Knucklehead of the Week
Stephen A. Smith likes to talk — all the time. So it’s possible he doesn’t hear what’s coming out of his mouth. The ESPN gabber is pretty entertaining at times, but last week he babbled on about the Bengals and said Marvin Lewis should be fired and would probably be gone by now if he was white. Lewis isn’t perfect, but the Bengals roster is nothing like last year’s, and a bunch of quality assistant coaches have left in recent years. Lewis might be gone at the end of the season, but I don’t think the color of his skin will influence Mike Brown either way.
College basketball practice has tipped off with Midnight Madness and other gimmicks. As a public service message, I’m here to notify you that UD and Wright State begin their seasons in 26 days. (Not against each other, silly).
The Big Ten should stop pretending it was smart to add Rutgers and Maryland to the fold in 2014. The BIG is a proud Midwestern conference and it was just fine with 12 schools. The excuse of expanding its "footprint" with Rutgers makes little sense because Tony Soprano and his neighbors couldn't care less about the Scarlet Knights. Maryland draws some interest, but it's a basketball school located near the Atlantic Ocean.
Football is king in college sports, and adding those schools was embarrassing. They are 3-20 in league play the past two years. It was a panic move by a conference that doesn’t need to panic. At some point you have to take your borders seriously. Maybe the Big 12 is interested in the Terps and Knights.
Ohio should petition to switch to the Central Time Zone during the baseball playoffs. I'm already a walking zombie and the league championship series have just begun. I went in and out of consciousness during Game 4 (or was it Game 5?) of the Cubs-Giants series. I think I saw the finish.
One of my five loyal readers sent me a note saying baseball needs to speed up the game. It was in my inbox the morning after a single inning in the Dodgers-Nationals game took more than an hour. Talk about a filibuster.
Game 7 of the 1960 World Series is regarded as one of the best baseball game of all-time. Bill Mazeroski's walk-off home run won it for the Pirates, who turned back the Yankees 10-9. Nineteen runs and nine pitchers. The game took 2 hours, 36 minutes.
Eagles rookie QB Carson Wentz is a great guy. I read a story about his recent trip to Fargo, N.D., where he went out to shoot pool, play darts and relax with his buddies. Wentz covered the entire $1,000 tab — and left a $500 tip. And police weren't even called to the bar. Refreshing.
Trending up: Auston Matthews, Dak Prescott, Ken Bone. Matthews scored four goals in his NHL debut with Toronto last week, giving the NHL a new superstar to market. Matthews is a 19-year-old rookie and was the No. 1 overall pick in the June draft. Maybe more impressive is the fact he's from Scottsdale, Ariz. They've got ice down there?
Trending down: Vontaze Burfict, Nick Kyrgios, UGA. I was reminded last week of the time Bo Jackson steamrolled Brian Bosworth during a much-ballyhooed Monday Night Football showdown — a play that exposed the overhyped Bosworth. The play came to mind when Cowboys rookie Ezekiel Elliott plowed into Burfict, pushing the Bengals feared linebacker downfield five yards.
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