The Daily Dose/December 18, 2018
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
In The News
Instead of enjoying the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division I football playoffs this past weekend, American sports fans were force-fed five bowls games nobody really cared anything about. These games had an average margin of victory of 22 points in stadiums that were a bit more than half full. Maybe 1.5 million – les than one-half of one percent of the country – watched each game. Maybe not.
The players don’t really care, either, as four top professional prospects – Michigan DE Rashan Gary, Houston DT Ed Oliver, LSU DB Greedy Williams, Iowa TE Noah Fant – can’t be bothered to play in their team’s bowl games and you can’t really blame them: if you had a choice between playing in the Tidy Cats Clumping Kitty Litter Bowl and the National Football League, which would you choose? This continues a recent trend and is now expected and really isn’t news anymore. If you think any of these kids would have sat any games in a real playoff, you are deluding yourself.
Had there been an NCAA Division I playoff this year, it could have been a 32-team affair that started on December 1, meaning this past weekend the remaining eight teams would have competed in the quarterfinals and this week we would all be getting worked up over Saturday’s national semifinals.
The national semifinals!!!
But we’re not achieving and maintaining states of arousal over the national semifinals. Instead, we will be force-fed nine more exhibitions this week including games in the Bahamas and Boise, where the game time temperature is expected to be in the mid-40s, which isn’t too bad for Boise this time of year, actually.
Yes, the upcoming four-team Nick Saban Invitational will produce some good football and will generate the ratings and money that will allow everyone to pretend to be interested in the other 37 games. And we’re watching it and talking about which means we will continue to be spoonfed this tripe for the foreseeable future.
We are not demanding better, so we will not receive better. When we stop paying attention to Bean Dip and Crack Whore bowl games, and the current playoff, we’ll get an NCAA Division I playoff. It will become an American classic so quickly every one of us will wonder why we didn’t do this 50 years ago.
Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow is in the papers again, this time in an article about the vacancy on his small town’s council. Plus, there is the latest from around town, including an update on the abandoned coffee shop next door that Devon is turning into a house.
Recall a couple of weeks ago myself and a woman applied for it and we appeared at a council meeting to say howdy and the council was so impressed with us they extended the deadline to apply for the seat by a week…Evidently two more residents put in for it and they will decide who they want at a special meeting Tuesday.
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On This Date
In 1777 – Thanksgiving is celebrated in the United States for the first time, declared by the Continental Congress to commemorate the American’s October victory over the British in the Revolution’s Battle of Saratoga. Previously, the holiday had been celebrated at various times in the 13 original colonies and it was celebrated intermittently in the United States until it was declared a permanent federal holiday by President Lincoln in 1863.
In 1932 – The Chicago Bears defeat the Portsmouth Spartans 9-0 in the first NFL championship game and the first NFL game played indoors. Originally scheduled for Wrigley Field, the weather forced organizers to move the game to Chicago Stadium, then three years old and home to the NHL’s Chicago Black Hawks. The game remains one of the most significant in NFL history as rule modifications like moving the goal post to the goal line and staring each play inside the hash marks and the introduction of a permanent league championship game, were adopted the following season.
In 1961 – The Tokens, a quartet from Brooklyn, are at #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 for the first of three consecutive weeks with The Lion Sleeps Tonight. The song was originally written in the Zulu language in South Africa in the 1930s, recorded by Soloman Linda and titled Mbube. The song would spend three weeks at #1 on the Hot 100 and The Lion Sleeps Tonight remains the Tokens only Top 10 hit. The song charted again in 1972, with Robert John’s version peaking at #3.
Quotebook
It is not the first steps but the last ones that are most difficult.
Jean-Francois Steiner
Treblinka
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
Paul McCartney has hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with five different acts: the Beatles, Wings, and three times as a member of a duet: with Linda McCartney, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson.
Today’s Stumper
The Portsmouth Spartans are now what NFL team? –Answer next time!
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