Four Unrelated Items Today …

Sometimes, the world of sports intersects with the world of entertainment.  Today is one of those times – – and I am not going to rant on anything related to Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.  It seems that the movie industry has a project underway to produce a biopic of John Madden; the producer for the film is David O. Russell.  Madden is sufficiently “larger than life” to give this movie a chance of being good.  Russell announced that he had reached an agreement with Nicolas Cage to play the part of John Madden.

Say what?  Unless they put Cage in a “fat suit” or unless Cage sets about to gain at least 100 pounds, there will be some sort of credibility issue there.  In fact, Nicolas Cage would be a perfect body type to play Al Davis in the movie if he would agree to wear dark glasses and some of the most hideous jumpsuits ever made as costumes in the film.  When I think of someone playing John Madden, my mind wanders toward some actors who would need to be exhumed to play the role such as:

• John Candy
• Charles Laughton
• Orson Welles

The best I can come up with in terms of actors still vertical and taking nourishment is John Goodman or perhaps Kevin James.  John Madden made several commercials for Miller Lite; seems to me in this biopic he is going to be portrayed as Madden-Lite.

Moving on …  There was a report last week that Michigan had invited Jim Harbaugh to be an honorary captain for the first home football game in Ann Arbor.  About a day later, Harbaugh announced that he would not be doing that.  I don’t know who had the idea to invite Harbaugh in the first place but that was a bad idea.  I don’t care if you think Harbaugh was railroaded by the NCAA in terms of violations and sanctions or if you think he is being used by the NCAA as a scapegoat for their inability to govern the games they are supposed to govern.  In any case, Harbaugh’s presence as an honorary captain at the game could not do much more than to flick a forming scab off a wound.

Likewise, I don’t know how it came to pass that Jim Harbaugh chose not to take on that role, but that is a much better idea than the original one.

Switching gears …  For the last week or so, the Dublin contingent of the family – – The FOG and his parents – – have been visiting.  My time to research stuff for these rants has been diminished over that time.  So, this next item comes to you from an email I received from Gregg Drinnan, the former sports editor of the Kamloops Daily News.

“Thought you might be interested in a CFL game from Thursday night, Ottawa Redblacks at Calgary Stampeders…

“QB Jeremiah Masoli (Oregon, Mississippi) won his first game in 999 days as Ottawa won, 31-29, on a 51-yard Lewis Ward field goal as time ran out in the fourth quarter. Masoli was 27-of-35 for 254 yards and one TD. That was his first TD pass since July 8, 2022…  He hadn’t played in a game in 404 days. Came back from Achilles tear only to suffer broken leg on July 8, 2023… Dru Brown had been starting for Ottawa, but he now has leg injury of some kind…  Masoli had signed with Ottawa prior to 2022 season after eight seasons in Hamilton…  Ottawa (6-2-1) is 4-0-1 in its last five games. Calgary (4-6-0) had been 4-0 at home (and is 0-5 on the road).”

I had not even checked the CFL scores for that week let alone come across any part of that storyline; so, thanks to Gregg Drinnan for that.

Next up …  In English soccer, I have mentioned Luton Town FC before as an interesting story.  At one point they were so disorganized and unsuccessful that the team was relegated out of the lowest tier of professional football in England, but they righted the ship and actually clawed their way back to the Premier League last season.  It was only a cameo appearance for Luton Town as they were relegated to the EFL Championship level at the end of the season.

The 2024/2025 season has begun in England; Luton Town has played two games in the Championship and has one draw and one loss.  But that is not nearly as interesting as what happened to the Luton Town goalkeeper in a game against Portsmouth.

• In the 29^th minute, keeper Thomas Kaminski got a yellow card for “time wasting”.
• Two and a half minutes later Kaminski “ventured outside his box making challenges on two Portsmouth players to receive his second yellow” – – and in soccer two yellows equals a red card.  So, the keeper was sent off.
• But a team must have a keeper on the pitch, so that meant that the Luton Town captain, who is also their best striker, had to go off the field and Luton Town had to finish the game playing only 10 players.
• Here is a link to a report at CBSSports.com on this matter.  In that link, you can see video of the keeper “making challenges”.  It looks pretty clear to me that he earned that second yellow card.

Finally, the item about Luton Town above reminded me of my high school gym class.  We were learning about soccer from our teacher who was the soccer coach and as he explained the concept of defense in soccer he said:

“Remember – – behind every goalie in every game is just an empty net.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………