Nothing But Iron: Miller No Magic, Corn Trophy Goes Home, Backfield Half Full September 29, 2007 by Steven R. Lagman, M.D. [Authors note: A reader congratulated me on winning $20,000. In case any of you missed the byline, that was my brother. I am lucky for many reasons, but none of them have to do with gambling.] Unless you live in California, this issue won’t be published in time to read with your morning coffee, but I might get it done in time for your glass of milk or beer, or milk-beer smoothie at lunch. I had intended to write my column on Thursday, but was suffering from a post-night-call hangover that was about as potent as the ethanol-induced hangovers I remember from young adulthood, but without the headache. In fact, I am starting to think it is the sleep deprivation, and not the hydroxylated toxins that cause the morning-after impairment. The alternative theory is that I am getting too old to work at night. Consequently I was too dazed and confused on my day off for any meaningful intellectual pursuit–which we all know sportswriting is–so I instead I watered two pots of end-stage basil, harvested tomatoes, cut dahlias for husband-point garnering flower arrangements and photographed my injured son’s teammates in a freshman football game. I used my BIG (really big) lens at the football game, which allows me to get close to the action without risking arrest or severe injury. The other benefit of the big lens is that people who don’t know me think I am a professional photographer. Size really does matter. Often I get asked who I am shooting for. Sometimes I say Sports Illustrated, sometimes ESPN The Magazine. Leaves them wide-eyed every time. O.K., I don’t really lie like that. But I could. Last weekend was a big one for Wisconsin sports. The Brewers were still within striking distance of being the team not to lose the NL Central. The division-leading Cubs were losing enough to keep it interesting. I know none of that matters now, as the Cubs, with unprecidented generosity from their rivals to the north, clinched first place last night, but before we get too whiney, we might want to think back to the last time the Brewers had a meaningful game late in September. How long ago was that? That was before I was a sportswriter and even before I was a doctor. That was so long ago that I was actually a baseball fan. Incidentally, here his my answer to Ned Yost’s and Tony La Russa’s decisions or not decisions (yeah, right) to throw at Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder respectively: It is wrong at any level to intentionally hit a batter. At the MLB level it is nothing short of criminal. How would the critics responded if either batter had been killed or blinded? Even though I am not a fan, I have long considered baseball, in contrast to boxing and dog fighting, one of the more civilized sports. Now I wonder. While the Brewers in the playoffs would have made a good story, the one that played out is fine too: Losers LaRussa and Yost both got what all losers deserve–the opportunity to watch their competitors play on. Moreover, as an impartial observer, I would say that Yost’s job is on the line despite a break-out season for his team. There were far too many missed opportunities to escape serious scrutiny. Rightly or wrongly, that always comes back to leadership. On to more meaningful Wisconsin sports talk . . . What a game with the Hawkeyes! I know that some of you viewed it as yet another struggle with yet another team unworthy of struggle. I know that some of you are also spoiled greedy morons, and I am fascinated that there might be scientific correlation between the two. That hypothesis started with the so-called fan behind me who proclaimed in his out-loud voice, no fewer than six times, that "Tyler Donovan has no confidence ever since that fumble." If you are ever in the mood to be punched in the face, approach me from behind and utter the words "no confidence". The resultant retaliation will be beyond my control. I will plead reflex arc, which will turn out to be the insanity plea of the next decade. As the game went on No Confidence Man started yelling "Run the ball!" after every incomplete pass. Before long he would simply yell–and I do mean yell–"Nooooooo!" whenever Donovan would drop back in the pocket, including a most-noteworthy protest just before Travis Beckum caught a touchdown pass. Fortunately for any of you who are fond of reading my columns, which could not probably be published from prison, Kelly was there to keep me a member of the non-violent class. She only had to give me the Steve-don’t-do-it look twice for me to get the message. No Confidence Man was gentle compared to a Donovan basher who we heard on the radio after the game. This guy was simply psychotic. He opened with a comment about Darwinism and added, "How many times is Donovan going to row a leaky boat into the middle of the lake and put duct tape over the hole?" I felt like I was entering the flippin’ Twighlight Zone. What scares me is not interceptions fumbles or incomplete passes, but the fact that Duct Tape Darwin Man is out there somewhere, probably unmedicated, probably unsupervised. I have seen a lot of quarterbacks in my day, and I will go on record as saying Donovan is a good one. He has good vision. A good arm. He’s smart, mobile, competitive and most of all, he is confident. If it turns out I am wrong about any of these assessments, I will, armed only with a roll of duct tape, row a leaky boat out into the middle of Lake Mendota. The good news is that the two morons were not at all representative of the crowd as a whole. It was one of the most festive, most positive and most ear-drum-bustingly loud crowds have has seen in Camp Randall Stadium. Even the people in our usually-sedate section C were standing and cheering on the defensive third downs. That warmed my heart to the point I thought it might melt. Iowa was good. What happened at Iowa State (What happens in Ames, Stays in Ames) the week before, or what happened to Iowa State before that is less material than we think. I am basing my observations on the Iowa-Wisconsin game only on what I observed. How about that for an innovation in sports opinionism? Wisconsin was good too. I found the intensity of the battle to be thoroughly entertaining, like it has been in other games this season. There is too much to appreciate about a team that can come from behind to lament that it was ever behind in the first place. All successful Wisconsin teams have been capable a managing deficits. Do we really forget that you only have to be ahead at the end? Yes the Badgers have room to grow. Yes their imperfections may even cause them to lose someday. But I am still glad enough to have them as my team that I will surely get over it. Michigan State, the Big Ten’s former perennial underachiever, is sure to keep the streak of challenging games alive when the Spartans enter the Camp today. I know this because my Iowa friend Brent Feller, who is almost as sports knowledgeable as my wife, had this to say: Under new head coach Mark Dantonio, "Michigan State is going to be very good, very soon." I look forward to seeing the Badgers be challenged again today. Sunday’s game at Green Bay was the icing on the cake. On second thought, I think Sunday’s game was the cake. Brent and his wife Ellen, who was attending her first NFL game, were guests of Kelly and me at Lambeau Field. It was just about the most fun I have had in a regular season game there. It was the first time I had been in the stands for a Packers victory in over two years. The more I watched, the more I came to the same conclusion: The Packers are good. Not great just yet, but good enough that greatness is no longer a silly concept. It was a stark contrast to see how well Green Bay’s defense controlled true MVP LaDainian Tomlinson, when just a year ago, the Packers made so many lesser players, for example, Rex Grossman, look like MVPs. As for the running game, well, who needs it? I thought it a case of brilliant outside-the-box thinking to go with the empty back field. I guess you can’t stop the run if there ain’t one. For defenses sworn, as most probably are, to a stop-the-run-first oath, that game plan could be confounding, as it seemed to be for the Chargers. Said another way, the Packers were not only managing weakness, they were optimizing strength. I even support the much-maligned empty backfield goal-line failure, at least in a big picture sense. Think about it. Had the Packers scored on that possession, as everyone says the should have, the clock now favors San Diego to finish on a game-winning drive. Timing is everything. With just over four minutes left, and the Packers having failed to get the go-ahead score, Kelly turned to me and said, "We should really go." At first I thought she was joking, so I laughed, because that’s what you do when someone tells a joke. Then they laugh back so you know that it really was a joke. But she didn’t laugh. She meant it, out of consideration for our Iowan guests, who not only had to get back to Madison, but faced another three-hour leg to Cedar Rapids. Getting stuck in traffic would add an hour to the trip, and Kelly reasoned we should avoid it. She also figured this would be a vintage 2006 home-field disadvantage finish and we would miss nothing more than another disappointment. Not that I have veto power, but I politely declined. Our guests nodded in agreement, and we watched on. At no point afterward was I criticized for the decision. In fact, for a few hours I was granted savant status. We did leave with a minute remaining, just after the Nick Barnett interception, so when all was done, we had our cake, our icing, ate it too, we beat the traffic and Brent took the Corn Trophy home for another year. The next test in this young Packers season will be to beat a team that by all estimates should be beatable. Enter the Minnesota Vikings in their echolalic Metrodome. As one radio guy pointed out, the timing of this game is unfavorable: coming off a big win, a week before the Bears come to town. No matter the Packers ultimate destiny, I now have more faith in the possibilities than I have since the Super Bowl years of a millennium past. My warm-blooded brothers and nephew Elliot are coming for the Packers-Bears game. It will start next Friday evening with a re-live the glory days tour to our high-school alma mater, where Cuba City faces Fennimore, which happens to be Luke Swan’s (UW’s Fennimore Flash) alma mater. Hopefully for our Cubans Luke was the last of that litter. That game will be heavily book ended by trips to Platteville’s Pizzeria Uno, which will offer us gut-distending quantities of the world’s best deep-dish pizza. Saturday will be spent in meditative digestion. Sunday the five Lagmans and a couple childhood friends trek north to the hopefully-not-yet-frozen tundra to see Green Bay battle the Monsters of the Midway. Go figure; this year it could actually be a battle. I predict night-time temperatures in the 40s, so if you have any old gloves or XXL snorkel parkas, you might consider donating them to my Save the Arizona-California Lagmans from Hypothermia clothing drive. More on that weekend in a future issue. _______________ Nothing But Iron is a haphazardly written free amateur sports column that wishes it had more time to be written but is thankful that it is better than nothing, even if only slightly so. The author, whose brother Mike actually is a professional photographer, apologizes for impersonating a professional photographer, but does not apologize for impersonating a pathetic professional photographer wannabe. The author acknowledges that people who use the phrase go figure should not use semicolons or vice versa, or at the very least, the two should not be used in the same sentence. ©2007 DrTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.