I've made you guys sit through

.... back-to-back NFL Preview blogs, so I feel an obligation to throw you all a bone with one of my more traditional filings. Today I'm going to throw out a few links, bore everyone with more NL East talk, give you guys a Saturday college football fade, and force out a few blurgbs about Jorgen and Jeff, even though I have absolutely nothing to say about either of them:

* The Mets currently have a 1 game lead over the Phillies in the NL East, with Philadelphia playing the Cubs at Wrigley Field as I blog. Earlier in the week, the Mets and Those Fightins' engaged in a crucial 2 game series at the glorified Little League field known as Citizens Bank Park. The Mets were up 7-nil in the first game on Tuesday but completely collapsed and lost to those scrappy Phils, 8-7, in 13 innings. The Mets were up 7-6 in the bottom of the 9th with 2 out and nobody on base. And they lost. A few weeks ago, when the two teams met in New York, the Mets were up 5-2 in the bottom of the 8th, and still up 5-4 headed to the 9th. They lost. In another game between these two clubs at Shea Stadium, the Mets were up 10-1, and allowed the Phillies to come all the way back before holding on to win 10-9.

Yeah, I really don't know why I blame the bullpen, Ed. It's hard to figure that one out. Oh, I know: Maybe it's because the Mets bullpen gargles my balls. The best (only) way for the Mets to gain ground in this race is to be idle on a day when the Phillies are playing.

Before we move off all this Mets-Phillies nonsense, I just want to point out that Ryan Howard homered in BOTH games of that crucial two game set and is still the NL leader in both home runs and RBI. Maybe someday the Phillies fans will stop whining and booing long enough to cheer one of his moonshots as it soars into the stands.

* Believe it or not, I actually have some more Philadelphia sports fans talk. I was on ESPN.com today and they had an article ranking every NFL fan base from 1-32. Aside from my annoyance over the Steelers being ranked #1, I have a few comments about this list:

1. How the hell can you rank the Eagles over the Redskins? All Eagles fans do is boo and complain about their team. Their fans suck. Meanwhile, all the Redskins fans do is show up and support their team. We have the longest consecutive sellout streak in the NFL and have a season ticket waiting list so long that the number looks like it must be a typo. Seriously, it's been almost 40 years since a Redskins home game was not a sell out, even though we've only had one home playoff game since 1992. (It was a wild card game against the Lions and it was awesome.) In spite of the team's lack of success over the past 15 years, there's still 200,000 people waiting to get in the door. And we get beaten out by the whiny Eagles? Come on....

2. Dallas's fan base is ranked way, way too high at #12. Reverse their record last season and see how many "Fans" they really have.

3. The Lions at #31 seems really low. It's not their fault that Matt Millen is completely incompetent. Didn't they even stage walk outs in an effort to get Millen fired? That alone should get them ahead of the Dolphins or Falcons.

* If I'm not on top of my game today, there's a good reason for it: I'm watching Sprint Cup practice right now. To my untrained eye, Carl Edwards looks real good in his Aflac Ford Fusion. The 48 car looks good, too, but I wouldn't ever count out Kyle Busch and the 18 team. Speaking of NASCAR, I'd like to go into greater detail breaking down the....


Wait, Chris. Why are you standing on your chair?


What's with all that rope?


Dude, what are you doing?


Is that a noose?!?


Stop!


Okay, okay. I'll talk about something else. Just sit down, man.


* Did you guys hear about this kid, Jericho Scott, who was banned from playing Little League baseball for being too good? Something like that could only happen in the North, where delicate people like Ed grew up. In the South, we would have just let the kid keep pitching and go on embarassing everyone until finally some jerk kid hit like me him with a pitch while he was batting. Perhaps young Jericho should try out for the Mets. They could use a decent arm in the pen.

* Speaking of kids games, I hear that Jorgen and the Iowa State gang played a mean game of capture the flag while they were in Lake Fondue. I remember the last time I played capture the flag. I got together with all my buddies and we had a blast. I can remember stealing the other team's flag and pitching it off to my friend just before I got tagged and watching as he ran past the line giving us the victory. We all high fived and taunted the other team. It was great.


The year was 1991.


I was 8.


Wasn't recess great?


* Or is it just too unbelievable that I would have memories of when I was 8? A certain SuperBook employee, a manager type, just cannot believe that I remember watching Super Bowl XXVI in January of 1992. I was 8 years old at the time and I watched the game with my father. I can remember going to the NFC Divisional Playoff game a few weeks earlier, when the Redskins beat Deion Sanders and the Falcons. At the conclusion of the game, all the fans threw their give away seat cushions onto the field. How could I not remember that? I was 8 years old.

Ed, if it makes you feel any better, I turned 9 two months after that game. Do you remember the Eagles-Patriots Super Bowl? I know it was a long time ago. The Patriots won, 24-21. And T.O. played well fighting through a (fake) injury.

* I'm sorry, guys. I really don't have anything on Jeff right now. Hold on, I'll try to force something out about him taking an Italian class. Let's see here....

- Hey, Jeff: Doesn't your new phone have a English to Italian translator on it?

- Or, hey bro if you want to meet Italian girls, shouldn't you be in a French class? The Italian girls already know how to speak their language, dude.

- Hey, Jeff: Are you going to show off your IPhone to the teacher during your first break?

- I heard Jeff left his phone on the highest volume during the first class hoping that someone would call him and he'd have to pull it out to shut it off and every person in the class would see that he had an IPhone.

- Wouldn't Jeff be better off taking an ebonics class?



.............





Way, way too far, huh?

It doesn't matter. He's too busy to read this slop anyway.


* What does a movie ticket cost these days? Like 10 bucks, right? I would literally pay 10 bucks to NOT see Disaster Movie.

* Oh, you guys probably want my Saturday college football release (fade), right? I played Missouri -8 over Illinois. That's all I have for this weekend.... for now. I'll post my full card of plays (losers) in tomorrow's blog.

* But before I go, I have one more link/joke to throw out there. Ed seemed perturbed (Borrowed that one from Jeff) the other day because in his mind I had made fun of everyone but Matt in a recent blog. Let's rememdy that with this link: Kitchen Krapz. The funniest part to me (Besides the fact that Matt can't stop giggling over how funny he is) are the comments at the bottom. For the record, Metcalf gets my vote as the most "College" kid I have ever known.


Trivia Question for Friday: Who was the first player in Houston Texans franchise history?

Cortes is cleaning up in the trivia section. Can anyone keep up with that guy?



What does it say about me that I'm more excited for Sunday's Pepsi 500 than I am for the first weekend of college football?


I wasn't asking you, Bennett.




Enjoy the game.