“The games reached an average combined audience of 11.4 million people in prime time on NBC, the USA cable network and Peacock streaming service, the network said. That’s the lowest-ever American audience for any Olympics, and down 42% from the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in 2018. For NBC alone, the prime time telecasts reached an average of 9.3 million viewers, or 48% down from South Korea, the Nielsen company said.”

It doesn’t matter whether you sort by most medals or most golds, Norway established itself as the Kingdom of Winter.

Their total is a bit deceptive in that 20 Norwegians took medals in Biathlon. That’s 14 different events, two of which were 4-person team victories. Who even knew that many Biathlon medals were available? Maybe next Winter Olympics they can add 20 different herring-eating events, and pad that count even more.

But I’m not deprecating their achievement. To win that many medals, with such a small population to draw from, is a truly impressive achievement. In fact, I believe every single Norwegian citizen won an Olympic medal.

In the last analysis, a medal is a medal. Pickleball and badminton are not grueling sports and I don’t have to get up at five AM for running and weight training, but my medals in the Senior Olympics count just the same as the ones earned in the really demanding sports like triathlon. (Believe it or not, beach volleyball is the hardest senior sport, not because it’s so demanding, although it is demanding enough. The reason it is so grueling is that one can only defeat a single team at a time. Triathletes basically compete in a single race, establish their time, and then it’s over, while beach volleyball teams have to keep playing opponent after opponent in a short stretch of time, and they have to do that on sand, which is really hard work. I get sore just thinking about it.)

Anyway, getting back to the point, an Olympic medal is a tremendous achievement, and many Norwegians are flying home with them.

Game recap. The Bengals let it slip from their grasp. So it goes. I had no dog in the hunt, but the Bengals would have been my preference.

The commercials. I like the one with Larry David, but that may because I just like Larry David. Larry travels through history and shits on the wheel, the light bulb, democracy, etc.

The halftime show did its traditional tribute to people who used to be popular.

Players need to receive 75 percent of the vote to be elected. On Tuesday, Bonds received 66 percent, and Clemens got 65.2 percent in their last year of eligibility. Pitcher Curt Schilling, also in his final year on the ballot, earned 58.6 percent of the vote.

Big Papi Ortiz clocked in at 77.9, coincidentally the same as his time in the 100-yard dash, and just enough to get into Cooperstown in his first try.

The much-loved Big Papi was a classy and positive gentleman as always, issuing the following statement:

“I don’t even compare myself to them (Bonds and Clemens) because I saw so many times those guys performing and it was something that was very special. Not having them join me at this time is something that is hard for me to believe.”

In terms of impact on the team, the Red Sox’s acquisition of Big Papi was one of the most significant moves in post-WW2 baseball, comparable to the D-Backs signing Randy Johnson, or the Dodgers picking up Jackie Robinson. Ortiz placed in the top five in the MVP balloting in each of his first five years with the team, and the Sox won the World Series twice in those five years, after having failed to do so in the last 84 pre-Ortiz seasons. And then they won another before he retired. His lifetime World Series batting average is .455, the highest of all time among players with at least 40 plate appearances. He batted over .300 in his first two World Series, and then he almost won that third one by himself, batting an unearthly .688 to become the obvious MVP.

One of the nicest things about his career is that he went out on top. He had one of his best years in his last season at age 40 – leading the league in slugging percentage, RBI and OPS. He was such a feared hitter at the end of his career that he led the league in intentional walks in three of his last four seasons.

He is renowned for his clutch performance, but he was just a damned good hitter, clutch or otherwise. His lifetime OPS is among the top 40 of all time. Here are some players with a lower career OPS: Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Albert Pujols, Al Simmons, Mike Schmidt, Ken Griffey Jr …

I’ve made my point. Good individual player. Good team player. Fan favorite. Good guy. He’s in and he deserves it.

That has to be one of the signs of the end times, right?

Their last post-season victory, more than fifty thousand years ago, is only known from oral history. The balladeers sing that they defeated a team of seven Neanderthals and four actual Bengal tigers, a legendary victory that earned them their name.

The four-legged tigers made some rough tackles, but they weren’t much at holding on to the ball. Their claws deflated more balls than Tom Brady.

OK, maybe I exaggerated a bit, but 31 years is a long break between playoff wins.

Alabama was ahead 18-13 with ten minutes to play, but it was all Georgia from then on.

Alabama QB Bryce Young was not especially impressive. He threw 22 incomplete passes, including 2 interceptions.

Best sports name of the year: Kool-Aid McKinstry

Georgia over Michigan 34-11

The Tide over Cincinnati 27-6

There was no surprise there. Georgia and Alabama each won by at least three TDs, and Georgia could have won by a lot more if they had chosen to. The two SEC powerhouses will square off again, as anticipated.

The championship game is considered a toss-up. Alabama was a slight favorite in the opening line, but Georgia is now a two or three point favorite. Alabama won the first match-up by 17.

In other bowl news, riddle me this, Batman. How the hell did Rutgers get in a bowl game, and how did I not notice until now? Apparently they have a Pity Bowl rule. As you might expect, the mighty Rutgers 11, proud possessors of a 2-7 conference record, were ground into holiday mincemeat by Wake Forest, which was ranked in the top twenty nationally. Moreover, Rutgers scored only ten points against WF, which has one of the most porous defenses of any major team. (They beat Army 70-56, for example. They scored 55 against North Carolina – and lost. Three of their other wins were 37-34, 40-37 and 45-42.)

The answer to the riddle? They got into a bowl game because of their good academic performance, based on the “give the nerds a participation trophy” trend. Honest to god, I did not make that up.

“The Scarlet Knights didn’t qualify for a bowl game with their record. They got an assist by virtue of the classroom and having the highest Academic Progress Rate.”

They needed rules like this when I was in school. Despite my pathetic throwing skills, I could have been our starting quarterback instead of a math nebbish.

Maybe I could even have gotten laid.

OK, maybe not on the laid thing. I know for sure that my female classmates didn’t give a free pass to their vaginas for good academic performance. I think that would have been especially true after they saw me throw ten interceptions and cry like a baby after getting sacked.

But I could have started for Rutgers.

—————–

The rest of the story.

Everything I wrote is accurate or at least a reasonable hyperbole, but I left out a lot of details to make the story funnier. Texas A&M was supposed to play in the Gator Bowl against Wake Forest, and they are damned good. As evidence of that, I submit that they handed Alabama their only loss this season! But A&M had to withdraw. Rutgers found out they were going to be in a bowl game just a short time ago, and they were just as surprised as I was. I mean, they lost games by scores like 52-3 and 52-13 and 28-0 during the regular season, when they were actually in training, and were … er … prepared for their opponents. Given those circumstances, you have to give them some credit. They did pretty well to keep the score at 38-10 when (a) they suck mightily and (b) just nine days earlier they had been drinking beer and planning their holiday vacations.

So it worked out for everybody, except maybe the fans who were expecting a better game:

  • The kids from Rutgers got to greet the New Year in Florida (81 degrees in Jacksonville today) instead of New Jersey.
  • And the kids from Wake Forest got to celebrate a rousing triumph instead of playing the team that beat Alabama.

The eccentric, much-loved NFL legend has passed away at 85.

Because he was eternally disheveled, always casual and an ubiquitous pitchman, he seemed on the surface like a lovable oaf, but those were characteristics that tended to belie his great football brain.

“He compiled a 103-32-7 regular-season record, and his .759 winning percentage is the best among NFL coaches with more than 100 games.”

… and he retired at the tender age of 42, when many head coaches are just starting their careers.

After his coaching career, using his ability to explain complicated maneuvers in simplest terms, he became a top broadcaster (16 Emmys), and the godfather of football video games. After injuries ended whatever playing career he might have dreamt of, he was just damned good at everything he tried. In the world of sports, he did about as much as any man can do, and he did it without creating any scandals or even making any enemies.

Georgia.

#1 Alabama and #4 Cincinnati will square off in the semi-finals, while #2 Michigan will have its hands full with #3 Georgia. It’s not inconceivable that the championship game will be a Georgia-Alabama rematch. Georgia is favored by 7 1/2 over Michigan, and Alabama is favored by about a thousand over Cincinnati. (The opening line is actually 13 1/2)

Notre Dame did not get an invitation to the big event. As the #5 team, the Irish ended up with their faces pressed up against the outside of the window, listening to the laughter, admiring the party decorations, and wondering whether the revelers are really having fun – something I call “a Scoopy Christmas.”

UPDATE: All the Bowl Game match-ups have been announced, and almost all of the opening lines have been set.

Bud Fowler and Buck O’Neil were elected from the Early Baseball Era Committee ballot of 10 candidates, while Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, Minnie Miñoso and Tony Oliva were elected from the 10 Golden Days Era Committee candidates.”

Some of those were long overdue. I regret that the Hall overlooked Lefty O’Doul, and it is long past time to waive the 10-year rule to induct Ross Barnes, the greatest player of his day (lifetime .360 batting average), whose career was cut short to nine seasons because of illness. He was considered not only the best hitter in those years, but the best fielder and the best base-runner as well. There were two years where he essentially led the league in every major category but homers. At 145 pounds, he wasn’t much of a long-ball threat, but he did hit the first home run in the history of the National League! He was the best player on the best teams in early baseball. Many of Barnes’s less-talented teammates are in, but the star of those teams is not.

I made my case for Lefty O’Doul here. He batted .349 lifetime and made many other contributions to the game.

Barnes and O’Doul are 4th and 9th of all time in lifetime batting average.

Scoreboard

Michigan’s Hassan Haskins had five rushing TDs in his team’s upset of THE Ohio State University, and he did some of that without any blocking, by just dancing around some tacklers, speeding past some, and leaping over others. Ohio State seems to have blown their shot at a national championship. They were rated #2, but suffered a loss to #5 Michigan, so I suppose those teams will swap places on the chart, more or less, but that’s not the key issue. Ohio State’s loss means that they will not play for the conference championship. It will be Michigan against Iowa. If Iowa should win that, the Big Ten will probably get shut out of the playoff. Iowa is not going to make the final four because they had two bad conference losses earlier in the year. They scored only seven in each of those games, and barely survived two other games against the two weak sisters in the Big Ten West (Nebraska and Northwestern).

#3 Alabama barely survived a four-overtime battle against Auburn.

Notre Dame can still sneak into the final four if some of the higher-ranked teams lose a conference championship game – and one of them will for sure, because Georgia and Alabama will play each other. A Georgia win would mean a second loss for Alabama, which would probably knock them out of the final four. It’s impossible to say how the committee will treat an Alabama win. Meanwhile, Cincinnati is no lock against Houston. Michigan will have the smoothest sailing next week, but Iowa is no pushover. Oklahoma State could also leap ahead of Notre Dame with a big win over Baylor, but I’d say Notre Dame has a pretty decent chance to end up in the playoff. Their problem is that their fate is in the hands of others.

—-

The Sagarin computer rankings have a significantly different alignment among the top teams. Cincinnati is in the #7 spot rather than in the top four.

Scoreboard

Some observations:

So much for #3 Oregon’s hopes for a playoff spot. They didn’t just lose. They got pulverized by Utah. (I wonder if Utah fans cheer for the “ol’ dark gray and slightly darker gray.”) They were down 28-0 at halftime! The longer the season progressed, the more it seemed that Oregon’s early victory over THE Ohio State University was a fluke.

That means that Cincinnati is likely to move up into the #4 spot in the official playoff rankings, and will probably make the post-season playoff despite their soft schedule. That could mean two Ohio teams in the final four playoff. It will be interesting to see whether Cincinnati can stand up to teams like Georgia, Alabama and Ohio State.

Speaking of THE Ohio State University, that team was up 49-0 at halftime against the 7th-rated team in the country. To be fair, Michigan State should not have been #7. The computer ratings did not place them in the top 20. Ohio State was so dominant in that game that they leapt all the way to #2 in the AP poll.

Almost needless to say, #10 Wake Forest wasn’t really one of the top ten teams in the country. They got their asses handed to them. They pretty much have no defense. In their last seven games:

  • they allowed 34 points against Louisville
  • they allowed 37 points against Syracuse
  • they allowed 56 points against Army
  • they allowed 58 points against UNC
  • they allowed 42 points against NC State
  • they allowed 48 points against Clemson

(In the other game, they did managed to crush Duke, which is winless in the football portion of the conference, but undefeated in basketball. Does Coach K know anything about football? They could use some help in that department.)

AL: Shohei Ohtani (Unanimous choice.)

Ohtani was a no-brainer. He also had the highest Wins Above Replacement in the AL

————

NL: Bryce Harper, for the second time.

The NL balloting was split. The top five were as follows:

  1. Bryce Harper, PHI: 17 (first-place votes), 9 (second), 2 (third), 1 (fourth), 1 (fifth) — 348 points
  2. Juan Soto, WSH: 6 (first), 11 (second), 7 (third), 2 (fourth), 2 (fifth), 1 (sixth), 1 (seventh) — 274 points
  3. Fernando Tatis Jr., SD: 2 (first), 5 (second), 15 (third), 5 (fourth), 1 (fifth), 2 (sixth) — 244 points
  4. Brandon Crawford, SF: 4 (first), 2 (second), 1 (third), 7 (fourth), 8 (fifth), 4 (sixth), 3 (seventh), 1 (ninth) — 213 points
  5. Trea Turner, WSH/LAD: 1 (first), 3 (second), 3 (third), 10 (fourth), 3 (fifth), 4 (sixth), 2 (seventh), 1 (eighth), 1 (10th) — 185 points

Harper was not among the top 10 in the NL in Wins Above Replacement. He didn’t even have the highest WAR on his own team! Juan Soto was the top NL position player in that category. Harper did have a mammoth second half after not even having made the all-star team. He was batting only .271 on the morning of July 6th, but he batted .341 the rest of the way, with 54 extra base hits and an incredible 1.171 OPS. Oddly enough, Soto was also on a tear and had the exact same OPS over the exact same period, but individuals are rarely awarded an MVP for playing on a last-place team, and Soto did just that, and in baseball’s weakest division to boot. The typical thought is, “They could have finished in the same place without him, so he wasn’t really all that valuable.” At any rate, Soto just turned 23 and has already played four full seasons, and Tatis is even younger. They probably have multiple MVPs in their futures.