• Sadly, Robbie and I lost our best friend of 13 1/2 years in August, when Simmie died. She was a loyal, loving and funny pup, and we still talk about her often.
• I just realized I didn't announce my Sports Turkey of the Year for 2024, but my choice shouldn't surprise anybody who follows the NFL (or to any of my Chicago friends). It's obviously former Bears coach Matt Eberflus, who oversaw a dysfunctional, easily distracted, fundamentally weak crew of losers. I was tempted to pick one of those losers - Tyrique Stevenson, the pathetic fool who was busy taunting the crowd while Washington was in the process of launching its winning Hail Mary play. But even that screw-up ultimately belongs on Eberflus, who built a culture of pathetic foolishness. 
• It was pretty easy becoming a Seattle Seahawks fan after my long run cheering for the Carolina Panthers. It's not as if I was born and raised a Panthers fan, and I simply want to pull for the team where I live. Unfortunately, the Seahawks have been mostly frustrating in my first season rooting for them. I've even accidentally referred to them as the Panthers a few times - and that's no compliment! 2015, when the Panthers went to the Super Bowl behind Cam Newton, Luke Kuechly and a cocky cast of characters, will forever be one of my most fun seasons as a sports fan.
• I'm rooting for a Bills-Lions Super Bowl so that one of those teams' long-suffering fan bases can enjoy the ultimate feeling.

And with that, folks, I'm out. No promises about when I'll post again to TBT, but I will someday! 

Happy New Year, everybody, and may 2025 be filled with love and laughter and compassion and peace.

 

 

Cam doesn't suck, and other Super thoughts

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Some Super Bowl thoughts on a less-than-super night for my Carolina Panthers ...

CAM

Don't judge a jock by how he reacts in front of the media. I was a skeptic when the Panthers drafted Cam Newton back in 2011 because of his checkered past, but he has been nothing but an amazingly solid citizen in Charlotte. He gives big money and countless hours to altruistic causes -- way above and beyond what is publicized. He is especially fantastic with kids.

Cam also has grown to become an outstanding team leader. One example: During the preseason, when fans wanted WR Philly Brown to be sent to Siberia because he dropped a ton of passes, it was Cam who very publicly embraced him on the sideline after one particularly horrendous drop. Cam later publicly endorsed Brown. And Brown went on to have a very productive season, crediting in great part the faith his QB had in him.

In response to the one question Newton answered in full after the game, he talked about the team's many mistakes and included his own prominently in the statement. He didn't try to sidestep the blame.

There are many athletes who are very slick in front of the media but who are total scumbags. Newton is a notoriously sore loser. It is something he needs to get better at dealing with, but I would caution anybody against making knee-jerk judgments about a person's character based upon his deportment minutes after probably the most disappointing 4 hours of his life.

As for his play in the game, Cam obviously needed to take better care of the football under duress and he needed to at least try to recover that late fumble -- a play that no doubt will give a lot of fuel to his detractors for years to come. But considering how many passes were dropped, how poorly his line blocked, how many penalties his teammates committed, how his receivers couldn't get open and how poorly the running game did, I thought he did pretty well to account for 310 yards -- pretty much the team's entire total.

His fumbles occurred after complete blocking breakdowns, and his interception came on a pass that went right through Ted Ginn's hands, costing the Panthers a sure FG and possible TD.

Hell, if Jerricho Cotchery simply catches the early pass he bobbled, the Panthers have the ball near midfield and the Broncos' ensuing sack/fumble/TD almost surely never happens. It's a totally different game. 

Cam has become a lightning rod, in great part because of his celebrations during the season. I happen to have enjoyed them. They helped make a fun season even more fun for a Panthers fan. His giving footballs to little kids easily surpassed the Lambeau Leap for "cool factor."

But, as others have said -- and I have said myself -- if you are going to be so demonstrative in victory, you really should handle defeat with more maturity. And you absolutely have to expect to be mocked and derided when you fail.

Cam and his teammates dared opponents to keep them from celebrating: "If you don't like it, all you have to do is stop us." Well, the Broncos stopped them cold (when the Panthers weren't stopping themselves). Now Cam & Co. have to deal with the fallout.

COTCHERY NON-CATCH

Cotchery bobbled Newton's pass but then appeared at first to have hauled it in, only to have the officials call it incomplete. Coach Ron Rivera challenged the call, and I don't blame him. However, after seeing just one replay, I thought the call would stand because the ball appeared to have touched the ground when Cotchery first went down and then appeared to have shifted slightly before he could gather it in.

At the Panthers-watching party Robbie and I hosted, I was the lone observer among the 8 of us who thought the call would be upheld. That was based upon how I have seen the rules interpreted over the last couple of years. 

It was one of those deals where if it had been called a catch, the evidence wouldn't have been good enough to overturn it ... but because it was called a non-catch, the evidence wasn't compelling enough to change it to a catch. Rivera made this exact point during his post-game interview.

The rule sucks at it is written and interpreted, but the rule is the rule and everybody has to play by it. I actually get a lot more upset about the blatant interference and holding that refs let defensive backs get away with. Refs have no clue how to call interference, and they often are the biggest plays in games.

Finally, for all of my fellow Panthers fans whining about the call, all Cotchery had to do was make a clean catch of a perfectly thrown pass and we wouldn't be having this discussion. 

When the Panthers signed Cotchery before the 2014 season, my first thought was, "Why are they bringing in this fossil?" He actually became one of my favorites because he was the one receiver (along with TE Greg Olsen) who rarely dropped passes. 

Well, he had three drops yesterday, and each was huge. It was kind of a microcosm of the game for the Panthers -- just about everything that could have gone wrong did.

MANNING'S LEGACY

"Legacy" is one of the dopiest cliches in sports. Peyton Manning's positive legacy already was assured based upon his many achievements and his one championship. He didn't "need" this nearly as much as he "needed" the Super Bowl win over the Bears in 2007. 

He did next to nothing to help the Broncos win this game. They would have done no worse with backup Brock Osweiler or any of a dozen other NFL backups. Frankly, Newton had a far better game under far more adverse conditions. 

So kudos to Peyton for getting a second ring, and I highly recommend he get the hell out before he gets killed.

DENVER'S D

When my Panther buds and I talked in the days leading up to the game, I said my two biggest fears were that the offensive line wouldn't be able to keep Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware off of Cam and that the receivers would revert to their pass-dropping ways. 

Unfortunately, both of those fears came true. 

Couple those problems with the multitude of other mistakes -- Mike Tolbert's fumble, Graham Gano's missed FG and the team's stunning failure to tackle a punt returner who was standing right next to 3 tacklers -- and the Panthers basically committed sports suicide.

Obviously, though, the Broncos' D deserves big-time credit, and Miller was an extremely deserving MVP.

RON RIVERA

The man is an absolute class act, and I'm thrilled to have him as Panthers coach. 

Since dumping Rivera so he could promote his incompetent buddy Bob Babich to Bears DC, Lovie Smith has been fired twice to cement his "legacy" as a loser. Karma's a bitch.

PANTHERS' FUTURE

Led by Newton, Luke Kuechly, several fine defensive linemen, WR Kelvin Benjamin and many other outstanding performers, the players who make up the Panthers' core are either young or in their prime. I like to think they'll be back, hopefully as soon as next season.

Still, one never knows in sports.

Eons ago (it seems), I was a huge Dolphins fan. My boys lost their first Super Bowl in 1972 but Larry Csonka, Bob Griese and the No-Name Defense came right back to win the next two -- including the one that capped the only undefeated championship season in major U.S. pro sports history. 

A decade later, Dan Marino followed up his record-setting second pro season by losing the Super Bowl to the 49ers. The loss stung, but Dolphin fans were sure Marino would lead them to many future titles. Reality: Marino never even got to the Super Bowl again.

So while I happen to think the Panthers do have a championship in them, they still have to prove it and, obviously, still have to improve.

As I have gotten older, I have become much better at enjoying the journeys rather than obsessing about the destinations. I try to remind myself of that with the basketball team I coach as well as in several other facets of life, and I definitely did enjoy this Panthers season. 

I have faith they will keep pounding. But even if it turns out that this was as good as it gets for this particular group, the 2015 Panthers gave me many memories that I will recall fondly for the rest of my days.
^ 

Today's Top 10 - NFL Edition ... Plus A Dad-In-Law Update ... Plus My Next Big Game

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10. Was that the Genius Bill Belichick leaving Tom Brady in to get clobbered by a Colts pass-rusher while trying to throw a deep TD pass with 6 minutes to go in a 45-7 game?

I never root for guys to get hurt, and I actually really like Brady, but if ever a coach deserved a negative fate, it is that cheatin' jerk Belichick.

Makes it even easier to root for Seattle in the Super Bowl.

9. The Seahawks couldn't have played much worse, especially on offense, in the first 55 minutes of the game. But they sure knew how to capitalize the 10th time the Packers all but begged them to steal it.

Champions find a way to win even when they suck.

8. Early 2015 Turkey of the Year candidate: Brandon Bostick.

The backup Packers tight end was supposed to block so that Jordy Nelson could field the onside kick. Instead, Bostick tried to make the play only to have the ball go through his Crisco-covered hands and into the waiting arms of Seattle's Chris Matthews.

Paraphrasing the amazing words once uttered by former Twins great Gary Gaetti:

"It's hard to catch the football when you have both hands wrapped around your throat."

7. As bad as Bostick's play was, the Packers still might have won had they knocked down the highest-thrown 2-point conversion pass in NFL history ... and/or had they managed the clock better after taking possession with 1:19 left in regulation and all three time-outs.

I guess Pack coach Mike McCarthy was saving his last two time-outs for next season.

6. Some pretty horrific playoff performances by elite QBs Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck, Peyton Manning, Cam Newton and Joe Flacco.

Russell Wilson was no great shakes, either, but at least he came through with the game on the line.

5. New Bears coach John Fox missed out on the Jay Cutler Denver Experience so now he'll get to enjoy the Jay Cutler Chicago Experience.

Hey, Fox got to a Super Bowl with Jake Delhomme and won a playoff game with Tim Tebow, so could Cutler be any worse?

Never mind. I won't answer that question.

4. Brady might already be the greatest QB ever. But if the Patriots win this Super Bowl, there isn't a shred of doubt in my mind. Of course, I said that each of the last two times he got to the big game, too.

At least he doesn't have to face the Giants this time.

3. Seahawks fans are so self-important, crowning themselves as the best in the world. Well, the best fans in the world don't leave a winnable game in the closing minutes.

I'm glad those "12th Man" dopes missed one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history.

2. I hope injured Seahawks DBs Earl Thomas and Richard Sherman can play near peak ability in the Super Bowl because I always want both teams to be as healthy as possible.

Brady vs. the Seattle secondary figures to be an epic battle.

1. How ridiculous that Ohio State tailback (and future NFL star) Zeke Elliott can't go pro because he's only been at college for two years.

Yeah, let's make an NFL-ready kid who already has reached the pinnacle of college football go back out there and take 250-300 handoffs -- and crunching hits -- for free. What a system.

+++

And in non-football news ...

Two weeks in, my father-in-law Frank and I are getting on just fine. We just got back from Aldi -- or as he hilariously calls it, "Aldis" -- where he insisted upon buying 4 yogurts even though he hadn't touched the 3 yogurts he wanted last week.

On Saturday, Robbie had "The Talk" with him, telling him we want and expect him to stay with us for the foreseeable future. She had spoken with his Chicago-area doctor a couple of days earlier and the doctor agreed Frank can no longer drive or live on his own.

He of course wanted to know what was going to happen to all of his stuff -- his townhouse, his two cars (including the one we drove from Chicago to N.C.) and the 700 tons of mostly useless crap he has accumulated over the years. We told him we're not worrying about that immediately.

He has been amazed at all the things I can do on the computer, especially being able to pay his bills without having to write a check, stick it in an envelope, lick a stamp and send it via snail mail. He also has been amazed by my grocery-shopping acumen.

"You only paid 2 bucks for all that?"

Mostly, he has accompanied me here, there and everywhere ... as if he were the octogenarian sidekick in some kind of buddy sitcom.

For one thing, he has gone with me to every basketball game AND practice. At practice, he just sits in the corner and minds his own business. Probably just enjoys being out of the house and surrounded by activity.

+++

And speaking of my team ...

My Scholars Academy Eagles play our biggest game so far this season Tuesday when we meet the "1" in our 10-1 record: Back Creek Christian.

We obviously want to win -- the girls are super-stoked to avenge our only defeat, and I have put in a few new wrinkles -- but the fact is that whether we win or lose, it is highly likely that we will be playing Back Creek again in the championship game a month from now.

So I need to find the right words to let the girls know that a victory guarantees us nothing and a loss doesn't ruin our season in any way.

Hmmm ... those are pretty good words right there, aren't they?

Go Eagles!
^

You hereby have permission to watch bowl games

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I was looking for an old Copley Newspapers column I had written about Illinois basketball when I stumbled upon a 2004 rip-job I did on the Bowl Championship Series.

Back then, I vowed not to watch one second of any bowl game, including the mythical national championship game between USC and Oklahoma.

"The evening of Jan. 4, I will go to a high school basketball game, take my wife to a movie, play board games with my kids -- anything but watch a sham title game. I have been in this business for 22 years and have been a fan a lot longer than that, and I'm still waiting to hear one good reason why Division I-A football should be the only NCAA sport lacking an equitable way to crown a champion. And it's not just the title game. The entire system is a mess. A joke. A billion-dollar sham."

I concluded my diatribe with this:

"Don't watch bowls. Don't buy products sold by bowl sponsors. Show the sham artists exactly what you think by giving them the attention they deserve: none."

And with that, my Bowl Boycott began.

I'm not sure how many readers joined the boycott. Though a few claimed they would follow my lead, I know it's quite possible that not a single one did. But I was true to my word: For 10 years, I did not watch one minute of one bowl game. And I felt darn good about it.

Fast-forward a decade and here we are ... less than two weeks away from the start of the very first major-college football playoff. On New Year's Day, Oregon will meet Florida State in one semifinal at the Rose Bowl, followed by Alabama vs. Ohio State in the other semifinal at the Sugar Bowl. Eleven nights later, the winners will meet for the national title at the Dallas Cowboys' 100,000-seat Shrine To Wretched Excess.

We heard for more than a decade about how a legitimate playoff would ruin the regular season, undermine conference races and render league championships meaningless. We heard blather about "student-athletes" having to play too many games and about fans not being willing to travel for playoff contests. We heard that a legitimate championship would gut the entire bowl structure.

Not one of those excuses rang true at the time, and not one proved true in the end.

All the introduction of the playoff system did was make the regular season even MORE meaningful and make college football better than ever.

I still won't watch most of the three dozen bowl games that are little more than exhibitions. Really, unless one is a fan of North Carolina State or Central Florida, why would one watch the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl? Why, why, why?

But although I might not watch every minute of all three playoff games, I certainly will watch many minutes of each -- as will millions and millions and millions of others.

I'd have preferred an eight-team playoff, and I'm pretty sure there will be one down the line. Still, this four-team event is a darn good start.

Come Jan. 12, we will have the first-ever real (non-mythical), major-college football champion. Finally!

So from me to the rest of America, all I can say is ...

You're welcome!

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Crazy as it seems, the Carolina Panthers, at 6-8-1, can make the playoffs by winning in Atlanta next Sunday. As a big-time Panthers fan, I actually thought for a second about going to the game, but I would have had to postpone my Chicago trip to do so.

Instead, I have put Ben in charge of finding a Chicago bar where we can watch the Panthers-Falcons game -- and, simultaneously, can watch that day's Marquette-Morgan State game (a.k.a "Most Definitely Not The Big One").

As tempting as it might be, meanwhile, I don't have great interest in watching Jimmy Clausen's second start for the mighty Bears against the mighty Vikings. Yeah ... I know ... it takes willpower to avoid that one.

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My Scholars Academy Eagles won our last game before Xmas break by a 48-2 score. That's right:48-2! (As my son asked: "Hey, what happened to the shutout?")

The victory sent us into our nearly three-week layoff with a 6-1 record.

One thing I really love about my team is the camaraderie -- the girls genuinely like each other, pull for each other and pick each other up. We have more talent and depth than last year's team while still playing with our trademark aggressiveness and "want-to" attitude. These girls are winners.

The Eagles will be a force to be reckoned with in the second half of the season!

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My latest article for the financial Web site SeekingAlpha.com -- It's New! It's Nifty! It's The Dividend Growth 50! -- has been incredibly well-received.

As I write this, it has 35,432 page views and 766 comments. Both are by far all-time highs for me.

Five of my last seven articles have been designated as "Editors' Picks," helping bring in a total of 3,273 followers.

Jeesh ... you'd almost think I was a writer or something!
^

Way to bear down, Panthers!

^
Sunday, Robbie and I went to our first Panthers game.

Yep, that's me rockin' the Keyshawn Johnson

jersey I got on eBay for 16 bucks!

We were joined by Ben, who was in town from Chicago to root on his Bears. Ben and I made a bet: If the Panthers win, he would have to wear my Panthers shirt when he "guest coaches" my middle school basketball team at Monday's practice; if the Bears win, I'd wear his shirt to practice.

He'll look good in black and Panthers blue, baby!

For much of the game, it seemed I'd have to wear his "Ditka is God" t-shirt, though, as the Bears took advantage of a bunch of Panthers mistakes to race to a 21-7 lead.

But when Robbie Gould shockingly went wide-right on a 35-yard FG late in the first half and then Cam Newton marched the Panthers downfield for a TD pass to Greg Olsen seconds before halftime, I began to think my adopted team had a chance.

As it turned out, it was just a matter of waiting for the inevitable screw-ups by Jay Cutler & Co. A horribly thrown pass by Cutler with about 6 minutes left was intercepted and led to a FG that tied it at 24. On Chicago's very next offensive play, Matt Forte fumbled and the Panthers recovered. Newton and Olsen connected in the end zone again, and the Panthers had the lead with just over 2 minutes to go.

The Bears' last hope ended with Cutler getting sacked and fumbling. The stadium was rocking, with Panthers fans out-shouting the thousands of Bear backers who showed up.

Up in Section 535, we were surrounded by Bears fans - including the guy in front of me who for some reason decided to wear his Olsen #82 jersey. Really, this yahoo wanted to be reminded about the awful trade that gave away one of the NFL's best tight ends? In an interview last week, Jerry Angelo finally admitted the trade was a bad one.

Thanks, Jerry! No wonder you're now an ex-GM.

I wasn't surprised the Bears imploded - especially Cutler, who has won one playoff game in his entire career and whose job title should read "Coach Killer Extraordinaire." I was a little surprised by the screw-ups of Gould and Forte, two of the few reliable Bears.

I am happy for good-guy Panthers coach Ron Rivera, who spent his entire playing career in Chicago and, as defensive coordinator, helped the Bears reach the 2007 Super Bowl. This season, Rivera has beaten both his former team and Lovie Smith, the now-Bucs coach who inexplicably fired Rivera after the Super Bowl so he could hire his incompetent buddy, Bob Babich. Hey, Rivera was too good for Lovie the Loser, anyway!

While the Bears prepare to fall to sub-mediocrity, "my" Panthers are alone in first place in the NFC South ... at least for a week. The brutal upcoming schedule includes these next three games: at Cinci, at Green Bay and home vs. Seattle.

So playing the Bears at home represented a must-win situation. And thanks in great part to the Bears' largess, win the Panthers did.
^

Today's High Five: A wonderful time of the year!

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Man (and woman), do I love this time of year! So much going on in the wide world of sports - and that's a very welcome distraction with what's going on in the wide world of non-sports.

5. OLD MEN AND THE SEE-I'M-NOT-DECREPIT-YET

My old-dude softball team, the Sons of Pitches, is 4-0 in the fall league after beating the other previously unbeaten team last night.

We not only won, we won by slaughter rule ... and we won with style, baby!

In the top of the second inning, we turned a TRIPLE PLAY. Yep, a triple-freakin-play! Runners on first and second; the batter hits a sinking line drive to right-center; the runners take off, certain they will be scoring on the play; our RCF Wayne makes a running catch; Wayne throws to SS Tom for Out No. 2; Tom fires to 1B Bob for Out No. 3. Yowsa!

We then come up in bottom of the inning and celebrate by scoring the maximum 5 runs, with Pat - our coach, pitcher and Penguin-run-alike - hitting a three-run homer. Way to go, Ron Cey! (Or is it more like Burgess Meredith?)

We have such a fun group of guys it will be sad when the season ends - and our two-year run as a team ends with it. There will be a new draft next spring and our guys will be cast about the league.

But we still have a lot of fun to go this season. It really isn't even fall yet, we're undefeated, and we have a championship to win!

4. CHICAGO'S HOPELESS

The Cubs are in last place, 16 games out. The White Sox are in next-to-last place, 15 1/2 games out. And the Bears found a way to lose their season opener at home to the Bills.

All of which can only mean one thing:

It's September in Chicago!

Fans from my former hometown at least can celebrate that Derrick Rose, who is playing for the U.S. National Team, is experiencing no knee problems.

Yet.

Meanwhile, my Panthers kicked butt and took prisoners in their opener at Tampa Bay, even without the injured Cam Newton.

The Panthers aren't a great team, but I think they're pretty darn good. I don't like talking much about Fantasy Football because people who play it never shut up when they start talking, but if Kelvin Benjamin happens to still be available in your league, you'd be wise to snag him. He's well on his way to being a stud.

3.  PAIN ... AND NOT MUCH GAIN

The last Little League game I umpired, on Sunday, I took a foul ball to my right shoulder. The pain was so intense that I thought the ball must have somehow gotten under or over my chest protector's shoulder-pad attachment. But it hadn't. The ball just was hit hard and caught me in the "perfect" spot.

The next inning, I was hit by a pitch when the left-handed catcher didn't quite reach across his body enough to catch a ball that was barely out of the strike zone. The ball hit me just below the middle knuckle on my left index finger, an area that is now a lovely shade of purple.

And the next inning, a kid fouled one back off my right shoulder - again. The ball got me within an inch of the previous injury, and I was seeing stars for a few seconds. Ever the trooper, I shook it off and continued. That's why I get the big bucks.

I guess all that punishment was payback for joking around after I had taken a relatively innocuous shot off my shin guard in the first inning. A coach asked if I was OK, and I responded:

"I'm fine. My wife hits me harder than that!"

2. AND SPEAKING OF RAY RICE ...

Why is being fired by the Ravens and suspended the NFL an appropriate punishment for treating a woman like a punching bag?

Why isn't this guy in jail?

OK, I know why he isn't in jail. He is rich enough to afford a good lawyer. That being said, Rice clearly is a bad human being, he can't control his temper, he is super strong, and he almost surely is armed. You can't convince me he is not a threat to society.

Those who know me well know that I'm a softy - and a big believer in second chances. But this criminal should have to sit in a small cell for at least a few months before he gets his second chance.

1. VALUE = VICTORY

The NFL season is underway. So is the college football season, and now that there's an actual playoff system waiting at the end, I might even watch a few games. Tennis just played its U.S. Open and golf's Ryder Cup is just around the corner. Soon enough, NHL teams will report to training camp, NBA teams will do likewise and college basketball teams will hold their Midnight Madness sessions. And in soccer "friendlies" all around the world, guys with one name are pretending they were shot in an attempt to draw penalties against opponents who didn't touch them.

Things are so sportarific in September, and baseball is the sportarificest of all.

One of the things I miss most about Chicago is that I no longer live in a town with big-league baseball (or whatever it is that the Cubs and White Sox claim to play). With the Internet, ESPN and the MLB Network, I can keep up with the game pretty well, but it isn't quite the same as having not just one but two teams right in the city.

I have been enjoying the division and wild-card races, but mostly I have been thinking about the MVP awards in each league.

In the AL, the best offensive player has been White Sox rookie Jose Abreu, who came from Cuba and started hitting the second he set foot in Comiskular Park. But you know what? If I had a ballot this season, he wouldn't even be one of the first five guys I'd vote for. He might not even be in my top 10.

For me, an MVP candidate has to be on a team that at least contends for a postseason berth. He has to have come through in games that have meaning - either early- and mid-season games that have helped his team to a big division lead, or late-season games that have given his team a chance at the playoffs.

How can Abreu be the Most Valuable Player in his league if his team hasn't played a game "of value" since May? Yes, he has value to the White Sox. Yes, he deserves Rookie of the Year in a runaway. MVP of the entire league? Please.

Mike Trout seemed a lock for the award at midseason but he slumped pretty badly in August. Still, he leads the league in RBIs, he has helped his Angels roll past the once-dominant A's while compiling the league's best record, and he is dynamic both in the field and on the bases. He's still the choice over Detroit's Miguel Cabrera and Baltimore's Nelson Cruz.

Things are even more interesting in the NL, where the absence of a hitting superstar on any winning team has put a pitcher atop the MVP heap.

And what a pitcher. Clayton Kershaw has had several outstanding years, and he's now having one for the ages: 18-3 with a 1.67 ERA. He is in Koufax/Gibson territory, and he is the main reason the Dodgers overcame a slow start - Kershaw missed April and it took him most of May to shake off the rust - to surge past the Giants in the NL West.

Valid arguments can be made that a pitcher who makes 30 starts shouldn't win an MVP award ahead of everyday ballplayers, but Kershaw has been so dominant and has so obviously lifted the Dodgers, that he is an example of why it should be rare but possible.

For stat-heads who like advanced metrics, Kershaw leads all MLB players in Wins Above Replacement, and the guy in second (somewhat surprisingly, Oakland's Josh Donaldson) isn't very close behind.

The Marlins don't even have a .500 record and they are only on the fringes of the wild-card race, but if they can make a legitimate push over the last couple of weeks, Giancarlo "Don't Call Me Mike" Stanton could make it a two-man MVP race. Stanton leads the league in HR and RBI and he's a great all-around player. He's put up his numbers not in a Rockies-style thin-air-aided bandbox but in Miami's spacious, pitcher-friendly ballpark. Very impressive.

Stanton's best chance is if the Marlins make a big move in the next two weeks and if Kershaw loses some votes to teammate Adrian Gonzalez, who has been hot of late and is right behind Stanton in the RBI race. I suppose Pittsburgh's Andrew McCutchen could go wild down the stretch and steal the award, but I don't see it happening.

Right now, Kershaw is a pretty easy choice for MVP, Cy Young and, hell, let's make him governor of California, too. Jerry Brown can't have more than another decade or three in office, right?
^

Not-so-happy anniversary: Five years of permanent vacation

^
I'm not going to go all FDR and call Jan. 15, 2009, a date which will live in infamy, but ...

The previous evening, I had received this email from a GateHouse Media mid-level manager:


We need to have you come into the office at 10 a.m. tomorrow.


When Roberta asked me what I thought the cryptic message meant, I said: "Well, I don't think they're calling me in to tell me my last column won the Pulitzer Prize."

Braving blizzard-like conditions, I drove the 30 miles from Lakeview to Downers Grove and was greeted by somber-faced GateHousians. Yes, I was being laid off. No, there would be no severance pay, as that longstanding policy had been terminated along with me. Yes, I would receive compensation for my unused vacation time (but not before they tried to job me out of several weeks of it). No, I would not be allowed to write a farewell column to the readers who had gotten to know me over the previous 11 years.

Just like that, I was an ex-columnist, an ex-sportswriter, an ex-newspaper man, an ex-journalist, an ex-working stiff. All I had ever known professionally was kaput.

GateHouse was going broke. Its stock price had plummeted near zero. It needed every available cent to lavish salary increases and bonuses on its top executives. (A practice that continues to this day even though the company is even more broke. Ah, capitalism!) So, even though I had been reassured just one month earlier that my position was in the budget for 2009, it wasn't exactly shocking that the pencil-necked geeks had deemed me a luxury they chose not to afford.

Sometimes it's hard to believe it's been five years since I was a full-time sports hack. Other times, it seems like forever ago.

I spent the better part of two years trying to get a decent job in the field. I wrote freelance articles for AP, my employer from 1982-1998. I kept writing this blog and, for a while, let the Chicago Tribune publish it. Some months, my check from the Tribune totaled as much as 18 whole dollars! I am not making that up. When I told my editor there I no longer wanted to write for 1/5th of a cent per hour, he actually seemed insulted. I had a guy at one Chicago online sports site jerk my chain for nearly a year: Yes, we might hire you; no, we don't have the budget for it; wait, maybe we do; no, actually, we don't.

Enough. In the summer of 2010, when my wife had the opportunity to work at Charlotte's children's hospital, we decided to move on, literally and figuratively.

Aside from the tripe I occasionally post here on TBT, I have not written a single sports story since becoming a North Carolinian. I write personal finance articles about once a month for SeekingAlpha.com, I do some "survivor stories" for the American Heart Association and I've written a few op-eds for the Charlotte Observer, but mostly I have left that part of my life behind.

I am fortunate that, at 53, I am not hurting financially because Roberta and I were big savers, because we have no debt and because she is a wonderful Sugar Mama. So I earn a little dough doing stuff I want to do, and I get a lot of enjoyment out of being a coach, a referee and an umpire, among other things.

Nobody likes to be told they no longer can come to work. We want the decision to be ours, not theirs. But life gets messy sometimes, so we adjust on the fly.

Do I miss it? Sure, some of it. Not all of it.

In honor of the fifth anniversary of GateHouse sending me on permanent vacation, here are five things I miss about my former life. But first, just for giggles and snorts, five things I don't miss ...

WHAT I DON'T MISS

Interviewing Jocks.

When my son was little, his friends would ask, "Does your dad get to talk to Michael Jordan?" I told him to respond: "No, Michael Jordan gets to talk to my dad." It was a cute line, especially when delivered by an 8-year-old, but it wasn't true. From 1995-98, I spent a huge portion of my life standing around waiting to be part of a big media scrum around Michael Jordan.

For the most part -- and definitely by the time the new millennium had arrived -- everything was packaged for the media. We were led around from one press conference to another. Comments usually were generic. I'd sit down to transcribe my tape and realize I hadn't gotten one freakin' quote worth using.

On the rare occasion that a coach or athlete said something remotely funny, the press corps would pretend to laugh as if Steve Martin and George Carlin were on stage trading barbs. It was embarrassing.

People thought we were lucky that we got to talk to these guys, but more often than not they had nothing to say. When we did get to cover an Ozzie Guillen or a Jeremy Roenick or even a Milton Bradley, it was like manna from heaven. Mostly, the routine became a chore. These guys didn't particularly want to talk to us and, for the most part, I didn't want to talk to them.

Deadlines.

When I was with AP, the slogan was "a deadline every minute." And yes, we did have to write quickly. But as I discovered when I became a columnist, there are deadlines and then there really are deadlines. If the game didn't end until 1 a.m. when I was with AP, I still waited to write until it was over. But if I didn't have my column in on time when I was with Copley (and, later, GateHouse), the newspapers I served would run something else in its place -- maybe even an advertisement.

As newspapers strove for earlier and earlier delivery, the deadlines became earlier and earlier, and I often had to write before an event had ended. If the event was big enough, as when the White Sox were in the 2005 World Series and Game 3 went 14 innings, I'd do several versions of the column for all the different editions of the papers.

Not to make it sound like I was mining coal in West Virginia but it wasn't easy!

The Internet Effect.

When I agreed to start blogging in 2007 (in addition to the columns I already was writing), I didn't get one more cent out of it. What I did get was a ton more work to do, thank you.

Couple the sheer workload with the immediacy of the Internet and there's no such thing as putting a story to bed. In addition, readers suddenly had the right to comment anonymously and in real time. It's always fun to be called a douchebag by some guy who goes by Illini69.

My last year and a half in Chicago, I covered a lot of baseball games as a freelancer for AP and I was in awe at the amount of work -- and the quality of the work -- that the city's baseball writers did: blogs and tweets and photos and notes and game stories and feature stories and graphics. Incredible. Day after day, all year long -- because there no longer is an offseason in baseball, what with all the news that takes place from November to March. Honestly, I doubt there is a more difficult newspaper job in America than baseball beat writer. It was always tough, but the Internet has made it ridiculous.

When I columnized about Erin Andrews' inappropriate behavior in the Cubbie clubhouse, I knew it would be read by a lot of people. But I severely underestimated the Internet effect and her popularity out in cyberspace. For some two weeks, I became a target out there in Dweeb Land. It was interesting ... and a little bit scary.

"Wow. You Get To Go To Games For Free?"

Later in this post, I acknowledge that my job carried a certain amount of prestige, or at least the perception of prestige. At the same time, plenty of folks thought my job consisted of hobnobbing with the athletes, relaxing at the ballpark and rooting on the home team.

Even some of my family members and close friends used to "joke" about how easy I had it, as if they knew. And what was I going to do, get mad and defend myself by telling them how much work I was doing? So I usually went the self-deprecating route instead.

Once, one of my relatives was complaining about all the housework she had to do. After a few minutes, I interrupted and said, "Hey, you're only a housewife. I have to go to football games for a living!"

The Stress.

When I was with AP, I was almost always stressed out. It was a high-pressure job, and talking with friends who are still with the company, it appears that is even more the case now. I excelled under pressure, but that doesn't mean it was easy or fun to deal with. There were several occasions I would wake up in a cold sweat at 2 a.m. or 4 a.m. and realize I had left something out of the final version of my story (a.k.a., the dreaded PMer, a rewrite for afternoon newspapers). I would call the office to make the correction.

By 2006 or so, there were constant rumors that David Copley was going to get out of the newspaper business and sell all of our properties (he did), that the new owner would care only about profit and not about journalism (yep), and that GateHouse would clean house (bingo!). It was a stressful time.

Then, of course, there was the stress I put upon myself. I never was able to "mail it in" on even the most routine AP stories, so I really tortured myself when writing my column. If I wasn't on deadline, I would read, re-read and re-re-read my column until I didn't find even one comma out of place. Sometimes, I would be 3 or 4 hours into a column and say, out loud, "This is complete crap." I'd delete the whole freakin' thing and start over. Not only was my name on my column, but so was my ugly mug. I put a lot of myself in most of what I wrote. It was only a story about a jock or a game, but it still mattered, and I had to do it right.

Now, I live a mostly stress-free existence. Maybe one of the things I like about coaching, refereeing and umpiring is the immediacy of each moment, a non-journalism way to get a little stress back into my life.

WHAT I MISS

The Travel.

I got to see the world, all on somebody else's dime. Many of the trips were mundane -- flying into Detroit for a night game and then going back home the next morning was far from exhilarating -- but I also got to go to some amazing places.

AP sent me to five Olympics (Calgary '88, Albertville '92, Lillehammer '94, Atlanta '96, Nagano '98) and dispatched me all over North America covering hockey, basketball, baseball and football.

During the first three years I was Copley's columnist, I got to manage my own travel budget, and my only restriction was that I shouldn't go over budget. I took full advantage, giving myself some great assignments. In the process, I learned how to stretch a dollar when making travel arrangements, a skill that still serves me well.

After Copley sold its Chicago papers and I became more aligned with the fine folks of Central Illinois, I still had a lot of input into where I traveled. A few times, I even got to fly on David Copley's private jet to the California desert resort town of Borrego Springs for editor meetings. I felt like a VIP, even though I wasn't one.

The Writing

Every once in awhile, I got to write something that actually touched readers. When I wrote a column after my dad passed away, I received more than 100 condolence letters -- not email, mind you, but actual hand-written letters, including one from U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin. When I wrote about my daughter getting ready to graduate high school and leave home, lots of people told me the column made them shed a tear.

One time after covering a Cardinals-Cubs game, I ran into a guy outside Busch Stadium, and he pulled from his wallet a folded, tattered copy of the column I had written years earlier about Darryl Kile's death. That's right: The guy actually carried it around with him.

I got paid to express myself through my observations and my words, and that was pretty damn cool.

As a reporter, I occasionally got a scoop, and watching my peers have to play catch-up for a day or two always was an amazing feeling.

One thing I really used to love was sitting in the media room after a huge event, the only sound being thousands of fingers banging away at laptop keyboards.

The Paycheck.

Let's not sugarcoat things: We work for money. In addition to being able to buy things we needed and wanted, that regular paycheck helped me and Roberta sock away money for the future.

Who knew the future was going to arrive -- with a thud -- just a few months after I turned 48?

The Press Box.

Basically, sportswriters are a bunch of adolescent goofballs. As we watch the Cubs collapse, the Bears fall apart and the Bulls implode, anything that enters our warped minds somehow finds its way out of our foul mouths. The amount of crapola we spew about the jocks we cover is topped only by the amount of crap we give each other.

I miss debating my peers about important issues such as our Hall of Fame ballots, which Chicago coach or manager would be the next to be fired, and whether Jay Mariotti was the worst human being we ever had encountered or just one of the bottom two.

Sadly, even before I was sacked, many of my best friends in the industry had been sent packing or been reassigned by their employers, so the press box wasn't what it used to be.

The Prestige.

I never considered my job to be particularly glamorous, but others did. I could be in a room filled with million-dollar lawyers or doctors ... and all of them thought I had the best job.

On its good days -- and there were many -- they were right.

As is the case with folks in most professions, my job gave me an identity. Five years later, I still struggle a little when asked, "And what do you do?"

Am I retired? Semi-retired? A freelance writer? A coach? A part-time golf ranger? An ex-journalist? All of those things are true, none rolls off my tongue like: "I'm a sports columnist, and you?"

As stressful and frustrating as it occasionally was, I never lost sight of the fact that what I did for a living was considered a dream job by many.

You know what? It was considered a dream job by me, too.
^

Cutler's haul, Lovie's comeback & Metrodome memories

^
My wife and I were having dinner at a restaurant tonight when she saw Jay Cutler on the TV in the bar. "What did he do now?" she asked.

I squinted hard and saw exactly what he had done: signed a $126 million contract that includes $54 million guaranteed.

And so, one of my biggest NFL offseason questions -- What would the Bears do about this coach-killing, talented-but-never-quite-good-enough QB whose contract was about to expire? -- was answered before the playoffs even began. (Playoffs for the other teams, of course. Cutler failed to get the Bears there for the fourth time in his five Chicago seasons after going 0-for-3 with Denver.)

I suppose the Bears couldn't let such a talented player simply walk away. But now they have tethered themselves to this enigma for most of this decade.

I wouldn't have done it. I'd have franchised him and seen how he played in 2014. But what do I know ... except that he has one career playoff victory, that he never has thrown 30 TDs in a year, that he attempts at least a half-dozen stupid passes just about every game, that he goes through head coaches and offensive coordinators faster than some guys go through a buffet line, that he turns 31 in April and that he has become injury-prone?

Anyway, the Bears have their man for several more years. Just as they had him for the last five. And we saw how good that turned out to be.

+++

And speaking of coaches that Cutler chewed up and spat out ...

Lovie Smith is back, this time with the Buccaneers.

If he's given some talent to work with, Lovie will do a good job. He no doubt learned a lot about what worked and what didn't. There are many examples of guys who struggled in their first job, got fired and came back to be outstanding coaches; Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll leap to mind. And Lovie had a lot more success in his first job than they did.

Lovie and I definitely were not close during the years I covered him. I disagreed with many of his decisions and I thought he needlessly made excuses for his players. They seemed to respect him, however, and he did win a lot more games than he lost -- not something many Bears coaches can say. He also got to a Super Bowl, another accomplishment that has eluded every Chicago coach not named Ditka, my friend.

Smith deserved a second chance as much as anybody.

+++

The Metrodome -- that great pimple on the Minneapolis skyline -- has hosted its last sporting event and soon will be demolished.

It was a horrible place to watch baseball games and was as sterile a football environment as could be found anywhere, but I'll always have a lot of fond memories of the stadium in which I covered Twins and Vikings games from 1985-94 It was my first full-time sportswriting job, and the AP office was located right across the street from the Dome. I spent a lot of hours in that dump!

A few Metrodome memories that immediately pop into my head:

Game 6 of the 1987 World Series. When Kent Hrbek hit a grand slam to give the Twins a 10-5 lead over the Cardinals, I have never heard a more deafening din in a stadium.

Game 6 of the 1991 World Series. The late, great Kirby Puckett put the Twins on his back and carried them to an 11-inning win over the Braves.

Game 7 of the 1991 World Series. What a game! Jack Morris pitched 10 shutout innings and Lonnie Smith made one of the biggest baserunning blunders ever to cap off perhaps the greatest World Series ever.

Scott Erickson's no-hitter in 1994. It was the first no-no I ever covered. What made it especially amazing was that Erickson had allowed more hits than any other pitcher over the previous two seasons. That's right: The most hittable pitcher in baseball threw a no-hitter. I love that.

Herschel Walker's Vikings debut in 1989. When Walker returned the first Green Bay kickoff 51 yards, the Metrodome was up for grabs. Then, on his first play from scrimmage, Herschel went 47 yards -- the final 15 after his right shoe fell off during a defender's futile attempt to tackle him. By the time the day was done, Walker had rushed for 148 yards and the Vikings had a rare victory over the Packers. History shows that the Cowboys easily "won" the famed Herschel Walker trade, but that's not what the national pundits were saying after Walker's Vikings debut. More than a few were saying Vikings GM Mike Lynn had fleeced Jimmy Johnson.

Ditka rips Harbaugh in 1992. With the Bears leading 20-0, Jim Harbaugh audibled out of a running play and threw an interception that Todd Scott returned for a touchdown. Ditka went ballistic on the sideline. And after the Vikings came back to win 21-20, the coach was still fuming in the interview room: "I'll just say this: 'If it happens again, there will be changes made and they will be definite and they will be permanent.' I'm not gonna put 47 players' futures in the hands of one player who thinks he knows more than I do." How priceless is that?

The 1992 Super Bowl. I don't remember much about the game, in which the Bills got whipped again (this time by the Redskins). What I do remember is that I had just returned to work after missing nearly two weeks with a horrible case of the chickenpox, which I had caught from my son. My face still looked like the lunar surface and I still felt like hell. The game was the middle leg of an incredible seven-month run for the Metrodome that began with the '91 World Series and ended with the '92 Final Four.

Yep, even dumps can create some wonderful sports memories.
^

It's Turkey Time!

^
This kind of snuck up on me this year. I was sitting down, thinking about all I have to be thankful for, and -- wham! -- "Uh-oh, I forgot to choose my Turkey of the Year."

So I'm going to dispense with the long introduction and get right down to the countdown, which will lead to the latest in this parade of  lunkheads, losers, scammers, slimeballs, chokers, cheaters, bullies, boors, pouters and pitiable punching bags:

Mike McCaskey (1998); Jerry Krause (1999); Bobby Knight (2000); David Wells & Frank Thomas (2001); Dick Jauron (2002);Sammy Sosa (2003); Sammy Sosa (2004, the only repeat winner); Andy MacPhail, Jim Hendry & Dusty Baker (2005); Aramis Ramirez (2006); Charlie Weis (2007); Choking Cubbies (2008); Milton Bradley(2009); Mark McGwire (2010); Joe Paterno & Penn State Enablers (2011); U.S. Ryder Cup Team (2012).

As always, this is dedicated to the late, great Gene Seymour, my Copley columnist predecessor and good friend.

10. DOLPHINS OFFENSIVE LINE. You know the old saying: The only time you hear the name of an offensive lineman is when he commits a holding penalty. Or when he leaves voicemails for a fellow lineman filled with vulgarity, profanity and racist taunts. What a mess. It's tough to stay, um, Icognito with this stuff going on.

9. TIM TEBOW. By all accounts, he's a great guy and a noble human being. But being a turkey isn't only about being a wretched human being. Sometimes, it's just about being a wretched quarterback. (And yet he still won one more playoff game as Denver's QB than Peyton Manning and Jay Cutler combined!)

8. GATEHOUSE GANGSTERS. Hey investors! Shares of stock in my former employer can be had for 3 cents apiece! Warning: After systematically gutting the editorial staff over five-plus years and emerging from bankruptcy just this week, it's high time for the pencil-necked weasels who run GateHouse Media to give themselves yet another round of raises and bonuses. Capitalism at its finest!

7. TIGER WOODS. He was golfer of the year and deservedly so. How, then, does he end up on this list? Four more majors by the board, four more also-ran finishes, five years without the only titles he considers truly relevant. As for that two-stroke penalty he had to take for his illegal drop in the Masters, well ... gobble, gobble!

6. DENNIS RODMAN. After befriending Kim Jong Un, Wormy McDiplomat's next project is Charles Manson. "Dude's just a little misunderstood, man."

5. ROB FORD. OK, he's not an athlete, but he is the mayor of a great North American sports town, Toronto, so I'm winging it. Hey, I never thought any politician could top the 2012 GOP presidential circus acts for pure comic relief, but this crack-smoking, drunken-stuporizing, foul-mouthed, real-life Chris Farley character takes the cake. And falls face-first in the frosting on a regular basis.

4. MANTI TE'O. The Notre Dame linebacker enthralled the national media with his heartbreaking story about his longtime girlfriend, who supposedly suffered a tragic death. Problem is, his dearly departed squeeze was no more real than Jan Brady's George Glass. Meanwhile, Alabama showed that Notre Dame's title hopes were an illusion, too.

3. RYAN BRAUN. The Brewers slugger had everything -- fame, talent, money and a legion of loyal fans. But that wasn't enough, so he juiced and made things worse by lying about it. Now, nothing he ever does on the ballfield can be taken seriously. 

2. RILEY COOPER. Eagles wide receiver and infamous cracker threatened to "fight every n----- here" at a Kenny Chesney concert. My immediate reaction: Black people go to Kenny Chesney concerts?

AND NOW ... THE BALDEST TRUTH'S 2013 TURKEY OF THE YEAR:

ALEX RODRIGUEZ

Cheater. Liar. Druggie. Professional Victim. And now he's little more than a pathetic, broken-down lowlife. Yes, the 2012 runner-up was an easy choice as this year's top turkey. 

These days, A-Roid is the poorest multimillionaire on the planet. His wife divorced him. Most of his "friends," no doubt, are the people he pays to stay close to him. Even Yankee fans, not a particularly discerning lot, must have to take long, hot showers after rooting for this miscreant. (I'm talking about the few fans who don't come to the ballpark to boo him.)

There was a time when it seemed possible that he could be the greatest ballplayer ever. Now? As the old-timers would say:

He's just another bum.
^

A sweet World Series prediction and a sweeter victory

^

I didn't know Mike Matheny during his playing days, but I respected the intensity, leadership and game-calling skills he brought to the Cardinals. When he left as a free agent after helping the Cardinals get to the 2004 World Series, I columnized that they would miss him terribly.

And they did.

For about a year.

Yadier Molina has become a much better hitter than most thought he would be. Add in those amazing defensive skills, and he is the best all-around catcher of the new millennium. He was a vital part of St. Louis teams that won titles in 2006 and 2011.

Now both Molina and Matheny are back in the World Series with the Cardinals. The former is still as great as ever, and the latter is showing that Tony La Russa isn't the only recent manager who can guide the Cards to greatness.

Logic says to pick the Red Sox to win the World Series, but there's just something about these Cardinals. 

Whether it's some young kid (talkin' 'bout you, Michael Wacha) pitching out of his mind at just the right time ... an important offensive contributor (Allen Craig this time) coming back from injury ... a veteran who has been great forever (Carlos Beltran) finally getting a chance to bask in the Fall Classic glow ... or the reunion of the Molina-Matheny tandem ... I just find the Cardinals' story so compelling.

Unlike 2004, when the Red Sox finally got past the Yankees and then steamrolled the Cardinals to win their first championship of the post-Babe era, this looks to be a crazy-good series.

Cardinals in 7.

+++

Say what you want about Ozzie Guillen. In 2005, he had the guts to do what no other manager has done for a couple of decades now -- stick with his starting pitchers when the you-know-what hits the fan.

In that year's ALCS, Guillen's pitchers threw four consecutive complete games and the White Sox won that series and then the World Series. If he had failed, he would have been ripped mercilessly. But he didn't.

Fast-forward to this year's ALCS. As good a manager as Jim Leyland has been, he falls right in line with every other skipper today. No matter how dominant his starter has been, he can't resist going to the bullpen in the eighth and ninth innings.

Well, like Guillen in 2005, Leyland didn't have a proven, reliable closer. Unlike Guillen in 2005, Leyland kept taking out the likes of Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander ... to tragic results.

The Red Sox deserved to win the series, but one wonders what would have happened if Leyland had the Guillen-like guts to let his aces finish what they started. 

The good news for the Tigers: Scherzer and Verlander will be well-rested for next April!

+++

Jay Cutler just got even more valuable.

I'm not a big fan of the Bears' whiny, inconsistent QB -- you know, the one with one career playoff victory in eight seasons -- but I'd rather have him than a host of others. Including new QB-by-default Josh McCown.

Cutler looked awfully good standing there in street clothes while Caleb Hanie played in his place a couple of years ago, and McCown will make him look good in absentia, too.

Given that this is a contract year and that the Bears probably weren't going anywhere anyway -- I mean, have you seen what's left of that defense? -- this could end up having been quite a fortuitous injury for Cutler.

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Football ... baseball ... hockey ... basketball ... golf ... auto racing ... there were all kinds of contests over the weekend.

The biggest, of course, was the Best Dessert Competition in the Matthews Plantation subdivision. Won by ...

Is there any wonder why I keep my wife around?

Also, is there any wonder why my belly is round?

Congrats to my Sugar Mama!!

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Baldy's back, and just in time for my favorite month

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10. My Internet buddy (and faithful reader back when my columns appeared in the Springfield, Ill., newspaper), Doug Nicodemus, has been asking me repeatedly why I haven't been blogging much lately. On Monday, after checking TBT regularly the last 5 weeks but finding no new entries, he posted this on my Facebook page:

"no blog for awhile ... are we all done ... maybe ..."

No, I'm not all done. But as I have explained to Doug -- and as I explained earlier Monday to my softball buddy Johnny, whom I saw at a local golf course -- the little bit of writing I'm doing these days has involved me getting paid. Crazy concept, I know.

Not that money is the end-all and be-all, but it buys more things than bupkis. Which is what I get paid for posting here on The Baldest Truth.

So to my tens and tens of regular readers, I thank you for your loyalty but I make no promises other than to say that I'll continue to blog when something strikes me as relevant or when I have some spare time to write pro bono.

9. As much as I'd like to see the Pirates or Rays or A's win for the small markets or the Indians or Reds win for underdogs everywhere, I can't bring myself to predict multiple champagne showers for those teams this October.

I'm thinking the Tigers, with their fine starting pitching and powerful middle of the order, will meet the talented, high-priced Red Sox, for the AL pennant. And the Dodgers, with their incredible pitching, will take on the Cardinals, who always seem to rise to the occasion, for the NL crown. 

If the Tigers had a stud reliever, I'd pick them to beat the Red Sox. But they don't. So I won't. 

I'd like to see the Cardinals do it with Mike Matheny managing, because I always appreciated him as a player, but the Dodgers remind me of recent Giants teams that won championships despite mediocre hitting.

So I'm saying Red Sox vs. Dodgers in the World Series.

The champion? I'm leaning Dodgers, but I'll hold off with an "official" prediction until we get to the Series.

There. I've committed to another blog post later in October. That should make Doug and Johnny delirious with joy!

8. Folks keep trying to find all kinds of reasons that somebody other than Miguel Cabrera should win the AL MVP. Please. This is one of those it's-so-obvious-there-must-be-another-choice situations, like when NBA MVP voters used to try to find somebody not named Michael Jordan to win the award.

Mike Trout had a fine season for a sub-.500 Angels team that finished 18 games out -- a team that started poorly in part because Trout started poorly. And yet Cabrera still had better stats almost across the board, almost won a second straight Triple Crown, and did it all for a team he led to another division title.

This is the no-brainer of all no-brainers. Sabermetricians and other misguided souls need to stop trying to make this "race" something it isn't. 

Cabrera should be the unanimous MVP choice.

7. Meanwhile, if I had an NL MVP vote, I'd be going with Braves closer Craig Kimbrel, the single biggest reason Atlanta led its division from wire-to-wire.

When a team blows a late-inning lead, it's bad. When that happens repeatedly, it's catastrophic -- not only in the standings but in the psyche of every player on that team.

What a great joy and comfort it must have been all season for manager Fredi Gonzalez and all the Atlanta players to know their team pretty much was never going to blow a ninth-inning lead.

6. My "hometown" NFL team, the Panthers, better not have spent their bye week patting themselves on their backs for their blowout victory over the Giants. 

Everybody blows out the Giants!

The only team worse than the Giants right now is Jacksonville. And yes, I said "right now" for a reason. The Giants might still be able to find a new low.

5. I have started umpiring youth baseball, something I hadn't done for at least two decades. My first game was supposed to be this coming Wednesday but the umpiring coordinator was in a pinch and asked me call the bases for three games last Sunday involving 9-year-olds.

The first game began at noon. It went so long -- walks, physical errors, more walks, mental mistakes, still more walks; these are 9-year-olds, after all -- that the second game started 45 minutes late. That game also went long, so the third game started more than an hour late, and didn't end until 6:58 p.m.

So I spent 7 hours standing on a hot, dusty field. I tried to stay hydrated but almost surely didn't drink enough. I ate only an apple. By the time I drove home, I had one of the worst headaches of my life.

Next time I have to work more than one game, I will make sure I sit down between innings, will find some shade between games and will force myself to consume several gallons of water. Oh, and I'll take some Advil before the first pitch of the first game!

4. Because I umped all day Sunday, I watched zero football. Just saw a few highlights on ESPN; I couldn't watch it with the volume on because my head was pounding. 

I couldn't help but notice that Jay Cutler was back to his old give-the-ball-away tricks, playing a huge role in the Bears falling to the Lions.

That team will go only as far as its QB takes it, and I wouldn't want to bet my life savings -- or even one-billionth of my billion-dollar portfolio -- on that guy.

3. October is my favorite month.

The World Series (and the playoffs that precede the Series). The NFL in full swing. College football conference games (rather than the creampuff schedules that permeate September). The start of the NHL and NBA seasons. The start of college basketball practice. Wonderful weather here in Charlotte. 

October also is my birthday month. And given that my immaturity prevents me from getting old, what's not to love about that?!?!?!

2. In Monday's least-surprising sports story, the Cubbies fired manager Dale Sveum.

No matter who is running the show, including current Pooh-bah Theo Epstein, firing managers is what the Cubbies do best. 

They're not so hot at pitching or hitting or fielding or running the bases. Firing managers? They are championship-caliber in that domain!

The hot speculation is that Joe Girardi will be the next sucker. Girardi is a Peoria native, a Northwestern grad and a former Cubs catcher, and his contract with the Yankees expires in one month.

Even if he decided to leave New York, why he would want to manage in Cubbieland? Wouldn't several other organizations that have a chance to win before 2020 be more interesting to him? If he doesn't like the scrutiny in New York, why would he like it in Chicago, where Lou Piniella and Dusty Baker each went from genius to dolt (in the fans' eyes) in the space of less than one season? 

Then again, there does seem to be this amazing allure to the Cubs. Everybody wants to be The Guy to fix them. Piniella and Baker are recent examples of proven winners who went to Cubbieland, made an early splash and soon learned the hard way what all the trappings of Cubdom really mean.

If I'm Girardi, I stay with the Yankees. Or I go to just about any other team where winning actually happens. Or I chillax for a couple of years being a TV yakker.

I do just about anything but sign on to be part of Championship-Free Years No. 106, 107, 108 and 109. 

1. I'd come up with a memorable, spectacular, sensational conclusion to this blog post except I'm so excited about the Republicans in the House voting for the gazillionth time to either repeal or defund Obamacare that it's hard to think!

Never mind that repealing Obamacare was the No. 1 Republican goal of the 2012 election ... which they lost ... handily. Also never mind that the GOP also questioned the constitutionality of Obamacare in front of the Supreme Court ... and lost that, too.

This time, they're willing to shut down the entire government and possibly willing to refuse to pay the bills the country already has due. All for a fight they can't win, all to please the tea-partying extremists, all to avoid being "primaried."

What a country.

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