…The Bills have a player named Rousseau and the Broncos have a player named Locke. Voltaire is on Injured Reserve…
A desultory (I get to use that word once a year) first half–15-8, which is a softball score–turned into a thriller second half in Monday Night Football:
Near game’s end: Bills 22, Broncos 21. The Broncos seemingly go 4 and out on an incomplete pass…
WAIT!
Pass interference on the Bills! First down and within field goal range. The Broncos rush their field goal team onto the field with seven seconds left. The hurried kick is wide right. Game’s pretty much over…
WAIT!
The Bills had twelve men on the field! The second field goal attempt is good: Broncos 24, Bills 22. THE KICKER, WIL LUTZ, IS A FOOTBALL HERO!
* * *
…Poor Bills. Poor QB Josh Allen, who is great hiding in the cornfield in that TV commercial. He had a dreadful night: a fumble and two interceptions…
* * *
…The Bills have a player named Rousseau and the Broncos have a player named Locke. Voltaire is on Injured Reserve…
* * *
…I like the Bills, but just a little bit, because Buffalo’s near Ontario, where my Irish great-grandparents once lived…
* * *
…I am still boycotting the PGA, thanks to Crown Prince Mohammed ibn (“Just use a surgical saw!”) Salman al Saud of Saudi Arabia and The Kingdom’s heavily moneyed role in professional golf…
* * *
…They used to tell me that the sound of thunder was angels bowling in heaven. Now you can tell your grandkids that it’s Bobby Knight throwing chairs…
* * *
…Was there a World Series this year? I don’t CARE. Oh, nuts: Congrats to Bruce Bochy, who has the biggest hat size in baseball and is an excellent manager…
* * *
…In College Ball, there are actually TWO Pac-17 (or whatever the number is. Doesn’t matter. They’ll all be in the SEC within two years.) teams in the Top Ten: Oregon and the Husky Puppies.
My father-in-law Gail was a University of Washington Husky Puppy–that’s him in the photo with Coach Howard Udell in the late 1940s…
* * *
…My Alma Mater, Mizzou, will be invited to a Bowl slightly more prestigious that the Mucinex/Dow Chemical/Colace Poopin’ a Pineapple Bowl after a convincing win over Tennessee…
* * *
…I am ready for some Women’s NCAA Basketball because they pass and have plays and strategery and stuff…
* * *
…The last time the Summer Olympics were in Paris was in 1924, when Hemingway was there as a correspondent for the Toronto Daily Star and writing short stories in clean well-lighted place.
That’s Hem, with Shakespeare and Co. bookstore owner Sylvia Beach (he was recovering from a skiing accident) out in front of the bookstore, which faces Notre Dame. The cathedral, not the football team.
There’s a cafe next door, Les Deux Magots, where you can get a latte the size of a soup bowl and gaze thoughtfully at the cathedral, just like Hemingway did. Except he was drinking a Pernod.
Sorry. Back to sports…
* * *
…Megan Rapinoe was injured in her last professional game. That stinks. Roland Messier is NOT a soccer player. He is a pastry chef. I looked it up…
* * *
–30–
A Work in Progress 