STICK A FORK IN THE CHISOX, AND CRAIG SAGER'S ONE TO TALK...

Quick thoughts on football south of the border:

• OK, outside of NBC employees and Notre Dame alumni, who was really caught off-guard by the Fighting Irish getting demolished 47-21 by Michigan? Consider that karma for the week before, when coach Charlie Weis' team ran a fake punt when Notre Dame was already ahead by 24 points.
• You can't make this stuff up. The Northern Colorado football team made headlines this week since its punter got stabbed in the leg and the backup punter was arrested in connection. Naturally, it scored its winning touchdown by blocking a punt. If there's any good to come from this strange saga, it's the quote a former teammate offered about the accused, Mitch Cozad: "He's always been different. Not stabbing-people different, but different."
  
  That's an important distinction to keep in mind.
• Best line so far from Deadspin's ongoing Hugh Johnson project: "Just because you can't say it enough: Craig Sager thinks Oregon's uniforms are hideous." (Sager's the guy on TBS who often wears suits that Herb Tarlek on WKRP in Cincinnati wouldn't have been caught dead in. Incredibly, though, he apparently manages to have something relatively tasteful on when being photographed with women of dubious virtue.)
• All-everything wide receiver Steve Smith has been ruled out for the Carolina Panthers' game against my Minnesota Vikings. Of the three of us making NFL picks here, only one took the Vikings.

And from the ball diamond:

• The Chicago White Sox are el finito. They blew a three-run lead in a 7-4 loss to the Oakland A's. Having Frank Thomas help drive the nail in the coffin with a home run against his old team is a real kick in the pants. The loss dropped the White Sox three back of the wild-card leading Twins and five behind the AL Central-leading Tigers, who each won.
• The San Diego Padres are within a half-game of the L.A. Dodgers in the NL West after an 11-2 rout yesterday. Sunday's pitching matchup sees Dodgers righty Derek Lowe (9-4 at home) face San Diego's Chris Young (6-0 on the road). Young has pitched well in his four starts against L.A. this season, holding them to a collective .176 batting average, but has a loss and three no-decisions against them.
• The Toronto Star's Richard Griffin had a column in Saturday's paper saying how Roy Halladay's Cy Young Award chances "are teetering on the edge." Yes, he name-referenced a pro wrestler to make a bad pun to help drive home a point that was pretty obvious almost two weeks ago -- which was when yours truly said Halladay had been knocked out of the race. (In fairness to Griffin, his job presumably involves seeing the players he's writing about... as many folks have kindly pointed out to this author, this isn't anything close to a job. It's a hobby, indulged in by a delusional dreamer.)

Yours truly plans to watch as little sports as possible on Sunday as penance for the descent into jackassery and obsessive nerdishness. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.