I mean, you saw it
if I knew the answer, it
wouldn’t have happened

When asked what happened in the game between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers on Thursday, September 28, 2023, Green Bay Head Coach, Matt LaFleur said:

I mean, you saw it.

We got our ass kicked.

If I knew, it wouldn’t have happened,” he said, clearly perturbed.

It wasn’t good enough.

They whipped us.

They manhandled us.

Again, if I knew the answer to that, it wouldn’t have happened.

Winston Churchill once said, “Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.“

I think Coach LeFleur would agree.

We got our ass kicked.

They whipped us.

As an addendum to that, I would like to add that old words, when short, are best of all when you can hear them for a second time.

So let me repeat what Coach LeFleur said:

I mean, you saw it.

We got our ass kicked.

If I knew, it wouldn’t have happened,” he said, clearly perturbed.

It wasn’t good enough.

They whipped us.

They manhandled us.

Again, if I knew the answer to that, it wouldn’t have happened.

Gosh but BOY HOWDY how much of life can we say that about?

But the Lions beat, handily, the Packers.

Pray do not mock me.

I am a very foolish fond old man, Threescore and upward, not an hour more nor less; And, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind … but in the last 47 games against Green Bay, my team, the Detroit Lions, have won but 15 times.

Mitch Albom, in his column, referred to the “… the old ghosts of Lambeau.“

They have now won 4 in a row against the Packers.

While the entire rest of the world seems to be going down the tubes, the Lions seem be on the the upswing.

I guess that adds up to the way it should be.

In 1959, the Chicago White Sox won their first pennant in 40 years.

After the game that clinched it for the White Sox was over, the Fire Chief of the City of Chicago turned on the Air Raid/Weather Alert sirens to celebrate which led most Sox fans to think that it figured that the SOX finally win and Russia drops the big one.

Right now the Lions haven’t won anything … yet.

But I hope I hear more coaches say, If I knew the answer to that, it wouldn’t have happened.

the best target is
a little more than what you’re
currently doing

From the article, “Do you really need to walk 10,000 steps a day? And 17 other fitness ‘rules’, tackled by the experts” by Joe Stone.

Mr. Stone, on those 10,00 steps, writes:

You should aim to walk 10,000 steps a day
“The first company that produced pedometers came up with the 10,000-step benchmark without any data, as that was considered an auspicious number,” says Lieberman. “Since then, plenty of studies have shown that steps a day is a reasonable way of measuring physical activity. As you increase your step count, you reap increased benefits, but it tails off between about 8,000 and 10,000.”

Hutchinson (Author of  author of Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights? Fitness Myths, Training Truths, and Other Surprising Discoveries from the Science of Exercise._ agrees: “There’s nothing magic about 10,000 steps a day, but it is pretty good advice. In general, the best target is probably ‘a little more’ than what you’re currently doing.’’

How many steps do I make or take each day?

I am not sure as I got rid of my fitbit.

For some reason of carrying a tracking device by choice kind of got to me so I stopped wearing it.

I was also starting to obsess about it a little bit.

Besides, I always walk with my wife so I can ask her.

leave me there before
latest realignment round
it’s just weird – greed wins

Drop me at the beginning of the College Football Playoff era and leave me there. In my mind, college football had reached the best version of itself. The conferences were aligned perfectly. Geography mattered, and regional pride was supreme. There was a functional way to create an intriguing postseason and properly crown a national champion without subjectivity. And upsets, the crown jewel of this sport, still mattered. It was college football nirvana.

We get that for one more glorious year before greed wins.

That’s the hardest part about this latest and irreversible round of realignment. It wasn’t done to improve the product or serve the consumer. It’s just weird. It removes the essence of regionality, and nobody likes it. Really, this whole thing just stinks — even if we can admit that we will see some new and exciting matchups in the near future.

From Savor the 2023 college football season — it’s the last one like it we’ll ever get by By Ari Wasserman in the Athletic.

I am reminded of the movie ‘The Wind and the Lion’ with Brian Keith having a wonderful time as President Theodore Roosevelt and Sean Connery as Desert Sheik with a scots accent.

At one point, the Connery character talks to one of his lieutenants and says:

What has become of honor, respect?
Everything is changing, drifting away on the wind.
It’s been a bad year.
The next one will probably be worse.

it is not funny
but it’s hard not to chuckle
fortnight for fight night

As Guardians broadcaster Tom Hamilton intoned, “Down goes Anderson!”

Tom Hamilton’s call of the Jose Ramirez-Tim Anderson fight on Cleveland radio is the stuff of legend.

“DOWN GOES ANDERSON! DOWN GOES ANDERSON!”

“It’s not funny,” Guardians manager Terry Francona said after the game, “but coming in (to the clubhouse) and listening to Hammy, it’s hard not to chuckle.”

Call me soft but I think Anderson should be benched by the league for two weeks. A fortnight for a fight night. He should get seven games for starting it and another seven for losing. That’ll teach him to square up like he’s Sonny Liston.

So reads the article Tim Anderson’s nightmare season takes a KO in Cleveland By Jon Greenberg in the Athletic, Aug. 6, 2023.

I don’t follow baseball like I used to but I do follow baseball writing.

Anyone who can get the word fortnight into a story about baseball deserves recognition.

I found it fascinating that shoving fortnight into the google, I found myself on webpages where the discussion about that the word FORTNITE, which was the name of a game that took over the world wide web for its 15 minutes of fame a bit ago, was based on a centuries old REAL WORLD, fortnight.

This discussion pointed out that it meant 2 weeks or 14 days and writers like Shakespeare, Dickens and Twain all used the word FORTNIGHT in their writing and it HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH the game!

How ’bout that!

But I digress.

Aside from that, Mr. Greenberg’s chronicling of the downs and downs of this season by Chicago White Sox infielder Tim Anderson is, well, funny.

Fighting in any sport is not to be condoned.

But …

But sometimes you get to look past the fight to what was going on before the fight and, well, it’s that quote from Guardians manager Terry Francona said after the game, “it’s not funny, … [but] it’s hard not to chuckle.”