Pick and Choose

The higher power has no power. He is strangely absent from the course of human events. Holy Cow! Perhaps He created us and left us to our own devices, including nuclear power plants, the Declaration of Independence and the National Football League lockout. Not to mention the rise of multi-cellular organisms with the capacity to organize games that defy logic. Why were Colorado, St. Mary’s and Virginia Tech left out of The Dance?

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we ask you what hath God wrought?

But this is all palaver. Baseball is a mere two weeks-plus away, and shorts, golf shirts and no socks are on the horizon.

Our picks are chalk, as they say. Philadelphia from the senior circuit and the New England Patriots, oops, we mean the Beantown bloody ankles from the designated hitter heretic league will appear in the fall classic. Expect Phillies winning it all but winning under 97 games in the regular season. Our beloved Redbirds are doomed without 20-game winner Adam Wainwright. It has been our experience that the team with the better players wins. Jeff Capel, the fired coach of the Crimson and Cream, had Blake Griffin and rode this horse to the elite eight just two years ago.

But meanwhile we have young men in baggy shorts putting us into full March Madness Mode. We are going full unchalk in this one. We see San Diego State defeating Florida in the final. This is a lock, so get in while you can. For entertainment purposes only.

Sports, as they are meant to do, distract us from life as it is. Few of us will hit the three-pointer at the buzzer, or the home run in the bottom of the ninth. Fewer of us will encounter the decision to save the elderly and endanger our own lives. But some do. In this sporting life, we face dilemmas greater than point spreads and over-unders.

By the way, take Gonzaga over St. John’s, hold onto Ford Motor Co., love thy neighbor and don’t practice putting.