With the losses of Mizzou and West Virginia last night, Ohio State is going to be playing for the national title, 3 weeks after our hopes seemed all but dashed after losing to the Illini. Right? WRONG!! It was all a conspiracy!! In this season of upsets, Ohio State just wanted to throw a little drama into the picture as well, and help increase the ratings. Thanks to our loss, LSU, Oregon, Kansas, Oklahoma, Mizzou, and West Virginia were all ranked ahead of Ohio State. We members of Buckeye Nation did not give up hope. Because we needed everyone ahead of us to lose for us to have a shot to play for the title, we watched them play with great interest. Doing so increased ratings. Had we gone undefeated, Buckeye Nation wouldn’t be watching these games because we’d know where we were playing. Ohio State was simply working with the networks to throw some spice into the picture and increase the TV ratings.

With the latest polls, following their destruction of Kent State on the heels of wins vs. Youngstown State, Akron, Washington State, Northwestern, Minnesota, and Purdue Ohio State is #1 in both. The Buckeyes are 7-0, and got 5 games left. The next 5 weeks, they have Michigan State, at Penn State, Wisconsin, Illinois, and at Michigan for the 104th edition of THE GAME. Not only are we are going to run the table, We’re going to destroy Michigan State, and invade Happy Valley, and pump the Badgers guts full of lead, and PULVERIZE the Illini, and kill Michigan, and then we’re going to go New Orleans to WIN THE NATIONAL TITLE!! Yeaararh!!!

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BUCKEYES!! O-H…I-O!!

With Octoberquest complete and baseball’s playoffs underway, the new magic number for 8 teams is 11. The Cubs are one of those teams. I’m really feeling it this year. So many things have happened since 2003, I really feel it. The Red Sox broke their misery in 2004. The White Sox broke their misery in 2005, leaving the Cubs as the only miserable team in baseball. Furthermore, the White Sox beat us to it in our city. Top it off with the fact that our next biggest enemies following the White Sox, the Cardinals, won it all in 2006.

This year, with the Cubs making the playoffs, all 5 of my teams did good this year. My Buckeyes made it to the national title game in both football and basketball only to lose to Florida in both. The Bears made it to the Super Bowl, only to lose thanks to Grossman. The Bulls made the playoffs only to get bounced in the 2nd round by the Pistons. How much more suffering am I supposed to take?

A few ominous signs this year have also given me an optimistic look. In June, Sam Zell’s attempted to screw the Cubs by vetoing the deal for Jacque Jones because he didn’t want to put more debt on the new owners tab, when this would have taken $600,000 off. Ever since the Cubs failed to trade the Frenchman, he has been a big part of the playoff run. Until September, the Cubs had never won a game with me in attendance. That all changed on September 5th, when they finally won with me in attendance. Last week, San Diego Padres outfielder Milton Bradley got into an argument with an umpire. It led to a full-blown confrontation, with Padres manager Bud Black needing to restrain Bradley. In a very Cubs-esque moment, Bradley tore his ACL when his manager spun him to the ground in an attempt to restrain him. Another sign: The crew chief of that umpiring crew that angered Bradley was an old friend of the Cubs, Bruce Froemming, he who has been screwing the Cubs for 35 years and is retiring after this year. You see, ever since he became an umpire in 1972, he has been making life hell for the Cubs. He ruined Milt Pappas’ perfect game that year. Pappas had retired the first 26 batters, and had a 2-2 count on the 27th hitter. The next 2 pitches were extremely close, but Bruce called them both balls, ruining the perfect game. Ever since then, he has always made sure to make calls to screw the Cubs. Seeing him screw someone else, that is a sign.

I take all these events as a sign that the external forces are weakening and this is the year it’s gonna happen. Next year is here!! Go, Cubs, Go

Last Friday, I was at the Cubs game. I saw more Hawkeye fans than I saw Cubs fans at the game. Not knowing why, I asked someone what was up with all the Hawkeye gear. He told me that they were going to be playing the Northern Illinois Huskies at Soldier Field on Saturday. I thought to myself, ok. That’s just dumb wearing your Hawkeye gear at a Cubs game. First of all, you should never cross sports gear and wear something from one team at another event, unless you’re in Chicago and going to the enemy ballpark and want to mask the fact you’re fan of the other team in town. Secondly, why would you wear your gear the day before the game and get it dirty? It makes no sense.

On to the game now. The Hawkeye fans were crazy the entire game. Starting up their gay LET’S GO HAWKS chants the entire game. Luckily, I was sitting next to an OSU fan so we started up on O-S-U chant. Of course, the gay Hawkeye drowned us out. On the train all weekend, Hawkeye fans kept gloating about how great they are. Get a grip Hawkeye fans: You guys aren’t that great. Your schedule is a joke. You miss BOTH Michigan and Ohio State. Quit acting like your program is so great, because guess what: It isn’t.

You fans act like us Ohio State fans. I got news for you: We can act that way b/c we are better than you. We may have gotten a beating from Florida, but hey, at least we made it to the title game. I never knew how bad Hawkeye fans were.

ESPN stands for East coaSt PuNks. The description on my idiot box of SportsCenter states the following: An Emmy-winning daily scrapbook of homers, slam dunks, and touchdowns. I think it’s more like this (in no particular order):

Baseball: Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, Jeter, A-Rod, Papi, Manny, Beltran

Football: T.O., T.O., T.O., T.O., T.O., T.O., Patriots, Brady, Belichick, G-Men, Tiki, Strahan, Jets, Pennington, Philly, McNabb, Vick, Big Ben, T.O., T.O., T.O., T.O., T.O., T.O., T.O., T.O. The ought to just play the dam the TO song

Basketball: Knicks, Sixers, Iverson, Shaq, Wade, Kobe, LeBron, Melo, Carter, Duncan, KG, state of the Knicks, T-Mac

College Basketball: Duke, UNC. Nothing else

College Football: Florida State, Thug U, Notre Dame, USC, Texas, SEC. They don’t even discuss Michigan-OSU. It’s only America’s # 1 rivalry

Why can’t they cover the Cubs, Bulls, Bears, and Buckeyes more??