Also working against climate change, I read.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Reagan-s-longtime-secretary-of-state-George-P-15931694.php

Makes Trmp’s lot look really bad.

True.

Interesting stat for the analytics freaks in the neighborhood. Mahomes ran 495 yards while being chased, possibly the all-time record for this stat (which is only about 5 years old).

No. I am quite serious.

I guess they use computers or lasers or something to track how far quarterbacks run with The Boy Named Suh and Firecracker JPP chasing them with bad intent. But track them they do.

The lead headline on today’s BoGlo was one for the ages: “Tom Brady Completes Revenge Tour For The Ages With No. 7”. The lede is even spicier/saltier. If you can slip around the paywall it’s at this link: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/02/08/sports/tom-brady-completes-revenge-tour-ages-with-no-7/ Shaughnessy had fun writing this one.

FWIW, my Stillers will get their #7 before Cheatin’ Bill and his Cheatertown Cheaters.

As many commenters have pointed out, the fault behind Brady leaving is one shared between Cheatin’ Bill and Kraft. At any time, Kraft could have told Cheatin’ Bill that, no, we are not going to trade Brady or no, we are not going to let like-another-son-to-me-Tommy walk away. He didn’t. It’s just, as Shaughnessy noted, that when there’s credit to be bestowed Kraft is sure to be at the head of the line and when there’s blame to be spread, he’s nowhere in sight. It’s what Kraft is.

Now that Cheatin’ Bill has turned a championship team into a 7-9 team that didn’t make the playoffs and Brady has turned a 7-9 team that didn’t make the playoffs into a championship team, expect a very cold, raw wind to blow in Nantucket and Foxborough. All winter long. The Boston sports media are nothing if not vicious, and they’ve been honing their tomahawks for a long time, waiting and gathering wool.

In other news, it’s looking like the Iggles will trade Carson Wentz to da Bearss, getting in return a running back, a first one year and a third the following, and Nick Foles. Longtime readers of this site will recall, as I do, that I’ve long said the ultimate destiny of the Iggles is tied to Nick Foles. He just keeps coming back (and winning, when he does). Philly Philly. Chip Kelly’s gift that keeps on giving.

Harlan’s play-by-play on the streaker was one for the ages, even if the guy wasn’t really streaking. I mean, he never fully lost his pants. From the videos out there, the streaker actually did a pretty good job of humiliating the one security guard when he broke a tackle near the 40 and the guard wound up ass over teakettle, grinding his nose into the turf. A dozen or so years ago I was at a Phillies game at CBP, an afternoon “Businessman’s Special”, when between innings late some guy decided (doubtless with the help of alcohol) to cross from the left-center bleachers onto the field, leaving his clothing with “friends”. The ensuing hilarity resembled Hollywood’s recreation of the crowd at a cockfight. The Coliseum throngs in “Gladiator” – too tame to be a valid comparison. At the time Deadspin invited stories and comments so on a lark I wrote about 500 words in my best descriptive, creative writing-class style, nonetheless accurate. They put it up, unedited (but with “f’g awesome” staff compliments!) but, sadly, it has been wiped in one or another of their site upgrades. In the mind’s eye of memory, I can still see the meter-maid-uniformed security guard, built like a fireplug, sent out to herd that drunk toward the gate. Taking no guff and poking and swatting his butt with her billyclub, after each swat or stumble the howling masses grew louder with cries for blood or worse.

In other words, typical Philly fan behavior.

I’m just hoping baseball lets fans into the stands and sooner rather than later. (I really need to heckle and hector an ump, if only to get more lung exercise to continue shaking them free of the corona crap I still cough up.) Over the last year we seem to have learned just how important sports are in our lives and national psyche. When Korean baseball came up on ESPN, it didn’t matter that the games started in the wee hours of the morning (or just around midnight on Saturday night, for their Sunday afternoon games). I was enjoying the pace and patter of the announcers from my bed, half awake, just like listening to a transistor radio enroute to falling asleep. The games and schedules and trash talk and announcers and all the rest give us a national rhythm, having on the one hand replaced the old agrarian rhythms of plowing, planting, weeding, harvesting and making it through the winter and on the other melding with school years and summer vacations. Somehow, the NFL managed to muddle through, put through a full schedule and all the playoffs and finish on time. I’d like to think baseball will be able to do likewise. Pitchers and catchers report starting this time next week, so we’ll soon find out.

No one got sick with corona from on-field contact. AFAIK no one on the Dodgers took ill when one player tested positive immediately before the end of the World Series and participated in the celebration.

We need to replace the fear which has gripped us for a year now with measured, prudent caution, a determination to get back to work and normal life, a decent respect for others, politicians relinquishing the power they’ve grabbed on the pretexts of fear and uncertainty, and gratitude for all we’ve been through, events which have shown those who troubled to look just how strong and resilient our character, individually and as a nation, is. It’s been some months already since I first wanted to pop the advertising guru who invented the phrases “in these uncertain times”, “in the current difficulties” and all the other bullshit which they’ve been using to simultaneously scare people and manipulate them to buy whatever crap they’re selling. All times are “uncertain”, every year and every day is “difficult” and you could be hit by a bus today or tomorrow. Or not. As a wise judge once said, not to me: “suck it up, cupcake”.