It’s late Sunday/early Monday morning and I can’t rest until I share some thoughts. In other words, time for an installment of Shooting From The Lip, sporting edition.
Bang. You would think the desperate Steelers fans, who were ready to nominate Drew Allar for Hall of Fame induction after a bit of work in his first preaseason game, would be more restrained after he wasn’t stellar in preseason game No. 2. And you would be wrong. Those fans, so desperate to find a Terry Bradshaw II, or Ben Roethlisberger II to quarterback their beloved team, or simply to yank the starting job away from geriatric Aaron Rodgers, went overboard on Allar and can’t be brought back to reality after his latest stumble. Allar is in the honeymoon period with those fans, which will last until he’s been installed as the starter and has a bad half.
Bang. Speaking of delusional fans, it was only about a month ago that rabid Pirates fans were telling me their downtrodden Bucs were a legitimate playoff team if only cheapskate management would get some help at the trade deadline. I wrote in this space then that there was no need to trade for help, say, in the bullpen, because this team has too many holes to plug overall. Well, entering play Monday, despite adding several bullpen arms at or near the trade deadline, the Pirates have faded to 8.5 games out of the third and final wild-card spot in the National League, with four teams between them and that playoff position. That is with just 30 games remaining in their season. If the Pirates somehow could win 20 of those games, a torrid pace, their most-distant opposition would need to win just 12 of 30 games to finish ahead of the Pirates. The Pirates are spotty defensively, have not been getting the starting pitching expected from stars such as Paul Skenes, and are the epitome of feast-or-famine offense. Consider, the Pirates were shut out yet again Sunday. They seem either to score in double figures, or don’t score at all. And the Pirates are a miserable 12-29 this year in games vs. left-handed starting pitchers. Once again, it’s wait until next year, despite yet another offseason pledge by Pirates management ahead of the 2026 season professing a goal of winning and making the playoffs. Period. Full stop.
Bang. I usually find something productive to do whenever the largely uncompetitive, boring IndyCar series is on TV. But today, with the Freedom 250 running through the streets of Washington, D.C., I decided to watch and I was rewarded on many levels. Pre-race flyovers by military aircraft, and an honest to God live bald eagle, were impressive. That the race was won by an American driver, Kyle Kirkwood, was icing on the cake. Also, I was pretty sure the political left would be going stark raving mad on social media over the fact that we were seeing this race celebrating this great land, with President Trump waving the green flag to get it started. I was correct. The Hate-America crowd whined about wasting money better spent feeding the hungry and clothing the poor, or providing student loan forgiveness, or perhaps making more handouts available for illegal immigrants here, or funding boondogle social engineering projects overseas. Let’s face it, Left-tards, if we sent the money to Minnesota, the Somali grifters would just be able to buy more luxury cars. Same if we gave the cash to any number of Left-tard approved non-profit social activist groups. The fact that Left-tards and the politicians they worship write laws to ban grassroots journalists from continuing to uncover the massive fraud tells you where their hearts are. Cry a little louder, Left-tards, I can’t hear you over the noise of those racing engines.
Bang. The latest absurdity for college football is that the Cleveland Browns of the NFL are waiving undrafted free agent tight end Dae’Quan Wright, and if he clears waivers, he has an agreement in place to go back to COLLEGE! That would be LSU. Browns coach Todd Monken captured the spirit of the thing when he asked rhetorically “isn’t this shXt crazy?” Yes it is. So is college players now having the ability to play six seasons and make more money in college due to Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deals than they might make in the pros.
Bang. Is it Penn State, or Iowa State East? New PSU head coach Matt Campbell, late of Iowa State, brought in 39 transfers, including 24 from Iowa State. And still a betting preview story on ESPN, figures the Nittany Lions to top out at nine wins this season. The ESPN preseason power rankings have Penn State No. 15. And I ask, have they looked at the schedule? That Mr. Softy slate begins with Marshall, Temple and Buffalo, not exactly a Murderer’s Row. Notably, the Big Ten portion of the schedule doesn’t include conference heavyweights Ohio State, Oregon or Indiana. Winning just nine games against this dainty schedule would be, shall we say, uninspiring.
Bang. You are forgiven for believing the hapless WNBA has only the Indiana Fever and a rotating cast of teams playing the Fever. That’s the way it seems when you check out televised games. The omnipresence of the Fever on the TV schedule has everything to do with Caitlin Clark, seemingly universally hated within the league for reasons of race and sexual preference. But Clark draws viewers, including more than one million for a game on USA Network. I repeat, USA Network. Clark is the WNBA’s golden (pale white?) goose and the assorted WNBA hatchet people intent on punishing her physically in games ought to reread the golden goose fable to find out how wrong they are.
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