Bemused?

The start of the college football season is one of the few occurrences in sports that excites me as much as baseball, and several key points throughout the season also measure up pretty well. In fact, college football could have been my favorite sport had I grown up in a football-rich environment, even though its appeal differs almost entirely from baseball’s. College football relies on blind allegiance, perpetual optimism, fast action, split second decision making, and stars coming out of nowhere. Baseball, on the other hand, is almost like an exercise in binomial probability, meticulously testing match ups over and over to encourage the cream to rise to the top. The manifestation of the difference can be seen in a team like 2001 Ohio State, who ran the table, came up big against Miami (and with the refs, obviously) in the title game, even though anyone could see during the year that their one dimensional offense made them the fifth or sixth best team in the nation. Sure, that uncertainty can be frustrating, but it also contributes to the feeling that any team could win it in any season. At the same time, certain trends repeat themselves every year, creating the sort of inside joke environment that makes me also love the WWE. Purdue’s offense always looks good for the first five weeks before going into the tank. The second best PAC 10 team always lays a major egg early in the season, perhaps never to recover. At least one running back from the MAC will put up a big number against a Big 10 team, exposing a rush defense that will be a problem all year (NIU’s Garrett Wolffe played that role against THE Ohio State University). Miami has amazing safeties. Texas runs for about 900 yards per game. The teams with the best-known QBs get the most attention, often causing them to be overrated (Brady Quinn at Notre Dame). Some of the intrigue comes from the possibility that one of these fixed realities somehow falls, like it did for Texas last year, finally winning a meaningful game. In a roundabout way, I guess I am getting at the fact that I want to write a few words about college football, and since nobody edits or reviews this column, I will do just that.

One of those peculiar, repeated realities in college football is the Minnesota Gophers’ ability to generate running backs so consistently. Tapeh, Jackson, Barber, Maroney, Russell, and the train keeps running. Maroney was highly regarded coming in, but the rest lacked that pedigree. Then, to no one’s surprise, a recently-converted LB filled in for the academically ineligible Russell, rushing for 155 yards and 3 TDs, and last year’s no. 3, Amir Pinnix, went over the century mark, too. I don’t even care what the starter’s name is, because I am convinced that he could have been any reasonably athletic human being with a few weeks of practice behind the Gophers’ o-line could get 1,000 yards. I tried to think of an analogous situation in sports, and the most comparable example I considered was Pete Sampras playing in the French Open. In both cases, the most intuitive result never, ever happens, and nobody truly knows why. The average sports fan could probably explain that the Gophers have a unique blocking scheme, and the Sampras played a serve and volley style that did not fit on a clay court, though very few really know much more detail. And here’s the kicker: just when these hypotheses started becoming truisms, they were entrenched to a whole knew extreme. The Gophers build their offense around a linebacker, while Sampras had an inexplicable string where he was invincible on grass and would lose in the first two rounds of the French Open every year.

Let me reiterate: I watched a lot of football this weekend. The main theme that struck me was the lack of dominant teams across the country this season. Texas still looks really solid, as well as USC, LSU, and Tennessee. Still, there is no team on the level of some of the Texas, Oklahoma, USC, Miami, LSU, and even Nebraska teams from the last several years. Nobody has the complete roster that could dominate a game 80-0 for three quarters like OU did three years ago. As a result, a team could lose a game or two and stay in the race, because even the teams at the top will face some very difficult games along the way. Can OSU really get through Michigan, Iowa, Texas, and Penn State? I say no, but they may need it, either. With a gun to my head, I will take USC over FSU for the national title. And, no, Notre Dame is not in the same class; they are a team heavy in well-known skill players, which is a formula to be permanently overrated.

In baseball news, the Twins remain on life support without falling behind the pace in the Wild Card race, thanks to the resurgent Kansas City Royals playing spoiler across the board. Maybe he has not acquired the players who will make the Royals contenders, but Dayton Moore’s pickups have made the team far more palatable on a game to game basis, and that has to be worth something. Gaithright, Shealy, and Odalis Perez are all bad players on good teams. The Royals, however, are not a good team, so having a bunch of cheap, young-ish, decent players (the Dodgers are paying for most of Perez) is preferable to burning money on Mark Redman and Mark Grudzielanek. At least now there is some upward projectability beyond the next few weeks, and I believe that retreat from hopelessness is valuable for the team and the fans alike.

My friends and I used to joke that the Twins should just start Johan Santana every day. That option looks better and better as a thin pitching staff goes Nicole Ritchie on its fans. If you asked me to imagine a bulimic pitching staff before the season, I am not sure I could give much of a response. This season’s pitching staff has crystallized that uncertainty for me, as the team cannot seem to help but punish itself. Recall the opening day rotation:

Santana- Another Cy Young season, and it could not have come at a better time, though he has had some injury troubles that have mitigated his effectiveness from start to start.

Radke- He’s probably killing himself with the Cortisone at this point. His arm is like a wet noodle floating around in a Spaghetti-O of a shoulder. We can only hope that he lives through the season with all of his appendages, forget about on-field contributions.

Silva- Exceptionally unique players are usually either remarkably good or flukishly anomalous. Silva’s 2005 fits into the latter category. Simple observation would confirm that he is not physically superior to other hurlers who fail to miss bats, and now the statistics agree, as even his strong spell in early August was constantly shaky.

Lohse- Maybe Krivsky’s thinking was that if he picked up enough ex-Twins, at least one would pan out and he could take credit for the scouting. Mays, Castro, and Guardado have been less than stellar, so Lohse’s success may be that redeeming grace.

Baker- Great minor league stats almost always predict major league success. Not for Baker, who keeps yo-yoing between the majors and minors with good starts in the minors and terrible ones in the majors.

Liriano, Bonser, and Garza have been the primary reinforcements, with varying degrees of success. Bonser, especially, seems to be growing into his starting pitching role, looking better in every successive start. Radke’s recent added injury makes Liriano’s return even more imperative.

Another interesting happening in the National League: the Dodgers’ James Loney hit his 5^th triple of the season in only 70 at-bats. A triple every twelve at-bats is a big number for a prime Christian Guzman, or Ty Cobb, and Loney is a first baseman. He is no snail- he ran out 12 triples in four minor league seasons-, though five triples in a few weeks is a crazy stat.

Finally, Barry Bonds picked a pretty good time to start being Barry Bonds again. Although his knees and back may be as temperamental as he is at this point, he is hitting .567/.658/1.000 for the last ten games, helping bring the Giants into the Wild Card race. The team does not have a lot around Bonds, since wasting draft picks on free agent signings like Mike Matheny has left them old, slow, and thin. Nonetheless, if there is one player in the game who can make up for a shoddy supporting cast for a week or two, I will still go with Barry. At two games out of the playoffs, the Playoff Odds Report pegs the Giants as having a 12% shot at the postseason, but the possibility of watching Bonds play meaningful games before walking away is as compelling for the competitive aspect as it is for the walking away aspect.