Over the weekend recap

It’s all moving quickly now, so let’s take a quick review.

Dilettante Family Football was a decidedly mixed bag over the weekend. Both the mighty Xavier Hawks and the redoubtable Washburn Millers were unceremoniously dumped in their respect state high school playoffs, with the Hawks getting a 41-7 dismissal by Wrightstown and the Millers falling to Holy Angels, 21-14. So it goes, I guess. Meanwhile, as expected, the Beloit Buccaneers suffered a 37-7 thrashing at the hands of St. Norbert, while the Badgers escaped with a 30-24 win over upset-minded Illinois. Meanwhile, the Packers continued their convalescence in style, scoring an easy 31-14 win over the eternally hapless Arizona Cardinals. Denny Green’s Desert Redbirds are who we thought they were – a very poor team.

It’s status quo on the election front with only 8 days left. Karl Rove is confident and everyone else is confident that Karl Rove is wrong. So, who do you believe?

I caught a little of the latest appearance of Bill O’Reilly on David Letterman’s show on Friday night. The last time O’Reilly was on, he got his butt handed to him, but not this time. Letterman seemed cranky and out of sorts, unable to answer the questions that O’Reilly posed about the war and his understanding of things. One of the biggest problems that a lot of lefties (and Dave, God love him, is a lefty) have is that they aren’t used to being challenged on their beliefs. Most of what passes for good conversation in a cocktail party doesn’t necessarily hold up under scrutiny. When Letterman said “you’re putting words in my mouth, just like you put artificial facts in your head” to O’Reilly, you could tell that Dave didn’t have an answer and you got a glimpse of the intellectual laziness involved. Bill O’Reilly has, for better or worse, thought hard about a lot of topics. While a wise ruler keeps a jester around, the jester is usually not put in charge of foreign policy. We got an excellent glimpse of why on Friday night.

The Cardinals finished off the Tigers with relative ease on Friday night, too, adding an appropriate end to a strange but wondrous baseball season. The Cardinals really struggled down the stretch, almost missing out of the playoffs entirely with an 83-79 record. But they got hot in the playoffs and dispatched the Padres, Mets and Tigers. Tony LaRussa’s squad hit well, pitched great and gave the world a great role model in David Eckstein, the Series MVP. Eckstein is a tiny fellow, but he is a gamer. I have been involved in coaching Little League baseball ever since my son started playing and all the coaches who have been stressing fundamentals and how talent alone will not get you there now have Exhibit A, driving around in a brand new yellow Corvette (the MVP prize Eckstein received).