I did say to look out for Vandy, didn't I?

I'm beginning to think I could make money calling Gator games. What was the spread? Had to be at least seven.

Spillage at World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.

Gators 14, Dawgs 10.

Georgia used to have Florida's number in the worst kind of way. Seems like it's the other way around, now.

Meyer can breathe a little easier. A win over Georgia washes away many sins.

Next weekend, though, his team faces Vandy. A lark, you say? If you're a Gator fan, you'd better hope the team doesn't think that way.

Wot, no curse?

White Sox win, for the first time since 1917. This, despite my favor (see my "I give the kiss of death" post below). So, the teams that hadn't won since the administration of Woodrow Wilson have both done it in the administration of the single W. Can the team that hasn't done it since the administration of William Howard Taft (yes, Joe Queenan, I stole that from you) be next?

Actually, I hope the 2006 champ will be a team that last won it during the second Reagan administration, just in time for the twentieth anniversary of their last World Series triumph.

Gators and Seminoles

Fray friend Hipparchia responded to my last post by recalling a party she gave for the Florida-Florida State game, to which she invited an equal number of fans for each team, and divided them by duct tape on the floor. She says her team won, but is coy about which team that was. She probably told me when I met her at the New York Fray gathering a few weeks ago, but I've forgotten. I'll be bold enough to guess it's FSU, because (1) Hipparchia lives in Pensacola, which is a lot closer to Tallahassee than to Gainesville, and (2) the 'Noles have beaten the Gators more often than not in recent years.

"[I]n recent years": therein hangs a tale I promised to tell in my last post.

First, a bit of history. Until 1947, what is now Florida State University was the Florida State College for Women. In that year, both it and the University of Florida (formerly exclusively male) were made coeducational. Sometime after that Florida State began fielding a football team. (Personal sidebar: The first time I ever saw a college football team on the field was in 1957, when I saw the FSU freshmen team play the Eglin Air Force Base, where my father was then stationed, Eagles. The Eagles won handily, largely on the strength of their running back - old Baltimore Colts fans take note - Lenny Moore.) Anyway, as the story goes, FSU longed to play the Florida Gators, but the Gators, then in what later became known ironically as their "golden era", and fearing embarrassment, refused to schedule them. Finally, the Florida Legislature passed an act, signed by the governor, that compelled the two teams to play each other each season.

For a number of years, despite the fears that kept them from scheduling them, the Gators routinely beat the 'Noles, while Florida fans taunted the FSU contingent by yelling "Girls' school!". If you've read my earlier posts about the Brooklyn Dodgers, you know that I favor underdogs. So, though I rooted for the Gators in every other game, through many years I rooted for FSU to beat them. It finally happened in 1964 (they managed a 3-3 tie in 1961) when I was in college at South Florida (which didn't have a football team in those days). Then, it was back to frustration, particularly in 1966, when a disputed call ('Noles receiver Lane Fenner was called out of bounds on a catch that would have won the game) decided things. So I was still backing State in '67, when I was in law school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and despairing of getting any news of the game on local radio, when, to my amazement, the WRKO Boston late evening DJ said, "I've got to hand it to my old Florida State team. They beat Florida today, 21-16."

But a funny thing happened. FSU got a coach named Bobby Bowden who turned the 'Noles into uberhunden. So, now, when they play each other, I usually root for the Gators, unless the 'Noles have a shot at the national championship and the Gators don't, which, of course, is when the Gators usually beat them. Appropriately, the Gators' only national championship came when their only regular season loss was to FSU, then they turned around and beat the 'Noles in the Sugar Bowl.

Perhaps my last college football rant.

This weekend, like the one just past, usually comes about mid-season. I mean the one when absolutely every game I care about goes the wrong way. The one where all my favorites - the Gators, the Seminoles (yeah, love 'em both - there's a story I'll tell some other time), Penn State (my mom grew up near State College, and I was born in Altoona, where PSU has a branch that hosts a summer fling for railroad buffs that I attend whenever I can) - get eliminated from national title consideration. The one where my alma mater loses one it could have, and needed to, win. The one where the Big Upset I wanted doesn't happen - yeah, I was rooting for Notre Dame over USC, and the only satisfaction I get is that the Irish got dealt the same fate they visited upon my beloved 'Noles and Gators, i.e. seeing a fourth quarter lead erased in the final seconds.

So, who's left to pin my hopes on? Could I learn to love the Horned Frogs?

Thank you, Mickey!

Blogspot should pay the prevailing wage, as determined by DOL, don't you think?

-Kausfiles, October 13, 2005

Of course, if it's hourly, I wouldn't be making much lately.

I give the kiss of death; or, why I want the White Sox to win the championship.

In an earlier post, I told how I became a Brooklyn Dodger fan at age nine, so you know I have a thing for underdogs. Now that the Red Sox are out of it, the bonds of spousal loyalty have been cut, and now that the Braves are gone, only one team that I loathe (the one I loathe maximally) is still in the chase. (As I write this, the Angels cling to a two run lead over said loathed team in the bottom of the seventh, having survived an onslaught by the cream of said team's order in the top of the inning, yielding only a solo homer to Jeter. So there's hope.)

Assuming the Angels succeed in driving a stake through the Steinbrennerian heart tonight, that leaves Angels vs. White Sox, Astros vs. Cards. I was glad when the Angels got it a couple of years ago. They were classic underdogs. But since their ridiculous name change - why couldn't they just call themselves Los Angeles de Anaheim? - I can no longer take them seriously. Normally, I would root for the National League team in any event, out of loyalty to my Mets and disdain for the AL game. (What's good about the designated hitter rule? Oh, yeah. It extends the careers of great old warhorses like Rafael Palmiero.) And the Cards, everyone's favorite to win the NLCS, happen to be the team I admire most on purely aesthetic grounds.

But the Chisox haven't won it since 1917, and there would be something nice about their winning it the year after the team that hadn't since 1918. That, and getting over the Black Sox thing, just like getting past the Curse. And Chicago's a great town.

Sorry, guys. Teams I root for have about the same success ratio as politicians I back. But, go Sox!

I wish I weren't such a good pigskin prognosticator.

Yeah, I called it, but I didn't want it.

At least Warren St. John is happy.

Apology, and fearless prediction.

I know my hundreds (tens?) of faithful readers have been waiting eagerly for my next submission here. Real life has interfered, in a good way for me, in the form of a substantial increase in work. So, I'm going to have to budget my blogging time.

Meanwhile, I'll continue in the sports rut I seem to have fallen into lately, by noting that I saw a headline on MSNBC's sports page a few days ago, something like "Florida swaggers into Alabama game." Seeing anything about the Gators swaggering leads me to one inescapable conclusion: the Tide will roll this afternoon.

Fifty years ago today, ...

... I sat in the "cafetorium" of the Eglin Air Force Base Elementary School, in the pine woods of the Florida Panhandle, along with the rest of the students, teachers and administrators, to watch the opening game of the World Series between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees. A little over a year before, I had returned from England, where my father had been stationed for three years. I also watched the 1954 Series (Giants and Indians) but don't remember anything about it except for a vague memory of the Giants' Willie Mays making a spectacular catch. I was still unlearning cricket and rounders and learning baseball and American style football.

At the outset of the '55 Series, everyone expected the Yankees to win. Since I have a propensity to identify with underdogs, and since Brooklyn was the first place where I touched U.S. concrete after returning from overseas, I decided to root for the Dodgers. My faith was rewarded. When the Dodgers left Brooklyn my loyalty shifted to the Pittsburgh Pirates (I was born near there), who thrilled me with victory over the Yanks in 1960, and, later, to the Dodgers' natural successors, the Mets.

Has Testaverde gone to seed?

Gang Green is about to find out.

Weekly college football rave.

Mixed feelings going into the LSU-Tennessee game. My Gators already beat the Vols, and LSU was still ranked ahead of Florida, so a Tennessee victory would be good for the Gators. But there was the whole hurricane thing, as well as an admiration I've had for the Bayou Bengals since the days of Billy Cannon and the Chinese Bandits. So, I'm left with nothing more to say than the Vols reminded me of the Fighting Irish on so many occasions when I was rooting for them to lose, and they overcame what seemed to be an insurmountable deficit.

Friday night I was making one of my now infrequent appearances at the Kettle of Fish. Patrick, the owner, comes from a place called Wauwautosa, just outside Milwaukee, so there were lots of people in red shirts there, watching the Michigan-Wisconsin game. During a break in the action, I glanced up at the screen as a highlight from another game was being shown. There was a guy in a green and gold uniform dashing through a defense wearing red and white, and scoring. Then I saw at the bottom of the screen, "South Florida 14, #9 Louisville 0, 1st". My amygdala lit up like a Roman candle: "My alma mater is beating a top ten team!" "Inconceivable!" replied my cerebrum, doing its best imitation of Wallace Shawn in The Princess Bride. "This won't last. Remember Scales' first rule of college football (born of years following the Florida Gators): 'The upsets you want hardly ever happen; those you don't want happen more often than not.'"

The noise of the Badger fans became unbearable, so I took the subway home. The USF-Louisville game wasn't on any locally available channel, so I had to follow it on line. I was sure by the time I boooted up that the Cardinals would have restored Beano Cook-ish sanity to the gridiron world. The screen came up and said, "South Florida 24, #9 Louisville 7, 3rd". Still plenty of time for the Card defense to stiffen, and the offense to score the two TD's and one FG needed to send it into overtime, in which the team with momentum almost always prevails.

Not wishing to watch this painful process play itself out, I went elsewhere on the web. When I finally looked back in, I saw "South Florida 38, #9 Louisville 7", with something like eight minutes left in the game. Not only that, but the Bulls had the ball, and were in Cards territory. A minute later they scored, got the PAT, and it was 45-7. "Inconceivable", I said to myself, as I clicked the refresh button through a final Louisville TD, and then victory for South Florida.

Next Saturday the Bulls play Miami. The Canes started their season with a rare loss to archrival Florida State, but have since won a tough one from Clemson, and a surprisingly easy one from Colorado. Their next two games after USF are Duke and Temple, so they're not going to be looking ahead to anything big. Having seen what the Bulls did to a ranked team (indeed, Miami has now inherited the #9 spot previously held by the Cards), they won't be complacent. So, can USF beat Miami? At the Orange Bowl?

Inconceivable.

Rasputin is dying.

Mets get another improbable victory, but St. Louis j.v. doesn't look up to defeating Astros.

Wait 'til next year.

Mathematical elimination fever update 2

Getting the Mets out of the wild card race is sort of like trying to kill Rasputin.

They'll stay in for another day, if (1) they beat the Phils in Philly again tonight, using Zambrano, not Martinez, against Lieber; and (2) Morris and the Cards' junior varsity, playing at home, beat Oswalt and the Astros.

"We never much thought we could get very old": a boomer tale, part 1

I've just watched Scorsese's No Direction Home, and I'm all verklempt. David Greenberg's take in Slate was that the piece was a boomer scrapbook, ignoring Dylan's later career. Well, I've got to admit, I pretty much ignored everything after Blood on the Tracks, mostly because I'd found other stuff to follow, but also because I was convinced nothing he could do could possibly equal what he did in my student days. Kinda like the realization I had at about age thirteen, when I concluded that the kiss of death, from my viewpoint, at least, for a singer was the album with liner notes that said, "This represents X's development as an artist", which translated as, "S/he's given up that immature rock'n'roll stuff to do show tunes and pop standards, and hopes to be playing Vegas soon."

Not that I ever feared Dylan becoming a lounge act (well, yeah, I sort of did). I've got a lot to write about this, which is why I've captioned this "Part 1", so, since it's late, I'm running out of Cognac, and I have to work tomorrow, I'll conclude with a few odd obsevations.

When I first read about the young singer from Minnesota named Bob Dylan, I assumed his name was pronounced "DIE-lan" and that he was a muscular Norwegian-American lad in the grand old Midwestern-Scandinavian social-democratic farmers' and laborers' tradition.

I joined the Columbia Record Club during my freshman year of college, which meant I got to order six albums from their catalog for the price of one. One of the six I chose (along with Surfing by the Ventures and Hey, Little Cobra by the Rip Chords) was The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. I hadn't heard him yet, but I knew he'd written "Blowin' in the Wind", and was curious. When my records came, I found that I'd gotten everything I'd ordered except the Dylan album. Instead of that, I'd received Theresa Brewer's Greatest Hits. A friend congratulated me on my good fortune.

I did get Freewheelin' shortly after that, and, like lots of people, mistook Suze Rotolo for Joan Baez. Soon after that, I got Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A'Changin', and Another Side of Bob Dylan. The last of these quickly became my favorite album, supplying an appropriate soundtrack for my sophomore angst.

During my sophomore year, I returned to my dorm room one night to find a sign taped to the door: "Available Free! (1) portable stereo, (2) innumerable Bob Dylan albums. Come by anytime when Scales isn't in." The roommate who posted this would, whenever he heard "Chimes of Freedom", shout "Chimes don't flash, Bob!" He later dropped out of school to join the Marines.

A bad joke only a boomer could get.

Trichinosis: a disease that makes your nose look like Richard Nixon's.

Mathematical elimination fever update.

The Mets are one away from falling out of the wild-card race. Of course, they're giving fans a great tease, going on a bit of a tear as the season winds down.

Realistic goals:

1. Finish above .500.

2. Finish 4th, not 5th in division (may need to sweep this series with the Nats to accomplish).

Meanwhile, with a Yank loss and a Red Sox win today, the AL East is tied going into the stretch.

In the immortal words of Louise Day Hicks: "You know weah I stand!"

9/25 update: Mets swept Nats, so hope remains they won't finish in the cellar. Nevertheless, while their elimination number remains at one, they're effectively out of wild card contention. Being thus relieved of expectations, they'll probably do well over their few remaining games, and finish above .500. A three game series in Philly starting tonight means they may also affect the outcome of the NL wild card race.

Red Sox and Yanks both won, and so stay tied in the AL East.

"Floating Island"

No, it isn't a dessert. It's a water-borne work of art. (Click on photo for enlargement.)

Since they're now effectively out of contention, ...

... the Mets have come back to life, winning a series from the Braves and assuring themselves of another from the Marlins.

Perhaps they'll get the satisfaction of helping to deny Carlos Delgado the post-season action for which he spurned them.

Update on slur against Katrina victims.

Snopes.com now has an update on this story, including the doctor's statement disavowing the contents of the piece and pointing out that he was not at the convention center in Houston where these alleged incidents occurred. The Snopes piece also quotes relief volunteers from that site and others to the effect that evacuees did not behave in the manner described. You can find it here .

Don't be fooled by "doctor's" slur on Katrina victims.

There's a blatantly racist rant about the "arrogance" of Katrina victims, allegedly by an M.D. affiliated with the Mississippi university system, that's been circulating by e-mail. A couple of right wing websites have picked it up, but a British conservative site has questioned its provenance and accuracy. Someone also posted it on the Denver Craigslist, but it has since been removed. The good folks at Snopes.com tracked down the truth, which is that the piece was not written by the doctor. It was instead posted on the website of an unnamed 23 year old male Texan, the doctor saw it and forwarded it to some friends (why isn't clear, but his subsequent reaction indicates it was likely because he didn't agree with it), and at least one of those friends sent it on with the doctor's name attached, though probably inadvertently. The doctor is now appalled by what has happened. You can find the discussion here.

Cynicism analyzed.

Tyler Cowen, in Marginal Revolution, finds gold in Robin Hanson's The Cynic's Conundrum. Here's a choice nugget:

Interpreted as extreme claims, such as that people only care about low motives, or that high functions have no influence on social institutions, cynicism is clearly false. But interpreted in a more graded fashion, such as the fraction of behavior explained by low motives or functions, or the difference between claimed motives and real motives, cynical beliefs clearly tend to contain a lot of truth.

The conclusion:

... while hypocrisy and low motives probably are in fact much more widespread than most people acknowledge, most people are well-advised to pretend that they believe otherwise.

Taking what satisfaction we can.

A colleague, who is a Yankee fan but a thoroughly decent fellow nevertheless, expressed his wonderment about a group of Mets fans he had seen late yesterday, apparently enjoying themselves very much despite their team's being effectively out of contention. I explained that they were celebrating two events: a series victory over the Braves, and Tom Glavine's first victory over his old team this season (and only his second since becoming a Met). Sparkling defensive play by recently called-up second baseman Anderson Hernandez aided Glavine's cause, and gave more reason to hope for better things in 2006.

Addendum 9/20: Today's NYT has a piece on Carlos Beltran, in which Ben Shpigel quotes him as saying he regards Roberto Alomar as a model for his offensive game. Of course, he means the Cleveland Alomar, not the Mets Alomar ... we hope.

Meyer's tailor can wait.

Gators down Vols, 16-7.

Has anyone noticed ...

... that Paul Simon, at least in a baseball cap, has come to resemble Michael Bloomberg?

9/20 Addendum: For proof, go to http://www.paulsimon.com/index_main.html, and scroll to the right of the row of photographs at the top of the page.

Sir Hermann Bondi, 1919-2005

I first read of Hermann Bondi when I was about twelve, probably in George Gamow's One, Two, Three ... Infinity, a book that helped to convince me I wanted to be an astrophysicist. (It took Jane Reed, my Calculus I instructor, to dissuade me from this ambition.) Bondi, I learned, was one of a triumvirate of cosmologists (the others were Thomas Gold and Fred Hoyle) who championed the "steady state" theory of the universe. I later wondered how it came to be that a beach in Australia was named for him.

"Steady state" was posited in 1948 as an explanation for the condition of the universe as it was known at that time. Some years earlier, Edwin Hubble had shown that the universe is expanding. One possible reason was that it had started out very small, and exploded outward. This became known as the "big bang" theory. It implied that there was a finite amount of matter in the universe, and that, if the universe continued expanding, eventually it would become mostly empty, and dead. Alternatively, if there was sufficient matter that gravity would eventually overcome the expansive force, the universe would ultimately collapse back to the point from which it originated. Bondi, Gold and Hoyle, however, argued that, while the universe was expanding from a single point, matter is continuously being created at that point and expanding outward to replenish the void left behind earlier matter that had gone before it. Always has been, and always will.

Given that comparison, it seems that steady state is a much more optimistic theory than big bang. It's interesting, however, to consider that, in a way, steady state, which, according to the New York Times' obituary of Bondi today, "still has its adherents" (although evidence of residual microwave radiation from the big bang led Bondi himself to renounce it) is much more of a challenge to Biblical literalism even than Darwin's theory of evolution. After all, it squarely contradicts the first three words of Genesis, "In the beginning", positing, instead, that there was no beginning.

Bondi, who was born an Austrian Jew and emigrated to Britain when the Nazis occupied his homeland, had in common with many great British scientists a commitment to practical affairs along with theoretical work. He was among those who designed the Thames Barrier, which is meant to protect London from a disaster like that of New Orleans.

Will the Vols give Meyer's tailor some business?

The NYT's Pete Thamel tells us, on page one of today's sports section, that Florida's new coach, Urban Meyer, loses ten pounds after every loss. So far this season, his girth has faced no challenge, as the Gators easily beat Wyoming and Louisiana Tech. Tonight they face their first serious challenge, Tennessee. These teams have a history. Back in the mid 1960's, Florida snatched Steve Spurrier, then the nation's top high school QB prospect, from Johnson City, barely a stone's throw from the UT campus. They later lured Tennessee coach Doug Dickey south, where he went from kudos in Knoxville to groans in Gainesville. In recent years, they've usually been the top contenders for the SEC East title.

It's hard to call this one. The Vols had trouble with Alabama-Birmingham, but Fullmer is the kind of coach who can build off of trouble. The Gators have a history of going belly-up in big games with lots of attention focused on them. But we haven't seen a Meyer-coached team in the Swamp in a big one yet. Meyer's tailor should be looking for his measuring tape, but not counting on the cash yet.

Flatlining?

The Mets still have a pulse, and it's propelled by Pedro.

Postscript on culture war.

It's not the big one I promised earlier - I'll try to get that done this weekend - but Meghan O'Rourke thinks reading Faulkner can help.

This blog needs more of these.

According to the plaque on the sidewalk, this is "Eyes", by Louise Bourgeois.