NEW YORK, NY – The Rugby World Cup is on, being played through the first days of November in the rugby-mad nation of Japan. 
You should check out what you can in a pub or NBC Sports & NBC Sports Gold. Japan beat Ireland, which is like the the USA beating Russia in hockey in 1980. If you simply roll yours eyes and shrug this off, you’re missing out. While you process that, though, let’s get to today’s headline grabbers: Timely Big Ben, #NaughtyCowboys, Joe Maddon & Jimmy Carter
BEN ROETHLISBERGER: Whether you like him or not or think he should have done jail time for alleged sexual misconduct, you can’t dispute that Big Ben is damn good football player. And he’s a company man for the Pittsburgh Steelers. So there he was Sunday, his first time back on the sidelines after his unfortunate season-ending surgery on that golden arm, supporting his NFL teammates. But it was his other arm that got him in hot water with the LGP (League Greed Police). See, his wife had to help dress him and she put his watch on his left hand. It was a n Apple Watch. Some slithery member of the LGP spotted the watch, told his/her superiors that had slimed up the NFL Greed Ladder and had been nailed with a 5K fine. Big Ben is… wait for it… ticked.
JASON GARRETT – Okay, the contempt here for everything Dallas Cowboys is right up there a similar contempt for the New York Yankees. Seeing either of these storied franchises lose or do something more contemptible than they had the day before is a source of joy in my petty, catty world. Imagine my glee, then, watching Jason “Opie” Garrett get his panties in a bunch and…throwing a flag in something approaching anger. Ooh. He is so butch. If that didn’t make you giggle, Mr. Contemptible (Jerry Jones) further endeared himself to nobody by condemning the ref who penalized Opie-Meets-Archie for a deserved personal foul with this. “Oh, I hope the little darling didn’t hear something he hadn’t heard before.” Don’t worry, Chris Christie was there to give Jerry a hug. #NaughtyCowboys
JOE MADDON – With the MLB playoffs swinging away, featuring my purgatory that is the Yankees beating the Twins in a twisted Groundhog Day fashion, the side stories involved managerial vacancies. Yours truly has made it abundantly clear that Joe Girardi is the ONLY CHOICE. for the Mets and that Buck Showalter (MBL’s Norv Turner) should be banished to Japan or Double A. So that leaves Joe Maddon, right? Please God, let the Angels take him and his “quirk” through the pearly gates of Anaheim so we can forget him and his dopey glasses. He’s a genius, right? Wrong. Tampa Bay is in the playoffs without him and an even smaller budget, relatively, than his Rays had. Further, a loaded Cubs team is sharing Chicago Country Club tee-times with crosstown Chisox players.
But let us not end on a sour note, shan’t we?
JIMMY CARTER – This guy and his wife Rosalynn are two of the classiest people on this planet, ironic for Georgia peanut farmers. At 95, he fell, hit a sharp edge on a cabinet or something at home in Plains, GA. He got 14 stitches. The next day, wearing a Braves hat, he walked on to the stage – with the missus – and thanked everyone for their thoughts but it wasn’t necessary. He and the wife would be helping build twenty new homes in Nashville, as scheduled. The guy makes me almost find the Braves palatable. Almost. No… That’s a lie. But the truth is, politics aside, the Carters are people we could all aspire to be more like.
Speaking of class and lies, come back tomorrow for Bomber Boy, Ben Whitney, who will likely refute all of the above.
