Sources indicate an important baseball game will be played in Cleveland tonight. Wake me, the No. 1 Los Angeles Dodgers fan, when Los Doyers lead in the 7th inning of a decisive World Series game.
SCAMMERS ABOUND. Folks, scammers have been around since the beginning of time, and they're ingenious in their scumbag ways. This is why I inspect any device into which I stick my debit card. I'll be damned if I let some Russian #teen liquidate my bank account on pornography.
Tickets are a different game, though. Unless aided by a richer or more-connected friend, every ticket in my life I've bought off the street 15 minutes before kickoff.
Remarkably, I've never been scammed (consider it my Marionaire super power if you must). But other people have, and Ohio State football games make a ripe honeypot.
From 10tv.com:
REAL vs FAKE: Check the holograms.Look for holographic strip… but remember even that can be duplicated.
OSU has a ticket exchange that works like Dream Seats and Stub Hub. Ticket holders who can no longer attend the game post tickets and their requested price. The difference from other sites is tickets bought here are guaranteed to get you in the gate.
The university says the games you're most likely to come across bogus tickets are night games and the Michigan game.
(During one game they can see between 300-500+ fake tickets)
"Sorry, son, we won't be seeing the local team today because a Craigslist grifter hustled your old man."
The holograms seem to be the major key. It's the tell in the picture of real versus fake. But would I realize that while making smalltalk with an internet stranger at Panera? Probably not. Please believe I'm getting the license plate of the car he came in or a copy of an I.D. card, though.
GET DUMPED THEN, CHAOS TEAM. Ramzy wrote about the mystique of Indiana losing games it should win and winning games it should lose. It's excellent and you should read it.
It makes Indiana more terrifying than it should be as a team that hasn't won since 1988. Add in its sucker punch of Mike D'antoni, a certified football coach with an electric eel-like mustache, and his Michigan State Spartans, and the Hoosiers are riding as high as they ever have coming into Columbus.
From dispatch.com:
Ohio State’s average margin of victory over Indiana under Meyer is 13.3 points, not bad for a Hoosiers team that hasn’t been ranked since 1994. And fresh off a confidence-building win over the Spartans, Indiana is approaching this game as a solid test for a program that has been under coach Kevin Wilson for six years.
[...]
Indiana's defense has shown great improvement under first-year defensive coordinator Tom Allen, but a common theme among players on both sides of the ball is that belief in the team growing each week.
Quarterback Richard Lagow talked about his growing faith after the Michigan State game, and receiver Mitchell Paige said that listening to coaches and understanding more of the game plan throughout the week has helped the Hoosiers.
RELATED: Another #goodread comes from 11W commenter Buckeye_Wizard and his look at the Hoosiers' highly-touted offensive guard, No. 67 Dan Feeney.
Who knew listening to coaches could improve a football team? Indiana might figure this football thing out after all.
Still think this comes down to Indiana's ability to run the ball. If it can, the game might be interesting. If not, it'll be a Rutgers bloodbath all over again.
WRITE THE CHECK NOW, BROWNIES. With Josh Gordon probably done with the Cleveland Browns, Terrelle Pryor Sr. is unquestionably the Browns' most talented player. Cleveland got him on the cheap this year but only on a one-year deal.
Pryor's play is driving up the price on a brick.
From yahoo.com:
The guy who couldn’t land a minimum contract one year ago could end up being one of the hottest commodities of next offseason – if the Browns let him get that chance. Slated to become a free agent in March, Pryor could very well end up drawing a franchise tag. And if he doesn’t, a league source said the recent deal signed by Los Angeles Rams wideout Tavon Austin ($42 million over four years with more than $25 million guaranteed) would likely be this offseason’s negotiating touchstone.
Pryor's ascendency doesn't shock me nearly as much as the Browns positioned to land him in the first place:
He had plenty of opportunities, too. Beyond landing with five NFL teams – the Raiders, Seattle Seahawks, Kansas City Chiefs, Cincinnati Bengals and Browns – Pryor had high-level workouts for six others, including the Patriots, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Philadelphia Eagles (twice), New York Giants (twice), New York Jets and San Francisco 49ers. Beyond those 11 teams, the Dallas Cowboys, Miami Dolphins and Buffalo Bills all did significant work leading up to the NFL supplemental draft in 2011, each giving serious thought to selecting Pryor that year.
Even Eagles coach Chip Kelly – who seemed to be a natural fit for Pryor’s versatile skills – passed on him after working him out as both a quarterback and a wide receiver. Much to the chagrin of some in the building who thought Pryor was worth a measured gamble.
From The Man to a guy on his last leg back to The Man. Helluva transformation for Pryor. And if he does earn an eight-figure payday soon, his struggles made him a better person than he would've been had he earned it right out of college.
BUCKEYE FAN THANKS NORMAN. A Buckeye fan reached out to Sooner fans to thank them for the hospitality displayed while their town got ransacked.
From normantranscript.com:
I'm not able to speak on behalf of everyone from Buckeye Nation but, I personally can't say enough about the kind and generous hospitality extended to me and my friends during our recent trip to Norman for the Oklahoma versus Ohio State game. Your fans are passionate about their team, demonstrate a depth of knowledge about CFB, and embrace the traditions of our two storied programs with class. Before, during and after the game everyone was kind, gracious, and generous in extending a warm welcome.
In my 40 years as a tOSU season ticket holder, having traveled to over 30 away game venues, I can honestly say that y'all set the bar mighty high. I only hope that Buckeye Nation is able to return the favor in kind when y'all travel to Columbus next fall.
Heard this from everyone who attended. Not worried about the Sooners' return trip either. Columbus is always in a jovial mood when the local team hits a big win.
MILLENNIAL INVASION. Another day, another step closer to Millennials controlling all the important jobs in the world. Today's #WiseMillennial is Scotty Walden, the 26-year-old head coach of East Texas Baptist University.
From vice.com:
It was January 2013, seven months after the day Walden holed himself up in the library. Walden had already established himself as something of a curiosity, although Earglehad not yet heard of him.
Earglehad recently been named head coach of East Texas Baptist University, a Division III school in Marshall, Texas, a town of 25,000 located 45 minutes west of Shreveport, Louisiana. It was his first head-coaching gig, and finding an offensive coordinator was his top priority. A former offensive lineman, Eargle didn't care much about scheme beyond wanting to establish the run game. He just knew he wanted to score points, lots of them, and so he turned to the resource with all the answers: Google.
The query was simple. Which school had the best offense across any level of NCAA football? His eyebrows shot up when he learned that the answer was Sul Ross State, a rival within ETBU's home American Southwest Conference. Then he dug deeper, and uncovered something he couldn't fathom. Sul Ross' offensive coordinator was a 22-year-old graduate assistant who had just completed his first season of coaching. Walden.
Sounds like we found the heir to "Texas" Tom Herman's MENSA throne.
THOSE WMDs. I covered the Braves for a paper that didn't exist... Tootsie Tomanetz, an 88-year-old legendary BBQ pitmaster... Seeking to connect all 352 Hall of Famers with a single baseball... How to close your Yahoo! account... Cod have regional accents, recordings reveal.
