Banjo Concert

Cue the tympani. The regular baseball season came to a crashing crescendo night before last. The symphony played in parks under the stars soared to a final note almost simultaneously. No sooner had Carl Crawford failed to snag a sinking line drive in Baltimore than Evan Longoria launched a game-winning shot in Tampa Bay.

Have Boston fans started grumbling that Yankees manager Joe Girardi doomed their wicked awesome team by not inserting savior Mariano Rivera on the hill? If so, they haven’t read the script. The put-upon Sawks thought that their legacy of heartbreak had been repudiated in 2004. But no! The bloody ankles and tomahawk choppers join the 1951 Dodgers, the 1964 Phillies, the 1969 Cubs and the Metropolitans (pick a year) in the line of folding furniture that litters the baseball firmament like the empty collapsible chairs at the end of a wedding reception as the band is packing up to go.

What’s more remarkable is that even though our beloved St. Louie ball club managed to catch and surpass the lost continent of Atlantans, we identify more with the losers than the odds-beating winners. Just as we always felt sorry for the hare in Aesop’s fable. To have everything going for you and still come up short must mean there is more going on in the cosmos than simpletons like homo sapiens can fathom. The mills of the gods grind exceedingly slow but very fine.

How else to explain the heroics of light-hitting Dan Johnson. Why, the fellow doesn’t even qualify as wielding a banjo at the plate. Nevertheless, down to the last strike for the Rays, Johnson smote the spheroid out of the Trop to set up teammate Longoria’s long ball in extra innings.

How many extra innings and two-strike, two-out hits do we have left in our banjoes? All death is sudden, not just in the NFL.

Here’s our World Series pick: St. Louis vs. Detroit in a replay of 1968. Cardinals win it this time in seven games. For entertainment purposes only, 100 pujols on the Redbirds at 15 to 1.

The Inner Child

We are a bit late with our picks this week due to inner, er I mean internet outage (Jungian slip). But here goes this Saturday's America (all picks made before noon EDT for entertainment purposes only):

Arkansas +12 over Alabama (Tramain Thomas and Hogs’ defense comes of age as Tide rolls – over)

Georgia Tech -7 over North Carolina (Ramblin’ Wreck’s triple option and big-play passing game leaves Heels stuck in the tar)

Pittsburgh +7 over Notre Dame (Panthers, in home lair, pounce on lackadaisical Leprechauns)

Vanderbilt +15 ½ over South Carolina (Commodores rule the roost over ‘Cocks sans spurs)

San Diego State +10 over Michigan (Aztecs exact Montezuma’s revenge by sacrificing virgin Wolverines to appease football gods)

We went 4-2 last week with our bonus play on Oklahoma gave us a big boost, bringing our skins on the wall to plus 640 for the young college season. This emboldens us to sling 500 frisbees on each contest, so we are getting our Labrador retrievers in shape and have them looking sharp in de rigeur bandanas.

Stoops to Conquer

Mediocrity is our calling, which is more than we can say for the great American job machine. Zero net jobs were created last month. We stand at 5-4-1 for the college football season after going 2-2-1 last week, bringing our entertainment units to plus 60 pigskins

Let’s jumpstart the economic engine this week with 100 Nike swooshes each on:

Vanderbilt +2 over Ole Miss (the Plutocratic Commodores are 2-0 and will spank the Dixiecrats at home).

Navy +16 over South Carolina (Midshipmen firing broadsides from triple option will cover against Game Hens)

Northwestern -5 ½ over Army (Black Knights of the Hudson mere yeomen against Evanstonian Smarty Pants)

Maryland -1 over West Virginia (Reminiscent of a Picasso, new Terp uniforms bedazzle quaint mountain folk)

Duke +7 over Boston College (Cerulean Satans to bedevil Eagle Exorcists)

The big game, of course, pits the Athens of the Plains Sooners against the left-behind Seminoles (one of the five civilized tribes of Indian Territory). Our bonus pick is OU -3 over Florida State. 500 schooners on this one. Landry Jones outduels E.J. Manuel. Bob Stoops outsmarts brother Mark on the sidelines because Bob has better players.

For Old Alma Mater

After a week of writing poetry in iambic pentameter, shooting skeet and calculating the expected risk-adjusted return for every stock in the S&P 500, this week’s picks among the Renaissance men in pads, for entertainment purposes only, are:

BYU +7 over Texas (Texas covered by just ½ point over Rice last week)

Penn State +10 over Alabama (battle of two two-quarterback systems)

Stanford -20 ½ over Duke (Andrew Luck and his Palo Alto palominos too much for tobacco heiresses)

Georgia +3 over South Carolina (Desperate Dawgs save Richt’s job)

Nevada +26 ½ over Oregon (Even without Kaepernick loading the pistol formation, Chris Ault’s Wolfpack covers easily)

100 ephemeral euros each.

We were 3-2 last week, which netted the kitty 80 meows.

Note: We ended the baseball season, netting 2,600 horsehides.

O Come All Ye Faithful

College football, the holiest of seasons, gets underway in earnest today. We have spent the evening in chapel and have emerged with these divinely inspired picks. 100 units on each, for entertainment purposes only:

Northwestern +4 ½ over Boston College

South Florida +10 over Notre Dame

Oregon -3 ½ over LSU

Rice +24 ½ over Texas

Boise State -3 over Georgia

Pick for BCS Championship game: Oklahoma vs. Arkansas

Adeste Fideles!