Fall Classic is set, at least half of it is, this morning. The Girls are happy for the Phillies and think they were the best team in the NLCS. But we do feel for Joe Torre - having to deal with Manny and losing in 5 to a team that just bludgeoned them with offense. The swan song was not to be.

Hurry up, Yankees/Angels…so we can wait a week for the World Series to begin!

Episode 188

Olympic Gang Warfare, Blind Referees and NFL Road Trips With The Girls!

Today the Girls are coming to you live from RIO! It’s a war zone out here and we’ll do our best to get to the synchronized swimming and beach volleyball events without being kidnapped, sold into slavery or otherwise caught in the crossfire. Seriously, since when does the IOC anoint ‘one of the world’s most dangerous cities’ as the host of the Olympic Games? I guess right after they have the Olympics hosted by ‘one of the world’s most polluted cities’ with ‘one of the poorest records of human rights’… At least Rio will get to cut their teeth on crowd management and safety when the World Cup rolls into town in 2014.

MLB playoffs have been amazing: improbable come-from-behind victories, playoff RBI records being broken, power surges, blowouts and tight victories. But nothing has been more stunning in these playoffs to date than the putrid refereeing. When you have the ‘cream of the crop’ in MLB’s reffing corps calling the games, don’t you expect just a little better than THIS?

Or THIS?

There were more bad calls while Manny was in the shower than the whole regular season alone. Ok, perhaps that’s an exaggeration, but it has been awful. The refs need a Pearl Vision moment and MLB needs to look in the mirror, or rather the TV set, and acknowledge what everyone else with cable already knows: that instant-replay will save rather than harm, their sport.

The Girls give big kudos to A-Rod for his production and they razz Steve Phillips, ESPN’s philandering baseball analyst lothario, for his poor, poor taste in women. The blight of the male ‘mind vs. matter’ struggle is a never-ending story with time-tested results, but when it threatens to end a ‘loveless marriage’ we must discuss.

Hey, the Broncos are 6-0. Who would have thought? They should write a book about it: “A Tale of Two Protegees: How Josh McDaniels and Eric Manigini Left Bill Belicheck and the Patriots to Follow Similar Paths With Wildly Varying Results”. But don’t give McDaniels all the props: give that to the Broncos defense, the little train that could. Also last weekend, the Girls bore witness to an ugly Eagles defeat/Raiders win this week, in Oakland. But they did take true pleasure in seeing the long-suffering Raiders Nation fans savoring a victory.

Raiders face the Jets next weekend, with Mark Sanchez giving them every reason to believe they might squeeze out another win. And you know Oakland is salivating for December 13 - when they play the Washington Redskins, punching bag of the NFC East and league at large.

But will they have their 12th man?

The Patriots take to Wembley Stadium to banger and mash the Buccaneers next weekend. Will the score mimic their gaudy 59-0 thrashing against the Titans? Or will the message of ‘parity, grasshopper’ even the playing field across the pond?

Last, but not least, the Girls wonder when YOU said ‘enough is enough’ and turned off the TV.

Photo by Plantraco Microflight

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 9:03 am and is filed under Fantoo Blog Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.